WW2 after a Nazi victory in Russia

[Vice President Mike]

Say that that the Nazis cant beat the British like OTL. They invade the Soviet Union like OTL. But say the Nazis did some things right, Stalin dies, there is a power struggle at the worst possible time, the new goverment makes peace with the Germans. They get a lot of land east. Say Japan still attacks Peral Harbor and Germany goes to war against America. How will this play out with no Eastern frount ( maybe Russian Troops for Germany? ). I know this sounds like ''The Angol/American Nazi war.....But I want to hear your thoughts.

 

[Julian]

The Combined Bomber Offensive, combined with continued air attrition on the peripheries (North Africa, Caucasus, Sicily, Italy, possibly Greece/Norway, etc) and continued Nazi attempts to bomb Britain, eventually destroys the Luftwaffe to the point that by 1944 it can no longer offer a serious defense over Germany. From there bombing of fuel infrastructure cripples any remaining resistance in the air. By late 1944-45 the Allies conduct, as they did IOTL, a campaign of bombing which utterly destroys Germany's cities and transportation infrastructure. By 1945 Germany's economy is in shambles, with shortages of everything from coal and steel to foodstuffs. An Allied invasion of France in summer 1945, while initially bloody, eventually defeats a German army that lacks fuel and ammunition. Germany is eventually defeated by 1946.

 

[Julian]

To elaborate, both German steel and coal production under the Allied bombing campaign were by 1945 crippled, both of which were essentialy to armaments production. Steel production after May 1943 showed no net gain for the remainder of the war. This alone was crippling, but it was further exacerbated by the Allied aerial destruction of coal transportation in late 1944 and continuing into early 1945. This caused factories to simply shut down, and Germany's power network was crippled. The air campaign was on its own winning the war; Germany's economy wasn't just weakened, it was shutting down entirely. No matter how much labor Germany could bring in, without the raw materials in was all useless. Trying to shift production to areas outside of bomber range was incredibly inefficient and provided no solution to the decline in coal and steel production.

So essentially Germany was doomed whether or not it could have defeated the Soviet Union.

 

[MikeTurcotte]

America/Britain still wins.

I don't know that I agree with what others have posted about the effectiveness of the air campaign - for one thing, the Germans can relocate some of their factories to the East - out of bomber range.

However, the economics and logistics are all on the Allied side. A German win in Russia does little to help the IJN, and Japan is crushed utterly. With an active (and dangerous Germany), the a-bombs go to Europe. Japan is probably starved into submission - although with their own mainland Asian territories, the Japanese may last longer as well - it does them no good - especially if the US occupies Vladivostok.

The real issue that is faced is the Axis economies simply can not compete with a mobilized America/Britain. The strategic warfare will all run one-way; the technological gap will increase (Nazi psuedo-science notwithstanding) in the Allies favor, and the fact that very few of the unfortunate inhabitants of the German Europe want to be there will hurt them as well.

I think CalBear had is mostly right - the Germans have no place to go but down, and the 1940s were America's sweet spot. economically.

 

[Al-numbers]

Say, if the Nazi's manage to take over West Russia (or at least S. Petersburg and Moscow), then where does the Soviet leadership convene until the war ends?

 

[MikeTurcotte]

Say, if the Nazi's manage to take over West Russia (or at least S. Petersburg and Moscow), then where does the Soviet leadership convene until the war ends?

Their graves.

 

[Richter von Manthofen]

Depending where and when the war in the East ends... The later the worse for Germany.

But if teh resources used in the east are poured into Luftwaffe assets I doubt that the bomber campaign is as sucessful as some believe it would be.

by mid 1945 the Germans would probably have teh Type XXI rady to severly damage allied shipping. Planes like the Ho IX (Go 229) are a definite possibility.

IN addition Landing operations require air superiority to be sucessful - Thus its a definite possbilty that any attempt to land on the mainland will be ultimately doomed. well then its a question of how long Germany can endure atomic bombardement (or do the Germans shoot down the bomber who carries them - especially if they know what happened to Japan...

I believe there is a good chance that Germany and the Allies will come to an agreement... sooner or later.

Definitely no German win (that would require that england falls = ASB)

 

[MrHaakwood]

I am still undecided how important the Bomber campaign really was? On the first look, its successful, the German cities obliterated, the infrastructere destroyed, e.t.c. and than I cant remember where I saw it, it seems to be that the Nazi war machine was at its hight at the last year of the war? Somebody knows more of this contradiction?

