Longer Lasting WW2 TL

[Kongzilla]

I was thinking of doing a TL with a WW2 that lasts until 1948, I've been thinking about some stuff, it's just a rough draft

Hitler and Himmler die couple days after Barbarossa

Goring takes over, visits front lines to improve moral

Sees the welcome the Baltic and Russian people show

Figures they can be useful to crush Bolshevism

They figure out that Enigma is cracked

Don't declare war on America after Pearl Harbor

FDR has to adopt Japan first strategy

Lack of USA troops and the Availability of German tanks mean Afrika goes
better for the Reich lack of Lend Lease to USSR also helps Germans

Axis gets to the Volga and prepares for next spring to renew the offensive. Zhukov dies in defense of Moscow.

Germany pushes the russians to the Urals in 42, less stress on the Germans allows them to help out the Iran/Iraq rebellions. They invade through Turkey Iraq goes down with the Help of Nationalists and bombing takes down the Iranian oil fields.

Heydrich survives the Assasination attempts due to butterflies, he starts crackin skulls and generally crushing resistance across Europe

Japan is being pushed back faster than OTL.

Germany has a defensive line on the Urals, they start recruiting ROA and eastern European troops into their own divisions to bulk out the Heer they also start recruiting French and other conquered nations

Russia starts building up for a 45 offensive, since the Red Army has been effectively crippled and their industry is in shambles. It's gonna take a while they are pretty much relying on the USA for war materials and food.

Without oil from Iran and Iraq the Famine in india is much worse, free india movement is gaining momentum. They're getting sick of the Brits. Low level Guerilla warfare. A peace protest that turns violent ending in a lot of dead civilians throws the country into pretty much anarchy with everyone fighting the Brits and each other.

Allies reach the Home islands by 44, they launch operation downfall. Thousands of captured russian weaponry is given to the Japanese by the Germans. Downfall is a bloodbath and when the Americans aren't making headway even by 45 they decide to use Nuclear weapons to support the GIs.
It's disastrous, thousands of GIs get radiation sickness and die. The USA is getting sick of the War. The American public votes against the use of Nuclear weapons.

The 45 Red Army offensive is ground down and eventually beaten but at a ghastly cost to both the Axis and Red Army.

British counter attack into egypt shatters the thin supply lines that were set up for the Axis and a re invasion of Iraq is also succesful.

That's basically it, I just have to hammer out the details and what goes on post 45. Some of the thingy mahbobs are approaching ASB levels but really what do you guys think.

 

[altwere]

Interesting.

 

[Color-Copycat]

There is a major flaw with the whole "Germany and US don't DOW on each other after Pearl" premise, and it's not unique to your TL.

Regardless of whether or not Pearl Harbor took place, the US was taking measures to declare war on Germany by year's end due to the heavy losses of US shipping to U-boat attacks in the North Atlantic. Only two months prior to Pearl, the destroyer USS Reuben James was sunk with the loss of over 100 crew, and it's been speculated that the accumulation of these sorts of high profile USN losses in the North Atlantic would've led to a DOW on Germany sooner rather than later.

 

[ivanotter]

Roosevelt needed an excuse for DOW; hence the rather provocative behaviour of USN in the Atlantic.

Whether Roosevelt deliberately aimed at having US ships sunk or not, the USN was by and large the culprit in terms of attacking German subs.

So yes. The flaw! again

Germany to the Urals? that would require a lot.

Now, Grmany did conscript into SS from the baltic states etc. But that was later.

Would it have been possible for Germany to be seen as liberators one year into the war in the East? Goering did say something like: "There will be 10 million russians dead of hunger and that is fine". (something like that at least), so maybe Goering was not the savior of Russia after all, only fighting communism

There is a quote (can't find it) from a Russian general: "If you had come in the 20's when we had nothing left thanks to communism, we would have welcomed you. Now you come when we are going forward and you take it away from us".

Successful Barbarossa in terms of knocking Soviet Russia out would have been difficult, but let's just imagine a stalemate and a "cold war" setting in in the East.

