Who would win a 1939 War: German Polish Alliance vs Soviet Union

Who wins?

  • Germany and Poland win a total victory early

    Votes: 2 1.2%
  • Germany and Poland have early success, get bogged down, but eventually win a total victory

    Votes: 19 11.2%
  • Germany and Poland have early success, get bogged down, but eventually win a limited victory

    Votes: 81 47.6%
  • Stalemate

    Votes: 8 4.7%
  • The Soviets eventually win a total victory

    Votes: 31 18.2%
  • The Soviets eventually win a limited victory

    Votes: 29 17.1%

  • Total voters
    170
"Nazi gold". Sure, at the end of the war, there was such a thing, though not in the amounts some sensationalists would make you believe. The problem is that during OTL war, the Germans overran multiple wealthy countries, latying their hands on part of the gold reserves of several of them, not counting privately owned gold (which is actually small fry in comparison with the bullion in the national banks' vaults).
In this ATL, that applies only to the Czechoslovakian gold reserve. The Poles are independent allies and get to keep their gold - at least until the Germans don't stab them in the back. The Soviet gold is immensely out of reach. Everyone else is at peace.

What you need to look up and read through is things like the reason why Schacht was fired as President of the Reichsbank at the beginning of 1939. You need to learn about what the MeFo bills were. The 1940 partial default on state bonds I already mentioned. Have you ever bought a car paying it on instalments? Well, today they give you the car and then you finish paying it off on a monthly basis. From 1937 on, tens of thousands of German families began paying for their "people's car" - a VW. But they would be delivered their car at the end of the payment. Guess what, the VW production was entirely allocated to the armed forces. Were the Germans given their money back, do you think?



the Germans did not have a problem with food feeding their people and Poland feeding its people will not be a problem considering what they are doing to millions of their own people f****** Nazis they're having a food surplus.

Well. The first group, in numbers, of civilians killed by the Germans and their allies are the Soviets. A part of the Soviet citizens so killed were killed by starvation or diseases caused/worsened by malnutrition within the German lines. But the rest of them died in that way beyond the German lines (for instance, in the city sieges), and large numbers of them died in bombings, bombardments, and battles. I.e., most of them died in a way that did not amount to a saving of foodstuffs for the Axis.
Then there are the Jews and Roma. In this ATL, first you have to detract the Yugoslavian, Greek, Hungarian, Dutch, French, Belgian, Italian Jews. The Polish Jews are a special case; Poland is an Axis ally, but several Axis allies in OTL, as long as they maintained some autonomy from Germany, did not send their citizens to the slaughter. They discriminated and harassed their Jewish citizens, but did not mass murder them. This includes Italy up to 1943, Romania as long as its own citizens were concerned (Soviet Jews in occupied territory were another matter), Hungary as long as Horthy was in charge, Bulgaria all the time, etc. So it's a distinct possibility the Polish Jews are discriminated, harassed, occasionally victimized by pogroms, and poorly fed - but not outright massacred. Ditto for the Romanians, only even more so since it's not a given Romani joins in.
This leaves the German and Austrian Jews, less than one million, and the Czech Jews.
Not a big saving.

And Germany, in OTL, was short on food. In about one year (mid-1940 to June 1941) they imported 1.6 million tons of foodstuffs from the Soviet Union. Do you reckon that that's the purchase of a country that is not running a food deficit? Note a sizable consumption of grains/cereals wasn't for humans. It was for horses. If you want strong horses always ready to deal with artillery limbers and supply wagons, you need to feed them oats and the like, not just grass. And the Heer relied on horses for this until the end in OTL. It will be even more reliant on horses in the 1939-1941 time frame of this ATL.
I could go on with plenty examples you clearly have never heard about.

I honestly believe Finland, Romania and the Baltic states will join the war a few months into it.I have already made my arguments about this.

Yes, poor arguments.

keeping the SS back in Germany so no war crimes gives you a lot of Russian and Ukrainian partisans.

Sigh. I don't know how to tell you this, but the Heer was thigh-deep in war crimes in the East, too. On top of that, there's the food issue. The Ostheer fed itself by stealing bread from the Ukrainians' tables. That's not going to endear them, even assuming there is no generalized war crimes policy.

and this is my last statement on this thread.

