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What If Germany Didnt Declare war on the Soviets

Discussion in 'What If - Other' started by kingthreehead, May 3, 2008.

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  1. Sloniksp

    Sloniksp Ставка

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    Von,
    All of the information available on the matter would contradict such an observation. Stalin did not want to conquer Finland but only as Za correctly pointed out, to create a buffer zone for Russia's second largest city ( A legitimate reason as wars have been fought for less ). If Stalin wanted Finland, then he could have very well taken the opportunity of exacting revenge on the Fins as retribution for supporting Hitler and breaking the Moscow peace treaty but he did not. Instead, Stalin just took back the territories agreed upon after the Winter War between Finland and Soviet Union.

    As for the Soviet Union taking over Western Europe, well that my friend has nor will ever be proven as there are no facts supporting it. I am afraid this is more of a myth created in the West.
     
  2. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    And that explains why Stalin was so ticked off when, from his perspective, the western Allies let the Soviets and Nazi's pound it each other to bits for three long years, and then stepped in, in June, 1944, to pick up the pieces. His own strategy apparently used against him, LOL!
     
  3. von Rundstedt

    von Rundstedt Dishonorably Discharged

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    Sloniksp

    Was it not that the Soviet Union after been rebuffed by an independant sovereign Finland over territorial demands finally invaded and it was during this invasion that the League of Nations finally booted the Soviet Union out of the League of Nations for it's unprovoked invasion of Finland.

    Also how many of those Finish POW's in Soviet hands returned to Finland, not many. Stalin dealt with breakaway territoried harshly, out of the 50,000 sevice troops in the Baltic States that were rounded up, only a handful came out of the war alive, we are talking about a monster that under his reign of terror murdered around 25 million of his own citizens.

    I do believe that come hell or high water Stalin would eventually invade Western Europe after the Western Powers beat the you know what out of each other.

    v.R
     
  4. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    If nothing else would have provoked the Soviets into attacking Hitler's Germany, this would have. The last thing Stalin wanted was to have German forces on the Soviet Union's southern flank, and Stalin would have reacted immediately to any such threat.

    In any case, as another poster has pointed out, given the terrain in the Middle East, Germany didn't have the logistical capability to supply such forces overland (nobody did, except perhaps the United States), and the British Navy certainly would have put paid to any attempt to supply them by sea. Germany wasn't going to end up in control of the Middle East no matter what else happened; there were just too many powerful countries that would have violently opposed such a development. Even Axis ally Japan would have been very nervous about an event of that nature

    As for Hitler "refusing to declare war on the US" after Pearl Harbor, that's pretty much a moot point because, one way or another, the US at war with one Axis partner will eventually go to war with the entire crowd, especially if the survival of Britain is at stake. the US already had a "Germany First" strategy before the Japanese attack on PH.
     
  5. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Aquila non capit muscas

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    Oh, thank you for the pleasantries! This is not propaganda, this was the way how the problem was seen from the "other" point of view, but if you like to sound insulting, please go ahead and see me worry about that. On breakaways, I never saw any leader taking a kind view of nations breaking away from the mother country but you never know.

    I had never looked at things this way. It may be somewhat distorted but anyway it's a good idea ;)
     
  6. Devilsadvocate

    Devilsadvocate Ace

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    Take a look at the various Allied conferences held between 1942 and mid-1944. Stalin kept pushing for an invasion of Europe by the western allies to open up a "second front" against the Germans and take the pressure off his forces. The US wanted to launch one as quickly as possible, but the Brits kept dragging their feet, claiming the troops needed more training and that there simply wasn't enough logistical shipping to adequately support a major invasion. Stalin distrusted these claims and felt the British and Americans simply wanted to weaken the Soviet Union by letting it do most of the fighting against the Nazis. Whether this was true or not is debatable, but that's what Stalin suspected and, as it turned out, that's pretty much what happened. On the other hand, it meant that, post war, the Soviet Union was able to claim most of Eastern Europe as buffer states.
     
