I half read some book or other about a more dangerous bulge offensive, the rationale for this was a peace treaty between Stalin and Hitler which seemed (IMO) utterly ludicrous. Anyhoo this enables the Germans to deploy greater forces to the Bulge making it a bigger threat than it was. The offensive is still defeated but only just and Rommel? has to surrender the majority of Germany's remaining armored forces, Stalin then leaps back in and the war is over.
Like I said the peace treaty seems unlikely to me, Stalin was getting increasingly worried that the Western Allies were advancing too fast and he wouldn't be able to grab as much of Europe as he wanted. I can't see him going for peace on the grounds of sparing lives and collateral damage and even if he had gone for a treaty the Germans couldn't possibly trust him to keep to it.
But what if Stalin had died?
This is where I really wish I knew a bit more about Russian politics.
So far as I know there was no clear line of succession.
The army had gained a lot of power and there seems to be a good case to be made for a really nasty power struggle between the army and the politburo, Beria vs Zhukov maybe.
So assuming post Bagration the Russian army is installed along the Vistula River having liberated Russia itself, how bad could the power struggle get? and how long could it take? Could the Red Army be paralyzed long enough to make an extended war feasible?
I'm guessing long enough to deploy a company's worth of Maus tanks (assuming they don't break down on the way) but not long enough to get Centurion Mk 3s into action. I doubt it would make much difference to the political map of Europe on the whole.
Like I said I'm interested in the Russian political power struggle - how bad and how long? The ramifications of the conflict and it's outcome are less important to me.