Germany's War if France and Britain are lost.

In WWII, Germany had 4 main opponents:

France, England, USSR, and lastly the USA.
Lets say the Germans spend as much time developing plans for 'dealing with' the last three as they did the plans that allowed them to conquer France in such a short time.

Without going into details, lets suppose Germany manages to defeat France as historically, and then rapidly conquerers England by the end of 1940.

This leaves Germany facing her two most powerful [potential] opponents, the USSR and USA.

The USSR still threatens the vital Romanian oilfields, and the USA looms large across the Atlantic Ocean.

How would you proceed from there?

 

[grumble mode on] Wrong place for the thread, better in the what-if section. [grumble mode off]

Let's see, this would be a very complicated affair. First of all Germany would have to set up a very strong contingent in England to ward off the British forces now quartered in Wales, Scotland and Ulster, the rest of the United Kingdom. Expect strong forces from the entire Commonwealth (Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, S.Africa, Rhodesia, etc) disembarking there, plus early entry of the USA in the war. Ireland would also be likely to chip in too, nudged by the USA.

Portugal would dust off the old 14th century treaty with England (still in force today), open up access to Azores and Madeira archipelagos for anti-submarine warfare, and mine the Gibraltar strait, locking Italy in. Spain would look startled but would respect the Iberian Pact.

In the meantime Stalin could very possibly decided to stop feeding the Fascists for peanuts in exchange, stopped his remmittances of foodstuffs and raw materials therefore strangling the German economy which at the time wasn't yet able to exploit the Grossraumwirtschaft (large space economy, i.e., plunder of occupied countries), and invade Romania while the Germans were occupied on the West, therefore cutting off oil supply and wheat.

On the whole, a briliant outlook.

 

Owned lol

 

With Great Britain out of the way, Germany would have its rear relatively secure while fighting the USSR (which he should not do). It would be an enormous endeavor to implement a cross atlantic invasion. The US would be better suited to do just that but would they?

 

If there were no UK to base from, the U.S. would concentrate on fighting Japan. One concept could be to attack Germany from the west. With Japan conquered, it could be possible to attack through the Middle East and then use that as a staging area for future endeavors. With the British colonies in that side of the world, it would make a lot of sense to do it this way. The big reason that we made such a big effort against the European enemy was that we needed time to build a larger navy. Without convoy duty, the ships in the Alantic would be diverted to the Pacific. Tactics would be adjusted, but the end result would be the same. The big difference may be that we would lose a lot of troops in landing on the Japanese homeland. That may be offset by the fact that seasoned troops will be encountering a German force that may not be at their peak.

 

England undefeated was the only reason the Russians didn't think Germany would invade. If England falls, then the Russians would most likely invade Germany from the east. Or at least get ready for an inevitable invasion. On the whole, war would not be over by 1945 and the Germans would taste the Bomb.
The best way to fight the Russians and Americans is by using psychological warfare. Make the Russians believe Hitler is there to help, and uncover the truth about Stalin. As for the Americans, the people didn’t want a war until Pearl Harbor. Lend and lease to the Russians would most likely be unsuccessful (without Pearl Harbor).
What the hell was the Japanese thinking?

 

Damned colonials! UK, not England! As for the rest, I agree.

Wrong, my friend. The only propaganda allowed in the USSR was the Communist propaganda. Make the Russians believe what? Stalin was in total control, 10 years before he had been able to starve or send to Siberia 8-10 million Ukrainians etc. and almost nobody outside knw at the time. How do you propose to do that, send missionaries? Whatever went inside the USSR to quote Churchill was "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma".

Again I agree, the Japanese were looking for resources and the US were in the way, conflict unavoidable. See the oil and iron embargo. But that's a different thread.

 

If Britain was taken care of then the oil fields in the middle east would have been easier to take of perhaps. The luftwaffe squadrons stationed in France could be moved elsewhere although i presume the infantry would still remain in France and a conquered Britain to maintain order. perhaps USA could use China or Russia as a base to invade Nazi-europe once Japan was defeated. Thats just a thought.