That in itself does not prolong WWII I think

Let's not go for Sea lion v2.0 in 1943.

My "favourite" scenario is a fizzle. Cold war, developing into a co-existence in 1960 and maybe a different EU in 1970/80?

Yes?

ivan

 

[MattII]

Can someone explain how they figure out the Enigma has been cracked? Or how Germany, with its OTL limited supply situation manages to do much more than it actually did vs. the Soviets?

 

[Rich Rostrom]

Can someone explain how they figure out the Enigma has been cracked?

There were various possibilities...

1) France was an equal partner in the 1940 re-break of Enigma; the Polish exile codebreakers worked under French sponsorship. After the fall of France, the Poles continued to work for French intelligence - that is, Vichy French intelligence - at a center in unoccupied France. Yes, that's right, the Vichy French regime had the Enigma secret. Or at least some of their spooks did - I'm pretty certain that Petain, Laval, and Darlan never knew about it. Nonetheless, that's a very thin barrier... If the secret leaked up to one of the pro-Germans at the top? Or suppose that one of the spooks-in-the-know had his beloved son killed at Mers-el-Kebir, or in Syria? The Germans might not believe a simple disclosure - but if they followed up by pouncing on the Polish team and saw their paperwork...

2) Gordon Welchman was one of the top cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park. He invented the Diagonal Board which solved the plugboard section of the Enigma; he did much of the work on the bombes. He commented in his memoir The Hut Six Story that any really serious review by the Germans would have uncovered the major weaknesses that the British exploited in 1940-1941. If those weaknesses had been fixed (as they easily could have been) Enigma breaking would have been stopped cold. His conclusion: "We were lucky." In this case, it doesn't matter whether the Germans know that Enigma has been broken; it is enough that they think it is possible and fix obvious problems.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Here's some solider sayings on when the war (might) end from the OTL, which are little tidbits that can go into this:

• Home alive in/by '45
• Out of the sticks in/by '46
• From hell to heaven in/by '47
• Golden Gate in/by '48
• Bread line in/by '49

 

[Kongzilla]

There were also many times when they thought the Enigma was cracked but didn't bother looking into it because they thought it was just due to Italian incompetence or what not. They could discover that. Or maybe after Hitlers death Churchill orders the defense of Coventry or some other place thinking it might break the German spirit or some such thing but it seems unlikely

I don't think Goring would take FDR's bait, He'd try and knock out Britain and the Soviet before he DOW on the Americans. So more supplies get to the British but the Soviets have to pay for their Lend Lease in hard currency. But after 44 they start getting lend lease like the British but since the oil fields are gone they aren't making as many of their own tanks so they're getting dodgy shermans and other WAllies tanks, although they get a few Pershings the Russian roads are not kind to them.

For the Resources thing for use against the Russians I still have to figure out the details but I was thinking They take Moscow shoot a lot of Bureaucratic people and Zhukov they also burn a lot of the Information so this throws a lot of Industry and the Red Army into chaos, because everyone thinks Stalin is dead there are mass surrenders by the Red Army and effectively allows them to take the Caucas. Means no oil and is even worse for the Red army. Finland helps the Germans take Leningrad. But I don't know a lot of the Little specifics of the Eastern front. Can you recommend any Books on the subject.

 

[Life In Black]

There were also many times when they thought the Enigma was cracked but didn't bother looking into it because they thought it was just due to Italian incompetence or what not. They could discover that. Or maybe after Hitlers death Churchill orders the defense of Coventry or some other place thinking it might break the German spirit or some such thing but it seems unlikely

I don't think Goring would take FDR's bait, He'd try and knock out Britain and the Soviet before he DOW on the Americans. So more supplies get to the British but the Soviets have to pay for their Lend Lease in hard currency. But after 44 they start getting lend lease like the British but since the oil fields are gone they aren't making as many of their own tanks so they're getting dodgy shermans and other WAllies tanks, although they get a few Pershings the Russian roads are not kind to them.

