WI German Thrust Reaches Antwerp

No. No, no, nonono, NO.

EDIT: To expand - the Germans are crushed in both the East and the West. Perhaps in this scenario the Soviet Union keeps a piece of Austria. That is the only change that I can imagine.
 

CalBear

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Title. What would happen? Would Berlin be saved? Nazi Germany lived on?

No.

Hell no.

You have GOT to be joking.

Even if the Reich had succeeded beyond its fondest hopes in the Ardennes it makes no strategic difference. There was no power behind the initial assault, none. What you get is all that Heer infantry and armor, without a stitch of air cover, spread out in a long narrow corridor just begging to be cut off, enveloped and defeated in detail by better equipped, fully supplied ground forces WITH massive air support.

Any futile attempt to reinforce the Ardennes offensive results in draining strength from the East, making the Red Army advance somewhat easier. At best (worst?) a successful Ardennes offensive means that more of Germany is initially occupied by the Red Army with all the charms that brought to the population.
 
I am going to quote Gerd von Rundstedt, who, being in charge of the entire operation, probably knew a thing or two about its chances of succeeding:
There was not a chance we could ever get to Antwerpen. In fact, we should have kneeled and thanked god if we were able to even reach the Meuse
 
It would be a disaster for the Germans. Their aim was to get the allies to agree to a united front against the Soviets. This was politically impossible, but they didn't understand this at the time.

The Soviet steamroller couldn't be stopped then. They will still take Berlin and keep on going. The war would end with the Allies still stuck in France/Belgium. This means German partition would probably be a North/South scheme instead of East/West. If the Germans are lucky, the Soviets would be satisfied with just Schleswig-Holstein and Nedersachsen in addition to OTL East Germany for their "North Germany".
 

Anaxagoras

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If the Germans had reached Antwerp, they would have driven a wedge between the British and the Americans. But this would not have been much of a problem, as the British would simply have hunkered down while the Americans blast their way through to get them out, in the process destroying the last major armored forces of Nazi Germany, and much else besides.

End result: Berlin falls a month earlier than IOTL.

A MUCH better strategy for the Germans would have been to use their carefully built-up armored reserves for small-scale counter attacks designed to improve their positions in preparation for the inevitable Allied spring offensive, and to inflict heavy losses on the Allies. And rather than throw away 1,000 planes (and, more importantly, pilots) that they couldn't afford to lose, it would have been much better to adopt Galland's plan and use them in a surprise "Big Blow" against Allied bombers, which might have inflicted such heavy losses that the bombing would be temporarily lessened.

Of course, this wouldn't make a damn bit of difference in the end, and would only delay the fall of Berlin by a month or two.
 
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