Barbarossa/Typhoon/Case Blue Succeed, But Germany Still Defeated...What Next?

[MAC161]

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?

 

[Coiler]

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

Realistically they just either surrender or get overrun quickly when their supply bases are destroyed.

 

[MAC161]

Realistically they just either surrender or get overrun quickly when their supply bases are destroyed.

And if that happens, how fast/likely are the Soviets (after being forced past the Urals, in the worst case scenario) to reoccupy the whole of western Russia up to the 1939 borders ahead of the Allies', maybe with a combined attitude of "we crushed Fascism/liberated Eurasia" and "best finish destroying Communism before its resurgence", deciding to establish "friendly" government(s) in the area, perhaps under a "peacekeeping" aegis thru the new United Nations?

As is probably obvious, the root of this question comes from seeing the Allies win in HOI4 and, if the USSR is on the ropes or otherwise unable to march west in tandem, all the occupied Russian territory immediately reverts to that nation in the aftermath of an Axis defeat. Seemed strange even for that game, and so I wonder how it would've really (or just plausibly) played out in real history.

 

[Coiler]

And if that happens, how fast/likely are the Soviets (after being forced past the Urals, in the worst case scenario) to reoccupy the whole of western Russia up to the 1939 borders ahead of the Allies',

If we go by the most rote and deterministic effect (highest known/expected rate of advance in WWII+distance from Urals to western borders), then about two months for an idealized best case. Maybe half a year at most with friction take into account.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Realistically they just either surrender or get overrun quickly when their supply bases are destroyed.

Manchukuo is probably the best analogy. "We have a million men under arms and we've been stomping partisans for ages, come at me" *a full on army shows up* "ow ow ow this fucking sucks"

As for the Soviets it depends on what happens and how long the civil war power struggle lasts after they surrender or get pushed beyond the Urals.

 

[Death's Companion]

If the Soviets are behind the AA line then probably years rather than months? Because presumably that means the Red Army is gone anyway and the sheer distance involved and even token resistance would be very difficult and Nazis being Nazis would probably burn and slaughter everything on the way out.

 

[Coiler]

If the Soviets are behind the AA line then probably years rather than months?

Nah. Unless they're formally disarmed (like they'd obey even without the WAllies still in the fight and at least some mfg safely moved east), they're going to have a substantial force there that can head west.

And Manchuria was in very iffy terrain. Didn't stop them from moving fast.

 

[History Learner]

If the Germans achieve the A-A Line, the war is over; short of B-36s in the hundreds and hydrogen bombs, the Western Allies have no way of defeating the Germans while the Soviets are dead. I mean the latter half literally; they’ve lost too much agricultural production to keep fighting, nevermind population and industry also. The Red Army would exist solely on paper.

 

[Death's Companion]

Nah. Unless they're formally disarmed (like they'd obey even without the WAllies still in the fight and at least some mfg safely moved east), they're going to have a substantial force there that can head west.

And Manchuria was in very iffy terrain. Didn't stop them from moving fast.

Nothing formal about it, if they've lost their population, industrial and resource base and presumably millions of soldiers they're not doing any grand sweeping offensives. If they are on the AA line that means they've already lost their substantial forces.


By the time the Wallies have enough nukes and sheer muscle to break through the Soviets are probably done as a state.


But rest assured the Nazis were not going to reach the AA line.

 

[MAC161]

But rest assured the Nazis were not going to reach the AA line.

I too very much doubt they would've, so what's a more likely stalling point for them in a "victorious" Eastern Front campaign?

 

[Coiler]

I too very much doubt they would've, so what's a more likely stalling point for them in a "victorious" Eastern Front campaign?

I want to say along the length of the Moskva and Don rivers.

 

[MAC161]

I want to say along the length of the Moskva and Don rivers.

That would leave Stalingrad, Saratov, Kazan, Kuibyshev, Yaroslavl and Magnitogorsk, to name just a few major cities/industrial centers, outside of German reach except for the Luftwaffe, not to mention what was evacuated past the Urals; doesn't quite seem to fit in a "victorious" scenario. Maybe having them grind to a halt somewhere between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod instead (since reaching the Volga effectively puts them at the even-less realistic A-A Line), so that these are all still threatened/damaged enough to weaken the Russians for the amount of time needed for the Allies to achieve the kind of west-to-east victory/"peacekeeping operation" described earlier?