 

Hmmm, China is a damned long way from Europe and anyway was crawling with Japanese at the time

First of all, required reading for the subject is "SS-GB" by Len Deighton, it gives you a chilling and not at all optimistic view on the subject of occupation of the United Kingdom per the experience in other countries. Believe me, Occupation in France, Holland, Belgium, Poland, etc, was not a happy time.

Carrying on, conquest of the UK also implied Ireland, otherwise you'd leave an immediate doorstep for the obvious invasion by the USA, who I suppose would declare war immediately. As the Isles were two large and populous countries this would imply a large occupation force, another manpower drain. Perhaps not so much for the Luftwaffe, but certainly for the infantry. Also as the King would have escaped to Canada according to the plan to carry the war from there, I suppose Britain would be cut off from the Empire, therefore the vital foodstuff and raw material and energy imports would cease, strangling the economy and making it absolutely dependent on imports from the Continent. Upshot: another economical drain on the Greater Reich already scant resources.

Naturally the Commonwealth would carry on with the present policy of adding forces to the Middle East and North Africa, so getting to the ME oil would not be a walk over. And I also went on at length a couple years ago on the uselessness of the ME oil to the Reich as there was no practical way to convey it the Reich in quantity, do a forum search. As I said the USA would come into the war early, so expect large deliveries of Lend Lease materials to the region.

Also on the East Front remember that even without Western Allied 2nd front the Red Army was doing nicely against the German Army, remaining undefeated and after winter '42 successfully taking up the initiative without letting it go, so I suppose a Brit defeat wouldn't have a negative effect (on the contrary, it would mean LESS troops in the East) and an earlier start to LL here wouldn't have a bad effect as well.

Next what-if: The effect of a German moon base on the Battle of the Atlantic

 

Hmmmm. Looks like i did it again, lol. This what if was supposed to be "what would you [as the Germans] do from this point". Picture end of 1940, both France and Britian are conquered and occupied [this pre-supposes German control of the north atlantic], and you are not yet at war with either USSR or USA.

My apologies for not posting a correction till now, my personel comp took a dump and I am currently laid off from work, so will not be on much for the immediate future [having to use the library comp *yeuck* for the present, lol].

 

The devil is in the details here. Unlike France, Germany had very limited capacity to develop a detailed plan for dealing with the other three. In the case of particularly the US and to a slightly lesser extent, the Soviet Union the Germans lack the means to gain details of industry, factory location, production capacity and planning, etc. Even simply developing a plan for dealing with the mobilization of these countries for war would largely be beyond German capacity.
Again, using the US as the example, how could the Germans realistically have planned for the massive rapid expanison of the US economy into war production or the incredible rate of growth of the US military? If anything, the OKW et. al. had literally no clue as to the potential of the US economy to produce war goods or its ability to expand production; none, nada. Germany has no useful spy network in the US or Soviet Union. Its network in Britain fell apart almost as soon as the war started.
Knowledge of Soviet, US, or even British production facilities was based largely on pre-war intelligence and lacked up-to-date knowledge of how that changed as the war progressed.
For the rapid conquest of England the Germans still require a navy. This will seriously impact the expanision of the army and airforce simply through the redirection of resources. Now, Germany might have been able to conquer England given that once France fell the Germans remained committed to a long term goal of doing this. Given a period of one or two years from the fall of France the Germans might have been able to reach a point where Britain falls or sues for peace.
The Soviet Union in such a scenario would have had ample time to rearm and upgrade their forces largely free of German observation. The US would still have expanded to meet the Japanese threat and support Britain. This expansion would be almost totally outside German intelligence capacity to detail.
If the US gets nuclear weapons about 1945 and has not publicly tested or used them then the Germans are in for a rude shock when they do get used. The same is likely for many other technologies where the US simply has such massive resources that their programs dwarf those of Germany in size and scope. If you look at the original US armament scheme 1944 represented just the beginning of reaching full capacity. But, historically, by then the Axis was largely recognized as all but defeated so the US began to cut back on production rather than continue to ramp up.
Essentially, it comes down to the Germans simply not being able to marshall the resources or production capacity and manpower to overwhelm any of the three with the possible exception of Britain assuming that the British are not heavily subsidized by the US.

