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How would the map of the world look like after WW2 if
1. Germany never declared war on the Soviet Union
2. If that bloody Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty was never signed
3. If Romania and the Baltic states never accepted Soviet the ultimatum
4. If the plot to kill Hittler succeded
5. If Hittler never declared war on USA.
6. If Germany developed the atomic bomb before the americans
Btw, what happened to Keiser Wilhelm after WW1?
Difficult questions ~:eek:
1. Germany never declared war on the Soviet Union
Well this was a main part of Hitlers strategy. Maybe it was the wrong timing. Maybe the SU would have attacked Germany.
2. If that bloody Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty was never signed
Hitler would have waited for another year.
3. If Romania and the Baltic states never accepted Soviet the ultimatum
No idea!
4. If the plot to kill Hittler succeded
I am still working on that ~;)
5. If Hittler never declared war on USA.
Good question. I think the Nazis would have won a year or so. The US would have focused on Japan and then declared war on Germany.
6. If Germany developed the atomic bomb before the americans
That is unrealistic. Germany did not have the industrial power to do this.
Btw, what happened to Keiser Wilhelm after WW1?
He left the country. Guess he lived in Belgium.
1. Soviets would probably have still expanded into Eastern Europe. If you take the USSR out of the equation entirely the war would probably have been a draw or a win in Germany's favour since 80% of Germany's combat forces were kept on the Eastern Front.
5. Roosevelt wanted to get into the war against Germany, the declaration of war was just a convenient excuse - they would still have gotten involved.
He lived out the rest of his his life in Doorn, Holland.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cronos Impera
Grey_Fox
True, Roosevelt had been looking to engineer an incident in the Atlantic that he could go to war over for some time. If Germany had comprehensively washed its hands of the Japanese actions however, I’m not so sure FDR could have or would have been able to get a Axis wide declaration of war out of Congress.
"1." doesn't really work out; given Adolf's ideological oddities, his Drang nach Osten fixation, overconfidence thanks to the success of the West Front blitzkrieg and the abysmal showing of the Soviets in the Winter War, plus the detail that fascism and communism were pretty much natural enemies, it's extremely difficult to see why he wouldn't have invaded the USSR the first chance he got.
I've read that Stalin is generally considered to have been of the "rationally unscrupulous" sort of tyrant, and had a deep dislike for risk-taking - if it was up to him, gobbling up half the East Europe and then coexisting with Die Reich was a right fine scenario. Alas, Hitler wasn't of the quite same mold...
Anyways, AFAIK Germany lost the Battle of Britain pretty decisively even without having had the better part of its resources stuck in the Russian steppes which had some major future implications.
"2." doesn't really work either - both Hitler and Stalin had too many practical reasons to give each other some breathing room at the time. But if one assumes they for one reason or another failed to give each other elbow room, it would seem that both would've had to keep rather larger garrison forces in East Europe to guard against a surprise attack from the other (that Germany *didn't* invade Poland is pretty much a scenario out of the question). Now, this would seem to have some larger implications. For one, the USSR might not have been willing to risk the Winter War, given that it would've been a very logical developement for the Finns to ask the Germans for aid; in this case they'd have failed to work out some of the major "bugs" in the Red Army, and conversely their poor showing wouldn't have made Hitler so overconfident. On the other hand a lot of German troops and other resources would've been tied down to guard the border against the Soviets, and hence unavailable against France and the UK - and that just might have been enough to bog the blitzkrieg down into trench warfare.
More importanly, however, if Stalin had no reason to believe Hitler would leave him alone, it's entirely possible he might've entered into an alliance with the Western Allieds instead - particularly if the fighting in France dragged out and drew enough German resources away from East Europe. Opportunism, after all, was just about his main operating principle...
"3." would depend on other circumstances, but if need be the USSR probably had quite enough military muscle to enforce its demands if necessary.
"4." would depend heavily on who succeeded ole Adolf. It is entirely possible the top military brass (or at least parts thereof) might've tried to pull a military coup, which just might've completely fractured the Reich into a civil war between the rebellious generals and Party loyalists. Now that would've been messy indeed...
In any case, if the rather more rational among the senior officers could garner enough influence it is entirely possible they'd have tried to negotiate surrender with the Western Allies, whom they for rather good reasons considered an evil far lesser than the understandably frighteningly angry Soviets. Which in turn might've ticked the more fervent Nazis off enough to start an uprising of their own, and/or might've led to direct conflict between the Western Allies occupying Germany (plus their new German subjects) and an USSR not content with the results.
