This is a complete scenario I'm laying out for you here, mainly because I think it will get more attention in this forum than in the writers' room. It's up to you to determine the POD, but the basic idea behind this is a determined German defense of Paris in the fall of 1944. I've attempted to stay as close to the historical record as possible, but naturally, as we get further away from the POD, things diverge rapidly. I've focused on Paris, almost to the exclusion of the rest of the war. There's too many divergences past a certain point, and I'm not even going to try -- though I'd welcome your comments on where you think the world is headed. I welcome any and all comments, particularly if you think I've gotten something wrong. You're probably wrong, but I'll listen anyway. 
This is broken up into sections, and I'll be posting one per day with the exception of today, when I'll post two: one now and one before I go to bed.
Without further ado, let me present "Is Paris Burning?"
Sources:
"Is Paris Burning?" By Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre.
"World War II in Europe: The Final Year" By Charles F. Brower, Roosevelt Study Center.
"World War II: A Statistical Survey"
"A Soldier's Story," General Omar N. Bradley.
***
"Is Paris burning?"
"Yes, my fuhrer."
On August 7, 1944, Wehrmacht Generalleutenant Dietrich von Choltitz arrived in Rastenburg, East Prussia, site of Adolf Hitler's Wolfshanze, "Wolf's Lair." From the complex in East Prussia, the elderly former corporal of the German Army commanded millions of soldiers spread across a continent. Though the territory commanded by his armies had shrunk drastically in the last two years, Hitler still commanded most of the continent. But now, sixty miles from the front, the faint sound of guns could be heard at Rastenburg. Hitler's empire was slowly crumbling.
Even at such a late date, many in the German Army still believed in victory. Drawn by the charisma of Hitler and their belief in German superiority, they held hopes that somehow, Germany could still emerge victorious despite the encroaching Allies. Von Choltitz was one of those men, though in the last few months, his belief had begun to falter slightly. Three weeks prior to Choltitz's arrival in Rastenburg, a group of German Army generals had conspired to assassinate Hitler prior to launching a coup that would allow Germany to make an honorable peace. Though von Stauffenberg's bomb succeeded in wrecking an aboveground building in the Wolfshanze, Hitler was uninjured and the coup was foiled.
One of the most prominent generals involved in the coup attempt had been Karl Heinrich von Stulpnagel, commander of German Army forces in France. Upon Stulpnagel's arrest in the wake of the coup attempt, his subordinate, General Hans von Boineburg-Lengsfeld, in charge of the defense of Paris, came under increased scrutiny. Neither Hitler nor the top OKW generals who remained after the coup held Boineburg-Lengsfeld in high esteem. He was a rear-echelon commander, who had held sway over garrison commands almost since the fall of France in June, 1940. Both Hitler and his generals believed it was time for a new commander as Paris moved from a comfortable garrison to the penultimate front line.
Enter Dietrich von Choltitz. As a Lieutenant Colonel, he had been the first man out of the door as German paratroopers attacked Rotterdam on May 10, 1940. His forces assaulted the airbases around the city, but heavy resistance kept them from penetrating the downtown districts. Choltitz ordered a Luftwaffe air strike to attack the central portion of the city to sow panic and open an opportunity for his soldiers. Shortly before the air strike arrived, the Dutch defending the city surrendered. Choltitz failed to cancel the strike, which burned down hundreds of buildings and killed over 1,000 civilians. When asked why he didn't cancel the strike, he answered, "They resisted. It was an important lesson." The next year, Choltitz supervised the capture of Lwow in the opening days of Operation Barbarossa. When the civilian population rose against the Germans, he ordered most of the city razed. Early the next year, he supervised the capture of Sebastopol on the Black Sea, and issued orders that no special consideration was made for civilian casualties if it were to cause undue harm to Wehrmacht soldiers. As German soldiers retreated in the face of the Red Army, he was made commander of Army Group Center's scorched earth tactics. As he later confessed to a Swedish ambassador in Paris, "Since Sebastopol, it has been my fate to cover the retreat of our armies and destroy the cities behind them."
