What if...Hitler Waited?

Old Airman

Banned
The matter of whever an attack was planned for March 1942 or July 1941 is another one, thought Suvorov isn´t the only one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin's_Missed_Chance
Meltyukhov is more-or-less firmly in "anti-rezunist" camp and admits that main reason behind his promotion of "First Strike" theory had been to gain visibility in the community.

So, what do you mean peacefully absorb?
I'd say that achieving complete economic dominance in Central and Eastern Europe qualifies as "peaceful absorbtion" in my book. And I can certainly see Baltics, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria being as "independent" from Germany ITTL as 1st Slovakia was IOTL.
 
A more patient Germany can probably get favorable results and keep them, but eventually run into solid Allied opposition and have no choice to continue its expansion without war.

In OTL, Germany annexed Austria and bullied Lithuania out of the Memelland without the threat of a general war. In this kind of counterfactual, I'd look at Germany grabbing all of Lithuania and, when the chips go down in Yugoslavia, being able to grab Slovenia as well.

The Poles backed, in OTL, a plan to replace the administration of Danzig with a joint-German/Polish arrangement. Bargains and horsetrades with the Poles might potentially lead to some kind of return of the city itself, although the deal would have to leave Poland with its own port.

The big twist is that Germany would get to keep these gains. The Entente and Germany aren't friends, but it would be hard to argue that Germany's actions were baseless expansion--Austria is mostly German, and Lithuania is a small, distant country promised to Germany in Brest-Litovsk. Slovenia has major historical ties to Austria, and its absorption into Germany would probably not cause any major headaches either.

Hitler dies in 1950. A more conservative and moderate leader keeps the peace, and the spoils, of Hitler's actions. It is far from certain that there will be no world war, but it may well be the pure suckitude the Soviet Union becomes that starts the conflict. After all, Stalin would have killed well over ten million of his people with no war of survival to vindicate the sacrifice. NKVD Terror has remained in force for over two decades, and while Stalin is safe in a state that kills its own as none has before, the Soviet People simply hate the Vozd.

Once Stalin passes on, as he well might on an OTL timescale, the game is probably up, and the Soviet Union is left as being simply a police state hated by its own people, facing endless economic loss as slave labor and forced industrialization push widespread misery on the people.

Whatever happens in the endgame of the Soviet Union will profoundly change the balance of power in the world, probably to the point where the second world war starts with a race to collect the spoils.
 
Hitler dies in 1950. A more conservative and moderate leader keeps the peace, and the spoils, of Hitler's actions. It is far from certain that there will be no world war, but it may well be the pure suckitude the Soviet Union becomes that starts the conflict.

But the Soviets were absolutely shitless at the prospect of a capitalist alliance of the kind that might be cultivated by a patient, gradual German economic-political re-assertion in Central Europe.

After all, Stalin would have killed well over ten million of his people with no war of survival to vindicate the sacrifice. NKVD Terror has remained in force for over two decades, and while Stalin is safe in a state that kills its own as none has before, the Soviet People simply hate the Vozd.

That ain't how it was OTL. The cult of Stalin was pervasive and effective. Stalin himself being almost invisible as he spent so much time depe in the administrative aparatus of his domain, he wasn't associated with the mistakes and abuse of all those interventionists and traitorous courtiers that surrounded him. There are many letters written to Stalin in all apparent earnesty from GULAG, asking for a redress of grievance.

Once Stalin passes on, as he well might on an OTL timescale, the game is probably up, and the Soviet Union is left as being simply a police state hated by its own people, facing endless economic loss as slave labor and forced industrialization push widespread misery on the people.

Forced industrialisation was winding down by the late 1930s OTL, and had managed to not destroy the USSR at its height. What the USSR actually has are a population which whatever their disillusionment with the realities of the system are overwhelming likely to declare themselves "Soviet", "communist", and "loyal to Stalin"; and a frightening amount of stuff destroyed by the war. Cities, dams, tractors, industrial capacity that could have built dams and tractors and not tanks, weapons that was destroyed, children that couldn't be born, uncountable lives. This all provides a much greater economic "margin of error" than OTL, and the USSR may not end up so heavily committed to an analogous "Cold War", with all the disastrously expensive willy-waving that implies. It certainly has no Warpac leeches.

And yet we are expected to believe that the collapse which took an economic exhaustion coming on the back of the GPW and the Cold War combined with political disillusionment which arose in the 1970s will come by the 1960s at the latest, simply because without being victims of attempted genocide, nobody will have any time for the Soviet system, despite the clear evidence that most of the population in the 40s would have considered themselves Soviet communists? This being based on the prtety much provably false assertion that people hated Stalin until they hated Hitler more, when they loved Stalin?

People hated being sent to GULAG or the ear-of-wheat law or whatever aspect of everyday shittiness you like, but there were few who, given the stark choice, wanted the USSR replaced with a gaggle of non-communist states. This gives the USSR a stronger PR situation than, say, most European colonies.
 
Originally posted by Blue Max
The Poles backed, in OTL, a plan to replace the administration of Danzig with a joint-German/Polish arrangement. Bargains and horsetrades with the Poles might potentially lead to some kind of return of the city itself, although the deal would have to leave Poland with its own port.

