What if Germany did not invade Poland in 1939

raharris1973

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If Germany does not invade the rump Czechoslovakia or Poland, they must either restrict re-armament by 30% or collapse economically.

I get that the Germans looted Czech gold, but was Poland a rich source of loot from September 1939 to May 1940?

What if Hitler steals Czech gold but leaves Poland alone through 1939, only to attack France in spring 1940? While the Germans lack "practice" against the Poles, the French are getting hit with less time to prepare than during OTL's phony war. The Germans can attack west in a surprise attack.
 
I get that the Germans looted Czech gold, but was Poland a rich source of loot from September 1939 to May 1940?

What if Hitler steals Czech gold but leaves Poland alone through 1939, only to attack France in spring 1940? While the Germans lack "practice" against the Poles, the French are getting hit with less time to prepare than during OTL's phony war. The Germans can attack west in a surprise attack.

The Germans missed most of the Polish Gold, so attacking / delaying has little bearing.

What is more important, is the other nations only started moving Gold out after Poland.

From an strategic view, Denmark and Norway should be next. Better for the KM, and less time to move their Gold.

France can be next. Without the dress rehearsal of Poland. With the Netherlands separate if wanted.
 
It was suggested that if Germany did not invade Poland in 1939 the Baltic states would not have been drawn into the German sphere of influence for they did not fear the Soviets. But in the Spring of 1939 Lithuania surrendered the former German city of Memel to Germany without Hitler threatening to take it. They wished to get on Hitler’s good side in the hope of not being invaded. And this ploy almost worked because in the original Nazi-Soviet pact Lithuania was assigned to Germany. Ironically, of the three Baltic states, the Lithuanians were the least pro-German after 1919. Throughout the inter-war period (1919-1939) the Baltic States and Poland found themselves between a rock and a hard place. Historically these nations (especially Poland and Lithuania) were able to become great powers only when Germany and Russia were weak (1400-1740). But when Russia and Germany grew in power (1740-1914) Poland and the Baltic States were at their mercy. Austria and Prussia and Russia constantly whittled away at Polish and Baltic territories until they were absorbed by the Russians and Germans. After the First World War Russia and Germany were weak and the Baltic States and especially Poland tried to absorb as much territory as possible in an unrealistic attempt to restore their ancient “glory days.” But once Germany and Russia grew in strength in the 1930s, the Poles refused to recognize their situation, fooling themselves that they were a great power and could stand up to both Russia and Germany. By late 1938 the Poles were beginning to have a change of heart and moved toward Germany (I discussed how the Polish leaders and Goering had established a friendship), but it was Hitler’s foolish invasion of Bohemia and Moravia followed by Britain’s equally foolish carte blanc guarantee of their boarders caused the Poles to feel that they could survive without joining either the Soviets or the Germans. But if Hitler had remained reasonable and continued to acquire gains peacefully, as I explained in my original posting, the Poles and the Baltic States would have decided they had a better chance of surviving by allying themselves with the Nazis. Of course this assumption depends on one of two further assumptions; Hitler abandoned his goals of destroying the Polish and Baltic nationalities or delayed his plans for their demise until after he had invaded and conquered the Soviet Union. Its hard to predict what Hitler would have done because he did treat certain Slavic nations such as the Slovaks and the Croatians as loyal allies and claimed in the winter of 1938-39 that if the Poles accepted his offer of an alliance for the return of Danzig he would not have tried to destroy Poland as a people, though he would have annexed some territories, at the least those territories Germany lost to Poland in 1919, and there would have been an exchange of populations. Hitler had certain ideological objectives (the domination of the “Russian space” as the foundation of turning Germany into a world power, but he proved to be a pragmatic in how he tried to achieve this goal. This made him very unpredictable. If a nation joined Germany in an alliance and remained loyal, Hitler assured that it benefitted from their association, but if they turned on him he would not hesitate to destroy it, as in the case of Hungary. If Hitler was successful in making Germany the dominate power in Europe between 1939 and 1941 without resorting to war, he would have had access to whatever resources he needed, including Middle East oil. Even France would have had to eventually submit to the reality of trading with Germany. Under these circumstance there is no reason to believe that Germany would not have the resources he would have needed to invade the Soviet Union some time between 1941 and 1943. The next big question is–won’t Stalin have attacked Germany first?
 