That's a good idea. One needs to read before he can write. I suggest to you:

Overy, Why the Allies Won
Overy, War and Economy in the Third Reich
Tooze, The Wages of Destruction
Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle
 
Hard to see why exactly Finland or the Baltic states would ally themselves with Poland and Germany. There isn’t that much to gain from it.

If anything, I’d expect the Baltic states to be wary of renewed German domination in Estonia and Latvia, and Polish in Lithuania. Baltische Landeswehr was still remembered, and not very fondly. Poland occupied Lithuanian capital and Germany had plans for Memel. Baltics might make nice with the Axis by staying neutral, but alliance is probably out of the question. Unless they start feeling that they would otherwise be next after Soviet downfall.

As for Finland, they owed much of their independence to Germans, with certain caveats, and had good relationship with Poland. They also had some territorial ambitions in Karelia, but by 1939 this had simmered down considerably. Finland was at that point staunchly democratic and were ideologically aligned with France, UK and the US. They also had very underequipped military, not really fit for any large scale offensive into USSR. So, no will or means to help the Axis out = Finland will sit at the sidelines.

If the Soviet Union breaks up at some point, it is conceivable that the Baltics would try to adjust borders and Finns might move into Karelia.
 
Hard to see why exactly Finland or the Baltic states would ally themselves with Poland and Germany. There isn’t that much to gain from it.

If anything, I’d expect the Baltic states to be wary of renewed German domination in Estonia and Latvia, and Polish in Lithuania. Baltische Landeswehr was still remembered, and not very fondly. Poland occupied Lithuanian capital and Germany had plans for Memel. Baltics might make nice with the Axis by staying neutral, but alliance is probably out of the question. Unless they start feeling that they would otherwise be next after Soviet downfall.

As for Finland, they owed much of their independence to Germans, with certain caveats, and had good relationship with Poland. They also had some territorial ambitions in Karelia, but by 1939 this had simmered down considerably. Finland was at that point staunchly democratic and were ideologically aligned with France, UK and the US. They also had very underequipped military, not really fit for any large scale offensive into USSR. So, no will or means to help the Axis out = Finland will sit at the sidelines.

If the Soviet Union breaks up at some point, it is conceivable that the Baltics would try to adjust borders and Finns might move into Karelia.

I agree with everything above, but I'd like to point out that the OP posits the German-Polish attack on the SU in mid-late 1939. Bad timing, weather-wise, but that said, one has to assume that Klaipeda (Memel) already is part of East Prussia (March 1939). It's not just future "plans", it's done. Unilateral annexation.

Another reason for the Lithuanians to hate the German-Polish team. The other reason is, of course, that the same has happened to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, back in 1922. It's in Poland in 1939, and the Lithuanians do not even have diplomatic relations with Poland because of that.
 

thaddeus

Donor
"Nazi gold". Sure, at the end of the war, there was such a thing, though not in the amounts some sensationalists would make you believe. The problem is that during OTL war, the Germans overran multiple wealthy countries, latying their hands on part of the gold reserves of several of them, not counting privately owned gold (which is actually small fry in comparison with the bullion in the national banks' vaults).
In this ATL, that applies only to the Czechoslovakian gold reserve. The Poles are independent allies and get to keep their gold - at least until the Germans don't stab them in the back. The Soviet gold is immensely out of reach. Everyone else is at peace.

my understanding they actually had more gold pre-war, pre-annexations, than known but of course they would need every gram of it. thought they really had to have the Polish coal reserves? (and without paying for them) both for use in natural form and feedstock for the synthetic oil plants?

And Germany, in OTL, was short on food. In about one year (mid-1940 to June 1941) they imported 1.6 million tons of foodstuffs from the Soviet Union. Do you reckon that that's the purchase of a country that is not running a food deficit? Note a sizable consumption of grains/cereals wasn't for humans. It was for horses. If you want strong horses always ready to deal with artillery limbers and supply wagons, you need to feed them oats and the like, not just grass. And the Heer relied on horses for this until the end in OTL. It will be even more reliant on horses in the 1939-1941 time frame of this ATL.

thanks for pointing this out, really forget about the horses when considering the foodstuffs. they really were in a vicious cycle? take the horses off the farm(s) and you still must feed them, but you have (severely) harmed farm production.
 
my understanding they actually had more gold pre-war, pre-annexations, than known but of course they would need every gram of it. thought they really had to have the Polish coal reserves? (and without paying for them) both for use in natural form and feedstock for the synthetic oil plants?

