German Soviet 2 year armistice November 41

Anchises

Banned
It is wrong to assume that the Red Army could use the armistice as efficiently as the war situation in OTL.

There would be no Winter of 41 that rebuilds the confidence of Stalin and the Red Army (and the trust that Stalin had).

Stalin would be the one that saved Socialism with his political skill. The Red Army has failed and obviously needs to be controlled more closely by the Politbureau.

TTLs Red Army would resembles the Red Army of 41 and not the one of 43.

The war would end because the German Industry collapses due to the W-Allied bombing campaign and the demands of a 2 front war (optional: instant sunshine).

The Eastern front would turn into a slaughterhouse. The Germans would have used the time to rebuild their broken logistical system and to stockpile ammo etc.
 
This scenario is, put mildly, totally implausible.
A) Germany had total air superiority in Russia until, at least 1943, do a few more planes won't change the situation.
B) Russia is given time to recover here,and will be back with even greater numbers.
C) if the us enters the war Germany is screwed, no matter what
 
Maybe start with a lucky Russian hit on a German staff / generals meeting at yhe time of the POD? There needs to be some reason the Germans do not try to push Russia into the dirt
 
OP avoids the disaster of 41, Stalingrad, plus oil, and improves Germany's food situation. It probably brings VIchy as co-belligerant and solidifies Med theater.

Instead of Stalingrad, we have Leningrad and Moscow. None of your other points will have any appreciable effect. Seriously, the French? They couldn't even help their allies, and now you expect this rump state full of rebels to be able to help Germany?

You are the worst kind of debater to meet on a forum. Once you address all of my points, and all of ObsessedNuker's, I will respect you enough to argue with you. Until then, have fun in your made-up little world.
 
This scenario is, put mildly, totally implausible.
A) Germany had total air superiority in Russia until, at least 1943, do a few more planes won't change the situation.
B) Russia is given time to recover here,and will be back with even greater numbers.
C) if the us enters the war Germany is screwed, no matter what
I wouldn’t say total superiority. It was often locally chalenged by Soviets.
 
I wouldn’t say total superiority. It was often locally chalenged by Soviets.

Yes, more plains means more bombs delivered, even in the case of little opposition. The Germans just need more aircraft, its the easiest way to add combat multiplier without increasing supply requirements of more ground forces. Baltic states had good airfields to base the extra plains (like OTL air supply to Demanysk).
 
This scenario is, put mildly, totally implausible.
A) Germany had total air superiority in Russia until, at least 1943, do a few more planes won't change the situation.
B) Russia is given time to recover here,and will be back with even greater numbers.
C) if the us enters the war Germany is screwed, no matter what

From the OP, "better show" variant It could be hundreds of additional aircraft, rangier JU88s, etc... leading to only marginal improvements in German ground situation, just enough to tip the Soviet regime into asking for armistice terms, and the Germans being smart enough to give acceptable terms.
 
Kick
Instead of Stalingrad, we have Leningrad and Moscow. None of your other points will have any appreciable effect. Seriously, the French? They couldn't even help their allies, and now you expect this rump state full of rebels to be able to help Germany?

You are the worst kind of debater to meet on a forum. Once you address all of my points, and all of ObsessedNuker's, I will respect you enough to argue with you. Until then, have fun in your made-up little world.
Nice join date bruh
 
Yes, more plains means more bombs delivered, even in the case of little opposition. The Germans just need more aircraft, its the easiest way to add combat multiplier without increasing supply requirements of more ground forces. Baltic states had good airfields to base the extra plains (like OTL air supply to Demanysk).
Germans just needs a lot of more planes. During operation Barbarossa from June to December 1941 they lost some 3,827 aircrafts and some 3000 KIA, 2000 MIA and 8500 WIA. if we consider they started war with some 4400 aircrafts they lost 90% of aircrafts they started war with. In battle of Britain they lost only 78% of aircrafts they started war with. And they lost more airmen in Russia. Of course I am aware BoB lasted only 4 months while Barbarossa 6, or 5 if we count from start of the war till Moscow counter offensive. Germans needed much more airplanes in Soviet Union. But well, they needed them in France, in Africa and of course they needed Bf 110 at home for defense. And much more ground personnel to prepare airports for winter campaign.
 
