The post-WWII peace settlement if the July 20th Plot succeeds?

All of this is probably not far off the mark.

The SK leadership - if successful - will quickly figure out that their conceptions of Allied policy flexibility were sorely mistaken. At that point, their options become far less pleasant. Especially once they learn of the full scale of the Shoah.

What can they do about that? Shut down all mass murder operations, of course. But also, perhaps, a cover-up. Eliminate the last few survivors in the death camps (the sonderkommando) as potential witnesses. (This can be rationalized on the grounds that they assisted in the murders.) Bulldoze the sites; send the Totenkopf-Verband to die in battle on the Eastern Front, and destroy every scrap of documentation. It won't really work; many of the worst crimes were committed at the concentration camps in Germany, where there were lots of survivors, and Auschwitz was a hybrid site. But they might try it, fearing that the Allied reaction to the whole truth will be to abolish Germany culturally and even biologically. (There were proposals OTL for Germany to be placed under permanent quarantine and population controls.)

1. Re: Allied-Soviet relations and suspicions : One thing to remember as well is that the final occupation zones were not decided until the London Protocol beginning in September 1944. Now those discussions are going to be taking place in the context of an SK-led Germany trying to find a way out of the war, and which has already withdrawn from France and most of Belgium. It's increasingly obvious that the Germans have redirected most of their efforts to the Eastern Front. Churchill, realizing that the Allied armies are now likely to end up farther east, will be pressing to minimize the Soviet occupation zone (along with his pet Adriatic landing operation). Soviet suspicions of the Western leaders will now be pegging the meter. Stalin may even break off the discussions and have his delegation leave in a huff.

Will Stalin go that far? Britain and the U.S. will bend over backwards to placate his suspicions, and he has high-level agents in both governments to confirm that there are no secret dealings with Germany. If he does, maybe Churchill and FDR blow him off; if they can't satisfy him at all, there's no point in trying - so why not talk to the SK?
2. This raises in turn the interesting question you raise here of how the SK government (however led) would deal with the Home Army uprising. It is hard to play that out. The smart move on the part of the new government would be to cut a deal with the Home Army and leave them in control of most of Warsaw and perhaps even other pockets, on the theory that an intact, armed Polish Home Army controlling some key territory is going to heavily complicate Soviet occupation efforts in Poland, and possibly even its supply lines as it moves west of the Vistula. It will also ratchet up Stalin's paranoia that Berlin has been cutting deals with London and Washington (whose solicitude for Poland's political future is already well flagged and intensely irritating). But would they be smart?
Probably not, and they would have to act quickly - the Warsaw Uprising was only 10 days after VALKYRIE.

There's also the problem that if the Home Army overtly accepts anything from the Germans, Stalin will cite it as proof they are just fascist bandits. Unless the Germans withdraw from the whole area, he will accuse the Poles of collusion. OTL, the Germans counterattacked east of Warsaw, and pushed back the Soviet spearheads. If they still do that, but don't reconquer Warsaw, it looks... odd.

3. In terms of territory, one suspects that, in broad strokes, the Western armies will indeed end up a little farther east.

Maybe yes, maybe no. If the Germans get out of western France immediately, they can probably contain the COBRA breakout further west, and hold Antwerp long enough to wreck the harbor thoroughly. Also, if the Germans decide to get out of western (and therefore southern) France right after COBRA, then they will know two weeks ahead of DRAGOON that they are leaving southern France, which is a lot of time to wreck Marseilles and the railroads to the north. So in late summer and fall 1944, the Allies in France will be facing more Germans, with less supplies. The Allies can bring in additional troops from Italy, which will go quiet at the Alps, but the supply difficulties can't be fixed till the ports are repaired, which will take months. (OTOH, if the Germans evacuate Brest and the Gironde estuary, and the Channel ports, those become available.)

The Soviets will face additional difficulties too (e.g. 20 divisions from Courland to the main front) but also advantages, especially in the Balkans, where the collapse of the Axis will be faster and harder.

