What if Hitler kept generalplan-ost a secret?

[Sacer Bubonicus]

China was too weak to do anything and too busy getting buttblasted by Japan.

Turkey was too weak and still remembered the time when the Imperial Russian Army broke through the Caucasus and got halfway to Ankara before they got distracted by the October Revolution.(1) A rematch would go very badly for Turkey and the Turks knew that, which is why they wisely stayed out of the war.

Finland was already fighting the Soviets.(2)

Japan was too busy trying to put down China while also preparing for an apocalyptic showdown with the ABCD powers(3), so they had zero interest in opening up yet another front against a foe that happened to have much better/more everything than them, especially tanks. The Japanese didn't enter the Axis with the idea that the three powers would help each other achieve victory in each others' respective areas. They went in with the idea that Germany and Italy were going to cause a big ruckus in Europe and keep the British and French tied down while Japan broke in through the back door and made off with their colonies. Helping them was never part of the plan, as Hitler found out when they made no response to his pleas for them to attack and tie down Soviet forces in Siberia while he was doing Operation Barbarossa. Hitler then tried it again by declaring war on America after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and he still got no response. I think that demonstrates just how firmly they did not want a war with the Soviets at the time, despite having an anticommunist hateboner possibly stronger than the Nazis' on account of the whole god-emperor thing.

As for Poland, I leave that to someone with more knowledge of the situation there.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus_campaign
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABCD_line

Aside from all that, your eagerness for this scenario to somehow play out is beginning to get quite unseemly.

 

[itsamegg]

China was too weak to do anything and too busy getting buttblasted by Japan.

Turkey was too weak and still remembered the time when the Imperial Russian Army broke through the Caucasus and got halfway to Ankara before they got distracted by the October Revolution.(1) A rematch would go very badly for Turkey and the Turks knew that, which is why they wisely stayed out of the war.

Finland was already fighting the Soviets.(2)

Japan was too busy trying to put down China while also preparing for an apocalyptic showdown with the ABCD powers(3), so they had zero interest in opening up yet another front against a foe that happened to have much better/more everything than them, especially tanks. The Japanese didn't enter the Axis with the idea that the three powers would help each other achieve victory in each others' respective areas. They went in with the idea that Germany and Italy were going to cause a big ruckus in Europe and keep the British and French tied down while Japan broke in through the back door and made off with their colonies. Helping them was never part of the plan, as Hitler found out when they made no response to his pleas for them to attack and tie down Soviet forces in Siberia while he was doing Operation Barbarossa. Hitler then tried it again by declaring war on America after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and he still got no response. I think that demonstrates just how firmly they did not want a war with the Soviets at the time, despite having an anticommunist hateboner possibly stronger than the Nazis' on account of the whole god-emperor thing.

As for Poland, I leave that to someone with more knowledge of the situation there.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus_campaign
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War
(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABCD_line

Aside from all that, your eagerness for this scenario to somehow play out is beginning to get quite unseemly.

Was just curious really, trust me I'm very glad it didn't happen this way.

 

[Gannt the chartist]

When was this? By 1941 Junkers was employing as many women they could to help production, as other factories later on would do.

That is clearly not true, a quick search would give results that easily place a minimum of a million women working in factories with the number of employed/conscripted women rising higher the war progressed. (And why couldn't it be higher than the UK or US? Compared to those 2 countries Germany had a significant lack of manpower to work in factories + many workers would be conscripted for the front in 1941-43, which left little choices for alternatives - given the establishment of Women Auxiliaries - )

The number of women employed in german 'Industrial production' is never lower that 3.5 million and in agriculture around 5.5 million with another 3 million split between domestic service and administration from 39 - 45.

The question then is what is industrial production in germany. Outside the relatively modern aircraft assembly plants which still do things on a workshop basis its comparatively small scale and inefficient. Taking the aircraft sector Germany dedicates about the same number of people (and if you believe Willi Messerschmidt 5-6 times as many people) as either the British or US who massively outproduce them and at higher levels of sophistication and quality.


The Nazis and Speer may have lots of views on the proper role of women and what workforce is needed. But the Nazi hierarchy are poorly educated fantasists and Speer the guy that renovated Nazi party HQ in Berlin and did the set decoration for Nazi Party rallies not exactly intellectual giants or brilliant industrialists and its hardly surprising that these bear no relation to reality.

The Hungerplan was not just roving German units requisitioning food á la Napoleonic legions. It was the systematic confiscation of food on a bureaucratic level in order to feed not only combat units but the civilian population of Germany deemed worthy enough to be fed at a standard rate. Plans for it were drawn up and carried out by the economic ministry, which the Green Folder shows. So I don't think it had any correlation at all with the German soldier's specific rate of advance.

The Hunger plan is never implemented, The Discussions are in May 41 and all about what needs to happen in three years time. In May 41 the concept is the war will be won in the east by September.

Prior to that Victory the actions are entirely Army actions and they simply do not have the transport (or the food and fodder) to move stuff from Germany to the Front So yes they are roving around for food like Napoleons army but not as fast outside the motorised troops. The war diaries of several units and the correspondence home of all ranks make this quite clear. This continues at least into late 42 and probably the whole war ( 42 is specifically mentioned in 6th Army and AGS war diaries from the start of Blue. )

I would Suggest reading Rutherfords, Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front - The German Infantry War 1941-44.

 

[Veiovis]

Obligatory reminder that the germans were greeted a "liberators" predominantly in territories that were only very recently conquered and annexed by the Soviets. Once they entered the parts of the Union which were part of it before 1939, any such activity very sharply fell off, for pretty obvious reasons. I dunno if western ukraine and the baltics being kept on board longer ( somehow. The difficulties in actually achiving this were pointed out by others) would amount to very much.

 

[Crueldwarf]

Historically, the so called Russian Liberation Army, made up of former soviet POWs that fought for Nazi Germany, managed to peak at around 120,000 troops in April 1945, despite the fact that it was formed in 1944 and only after everyone from Kiev to Vladivostok knew that the Nazis meant bad things for anyone who wasn't German.
It would reason to me that if they just kept a leash on the SS and army (just wait a few years then you can murder them all) they could get far more defections, and it could be just enough to make a significant change, maybe even enough to be decisive.

What do you guys think?

The issue with Russian Liberation Army and other similar formation recruited from the peoples of the Soviet Union is rather simple: basically all of them (with maybe an exception for some of the units raised from the Baltic states) horribly sucked at fighting in general and they especially sucked at fighting Soviet regular units. There is a reason why vast majority of armed collaborators were sent to man fortifications of the Atlantic Wall or were used to hunt partisans across the Eastern Europe.

So much vaunted Russian Liberation Army fought Soviets exactly once and only after quite a bit of coercion and threats from the German commander they were formally subordinated to. And what happened then? Single combat-ready division of RLA fought for one day and decided that it was enough and simply deserted as entire unit. And it was behavior prevalent among collaborator formations, the mere prospect of fighting Red Army regulars usually compelled them to desert or outright switch sides.

Even Ukrainians are getting really unfair rep because it always go in such threads how they greeted Germans as liberators and fought Soviets with them. But in practice maybe a hundred thousand Ukrainians fought for Germans while literal millions were fighting for the Soviets. It puts things into perspective. Even for Baltics you can say that more people from the former Baltic republics fought on the Soviet side than on the German one (even if the ratio is not so pronounced as in Ukrainian case),