For the Resources thing for use against the Russians I still have to figure out the details but I was thinking They take Moscow shoot a lot of Bureaucratic people and Zhukov they also burn a lot of the Information so this throws a lot of Industry and the Red Army into chaos, because everyone thinks Stalin is dead there are mass surrenders by the Red Army and effectively allows them to take the Caucas. Means no oil and is even worse for the Red army. Finland helps the Germans take Leningrad. But I don't know a lot of the Little specifics of the Eastern front. Can you recommend any Books on the subject.

Don't forget about taking care of already occupied territories, and putting their industry to use. Like FN in Belgium. Remember that you need to get everybody on board for this, and that means completely revamping the economy and industry to reflect this. Also, don't forget that Göring needs to kick his morphine habit tout de suite.

 

[Kongzilla]

So he just goes Cold turkey or something it's not hard.

If Goring realizes it's going to be a long war he can call war time economy in 42 rather then 44. Germany produced a larger numbers of Vehicles than they did in the years before so I think Germany can get it's production up pretty high if they get everyone.

Albert Speer can lend a helping hand here

 

[Kongzilla]

Anything else you guys would like too add?

 

[Color-Copycat]

I hear it's pretty hard to go cold turkey on a substance as addictive as morphine.

 

[Kongzilla]

I heard he was sober when he was running the country for a couple months. So maybe he doesn't give up out right he just weens himself off it unknowingly because he has something stimulating to do.

Actually that's a better idea, sober Goring wouldn't order Germany to fight to the Death but Junkie Goring would. Yay for Morphine

Also who would be the first to use and develop Helicopters. My guess would be the Germans would develop them first but use them more in a support and supply role to help supply troops in Afrika while the Americans would use them the same way but also in an assault fashion as well. Their choppers would also be better and more versatile.

 

[Kongzilla]

Could the French potentially join the Axis due to anti British sentiments and help in Africa as well as giving them the Enigma or ULTRA codes in 41.

 

[Rich Rostrom]

Could the French potentially join the Axis due to anti British sentiments and help in Africa as well as giving them the Enigma or ULTRA codes in 41.

It's been suggested that Vichy France came fairly close to declaring war on Britain after Mers-el-Kebir. Someone blowing up your battleships and killing thousands of your men?

And it was arguably more treacherous than Pearl Harbor; Britain was supposed to be France's ally.

A few thousand British personnel fell into Vichy hands in 1940-1942, were held as PoWs, and were treated rather nastily.

Against this was the intense desire of nearly all Frenchmen at the time to stay out of the war. This included Petain, fortunately. Not sure about Laval. Suppose Petain had died of a heart attack at the news; would Laval have engineered a declaration of war?

Then one must consider what the spooks who actually held the secret would do. They kept it from the heads of the regime OTL. But OTL, France was neutral or potentially an Ally through Free France, and would win if the Allies won. So keeping back the secret was arguably pro-France.

ATL, if France joins the Axis, then if the Allies win Axis-France loses. So keeping back the secret is arguably anti-France - unless one believes it would better for France to be defeated than for the Axis to win.

I suspect that at least some of the spooks would feel that the choice had been made above their pay grade, and want to reveal. OTOH those in direct contact with the Poles would balk at handing them over to the Germans. Certainly the Poles would escape if possible, and also destroy all their papers first. But the French spooks would have lots of their own documents about the operation, if not about the actual codebreaking techniques.

 

[Mike Stearns]

I was thinking of doing a TL with a WW2 that lasts until 1948, I've been thinking about some stuff, it's just a rough draft[/B]

Butterfly the atomic bomb and you add two or three years to the war.

 

[Kongzilla]

What if Germany looks like it is going to win the war. Then unveiling the secrets of ULTRA and the Enigma cracking what nots could be seen as arguably be pro French as they would be trying to secure the best possible post war agreements for France.

With Goebbels, Heydrich and British Betrayal could the French be prompted into a war. If Britain starts dropping bombs on France when they start building things for the Germans could that push them over the edge. Could it lead to a French Civil war with Vichy fighting Free French forces in the Colonies.