Nice join date bruh

Is this meant to be an excuse? Because you have been here longer, your arguments are automatically better? I'm sorry, I must have been mistaken earlier. Obviously, you were right to only address the least important issues, avoid the hard questions, and cite irrelevant and immaterial information. I mistook you for an incompetent debater with no real data to back up their opinion, but you must be really smart because you've been here for three years. Accept this apology, please.
 
Vlasov didn't really defected thouhh. His army was destroyed and he was captured. Only afterwards he started collaborate.
Vlasov's actions were probably in between capture and defection.

He refused STAVKA's order to fly out of the near encirclement (his stated purpose was that he wanted to share the fate of his army). Yet, Vlasov apparently made no effort to retreat on foot with his men and when captured or "captured" he apparently had made no effort to move towards Soviet lines.

Thousands of other Russian soldiers did manage to escape though. Including many who started out a lot more into the "sack" than Vlasov did (Vlasov, though a skilled commander, was never a front line type leader and maintained his headquarters well to the rear with a as many creature comforts, including a field mistress, that could be brought up).


I would be curiouse how much effect it really had on Soviet morale.

I don't think Vlasov's somewhat capture / somewhat defection had a big impact. Vlasov's main skills were as a hyper competent senior staff officer. He rarely, if ever, visited front line positions and was largely an unknown to Soviet soldiers.

Vlasov even communicated with even his field HQ staff via dictated written messages from a closed office. Though the orders in the messages were always competent, his men and even his fellow senior generals viewed him as an uninspiring odd ball. General Von Paulus and Vlasov had a lot in common in command styles, expected comforts and mixing high competence with a less than inspiring personality.

Rather I think what impacted morale was the Stalin dictated attacks that lacked any chance of success. Vlasov's army was near destroyed and the Leningrad pincer especially saw a lot of needless casualties from human wave attacks. The Russians thought they were over that "strategy", but Stalin wanted more chance to show his "genius".
 
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How about this scenario:

- Mass of German leadership is destroyed in one sitting just before final thrust on Moscow in November '41

- German high command is nervous about loss of so many high officers and convinces Hitler to consider cease-fire which is manipulated via Ostgroup/German intelligence in USSR

- Soviets and Germans rearm in the meantime as West is delayed due to Hitler being able to redeploy forces elsewhere

- Germans accelerate Der Reise and get it operational, minimizing disruption by standard and later atomic bombing

- Worst case scenario: by 1947 Germany deploying 2nd generation jets, assault rifles, improved 1st gen nightvision, and better anti-tank weaponry in quantity while retaining control of much of continental Europe. USSR quantity blunted by internal strife and German quality. West stalled south of Rome in Italy as Overlord fails and Type XXI subs emerge in numbers with an even more sophisticated follow-on starting to appear.

End result: Peace of Paris in early 1948 puts MittelEuropa in German hands with another war against the USSR a certainty. US and UK gain some but cost is thought too high for letting Nazis live, Germany fractured internally but still kicking and becomes ironically Green due to mandatory recycling programs and resource conservation efforts.
 
Yes, more plains means more bombs delivered, even in the case of little opposition. The Germans just need more aircraft, its the easiest way to add combat multiplier without increasing supply requirements of more ground forces. Baltic states had good airfields to base the extra plains (like OTL air supply to Demanysk).
Eben capturing Moscow and Leningrad will not have the soviets surrender or accept a treaty; they had already moved so much of their industry east by then
 
Lets say a POD similar to this below:
OK...I don't know what to make of the plausibility of the German materiel "better show;" no one seems to have engaged in any criticism versus Michele's prewar claims (all discussion seemed to be about the purported attack on Britain avoided here) and God knows I don't have the time or expertise to dive in myself, so just take it as stipulated.

...But the Germans don't actually invade Britain, saving the extra aircraft for Barbarossa.
Good move.
...The result of these extra Aircraft and Britain more on her heels is that the Germans tighten the siege of Leningrad and Moscow....
Stalin, is stunned that his capital is under fire, so through Bulgaria asks the Germans what terms for an armistice would they give.
I don't think it would be the prospect of losing Moscow that scares him; OTL that seemed likely to happen and he'd already moved the government far east. Interestingly he himself lingered around the city while it was under fire, inspiring the troops and all that.