  7. bf109 emil

    bf109 emil Member

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    numerous books i have read all point to an eventual invasion of Russia upon Germany...whether this is a fact or not, i have never read this as a soviet plan....what i do know, is communism was ripe, and did plan for expansion....they favoured taking control or gaining territory what could be called diplomatically or with little military action i.e.Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland handed to them via Germany...whether an invasion of Germany was in the plans, maybe someone could help with this,,,,but if it was...what better time then waiting for A nation to blunder/weaken/lack defense after just facing a lenghty and costly war...hen armies have been ripped apart, ships sunk, and air-force shot to pieces...
     
  8. Marienburg

    Marienburg Member

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    Actually, if Germany had not invaded the Soviet Union they could have turned almost their entire Luftwaffe against the western powers, both over England as well as in the African theatre. As Taranto, the Bismarck, and the Pacific "naval" battles demonstrated, air power can easily defeat a naval power that doesn't have air superiority. You are right that the Axis powers didn't have enough transport capability to support their forces in Africa but this is because the Axis was losing a lot of those ships to Allied air and naval power that was superior to their own. With a few air fleets in southern Italy and North Africa the British navy could have been neutralized. And then, even with their smaller number of transports, the Axis could have supplied and augmented their forces in Africa. It is difficult to predict the future in these "what if"s but in this case I think the Axis would have stood a very good chance of taking over at least Egypt.

    And, as already pointed, with Egypt comes the severing of the Suez canal for the Allies and this would pressure not only Vichy France to become an active ally of Germany, but also Spain would feel the pressure as well. Allied oil in the Middle East would now be under threat and the Mediterranean would become impossible for Allied naval elements to function in effectively, in the same way that it became unsafe to Italian ships after the actual Allied victory. How much further Germany and Italy could have gone is unclear to me but with the African theatre essentially shut down, Britain's stance as the lone opponent of Germany in Italy would have certainly become a lot more precarious.
     
  9. Marienburg

    Marienburg Member

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    I think such a preemptive attack by the Soviet Union on Germany would have been disastrous in the extreme for Stalin and the Soviets. Remember that the Red Army didn't become this conquering collosus until after a whole series of crushing tactical defeats in 1941 and 1942. The Red Army reformed itself because of these defeats. So, while the Red Army would have been a monstrously large force when Stalin would attack in this scenario, it wouldn't be that effective and I doubt it would have gotten very far before the Germans could transfer their troops to the new, Eastern Front. And now, in this scenario, Europe really would be united in a crusade against the Bolshevik hordes that now most Europeans would see as their common enemy. Conversely, the spirited nationalism that supported the Russians through the war would be far more difficult to inspire, given that the war was clearly started by the Soviets. In addition, the anti-Hitler movement among the military in Germany (and among the civilian population as well) would lose most of their basis, since Hitler's prophetic visions of a future war against the vile Bolsheviks would have been confirmed. The claim that the warmongering Hitler was leading them all to destruction wouldn't ring as true.

    Now, the Red Army, even though far less effective than it was later on in the real war, would have still mauled the Germans badly and it still would have been a difficult war. But I think there would have been more of a chance that someone would take out Stalin, in the same way that Hitler was targeted by his own generals in 1944. Naturally, the course of the war would be affected by exactly when this hypothetical attack by Stalin on Germany would have occurred, and to what extent the Americans were involved with the British and other Allies, so I hesitate to say who would have ultimately won the war. However, I can say that if it ended up being a very long war of attrition, the Germans would certainly still lose the war. However, if the Germans could have finished off the Russians in one or two years, this would have certainly disheartened the Allies and if they didn't already possess the atomic bomb I could see WWII ending with a "cold war" of sorts between the Germans and the Americans.

    In any case, as another poster has pointed out, given the terrain in the Middle East, Germany didn't have the logistical capability to supply such forces overland (nobody did, except perhaps the United States), and the British Navy certainly would have put paid to any attempt to supply them by sea. Germany wasn't going to end up in control of the Middle East no matter what else happened; there were just too many powerful countries that would have violently opposed such a development. Even Axis ally Japan would have been very nervous about an event of that nature

    As for Hitler "refusing to declare war on the US" after Pearl Harbor, that's pretty much a moot point because, one way or another, the US at war with one Axis partner will eventually go to war with the entire crowd, especially if the survival of Britain is at stake. the US already had a "Germany First" strategy before the Japanese attack on PH.[/QUOTE]
     
  10. Sloniksp

    Sloniksp Ставка

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    Yes, Stalin took the land which Finland did not want to trade as he felt it was a matter of national security. Yes, Stalin was a bad man...... And yes Stalin wanted to spread communism to all of Europe after the Western Powers tore each other to pieces.

