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Let's assume that something fatal happens to Stalin sometime between 1943 and 1945. The successor government does not have an iron grip on the state apparatus Stalin had. Maybe the resulting infighting at the top and politics spilling over into the army make the Soviet counteroffensives less effective. Maybe a falling-out between the successive Soviet government and FDR reduces the Lend-Lease flow. Whatever. The Eastern Front remains a meatgrinder for the Wehrmacht but moves slower - let's assume the Soviets manage to liberate their own territory but not much else when Germany surrenders some time in mid-1945 but before August 1945. Consequently, the Soviet Union isn't seen as the menace it was viewed by the OTL West from 1946 on.
What happens in Germany and the West? Does the USSR still gets an occupation zone, or are they ignored? I don't think the Morgenthau plan would be fully implemented - even without fear of Communism the WAllies won't want having 20 Mio Germans starve on their watch, it isn't good for publicity. But what will replace it? I doubt Marshall Plan will be extended to the Axis nations in this case, if it will be implemented at all.

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