Choltitz gained a reputation as an officer who never failed to follow orders, who was a tenacious defender and attacker, and who was utterly loyal to Germany. In the wake of the July 20 coup attempt, that last characteristic was as important as any other to Hitler. Upon his arrival in Rastenburg, Choltitz was stripped of his belt, sidearm, and had all his personal belonging searched intensively by Hitler's SS guards. This was nothing special — it was the normal procedure since July 20, even for a senior general in the German Army. Choltitz was ushered into Hitler's meeting room, and the two began an in-depth discussion of the defense of Paris. "Paris," Hitler said, gesturing at a map, "is the heart of France. He who holds Paris holds France, and any general who defends the city must be as steadfast as if he were defending Berlin itself. Are you such a man?"
Choltitz answered in the affirmative, and was then subjected to two hours of lecturing by Hitler, who covered virtually everything from the creation of the Nazi Party to the recent coup attempt against him. Though Hitler's hand had been shaking and he had given the impression of an elderly man on his last legs at the start of the talk, he warmed to his subject and by the time he was finishing, he was in rare form and Choltitz felt far more confident about the state of the country than he had been when he entered. At the conclusion of Hitler's harangue, he reminded Choltitz, "You will stamp out without pity any uprising of the civilian population, any act of terrorism, or any act of sabotage against German forces. For that, Herr General" Hitler continued, "you will receive from me any support you need." With that, Choltitz was confirmed as the new commander of Gross Paris, and was entrusted with all the authority of the commander of a city under siege. Four hours later, he boarded a train heading west.
At the same time, several hundred miles to the west, General Dwight David Eisenhower was also debating the future of Paris. At the time of the discussion, American forces were only just breaking free of Normandy, thrusting south of Avranches as they executed Operation Cobra, the breakout from the Normandy beachhead, a plan that would ultimately result in the encirclement of more than 150,000 German soldiers in the Falaise Pocket. That event was almost a month in the future, but Eisenhower already had his eyes and thoughts moving eastward. In the top-secret report "Post-Neptune Operations Section II — Crossing of the Seine and the Capture of Paris", Eisenhower's plan was set forth.
After the encirclement and reduction of German forces in the Falaise Pocket, Allied forces would split into two main groups for the march eastward. Montgomery's 21st Army Group would cross the Lower Seine between the Oise River and the English Channel, capturing Le Havre and threatening the V-1 and V-2 launching sites in the Pas de Calais — the reduction of which was a political priority. Meanwhile, Bradley's 12th Army Group (containing Patton's Third Army) would strike east, crossing the Seine at Melun, south of Paris, before driving northeast to Reims. There, Bradley's forces would wheel westward to meet Montgomery's forces, which would have turned eastward at Amiens. Above all, Eisenhower wanted to keep his tanks rolling in the open terrain of central France and avoid becoming bogged down in street fighting in Paris. Eisenhower correctly believed Paris would be heavily defended by the German Army, and wanted to avoid Paris becoming a Western Stalingrad. Only when Paris was surrounded would a gradual approach into the city begin, after the Germans had been weakened by a starvation of supplies. The encirclement would also — Eisenhower believed — have the effect of avoiding undue harm to the civilian population of the city. A siege might result in a German surrender without the need for a battle, as was then taking place in Brest and Lorient.
One lesser-known consideration by Eisenhower in the decision to avoid Paris in the short term was his fear of supply drain that Paris would become in the event of its liberation. At the time of Eisenhower's decision, Cherbourg was the sole major supply port open to the Western Allies, and though the capture of Antwerp, Le Havre, Brest, and ports in southern France were forecast to alleviate any potential supply problems, the needs of Paris itself also posed a major problem. A study by Allied analysts predicted that in the event of Paris's liberation, a supply effort equivalent to that needed to supply eight divisions would be needed to keep the city functioning. At the time, Eisenhower had just 37 divisions deployed in France, and the long-term supply picture looked questionable if any additional burden — such as the liberation of Paris — was added. For the time being, Eisenhower decided, the liberation of Paris would have to wait. To effect Eisenhower's plan, SHAEF parachuted several French operatives into Paris with instructions that the Resistance was not to begin any general uprising until after the encirclement.