Mind you, if one of the Nazi believers got the job and proved a more competent supreme leader than his precedessor, the Allies might've had to fight a bit longer before Germany collapsed completely; Adolf's kooky strategic ideas, after all, often ended up wasting German resources to their advantage. In hindsight the writing was proabably on the wall by that point already (Germany may well have actually lost the whole war as soon as Barbarossa stalled...), and given the sheer economics of modern industrial war and increasingly desperate German shortage of about everything it is hard to believe the end result could've been much different.
"5." I'm under the impression the US was quite happy to supply both the British and the Soviets with material aid even before they were at formal war with Germany, so if one assumes the war went otherwise as it did this would probably mean the Soviets would've had to grind the Germans to dust mostly by themselves - although the Brits could fight the Reich to a standstill, it is extremely dubious if they'd have had the resources to counterattack into Festnung Europe by themselves. Well, at least before the Soviet juggernaut squeezed the German tight enough that they'd have to essentially abandon the West and move anything even resembling combat troops to defend the Fatherland from the communist hordes. Once that happened the British (most likely by that point joined by the Americans, who weren't any strangers to opportunism either after all, who ought to have finished with the Japanese by that time; all the more so as the Brist would've been able to spare more attention to their Far East front) ought to have been able to overrun at least France, Italy and so on - depending on how desperate the German East Front was, it's perfectly possible their local garrison commanders would rather jump ship to the Western Allies than sink into the Red ocean with Germany proper.
"6." would've been a pretty nasty scenario, given that the Germans also developed ballistic missiles. On the other hand, here the key question is when - after all, the US, which could spare the resources far better than the embattled Germans, had to expend several years of solid labor by a major team of scientists in complete safety (which the Germans didn't have, given the sheer range of Allied heavy bombers) and ridiculous amounts of money just to produce two workable bombs in conditions far better than the Germans were in only a few years into the war. Even if they got the theory working right, the Germans would have been very hard pressed indeed to produce workable warheads if they'd had to start during the war proper - and even if they succeeded the loss of the V-2 launch sites to the Soviets might well have left them with little in the way of suitable carriers. And merely vaporizing some field divisions wouldn't quite have had the same effect as wiping London or Moscow off the map - the Soviets in particular wouldn't have cared much as far as sheer casualties were concerned.
'Course, if they'd have somehow managed to develop at least the working basics before the war...
I've always wondered what might have happened if Adolf would have kept
clear of the decision to divert panzer divisions from the drive to Moscow, I
for one think the Russians may have been :boxing: out. But then again this
wasn't in his nature ~:rolleyes: .
~1. Germany never declared war on the Soviet Union~Quote:
Originally Posted by Cronos Impera
Hitler's original plan, afaik, was to ally with USSR, then declare war on them for more territory. Everyone's like that.
~2. If that bloody Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty was never signed~
Hitler would have still invaded USSR, just to get more territory. :duel:
~3. If Romania and the Baltic states never accepted Soviet the ultimatum~
I'm not too familiar with Eastern Europe history after WWII, so iuno...
~4. If the plot to kill Hittler succeded~
I would think one of his generals would become the Fuhrer, and possibly end the war.
~5. If Hittler never declared war on USA.~
USA would have still gotten involved, because they were sending shipments to the allies in Europe, and it was only natural they get involved if they were technically helping France & the UK already.
~6. If Germany developed the atomic bomb before the americans~
Scary thought, I'm not sure I want to answer that.
~Btw, what happened to Keiser Wilhelm after WW1?~
Lived in Doorn, Holland, and died in 1941.
And Moscow just might've become another Stalingrad.
Another interesting question is "what if the Germans had managed their air war on Britain better ?" I understand they at some point decided to concentrate on attacking the cities and suchlike instead of the air defense network, which as a strategy backfired badly. And even if they'd managed to beat down the RAF, could they also have managed to realize the Seelöwe amphibious invasion plan - especially when you consider the fact that the Royal Navy would most likely happily have lost all of its available ships just to send as many of the transports to the bottom of the Channel as possible halfway through...? It's not like they'd have needed to get too many even medium-sized capital ships amongst the invasion fleet to deal out appalling amounts of merry hell on a very democratic (dare I say socialist?) basis...
Just remember the longer the war with the Germans went on the more likely Nuclear weapons would have been used on them.
6. They were trying but they did not have the ability to purify the uranium... neither the knowledge nor the industrial requirements (a lot of power). Also it may have been true that some of the German scientists steered the Nazis away from Nukes and others sabotaged the studying of it.