What if he miscalculated or just got unlucky and a bomb or shell kills him? It might be more plausible if some other Soviet leader makes the truce--of course that would make later Soviet action a bit unpredictable, depending on who you game it out takes over. Now the very fact that the Soviet leadership is in disarray might make Hitler think twice about granting a truce, but if you can work it so that butterflies from Stalin dying result in more effective Soviet resistance on some key fronts that is not good enough to give the confused Soviet leadership a second wind, but good enough to multiply Hitler's worries, and ahead we go.

If someone chose this ATL branch, Stalin dead and someone else takes over, I want to put in a preemptive bid against the perennial candidate of some to take over, Lavrenti Beria. Sure, LarryBerry (as I like to taunt him in his grave) might seem to have the catbird seat as chief of security, but I am pretty sure his fate would be as OTL when Stalin did die in the 1950s--his survival depended on Stalin's patronage, and the best he could hope for is to escape being caught and executed, by fleeing overseas or in this scenario maybe he can carve off a little wildcat domain somewhere until the USSR eventually squashes it. Everyone feared him and hated him, and would agree he is too dangerous to be let live.

The conventional and safe leader would be Molotov, who might perhaps make the probable mistake of keeping LB on in his job. That might end in a coup attempt by LarryBerry which I suppose might end with Molotov quashing it, or successfully killing Molotov but then being swarmed by the remainder of the Party big wigs. Or Molotov could have LB bumped off immediately; again maybe the vicious SOB (I mean Beria here, realizing the slur does not serve well to distinguish between Stalin's lackeys!) manages to make a run for it.

The deep reason Beria is no good as leader, aside from the fact he was a sociopath who is said to have abused young women and even little girls by the box car load for fun, is that he doesn't believe in Communism. He seriously proposed OTL that the Party be abolished and the chosen ruling apparatchiks govern by virtue of state authority alone, and for that reason I think his days in the Soviet system were numbered; the majority of Bolsheviks, even their most cynical ruling layers, would react both emotionally and with a fundamental good basis in reason to expel such a heretic from their midst. Without the ideological claim to be building a better future for the common Soviet working class, the Communists are nothing and they know it.

So people can fight all they want about who should plausibly take up the mantle of Party leader, whether the regime shifts to the collegial form it took under Khrushchev and after or continue with a one man cult of personality, but I beg anyone, please don't invest in LarryBerry stock just because you think he'd economically liberalize the USSR. Maybe he would, maybe that would be good (I doubt it, and throwing out Communist pretensions to be building an egalitarian future does not guarantee he would put in a functionally competitive capitalist alternative--more likely it would be centralized crony capitalism with no advantage over Stalinist command economy) but even if it would, he can't do it because the other Bolsheviks will kill him first--his only hope of personal survival is to either flee into exile or continue as the loyal flunky of a properly Bolshevik protector/patron.
Hitler is glad for this break. ...
The armistice is for two full years.

What are the effects of this. The Germans gain a large undamaged source of oil at Maikop (its undamaged production was considerable in 1941) and have time to repair infrastructure in the large areas they have conquered and for a while the attrition has stopped and can send considerable air power and a few picked divisions to the med even if the bulk of the army has to remain in the east..

The Soviets have time to repair the cities, rebuild their armed forces, complete the resettlement of factories further east. The Soviets, especially after the Americans are in and fully engaged, and fully plan to attack at the end of the armistice in November 43.

Now then:

Hitler focuses on a Mediterranean strategy with the goal of knocking Britain out of the war. Step 1 is taking Malta, which becomes an achievable albeit costly proposition.

Following this, Hitler presents Britain (and the US if he still declares war after PH) with a generous peace offer - nominal independence for the Low Countries, withdrawal from most of France (Vichy remains), restoration of Malta, POW exchange, no war guilt or reparations.

Britain, facing disaster in the Far East and an even tougher fight in Africa, as well as the prospect of facing the entire Luftwaffe over the Channel, accepts. Churchill is possibly ousted after initially refusing to negotiate....

