Quote Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger View Post
Even at their most congenial, the West and the Russians were extremely suspicious of each other. Read Churchill's opinions on Stalin and communism as a good example. Their alliance was one of necessity, and while I agree with you wholeheartedly that there was no way the two would turn on each other as long as their common enemy, Nazi Germany, existed, the proposed scenario changes everything. With Hitler dead and the Nazis (presumably) out of power, Germany suddenly becomes the lesser of two evils/threats
I see what you're getting at, but I have difficulty believing that the US or UK would truly believe that Germany had been de-Nazified while it continued fighting and particularly while it continued to occupy foreign nations, such as Poland. Just look at the reaction Patton got when he tried to keep the civil servants around. If Patton, of all people, could be politically tarred and feathered over retaining that relatively minor amount of 'Nazism,' I cannot see the US or UK accepting a simple leadership purge as a good enough reason to completely cease hostilities. Perhaps if the Germans had engaged in massive, open, and public de-Nazification there might have been something to build upon, but such a drastic purge of Germany would have so seriously damanged their ability to wage the war that Germany would have been defeated even more quickly in the East.

I've spent many years studying WW2 history, particularly the very entertaining 'what if' scenarios. While they are fun, there are honestly very few scenarios in which Germany could have won WW2 without deviating so signficantly from reality that the scenario becomes more fantasy than history. IMHO, Germany's only serious, realistic chance of victory was at Dunkirk. Had things occurred differently, and had the diplomacy been handled properly, peace with the UK could have been had then and there. That would have prevented the US from entering the war and would have let Germany fight the Soviets without one hand tied behind its back. After Dunkirk, the odds of a UK withdrawal from the war was negligible and the US entry was inevitable, even without Japan.