For the purposes of this WI, I need the Africa Corps for the Eastern Front. So lets go with the standard Dunkirk evacuation fails and the Italians don't need help in North Africa scenario.
We all know that the biggest problem for the Germans in the opening phase of Barbarossa was the lack of progress of Army Group South relative to Army Group Center. My idea is to rectify this problem by giving the panzer army historically assigned to Army Group North to Army Group South. It will be placed in Romania at the outset, and it will attack north-east to accomplish a full encirclement of the Soviet South-Western Front parallel to the Battle of Minsk. It will then be in a position to fight its own Battle of Kiev at the same time as the Battle of Smolensk, and will not require AGC's assistance as in OTL. This will accomplish two things. First, Typhoon can now proceed in September without the need to enable AGS to catch up first. Second, Soviet industrial evacuation will be cut short vs OTL, because the main manufacturing centers will be overrun sooner than in real life. The cost of this for the Germans will be giving up the drive on Leningrad, as instead of a full panzer army, AGN will now have only Rommel for an armored force. ITTL its goal will be merely to take control of the Baltic States and act as a flank guard for AGC.
Any thoughts?