WI No demand of unconditional surrender in WWII?

How much earlier could the war have ended if the allies didnt demand unconditional surrender? What would be the minimum conditions of the axis powers?

I think that stating that they only accept unconditional surrender only made sure that Germany and Japan would fight to the bitter end and not giving up earlier. OTOH I see very few positives that this policy brought in the end - allowing at least the hope for some terms would have made the axis powers give up earlier.

IMO Japan would have surrendered at least months earlier if they got a guarantee that Hirohito retains his throne. As this happened OTL anyway it seems to me a huge waste of lives that the western allies couldnt agree to this. However Im no WWII expert so im very curious what more knowledgable people here think on this? IF they surrender earlier the USA can decide the fate of not only Japan but the whole of Korea, South Sakhalin and the Kurils, Taiwan and Manchuria - as the soviets never declared war on Japan. However im not sure that they wouldnt try something anyway. So how do you think Eastern Asia would turn out with an earlier Japanese surrender (and no atomic bomb dropped)?

In Germany i see Hitler as completly crazy at this point who would refuse to surrender. However with the hope of some terms the drive to remove him would be even stronger than OTL. IMO the germans, if they successfully removed Hitler would do everything in their might to surrender to the western powers, however I have no idea of the exact demands. Maybe they would want to limit the soviet occupation and ensure the continued existence of germany?
 
Japan surrendering months earlier absent "unconditional surrender" is a myth. While there were certain "peace elements" in the Japanese government or senior society whose only concern was preservation of the Imperial system and the person of the Emperor, the "moderate" elements of the powers that mattered, including much of the IJA, was that there would be no occupation, Japan would try anyone accused of war crimes, and that the core of the Japanese Empire (Korea, Taiwan, +/- Manchuria) would be retained. The level of disarmament would not be too severe, and managed by the Japanese. This was their core position up to the day before Hiroshima when any and all targets in Japan were bombed at will and LeMay was running out of cities to destroy, allied naval vessels bombarded coastal installations at will, and the nation was on the brink of starvation.

In Europe, the anti-Hitler Germans were living in their own fantasy world when they expected to get better terms once they had gotten rid of Hitler and the inner Nazi circle. If nothing else, Stalin would have kept going even had the USA and the UK cut some sort of deal. In the Pacific, the USA could pretty much call the tune in Europe there were a host of alliance partners how held major hands. The other problem is that, once the "unconditional surrender" policy had been set out, to change in publicly would give a boost to the morale of the enemy and undercut home morale. Hitler and the true believers felt if they held out long enough, the miracle weapons would arrive and Allied morale would crack and they could salvage things. In the Pacific, the basic Japanese philosophy had always been that they were tougher than the Americans, and if they just made the USA bleed enough a satisfactory conclusion could be reached.
 
Japan surrendering months earlier absent "unconditional surrender" is a myth. While there were certain "peace elements" in the Japanese government or senior society whose only concern was preservation of the Imperial system and the person of the Emperor, the "moderate" elements of the powers that mattered, including much of the IJA, was that there would be no occupation, Japan would try anyone accused of war crimes, and that the core of the Japanese Empire (Korea, Taiwan, +/- Manchuria) would be retained. The level of disarmament would not be too severe, and managed by the Japanese. This was their core position up to the day before Hiroshima when any and all targets in Japan were bombed at will and LeMay was running out of cities to destroy, allied naval vessels bombarded coastal installations at will, and the nation was on the brink of starvation.

....

This was the basis of the Japanese peace proposal their diplomats in Switzerland attempted to push in the late spring of 1945. It did not even include a solid proposal for China. Just a remark about negotiating some sort of settlement. In other words Japan gets to retain its empire, rebuild its navy, and possibly continue its war with China.

