U.S. and Allied Forces reaching Berlin First

[Maverick721]

If the good guys did reach Berlin first what would the Cold War world look like?


And I know that one of the reason Ike didn't do it was fear of high causalities but wouldn't German forces be more ready to surrender to American and British forces than the Soviets?

 

[Ravenflight]

If the good guys did reach Berlin first what would the Cold War world look like?


And I know that one of the reason Ike didn't do it was fear of high causalities but wouldn't German forces be more ready to surrender to American and British forces than the Soviets?

The Allied Forced DID reach Berlin first.

WWII was between the Axis and the Allies (which included the Soviets), not the Axis and the Allies and the Soviets.

 

[NoOneFamous]

If the good guys did reach Berlin first what would the Cold War world look like?


And I know that one of the reason Ike didn't do it was fear of high causalities but wouldn't German forces be more ready to surrender to American and British forces than the Soviets?

Not if Hitler is still alive.

 

[free115]

The Allied Forced DID reach Berlin first.

WWII was between the Axis and the Allies (which included the Soviets), not the Axis and the Allies and the Soviets.

Really now? he obviously meant the Western Powers not bears that been plotting a global revolution

Only reason Stalin even cooperated with the Democracies is because he needed it.

 

[ivanotter]

... and Churchill needed the USSR to carry the can for some years....

As distateful to many as it may be, Eisenhover was probably right. Berlin was not worth the many deads it would have cost the Western Powers to occupy.

Doubtful if Eisenhover would have been able to justify this amount of casaulties in the US.

Even if Western Allies had reached Berlin, the occupation zones had been agreed upon and I doubt verymuch that Truman had the stomach to not adhere to it. Neither Churchill for that matter. He was pretty realistic.

Ivan

So: Even if Western Allies had reached Berlin they would have to pull back anyway.

Ivan

 

[Ravenflight]

Really now? he obviously meant the Western Powers

I know what he meant, but I'm a pedant who picks up things like 'Britain' being referred to as 'England' and 'Allies' being referred to when 'Western Allies' is what is meant.

Personally, I like it when people advise me of errors because I don't make them again (mostly).

I don't want to derail the conversation too much (just a little bit), but honestly isn't saying "What if America was involved in Overlord?" much the same thing? To ask the question means that you think they weren't. Despite what you may think of the Soviet reason for being a part of the Allies, they were.

Incidentally, the Western Allies used the Soviets as much as the Soviets used the Western Allies. That's what being in an alliance is all about. Without lend-lease etc the Soviets would have likely fallen, but without the Soviets there would have been no Overlord (not in a reasonable timeframe anyway).

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Absolutely nothing would change - the lines of occupation had already been established, so the west would just pull back to the agreed borders.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Well, the Soviets don't get the uranium from the Kaiser Wilhelm, so that will slow their nuclear program by something like a few months.

 

[Just Leo]

I know what he meant, but I'm a pedant who picks up things like

Don't you mean you pick up ON things like.....?

 

[CthulhuFhtagn]

Even if the Western Allies get before the Bears on Unicycles, the lines of occupation were already agreed upon (which is why the US got half of Berlin in OTL). The extra few hundred miles of German territory aren't really worth the trouble.

 

[CalBear]

If the good guys did reach Berlin first what would the Cold War world look like?


And I know that one of the reason Ike didn't do it was fear of high causalities but wouldn't German forces be more ready to surrender to American and British forces than the Soviets?

The good guys did reach Berlin. They proceeded to destroy the nest of vipers that was the 3rd Reich.

There was absolutely no reason for the WAllies to go into Berlin. NONE. Even if they took half the losses the Red Army did, which is probably optimistic since the WAllies relied so heavily on air power compared to the Soviets, who were far more artillery orientated, the losses would be twice what the U.S. took during the Battle of the Bulge, which was the most costly battle the U.S. engaged in during the entire war, in any theater. 40,000 dead men, be they British or American, is too high a cost for a prestige target.

The post was lines were already drawn, well before the Allies could hope to reach Berlin. The only way to change that is to, somehow, butterfly away Wacht am Rhein and have the WAllies in position to take the city by early January. Even eliminating Hitler's last bit disastrous leadership in the West wouldn't be enough to put the WAllies at Berlin in that time unless everyone in London and DC decided that taking Berlin was more important tan winning the war.

Berlin was militarily insignificant. The Soviets lost close to 80,000 men KIA/MIA and x5 that wounded for a conquest only to hand 2/3 of it to the WAllies. The effort was idiotic.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

The only way I can see this happening is a whole series of changes in or before 1944 that puts the Red Army a lot further east. So far that the WAllies must soldier on if a end is to be put to it sooner rather than much later. In that case many of the political considerations of our time can be dismissed. they will be irrelevant.

