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After thinking about CalBear's grand TL for awhile, I came up with the following idea: What if WW2 in Europe, instead of being fought by the Western Allies after the decisive defeat of the USSR, was fought after 1940 solely between the 3rd Reich and the Soviet Union?

the way I envision it, Germany could, after the crushing defeat of France, somehow get the UK to sue for peace, thus leaving only the USSR as Hitler's opponent. Stalin, seeing that Hitler has resolved the war in the West, knows that he is next and begins to prepare for the inevitable. Seeing that Hitler gets his oil from Romania, Stalin orders an attack on that nation, in which the Red Army does somewhat better than in Finland but has these successes canceled out by heavy (and rather obvious) German assistance. A sort of Cold War situation then ensues, with both the Nazis and Soviets building up massive forces for the coming war, which happens sometime between late 1942 and '44.
- Either the Germans attack and achieve partial strategic surprise like in OTL, but get bogged down due to prepared and better-organized Soviet resistance, or
- The Soviets attack the Reich on their own terms, an operation that could in my estimation achieve anywhere from moderate to no success.

What happens next is up for debate, but for the purposes of creating a TL in which an uber-3rd Reich is fought and defeated from the other side (i.e. the Soviets), I'd like to see how a scenario in which the USSR conquers National Socialist Europe in the fashion of CalBear's TL could manifest.

Thoughts?
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