I think it would have been just deserts for an E = mc^2 weapon to have been dropped... at least to the tune of 6 million dead.
Papewaio
But by the same token the Nazi's could have countered a nuclear threat or attack with their potential combination of ballistic missiles and nerve gas.
I hear Hitler had some serious issues about chemical weapons. Given that he served on the West Front in the Great War and had personal encounters with the things, that's probably not too surprising...
Besides, the V-2 facilities near the Baltic coast were AFAIK lost to the Soviets fairly soon after they went operational, and to my knowledge the Germans never had the resources to build more.
Gas mask vs 3m of concrete... which is easier to get on in a hurry?Quote:
Originally Posted by conon394
Gas masks don't amount to too much by their lonesomes against nerve agents, you know.
Indeed... But it wouldn't take him long to remove that quimishness if nukes were dropped on Germany. Given Hitler's love for 'revenge' in every kind of warfare he would not have sat back and thumbed his nose. And he most certainly would never have surrendered, he was just not that kind of person.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
And, yeah gasmask are worth this much '-' when nerve gas is used. And it is heavy so it will seep into the shelters and subways in London. In fact it would have been much safer for people to stay home (given how closed up apartments and houses were in those days), going to the shelters would just ensure they would congregate where the gas would enter.
It would have been horrible. But then again I'm certain the Allied high command would have figured this too.
Lungs are the most vulnerable vector, then eyes (moist surfaces), open wounds and then skin.
Nerve agents are easier to produce then Nuclear weapons but the Nerve Agents tend to be negated a lot easier too.
The original plan for the nukes in WWII was to drop them on Germany. A few of the scientists who helped design them did not agree with them being dropped on Japan even though they would have been ok with them being deployed on Germany.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraxis
If used against military targets they could have crippled some of the large support formations behind the front lines... or destroyed a good portion of tanks leaving the rest to fight a force of Soviet tanks.
Considering the lengths the Nazis went to discredit Einstein it would have been ironic to see a weapon based on his theories stop the Nazis in their tracks.
I think the respective Allied air fleets seemed to do a decent enough job ruining the Germans' days a lot more cost-effectively. By what I've read of it, when the Germans sent something to fight the Brits and Yanks they could consider themselves lucky if only one-third of it had been shot up by enemy aircraft along the way to the front lines...
Another question what would have happaned if the nazis crushed the soviets?
Would they betray japan? Invade briten again? or attack the u.s.]
Might as well put this question out there too
What if Pearl Harbor never happaned?
Kaiser Wilhelm lived in Belgium, supported the Nazi party, then died in 1941.
Not quite... But shot up could possibly equate to delayed and otherwise out of working order for the moment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
Allied flyers (Jabos) were notorious braggarts. For instance in the Mortain counterattack (which falied rather badly) the German supposedly lost 127 tanks to the allied flyers and another 50 to AT guns. Given that they only sent 118 into battle and of these about 70-75 managed to pull back we see a total of 3:1 of actual losses compared to claimed kills, and in this case it is well established that the AT guns were pretty much what halted the Germans and caused the majority of losses.
But Allied airpower became a nice little excuse after (and even during) the war for the apparent lack of results from the German armoured forces when they attacked.
What if the Italian strength was equal to or better then Mussolini had stated?
What if Mussolini was capable of winning against anyone better-equipped than the Ethiopians?
Ajax
if hitler had been killed by straughenburg in the wolfs den, then they would probably have diverted mre troops to the eastern front and halted the war to rebuilt there industry and continue development, if hitler was killed the nazis ddefinity have been better off.
mousalini would have never been able to, he was not loved in his country.
"Rebuilding their industry" would've been a pretty tall order, given the attention West Allied strategic bombers lavished upon it and the blunt fact Germany was seriously short of many vital raw materials...
Ed: Oh, and Kraxis ? I was really thinking more in terms of what the Allied air arm did to the very infrastructure the Germans had to use to move things around, like from the home front to the battlefront. Plus the likes of fuel and ammo dumps and what-have-you (halfway to the war the German mechanized forces were struggling with chronic fuel shortages to begin with). Compared to the hassle all that gave the Germans the harassement by the ground-attack craft was a probably minor issue.
Not that having to dodge airstrikes ever improved any tank's fighting ability, mind you.
There were more reasons than shooting up the supplies. Germany lacked supplies from the outset.
You can see a similar problem with the western Allies. They were also cronically low on fuel despite healthy supplies being delivered to Britain.
It was simply very hard to transport it to the right positions.