I don't know. Sure, I know they extensively used Polish coal for the synth oil plants, but that's later in the war, and here we're looking at something that will sputter to a halt by late 1941. So I don't know how indispensable that coal was in 1940.

thanks for pointing this out, really forget about the horses when considering the foodstuffs. they really were in a vicious cycle? take the horses off the farm(s) and you still must feed them, but you have (severely) harmed farm production.

Yes.
 
The USSR remains gigantic, with tremendous strategic depth, and an infrastructure of factories and refineries set up in defiance of capitalist logic but quite strategically sound east of the Urals.

Germany and Poland, even with the Baltic states (and probably not Finland) glommed onto the bandwagon, remain far less comprehensively capable of autarky than Hitler's Reich as of 1941 OTL, with far less manpower.

It is just absurd to me people think the Reich has a snowball's chance in hell in the long run. In the short run, sure maybe they can do say half as well as OTL Barbarossa.

The Soviet Union does not require Lend Lease from anyone, does not require anyone bomb the Germans from the west (Poland and the Baltics are way out of bombing range from Britain or France anyway). They will absorb the blow, hold it, and come back to grind the Reich and its allies into fine powder. Questions of whether the Anglo-French Entente, clothed in the tatters of the League of Nations or just nakedly operating on their direct imperial power, will actually side with the Axis and in effect join it are relevant to whether the Reich can even survive--but I think domestic politics in the two satisfied imperiums will block active aid on more than a private basis to the Reich.

As for Romania being "sure" to trade oil to the Germans and hence Poles...for what, exactly? I think it is quite possible that the Romanians will instead look at the Soviet colossus, think twice and thrice, and seek Anglo-French Entente support instead, and sit it out arming themselves as best they can.

The USA might be unlikely to enter the war on anyone' side...but US industry will be keen to sell products to those who can pay, which is to say mainly the Entente.

With POD as late as 1939, there is no reason to doubt both France and Britain have awoken from their interwar slumber, when official British policy was that "no major war will occur for a decade," with the starting point of the "decade" moving forward constantly through the 1920s and early '30s, and also it was assumed the adversary would then be--France! But by the time of the OTL Czechoslovakia crisis, both Britain and France were seriously rearming again--Chamberlain just felt that Britain had not been at it long enough to risk a war with Germany--in 1938. I do suppose he sincerely thought the Munich Accord dismembering that poor country (but not giving the remnant of Czechia to the Reich outright--that seizure was a violation of the Accord) had in fact satisfied Hitler and bought "peace in our time," and if Hitler had in fact as the joke goes "met a nice Jewish girl and settled down" the Entente rearmament would have slacked off.

But not right away! Globally, the whole world, even the Entente empires (and the smaller fry imperialists, Netherlands and Belgium) which had control of their colonial empires to buffer things were still knocked flat and reeling from the 1929 Crash. Basically the nature of the great crisis was that private investors had been burned badly. It was not that they had no capital to reinvest and get the industrial wheels turning and the engine of production firing on all cylinders again--it was rather that they lacked confidence anyone would be in a position to buy the products of full production again, and the investments would give a poor or even negative return, again. So the surviving capitalist fat was sat on, not invested, and workers went desperately hungry unless fed by state dole. Most people had jobs, sort of, but poorly paid, and the number of people with zero regular employment made them a serious political bloc one way or another--the usual depression of such people blaming themselves did not apply, anyone could see the larger system had failed and it was not the fault of a person on hard times probably that they were so desperate.

In this context, preparation for war was a pure win, economically speaking. The finance to pay for the cost of the materiel and feeding expanded armies and navies was there, it just needed to be ferreted out of rich hands. It is actually to the credit of the liberal powers they did not mobilize to go to fratricidal war with each other in the face of war as the obvious solution. This is more or less exactly what Japan was doing of course, from quite early in the Depression. The impression Germans and foreigners got that fascism worked depended in great part on Mussolini and Hitler driving the march to war by commanding the finance to get the munitions works going and thus bootstrap the entire civil economy back up again--though Italy having late acquired and largely useless colonies (apparently Libyan oil was not discovered yet) and Germany having no colonies whatsoever, both were tightly constrained by limited domestic resources.