What about an Anglo-American counterproposal, perhaps known to history as the "Truce of Cordial Hostility:"
As with Hitler's earlier offer based on cease fire in place with the Soviets:

1) agree to POW exchange--my suspicion is that Hitler has more prisoners than the Allies do but I don't actually know the numbers, plus of course this is an ATL--given the assumptions Hitler ought to have more prisoners than OTL and Allies fewer. So to get Allied POWs back, they may have to sweeten the deal-and the counteroffer is a move in the other direction to be sure; this "sweetening" will involve agreement to terms of trade in non-Euro-Mediterranean goods at levels enabling the Reich's subjects to live comfortably. Literally "sweeteners"'-the Reich can raise sugar, but not so much chocolate, coffee, tea, tobacco...

2) Cease fire in place--means the Axis has won control of the Med and thus all of North Africa. The southeast corner remains nominally under British protection, but Britain withdraws all but token forces from the coastal holdings--IDK if by this time OTL Britain had already seized Syria and Lebanon from Vichy, I believe they had though. Anyway Britain leaves Egypt, Palestine and the former French mandates to the north almost devoid of troops, and withdraws from any other bases in the Med--UK still holds Gibraltar though. But agrees to cap number of ships and planes based there to a level that makes for a strong defense but does not threaten any assaults.

The purpose of disarming the Levant and Egypt is to demonstrate good will in cease fire against the Axis, same purpose as the restrictions on Allied basing at Gibraltar. Allies do not surrender these corners for the protection of subject peoples there and to define the limits of Axis expansion. De facto Spanish neutrality, however sympathetic to Axis ideology and indebted to Hitler and Mussolini Franco is, but guaranteed by Spanish dependent on seaborne imports, insulates Gibraltar from a sudden Axis takeover, as does the fact that it is tough to take and Allies can freely supply it by sea and air.

Similarly the token British (perhaps relieved with some American or other Ally) forces in the Levant-Egypt zone are tripwires backed by Allied force in unlimited numbers based in Iraq and the southern strait of the Red Sea (Saudi Arabia is also an Ally, perhaps not formally but reliably). Additional treaty stipulations need to formally lay down rules for a neutral zone across the Sahara; Morocco might be formally Ally but neutralized (to a level where they can hold off any plausible level of force Spain might muster) and east of there perhaps a defined low-armed zone in western Algeria forms the Axis frontier; between the northwest African coast in a band east to Egypt the Free French government in exile holds title to its Saharan colonies south of Algeria and Libya, but is pledged to a verifiable low level of arms there corresponding to a similar buffer semi-neutralized zone in southern Algeria and Libya, with Egypt as a whole and the Levant continuing this belt up to Turkey. Allied inspectors may verify the status in southern Algeria and Libya, as Axis (Vichy) inspectors may roam the northern neutralized belt of the French and Egypt and the Levant. As Iraq is a bastion to reinforce the Levant and Egypt should the treaty fail, so are the southern tier of French and British colonies south of the Sahara reinforced at discretion to do battle to contain Axis aggression across the desert. Containment is completed by Anglo-American command of the Atlantic in the west and the Soviet Union in the east.

3) Allies withdraw recognition of Vichy and break all diplomatic relations with that government. Allies are not interested in fostering Reich puppet governments by recognizing them. If this means the Reich rulers are more brutal, so be it; the theory is that the western Europeans have no meaningful rights under Reich approved puppet governments anyway nor are the most vulnerable victims of Nazi bigotry better protected by Vichy-like governments from persecution than under direct Reich rule anyhow. It is of no concern to the Allies whether it amuses Hitler to pretend they are independent sovereign nations or not. The Reich, and Mussolini insofar as Hitler lets him, control Europe, the Med and North Africa, with paper treaty barriers keeping their hands off the arc from Syria to Egypt; perhaps much of the Western Desert of Egypt is ceded to Libya.

