The Atomic Bombing of Nazi Germany in 1945 Vignette planning thread

...What I need is help with is finding PODs to slow the war down and move up the Manhattan Project so that Germany gets nuked first...

Your input would be greatly appreciated.
Montgomery is said to be 'tired' and gets forced to step down after Market Garden fails. An American (political choice) gets appointed instead, who panics when the 'Battle of the Bulge' breaks out and pulls back in disarray in the north. The panzers smash the front wide open, capturing stupid amounts of fuel and besiege Antwerp...
Maybe?
 
Montgomery is said to be 'tired' and gets forced to step down after Market Garden fails. An American (political choice) gets appointed instead, who panics when the 'Battle of the Bulge' breaks out and pulls back in disarray in the north. The panzers smash the front wide open, capturing stupid amounts of fuel and besiege Antwerp...
Maybe?

Oce the weather clears wouldn't the USAAF and RAF run wild aginst the Wehrmacht and SS units, and then naval artillery would have prevented the fall of Antwerp
 
Would it be realistic if some individual German commanders surrendered their troops in the west in the wake of atomic bombings? Even though Hitler is alive some commanders order their troops to surrender to the Americans and British. If Goering or Himmler is alive the one of them decides to stage a coup. Hitler seeing the writing on the wall curses the German people and commits suicide.

Yes. In OTL, Steiner didn't do the pincer attack in part because it would have been a suicide mission for the soldiers. If the Allies had a massive new type of bomb, it's well within reason that he would apply the same logic after seeing Berlin wiped out.

Donitz dragged his feet on the surrender, but only because he wanted to buy time for civilians and foot soldiers to flee west. If Berlin gets artificial sunshine, that might not be necessary, as we aren't going to drop Fatman and Little Boy with Russian troops close enough to be harmed. And the survivors will know for sure the war is lost if they didn't already. Most likely scenario is Donitz tells the Germans to go as far west as they can and waits for ground troops to reach Berlin.
 
... Killing Hitler does not change anything. The whole regime has to be taken down.

Part of the rational behind the Unconditional Surrender policy. The generation of leaders represented by Roosevelt, Marshal, Stimson, Wallace, ect... were raised on the story of Prussian Militarism. They saw the German military resurgence as simply the old order returning to power. Removing a few senior leaders as in 1918/1919 was not enough to do the trick in their view.
 
Montgomery is said to be 'tired' and gets forced to step down after Market Garden fails. An American (political choice) gets appointed instead, who panics when the 'Battle of the Bulge' breaks out and pulls back in disarray in the north. The panzers smash the front wide open, capturing stupid amounts of fuel and besiege Antwerp...
Maybe?

Maybe not. Montgomery was in command of the 21st Army Group. If he retires, who exactly is going to take the political decision to name a US general commander of that British Army Group?
I'd also be curious to know who is this panic-prone US General.
 
Oce the weather clears wouldn't the USAAF and RAF run wild aginst the Wehrmacht and SS units, and then naval artillery would have prevented the fall of Antwerp
Still, depending on how badly the Western Allies have been mauled in the north, and the fact that Antwerp has possibly been trashed in the fighting (oops: back on the Channel ports and Mulberries for logistics, which could really slow things down) it has the potential to pose a number of problems on the western front, which is what the OP is looking for...

Maybe not. Montgomery was in command of the 21st Army Group. If he retires, who exactly is going to take the political decision to name a US general commander of that British Army Group?
I'd also be curious to know who is this panic-prone US General.
Roosevelt is going to name a US general as commander to a British Army group. And Churchill, because he admires Roosevelt, and maybe if Roosevelt offers him a pat on the back/consolation somewhere in the Far Eastern theatre, is going to agree.
If Montgomery puts his foot in his mouth over Market Garden (maybe says something really media-unfriendly about problems experienced by American troops during the operation) there could be a lot of pressure back in the USA to get rid of him, and since the operation was his and it's just failed...
Don't know enough about the US army politics and personnel to suggest a general to replace him who fits the requirements. :(

Edit: I'm theorising here, to try and work out a possibility other than the 'weather screws up D Day' suggested in the opening post.
 
Roosevelt essentially had the British over a barrel by 1944. Anything he wanted, he could get; Churchill might rail and protest and prevaricate (see Churchill's lack of enthusiasm for the Normandy landings (presumably) because he thought that they could go pear-shaped, his reluctance to divert forces from Italy to the south of France for Dragoon, and his sentiments against construction of the Ledo Road in Burma and the whole Burma 1944-1945 campaign) but ultimately he would always cave, if Roosevelt pushed him hard enough.

I think there's a quote (rightly or wrongly) attributed to Churchill regarding his relationship with the US to the effect that 'I may at times think them fools, but I will always in the end be a fool alongside them'. (Edit: I have been trying to find this particular quote, but as of the time of this edit no luck so far.)
 
