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I've been pondering very strongly recently about a mini-TL still being crafted in my mind about a world where the Soviet Union completely occupies both Germany and Austria after WWII. The basic PoD is that the Germans reached Moscow, but, throwing pretty much all of Army Group Centre against it, they suffered an encirclement even worse than that at Stalingrad, and, with von Manstein in the Ukraine or somewheres abouts, the German armies were utterly annihilated, leading to the capture of Berlin in May '44, and the signing of the German surrender when Hitler commits suicide after the Soviet conquest of Frankfurt. D-Day never happened in this timeline- the only American contributions were the invasions of North Africa, Italy, and Norway.

So Stalin allows the repatriation of the democratic governments of France, the Low Countries, Denmark and Greece in exchange for total control of Central Europe (and Poland is thrown to the wolves without protestation in exchange for Denamrk and Greece).

But from here, I'm not sure where to take this timeline. I'm not sure what to do as far as August Storm goes (would the earlier destruction of the Kwantung Army lead to a Japanese capitulation?) and the future.

The basic idea is that the Cold War is delayed for a while, for a few reasons; first, the Western Allies never opened a second front of any real importance, and so America never conjures up the myth about being them being the ones who really won the war. The war is seen, primarily, as being a victory for Russia beyond all else, and the feeling is that they deserve the spoils. Further, without the symbolic East-West division of Germany, the feeling of a bi-polar world split between two ideologies isn't as clear early on.

Without the bickering over Poland, or the Berlin blockade, etc, there's no real antagonism between the two sides at first.

But beyond this, I have no idea where to take this idea. I'm not sure what to do with the Far East, and what results from friendlier relations at first. I can see Stalin, without feeling so insecure by Allied 'encirclement' and such, turning his paranoia inward, leading to an attempt at a second Great Purge and his subsequent assassination.

So what would be the real effects of Soviet Austria and United Soviet Germany? What should happen in the East?

Discuss?
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