Not A Timeline, But A Discussion Piece

I'm a wargamer, and one of the forum's (fora?) I regularly read, the following was suggested:

Can´t remember where I did read it...
But an interesting variant how to get the red bear down:

1. Germany didn´t attack Poland.
2. Poland did allow Germany to deploy its armies at the polish-russian border
3. about May 1940 Germany together with Pöland attacks Russia!

Advantage:
About 300 km closer to vital targets (Moscow, Leningrad etc)
The capture of soviet occupied eastern Poland 1941 did cost the german army about 400.000 casulties.
The polish army was a formidable ally and I think they didn´t like the russians.

Would GB and France support Russia or let the communists die?

Now, there were lots of follow up posts on this, but thought I'd post it on here just to start a discussion.

Yes I know of Hitler's antipathy towards the Poles, but he did sign a non-aggression pact with Stalin, leader of the very country he was intent on destroying.

Far fetched suggestion...? Over to you.

Finally, apologies if this is in the wrong bit.
 
Okay, the first key change is that the Poles have to be willing to accept the same satellite status as Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and others did. At the MINIMUM Poland will have to join the anti Comintern Pact, agree to allow Danzig to be reincorporated into the Reich, and have the understanding that at some point in the near future Germany will want the 1914 border provinces returned to them. Hitler might well promise them territory to the east though. He could be very generous with other people's territory.

Now why the hell would Poland agree to all this? My best guess is that Neville Chamberlain has an even later reawakening than he did OTL or keeps his cautious nature and never guarantee's Poland's borders. The pledge to Poland made after Czechoslovakia was destroyed was actually fairly reckless and out of character for a amn who felt everything was negotiable.

Take away Chamberlain's guarantee and the Poles are going to start feeling very nervous when their good friends in Berlin start mentioning Danzig. For added measure how about Stalin starts making noises about the territory the Poles captures east of the Curzon Line during the Soviet - Polish War? If the Poles start fearing a possible attack from both sides they may decide there's no other choice than to choose one and do whatever is necessary to survive. Given the deep hatred of the Russians the choice would be Hitler.

Now if all of the above is the case and Germany and her allies go to war with the USSR in May of 1940 there is no chance at all of Britain and France going to war to save the USSR. I frankly doubt there would even be any league of Nations sanctions. The British and French are not about to take their countries to war in order to save communism. The US would be a true neutral whether FDR or someone else is in the White House.

The West would stand aside and pretty much hope they butcher each other.
 
Even if Poland allows German troops to enter Poland, it would get noticed by the Russians. They would be mobilized when war is declared.

Polish army would be about as useless against the Soviets as the Romanian army.

BTW, Romania, Hungary and Finland won't join in the war. There is no way that german is going to win this war against the Soviets. Not enough troops, no element of surprise.
 

MSZ

Banned
Abstracting from just how exactly such a Germano-Polish alliance would come to be (as it would require significant changes in both German and Polish foreign policy) - it wouldn't help the Germans all that much. Yes, they do have 300 kilometers less to cross in the east, are closer to Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, - but so what? Even if they were to capture all these cities, the Russians could still withdraw east to the Urals, and France remains a threat. If Germany decided to take out France first in 1940, the USSR would most likely launch an attack of opportunity giving Germany a two front war 4 years earlier, leaving it with no chance of winning. The best the Germans could hope for is that without a genocidal policy in the Ukraine they could bring to their side (not so unlikely if the Poles are allies the Germans would be willing to listen to), possibly giving it a temporary Brest-Litovsk type peace - before the USSR would re-arm and strike back.
 
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