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Alternate World War 2

V

Venocara

God Save the King.
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For my first post here as a new member, I would like to ask a question.

Could World War 2 be ended in 1943 (with Germany left with 1939 borders*) if the following criteria were met?

  • Hitler dies in March 1943, and FDR soon follows
  • A military coup overthrows the Nazi regime (killing or imprisoning the main Nazis) promising the quick establishment of a British-style constitutional monarchy
  • The Sicilian or Italian invasions (or both) fail
  • Manstein's "Backhand Blow" operation is implemented and successful
  • The immediate withdrawal of the Germans from all occupied territories
If so, what could happen in such a timeline?

  • Who would be the contestants of the 1944 Presidential Election, and who would win?
  • When would the next British election be, and who would win?
  • Would Japan fold after being left with no allies?
  • What would happen to the USSR? And China? And the UK?
  • What would have happened to states like Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia and Hungary?
Any and all ideas are welcome!

*After all, there were negotiations between Molotov and Ribbentrop in mid-1943. The Soviets offered 1939 borders, Ribbentrop wanted the border at the Dnieper, so things fell apart.
 
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David Flin said:
I'm afraid I just can't see a military coup deciding to promptly withdraw from occupied territories and instituting democracy. It's not like the German military leaders were merely misled and confused about what was going on. The occupied territories were considered essential for the supply of Germany.
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Hmmm. The only reason why I thought that they might do it is because the military leaders would (or at least should) realise that the war was getting away from them, and that peace needed to be secured before it was too late and Germany was destroyed.
 
Venocara said:
Hmmm. The only reason why I thought that they might do it is because the military leaders would (or at least should) realise that the war was getting away from them, and that peace needed to be secured before it was too late and Germany was destroyed.
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I suspect all but the most moderate would insist on keeping large parts of Poland, if not all of it, as a minimum.
 
David Flin said:
Guderian was made Chief of the General Staff in June 1944. In November 1944, he was still arguing that victory was possible. It was only by March 1945 that he started to come round to the view that Germany could well lose.
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I wasn't aware of that. Rather stupid of him isn't it?

But why then did he get involved in the 20th July Plot?
 
Alex Richards said:
I suspect all but the most moderate would insist on keeping large parts of Poland, if not all of it, as a minimum.
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I think that might have been what Molotov meant by "1939 borders", although I'm not sure. I don't think the Soviets would have been too happy about losing their pound of flesh, so I was thinking of the eastern borders they agreed upon in August.
 
David Flin said:
As I understand it, and it's been a long time since I've done much on WW2, his dispute was over what the military strategy should be by which the war should be conducted, not whether the war should be brought to a close as quickly as possible.

He wasn't alone. As far as I have been able to tell, the general view seems to have been that the limit they'd reached by late 43 right up until pretty late were defensible, provided they were allowed to defend them their own way. It only seems to have been post Bagration and D-Day that the fact that they might have a problem began to sink in.
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So do you think that if Hitler had died, the military government would have continued the war?
 
Almost certainly. And while the worst atrocities of the Holocaust would probably come to an end, if for no other reason than the logistical waste of the industrialised killings, by that point the Wehrmacht was so complicit in the crimes that I'd expect many of the 'spontaneous' killings to continue- and certainly the camp inmates won't be released.

In fact, even though the overall death toll may be lower, one deeply poisonous effect of a successful coup might be the Allies going back to the common view in the early days of the war: that the Nazis were just puppets of Prussian militarists.

A world where the atrocities are blamed on something inherently 'Germanic' rather than as specifically 'Nazi' or 'Fascist' could be far more toxic in the decades to come.
 
Arthur_Phuxache said:
Why would the Allies disengage from the conflict, with none of their objectives met?
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If I recall correctly, a lot of high-ranking Americans believed that they should be focusing on the Japanese rather than the conflict in Europe. With costly failures in Italy and the Germans still deep inside Russia, a peace deal that sees the end of Nazism without the Germans, the Soviets or the British taking over Europe might seem favourable, especially to a man like Henry A. Wallace. I don't know though, that's the point of this thread.
 
Arthur_Phuxache said:
So, only the opinions of the Americans matter. Good luck convincing Stalin and Churchill to agree to a negotiated peace, with British and Soviet territory still in Nazi hands, then!

The chances of this happening are nil.
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As I said, in June 1943 Molotov (presumably with Stalin's blessing) offered Ribbentrop a deal to end the war with 1939 borders. Ribbentrop rejected in OTL, but the point of TTL is that it is accepted. And it hurts me to say it, but if the Americans pull out and there are no more Nazis it makes it much harder for the British to say in.


Arthur_Phuxache said:
So, capturing Sicily is a failure? The fall of Mussolini and the capitulation of Italy is a failure?
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The scenario is supposed to imagine that Sicily is never captured and Mussolini isn't overthrown (yet).
 
Venocara said:
As I said, in June 1943 Molotov (presumably with Stalin's blessing) offered Ribbentrop a deal to end the war with 1939 borders. Ribbentrop rejected in OTL, but the point of TTL is that it is accepted. And it hurts me to say it, but if the Americans pull out and there are no more Nazis it makes it much harder for the British to say in.
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I think @The Red has disputed this before on the basis that the source for it (the molotov offer) is notoriously inaccurate on other details.
 
Venocara said:
And it hurts me to say it, but if the Americans pull out and there are no more Nazis it makes it much harder for the British to say in.
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So the US is going to unilaterally abandon its Allies, and the Nazis are going to magically disappear. Are the OKW and OKH going to arrest or summarily execute Himmler, Bormann, Lammers, Göring, Dönitz, Ley, Ribbentrop, Peiper, Dietrich, Höss, Brunner, Kramer, Von Braun, Piorkowski, Karl Frank, Seyss-Inquart etc? On what pretext?
 
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Arthur_Phuxache said:
So the US is going to unilaterally abandon its Allies, and the Nazis are going to magically disappear. Are the OKW and OKH going to arrest or summarily execute Himmler, Bormann, Lammers, Göring, Dönitz, Ley, Ribbentrop, Peiper, Dietrich, Höss, Brunner, Kramer, Von Braun, Piorkowski, Karl Frank, Seyss-Inquart etc? On what pretext?
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Wouldn't something similar have happened if the 20th July plot succeeded?

And casualties severe (after TTL's failed Sicily) and a peace offer on the table (and the Japanese still a massive threat to America itself, or so they thought), it could give the Americans an excuse to make the British negotiate.

Again, these are just thoughts. I welcome discussion on the matter.
 
Venocara said:
Who is the source for the offer? And I heard that offers were made in 1942, 1943 and 1944. Is this untrue as well?
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The red is the guy who knows but I think he's told me before that the only source for this is the memoirs of Pavel Sudoplatov who got a lot of things wrong.
 
Arthur_Phuxache said:
No. The tiny number that there were would be wiped out by the SS/Gestapo/Sicherheitsdeinst, even if Hitler was dead.

The purges are likely to more extreme than OTL, if Hitler is successfully assassinated.
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Are you saying that the 20th July plot, despite the high-ranking Army officials onside, was doomed to failure?
 
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