 

[sloreck]

I agree - Ike was never going to race to Berlin, just to give up all that territory. On the other hand, IF the Russians are a few weeks behind schedule you are likely to see the Germans facing the W. Allies collapse as fast if not faster than OTL, preferring POW status there vice Siberia. You may not see a big push in to Berlin proper, just slow probes and lots artillery/air support but the W. Allies won't stop at the occupation lines as long as the fighting is going on.

The W. Allies will end up with more of the German archives/paperwork than OTL, and you'd better believe that a large chunk of the population between where the east & west eventually meet will go west behind the eventual demarcation lines, leaving a large chunk of what will become E. Germany very underpopulated. The Russians will get the heavy machinery to take east, but I expect some of the less bulky "technical" bits might go west, as well as associated paperwork, engineers etc.

Another effect of this, if the Russians are further east is that US forces go further in to Czechoslovakia which might affect what happens there as the Communists don't get a boost from the Red Army as much.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

The effort was idiotic.

Only if you ignore that the fall of Berlin did produce tangible benefits for the Soviets (ex: ending the war, the uranium). With that said, I would say it wasn't that the Soviets going after Berlin was idiotic*, but the whole rush they were in with it was. Of course, that requires Stalin being a less paranoid man... which is the same as all those PoDs which ask the Nazis to not be Nazis.

*And besides: what the hell else were they going to do with those armies anyways? They had enough forces in the Balkans and Czechoslovakia to finish up there already and any advance to the Elbe would mean heading in Berlin's direction so they might as well...

 

[Dayton Kitchens]

Some have written that instead of racing to Berlin, what the U.S., British, and French could have done was insist on real combined administration of the city with the Soviets rather than deciding that each of the four powers would sit in their own zones and do their own thing.

This would've helped prevent the Soviets from forcibly installing communist institutions in their zone and weakened their overall position in East Berlin (and thus East Germany) in the years ahead.

 

[Derek Jackson]

one result would likely be a lot more dead British and American soldiers

 

[cimon]

Really now? he obviously meant the Western Powers not bears that been plotting a global revolution

Only reason Stalin even cooperated with the Democracies is because he needed it.

I would suggest you hold your horses a bit;USSR won the war on land and none else could and paid dearly for it...

Berlin was an objective without value in 1945...

 

[kalamona]

There is a slight chance, that if the Wallies reach Berlin, the defending forces start to melt away.
(Well, maybe not that slight).

 

[Locke01]

Really now? he obviously meant the Western Powers not bears that been plotting a global revolution

Only reason Stalin even cooperated with the Democracies is because he needed it.

Winston Churchill tried to strangle the Bolshevik revolution in its cradle, spent twenty odd years damning Stalin's regime at every turn, and then decided they were his best buddies as long as they were fighting Hitler. That's how it goes with international relations.

 

[CalBear]

Only if you ignore that the fall of Berlin did produce tangible benefits for the Soviets (ex: ending the war, the uranium). With that said, I would say it wasn't that the Soviets going after Berlin was idiotic*, but the whole rush they were in with it was. Of course, that requires Stalin being a less paranoid man... which is the same as all those PoDs which ask the Nazis to not be Nazis.

*And besides: what the hell else were they going to do with those armies anyways? They had enough forces in the Balkans and Czechoslovakia to finish up there already and any advance to the Elbe would mean heading in Berlin's direction so they might as well...

I will grant that somebody was going to have to take the losses in the end, but racing to take them was idiotic.

Berlin was worthless. Even the uranium was pretty much worthless (it wasn't like the Soviets had a gun type weapon sitting in the warehouse just waiting for the physics package) in any sort of long term view, it might have shaved six months off the RDS-1 test since it was used as the initial fuel for the USSR's first reactor (the U.S. wanted it mainly to deny it to the Soviets, not out of any serious need).

The sensible way to take the city would have been to grind it into dust 100 yards at a time with long range heavy artillery. Once a force surrounds a city there is no reason to spend lives by rushing into going house to house. Blow it to bits, cut off the water, if the remaining stores of food can be pinpointed using air reconnaissance destroy them and let the place wither on the vine. You will still take losses working the way in peeling the onion, but they will be considerably lower than rushing the defenses (the biggest losses with come from having to take the flak towers, there was nothing available at the time that could destroy them). For that matter make it a combined operation, using Bomber Command and 8th Air Force aircraft to supplement the bombardment. All this approach costs is time.