And there is still the big question: does Germany fight to the end? OT1H, surrender is a very bitter pill, and no one wants to be called "traitor" or "backstabber". OTOH, by this time, it's getting pretty obvious to almost everyone in Germany that there is no chance to win the war, or even avoid defeat, and that every additional day of war means more German cities bombed and more German soldiers killed. The SK have some conscience, and a lot more concern for the German people than Hitler ever did.

But who's going to bite the bullet, and say the Emperor has no clothes? And how will the German people react to the events after VALKYRIE, especially the absence of Goebbel's propaganda? If German morale breaks in general, there could be a sentiment parallel to the support for Vichy France, i.e. "We've lost, now let's stop getting shot at." Italians in 1943 generally welcomed the surrender and Allied occupation, as they were thoroughly sick of war.

4. It's quite possible now that Allied-Soviet relations essentially dissolve in mutual acrimony.
When? Bear in mind that Lend-Lease aid to the USSR is close to peak in 1944, with the Soviet forces heavily dependent on L-L aviation fuel, trucks, explosives, and a host of other stuff. If Stalin blows his fuses and goes rogue, the U.S. stops Lend-Lease.

The Balkans could end up in a messier state, too. OTOH, Allied forces might end up making more progress in NW Yugoslavia and the Dalmatian coast, leading Tito to strike out for a more independent line of Moscow more quickly. On the other hand, there might be no "percentages" agreement between Churchill and Stalin restraining the latter from giving active aid to the Greek Communists.

Churchill will want to move east from Italy; if the Germans bail out of Greece and Albania and southern Yugoslavia, that is an opportunity. Also recall what I suggested about Bulgaria. Unfortunately, the Soviets got to Bulgaria by about 1 September, OTL. That doesn't allow much time for the Germans to decide to get out of Greece, and for the British to move in and then through to Bulgaria (which is all the way north - much harder than just landing in Athens). The British reached Athens in mid-October OTL. That could move up a month. Another point: OTL, there were German hold-outs in the islands (in Crete, for instance) till V-E Day. (I've seen squib references, have no details.) I'd guess they were caught there, unable to evacuate, like the Germans in the Channel Islands. If the SK move faster on evacuation, can they get out? If not, with Hitler gone and Germans retreating everywhere, do those garrisons just surrender? OTL, when did the Allies actually liberate or occupy the various Aegean islands?
 
What can they do about that? Shut down all mass murder operations, of course. But also, perhaps, a cover-up. Eliminate the last few survivors in the death camps (the sonderkommando) as potential witnesses. (This can be rationalized on the grounds that they assisted in the murders.) Bulldoze the sites; send the Totenkopf-Verband to die in battle on the Eastern Front, and destroy every scrap of documentation. It won't really work; many of the worst crimes were committed at the concentration camps in Germany, where there were lots of survivors, and Auschwitz was a hybrid site. But they might try it, fearing that the Allied reaction to the whole truth will be to abolish Germany culturally and even biologically. (There were proposals OTL for Germany to be placed under permanent quarantine and population controls.)

Two points: What the likely SK reaction will be, and how successful will it be?

1) You're probably not far off the mark on their reaction. Whether they are as morally horrified as we are is beside the point; they'll be afraid that they'll be blamed for it, and that knowledge of it will make any peace deal harder, or any Allied occupation if peace is not obtainable a lot harder on Germany.
2) It's a fool's errand at this point to think they can keep the Allies from knowing about it. As Wiking rightly notes, the Allies already knew some of it; and even the more aggressive efforts by the SS to destroy evidence did not keep the Allies from learning the full scale of the Holocaust. The SK here will be no more successful, though they will not fully realize that.

Will Stalin go that far? Britain and the U.S. will bend over backwards to placate his suspicions, and he has high-level agents in both governments to confirm that there are no secret dealings with Germany. If he does, maybe Churchill and FDR blow him off; if they can't satisfy him at all, there's no point in trying - so why not talk to the SK?

