WW2 with different outcomes

[Cronos Impera]

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?

[Franconicus]

Difficult questions

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.

[Grey_Fox]

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.

[Geoffrey S]

Btw, what happened to Keiser Wilhelm after WW1?

He lived out the rest of his his life in Doorn, Holland.

[conon394]

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.

[Watchman]

"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...

[dgfred]

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 out. But then again this
wasn't in his nature .

[TheSilverKnight]

How would the map of the world look like after WW2 if

~1. Germany never declared war on the Soviet Union~
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.

~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.

[Watchman]

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...

[Papewaio]

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.

[conon394]

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.

[Watchman]

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.

[Papewaio]

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.

Gas mask vs 3m of concrete... which is easier to get on in a hurry?

[Watchman]

Gas masks don't amount to too much by their lonesomes against nerve agents, you know.

[Kraxis]

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...

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.

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.

[Papewaio]

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.

[Papewaio]

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.

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.

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.

[Watchman]

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...

[Lord Winter]

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 of Arabia]

Kaiser Wilhelm lived in Belgium, supported the Nazi party, then died in 1941.

[Kraxis]

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...

Not quite... But shot up could possibly equate to delayed and otherwise out of working order for the moment.

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.

[Papewaio]

What if the Italian strength was equal to or better then Mussolini had stated?

[ajaxfetish]

What if Mussolini was capable of winning against anyone better-equipped than the Ethiopians?

Ajax

[master of the puppets]

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.

[Watchman]

"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.

[Kraxis]

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.

[Watchman]

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.

[Geoffrey S]

Kaiser Wilhelm lived in Belgium, supported the Nazi party, then died in 1941.

No.

He lived out the rest of his his life in Doorn, Holland.

It was in Europe, at least. The year is correct though.

[nokhor]

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.

[Brutus]

Kaiser Wilhelm lived in Belgium, supported the Nazi party, then died in 1941.

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.
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.