The Germans 'merely' suffered further delays on transport as it was generally the trains' engines that were shot up or the rails were damaged. Actual losses among manpower or equipment was somewhere between 'low' and 'a nuisance'. Losses among supplies were somewhat higher as it was transported the last way in trucks and other soft vehicles. These were then intercepted by the Jabos.
And what's modern war all about if not logistics ?
But yeah, the West Allies had some issues too. They had the stuff, but not the port capacity or transport infrastructure available to get it to the front lines as fast as necessary. Conversely, the Germans half the time didn't even have what they needed, and what they managed to put together was then spiritedly messed with by Allied aircraft rather magnifying the problem.
No.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaiser of Arabia
It was in Europe, at least. ~;) The year is correct though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Geoffrey S
i for one am glad that hitler had to take his own life hiding in a bunker somewhere. if a coup or assassination of hitler had been successful, then nazi apologists would today be claiming that hitler was just about to turn the fortunes of the war when he had been treacherously struck down at the pivotal moment. i mean hitler used that same kind of crappy reasoning about germany being stabbed in the back in WWI, as if germany already hadn't lost the war in the west and defeat was inevitable on that front.
Not true indeed. When he tried to flee from the revolutionaries, it appears he was indeed in Belgium (at his military headquarters in Spa), but he had to flee to the Neutral Netherlands after that. The Belgians wouldn't have liked their former oppressor that much anyway...not after the atrocities the Germans did in Belgium. The Dutch queen Wilhelmina, related to Wilhelm and not too fond of revolutionaries, then convinced the Dutch government to let him in the country. The Netherlands had some diplomatic problems after that with the allied powers who of course weren't too fond of old Willie (and distrusted the Dutch for alledged pro-German neutrality), but the Dutch government let him live in Huis Doorn (House Doorn in Doorn, Utrecht). He never returned to Germany afterwards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaiser of Arabia
About him supporting the Nazis, I don't think he actually liked them. He recieved high Nazis in Doorn before the war and he congratulated Hitler with his conquests, but I don't think he was that fond of them (them being the riff-raff he must have despised). He just liked seeing Germany back in a powerfull position again (like most Wehrmacht generals did) and he actually hoped the Nazis would let him be Emperor again. (Not a chance they would have, of course). There at least is no sign of Hitler visiting the old Kaiser in his house in Doorn after the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, and Wilhelm didn't return to Germany after. After his death in 1941, he was actually buried in Doorn, I believe.
Edit: I just remembered some old film footage of Wilhelm in Doorn, showing him doing what he liked to do most during his exile-days: chopping wood in the garden.
I have brought this up before. But i like to repeat myself.~;) In the Eastern front at fall 1941. If the Finish forces would have cutted the Murmansk Railroad that was the main supply line for the American supplies that basicly kept Russia alive for the Winter 1941 and until fall 1942. I believe the Soviet Union would have grumbled. Also Finland could have helped in the attack against Russia´s second largest city and the home of the communist revolution Leningrad, but didnt fire a single artillery shell in the city. At the winter 1941 the only supply line to Leningrad was the Ice road over Lake Ladoga,which was under the Finish artillery range,but again Finish troops didnt attack a single time against the supply colums. The falling of Leningrad would have been catastrophy to SU. We have to remember that 1/4 of the Whole German armies at the Russia were at the Army group North. If these forces could have been pointed towards Moscow on spring 1942. I dont believe that the defenders of the city could have had much chances.:bow:
Leningrad was nothing more then a symbolic target.Quote:
The falling of Leningrad would have been catastrophy to SU.
The true power of the SU lied more south/east.
It was the discussion Hitler had with his generals.
They wanted to attack the soviet supplies of raw materials and oil reserves.
Hitler wanted to Capture Leningrad to show the world he had crushed the SU.
Just another fatal mistake in a long line of military errors.
But to get back to the subject.
WW II was lost to the axes from the very beginning.
The 2 fatal mistakes Hitler never should have made:
*Attacking the Soviet Union: This was one of the most critical events that took place.
Because the Russians didn’t join the Allies to distribute the final punches in the 1st WW,
the Germans never did learn the lesson of the weight of a 2front war.
*Failing to invade England:
He left the Europe war scene without completing it.
Leaving behind a weakened but nevertheless dangerous enemy.
At the battle of Britain the little *prick* should have stayed destroying the Raf’s infrastructure.
All the decisions and event’s that came afterwards wouldn’t have made much difference.
The war could have lasted longer or be more disastrous, but the Axes would still have lost it.
