German peace with allies ww2

Hitler Receives an Ultimatum

Halifax cabled Ambassador Nevile Henderson in Berlin and told him to deliver an ultimatum to Ribbentrop at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 3. Ribbentrop scornfully let it be known that he would not be “available” but that Henderson could deliver his message to the departmental interpreter, Paul Schmidt. As it happened, Schmidt overslept that morning, arrived by taxi to see Henderson already climbing the steps of the Foreign Ministry, and slipped in a side door just in time to receive him at 9. Henderson stood and read aloud his message, declaring that unless Britain were assured of an end to the Polish invasion within two hours, “a state of war will exist between the two countries.”

Schmidt dutifully took the British ultimatum to Hitler’s Chancellery, where he found the Fuhrer at his desk and the “unavailable” Ribbentrop standing at a nearby window. Schmidt translated the ultimatum aloud. “When I finished, there was complete silence,” he recalled. “Hitler sat immobile, gazing before him.
After an interval which seemed an age, he turned to Ribbentrop, who had remained standing by the window. 'What now?' asked Hitler with a savage look, as though implying that his Foreign Minister had misled him about England's probable reaction. Ribbentrop answered quietly: 'I assume that the French will hand in a similar ultimatum within the hour.'

As my duty was now performed, I withdrew. To those in the anteroom pressing round me I said: 'The English have just handed us an ultimatum. In two hours a state of war will exist between England and Germany.' In the anteroom, too, this news was followed by complete silence.

Goering turned to me and said: 'If we lose this war, then God have mercy on us!' Goebbels stood in a corner, downcast and self-absorbed. Everywhere in the room I saw looks of grave concern, even amongst the lesser Party people."
 
For Britain, Free France and the USA, anytime before January 14 1943, that's when the Casablanca Conference started, which officially locked in the Western Allies' policy of not accepting any separate peaces nor any conditional surrenders. Though, fun fact, the Soviet Union did not attend the Conference, so they were technically exempt from this rule, though I doubt Stalin would accept any conditional surrenders from the Nazis, if he valued his own position as leader of the Soviet Union.
 
For Britain, Free France and the USA, anytime before January 14 1943, that's when the Casablanca Conference started, which officially locked in the Western Allies' policy of not accepting any separate peaces nor any conditional surrenders. Though, fun fact, the Soviet Union did not attend the Conference, so they were technically exempt from this rule, though I doubt Stalin would accept any conditional surrenders from the Nazis, if he valued his own position as leader of the Soviet Union.

But Stalin may well have accepted conditional surrender from a non Nazi German government. The terms would undoubtedly be punitive for Germany and therefore very unlikely to be accepted by such German government.
 
For Britain, Free France and the USA, anytime before January 14 1943, that's when the Casablanca Conference started, which officially locked in the Western Allies' policy of not accepting any separate peaces nor any conditional surrenders.

The Casablanca conference merely made unconditional surrender de-jure policy. In terms of de-facto policy, it had already been that way for quite awhile.
 
But Stalin may well have accepted conditional surrender from a non Nazi German government. The terms would undoubtedly be punitive for Germany and therefore very unlikely to be accepted by such German government.

They would've had to be. If Stalin accepted anything less, there would've been a power play against him in the Soviet government. At the Tehran Conference, he threatened to make peace with Hitler if there was no second front against the Nazis, but given what I just said, that was most likely a empty threat.


The Casablanca conference merely made unconditional surrender de-jure policy. In terms of de-facto policy, it had already been that way for quite awhile.

For Britain and Free France, maybe, but I think the Nazis could've gotten a separate peace from the USA. Though, it would've been better had Hitler used common sense in December 1941.
 
They would've had to be. If Stalin accepted anything less, there would've been a power play against him in the Soviet government. At the Tehran Conference, he threatened to make peace with Hitler if there was no second front against the Nazis, but given what I just said, that was most likely a empty threat.

Well, certainly by the Teheran Conference it was just a bargaining ploy. When Stalin returned to Moscow, he mentioned to Zhukov that although the Allies had agreed to a second-front and he think they would keep their word, it really didn't matter whether that occurred because he knew the USSR by this point was going to win regardless. After Kursk and the reconquest of the economically valuable regions of eastern Ukraine, he knew that the balance of power had tipped irrecoverably in the Soviets favor and he would reap the rewards of victory regardless. Now in the period between Kursk and Stalingrad, he seems to have expressed less certainty about the outcome and there does seem to have been some Soviet peace feelers put to the Germans but they foundered on the Soviets refusal to consider any agreement that didn't have a return to the 1941 borders as the absolute minimum.

For Britain and Free France, maybe, but I think the Nazis could've gotten a separate peace from the USA. Though, it would've been better had Hitler used common sense in December 1941.

