German peace with allies ww2

And then what?

He goes to the house and tells them he is making peace with Hitler?

A which point the question becomes...who replaces Halifax

The position of UK Prime Minster is not that of Dictator
Have the British be more willing to make peace, like a disaster at Dunkirk or they get word that the Americans will not come.
 
Define "Germany" and "make peace".

Germany could "make peace" at any time by surrendering.

However, one assumes that the OP means "the war ends without Germany surrendering", or with Germany surrendering with significant conditions.

If the Nazi regime was deposed by an internal coup d'état, a post-Nazi Germany might have had a better chance of such a result. This would be especially true before FDR's announcement at the Casablanca Conference that only unconditional surrender would be accepted.

After that it would be very difficult. A really clever and realistic post-Nazi Germany could perhaps have generated "wedges" between the US/UK and the USSR. For instance, Germany might offer to transfer all concentration camp prisoners to Allied custody for proper care (Germany being terribly short of food and everything else). This would require a cease-fire, or at least a halt to Allied bombing of Germany. Stalin wouldn't like that at all, but the US/UK public would want it. The Germans could also offer to reinstate Poland, including the area seized by the USSR in 1939. Again, Stalin wouldn't like that at all, but the US/UK could hardly object. At the same time, they could bait Stalin with proposals for a separate peace in the east - offering lots of cookies at the expense of allies such as Finland and Romania. Stalin might take such an offer - or else make a counter-offer that when leaked to the US/UK would make them privately abandon any pledge to the USSR

In 1941 or even 1942, the Germans would have a strong bargaining position. In the highly unlikely event that Germany passed under leadership wth a genuinely realistic view of Germany's long-term prospects, Germany could offer a lot to the Allies for a conditional peace. But Germany would have to give a lot for a little - and IMO no German regime could see its way to that. I.e. if Germany offered to surrender on conditions in June 1942, they could get a deal. But that of course is absurd. In say May 1944, a German public offer to surrender on modest conditions might have succeeded. But again, it would be ASB for any German regime to do that then; they didn't yet realize total defeat was certain.
 
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Define "Germany" and "make peace".

Germany could "make peace" at any time by surrendering.

However, one assumes that the OP means "the war ends without Germany surrendering", or with Germany surrendering with significant conditions.

If the Nazi regime was deposed by an internal coup d'état, a post-Nazi Germany might have had a better chance of such a result. This would be especially true before FDR's announcement at the Casablanca Conference that only unconditional surrender would be accepted.

After that it would be very difficult. A really clever and realistic post-Nazi Germany could perhaps have generated "wedges" between the US/UK and the USSR. For instance, Germany might offer to transfer all concentration camp prisoners to Allied custody for proper care (Germany being terribly short fo of food and everything else). This would require a cease-fire, or at least a halt to Allied bombing of Germany. Stalin wouldn't like that at all, but the US/UK public would want it. The Germans could also offer to reinstate Poland, including the area seized by the USSR in 1939. Again, Stalin wouldn't like that at all, but the US/UK could hardly object. At the same time, they could bait Stalin with proposals for a separate peace in the east - offering lots of cookies at the expense of allies such as Finland and Romania. Stalin might take such an offer - or else make a counter-offer that when leaked to the US/UK would make them privately abandon any pledge to the USSR

In 1941 or even 1942, the Germans would have a strong bargainng position. In the highly unlikely event that Germany passed under leadership wth a genuinely realistic view of Germany's long-term prospects, Germany could offer a lot to the Allies for a conditional peace. But Germany would have to give a lot for a little - and IMO no German regime could see its way to that. I.e. if Germany offered to surrender on conditions in June 1942, they could get a deal. But that of course is absurd. In say May 1944, a German public offer to surrender on modest conditions might have succeeded. But again, it would be ASB for any German regime to do that then; they didn't yet realize total defeat was certain.

Also, by 1944 the price would have been very steep at best for Germany. I think the Allies wanted to make sure they were on German soil before they made peace. Again the "Stab in the back" myth would hurt them here. One of the arguments was that the Allies weren't even on German soil when Germany surrendered. The generals would have to personally sign it and give their personal oath stating they thought Germany was defeated. The Wehrmacht and SS would have had to be disbanded and the Nazi Party outlawed. There would be additional demands as well. The Allies wanted to make it crystal clear to the average German citizen that Germany lost because they didn't want to have to go round 3.
 
One thing everyone seems to be missing, the OP said Germany, not necessarily the Nazis. What's the latest point at which the Schwarze Kapelle can talk the allies into an armistice?

One of the obstacles there is the distinction between the nazi party and other German leaders was not seen at the time. When you read back through the English language literature of the era there are many references to the problem being Prussian or German militarism, German imperialism, "the Hunnish mentality". the NASDP party leadership is hardly mentioned as a unique problem. In 1944 there was a attitude by many in the US the July coup attempt was just intramural squabbling by equally despicable German leaders. I recall a statement of press release from the State Dept saying as much.
 
One of the obstacles there is the distinction between the nazi party and other German leaders was not seen at the time. When you read back through the English language literature of the era there are many references to the problem being Prussian or German militarism, German imperialism, "the Hunnish mentality". the NASDP party leadership is hardly mentioned as a unique problem. In 1944 there was a attitude by many in the US the July coup attempt was just intramural squabbling by equally despicable German leaders. I recall a statement of press release from the State Dept saying as much.
In 1944, okay, but what about earlier?
 
