What if: Germany would have been able to achieve ceasefire in the West?

[costard]

Apologies Aragorn. Cheers.

[Aragorn2002]

Given that by Fall 1944 the rational individuals still extant in Germany knew it was fighting for it's very existence and losing, I'd say there were precisely two options left, (tactically, strategically, whatever): fight and lose, or surrender. They chose both.

Yes, but what would have been possible? The march to Berlin in the first half of 1945 showed how bloody and costly it was for the Red Army. Would half a million of men and some thousands of tanks on the German side have made a difference? An Ardennes offensive in the East would have been suicide, yes, but what if those forces would have been used to bolster the defence at the Oder?

Apart from that and without being too optimistic about what a ceasefire in the West would have meant for the East, it is reasonable to assume that it would have improved the German defensive options there.

[costard]

Yes, but what would have been possible? The march to Berlin in the first half of 1945 showed how bloody and costly it was for the Red Army. Would half a million of men and some thousands of tanks on the German side have made a difference?

Undoubtedly more men and materiel would have made a difference, for as long as they could have been employed. Maybe push the end of the war out by three weeks, the possibility of a nuke being dropped on Europe? A different end result - no. As with the end of WW1, by the end of WW2 Germany was starving, it could not feed its population.

[womble]

...interesting question...

One man's interesting question is another man's facile simplification.

[Aragorn2002]

But would it have prevented the Germans to fight on for another year or so? Let's not forget that capitulation never was an alternative, because of the terrible revenge the Red Army had in mind for Germany, which would cost millions and millions of Germans their life and possessions.

[Aragorn2002]

One man's interesting question is another man's facile simplification.

Indeed. And one can decide to take part in it or not, based upon that judgement.

[Michael Emrys]

But would it have prevented the Germans to fight on for another year or so?

Then an armistice in the West is also not possible. You don't seem to care about the inner dynamics of the Grand Alliance. We wanted Stalin's help not only in defeating Germany, but also Japan, even if we began to back away from that latter position once we had had some time to think about it in light of the successful Trinity test. We were not going to accept anything short of unconditional surrender and we went to some lengths to make clear that meant to the Soviets as well. At that time there was a genuine hope that the USSR might be our partners in peace as well as war and we weren't going to just carelessly toss that away. That hope was quickly dashed and it wasn't until Gorbachev came along that there was a Soviet leader who might have been willing to enter into a truly cooperative venture with the West. The pity is that he was deposed before he could finish the job.

Let's not forget that capitulation never was an alternative, because of the terrible revenge the Red Army had in mind for Germany, which would cost millions and millions of Germans their life and possessions.

But continuing the war meant that additional millions of Germans lost their lives and/or their possessions. The hope was that by continuing to fight it gave Germans in the eastern half of the country time to flee to the west. But that ended when Eisenhower closed the front to refugees. This was specifically a measure calculated to discourage the Wehrmacht from continued resistance in the east.

Michael

[Aragorn2002]

No, I don't care much about the inner dynamics of the Grand Alliance, it was a marriage of dark convenience at best and proved to be a miserable one too, which brought death and misery to the whole of Eastern Europe, especially after 1945. A shameful period for both Britain and the US.

The Germans continued to fight because there was no alternative and would have continued to do so until the bitter end, but in my facile simplification with more units and resources. I do not believe the Red Army was invincible, another year of desperate, merciless fighting would have cost them dearly and Stalin would perhaps have been tempted to make peace. Let's not forget the Germans weren't complete idiots, not even in 1944/45. They've resisted the largest armies the world has ever seen for years and years and made them pay for every inch of ground. And millions of Germans and others would lose their lives, no matter what. I would suggest reading 'Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans After the Second World War' by R.M. Douglas and 'Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56' by A. Applebaum, for starters.

Btw the situation I've painted is based upon chapter 10 of Peter G. Tsouras' book 'Third Reich Victorious, alternate decisions in WW 2', called 'Rommel versus Zhukow, descision in the East 1944-45'. Not totally acceptable, but interesting enough.

[costard]

I entered into the discussion because I thought I'd figured out why the West could not, for any sane reason, come to a peace treaty with Germany (does Germany get to keep Libya? What about Vichy France and it's possessions - how does this open up the Med and the Suez to the USSR if it decides to go through Persia? What about Italy and Greece?). This was an attempt to show that the postulate of a ceasefire in the west was not able to be arrived at through any real means (except insanity on the part of the leaders of the west: this is indeed a possibility, though remote and likely to be recognised and dealt with by the alternate political and military leaders of the time.)