Idea(s) coming to mind: 1945-46, or '47; U.S. unit on "temporary peacekeeping" duty in a razed Moscow, led by a grim, hardbitten senior NCO who'd served as a private in the 1918 Archangelsk or Vladivostok "intervention"; unit trying to make sense of the Holocaust/Eastern Front horrors and postwar mission, while the war in the Pacific continues to smolder (despite the atomic bombings as in OTL), diehard German/collaborator groups wage guerrilla war against the Allies and pro-Soviet forces, the Soviets begin returning and reasserting control wherever they can and the Allies search with increasing desperation for a "legitimate, democratic" government/leader to prop up.

Possible title: Over There...Again.

 

[History Learner]

That would leave Stalingrad, Saratov, Kazan, Kuibyshev, Yaroslavl and Magnitogorsk, to name just a few major cities/industrial centers, outside of German reach except for the Luftwaffe, not to mention what was evacuated past the Urals; doesn't quite seem to fit in a "victorious" scenario. Maybe having them grind to a halt somewhere between Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod instead (since reaching the Volga effectively puts them at the even-less realistic A-A Line), so that these are all still threatened/damaged enough to weaken the Russians for the amount of time needed for the Allies to achieve the kind of west-to-east victory/"peacekeeping operation" described earlier?

Idea(s) coming to mind: 1945-46, or '47; U.S. unit on "temporary peacekeeping" duty in a razed Moscow, led by a grim, hardbitten senior NCO who'd served as a private in the 1918 Archangelsk or Vladivostok "intervention"; unit trying to make sense of the Holocaust/Eastern Front horrors and postwar mission, while the war in the Pacific continues to smolder (despite the atomic bombings as in OTL), diehard German/collaborator groups wage guerrilla war against the Allies and pro-Soviet forces, the Soviets begin returning and reasserting control wherever they can and the Allies search with increasing desperation for a "legitimate, democratic" government/leader to prop up.

Possible title: Over There...Again.

There would literally not be enough Soviet men left unoccupied, and that's ignoring the food situation which would kill most of the remainder:

IV. Remaining unused resources:​

a) reserved for employment in the civil economy - 2 781 000​

b) in labor columns - 1 321 000​

c) recruits born in 1925 - 700 000​

d) non-conscripted men fully fit for service in the Central Asian Military District - 600 000​

e) non-conscripted men with limited fitness or in the age above 45 (without Far-East and Transcaucasus) - 500 000 (of them 277 000 in the Central Asia)​

f) non-conscripted men in the Far East, Trasnbaikal and Transcaucasus Fronts 505 000 (including 200 000 with limited fitness and 200 000 in age above 45).​

g) officers of reserve, not conscripted yet - 156 000​

h) expected convalescents from hospitals in 3 nearest months - 350 000​

i) in the penitentiary system - 1 156 000 men in age from 17 to 45.​

This is taken from a reported from January of 1943, which was presented directly to Stalin. Basically, outside of the 1925 draft class, the only thing left for the Soviets was taking men out of the economy, old men, politically unreliable Central Asians, and physically lacking Gulag inmates.

 

[Charles EP M.]

IIRC, the problem with lebensraum is very few Germans actually wanted to go lebens over there - it was fine enough living in an early 20th century city with electricity and heat and stuff and all their friends & family, there wasn't a big desire to become frontiersmen in a cold foreign land. And in this setup the war's still going on so only so many people who might work in a factory or hold a rifle will be sent off. You'd have a few die-hard settlements of mega-Nazis who are mostly reliant on dwindling supplies from back home, and eventually coming their way are the enraged Soviets out for blood.