The Soviet leaders had pretty much lost faith in the West Allies by the summer of 1943. Their offensives in the Mediterranean seemed glacially slow. Big things were expected with the invasion of Sicilly. Instead the Axis armies escaped there, and follow up was to be weeks or months later. The British periphrial strategy was no secret from the Soviet leader. Stalin knew Churchill & Brooke were adamantly opposed to a invasion of NW Europe and fighting the Germans on their doorstep. ...and he knew the US leaders had failed to follow the German first policy, instead confusedly following the Brits. to the S Pacific, to Africa & Italy, to Burma-China. At that point Stalin knew the US Central Pacific offensive was kicking off at the end of October 1943, but nothing aimed directly at Germany other than a air campaign the Soviet military had already dismissed as indecisive. Absent the commitment of Roosevelt & the other senior US leaders to unconditional surrender its possible Stalin & Molitov would have made a try at negotiating a armistice & eventual peace with Germany at the end of 1943. He may not even have agreed to the EUREKA conference. Instead Molotov may have been meeting Ribbentrop in neutral Istambul or Sofia.
 
A case can be made, and has been made by Robert P. Newman in *Truman and the Hiroshima Cult* (Michigan State University Press 1995, pp. 69-73), https://books.google.com/books?id=Haf2g1mbsH8C&pg=PA69 that the Japanese surrender was not really unconditional in the same sense as the German. Paragraph 5 of the Potsdam Declaration stated "Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay." According to Newman (p. 69), Japan's experienced diplomats immediately saw that "if there were terms, this was not really an unconditional surrender." The word "unconditional" was still there, but it was accompanied by promises to Japan. Newman cites (p. 70) the following memo issued by someone in Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy's office on September 4, 1945, entitled "Rights and Powers over Japan." The first paragraph observed that although MacArthur had full power to "take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate the surrender terms" he was still bound by the Potsdam Declaration. Then:

"2. In the sense in which 'Unconditional Surrender' has been used in
relation to Germany, the Japanese surrender is not an unconditional
surrender. On the contrary, it is based on the terms of the Potsdam
Declaration, the exchange of notes resulting in the acceptance of those
terms, and the surrender instrument, which itself constitutes an acceptance
of those terms.

"3. A moment's consideration of the effect of those documents will make
this clear: under the Potsdam Declaration we have bound ourselves to
continue Japanese sovereignty in the home islands (par 8); to permit
Japanese military forces 'to return to their homes with the opportunity to
lead peaceful and productive lives' (par 9); not to enslave the Japanese
race, and to establish freedom of speech, of religion, and of thought..."

The rest of the Potsdam conditions were reviewed, and the memo concluded that all these were "expressly 'terms' which were offfered to Japan to induce her to surrender and which were accepted by Japan. No such situation arises in our relation to Germany."

Perhaps Newman is attaching too much importance to an anonymous memo produced in McCloy's office, but some Japanese like Foreign Minister Togo Shigenori also felt that the "Following are our terms" language indicated that there *were* terms and that the surrender was not truly unconditional; Togo also said he felt relief that the Declaration seemed to give some consideration to Japan's economic position at the same time the "pastoralization" of Germany was still being considered. Kase Toshikazu, officer for American Affairs in the Foreign Ministry, thought it significant that the Declaration referred to the unconditional surrender of the Japanese *military forces*, not of Japan. (Probably he was reading too much significance into this.) Shigemitsu Mamoru, a member of the "peace party" and foreign minister before Togo, told Samuel Eliot Morison that despite the absence of an explicit guarantee for the emperor, the provision in paragraph 7 about withdrawing occupation forces after a "peacefully inclined and responsible government" was set up indicated to the Japanese that they would be able to determine their own future government. (Newman, pp. 71-2)
 
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... If nothing else, Stalin would have kept going even had the USA and the UK cut some sort of deal ...

A return match between the USSR & Germany was inevitable, but by mid 1943 neither side saw decisive victory in the near future. The Red Army successes of 1944 were not a given, or even much foreseen. Both had reasons to negotiate a respite in the east.
 