I do agree about FDR's initial reaction at any rate (Churchill might be another story). But Stalin's intelligence network, as good as it was, was not perfect. But what WAS perfect was his paranoia. His relations with Washington and London were, at best, contentious; and accusations of an Allied sellout were frequent. Here, the risk of such a sellout will be appear unprecedented to him. I don't say a break is certain; only that there's a very significant chance of it.

There's also the problem that if the Home Army overtly accepts anything from the Germans, Stalin will cite it as proof they are just fascist bandits. Unless the Germans withdraw from the whole area, he will accuse the Poles of collusion. OTL, the Germans counterattacked east of Warsaw, and pushed back the Soviet spearheads. If they still do that, but don't reconquer Warsaw, it looks... odd.

THAT is a real danger for the Home Army. Would they appreciate that, if the SK makes them an offer?

It's quite possible also that Goerdeler and the army might end up not making any formal deal, but simply leaving them to their Warsaw pocket. Which would relieve the Poles of the decision but, as you say, will look very suspicious to the Soviets. in any event, the heavy odds are that Stalin orders the Red Army to liquidate the HOME Army pocket before long - a demand for them to lay down arms or else, and if they do, they disappear into Siberia. If they refuse, they get labelled as Nazi stooges, and Rokossovsky is ordered to attack the Pocket and liquidate it. Of course, doing so will complicate their advance west of the Vistula (and, later, Soviet efforts to occupy the country and to erect the puppet Lublin government).

In any event, such a development would only increase Stalin's paranoia. Whatever the NKVD tells him, he'll suspect that the Polish Government in Exile is involved, and Churchill along with them.

Maybe yes, maybe no. If the Germans get out of western France immediately, they can probably contain the COBRA breakout further west, and hold Antwerp long enough to wreck the harbor thoroughly. Also, if the Germans decide to get out of western (and therefore southern) France right after COBRA, then they will know two weeks ahead of DRAGOON that they are leaving southern France, which is a lot of time to wreck Marseilles and the railroads to the north. So in late summer and fall 1944, the Allies in France will be facing more Germans, with less supplies. The Allies can bring in additional troops from Italy, which will go quiet at the Alps, but the supply difficulties can't be fixed till the ports are repaired, which will take months. (OTOH, if the Germans evacuate Brest and the Gironde estuary, and the Channel ports, those become available.)

The logistical difficulties are real, but it is hard to see how they will be worse than they were in OTL. In OTL, the Allies did not get Antwerp up and running until shortly before the Battle of the Bulge as it was. The real difference here will be that more of the Wehrmacht will escape from the wreckage of France. But as for the Allied advance: What I am chiefly banking on here is that at some point, the SK regime will simply decide to put up little more than a token resistance in the West as they shift forces to the East - assuming they do not surrender first. There will be no Battle of the Bulge. There will probably not be the same protracted resistance at Metz, on the Rhine, or in the Ruhr Pocket when the time comes.

In any event, assuming the war does drag into 1945, you don't need to tweak much to get the Allies to Berlin (or Prague or Vienna) before the Soviets.

But I do not think the war will last until May 8, 1945. It will end sooner than that, one way or the other. Goerdeler's government is simply not going to fight to the last ditch.

If the SK move faster on evacuation, can they get out? If not, with Hitler gone and Germans retreating everywhere, do those garrisons just surrender? OTL, when did the Allies actually liberate or occupy the various Aegean islands?

Some of the islands were evacuated at the same time as mainland Greece. Some garrisons on Crete and the Dodecanese held out until the end of the war. It wasn't worth Britain's effort to take them by force.
 

Deleted member 1487

As Wiking rightly notes, the Allies already knew some of it; and even the more aggressive efforts by the SS to destroy evidence did not keep the Allies from learning the full scale of the Holocaust. The SK here will be no more successful, though they will not fully realize that.
From the DW link about the UN archives, the BBC was already broadcasting in 23 languages about the Holocaust and condemning it, so the Germans knew the Allies knew what was going on, but unless they were further up the food chain of the murder apparatus they might not have known how accurate (or not) the broadcasts were.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...he_allies_really_not_have_prior_knowledge_of/
Anne Frank wrote in her diary that the British radio said the Jews were being gassed.

"Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they're sending all the Jews.... If it's that bad in Holland, what must it be like in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans are sending them? We assume that most of them are being murdered. The English radio says they're being gassed."

  • October 9, 1942

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005182
http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft Word - 3868.pdf


Likely they would be confronted by the details of what was going on AND that the Allies knew a great deal about it already and were talking about it. Alan Dulles in Switzerland was already in contact with the German resistance, so might well end up a conduit of negotiation or at least the attempts and would probably tell them about the Allies knew if asked. He was pretty indiscreet and pretty open to all approaches and pro-German resistance movements to Hitler, so would probably agitate on their behalf even more than IOTL if they succeeded in the coup.
 
From the DW link about the UN archives, the BBC was already broadcasting in 23 languages about the Holocaust and condemning it, so the Germans knew the Allies knew what was going on, but unless they were further up the food chain of the murder apparatus they might not have known how accurate (or not) the broadcasts were.

It's important to always remember the emotional difference between know and have video of are. It's why Assad could kill hundreds of thousands of civilians and the public knew on some level it was going on, but video of around 100 gassed civilians allowed Trump to bomb Syrian forces with majority public support.

The Allies had reports that many intellectually accepted as true and some didn't about the horrors going on. I suspect from how it was often talked about many believed bad things are happening to the Jews and others, but also they suspected wartime press reports were exaggerated like wartime press reports of German atrocities in Belgium had been in the previous war.

The July Plotters aren't going to not admit that bad things weren't happening at the camps, they will effectively do so but they are also going to keep the Western publics from having a real view on the camps. They will show some of the better shape prisoners getting food and medical care and leaving for the German and internal press, but pictures and video of bodies stacked like corn wood? Video of tens of thousands of barely alive people? No.

They aren't going to go for a full spectrum denial of what happened, but they will not advertise to the West how far and deep the rot went either nor help to make it emotionally vicarial for Western publics or their own. They would let the world slowly figure out how far and how deep it went well after the end of the war.
 
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My only question is if the leaders of this post-July 20th Germany get tried and executed for crimes committed up to that point, once the war is over?

Or do you see Staffenburg and the like getting "Paperclipped" in '45?
 
My only question is if the leaders of this post-July 20th Germany get tried and executed for crimes committed up to that point, once the war is over?

Or do you see Staffenburg and the like getting "Paperclipped" in '45?

People that are useful got Paper-clipped even if they were the scum of the Earth like the head of the German biological weapons program who killed quite a few in the camps using live subjects for tests, but he had information the US wanted so he got to live the good life in the US until he died of old age.

By the same token some Germans who acted within the bounds of accepted warfare got tossed under the bus when it was politically expedient and some who didn't got off with nothing when it was politically expedient.

The real question comes down to what they decide is the politically expedient messaging in the last two or three months of the war about them. If it's these guys are as bad as the Nazis they are just trying to hide it then expect Dönitz like sentences for a number of them.

It's important to understand they made a big distinction between field commanders and desk generals and politicians in a way they don't today. The July Plotters by in large by acting politically put not just a Nazi target on them, but yes possibly a post war WAllied one in a way they wouldn't have if they choose to keep their heads down.

The likes of Rommel and Kluge as well knew they would be fine post war if they kept their heads down completely, but Germany was a different matter. They weren't so sure Germany would in fact make it out of the war.

Here's a question. Other than maybe Rommel, who is the savvy PR spokesman for the new regime to persuade the Allies they've reformed?

"Look, we let the Jews out of the camps because we're nice!"

"... Wait, camps?"

They knew about the camps, just intellectual knowledge doesn't quite equal full emotional knowledge not for Rommel and not for the WAllied leaders. He did have a much better understanding of the political and military situation they were in then the plotters themselves.