Vice versa the Allied proposal is focused on keeping Axis hands off the rest of the world they do not have any military control of yet; this is a containment doctrine. No government under Hitler's control is recognized as the legitimate colonial overlord of anything south of the mid-Sahara; US and UK intend to recognize the Free French as legitimate government of French colonies, the autonomous colonial leadership of DEI as government of Indonesia; Britain takes over the Congo claims of Belgium in trust of a hypothetical future Belgian government with real independence. As long as Portugal and Spain remain legally and more or less properly neutral, their colonies are safe. But the Allies will not permit any Axis power projection beyond their current Euro-Med zone. No German or Italian or puppet state naval ships will be allowed to operate beyond defined limits, subject to being sunk without warning; Allies hold it is the duty of all overseas neutral powers as in Latin America for instance to intern any Axis vessels taking refuge in their harbors, and have a standing offer to assist them by use of force should they be called on to do so, and a standing warning any "neutral" that takes a laxer attitude to Axis ships may be regarded as an enemy and blockaded and otherwise attacked on this grounds.

The Euro-Med Axis is not recognized as having any rights of alliance with Japan and persistent efforts to help Japan would void the treaty--there might be some deliberate overlooking of the train aid through USSR. As long as the treaty holds the Allies will do nothing to intervene in the Axis zone of interest, and stop at nothing to limit it to that zone.

4) To "sweeten" the deal, they may agree to a stipulated high minimum tonnage level of trade in various colonial goods, to be imported to Axis ports in British or American merchant hulls, so the Axis is not cut off from coffee and so forth. As long as the treaty holds, consumer goods of this kind are offered in reasonably high volume and at a fair price, no gouging--the idea is to placate the monster. Strategic goods are another matter; Hitler can't be expected to accept a total embargo but the Allies can get away with some rationing and some price gouging there--the Germans will have to export something, this stuff is not tribute!

In a pinch, if the treaty is really deemed important enough and the Axis is being difficult about the POW exchange since they hold more prisoners than they expect to get back, perhaps limited agreements to supply some sorts of goods free or at ridiculously low prices, in quantities of strategic stuff more than the Allies like, could bribe the Axis into agreement and getting the prisoners back. But even such a condition the Allies can probably demand be temporary; in the long run it is nothing more than trade for mutual advantage and profit.

Note that Ethiopia and Eritrea are outside the Axis zone and Italian forces must evacuate there--I think by this point OTL perhaps they had been liberated already.

As for offering Axis rights to use the Suez canal that would be a bit of a joke, because Allied forces stand ready to sink any Axis flagged vessels entering the Red Sea. It is probably best to omit it and let the Axis be pleased that Allied shipping is essentially barred from the Canal too, since Allied ships are practically limited to shuttling between Syrian and Egyptian ports. The canal's value is largely neutralized save as a convenient way for the Allies to supply their little corner of the Med, and if in the event of (likely) Axis treachery they cannot reinforce Egypt fast enough to save it from being overrun, the Allies will sabotage the Canal.

As long as the treaties all hold, Turkish and Soviet ships, should those be permitted into the Med by the Axis (which will control Greece and all other Aegean islands not held by Turkey) can pass the Canal; whether the Axis permits Allied ships to make port in Turkey or anywhere on the Black Sea depends on whether in future generations there is some kind of detente I suppose.

The British remain in force in Iraq, ready to deploy westward should the treaty be broken; with that bastion in place the Turks can choose pretty carefully between an Axis, Soviet or Allied policy, and play all sides off to remain neutral as long as the truce holds--vice versa should war break out, the Turks are in the gunsights of all three blocs. (I lean to the idea that the more time passes before war breaks out on one front or the other, the more likely the Turks will be to jump to the Allied and possibly also or instead Soviet side.) There are no provisions to limit either side in arms buildups, so the Axis can prepare a world-conquering Navy in the Baltic and Med all they want to, or build up armies to try to resume their war against the Soviets as they wish.

5) War guilt and reparations are not discussed at all.
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As a counteroffer this is not very attractive to Hitler but vice versa what Britain and the USA "lose" by rejecting Hitler's "generous" offer is the fake independence of the tier of Western European former great and middling powers of Netherlands, Belgium and France. That means nothing. What Hitler wins with his offer is far far more substantial--namely the ability, most cleverly via the subterfuge of working under cover of Vichy France's nominally "independent" colonial empire, of projecting bases around the world and of course harvesting colonial resources without let or hindrance. These are benefits Axis power cannot secure without the duped cooperation of the Allies. Denial of this access is the Allies' highest trump card in hand, and taking Hitler's deal would toss it aside unused. Hitler might decide he is going to continue to fight and bleed the Allies and make them regret their arrogance; the Allies I think would, despite being considerably worse off than OTL at this point, be fools to take Hitler's terms even so. One way or another, the combined global projection capabilities of Britain and the USA can and should keep Euro-Axis power contained and without access to anything in the Western Hemisphere, Sub-Saharan Africa or Asia.

