I would be inclined to agree. I didn't mean to imply that it would be realistic for that to happen, but this whole thread is about something unrealistic in general so I suppose it makes sense.
Why do people on this site unanimously agree that a Nazi European victory via defeating the USSR in Fall Blau and ceasefire with west is impossible?
- Thread starter The Banker
- Start date
I think it is still possible but would need to have some sort of cascade effect that leads to a panic that eventually can't be stopped.
Let's create a scenario prior to Barbarossa that the Germans get lucky and take out a bunch of British oil depots resulting in a legitimate shortage. British high command is still concerned about Sea Lion is fearful they will not have enough oil for ships and planes to prevent an invasion divert as much forces, oil, and other supplies back to Home Islands as possible.
In the chaos the Italians, of all things, manage to secure a breakthrough in North Africa (or the Afrika Corps depending on timing.) While the general population is seemingly calm there is grumbling about the war. Meanwhile the military is worried about their positions. They think an invasion of England is a long shot and understanding the logistics a complete failure in North Africa while a possibility is unlikely. The politicians though are freaking out. They're 2 years into the war with no allies and nothing to show for it. There is a pushback against Churchill who starts to get seen as a war hawk that would rather have the world burn down around him than negotiate. The stage is set for a reckoning.
At this point something dramatic happens, it doesn't have to be strategically significant, it just needs to send shock waves through the population, military, and the politicians. People start freaking out, flag officers start expressing doubt, politicians are done with Churchill. They're not following him into the the abyss. Churchill gets the boot and feelers get sent out.
Malta falls? MasX attack on Alexandria comes off without a hitch, divers get away.
I agree but an armistice or some such settlement with the British Commonwealth and Empire is IMHO the only way Nazi Germany can win the War in the East.
I once had an idea for how and when that might happen but it is almost certainly ASB. Or as near to it as makes no difference. Cooking now but might spell out the steps later.
Just to give everyone a laugh.
I never understood why would the USSR agree to cease fire with the Nazis. If the Nazis demand everything up to the Ural, then why not continue the fight and force them to fight for every inch? They are going to take it anyway, and russia is only getting bigger the farther east you go, so that strain the German logistics even more the closer to the Ural they go.
Any books that could be read that detail how the Nazis endeavor was improbable? Not that it'd be the subject but rather detailing all their failures and shortcomings, beyond a simple history of WW2
I think they could do better but not win - maybe aim for Leningrad as a logistics base with shipping and be at least slightly less genocidal especially with minority nations etc. But being Nazis the room for rationality would be very limited. My ideal scenario for WW2 would be for both terror states to collapse and have the West as sole winners. As hoped by Ryti and Mannerheim too.
The only way I see a treaty that gives Germany what it wants up to the Urals is if the USSR collapses and Germany pretty much takes all of the territory because the USSR imploded and can’t really fight. So the remaining USSR is willing to take the treaty in order to give it a chance to regroup and solidify what it still has without fighting a continues war that it can’t fight anymore. Meanwhile Germany would be willing to offer the treaty so that it can solidify its new holdings without having a constant war to protect these gains.
Not saying it is likely that this would happen. And getting the USSR to melodeon this badly is very very hard. (If not all but impossible).
But I do think if you can get the two countries to that point then this kind of treaty is likely to happen. I don’t think it will last. Either the remains of the USSR explodes into a civil war or it gets strong enough to restart the war.
Not saying it is likely that this would happen. And getting the USSR to melodeon this badly is very very hard. (If not all but impossible).
But I do think if you can get the two countries to that point then this kind of treaty is likely to happen. I don’t think it will last. Either the remains of the USSR explodes into a civil war or it gets strong enough to restart the war.
Basically this was the Nazis belief that if they "kicked in the door the whole rotten structure would collapse".
And when that didn't happen they didn't really have a Plan B except to Nazi harder.
The truth is that it would he very hards to get Germany to beat the USSR. And you probably need a pod before the invation starts. Something that makes it a one vs one between the two of them. That would make it a mire even match.
But once GB gets involved it is not good for Germany and once you add in the US Germany is doomed.
