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Let's say that for some reason - stiffer resistance in France or Yugoslavia, British troops landing in Greece, major sabotage in German industry, new information revealing Soviet army size to be bigger than expected or whatever - Operation Barbarossa is delayed enough that the German staff decide to just put off the operation for a year, putting the new start date in May 1942. Of course, giving Germany some more time to build more tanks, stockpile fuel, draw up better plans, train more soldiers, get more winter clothes and other important things for such an invasion.

Now. Ignoring all the controversy nowadays about whether or not Stalin was planning to mount such an attack, the Soviet Union - with a recovered officer corps and T-34 tanks for days - attacks Germany a month earlier, in April 1942.

How would such a war play out? Would it end up as Pax Sovietica over Europe, or would the war drag on even longer than OTL?
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