Poland build its own port in Gdynia in 1930s precisely because it was affraid of loosing its privileges in Danzig - which, BTW did not belong to Poland, but was a Free City. It is possible for Poland to give up their claims to Danzig, if Germany guarantees freedom of Polish commerce there. It is also necessary to make some gesture to help Polish government save its face - a plebiscite, perhaps, and official recognition of Polish-German borders by Germany.

The Entente and Germany aren't friends, but it would be hard to argue that Germany's actions were baseless expansion--Austria is mostly German, and Lithuania is a small, distant country promised to Germany in Brest-Litovsk. Slovenia has major historical ties to Austria, and its absorption into Germany would probably not cause any major headaches either.

Yes about Austria, not necessarily so about Lithuania. After all it was promised to Germans by the Soviets, treaty of Brest-Litovsk was dead a year after signing it, and now Lithuania is independent. OTOH, Germany did not take whole Lithuania. And trying to take Slovenia means conflict with whole Yugoslavia and possibly Italy too, since Rome had its own apetites there. Not to mention the fact, that Germany takes lands "historically tied" with it, while ethnically separate, is not something France would like. Alsace-Lorraine, anybody?
 
@IBC:

I do wonder about that margin. Stalin was planning his own holocaust (IE, Doctors Plot) before his death in the 1950s. Stalin was pretty much forced to cut back on his extreme levels of oppression to win the war against the Nazis.

No threat from Germany, a Satiated Poland, Friendly Romania and dedicated neutrals Turkey and Finland on their borders, and Stalin has a secure situation even if Germany makes small moves.

So, no specter of war, because Hitler doesn't threaten it, and the Poles are intact.

Why would Stalin curb his political oppression in this environment? And furthermore, why would Stalin remain "Above it all". This is going to mean a whole additional decade of uninterrupted hardship and misery to the Soviet People. The Soviet Union won't be blasted to pieces by German invaders, instead, it'll crush its own ideals in ever proliferating gulags and intensifying NKVD terror.

I don't think that Stalin would remain loved in this scenario. The stronger economy also has no justification for what would probably be larger abuses than OTL. This would mean more hellish cities built in places with horrible climate so rapidly that toilets are not available, while an increasingly insane general secretary continues his never ending quest to purge the Soviet Union of his enemies.

Stalin is going to kill more of his own people if Hitler doesn't try his luck. The loss is, though, Stalin is the heart of the whole Soviet Ideology.
 
I have often seen the "economy would collapse" arguement brought up for situations like this, but I have never seen it convincingly explained. It seems to be a popular way to claim that all sorts of things that diverge from OTL are impossible without having to go into specifics of why that is so.
Fair point. To be specific, the Nazi pre-war economic was threatening to blow up around 1939 because:
- Most of its development had been based on short term loans, both foreign and domestic. Without a war, someone will want these to be paid, and failure to pay on any basis will harm the economy
- Germany's imports had become a bit wonky as a result of buying up materials to build the war machine. This eat up foreign exchange reserves, which exacerbates other problems. This was one motivator to grab other countries gold reserves.
- One of the results of the lop-sided import program was Nazi Germany was bordering on a crisis in agriculture. Agriculture had been a problem prior to the Nazi takeover, but I don't think anything was done to reform it. Now, instead of importing things the general public wanted (butter), the government opted for guns. But, with such poor returns from agriculture sooner or later the Germans might be forced to change the balance.
- Industry while not on a war footing, was stretched quite thin. Some of the bad designs/decisions that came out of the Nazi war economy in the late 1930s weren't simply politics, but a question of trying to build a lot in a short period of time. This ate up resources that were needed for the industrial base.

Ian Kershaw cover the economic issues of 1939 as an aside to his biography of Hitler. IIRC Hans Mommsen goes into more detail.

If they were able to build up their armed forces strongly in times of war with all sorts of blockades/bombings/restrictions, why would it be so much more difficult in peace? The only advantage the war-era Germany has is the resources from occupied territories, but I was under the impression that these were few in number and that many more could have been obtained through regular trade.
War-time Germany could freeze outstanding loans, was using foreign factories and labour for production (Czech tank factories were put to work for example) and could acquire resources relatively easily (not 100% sure but it might have cut down on any market fluctuations in material prices). Blockade had little impact because unlike WWI Germany was getting most of its resources from Central/Eastern Europe. Bombing wasn't effectively disrupting the economy until fairly late in the war. Several of the resources gained through conquest/wartime alliance, it should be noted, were not really available domestically (oil and certain rare minerals used in alloys being commonly noted).

So yes, Germany's economic situation in 1939 wasn't too good and had the Nazis continued their policies much longer it probably would have lead to a collapse. Alternatively they could initiate cut backs, institute reforms and invest in other sectors of the economy... but for the purposes of the ATL, that means the Wehrmacht doesn't get to be unstoppable/huge, shiny wonder weapons are not built etc. I'm not even sure how the Nazi party faithful would react to a radical, and long term, turn against core tennants of the party and it's program.

Never mind that the Allies (including the Soviet Union) won't be sitting on their hands during proceedings. Unlike Nazi Germany their economic and industrial limitations only get lighter with time.
 
If Hitler had been a little smarter, he would've waited until at least 1944 or 1945 before starting the war. The Z-Plan would've born its fruit, the Luftwaffe would be flying Me-262's and Arado 234's, German radar and tanks would be more advanced and the Super U-boats would be operational.

And Germany would have been broke...
 
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