It is simply a mater os scale. Germany is to small without enough population and resources and manufacturing to take on the world.
You can perhaps get one or more of these opponents to give up and decide the war is not worth fighting any longer but you cant get it yo the point that Germany can dictate terms to them.
This is why the only way Germany can take out the USSR is if the USSR does it to itself. So something like Stalin purging even more of the military before and thus the military collapses and even then you probably need something like Stalin passing away at a key moment and basicly the USSR takes itself out. So even in this case Germany didn't beat the USSR. The USSR beets itself.
And even to get that much you have to push so hard and change so much that it is all but impossible.
But once GB gets involved it is not good for Germany and once you add in the US Germany is doomed.
It is simply a mater os scale. Germany is to small without enough population and resources and manufacturing to take on the world.
You can perhaps get one or more of these opponents to give up and decide the war is not worth fighting any longer but you cant get it yo the point that Germany can dictate terms to them.
This is why the only way Germany can take out the USSR is if the USSR does it to itself. So something like Stalin purging even more of the military before and thus the military collapses and even then you probably need something like Stalin passing away at a key moment and basicly the USSR takes itself out. So even in this case Germany didn't beat the USSR. The USSR beets itself.
And even to get that much you have to push so hard and change so much that it is all but impossible.
Pod needs a lot of these
- No Dunkirk
- Churchill's plane to France gets shot down
- GB drops out of war to get the men back.
- No Battle of Britain that grinds down the LW.
- Mers-el-Keb turns Vichy to support axis.
- FDR loses 1940 election or dies just before the election. No Wallace as President.
- LW has more focused production
- LW trains more pilots
- Many more RR repair units
- Replacement/new panzers not held back to form new units.
- Pz IV has high velocity 75 km gun
- PS III gets 50 in gun
- AT guns upped to 50 km or higher
- AT towed chassis for the 88
- PZ IV hulls used to carry 88s
- Italy stays neutral or
- Takes Malta & AK in mid-1940
- RN does a lot worse in Norway campaign and Med
- No Balkans campaign
- Spring rains end sooner in East - Barbarossa kicks off in April/May
- HH gets purged and replaced by Heydrich
- Borman purged for interference in AH private life
- HG has health issues and retires
- New competent head of War production, Todt.
- Germans break up spy rings
- Germany improves communications security
- Germans find out there's an enigma machine in Switzerland that's part of their network.
- The Dunce stays out of Greece.
- SD foils GB plot to change Yugoslav government.
- Greece Pro axis neutral
- AH postpones "actions" in east while Heydrichs busy purging HHs and MBs entourage
- Persecuted groups deported to Libya, Palestine and Mozambique
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I can't say I've seen this POD before, but what if:
During the 1920s and early 1930s, the German state invests a lot of money into making things like the Strategic Petroleum reserve on steroids. Buy the oil whenever it's cheap. Your 1920s ships and planes and tanks will be obsolete when war happens, but a barrel of crude oil won't be. You can also use it in the meantime to buffer price shocks and disruptions to your economy. Strongly encourage your closer partners like Italy to do the same. Oil got really cheap during the Depression.
During the 1920s and early 1930s, the German state invests a lot of money into making things like the Strategic Petroleum reserve on steroids. Buy the oil whenever it's cheap. Your 1920s ships and planes and tanks will be obsolete when war happens, but a barrel of crude oil won't be. You can also use it in the meantime to buffer price shocks and disruptions to your economy. Strongly encourage your closer partners like Italy to do the same. Oil got really cheap during the Depression.
Garrison
Donor
The problem is they don't have the cash to buy it even when it is cheap and Weimar has no short to medium term plans for a massive military build up. Given the low automobile ownership and large indigenous coal industry there's nothing to use that oil on in peace time and the infrastructure to store it will be expensive to create, not to mention hideously vulnerable to aerial bombing. And it doesn't really matter how much oil they have in reserve when they have limited means to ship it to the front and no way of replenishing it once war starts.