(Language... though only mild. -Kraxis)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Upxl
I would have to disagree.Leningrad was the second largest city of the Soviet Union.It also guarded the Northern railway line from Murmansk to Siberia where the Soviets builded up the industry to create weapons for the eventual counter attack against Germans in 1942-1945. If you look at the railway network of Russia you understand what i mean.About the attack on SU.If the Germans wouldnt have attacked SU.Soviet Union would have attacked Germany.
I think that the first starategig level error for the Germans was to attack Moscow in 1941. Hitlers generals proposed an creation of an defensive line in september,but Hitler did not listened. The initial German attack at 1941 drove infact too deep to Russia,If they would have stopped the attack before the weather conditions failed the attack.The first Soviet counter attack would have failed and the Germans could have continued their main assault on Army group center and North during spring 1942.
I agree that the Hitlers decision to target the cities of England instead of terminating the RAF was a huge mistake that eventually costed the Germans the whole Battle of Britain in the end.
About the WWI.The reason why the Russia didnt join in the final attack against Germany was,that the Russian Armies was already utterly beaten by the Germans. And infact Russia was in the middle of civil war at that point.:bow:
If you look at the production/economy scale of +/- 1940 you’ll see that almost everything (almost 80%)of Russian production/resources lied mid/east.Quote:
I would have to disagree.Leningrad was the second largest city of the Soviet Union.It also guarded the Northern railway line from Murmansk to Siberia
Iron/steal, machine industry, oil, coal, … Leningrad was really small potatoes compared to Moscow and beyond.
This was really the heart of the SU production capability.
Not that I don’t believe you,…Quote:
where the Soviets builded up the industry to create weapons for the eventual counter attack against Germans in 1942-1945.
But could you give me any sources on the matter?
It wasn’t really a strategic error to order the advance on Moscow.Quote:
I think that the first starategig level error for the Germans was to attack Moscow in 1941.
The error laid more in the fact that Hitler ordered to reinforce the army groups north and south at the cost of Von Bock’s (Central)army.
At this point Hitler ordered the advance on Moscow to a halt.
When the order eventually came it was to late, the greatest SU ally (winter) was at the door.
I could be wrong about this,…Quote:
About the WWI.The reason why the Russia didnt join in the final attack against Germany was,that the Russian Armies was already utterly beaten by the Germans. And infact Russia was in the middle of civil war at that point.
But didn’t the comies just took control of the SU?
And wasn’t this the reason they signed a peace treaty with Germany?
Anyway I don’t think that any scenario would’ve given the Germans victory over the SU.
It’s the same problem the Japanese had with China.
Just to f… big.~:)
If they had crushed Leningrad and Moscow and the more southern industry, they still couldn’t get a total victory over the SU.
It would be the same scenario as they had with Britain.
Weakend? Yes. Destroyed? Forget it!
Lenin and his buddies did take over the Provisional Government, but they basically only held sway in Leningrad initially. They needed time to consolidate their position, even if a civil war had never happened. Thus they made peace with Germany as at the time the Germans could basically have marched all the way to Vladivostok if need be since all the Russian soldiers were going home. A peace was needed.
Then came all the trouble of the civil war and the events just prior to that, so there was no chance that SU would have been able to rejoin the war ever.
Thnx for the info.
This was a mayor gap in my inner history book.
Either way, the Germans never learned the lesson what raw Soviet power could do to a nation’s army.
Want an "alternate history" scenario ? Whe the Finnish Civil War wound down in 1918 the Bolsheviks were still in a very precarious position in St. Petersburg (it took them quite a few years of Russian Civil War to take over the whole country) and the newly blooded Finnish "White" army was rather close by, due to having only recently chased the beaten Finnish "Reds" to the border. Marshal Mannerheim even opened negotiations with the Russian "White" generals on the topic of marching in and getting rid of the "Bolshevik rabble" (an aristocrat, conservative and a former senior officer of the Imperial Russian Army, Mannerheim was no friend of the revolutionaries). The latter, however, for some unfathomable reason were unwilling to unconditionally recognize the already de facto independence of Finland - something Lenin and the Boys, running on total crisis management mode, had been about the first in the world to do.
So Mannerheim called the whole thing off, and Finnish participation in the Russian Civil War was limited to some over-enthusiastic volunteers trying to 'liberate' the Finnish-speaking populaces of a few border areas in the so-called "Tribal Wars". The Red Army duly chased them off right quick once they could spare the troops from dealing with the Whites.
The "what if" scenario should be obvious...