He could be back with his troops in a week or two and probably would be, but his advice is going to be pretty simple to the German government. Retreat and turn the Western front into an unopposed march in or just plain let me surrender in the West. If it's late August or early September and the July Plotters are still messing around trying unsuccessfully to open talks or get the WAllies and Soviet's fighting I think he would do a Lee at Appomattox or pull back his troops to Germany. Depends on how he feels at the moment.

If Stalin overreacts in paranoia and they are able to start to create a cleavage with the Soviet's and WAllies then it gets interesting and it's a very long shot, but within the bounds of possibility given Stalin's paranoia and him knowing Churchill would occupy as much of Europe as he could just like he would.
 
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Deleted member 1487

People that are useful got Paper-clipped even if they were the scum of the Earth like the head of the German biological weapons program who killed quite a few in the camps using live subjects for tests, but he had information the US wanted so he got to live the good life in the US until he died of old age.
You're thinking of Unit 731 of the Japanese Army, the Germans didn't really have much of a bio-weapons program. They did of course all sorts of experiments on people in camps and the US did use that knowledge when it served a practical purpose (i.e. not the SS experiments around twins among other atrocities), but not with bio-weapons AFAIK. The IJA guys got off scot free for sharing their info, even though they vivisected humans, including USAAF pilots.

Edit:
I just found this, but it even says there wasn't an official bio-weapons program:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/talking-back/the-nazise28099-biowarfare-program-at-dachau/

The guy in charge was tried and hanged for it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claus_Schilling
No Paperclip for him.
 
You're thinking of Unit 731 of the Japanese Army, the Germans didn't really have much of a bio-weapons program. They did of course all sorts of experiments on people in camps and the US did use that knowledge when it served a practical purpose (i.e. not the SS experiments around twins among other atrocities), but not with bio-weapons AFAIK. The IJA guys got off scot free for sharing their info, even though they vivisected humans, including USAAF pilots.

I just found this, but it even says there wasn't an official bio-weapons program:

The guy in charge was hanged for it.

That was the highest ranking guy on the SS's program, but the Army had its own biological research division or from the looks of it divisions run at times in tandem and at times seperate from the SS's research.

Blome worked on methods of storage and dispersal of biological agents like plague, cholera, anthrax, and typhoid, and also infected prisoners with plague in order to test the efficacy of vaccines. At the University of Strassburg, a "special unit" headed by Prof. Eugen von Haagan and employing researchers like Kurt Gutzeit and Arnold Dohmen, tested typhus, hepatitis, nephritis, and other chemical and biological weapons on concentration camp inmates.

Gutzeit was in charge of hepatitis research for the German Army, and he and his colleagues carried out virus experiments on mental patients, Jews, Russian POWs and Gypsies in Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz and other locations

It is believed that American intervention saved Blome from the gallows in exchange for information about biological warfare, nerve gas, and providing advice on to the American chemical and biological weapons programs. In November 1947, two months after his Nuremberg acquittal, Blome was interviewed by four representatives from Camp Detrick, Maryland, including Dr. H.W. Batchelor, in which he "identified biological warfare experts and their location and described different methods of conducting biological warfare."

In 1951, he was hired by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps under Project 63, one of the successors to Operation Paperclip, to work on chemical warfare.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Blome
 

Deleted member 1487

That was the highest ranking guy on the SS's program, but the Army had its own biological research division or from the looks of it divisions run at times in tandem and at times seperate from the SS's research.
Well, I learned something new today. Seem the SS guy's problem was that he didn't have enough research of use to the Americans.
 
Well, I learned something new today. Seem the SS guy's problem was that he didn't have enough research of use to the Americans.

Some very important German WMD researchers did get off entirely while some others were hung so yes it's entirely possible those who took the heat for the others didn't have as much shall we say value to the US Army.