As we know, things did not go according to plan.
In Algiers, General Charles de Gaulle, the then-leader of Free French forces, schemed. He feared (correctly, as it turned out) that the American Department of State and the British government were maneuvering the situation in France to ensure his position would be quietly shuffled off to the side following the liberation of Paris and the establishment of a new French government. Though he is little-known today, Charles De Gaulle was perhaps the best-known French leader of the war. In the wake of the surrender of the pre-war French government in June 1940 and the establishment of Vichy, De Gaulle was the most prominent member of the French military to advocate continued resistance. Thanks to British support and that of several of France's African colonies, he gradually built a base of support and began leading the military liberation of French overseas colonies. At first, he fought against Vichy forces in central Africa. Later, Gaullist forces fought Vichyite troops in Syria during one of the bloodiest bouts of fighting in the Middle East during the Second World War. By 1944, he had become secure enough to begin thinking about the post-war situation, which he believed should be in his control. Naturally, the other Allies differed, but De Gaulle was determined that no trace of AMGOT (Allied Military Government in Occupied Territories) exist in France. Post-liberation, the French government should begin and end with him, he thought.
There were two threats to that view. First was Allied meddling, but De Gaulle felt he could control that problem through diplomacy and by using Free French elements in the Allied armies to exert influence. The second, and far more pressing problem, was the existence of the large communist element in the Resistance. At the time of the Normandy invasion, the French Resistance was composed roughly 50/50 of Free French of the Interior (FFI) and of communist fighters. The FFI was concentrated mostly in the countryside, while the communist fighters were more numerous in the cities, particularly in Paris. So concerned was De Gaulle about communists gaining influence that he ordered a halt to weapons drops around Paris on June 14, for fear that the communists were taking too many of the weapons intended for the FFI. He estimated that Paris itself contained roughly 25,000 communist Resistance members. In reality, the number was half again that total.
By early August, De Gaulle had become convinced that Paris must be liberated as soon as possible by the Allies in order that he might establish his government in Paris and forestall a potential communist-led uprising. If the Allied armies could reach Paris before a general uprising, the communists would drastically lose influence in favor of his own organized Free French soldiers. The Paris communists themselves were just as determined to dominate the post-war picture. Famously, Henri Tanguy, leader of the Paris communists and better known as "Colonel Rol," famously declared, "Paris is worth 200,000 dead."
This is broken up into sections, and I'll be posting one per day with the exception of today, when I'll post two: one now and one before I go to bed.
Without further ado, let me present "Is Paris Burning?"
Sources:
"Is Paris Burning?" By Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre.
"World War II in Europe: The Final Year" By Charles F. Brower, Roosevelt Study Center.
"World War II: A Statistical Survey"
"A Soldier's Story," General Omar N. Bradley.
***
"Is Paris burning?"
"Yes, my fuhrer."
On August 7, 1944, Wehrmacht Generalleutenant Dietrich von Choltitz arrived in Rastenburg, East Prussia, site of Adolf Hitler's Wolfshanze, "Wolf's Lair." From the complex in East Prussia, the elderly former corporal of the German Army commanded millions of soldiers spread across a continent. Though the territory commanded by his armies had shrunk drastically in the last two years, Hitler still commanded most of the continent. But now, sixty miles from the front, the faint sound of guns could be heard at Rastenburg. Hitler's empire was slowly crumbling.
Even at such a late date, many in the German Army still believed in victory. Drawn by the charisma of Hitler and their belief in German superiority, they held hopes that somehow, Germany could still emerge victorious despite the encroaching Allies. Von Choltitz was one of those men, though in the last few months, his belief had begun to falter slightly. Three weeks prior to Choltitz's arrival in Rastenburg, a group of German Army generals had conspired to assassinate Hitler prior to launching a coup that would allow Germany to make an honorable peace. Though von Stauffenberg's bomb succeeded in wrecking an aboveground building in the Wolfshanze, Hitler was uninjured and the coup was foiled.