    Whats your point?
     
  11. Soviet man

    Soviet man Member

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    They won world war 2! In USSR enter 10 millions fashists veterans (traitors from another countries, germans and other fashists)! If they dont attacked USSR all armies of fashists go to conquer EUROPE and I think nobody can stop this army, because they were veterans who conquer many countries in EAST EUROPE.
     
  12. tommy tater

    tommy tater Member

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  13. T. A. Gardner

    T. A. Gardner Genuine Chief

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    I suggest you peruse this board a pit Pzr Paul. The consensus generally is that the Germans had an inferiority in many areas of technology and even where they had an advantage it was generally equalled or eclipsed quickly once it became necessary by the Allies to do so. Do feel free to enumerate where you think the Germans had "better quality of weapons & vehicles" and where they had a "numerical advantage."

    As for the Soviet Union attacking Germany, this has been brought up too. Generally, the opinion is that there is insufficent evidence to make a conviencing case for the Soviets attacking Germany.
     
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  14. von Rundstedt

    von Rundstedt Dishonorably Discharged

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    Absolutely correct on all counts his so called "better quality of weapons & vehicles" might be somewhat correct but when it came time to deploy them they were found to be very prone to breakdown like the Panther and Tiger tanks, hundreds were lost simply because they were deployed en masse with fatal flaws, simply abbandoned on the battlefield, or that when the Germans did produce a war winning bit of technology the Fuhrer stepped in and basically ballsed it up for everyone, Germans had a fatal flaw and that it overproduced almost all of it's weapons, they became complicated to use and maintain.

    v.R
     
  15. german mauser k98k man

    german mauser k98k man Member

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    German forces were way outnumberd and the Germans had the best weapons and trained men at the start of ww2 but were very outnumberd so i think if the Germans did not declare war on the soviets then they could have a high chance of wining the war.
     
  16. 11thairbornedivision

    11thairbornedivision Member

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    the axis would have the advantage of numbers and supplies, BUT if that happened, than the america and europe would hve the advantage of surprise, eanwhile they would get bombing squads to fly over the USSR, much like they did with Germany. But if Russia joined the Axis, tht would of course had to launch a whole new campign against Russia, and with the intense conditions, i dont think they could have handled it. :p Axis would have won.
     
  17. wes1

    wes1 Member

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    I think that the Germans could not have not declare war on Russia.
    Germany was anti communist and hated Russia. Even if they had not Russia would have. And if they had not the would allways be on the brink of war. And problebly if Germany had one the war and took over Britan and the USA and other Allies, Russia would still be on Germany's "HIT LIST". But Germany would have been so spread out around the world that had Russia had attack Germany they would be anielated.
     
  18. marc780

    marc780 Member

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    I believe you're right in that both Hitler and Stalin recognized privately that their two systems could not co-exist for long. IF 1) Hitler had not invaded Russia in 1941 and 2) had seen the useless Japanese alliance for what it was and NOT declared war on the USA in that year, the war might have been very different.Germany would have had more resources available and could have built an impregnable defense on the Atlantic wall. Invasion would have been much more difficult if not impossible. and after Pearl Harbor, there might have been pressure from the american public to "stay out of European wars" and focus exclusively on its declared enemy, Japan.

    I think if Russia had been so foolish to attack Germany first, with time they would have been soundly beaten back. during Barbarossa, it took the Russians several years to learn how to fight the Germans effectively. And that was with four times the available manpower and much greater resources. On the attack, i believe they would have been beaten even worse then they were in Finland in 1940.

    In the end, though, in spite of everything, the only really decisive, war-winning weapon was the atom bomb. Whoever developed that first, would win. The U.S did, and won the war.
     
  19. Tomcat

    Tomcat The One From Down Under

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  20. Carl W Schwamberger

    Carl W Schwamberger Ace

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