Pretty much the same. The first two sentences in my remark refer to the early war, as well as later.
So the allies would need a big show to believe anyone other government is different from the Nazis... So what if one of the things the Schwarze Kapelle did was close the concentration camps, and see if Spain or Sweden would be willing to ship them out? Would that be a big enough gesture to get at least some of the allies accepting that, yes, these guys aren't Nazis?
 
Depends on how they went about it. We have to remember the Nurenberg Laws & early concentration camps were not understood correctly by many people. Things like proposing withdrawal from German occupies Poland & other occupied territories, actual withdrawal from certain areas, proposing demobilization of German military forces, ect... ect... could work. Unfortunately theres a point where actions to convince the Allies of sincerity cross over into loosing the support for ending the war internally.
 

MatthewB

Banned
Peace has to happen before Barbarossa. Germany could still attack Russia, indeed, the Nazis must invade Russia. But that doesn't mean that peace can't be made in Europe beforehand. So, end of 1940, with the BoB a failure, Germany declares victory in France, and recognizes the Vichy government's rule over all France, and withdraws back to Germany. With France now free, and annoyed with its fleet being attacked by the British, Paris will be in no mood to fight with Britain. I'm not sure what happens with the low countries and Norway.
 

Marc

Donor
Once the story of the death camps gets out, a peace treaty is going to have include gallows for a number of people.
Can't hide the horrors, or ignore them.
 
Once the story of the death camps gets out, a peace treaty is going to have include gallows for a number of people.
Can't hide the horrors, or ignore them.

True - but the Nazis could be scapegoated, OTL there was a conscious effort, which got some British and American collaboration, to exonerate the Wehrmacht from Nazi "crimes against humanity" and war crimes generally. While it was true that the great part of the mass killing was done by the SS Totenkopf-Verband, Wehrmacht troops did some of it, and also a lot of the war crimes.

A post-Hitler regime might take a two-way approach. OT1H, they would move to obliterate evidence of the worst crimes, especially the "death camps" (Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, etc) that existed only for industrial killing. This would require killing all surviving inmates (the 'sonderkommando'), plus physically destroying the camp sites, All German participants would also be liquidated as well, and all records destroyed.

Afterwards - bad things happened, but no one can say exactly what, and all the perpetrators are dead.

OTOH, the most notorious concentration camps in Germany, and the lurid behavior of the Nazi staffs, could be publlicized to discredit the Nazis and provide plenty of scapegoats to be served up for Allied justice. This could go even further than OTL's Nuremberg trials. The neo-Germans wouldn't mind seeing hundreds of Nazis hanged.
 
True - but the Nazis could be scapegoated, OTL there was a conscious effort, which got some British and American collaboration, to exonerate the Wehrmacht from Nazi "crimes against humanity" and war crimes generally. While it was true that the great part of the mass killing was done by the SS Totenkopf-Verband, Wehrmacht troops did some of it, and also a lot of the war crimes.

I think that conventional wisdom owes a lot to modern standards on what raises eyebrows for violations of the codes and conduct of war vs standards then.

People like Churchill who went to officer training in the 19th century were of a different mindset for what constituted egregious violations of military conduct.
 
I think that conventional wisdom owes a lot to modern standards on what raises eyebrows for violations of the codes and conduct of war vs standards then.

People like Churchill who went to officer training in the 19th century were of a different mindset for what constituted egregious violations of military conduct.

If anything, 19th century standards were stricter than the the 20th centur; at least, less egregiously violated. The Hague and Geneva conventions were the formal ratification of existing understandings.

The WW II German military (not the SS) was guilty of major war crimes, and complicit in the Nazi mass murder program.

Wehrmacht police carried out massacres of Jewish villagers in occupied Poland starting in 1939, for instance.

During the battle of France, Rommel's 7th Panzer Division murdered hundreds of black French colonial troops who had surrendered.

The Wehrmacht, not the SS, was responsible for PoWs, and an immense number of Soviet PoWs were murdered by action or negligence. (At least 1M; the subject is obscure, as even the Soviets never seem to have pursued the question.)
 
The 19th century standards of the European powers in warfare (most of which conducted in places like Africa or Asia) was just a stones throw away from Middle Ages garbage.
 
Hess mission is the latest. What if some military figure like Rommel, contacts the irgun offers german support for a homeland in Palestine or Madagascar?
Anti communist russians like Vlasov, and Bundra in the Ukraine could have been intermediaries.
 
After Kursk and the reconquest of the economically valuable regions of eastern Ukraine ... the balance of power had tipped irrecoverably in the Soviets favor and ... would reap the rewards of victory regardless.

the problem (one of the problems) seems to be that the resources are so deep within the USSR? while styled as a crusade, invasion was also a robbery and a debt settlement?

meaning if the oil of Maykop were in ... say ... Transnistria, the Germans might stop and the Soviets might concede? even if preparing for round two?

the map argues against any treaty? possibly they could capture Leningrad and Crimea before the end of 1941, have both the Baltic and Black Seas cleared and would take deliveries from Soviets under some armistice? (at least it is not impossible? which my view Moscow and Baku are)
 
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