But spurred into buildup by the threat of the rising Reich, Britain and France both stood to gain domestically by buildup. In milder form than the quid pro quo that mollified Italian and German wealth owners, the stagnated monied classes of Western Europe would clearly be reaping back most or even more than the money taxed away from them when their factories started churning out munitions, along with other lines of business now catering to a much more effective demand as arms factory workers at last had reliable paychecks to purchase their vital needs with and perhaps start buying some long deferred optional purchases too.

Men conscripted or otherwise recruited into the military of course are no longer on the dole or unemployment lines; they aren't much of a consumer market but they are being fed and issued uniforms which represents serious demand in itself. Their families might suffer on their meager pay, of course the tendency is to draft the young first--but "paradoxically" (if one still has a naive faith in the rationality of capitalism anyway--it has rationality all right, just not the humane one most of us have been propagandized to believe in) during the Depression, at the very time the traditional male wage worker had the toughest time finding work, women were employed (at even lower wages of course) in droves. This is one of the things the Nazis promised to "free" Germany from, the propaganda was that women could go ahead and marry their boyfriends already because the Aryan order would make sure their men had jobs. Well, they did have jobs, and they were taking home bigger paychecks--at lower hourly wages than before the Depression set in; higher incomes were mainly from working lots of overtime. But the women did not lose their jobs (nor could the families, promises notwithstanding, afford for them to quit)--they did however get married. The Nazis basically wound up making it respectable, or anyway normal, for both parents to work.

So rising military recruitments did not mean starving families because the women had to step in to take the emerging jobs anyway.

So had Hitler behaved and satisfied himself with ruling all the Germans (well, there were always more, in pockets here and there throughout eastern Europe actually) I suppose the surge in British and French arms would have slacked off, but not instantly.

As things are instead, both OTL and here, with Germany clearly actually meaning it about going to war just like it said in Mein Kampf, clearly the need for both imperial powers (and the Dutch, dunno about Belgium, I am not aware of any remarkable Belgian weapons systems built in the later '30s, but the Dutch had quite innovative works going, making highly advanced submarines and of course the Fokker firm making pretty good aircraft) to actually have arms and men on hand kept the arms based recovery going without any political stopping point.

The USA would not sit this out. OTL, looking at the monster the Reich had become, the French and British felt they had maxed out their self-arming capacity already, and turned to the USA for major purposes of weapons systems as well as stuff like grain and other food. With no U-boats preying on them (OTL, Hitler refused to allow a major buildup of U-boats before the war, hoping to sweet talk the British into standing aside; without a DOW between the powers either he prudently continues to avoid provoking the British, or, believing that wartime controlled Germany is opaque enough to get away with anything, authorizes them belatedly--but British intelligence was quite good and they'd know about it, which would turn more British leading opinion against the notion of working with the Reich and more toward eventual war being in the cards) trade with the USA has no hazards and no impediments, and the American private actors would be quite keen to supply the market. America Firsters would be sounding the alarm against a repeat of US involvement in the Great War and against financing the Entente, but the Entente is not actually at war yet and can afford to just buy what they can afford year to year, and both FDR and a substantial US bloc of capitalists would be in favor of aiding the Entente offsetting the AF lobby.

Giving the Soviets Lend Lease is probably a political stinker FDR would avoid, but more subtle good offices, permitting the Soviets to purchase stuff on the private market without restriction, diplomatic support--this sort of stuff I think the administration could get away with and FDR still be reelected handily in 1940. Perhaps all these latter day Axis fanbois I see coming out of the woodwork here forget just how popular FDR was, how beloved the New Deal was, how many American voters feared the return of the Republicans they perceived (with great justice, IMHO) had dropped the ball so spectacularly in the onset of the Depression and left the American working people twisting in the wind, with stuff like the shooting of the Bonus Marchers still quite current in their minds.