 

[Matov]

I would guess that it boils down to Germany winning the Battle of Stalingrad and this perhaps triggering a coup in the USSR with perhaps Beria taking over. A cease fire is reached and the German invasion finishes at the Volga.

Personally I think Hitler would have been willing to withdraw from France and the low countries in as part of a peace treaty and even the offer of such a thing, following the capitulation of the USSR, might have been enough to bring real political pressure on Churchill to accept the offer.

Yugoslavia break up would become official with perhaps Serbia losing territory with maybe even an independent Bosnia coming to the fore as well.

If the war did continue then I sense a much harder task for the allies and whilst the bombing campaign would have continued how much German war production would take place in the occupied countries to the East, out of range of the bomber forces ?

 

[Beedok]

The worse the situation is for the allies the ugly things turn out. Effective genocide against the German population is a real possibility, with both conventional and non-conventional bombing. I believe the US had the majority of global industry, and most of the rest was under the commonwealth's control.

My guess is that the allies will reverse engineer missile technology by '45 or '46. Then the allies can spam them way faster than the Germans.

 

[Julian]

Depending where and when the war in the East ends... The later the worse for Germany.

But if teh resources used in the east are poured into Luftwaffe assets I doubt that the bomber campaign is as sucessful as some believe it would be.

That doesn't resolve the central problems destroying the Luftwaffe. It wasn't a matter of airframes, it was a matter of fuel and training. Germany simply lacked the fuel to support the tempo of air operations in the west while still training new pilots adequately. This saw a sharp decline in training hours and increased losses in the air. The East was the only place for new pilots to experience relatively safe combat; remove that and you're throwing a growing pool of green pilots flying inferior aircraft into an almost daily battle of attrition, both physical and mental. Whille Allied losses will temporarily increase, these will only be a fraction of total forces which will only continue to grow. Thus the same battle of attrition remains. Attritional battles on the peripheraries, which the allies won every single time, will further attrit the Luftwaffe.

At the same time the decline of the Luftwaffe leads to greater vulnerability in coal, steel, industry, etc, leading to further damage to the Luftwaffe further exacerbated by massive Allied production advantages. Once the oil and coal campaigns get under way, Germany's economy wil be shit down and unable to function.

Strategy for Defeat, The Eagle in Flames, and the Wages of Destruction are all very good works on the topic.

I am still undecided how important the Bomber campaign really was? On the first look, its successful, the German cities obliterated, the infrastructere destroyed, e.t.c. and than I cant remember where I saw it, it seems to be that the Nazi war machine was at its hight at the last year of the war? Somebody knows more of this contradiction?

During 1945 Germany's economy was in collapse; factories were virtually shut down due to lack of coal, Allied aircraft roamed freely across Germany, etc. The bomber campaign destroyed the Luftwaffe utterly, rendering it a nonentity for the remainder of the war.

Germany's economic peak in 1944 was just that; a peak. Growth in late 1943 to early 1944 had slowed to a few percentage points from the heady days of 1942-43. Most of this was due to the Allied destruction of steel production in 1943, which never recovered. By summer-fall 1944 the American oil campaign had reduced German fuel production to 30% of potential, ending the Luftwaffe's even reduced ability to contest the skies. Then the full might of the Allied air offensive was used against Germany from fall 1944 to 1945, the effects of which I mentioned above.

The bomber campaign was essential to German defeat.

 

[Catspoke]

Possible advantages to Germany:

Here Germany is in a situation where it avoids the Demansyk airlift and the Stalingrad airlift and general east front attrition, so pilot training is better and wastage is less.

Some quanity of 88mm guns being used as anti-tanks guns could be brought back to help with bomber defence and production priorities changed to produce more flak. Basically Germany is hoping it can increase the percentage of bomber losses enough that bomber raiding is cost prohibitive most of the time.

Some sort of settlement has been reached with the Soviets. This has to have some effect on reducing the partisan war, and / or more people "willing to help" which means the Germans might get more economically out of the east.

If the Allied cross channel invasion is delayed to 1945, Germany has a chance to produce V weapons in quanity and shoot them from northern France, the Allies could get distracted by this and waste and tons of resources on countermeasures way out of proprtion to the risks of the V weapon damage actually could cause.