Hitler (...) would have gotten everything he wanted,

Don't make the mistake to believe Hitler when he tells you what he wants.
What he really wanted was to invade the Soviet Union, in order to gain Lebensraum in the Ukraine. Eastern Poland also counted as Lebensraum.
So all the more restrained options don't make sense, because they are not springboards for the above.
 
But in the Spring of 1939 Lithuania surrendered the former German city of Memel to Germany without Hitler threatening to take it.
What?

Ribbentrop clearly told Juozas Urbšys that force would be used should Lithuania decline returning Klaipėda.

Paraphrasing Ribbentrop here: "If the Memelland is not returned to German hands, the German soldiers will march through the border and nobody knows where they'll stop". And the more German casualties there would be, the worse the situation for Lithuania would get.
 
I get that the Germans looted Czech gold, but was Poland a rich source of loot from September 1939 to May 1940?

What if Hitler steals Czech gold but leaves Poland alone through 1939, only to attack France in spring 1940? While the Germans lack "practice" against the Poles, the French are getting hit with less time to prepare than during OTL's phony war. The Germans can attack west in a surprise attack.

Poland provided a lot of food and quite some coal and iron. The Germans also sold captured Polish equipment to Finland, Sweden and Romania.

However, the main advantage for the Germans was probably the trade deal with the Soviets when they partitioned Eastern Europe with them.

Withou looting Poland, gaining the experience there and the raw materials from the Soviets, the German army will be weaker Spring 1940 than OTL and will need to keep more and better troops in the east to guard against a potential Polish backstab rather than the third line occupation troops they kept there OTL.

They will also be unable to afford the OTL expansion from 1939 to 1940.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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To answer the question of: What would have happened if Hitler did not ordered the invasion of Poland in September 1939, we have to first alter the events that lead up to the invasion of Poland.

To answer Regulus' idea expressed in the OP, I would say that Poland agreeing to German terms involving handover of territory or unrestricted right of troop passage is pretty implausible.

However, if Germany has separately crushed France, and now Poland's only alternatives to a deal with Germany are an alliance with a Britain that doesn't have much of an army or the Soviet Union, a deal with Germany, involving some Polish concessions, becomes much less implausible.
 
Augenis is right. Ribbentrop did threatened Juozas Urbšys, but Lithuania willing surrendered the ancient Baltic city after deciding that it would be better to be on Germany’s side. This decision was based not on a pro-German leaning on the part of the Lithuanian government, but out of fear of either Polish aggression or Soviet aggression. The Poles had desired to absorb all of Lithuania into their enlarged Polish state ever since it was established in 1919 and even invaded and annexed the historical Lithuanian capital, Vilnius (Vilnia). The point to be made here is that faced with the choice of a resurgent German power or eventual submission to the Soviet Union (or possible Polish aggression) the Lithuanians chose to appease the Germans. The lost of the city of Memel to Germany (which was a German populated city) was better than complete annexation by Poland or the Soviets. In the scenario that I have mapped out, the Lithuanians, as well as other East European nations, faced with an impotent France and an uninterested Britain would have had not choice other than align themselves with Germany. During this period (1940-1941) the possibility that Britain would have suffered a political crisis due to Chamberlain’s death from cancer, the British Conservative Party would have been divided in the fall of 1940 and elections might have been called. Its impossible to predict whether or not the Conservatives could have retain control over the government or if the Labor party would replace them, but the most likely outcome would have been a victory by a weakened and divided Conservative party.
At the same time, France would have been crippled politically. I suggested that the worst case scenario for France would have been the descend into civil war, but most likely the political situation would have resulted in political paralysis. The Socialists and Communists would have advocated a Franco-Soviet alliance, but this would have been unrealistic given the fact that France was surrounded and isolated in Western Europe. Those most likely outcome would have been have been a government made up of a coalition of Republicans, Nationalist and supported by the French Army, which would have sort a non-aggression pact with Germany, giving Hitler what he wanted–a free hand to invade the Soviet Union without fear of France attacking Germany in the west. This would have set up a situation in which Germany and her Eastern European allies, could attack the Soviet Union in 1941, not from the 1941 boarders in Our Time Line, but from the 1939 boarders.
 
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