In reality, US recovery was happening in the late '30s, and, as a humanist I say sadly, mainly due to the buildup of war and preparation for war. But as noted, partial militarization of the USA would be domestically OK certainly under the rubric of "preparation" and "armed neutrality." As things were the consensus for the USN being "second to none" had prevailed for generations by this point, and behold the RN, the main benchmark of comparison, is perforce building up; the IJN is an objective threat; even the French navy is becoming a major thing. Add to this the quite fashionable notion that air power is the new key to success, again shown here in fanboyism about the alleged effectiveness of OTL Western allied bombing campaigns; building up US air power is quite politically fashionable at this point.

The USA may not actually enter the war, assuming the Japanese are distracted. But aside from the fact that Japan would still need resources from the tropics they simply cannot get in conquests from the maritime Soviet Union, and can obtain only by either purchasing them or by seizing their sources, I also think that the notion the USSR is a paper tiger is even more absurd on the Pacific front than in Europe. With the Soviets distracted by a fight for their lives in the far west, the Soviet far east might be scanted of priority and therefore the Japanese might temporarily enjoy successes they did not OTL...but eventually the western front will stabilize, Soviet industry and recruitment and military competence will shake down, and reinforcements will come east to take back any losses, and double down on the OTL support of the Chinese and direct front line steamrollering the Japanese on land. Indeed as OTL, the Soviets might find a de facto truce with Japan advantageous--but only on the terms of dislodging Japan from any ill gotten gains. Certainly the "northern strategy" is a flash in the pan here and Japan's warlords will face a dire situation all the more starkly. A strike southward seems inevitable to me, that or the collapse of the Japanese rule by the army. But the literally gung-ho Japanese army lobby sees no reason, and is willing to assassinate any opposition; on paper the Emperor is inviolate but first of all there is ample reason to doubt Hirohito's good sense, and second--I don't think even an Emperor's firm will will override the banzai spirit of these middle officer types. If he were allowed to issue a firm stand down order, as after Nagasaki OTL, that is one thing, but I think he might turn up tragically dead, no doubt killed by wicked foreigners, before being allowed to issue such an order should it seem vital to him to attempt to do so.

The reason it is more insane than OTL for them to strike south at the DEI and other targets held by European imperialists seems obvious enough; if the Entente is not embroiled in full on war with Hitler in Europe, they can clearly give a lot more attention to defending their possessions in southeast Asia. I honestly cannot decide if that would deter them from a banzai attack or if they'd do it anyway, reasoning as OTL that victory is a matter of spirit, and the liberal powers were fatally mired in soft corruption and would seek a cowardly peace. Would they carefully avoid at least pissing off the USA? Well, we were their chief potential adversary as the USN perceived them to be theirs, and it was American actions that drove what infuriated the Japanese ruling cliques the most. It was reasoned or rationalized that striking just at the European holdings and bypassing Yankee held Philippines would be a big mistake as the Americans could decide to enter the war against them any time and cut communications southward, unless the Philippines were decisively neutralized up front.

So US involvement in war in the Pacific at least seems quite likely, and if Japan has in fact been lured into joining the general pile on against the USSR, there is FDR's excuse for formally allying with the Soviet Union right there. It probably would not justify Lend Lease on anything like the OTL scale, but giving the Soviets some critical resources would seem quite a smart move diplomatically and strategically at that point. Again I don't think the Soviets actually need it if Hitler is foolish enough to attack the Soviets before securing France and the Low Countries. Sure, there might be a big bandwagon of southeastern European nations, the Romanians might foolishly join, and for a time, maybe a year, it might seem that the Axis led crusade against the Bolsheviks is going swimmingly. But when the tide turns, and it will, this just spells doom for all these countries in the longer run.

But a small scale of US Lend Lease under the rubric of an alliance strictly against Japan can catalyze this Soviet steamroller victory a lot sooner than I otherwise might grant it would be delayed to.

If FDR lives no longer than OTL, he might still be elected to a fourth term and see the Reich collapsing, Poland having already gone under Red Army tank treads. If Romania is fooled into joining, they'd be subjugated by this point too and the main thing delaying Red Army conquest of all southeast Europe would be their decision to concentrate force in the north to break Reich resistance.