I also know in terms of the viral rearchers they were slowly allowed to start down a dark path much earlier then the soldiers in the war as they were busy doing tests to at first condemned criminals in the early 30s and then political and other prisoners and then to larger and larger groups so they had a long time to morally get out there and start seeing people as just test subjects.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Some very important German WMD researchers did get off while some others took the fall so yes it's entirely possible those who took the heat for the others didn't have as much shall we say value to the US Army.

I also know in terms of the viral rearchers they were slowly allowed to start down a dark path much earlier then the soldiers in the war as they were busy doing tests to at first condemned criminals in the early 30s and then political and other prisoners in the mid 30s well before the war and then to larger and larger groups so they had a long time to morally get out there and start seeing people as just test subjects.
What is rather horrifying is that this was a not uncommon practice world wide too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
http://www.slate.com/articles/healt...syphilis_experiments_worse_than_tuskegee.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States
What is really horrifying is that after the Holocaust and Axis experiments on people happened, the US turned around and did it too.
 

thorr97

Banned
One other upshot of this is that it becomes a matter of conclusive and historical fact that Atomic Bombs can end wars.

The new Not Nazis German government's attempts at holding off the Soviets while falling back in the face of the Brits and Americans would truly sour any hope of the WAllies getting Soviet help in the Far East. It was a pretty harsh stretch for Stalin to shift that many divisions out of Europe and over to the Far East as it was. In this case, with his paranoia on overdrive, there'd be no way, no how he's going to shift any of his combat forces out of theater to help the US and UK clean up their own mess on that side of the world.

So, no Soviet offensive to drive into China and Korea and no additional source of doom for the Japanese cabinet to face after August 6th and 9th. Thus it'd be unquestionably the Atom Bombs which convince the Japanese to call it quits. Thus ending a point of historical revisionism before it even ever started.

Also, such perceived "collusion" between the Germans and the WAllies would be an excellent POD for a "Channel Dash" scenario where Stalin orders the Red Army to keep going until their tanks have sand in their treads from being on the English Channel beaches.
 
One other upshot of this is that it becomes a matter of conclusive and historical fact that Atomic Bombs can end wars.

The new Not Nazis German government's attempts at holding off the Soviets while falling back in the face of the Brits and Americans would truly sour any hope of the WAllies getting Soviet help in the Far East. It was a pretty harsh stretch for Stalin to shift that many divisions out of Europe and over to the Far East as it was. In this case, with his paranoia on overdrive, there'd be no way, no how he's going to shift any of his combat forces out of theater to help the US and UK clean up their own mess on that side of the world.

So, no Soviet offensive to drive into China and Korea and no additional source of doom for the Japanese cabinet to face after August 6th and 9th. Thus it'd be unquestionably the Atom Bombs which convince the Japanese to call it quits. Thus ending a point of historical revisionism before it even ever started.

Also, such perceived "collusion" between the Germans and the WAllies would be an excellent POD for a "Channel Dash" scenario where Stalin orders the Red Army to keep going until their tanks have sand in their treads from being on the English Channel beaches.

Stalin didn't go to war with Japan just out of the kindness of his heart, though.

He did it in large measure because the USSR could benefit from it. Not only did he gain tangible territorial benefits (all of Sakhalin Island and all of the Kurils) but gained effective control of Manchuria and northern Korea as well. And he was able to strip the entire industrial base of Manchuria down to the foundations to take back to Russia.

In this scenario, those attractions are still there.
 

thorr97

Banned
Athelstane,

Agreed, those criteria still would be attractive. However, in this ATL, Stalin is perceiving the WAllies as having "cut a deal" with the Fascists. And a new border significantly to the east which leaves Germany intact along with a larger chunk of its military having "surrendered" to the WAllies, would give Stalin a lot more to fear. A major concern would be that that WAllies wanted to distract the Soviets and get Stalin to divert his forces to the East. Then, once fully engaged, the WAllies would attack - and do so with a freshly reconstituted German army at their side.