To be sure the Japanese have secured a lot, but their one channel of communication is so easily closed by the Soviets it hardly counts. Allied policy is to deny Hitler world access, and the offer of regulated trade brought in by Allied shipping is a considerable concession, one that ought to leverage a full prisoner exchange and perhaps even some other Allied advantages. If the war continues, Hitler is certainly worse off even if his side's forces continue to prevail on the front lines, or unless the Soviets instead of attacking or maintaining a closed peace negotiate trading with the Reich again.

Allied policy would be badly hurt if the Russians do that, but part of their diplomatic strategy is to bring the USSR back on side. Perhaps at a later date, if Hitler takes the Containment Treaty, the Soviets will join with the Allies formally and the two truces will be merged into one, with stipulated levels of economic exchange at minimum levels set by treaty and maximum ones set at Allied discretion.

With this in place, I could justify an outcome where the war is over and never resumes, or of course someone could claim it "must" break out again--and despite having a strong preference for peace, in the case of a continuing Reich I think war might be for the best, if it results in the Reich's destruction.

Now even if the Anglo-American allies are such chumps as to take the treaty @David Floyd proposes Hitler might offer, I still dispute the claim that
Hitler has won the war. The Soviets will never re-enter the war on their own, but get solidly trounced if they do.
Indeed if the Allies are so demoralized or foolish as to let Hitler have his version of the "deal," both they and the Soviets are far worse off. But I still think that as long as there is the prospect of the Soviets joining the Allies, or merely working in ad hoc and avowedly temporary cooperation with them, the USA and Britain even in these adverse conditions still hold the upper hand outside of the Axis core zone. Note that under your proposal, the Anglo-Americans concede a lot less; Hitler and Mussolini do not get 90 percent of the Med region giftwrapped with no strings attached as in my proposal. Britain is freer to intrigue with a wider range of small states under the threat of Axis rule, to connive to perhaps detach Italy from Germany. Outside the Euro-Med zone a determined USA and Britain can match Reich buildup of projected fleet and other elements and (at considerable cost versus my own treaty concept where these are prevented and the confrontation is on the shorter border of the Reich frontiers) demolish them, thereafter being able to concentrate on beating up the isolated Euro-Med Reich zone, hopefully with Soviet help.

Yes, if the Allies sit by fat and complacent while Hitler concentrates on trying to reduce the USSR first, maybe the Reich can over enough years and with enough preparation accomplish that, if the Soviets are also complacent or otherwise deranged--especially if Soviet relations with the Allies are poor. Vice versa perhaps the Axis can break out of Western allied containment, maybe use nuclear weapons (some five years hence, not earlier!) to blast Britain to radioactive slag, and if the Russians sit by sleeping, perhaps the next treaty with the USA will turn the Nazi wolf loose upon the world.

All of this presumes handing both the Allies and the Soviets the Idiot Ball though. If they remain smart and on the alert, the best that can happen to the Reich is they figure out how to operate with rationed tropical goods and remain contained in their Aryan-Roman bell jar, perhaps eventually going to blows with each other. @varyar has been writing a bunch of stories in which the Reich survives to the present day under these conditions--albeit with larger conquests of Soviet territory and the treaty with the Soviet remnant being a victor's diktat confining a fraction of former Soviet population and power east of the Urals. (Since the Reich makes rather poor use of the land vacated by their murderous policies and haunted by the ghosts of their victims, economically one with borders farther west might work about the same).

I honestly could not be sure how certain, or even likely, war is under these circumstances. I certainly think the Soviets will again procrastinate and leave the initiative up to the Reich, unless the western Allies make a very very persuasive case. I do think the Soviets and Western Allies will fuse over time into a de facto UN versus a contained Axis.