I can conceive of an end game other than Red tanks pushing to the Rhine and pouring into Italy, but it would involve a major anti-Hitler coup in Germany being first of all improbably successful, and then accepting terms of surrender that might protect the personal hides and privileges of the coup artists, but leave Germany under close and permanent Soviet supervision. Conceivably American good offices might negotiate a compromise subjugation where Germany much trimmed back and possibly balkanized is demilitarized with both Entente and Soviet officials swarming the place to monitor it, perhaps with some Americans to keep an eye on both and serve as referees, with it quite understood that the Soviets will not be allowed to turn Germany into a militarizing arsenal for themselves, but that otherwise the Soviets as victors get primary say in final resolutions of issues. Stalin or likely alternates to Stalin will be cynical enough to not insist all Communists be rewarded, but handpicked reliable ones sure to follow orders will flock back into Germany (the ones who managed to survive underground will not be deemed so trustworthy!) to issue orders to their puppet Junkers and industrialists; Germany might be prevented from being turned into a "worker's state" and perhaps nothing resembling democracy really ever restored, elections being a choreographed pre-agreed to show "contest" resulting in pre-selected balances of conservative and Communist approved candidates who say just what the script tells them to in the Reichstag (or Bundestag, or -stags of the various balkanized pieces). East of Germany it will be a Soviet run show top to bottom, I daresay the USSR will not annex a lot more than OTL but will install reliable puppet governments.

Basically the outcome is the Warsaw Pact reaches a lot farther west, perhaps just maybe if the USA does get entangled in a fairly friendly way with the Soviet war effort, with Germany neutralized instead of split between two blocs.

Finland, I am with Michele on this, would not get into war in the first place, and again perhaps US good offices can keep it that way, negotiating the Finns giving the Russians some important concessions in return for their borders not being adjusted and retaining meaningful autonomy and freedom, albeit as OTL with a nervous eye toward not antagonizing the Soviets.

I gave some thought to the notion that the early Great Crusade period of German success might seduce Turkey to the Axis side, which would open up the Black Sea to invading Italian ships if the Entente allows this, but given how carefully Ataturk stayed on the fence OTL, I think that is the most reasonable thing to expect here too.

I also wonder, all this "oh the Soviets collapse and the Axis wins!" gushing, did anyone notice that this nerfed Barbarossa would be happening later in the year than the OTL ultimate debacle started? As things were, Hitler wanted to attack a month earlier in 1941, but got distracted by needing to come bail Mussolini's misadventures in the Balkans out. Granting the OP was flexible and did not commit the attack to being as late as September, what with settling the status of Czechia as a conquest, I think it must start later in the year.

I would think facing the onset of winter predictably before he would reasonably expect the job to be done, Hitler would do better to delay all this risk until spring of 1940, buying more time to build up, maybe test out the new built Reich forces in the Balkans to get those southern regimes into line.
 
I didn't see the posts about the Baltic state resentments against both Germany and Poland.

Despite my obvious Team Soviet allegiances here, I would like to see the Baltics avoid annexation. Frankly that is as much for the future integrity of the USSR as out of respect for their own freedom, both motivations apply to me actually.

I want to be clear, my notion that the Baltics would join the Crusade is not so much based on believing their regimes want to, as that they would be frogmarched into it by overwhelming Axis power on their land borders. It would be a fear thing more than a greed thing in other words--certain factions would desperately argue they need to get into the parade voluntarily lest the Germans and Poles later swallow them up unilaterally.

What could countervail the (temporary, but apparently permanent, and while it lasts overwhelming) Axis power on their borders?

About the only thing I can think of is that the Entente powers, emboldened by Germany's insane commitment to a clearly costly invasion of the USSR, approach the Baltic governments with attractive counteroffers, offering to base British and French troops in significant numbers to assist their self-defense. Basically it only has credibility as a tripwire, because clearly the Reich could dispose of any reasonable diversion of French or British power to these no-depth little republics, but the point is that it is assumed Hitler will not dare to start a war with France and Britain while bogged down in the east, and so paper assurances reinforced by a quite thin red (in the British Redcoat sense) line of heroes will work to keep the borders inviolate and the Baltics free to defy both German and Soviet power, with RN and French naval forces shuttling back and forth through the Danish straits and mid-Baltic keeping an eye on any possible German naval buildup. It is justified perhaps in terms of French and British strategy by forcing Hitler to spread any possible future concentration of force against France or the British on the sea all across the Baltic and bringing home the point the Entente has bases to strike at any point in northern Germany or Poland's northern cities and ports.