Yeah, far fetched. But for Stalin? That might be enough to keep him from agreeing to come into the Pacific war. Especially if it seems that the WAllies would now be stuck in the meat grinder that would be the death throes of the Japanese Empire. A US and UK preoccupied with that fighting would give him a stronger hand in Europe. Thus all the more reason to keep his forces there in full.
 
I think you're both right. Strategically launching an opportunistic landgrab in the East is still the smartest choice for Stalin. However people don't always act after coldly calculating all the pros and cons, so Stalin not attacking due to a combination of Paranoia about an attack from the West and wanting to stick it to the West by "letting them to the work themselves against Japan" is entirely plausible, too.
I'd not consider a TL featuring either choice as unrealistic.
 
A few random thoughts...

]It would be interesting to see what would happen if, after the WAllies reject a new German government's offer, the Germans move everything to the east and open up the Western Front. How does it look to the Soviets when the British and Americans are waltzing into the Rhineland while a suddenly stronger Wehrmacht is fighting tooth and nail in Poland? I don't think Stalin would be able to look past a seeming collusion.

If the west Allies waltz into the Rhineland Stalin will be smiling as effective resistance in the east will collapse in a hurry. The German ammunition & arms production was a interlocking web and the Allies taking down the Rhine transportation corridor, disrupting the western portions of the electrical grid, making every effort to encircle of over run the Ruhr, launching their medium bomber forces from the new bases in France & Belgium, ect... ect... OTL when the 12 Army Group reached the Rhine river in Feb/March 1945 the 9th AF & 2d Tactical AF attacks on the railways east of the Rhine started showing results.

If the new government sends too much east, then the advanced elements of the 6th, 12th, & 21 AG are liable to overrun the border defenses and close to the Rhine even earlier than OTL. If they close to the Rhine in August or September then the west extension of the Ruhr is over run, the Rhine barge traffic & parallel railways are cut, Allied tactical aircraft can attack transportation in the Ruhr. A Market-Garden type operation somewhere along the Rhine may succeed.

End result is the German forces in the east are running out of ammunition in Oct-Nov, if not sooner. Vehicles will be abandoned enmass as spare parts cease to arrive, fuel becomes unreliable, even rations are hit or miss.

What if they offered to surrender with the only condition being to only have Western Troops occupying Germany? ...

In April & May 1945 German commanders were offering assorted deals. They were all surprised to find the Allied leaders rejecting these across the board. The problem was not that Allied leaders were sticking to the agreements with the USSR out of principle, it was they had zero trust for the German leaders.

...I know the US administration contained a lot of useful idiots for the Soviets. ...

The Unconditional surrender idea originated with the Americans. It had Marshals complete support & by extension Eisenhowers. it pretty much ASB the US leaders will flake out on the Allied goal of taking complete control of Germany.

Also, there would be no Courland Pocket and no "no-retreat" orders in this TL after July 1944, correct? After all, wouldn't the German coup plotters want the front lines to be as straight, narrow, and secure as possible (as opposed to squandering German troops by stationing them in distant areas such as Courland)?

Was it even practical to evacuate significant forces from the Courland? Evacuating the smaller Konigsberg pocket was difficult enough.
 
In April & May 1945 German commanders were offering assorted deals. They were all surprised to find the Allied leaders rejecting these across the board. The problem was not that Allied leaders were sticking to the agreements with the USSR out of principle, it was they had zero trust for the German leaders.

And such defecting Germans had essentially nothing left to offer by then. The interesting possibility is: WI the German state goes public with very modest surrender conditions, when the Allies still face a lot of fighting? (If the Germans would do that before it was too late. The SK was very unrealistic before the coup; OTOH, they weren't delusional and nihilistic, like Hitler.)

Was it even practical to evacuate significant forces from the Courland? Evacuating the smaller Konigsberg pocket was difficult enough.

Oh, sure. Konigsberg was evacuated in May 1945, when Germany had all but collapsed, and even so the Germans moved over a million people.

Courland was isolated in August 1944, when the German position was much better. At that time the Germans still held most of Estonia; they held Riga till mid-October.
 
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