With the Germans still close to England perhaps the Allies think the Germans might unleash Sarin poison gas from V weapons or Jet bombers and thus don't atomic bomb Germany out of fear of some unknown retaliation on the British population.

Risk to Germany:
As Julian states Germany has to avoid unfavorable attition, especially air attrition. If she gets caught up in some huge wasteful Tunisian airlift or some such thing, it cancels some advantages gained. However if Africa is lost without extra losses could the German just hold at some point at Sicily or Italy and could avoid attritional air battles. It has extra divisions to hold beaches and repel invasions, why even send up the airpower except against Bomber streams over Germany.

 

[Beedok]

I'm also thinking that the Allies will back Soviet forces in the Caucusus to keep the oil out of German hands. Those mountains will probably provide a serious meat grinder for the Germans.

 

[katchen]

We are talking about a German-Soviet ARMISTICE!
Of course such an armistice does not prevent the Allies from supporting breakaway regimes in the Caucasus and Transcaucasus to keep the Caucasus oil out of German hands. Such regimes could be supplied from Iran and there are plenty of Armenian emigres in the United States who would be happy to help liberate former Soviet Armenia.
Which is to say that especially as many anti-Communists as there are in Washington, the Wallies will not allow any repeat of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. The Soviet Union started World War II as an ally of Nazi Germany. Then Hitler attacks the Soviet Union and suddenly the USSR is an ally of the West. If the USSR sues for a dishonourable peace and becomes once again an ally of Nazi Germany, albeit with reduced territory east of the Volga, it is still Communist even if it is not engaging in active hostilities and thus, still an enemy of the democratic capitalist nations of the West.
So don't expect the US to respect the Soviet Union's withdrawal from the war, especially since treating the Sovet Union as an enemy makes it legally possible for the US to invade and occupy places like Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky or northern Sakhalin that could be strategically very valuable in the war against Japan.
Or for that matter, Murmansk, and Archangelsk with a quick move to occupy Karelia, and Archangelsk and Vologda Oblasts as a prelude to taking St. Petersburg, knocking Finland out of the war and reopening at least a northern Eastern front against the Nazis. The French and the British may not understand how to keep engines running in bitterly cold weather, but American forces, engaging in maneurvers in Ft. Riley Kansas, Camp Carson, Colorado, Ft. Warren Wyoming, Camp Malmstrom Montana and Ft. Snelling Minnesota will learn to operate in cold tanks and trucks in cold weather as many have already learned in civilian life --perhaps even better than Russians, since more Americans at that time HAVE cars and trucks.
And if the Germans have damaged Stalin to the point that he is forced to seek an armistice, can the US finish Stalin off, perhaps with naval flotillas up the Ob, Yensei and Lena Rivers during the summer of 1943 that take the cities along the Trans Siberian Railroad while effectively occupying the rest of Siberia with smaller numbers of forces in order to preclude the consolidation of a Eurasian Berlin-Sverdlovsk-Tokyo Axis that would have much of it's industrial production in the heart of Asia in places like the Kuznets Basin (Novosibirsk) out of range of even B-29 bombers the US is developing? One would think that preventing such an axis would be a US -Western Ally defense priority.

 

[xxmagex]

Search for the thread "Anglo/American Nazi War" by Calbear. The dates are somewhat longer than the discussion so far- war lasts into 1961 or so due to a "Bombing Holiday" in the late 1940s and early 1950s. However, it does not end pleasantly for Germany, to put it mildly.

 

[BELFAST]

A lot depends on much difference this time lines is.
If the Germans never attack Britain from the air they would have a lot more pilots and a larger air-force.
With a victory in Russia German now has all the fuel and food it need coming for Russia and the material to make jet engines that last more than 10 hours.
With Russia out of the war I could see a cold war developing between Germany and Britain.
Also with victory in Russia Germans main war aims have been meet they now have the living space they wanted and as much land and resources as they could hope to control.
Germany in the long run would not do well as Fascist economics are not much better than Soviet economics.
I could see the German going in for big wasting projects like super railway and building the new Berlin.
Sooner or later German economy collapses and starts to look like north Korea with better weapons.