A case can be made, and has been made by Robert P. Newman in *Truman and the Hiroshima Cult* (Michigan State Univeristy Press 1995, pp. 69-73), https://books.google.com/books?id=Haf2g1mbsH8C&pg=PA69 that the Japanese surrender was not really unconditional in the same sense as the German.

There is a lot of quibbling over nuances in this. Japan was stripped of its empire, had its military dissolved, its home turf occupied by foreign soldiers, and its leaders were at risk of being hanged or shot. This is akin to calling the survivors of a shipwreck huddled on a beach the end of a successful voyage.
 
World War II was a total war. The Nazis were fighting until the Allies were conquered (which was unworkable, sure, but people didn’t really know that at the time.) So for the USSR, France, the UK and America, it was “beat these fuckers into the ground or we’ll all be eating sauerkraut and fermented rice.” Even if it wasn’t really that, it’s how it was seen. Even America, separated by an ocean on each side, threw its entire lot into the war.

Aside from that, the Treaty of Versailles, a negotiated peace, did nothing but piss off the Germans and enable them to rebuild into a war machine driven by the craziest asshole they could find, and God knows the Allies didn’t need that headache 20 years later. So the Allies wanted to remake Germany and Japan in their own image rather than do the international equivalent of locking the guy who just beat the shit out of his wife in jail for the weekend.

And that means unconditional surrender. Especially against Japan, given that the Allies were more familiar with Germany and Italy and knew they were fighting fascism and not the very idea of Germany and Italy. On the other hand, Japan carried no such respect with the Allies, who pretty much acted as if they were at war with the very idea of Japan itself. It’s probably part of the reason they were reluctant to allow the condition of Hirohito being off the hook for war crimes.

So yeah, nothing short of unconditional surrender was going to be acceptable to Roosevelt, who was highly pragmatic, Churchill, who was a bloodthirsty bastard, and Stalin, who wanted to turn as much of the world communist as he could.
 
There is a lot of quibbling over nuances in this. Japan was stripped of its empire, had its military dissolved, its home turf occupied by foreign soldiers, and its leaders were at risk of being hanged or shot. This is akin to calling the survivors of a shipwreck huddled on a beach the end of a successful voyage.

Again, though, compare it with Germany, which not only lost its "Empire" but had its heartland divided. Nobody denies that Japan lost, but some losses are more total than others.
 
World War II was a total war. The Nazis were fighting until the Allies were conquered (which was unworkable, sure, but people didn’t really know that at the time.) So for the USSR, France, the UK and America, it was “beat these fuckers into the ground or we’ll all be eating sauerkraut and fermented rice.” Even if it wasn’t really that, it’s how it was seen. Even America, separated by an ocean on each side, threw its entire lot into the war.

Aside from that, the Treaty of Versailles, a negotiated peace, did nothing but piss off the Germans and enable them to rebuild into a war machine driven by the craziest asshole they could find, and God knows the Allies didn’t need that headache 20 years later. So the Allies wanted to remake Germany and Japan in their own image rather than do the international equivalent of locking the guy who just beat the shit out of his wife in jail for the weekend.

And that means unconditional surrender. Especially against Japan, given that the Allies were more familiar with Germany and Italy and knew they were fighting fascism and not the very idea of Germany and Italy. On the other hand, Japan carried no such respect with the Allies, who pretty much acted as if they were at war with the very idea of Japan itself. It’s probably part of the reason they were reluctant to allow the condition of Hirohito being off the hook for war crimes.

So yeah, nothing short of unconditional surrender was going to be acceptable to Roosevelt, who was highly pragmatic, Churchill, who was a bloodthirsty bastard, and Stalin, who wanted to turn as much of the world communist as he could.

As I said ealier Im no WWII expert but AFAIK Hitler wanted to make peace with Brittain after the fall of France. Thats not conquering Brittain. Also I dont know if they had any plans to conquer the USA.

Calling the threaty of Versailles a negoitiated peace is... Im exercising a lot of restraint to remain civil and wont go further. And it allowed tham to build their warmachine? Them building any serious military was a violation of the threaty of Versailles. What allowed to build up the german military was that the french and british had lost the will to enforce Versailles.
 