I feel it's more like the opposite is the case. The Germans might have had some chance of a separate peace with Britain so long as the Americans are out of the war and they could inflict some big enough defeats upon the British to convince them to depose Churchill. But once the Americans are in, they bring their perspective of war as a total enterprise between forces of good and evil into it and make negotiations impossible. And so long as the Americans were in the war, Britain has no incentive to deal and plenty of disincentives to do so (namely, the Americans had their economy by the balls at that point).

Although even peace with Britain would not necessarily mean an end to hostility from Britain.
 
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Although even peace with Britain would not necessarily mean an end to hostility from Britain.

That, in a nutshell, is why Hitler never tried seeking a conditional peace with the British after his failed olive branch in 1940, because he knew the British were just going to be a annoying thorn in his side, even after agreeing to peace.
 
The problem is that Hitler could absolutely not be relied upon in the diplomatic arena. The man never saw a treaty he didn't break. Any "peace" with Hitler is just a fancy way of saying "We will be at war in a few years, just not now".

I can see a universe where the Germans just take the territories full of ethnic germans and go home, with reppercusions being limited to big grudges and maybe a few local european wars, but not under Hitler.
 
The problem is that Hitler could absolutely not be relied upon in the diplomatic arena. The man never saw a treaty he didn't break. Any "peace" with Hitler is just a fancy way of saying "We will be at war in a few years, just not now".

I can see a universe where the Germans just take the territories full of ethnic germans and go home, with reppercusions being limited to big grudges and maybe a few local european wars, but not under Hitler.

Both German unreliability and the "stab in the back" made unconditional surrender inevitable. The Nazis couldn't be trusted and the last time the Germans lost a war they said they didn't really lose but were "stabbed in the back" and started another war the next generation. That alone made unconditional surrender necessary. It had to be made clear to the Germans that they LOST. There could be no ambiguity about it, otherwise you're risking having to do it again the next generation.
 
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You have to get Russia out of the war

Have Germany capture the BEF followed by a better Barbarossa to make peace with Russia then it done... Western Allies will not pay the millions dead from UK and USA (if they even in it at that point)
 

Ian_W

Banned
You have to get Russia out of the war

Have Germany capture the BEF followed by a better Barbarossa to make peace with Russia then it done... Western Allies will not pay the millions dead from UK and USA (if they even in it at that point)

The major problem with trying to talk about this stuff is the number of delusional clueless types on the internet who just talk out of their ass.

In 1939, the British cabinet knew three things.

The bomber would always get through.

Gas would be used in the next war.

And Hitler needed to be stopped.

Thing one and thing to means, if they went to war, hundreds of thousands to millions of civilian deaths to gas - and the British cabinet of 1939 had been through the last war, had seen gas and knew what it meant.

Thus evacuation, mass issue of gas masks to civilians and so on.

And they declared war on Hitler anyway, over Danzig.

Anyone willing to do that isn't worried by the mere loss of some of the British Army in France.

But we still get delusional clueless types on the internet who vomit forth crap about the British surrendering.
 
The major problem with trying to talk about this stuff is the number of delusional clueless types on the internet who just talk out of their ass.

In 1939, the British cabinet knew three things.

The bomber would always get through.

Gas would be used in the next war.

And Hitler needed to be stopped.

Thing one and thing to means, if they went to war, hundreds of thousands to millions of civilian deaths to gas - and the British cabinet of 1939 had been through the last war, had seen gas and knew what it meant.

Thus evacuation, mass issue of gas masks to civilians and so on.

And they declared war on Hitler anyway, over Danzig.

Anyone willing to do that isn't worried by the mere loss of some of the British Army in France.

But we still get delusional clueless types on the internet who vomit forth crap about the British surrendering.

I never said they would surrender.

I just don't believe they would be willing to send millions to their death to retake France and occupy Germany.
 

Ian_W

Banned
I never said they would surrender.

I just don't believe they would be willing to send millions to their death to retake France and occupy Germany.

If they are willing to put the civilians of the United Kingdom to a choking death, they are willing to see a re-run of Passchendale, Ypres, Gallipoli and the rest.

And even promise India it's independence.
 
One thing everyone seems to be missing, the OP said Germany, not necessarily the Nazis.

That's a good question. Assuming the plotters manage to take over, I mean.

One problem is that war with the allies is different from war with the Soviets. The allies fought Germany, sure. The Soviets spent years in the most grindcore heavy metal grimdark fighting ever know to mankind. So by the time they started repealling the nazis and going after them, the Soviet Army was a non-stop rape and revenge train.

I can see the Germans being willing to peace out with the allies, but the Soviets? They would't give an inch. Its war to the knife.

I'm not sure how that would be handled, geopolitically speaking.
 
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