I'm currently writing a TNO remake, so I shouldn't be talking here, but yeah, a huge part of alternate history for a long time was shitty, delusional alternate history about a Nazi Victory. The fucking genre started its rise to popularity with Man in the High Castle for fucks sake. I agree that a big problem is starting it off with the Victory already Done, instead of explained, which I'm gonna have to do soon in my story anyway, but here's my take on what would have realistically happened had Case Blue and Barb had been aided by fucking God.
- The Soviets are pushed back greatly, the possibility of a Coup against Stalin, who really cares? Anyhow the Soviet Government would probably refocus on Perm, or maybe behind the Urals depending on how effective the German Offensives are. If it's how the Banker described, which is complete collapse, then the Soviets would internally fracture after the coup into groups still under the Red Banner, but trying to enforce their own version of Communism. Russia, at least the Red Army, is out for the count.
- Germany declares Endseig or whatever the fuck, and instantly runs into a brick wall with partisans of all different types. Like, maybe don't declare you are going to exterminate the people you just conquered in the fucking book that gave you popularity, dipshits.
- If Germany attempted to send a WP Deal or any Deal to the British and Americans, it would most likely be rejected due to a lot of things, most notably the fact that Torch was probably or already had been underway, and that America was just getting started, and that victory and vengeance for Pear Harbor and the Declarations of War was demanded by the American Public. Americans would fill the gap of manpower greatly. America had barely scratched the surface of its mobilization.
- Italy would still get dogged on, I don't think the British or Americans would really care that much about the Soviets. After all, a lot of people knew this deal with the Red Devil wasn't going to last. The only thing that would raise concern is the Eastern Front's Manpower and Equipment now refocused on the Allies, but even then, like 20% would actually get refocused as Germany now needs to do a Croatia and play Wack a Mole with partisans, just on a much grander scale.
- We could see a much bloodier Torch and Sicily Invasion, a Second Battle of Britain, invasion of Greece and the Balkans, Norway, and France would just be an absolute shitshow. But even with Russian Infrastructure, America still holds the advantage in production.
- If Germany gets desperate enough, we could see Chemical WMDs fly, and that would open fucking Pandoras' box. The British made Anthrax just in case for something like this after all, and if Germany shoots first, the justification to fucking blanket Europe in gas is there.
- With the Germany First Policy, Nukes would strike it first. Hell, if the Feds see the situation as desperate enough, they may pressure Oppenheimer and his team to develop the H-Bomb Early.
- If Germany pulls an OTL and holds out to the very end, there would be absolutely no mercy on the Allies' end, and Germany would probably cease its existence post-war.
- Early American World Order basically.
TLDR; Unconditional Surrender was the only option after America entered the war. If you change this to 'If America wasn't in the war tho' that's moving the goalpost, and an entirely different scenario.
- The Soviets are pushed back greatly, the possibility of a Coup against Stalin, who really cares? Anyhow the Soviet Government would probably refocus on Perm, or maybe behind the Urals depending on how effective the German Offensives are. If it's how the Banker described, which is complete collapse, then the Soviets would internally fracture after the coup into groups still under the Red Banner, but trying to enforce their own version of Communism. Russia, at least the Red Army, is out for the count.
- Germany declares Endseig or whatever the fuck, and instantly runs into a brick wall with partisans of all different types. Like, maybe don't declare you are going to exterminate the people you just conquered in the fucking book that gave you popularity, dipshits.
- If Germany attempted to send a WP Deal or any Deal to the British and Americans, it would most likely be rejected due to a lot of things, most notably the fact that Torch was probably or already had been underway, and that America was just getting started, and that victory and vengeance for Pear Harbor and the Declarations of War was demanded by the American Public. Americans would fill the gap of manpower greatly. America had barely scratched the surface of its mobilization.
- Italy would still get dogged on, I don't think the British or Americans would really care that much about the Soviets. After all, a lot of people knew this deal with the Red Devil wasn't going to last. The only thing that would raise concern is the Eastern Front's Manpower and Equipment now refocused on the Allies, but even then, like 20% would actually get refocused as Germany now needs to do a Croatia and play Wack a Mole with partisans, just on a much grander scale.