Had the 1944 bomb plot succeeded, how would the allies have reacted to the new German Government asking for terms ?
 
Nothing changes. Unconditional Surrender may have been a cute post-war myth for German and Japanese military commanders to cling too, but in reality they were driven on by a mix of loyalty to their regimes and their own delusions that a miracle (or the inherent weakness of the enemy) would save them. The Nazis leadership was wholly uninterested in any sort of compromise peace... for them it was victory or annihilation. For their part, the Japanese were never going to accept terms that prevented them from rebuilding their military might for another war.

It should be noted that unconditional surrender did not prevent those Axis powers with less willingness to prosecute the war, such as Italy and other European pro-German minors, from trying to call it quits when it became obvious their defeat was imminent.

Absent the commitment of Roosevelt & the other senior US leaders to unconditional surrender its possible Stalin & Molitov would have made a try at negotiating a armistice & eventual peace with Germany at the end of 1943. He may not even have agreed to the EUREKA conference. Instead Molotov may have been meeting Ribbentrop in neutral Istambul or Sofia.

A return match between the USSR & Germany was inevitable, but by mid 1943 neither side saw decisive victory in the near future. The Red Army successes of 1944 were not a given, or even much foreseen. Both had reasons to negotiate a respite in the east.

After Kursk, the Soviet successes of 1944 were very much foreseen by the Soviets. Stalin said as much to Zhukov before departing to Teheran, stating that even if the WAllies failed to land in 1944 the USSR now had the ability to complete the defeat of Nazis Germany on it's own. Given that, I don't see how the Soviets had any reason to negotiate a peace nor why they would.
 
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I think making the commitment to unconditional surrender public was a mistake. Should have kept it secret, as there was some chance of axis leadership infighting on the issue
 
Japan surrendering months earlier absent "unconditional surrender" is a myth. While there were certain "peace elements" in the Japanese government or senior society whose only concern was preservation of the Imperial system and the person of the Emperor, the "moderate" elements of the powers that mattered, including much of the IJA, was that there would be no occupation, Japan would try anyone accused of war crimes, and that the core of the Japanese Empire (Korea, Taiwan, +/- Manchuria) would be retained. The level of disarmament would not be too severe, and managed by the Japanese. This was their core position up to the day before Hiroshima when any and all targets in Japan were bombed at will and LeMay was running out of cities to destroy, allied naval vessels bombarded coastal installations at will, and the nation was on the brink of starvation.

In Europe, the anti-Hitler Germans were living in their own fantasy world when they expected to get better terms once they had gotten rid of Hitler and the inner Nazi circle. If nothing else, Stalin would have kept going even had the USA and the UK cut some sort of deal. In the Pacific, the USA could pretty much call the tune in Europe there were a host of alliance partners how held major hands. The other problem is that, once the "unconditional surrender" policy had been set out, to change in publicly would give a boost to the morale of the enemy and undercut home morale. Hitler and the true believers felt if they held out long enough, the miracle weapons would arrive and Allied morale would crack and they could salvage things. In the Pacific, the basic Japanese philosophy had always been that they were tougher than the Americans, and if they just made the USA bleed enough a satisfactory conclusion could be reached.

Lack of the "unconditional surrender" clause does NOT preclude the use of nuclear weapons if they don't listen to reason...
 
In Europe, the anti-Hitler Germans were living in their own fantasy world when they expected to get better terms once they had gotten rid of Hitler and the inner Nazi circle.

Wait... then why were they even trying to resist? They might as well just move to Denmark or something. There is no point in giving the Allies intelligence or trying to kill Hitler if the Allies aren't giving better terms. They could even do themselves a favor by doing absolutely nothing.
 