 

Well, the US (not yet at war) poses no problem. Russia is there for the taking. First, mop up the area around the Mediterranean and then proceed through Iraq to Iran. Then, with the ability to hit the Soviets both on their western front, as well as the south, advance. With Britain conquered Yugoslavia would likely not have rebeled against the Axis and the Soviets would realize what was coming. The only question is who is going to attack whom first. The US would not have likely tried to invade Europe as trying to launch a cross-Atlantic ocean attack would have well nigh impossible. The Germans definitely couldn't do it and if Germany controlled all of western Europe it wouldn't have been a smart move for the US either.

 

So after having taken over France and UK, I invade USSR (I know I should not, but I can't help myself, and it's planned in the book I wrote earlier ).

Right after Pearl Harbor, I declare war to the Japan, instead of USA (don't care about the eastern based Red Army troops, Stalin will anyway bring them west to protect Moscow).

Then, I start to crumble under Soviet pressure and try to convince USA I represent the last hope of the occidental civilisation against bolchevism.

Then I get nuked by US bombers, while the Red Army storms its way up to France, USA frees UK with a amphibious assault from Iceland backed by Commonwealth forces. France, the whole Germany, Low countries, Belgium etc become communist countries, soon, a soviet backed uprising will chop the head of Franco and Spain becomes communist, while Portugal trades USA and UK the use of naval bases so its neutrality is protected.

Most of western Europe will join the Varsaw Pact, UK becomes a united state of America and then the 2nd round begins...

(the above is not serious )

 

It is almost exactly the story of "1984" by George Orwell. Orwell wrote this scenario in 1948. Some of the things he mentionned have become true (video cameras, big brother etc...)

 

Hmmm. Interesting things here! My own take:

As the USA and USSR are not yet at war with me (and UK is occupied), the US will not be able to disguise its involvment under lend lease, so must go to war immediately or cease and desist. Public opinion will NOT favor another European war till AFTER dec 7 1941, so FDR is gionig to have too back off or get kicked out of office.

This should forstall any US-German war till at least 1944-1945.

With the USSR, I would point out that if we were to ally (Germany-USSR-Japan), we could go ahead and take the entire EurAsian land mass without significant opposition. I would expect to negotiate for the the middle east, and offer permanent right-of-passage treaties thru the med, suez canal, and the dardenells. Offering India et al to Stalin, as well as African colonies, could very well forstall a German-USSR war. If the Japanese could be induced to share Australia with the USSR, The Soviets would gain naval bases/colonies through-out the indian ocean, and without having to fight anything but the local populations (Germany has already counquered the major European clonial powers, leaving their Empires ripe for the plucking).

The alternative would be a devastating war with Germany (which the USSR would win at great cost), but leaving the USA at least as strong as they would have been, and without USSR making any real territorial gains.

Any thoughts?

 

In the 1939-1942 time frame, the USA was not much of a threat to anyone, we were inferior to everyone in most areas. We became a threat during the 42-45 time period due to production and manpower. YB-17's, P-39's, P-40's were all inferior to FW-190's, 109's and JU-88's and Zero's.

 

The US might not have been a material threat weapons-wise in 1939 but from about 1938 on the US was spending massively to improve their military facilities and manufacturing capacity in that area. When it came time to make huge quantities of "stuff" the capacity was there.
One must remember that the US did not plan on being in the war prior to mid-1942 at the earliest even after it started in Europe. The peak production point was not to be reached until 1945.
So, if war in any of these scenarios is inevidable with the US for Germany, the longer the delay, the more massive the beating Germany takes.

 

This is beginning to look like one of those threads. The argument seems to run something like "If my grandmother weren't dead, she would still be alive".


(heck, where's my gif?)

 

If Germany had conquered France and Britain then as Adolf Hitler i was on the road to invade the USSR then i would convince Japan not to attack any possessions of the United States, and say i carry this off and Japan does indeed decide to cancel it's attack on Pearl Harbour, i would enter into a binding mutual assistance treaty with Japan that if war with the USSR breaks out then the other must help (but i would still get the Japanese to stay out of the conflict until i have gotten the bulk of Soviet forces frome the east to the Soviet western front) and once the bulk of the Soviet Eastern command is transferred i would get Japan to open up a second front.

 

Also i would keep the Americans out of the war as long as possible.