Poland in the Axis

Clibanarius

Banned
IIRC Hitler's original plan was to get Danzig and get Poland on his side as a Satellite State and then they would go off and plunder Russia.

So, just for grins, let's suppose that Poland does join Hitler.

What then?

Does WWII still happen?

Or does everyone just kind of turn away as Hitler and the Empire of Japan attack Russia and massacre millions?

And if so, how long does that go on? Does the combined Axis forces finally bring the old Bear down? Or does Russia crush them all after suffering heavy losses?

Does Russia live on? Or does someone else decide to hit the USSR while they're weak and finish 'em off?
 

Cook

Banned
Yeah, I'll dig it up.

Thankyou.

If it was the case that the Poles had been aware that Hitler had at one time considered just ceasing the corridor it would go a long way to explaining their deployment of forces in September ’39.
 
If Poland had sided with Germany against the Soviet-Union, Hitler would have avoided the grimer occupation policies of IOTL.
He´ll certainly try to gain some territories for German settlers in the former ukrainian ssr but generally, he would aime at creating puppet states in the immediate.
No genocides nor state-sponsored terror, although there would be no hold-back toward communists and any other active opponements against the 3rd Reich and its backers.

Certainly he would make plans on changing the situation later but the´se plans would be for the future (1950s-1970s), when Hitler himself would no longer be in power, his successors much likely does not apply those plans in favour of better options.

Which doesn't mean that invading Poland to plunder it for all the resources you can lay your grubby hands on is a bad idea.

Germany is extremely desperate for capital. National military budget being small (either absolutely or relatively) compared to Germany doesn't mean it doesn't have assets to loot, since unlike Germany, most countries aren't pushing their economies to subterranean levels as part of reckless military build ups.


So why did Hitler go for Poland and later the Soviet-Union, which he saw as really not having capital? If he desperately wanted capital he would have turned toward where he thought there was capital, started a western-aimed strategy
(Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, France and eventually, a true Seelöwe) years prior to WW2 instead of wanting to expand Germany to the Urals much the way the US historically expanded to the pacific.
Hitler´s re-armament?

As it was, when war started with the Anglo-French, the Germans where clueless, all they had was still basically the Schlieffen plan +25 years. :D

German re-armament was a joke, even when operations started against 1940 France, it still hadn´t been completed yet. There was a hugh drive to explain away allied defeat when, had London and Paris been more reasonable, the forces of the British Empire and colonial France could have completely defeated Germany on their own.
 
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