Pretty sure this musing arises from too much time spent on HOI4 of late , but the background AH in Yiddish Policemen's Union has also led me to wonder about it in the past, so here goes:
As the (perhaps overlong) title says, let's presume Germany succeeds in "crushing" the Soviet Union (maybe reaching the A-A Line, at the most) through the above operations, thus temporarily fulfilling its strategic and "lebensraum" ambitions. In the process, however, it fatally overextends itself, becoming bogged down by guerrilla warfare and a still-defiant USSR entrenched behind the Urals, and the Western Allies eventually end up marching on/reaching Berlin themselves, with the rest of the "core" German territories falling within a certain period afterwards. What is likeliest to happen with the "lebensraum" satrapies in Eastern Europe and western Russia? Would any diehard Nazi or Wehrmacht leaders try to set themselves up as independent warlords or Werwolf-type resistance groups in these regions, maybe more out of desperation or desire to go down fighting rather than loyalty to a defeated regime/ideology? Would the Western Allies keep going east, to try to "restore order" ahead of any Soviet or other communist return? Would we see something like UN peacekeeping forces (along the lines of the operations in Korea, maybe, more than the modern type) in the area between the Vistula and the Volga or even the Urals?
As the (perhaps overlong) title says, let's presume Germany succeeds in "crushing" the Soviet Union (maybe reaching the A-A Line, at the most) through the above operations, thus temporarily fulfilling its strategic and "lebensraum" ambitions. In the process, however, it fatally overextends itself, becoming bogged down by guerrilla warfare and a still-defiant USSR entrenched behind the Urals, and the Western Allies eventually end up marching on/reaching Berlin themselves, with the rest of the "core" German territories falling within a certain period afterwards. What is likeliest to happen with the "lebensraum" satrapies in Eastern Europe and western Russia? Would any diehard Nazi or Wehrmacht leaders try to set themselves up as independent warlords or Werwolf-type resistance groups in these regions, maybe more out of desperation or desire to go down fighting rather than loyalty to a defeated regime/ideology? Would the Western Allies keep going east, to try to "restore order" ahead of any Soviet or other communist return? Would we see something like UN peacekeeping forces (along the lines of the operations in Korea, maybe, more than the modern type) in the area between the Vistula and the Volga or even the Urals?