- We could see a much bloodier Torch and Sicily Invasion, a Second Battle of Britain, invasion of Greece and the Balkans, Norway, and France would just be an absolute shitshow. But even with Russian Infrastructure, America still holds the advantage in production.
- If Germany gets desperate enough, we could see Chemical WMDs fly, and that would open fucking Pandoras' box. The British made Anthrax just in case for something like this after all, and if Germany shoots first, the justification to fucking blanket Europe in gas is there.
- With the Germany First Policy, Nukes would strike it first. Hell, if the Feds see the situation as desperate enough, they may pressure Oppenheimer and his team to develop the H-Bomb Early.
- If Germany pulls an OTL and holds out to the very end, there would be absolutely no mercy on the Allies' end, and Germany would probably cease its existence post-war.
- Early American World Order basically.
TLDR; Unconditional Surrender was the only option after America entered the war. If you change this to 'If America wasn't in the war tho' that's moving the goalpost, and an entirely different scenario.
The US SPR is held in a bunch of underground salt caverns. I don't imagine it's easy to attack from the air. Germany's could be held much the same way. Anyone have an estimate of how much it'd cost to convert, say, an old salt mine or 8? That's what the US did. Having a big reserve that you couldn't replenish would allow you to not go bingo on fuel as early as you did historically.
Garrison
Donor
Yeah but those aren't going to be be bare salt mines are they and even if they could build that they can't afford to stockpile that much oil in Nazi Germany. And when the Germans ran low on fuel it was usually because they outran their supply lines, not an absolute shortage.
I'd be curious to see the numbers on that. Central Europe has tons of old salt mines, some even have cathedrals and other such built down inside them. So how much does it cost for durable storage for a barrel of oil?
Having a lot more oil available during, say 1942-1944 would let you do things like train more pilots and sustain more of your air force in Germany. It's also an alternative to synthetic fuel plants, which ARE considerably more vulnerable to air attack.
What I'm getting at is that going big on stockpiling versus such a rapid build up in the early 1930s might be better value, and it probably won't twig a UK/France response quite as badly.
As @Garrison already mentioned it's not just the issue of having more oil. They also need more trucks, more planes, more men, more rubber, more planes, more tanks, more fabric, more ammunition. In short: more of everything. And that is what makes it ASB: there just aren't enough resources in nazi-Germany for all of that.
What is often overlooked is that compared to Barbarossa Fall Blau was a lot smaller campaign. The wehrmacht was already depleted when they started it. In Barabrossa most divisions on the eastern front were full strenght. In Fall Blau only a fraction were (I'd have to look up the exact number, but it was something between 10 and 25%). They went all in for Barbarossa. When they went all in for Fall Blau, it was with much weaker forces. When they went all in in 1943, it was with even weaker forces. Barbarossa was an operation across the whole front. Fall Blau was just one direction of attack. Kursk was trying to cut off one saliant (which failed). In 1944 the only big counterattack was the Battle of the bulge, which if it had happened on the eastern front would have been in footnote in the wareffort there.
The issue with this premisis is that they were already involved with the UK since 3 september 1939, and that isn't going away. And even if it had gotten away, that'd be just temporarily. You're going to need so many PODs to get a one-on-one fight between nazi-Germany and the USSR that stays a one-on-one fight it isn't funny. And then you're still stuck with a nazi-Germany that will need to scrap the barrel of their resources to have even a small chanceto beat the USSR. So piecing all of this together, a nazi-victory is ASB. In hindsight it is, I guess the view in summer 1941 would have been different. But when Pearl Harbor happened aeveral German leaders realised the war was lost.
Germany didnt have to declare war after PH. Press breaks story of FDRs extramarital affairs before 1940 election, no FDR. That results in no US embargoes = no PH. It's also likely there's no two ocean navy act.
US/British (they provided a lot of research materials, only to get kept out of the results) Abomb project was based on bad intelligence, there was no notz program. Fermi convinced Eistein to write a letter to FDR warning about a non-existent program. Once AH was briefed on the chance of the atmosphere igniting in a chain reaction, he vetoed the project (Fermi took bets on it before the first test). Plus the Germans didn't have the resources to spare.
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