Of the portions of Europe that became communist post-WWII, the countries most accessible to western military power during the war were Albania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia. The former three countries were near allied theaters of operations in the Mediterranean, and Prague could have been put within military reach after D-Day. However, these were the very same countries that had the strongest native communist parties and pro-Soviet popular and elite sentiments. Even of liberated by the western allies, their local communist parties would have been powerful, much more so than say the Italian or French communist parties, and they, along with other non-communist elite elements, would have resisted participation in anti-Soviet alliances in the 1940s and 1950s.
To elaborate, by 1943 communists were the dominant resistance group in Yugoslavia, and even more dominant, relative to other groups, in Albania. A pre-Cold War example of Bulgarian pro-Sovietism was its refusal to declare war on the USSR. Just prior to the German invasion, royalist Yugoslavia was expanding ties with the USSR, to give another example of non-communist pro-Sovietism. Benes, remembering Munich bitterly, made up his mind by mid-1942 that Czechoslovakia should place its principal reliance for security
on the USSR after the war. He had been fairly pro-Soviet before the war also, although also allied with France. Czech participants in various threads in the past have splashed cold water on the idea that if Bohemia had been liberated in the west it would have changed the pro-Soviet orientation of Czechoslovakia and the strength of its domestic communist party. Czechoslovakia seems to be a country which was leaping into Soviet arms in which perhaps only the crushing of the Prague Spring brought popular patience with the Soviets to an end.
Of the countries listed, perhaps exposed Albania could have most easily had its history changed by western military action, but it was also of the most marginal importance to the later Cold War.
Those countries with more anti-Soviet or anti-communist native sentiment, weak communist parties and with the greatest corresponding interest in western alliances were the Baltics, Poland, Romania and Hungary. However, they were all relatively geographically inaccessible to western allied forces during the war, being the most distant from Atlantic and Mediterranean invasion routes. There are not really any plausible military scenarios involving German defeat, post-Barborossa, that would see them liberated by western allied forces.
I have not considered Germany yet, and the allies could have plausibly ended up with some more of Germany, but ironically the predominant sentiment in areas that became the GDR was Social Democratic rather than center-right, and the Social Democrats, represented by the likes of Kurt Schumacker, were interested in neutralism rather than a western alignment, through at least the late 1950s.
To elaborate, by 1943 communists were the dominant resistance group in Yugoslavia, and even more dominant, relative to other groups, in Albania. A pre-Cold War example of Bulgarian pro-Sovietism was its refusal to declare war on the USSR. Just prior to the German invasion, royalist Yugoslavia was expanding ties with the USSR, to give another example of non-communist pro-Sovietism. Benes, remembering Munich bitterly, made up his mind by mid-1942 that Czechoslovakia should place its principal reliance for security
on the USSR after the war. He had been fairly pro-Soviet before the war also, although also allied with France. Czech participants in various threads in the past have splashed cold water on the idea that if Bohemia had been liberated in the west it would have changed the pro-Soviet orientation of Czechoslovakia and the strength of its domestic communist party. Czechoslovakia seems to be a country which was leaping into Soviet arms in which perhaps only the crushing of the Prague Spring brought popular patience with the Soviets to an end.
Of the countries listed, perhaps exposed Albania could have most easily had its history changed by western military action, but it was also of the most marginal importance to the later Cold War.
Those countries with more anti-Soviet or anti-communist native sentiment, weak communist parties and with the greatest corresponding interest in western alliances were the Baltics, Poland, Romania and Hungary. However, they were all relatively geographically inaccessible to western allied forces during the war, being the most distant from Atlantic and Mediterranean invasion routes. There are not really any plausible military scenarios involving German defeat, post-Barborossa, that would see them liberated by western allied forces.
I have not considered Germany yet, and the allies could have plausibly ended up with some more of Germany, but ironically the predominant sentiment in areas that became the GDR was Social Democratic rather than center-right, and the Social Democrats, represented by the likes of Kurt Schumacker, were interested in neutralism rather than a western alignment, through at least the late 1950s.