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Still, depending on how badly the Western Allies have been mauled in the north, and the fact that Antwerp has possibly been trashed in the fighting (oops: back on the Channel ports and Mulberries for logistics, which could really slow things down) it has the potential to pose a number of problems on the western front, which is what the OP is looking for...


Roosevelt is going to name a US general as commander to a British Army group. And Churchill, because he admires Roosevelt, and maybe if Roosevelt offers him a pat on the back/consolation somewhere in the Far Eastern theatre, is going to agree.
If Montgomery puts his foot in his mouth over Market Garden (maybe says something really media-unfriendly about problems experienced by American troops during the operation) there could be a lot of pressure back in the USA to get rid of him, and since the operation was his and it's just failed...
Don't know enough about the US army politics and personnel to suggest a general to replace him who fits the requirements. :(

Edit: I'm theorising here, to try and work out a possibility other than the 'weather screws up D Day' suggested in the opening post.
First off thank you for trying to find another POD for screw up the ETO.
Technically Market-Garden failed on its own despite Monty declaring it I believe 90 percent successful. It didn't impress anyone and all Montgomery did was create a salient in Holland.
Eisenhower was a team player with the British. That was how he got to be supreme commander. Churchill liked him and Ike got along with the Prime Minister. If Ike had to relieve Monty then he would recommend to Churchill and Brooke a British commander. Maybe Dempsey gets promoted?
 
First off thank you for trying to find another POD for screw up the ETO.
Technically Market-Garden failed on its own despite Monty declaring it I believe 90 percent successful. It didn't impress anyone and all Montgomery did was create a salient in Holland.
Eisenhower was a team player with the British. That was how he got to be supreme commander. Churchill liked him and Ike got along with the Prime Minister. If Ike had to relieve Monty then he would recommend to Churchill and Brooke a British commander. Maybe Dempsey gets promoted?
Well. The point I was looking for was having someone who would plausibly panic (which Monty did not do in the original timeline) in charge in the north during the Battle of the Bulge which requires removing & replacing Monty for some reason. I could imagine Roosevelt being able to remove Monty if he had put his foot in his mouth spectacularly enough, but I also thought that Roosevelt might want an American in charge if he did that.
If you think Eisenhower (slightly down the pecking order) might have been able to get it done, and if this Dempsey might have lost his nerve during the Battle of the Bulge, I'm good with that...
 
Closest I've been able to find to what I thought I'd seen somewhere on Churchill & the USA is a piece by Eisenhower ('Churchill as an Ally in War', Churchill by his Contemporaries (1955 edition)) which includes some of the following on their relationship during WW2:
Dwight D. Eisenhower said:
...If he accepted a decision unwillingly he would return again and again to the attack in an effort to have his own way, up to the very moment of execution. But once action was started he had a faculty for forgetting everything in his desire to get ahead, and invariably tried to provide British support in a greater degree than promised...
...I shall always owe him an immeasurable debt of gratitude for his unfailing courtesy and zealous support, regardless of his dislike of some important decisions...
 
Still, depending on how badly the Western Allies have been mauled in the north, and the fact that Antwerp has possibly been trashed in the fighting (oops: back on the Channel ports and Mulberries for logistics, which could really slow things down) it has the potential to pose a number of problems on the western front, which is what the OP is looking for...

Send a few BBs in the channel and wait for the German forces to get mauled by 15, 14 and 16-inch shell fire that should halt their advance miles from Antwerp
 
IMHO the Allies did not expect any other of the top Nazis to try to negotiate if Hitler suddenly died. I believe everyone was convinced in the allied camp that the war in Europe would end basically the way it did: One of the Allied armies marching into Germany and forcing the Nazis to surrender.

That is what happened, yes. And the Nazis surrendered promptly - after getting to know that Hitler was dead.
Now imagine Hitler on the run to the "Alpine redoubt", and as he goes he orders the soldiers to fight to the death and the civilian population to carry out Werwolf attacks. The Allied armies are in Germany, but is the war over yet?
 
That is what happened, yes. And the Nazis surrendered promptly - after getting to know that Hitler was dead.
Now imagine Hitler on the run to the "Alpine redoubt", and as he goes he orders the soldiers to fight to the death and the civilian population to carry out Werwolf attacks. The Allied armies are in Germany, but is the war over yet?
You raised a good point. OTL the Werewolf movement and the National Redoubt had a higher propoganda value than practical value.
In the wake of two nuclear attacks the Nazis won't be able to organize a serious insurgency on the fly. What I imagine is SS units holding out around the Fuhrer while the regular armed forces surrender. Hitler ends up cornered in some valley in the Alps like the last Japanese defenders on Saipan or Iwo Jima. Hitler and some diehards shoot themselves. That is the worst case scenario. Another scenario is Hitler is arrested in a coup and allowed to kill himself or someone shoots him.
 
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