One of the most prominent generals involved in the coup attempt had been Karl Heinrich von Stulpnagel, commander of German Army forces in France. Upon Stulpnagel's arrest in the wake of the coup attempt, his subordinate, General Hans von Boineburg-Lengsfeld, in charge of the defense of Paris, came under increased scrutiny. Neither Hitler nor the top OKW generals who remained after the coup held Boineburg-Lengsfeld in high esteem. He was a rear-echelon commander, who had held sway over garrison commands almost since the fall of France in June, 1940. Both Hitler and his generals believed it was time for a new commander as Paris moved from a comfortable garrison to the penultimate front line.
Enter Dietrich von Choltitz. As a Lieutenant Colonel, he had been the first man out of the door as German paratroopers attacked Rotterdam on May 10, 1940. His forces assaulted the airbases around the city, but heavy resistance kept them from penetrating the downtown districts. Choltitz ordered a Luftwaffe air strike to attack the central portion of the city to sow panic and open an opportunity for his soldiers. Shortly before the air strike arrived, the Dutch defending the city surrendered. Choltitz failed to cancel the strike, which burned down hundreds of buildings and killed over 1,000 civilians. When asked why he didn't cancel the strike, he answered, "They resisted. It was an important lesson." The next year, Choltitz supervised the capture of Lwow in the opening days of Operation Barbarossa. When the civilian population rose against the Germans, he ordered most of the city razed. Early the next year, he supervised the capture of Sebastopol on the Black Sea, and issued orders that no special consideration was made for civilian casualties if it were to cause undue harm to Wehrmacht soldiers. As German soldiers retreated in the face of the Red Army, he was made commander of Army Group Center's scorched earth tactics. As he later confessed to a Swedish ambassador in Paris, "Since Sebastopol, it has been my fate to cover the retreat of our armies and destroy the cities behind them."
Choltitz gained a reputation as an officer who never failed to follow orders, who was a tenacious defender and attacker, and who was utterly loyal to Germany. In the wake of the July 20 coup attempt, that last characteristic was as important as any other to Hitler. Upon his arrival in Rastenburg, Choltitz was stripped of his belt, sidearm, and had all his personal belonging searched intensively by Hitler's SS guards. This was nothing special — it was the normal procedure since July 20, even for a senior general in the German Army. Choltitz was ushered into Hitler's meeting room, and the two began an in-depth discussion of the defense of Paris. "Paris," Hitler said, gesturing at a map, "is the heart of France. He who holds Paris holds France, and any general who defends the city must be as steadfast as if he were defending Berlin itself. Are you such a man?"
Choltitz answered in the affirmative, and was then subjected to two hours of lecturing by Hitler, who covered virtually everything from the creation of the Nazi Party to the recent coup attempt against him. Though Hitler's hand had been shaking and he had given the impression of an elderly man on his last legs at the start of the talk, he warmed to his subject and by the time he was finishing, he was in rare form and Choltitz felt far more confident about the state of the country than he had been when he entered. At the conclusion of Hitler's harangue, he reminded Choltitz, "You will stamp out without pity any uprising of the civilian population, any act of terrorism, or any act of sabotage against German forces. For that, Herr General" Hitler continued, "you will receive from me any support you need." With that, Choltitz was confirmed as the new commander of Gross Paris, and was entrusted with all the authority of the commander of a city under siege. Four hours later, he boarded a train heading west.
At the same time, several hundred miles to the west, General Dwight David Eisenhower was also debating the future of Paris. At the time of the discussion, American forces were only just breaking free of Normandy, thrusting south of Avranches as they executed Operation Cobra, the breakout from the Normandy beachhead, a plan that would ultimately result in the encirclement of more than 150,000 German soldiers in the Falaise Pocket. That event was almost a month in the future, but Eisenhower already had his eyes and thoughts moving eastward. In the top-secret report "Post-Neptune Operations Section II — Crossing of the Seine and the Capture of Paris", Eisenhower's plan was set forth.