The anti-Nazi Germans did not know that getting rid of Hitler would not markedly improve their bargaining position when it came to surrender. Had they succeeded and ended the war earlier, as well as stopping the deportation of Jews which went on right to the end, hundreds of thousands of lives in Germany and the occupied countries would have been saved - Germans as well as non-Germans, and innumerable soldiers would have been saved on their side. The physical destruction of Germany would have been less than it was OTL, less bombing and fewer towns and other infrastructure wrecked as battle washed over them. With Valkyrie, it was basically that they knew the war was lost and they wanted it to end to prevent complete destruction - in that they would have been successful. Those who had visions of a "cleansed" Germany working with the western allies to beat back the Russians were living in a fantasy land.
 
Had the 1944 bomb plot succeeded, how would the allies have reacted to the new German Government asking for terms ?
No way Allies would accept the terms proposed by the Plotters-they wanted to keep Austria, Sudetenland and 1914 German border in the East-absolutely ridiculous demands from Allied perspective. Still, succesful plot would be good thing-German collapse few months earlier would save hunderts of thousands, if not millions lives
 
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After Kursk, the Soviet successes of 1944 were very much foreseen by the Soviets. Stalin said as much to Zhukov before departing to Teheran, stating that even if the WAllies failed to land in 1944 the USSR now had the ability to complete the defeat of Nazis Germany on it's own. Given that, I don't see how the Soviets had any reason to negotiate a peace nor why they would.

My understanding is the anticipated cost was the objection. Through the spring of 43 the USSR had taken severe losses & future losses promised to be heavy. There was also the question of who would gain the advantage in a interim peace. The Soviet leaders thought they understood the economics favored them. From that perspective a few years of recovery looked like a option before round 2. With a rebuilt army and industrial base it might be a lot easier in 1947.

The W Allies were looking very wimpy at that point, they had a dismal win/loss record. the US Army had a poor reputation, and was not growing very fast. The British strategy lacked coherence & focus, & did not look very serious.
 
The anti-Nazi Germans did not know that getting rid of Hitler would not markedly improve their bargaining position when it came to surrender. Had they succeeded and ended the war earlier, as well as stopping the deportation of Jews which went on right to the end, hundreds of thousands of lives in Germany and the occupied countries would have been saved - Germans as well as non-Germans, and innumerable soldiers would have been saved on their side. The physical destruction of Germany would have been less than it was OTL, less bombing and fewer towns and other infrastructure wrecked as battle washed over them. With Valkyrie, it was basically that they knew the war was lost and they wanted it to end to prevent complete destruction - in that they would have been successful. Those who had visions of a "cleansed" Germany working with the western allies to beat back the Russians were living in a fantasy land.

Plus, of course, if they had succeeded and then made that approach to the Allies the psychological shock of being told "Well done on the killing Hitler thing now just give up", would either have resulted in an immediate end of the war or a prolonged period of internal strife between the members of whatever provisional government they had lashed together which would likely have hastened the end of the war. The only thing that would have, perhaps united the Heer, would be the desperate desire to keep the Russians as far East of the German border as possible simply out of the (justified) fear of what the Red Army would have do once they entered the country.
 
As I said ealier Im no WWII expert but AFAIK Hitler wanted to make peace with Brittain after the fall of France. Thats not conquering Brittain. Also I dont know if they had any plans to conquer the USA.

Calling the threaty of Versailles a negoitiated peace is... Im exercising a lot of restraint to remain civil and wont go further. And it allowed tham to build their warmachine? Them building any serious military was a violation of the threaty of Versailles. What allowed to build up the german military was that the french and british had lost the will to enforce Versailles.

Of course, if he couldn’t even make peace with the UK, let alone conquer it, so that’s saying a lot about their capabilities. And it goes to my point - there’s no way in hell they’ll get close to America.

And if Versailles was such that Britain and France not being up in Germany’s grill was enough for Germany to full-tilt crazy and remilitarize, then it was only a punishment in the same way that throwing a guy who killed someone in a bar fight in prison with a bunch of other convicts and then deciding, fuck it, we don’t feel like keeping him locked up anymore is a punishment. And that only came about because neither side really wanted to keep fighting World War I anyway.
 
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