Someday someone will get nukes. Indeed the effective international POD is so late here it seems certain the USA will have inaugurated the Manhattan Project and a truce with the Axis seems certain to promote domestic politics in the USA such that the project remains funded and secret--if not from the Russians, then anyway our counterintelligence was generally good enough to foil Axis organs. Funding and priority might be downgraded, but the project will not cease and I think the USA will have A-bombs first. The Reich, if war is avoided, might be second, but meanwhile under these tense conditions with ongoing Anglo-American cooperation in maintaining containment, the USA will surely be more generous in sharing nuclear proficiency with the British; indeed separate projects might be merged or semi-merged with extensive interchange of scientists and data. The Soviets might trail largely because they would not have access to the Central European uranium ore fields they did in the 40's and early '50s OTL but between filching uranium stocks from Allied inventories (diverting colonial goods mainly I think) and the eventual discovery of Siberian ore fields, they will develop their own bomb, if necessary pilfering Anglo-American and conceivably even German designs! By the time the Germans have sufficient stocks of bombs in hand to pose a serious threat (mainly to England I suppose) the Anglo-Americans will have considerably more in hand, and if this happens late enough the Soviets will probably be able to field as many as the Germans can spare for their front, versus the distraction of severe threats from the west.

So, either the observation that the Axis is crossing the threshold to credible threat of destruction of Britain provokes the Western Allies, hopefully coordinated with the Soviets, to strike before it is too late, in which case despite some German ability to nuke back and do serious damage to Britain and even the USA, I anticipate the Reich being utterly crushed, or all three sides, each unwilling to trigger the big war, drift into mutual balance of terror and a global stalemate. I do not believe the Germans have a window to amass superior nuclear strike capability, not versus Allied competence at air defense anyway, to blackmail either the Allies or the Russians, and an attempt to do so with either will draw both Allies and Soviets together.

If Hitler is foolish enough to negotiate a treaty with the Western Allies only to turn once again on the Russians, then even if the Western allies stand aside and do nothing to help the USSR, as long as they don't actively turn against the Soviets in active alliance with Hitler I don't think the Reich stands a chance. Sure, using Wunderwaffen (not including nukes, not at the start anyway; if it evolves that long the Allies will surely decide they can't let Hitler rule all of Eurasia or even just the western half of it and pile on with their own nukes) such as nerve gas and advanced planes and stronk tonks and so on, they can push the boundary east.

But the Red Army will not be nearly as green, not nearly as deranged, as OTL 1941, and will be much reinforced--the Axis won't advance by the sort of leaps and bounds they initially did in '41, they will be brought to a grinding halt not farther east than OTL, or not much so, maybe considerably farther west. Then the Soviets will bounce back and if the Allies do not get off their butts and help, eventually take all of Europe. No more truces, no more mercy. It would be only smart for the Allies to pile on, to quickly amass forces in Britain to land in France while pushing northwest out of Iraq and entering the Med through Suez to sink everything that does not surrender, coming in from the Atlantic at the same time; it will not take long for North Africa to fall and if the Germans and Italians have not massacred the native North Africans they will become Allies when liberated--especially if France is punished for Vichy by losing the North African colonies to independence. With the western Allies landing in France much earlier relative to the Soviet reversal of Axis advance, it may well be Anglo American forces supplemented by exiled European units led by the colonial reinforced Free French who take not just Western but much more of Central Europe, conceivably the Wallies and Soviet forces meet up near the 1939 Soviet border. Under these circumstances I think we could anticipate a much milder Cold War, perhaps nothing amounting to that at all.

I have neglected considering how East Asia shapes up of course; I assume that the Anglo-American alliance, freed of the European war beyond enforcing containment on the Axis by treaty, completes the destruction of the Japanese Empire earlier. If the Soviets decide to weigh in, the Japanese on the Asian mainland can expect to be steamrollered in a couple year's time at most, and of course then there would be no question about the Asian mainland being overwhelmingly Communist--though there would be question about how subservient to Moscow Chinese and other nationalist Communist movements would be. This kind of thing might be a wedge preventing Soviet and Western alliance against the Axis, but I don't think either bloc would go so far as to ally with the Nazis against the other, not again.
 
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