Whether the Western Allies march further east probably depends on how many German armed divisions and Nazi officials flee east when Berlin falls. Not many, they might just let the Soviets handle it - any big-sounding number that we think the Soviets can't handle (as History Learner says a vast number of able men and women would have starved to death), off we go to make sure there's no problem in the future. I assume we'll be marching to Czechoslovakia and Poland to drive out any Germans and restore the governments-in-exile however things go.

The USSR would surely demand that as soon as the Western Allies have helped, they fuck off home. Officially we're all allies and everybody would be sick of war, so I'm 80% sure the West does just that (and the 20% would depend on how much the US & UK thinks "we take 'em" and who's in power at the time, I can see Churchill going for it if he's still there)

 

[Coiler]

There would literally not be enough Soviet men left unoccupied, and that's ignoring the food situation which would kill most of the remainder:

If only there was a giant food producer also fighting the Germans and providing aid to the Soviets....

Being able to finagle say, a million troops after you catch your breath from a pseudo-peace (which you can get from the 1925 draftees, enough Central Asians who now know what Germans occupation means, decently recovered wounded, economic workers who can be at least temporarily replaced by Lend-Lease imports, and older men who can do rear-line work) is entirely possible. And having those million troops overrun garrison forces much better at massacres than battles is also entirely possible.

I'm not denying that the Soviets wouldn't have famines or lose a lot of people, or that the western allies would have to do a lot more heavy lifting with the resulting losses before they drop the nukes (which they were anticipating they might have to do if the Soviets did indeed fall), but their resiliency is not to be underestimated.

 

[Coiler]

Although since all this is getting into soft AH anyway, I'd just say "do what you want for the story." I happen to have a soft-spot for having a resurgent Red Army charging west at Dirlewanger and company in hand-me-down M3 Lees and semi-improvised armored tractors, even if it's not the most technically plausible.

 

[History Learner]

If only there was a giant food producer also fighting the Germans and providing aid to the Soviets....

Being able to finagle say, a million troops after you catch your breath from a pseudo-peace (which you can get from the 1925 draftees, enough Central Asians who now know what Germans occupation means, decently recovered wounded, economic workers who can be at least temporarily replaced by Lend-Lease imports, and older men who can do rear-line work) is entirely possible. And having those million troops overrun garrison forces much better at massacres than battles is also entirely possible.

If the Germans have achieved the A-A Line, Lend Lease is no longer available:

If they've taken Astrakhan, the Persian Lend Lease route is shut off. If they've taken Archangelsk, they've also cut off the Murmansk Railway in the process and thus have shut off the Northern Lend Lease route. That's ~50% of capacity right there eliminated, but if the Germans have taken Moscow and Leningrad, the Kwantung Army has also struck (as Japanese planning called for in the event of a Soviet collapse) and thus shut off the Pacific Route.

As for the manpower issue, the 1925 Draft Class was 700,000 in the context of the Germans not holding most of the RSFSR population; i.e. it was in Soviet hands. Here, assuming the A-A Line or even the crippled line of advance, the vast majority of the Russian population has passed into German hands and thus is no longer able to be conscripted. Likewise, we need to remember the Red Army in 1942 consisted of over 6 million men in frontline duties alone; a force of only a million is barely sufficient for internal security and maintaining a cohesive defensive front, nevermind taking the offensive.

I'm not denying that the Soviets wouldn't have famines or lose a lot of people, or that the western allies would have to do a lot more heavy lifting with the resulting losses before they drop the nukes (which they were anticipating they might have to do if the Soviets did indeed fall), but their resiliency is not to be underestimated.

Using nuclear weapons was never discussed in any Allied planning concerning the hypothetical collapse of the USSR. The one time, Pre-1945, they had a conference on the matter the target they decided upon was solely Japan; Groves in April of 1945 said the Japanese had always been the target of the entire bomb phase of the Manhattan Project.

Although since all this is getting into soft AH anyway, I'd just say "do what you want for the story." I happen to have a soft-spot for having a resurgent Red Army charging west at Dirlewanger and company in hand-me-down M3 Lees and semi-improvised armored tractors, even if it's not the most technically plausible.

This I agree with, and for what it's worth, I'd gladly read this story. I just want to set the historical record clear on what's realistic or not.