After the encirclement and reduction of German forces in the Falaise Pocket, Allied forces would split into two main groups for the march eastward. Montgomery's 21st Army Group would cross the Lower Seine between the Oise River and the English Channel, capturing Le Havre and threatening the V-1 and V-2 launching sites in the Pas de Calais — the reduction of which was a political priority. Meanwhile, Bradley's 12th Army Group (containing Patton's Third Army) would strike east, crossing the Seine at Melun, south of Paris, before driving northeast to Reims. There, Bradley's forces would wheel westward to meet Montgomery's forces, which would have turned eastward at Amiens. Above all, Eisenhower wanted to keep his tanks rolling in the open terrain of central France and avoid becoming bogged down in street fighting in Paris. Eisenhower correctly believed Paris would be heavily defended by the German Army, and wanted to avoid Paris becoming a Western Stalingrad. Only when Paris was surrounded would a gradual approach into the city begin, after the Germans had been weakened by a starvation of supplies. The encirclement would also — Eisenhower believed — have the effect of avoiding undue harm to the civilian population of the city. A siege might result in a German surrender without the need for a battle, as was then taking place in Brest and Lorient.
One lesser-known consideration by Eisenhower in the decision to avoid Paris in the short term was his fear of supply drain that Paris would become in the event of its liberation. At the time of Eisenhower's decision, Cherbourg was the sole major supply port open to the Western Allies, and though the capture of Antwerp, Le Havre, Brest, and ports in southern France were forecast to alleviate any potential supply problems, the needs of Paris itself also posed a major problem. A study by Allied analysts predicted that in the event of Paris's liberation, a supply effort equivalent to that needed to supply eight divisions would be needed to keep the city functioning. At the time, Eisenhower had just 37 divisions deployed in France, and the long-term supply picture looked questionable if any additional burden — such as the liberation of Paris — was added. For the time being, Eisenhower decided, the liberation of Paris would have to wait. To effect Eisenhower's plan, SHAEF parachuted several French operatives into Paris with instructions that the Resistance was not to begin any general uprising until after the encirclement.
As we know, things did not go according to plan.
In Algiers, General Charles de Gaulle, the then-leader of Free French forces, schemed. He feared (correctly, as it turned out) that the American Department of State and the British government were maneuvering the situation in France to ensure his position would be quietly shuffled off to the side following the liberation of Paris and the establishment of a new French government. Though he is little-known today, Charles De Gaulle was perhaps the best-known French leader of the war. In the wake of the surrender of the pre-war French government in June 1940 and the establishment of Vichy, De Gaulle was the most prominent member of the French military to advocate continued resistance. Thanks to British support and that of several of France's African colonies, he gradually built a base of support and began leading the military liberation of French overseas colonies. At first, he fought against Vichy forces in central Africa. Later, Gaullist forces fought Vichyite troops in Syria during one of the bloodiest bouts of fighting in the Middle East during the Second World War. By 1944, he had become secure enough to begin thinking about the post-war situation, which he believed should be in his control. Naturally, the other Allies differed, but De Gaulle was determined that no trace of AMGOT (Allied Military Government in Occupied Territories) exist in France. Post-liberation, the French government should begin and end with him, he thought.
There were two threats to that view. First was Allied meddling, but De Gaulle felt he could control that problem through diplomacy and by using Free French elements in the Allied armies to exert influence. The second, and far more pressing problem, was the existence of the large communist element in the Resistance. At the time of the Normandy invasion, the French Resistance was composed roughly 50/50 of Free French of the Interior (FFI) and of communist fighters. The FFI was concentrated mostly in the countryside, while the communist fighters were more numerous in the cities, particularly in Paris. So concerned was De Gaulle about communists gaining influence that he ordered a halt to weapons drops around Paris on June 14, for fear that the communists were taking too many of the weapons intended for the FFI. He estimated that Paris itself contained roughly 25,000 communist Resistance members. In reality, the number was half again that total.
By early August, De Gaulle had become convinced that Paris must be liberated as soon as possible by the Allies in order that he might establish his government in Paris and forestall a potential communist-led uprising. If the Allied armies could reach Paris before a general uprising, the communists would drastically lose influence in favor of his own organized Free French soldiers. The Paris communists themselves were just as determined to dominate the post-war picture. Famously, Henri Tanguy, leader of the Paris communists and better known as "Colonel Rol," famously declared, "Paris is worth 200,000 dead."