The fear would be that "of course" as so much pro-Axis enthusiasm here seems to latter-day and with far less excuse assume, the Soviet regime is rotten and will collapse, leaving the Reich greatly enriched and much more secure, the latter day Napoleonic empire in fact; such a Reich will be impossible to defend the Baltics against, but while the Baltic leaders might reasonably despair (in the assumption the Reds are dead ducks) that they will be thrown to the Axis wolf sooner or later, in the immediate juncture it gives them at least a temporary out to buy time to catch their breath.

Indeed at some point Entente military buildup might saturate and they might want to dispense largesse in the form of major materiel upgrades of the Baltic forces.

Such an Entente salient strategy also has the effect of basically shielding Denmark with a de facto tripwire; the Entente bases in the east are hostage to the straits being kept open, which by default is the status provided Denmark is inviolate.

Now if such a thing is conceivable and tried, perhaps it goes unstable when the Reich appears to be winning, as Baltic leaders contemplate their options in fuller time and figure their best shot is to jump onto the Axis bandwagon voluntarily

But if they can hold off and dither long enough, the Axis assault (with or without their mote of token help) will stagnate and then start to be pushed back. At this point Hitler's apparently inevitable ascendency is thrown into doubt, and he can afford to alienate the Entente less than ever. Knowing that the French might politically go left and decide to attack on the west any old time, and yet he cannot afford to divert much westward to do more than stand guard on the Rhine. Leaving the Baltics alone also absorbs some Entente troops that otherwise would reinforce France's borders after all. So Hitler does not preemptively strike at the Baltics to secure his back and gain their paltry resources; he needs access to global markets the Entente controls a lot more than the Baltics could profit him.

When the Soviets press back to their old borders, now the Red Army is the threat, but I think Entente domestic politics would limit Entente hostility to the USSR. Important factions are all for aiding Hitler in defense, perhaps, but others combine left wing politics with the simple moral fact that the Axis is the aggressor here and have made their own bed.

One possible outcome of this scenario (the OP I mean, not mine particularly) is a new lease of life for the League of Nations, understanding it means the League becomes basically an Anglo-French sock puppet, which it basically was all along. Now though the Entente powers are arming and willing to put real military muscle behind League proclamations, and it might well be under auspices of League membership that the Baltics including Finland have tripwire basically Entente forces that on paper are multilateral League reinforcements. Denmark I believe is in the League, Sweden and Norway are not but unless Hitler goes berserk and strikes northward, those two Scandinavian peninsula nations are covered and sit out the whole war, probably with Sweden selling iron to the Axis until the endgame where the "League" dares enact sanctions empowering the RN to put the kibosh on these shipments, probably sweetening the deal with offers to purchase all the iron and other Swedish exports to the Reich so it is a push as far as Swedish interests are concerned.

If the Japanese go berserk in the Pacific, FDR might have a mandate for the USA to join the League, with strings attached of course. A quasi-Wilsonian agenda is the price the League powers must pay. I think Yankee involvement in the League under New Deal US auspices will involve the Americans using some political capital to try to normalize Soviet involvement--and it will backfire, leading probably to an ATL Cold War, League versus Soviet bloc, but perhaps the attempt results in a neutralized central Europe first serving as a buffer, as I outlined for Germany. Soviets are granted serious involvement and controlling vetos but not total control. Any territory the Red Army actually conquers will be under effective Soviet control of course, and attempts by the League to pry them loose will result in breakdown of the pretense of normalizing the USSR, but the Soviets might agree to cease fire without completing conquest of Axis allies if in fact the League gives them neutralization and reparations and rights of inspection and a certain degree of manipulation, presumably via supposedly (and to some degree, actually) grassroots Communist and allied parties.

Let there be no doubt, any territory the Axis includes in its rule under Hitler will suffer the Shoah. This is one of several reasons I'd like to see the Baltics exempted somehow, along with any other nation that can successfully resist German takeover.
 
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