 

[Julian]

On the topic of relocating factories to the east, there are a lot of problems with that. First, economies of scale come into play; relocated factories will be inefficient and producing very little as they're set up, only gradually reaching a good portion of their potential. The Soviets suffered the same problem in 1941. Second, the Germans can't relocate every single portion of the design process; that would require literally shifting its entire industrial base east, not just a few factories. Third, Germany still can't relocate its rail lines, canals, coal, steel, ete out of range. Statistics show that what Germany gained in the East was only a fraction of its overall production. For instance, the loss of Krivoi Rog only resulted in a minor dip in steel production that it quickly recovered from; the Battle of the Ruhr in May 1943 crippled steel for the remainder of the war. Thus once the Allies begin disrupting transportation Germany will be in the same crisis it was in 1944-45. Finally, political factors prevent this massive shift from Germany; it took the July 20th Plot and his enemies at the gates for Hitler to get behind the "Total War" measures of Speer and Goebbels. With an enormous victory under his belt, Hitler will be unwilling to approve new, radical measures. It's far more likely in fact that he will favor a demobilization of the economy.

Risk to Germany:
As Julian states Germany has to avoid unfavorable attition, especially air attrition. If she gets caught up in some huge wasteful Tunisian airlift or some such thing, it cancels some advantages gained. However if Africa is lost without extra losses could the German just hold at some point at Sicily or Italy and could avoid attritional air battles. It has extra divisions to hold beaches and repel invasions, why even send up the airpower except against Bomber streams over Germany.

With the Nazi Party running Germany after its victorious war in the east a sane strategy will not be pursued. Just looking at OTL, even at the height of the eastern battles Hitler was still focused on fighting aggressively in the west; carrying out bombing raids over Britain, defending airspace in occupied France, contesting Tunisia, Sicily, and Italy, etc. Despite the fact that the Luftwaffe had been driven out of airbases in France since 1943, Hitler ordered a massive surge of fighters in response to Overlord. With another victory he will pursue an even more aggressive strategy, supported by Milch and others heading the Luftwaffe. Bombing against England will be stepped up, with disastrous results, the Luftwaffe will be surged to the Mediterranean, it will contest Allied aircraft in the Caucasus, and will try to retake air superiority over France. As OTL showed, these are battles it will lose; and with a more aggressive strategy it is unlikely it will be able cut its losses sooner.

Strategy for Defeat gives a lot of good information able how unrealistic Germany's air strategy was, when there actually was a strategy. The most the Luftwaffe could do was stave off the inevitable.

A lot depends on much difference this time lines is.
If the Germans never attack Britain for the air they would have a lot more pilots and a larger air-force.
With a victory in Russia German now has all the fuel and food it need coming for Russia and the material to make jet engines that last more than 10 hours.
With Russia out of the war I could see a cold war developing between Germany and Britain.
Germany in the long run would not do well as Fashist ecnomics are not much better than Soviet economics.
I could see the German going in for big wasting projects like super railway and building the new Berlin.
Sooner or later German economy collapses and starts to look like north Korea with better weapons.

Germany gains next to no fuel from Russia; the Allies will contest the Caucasus to the bitter end. Further, Germany will still be unable to contest Allied operations against coal, steel, and transportation. Having factories and labor means nothing if those factories are destroyed or you can't get materials to them

 

[Beedok]

The Germans trying to base planes to fight in the Caucusus would probably open those airfields to partisan attacks, but not sending them would be a death sentence against the allies.

 

[Catspoke]

We are talking about a German-Soviet ARMISTICE!
Of course such an armistice does not prevent the Allies from supporting breakaway regimes in the Caucasus and Transcaucasus to keep the Caucasus oil out of German hands. Such regimes could be supplied from Iran and there are plenty of Armenian emigres in the United States who would be happy to help liberate former Soviet Armenia.

Good points. This scenerio might mean a collapse of much Soviet authority, much chaos, various factions about, some Russian groups wanting to continue to fight the invaders, Released German POWs trying to get back from Siberia. Poles trying to get to the west. The central asian "stan" republics trying to set themselves up as independent. The Allies would want to consolidate these areas even at the short term expense of Egypt, Torch and the Pacific.

 

[adam888]

What if German victory comes prior to Pearl Harbor or the Germans simply refuse to declare war on the USA? We'd have effective stalemate in the west, especially if the Germans withdrew from France, Belgium, etc and offered to withdraw from North Africa for Hitler has his living space in the east.