I guess the question becomes: at what point has Germany lost the war? By the summer of 1945, it has no infrastructure to bring what remains of the harvest under what remains of its lands to (what remains of) its cities. The populace must necessarily abandon the cities, the concentrations of capital that enable the factories and their support industries to exist. When did the tipping point arrive, when was it that the armies in the field could no longer be supplied? How much longer before did the drawdown of stockpiled resources begin and the inevitable result become set in stone? Examined in purely mathematical terms, where the relative and absolute productive capabilities of the warring nations is collated and compared, I suspect the answer is "As soon as Germany decided to start a war in Europe." By the fall of 1945, whether or no Germany still fields an army, the entire populace of Germany is being visited by starvation and famine: Germany's enemies aren't. The lessons of monkeying with infrastructure that supplies food to cities is well documented: China 1925-ish, Russia 1922-ish, post-war Germany all suffered similar population collapses (8 to 12% death rate) because the monkeys in charge did not understand what they were dealing with.

The philosophy behind the war required the enslavement, true and literal enslavement, of entire populations to serve the Reich. By 1942 it was acknowledged that the "lebensraum" project required the liquidation of some 21 million people from the lands of Eastern Europe, with the subsequent transplantation of 21 million German people onto those lands so freed, so that Germany was self sustaining in terms of agricultural produce. Germany decided (at the Potsdam conference) to pursue this objective (and, frankly, tough **** to Germany when it suffered the consequences of this decision: the idea that the US and UK is somehow responsible is indescribably unfair to the memory of the murdered races of the Eastern European steppes). Such dislocations in the economies of nations are simple to describe, fairly difficult to effect and unlikely to end up being anywhere near as useful as envisioned: the R&D alone required for the processing and disposal of the six million or so souls that Germany managed to liquidate in attempting to achieve this program took most of ten years. In comparison the US, in three years, built an industrial infrastructure the size of its entire pre-war motor vehicle industry in the pursuit of something that was so fantastic as to have been unimaginable ten years previously: the nuclear bomb. This comparison describes, as well as anything else that occurs around the globe in World War Two, the efficiencies and capabilities of a voluntary and rewarding system of labour versus one of enslavement. It could well be the only worthwhile thing to come out of the conflict.

[Uedel]

I think that no matter what would happened in the West, the Case of War and the Outcome in the East would not have altered much at all.

The few Divisions in the West would have not made any difference in the onslaught going on in the East. The Infrastructure by this Time was destroyed by a great margin, the People suffering from hunger, the Production System unable to serve the demand, and the Men in Fighting Condition used already up. What the Western Army's fought was a few good Units, bolsterer by Childs, old men and foreign Hiwi-Troops.

A possible positive outcome of Germany for the War could have been only archieved if:

A.) The Germans made a successful and crushing Campaign to France AND UK, after taking London and maybe half of Britain up to the North, Offering a acceptable Peace like leaving Britain, give back France except Lothringen, restore Belgium and Luxemburg and Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. Churchill would have had a hard time to declare why a Peace is not possible to the British People.

B.) in the same Time frame not to go on War with the Soviets.

This could have Worked out for Germany and would have set Germany in a position with the western Flank safe, resources that flow in over the Oceans and with the comfort to be Prepared for a possible Soviet Attack on Europe.

[altipueri]

This discussion and ranting really belongs more in a Hearts of Iron forum where there are more political options for the game concerned. And you can run that game several years past 1945.

In some ways there were only two people fighting a World War - Churchill and Roosevelt. Everybody else was either sent against Germany or against Japan but not both at once.

[costard]

Uedel, yep, that might have worked. I'm not sure Hitler's idea of subserviency to himself would have been met, though, leading to a guerrilla war throughout his conquered territories. In any case, the miracle of Dunkirk, followed by the victory of the Battle of Britain (which was set up by Churchill in '35-'36) was going to make this a really, really big ask of the Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine.)

[Aragorn2002]

I was hoping to prevent this, Altipueri, by seperating the realistic political/strategical situation from the more or less realistic political/tactical situation. I must admit I didn't expect much of it, but at least I've tried. I was hoping to get an educated guess of how the fighting at the Eastern front would have developed in some detail. Ah well.

[Uedel]

Well i think the Option to conquer Britain was not Lost totaly in 1941, if Hitler didn't would go to war with USSR, giving more resources and stay on Focus in Britain will undoubtedly led to a realistic Chance of neating Britains Homeland.

Any Peace Offers from that point, that would restore the Western Countries without them needing to fight for it (UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Denmark, Norway) as sovereign States, could not have been denied by any prime Minister of Britain in the World.

Poland would have been lost for sure, but even in this Light there would be strong arguments against keep the Fight when the above conditions would have been present.

But it is always the same Story, People (Hitler and his Nazis) try to bite more then they can Eat and fail miserably at it.

[costard]

I was hoping to prevent this, Altipueri, by seperating the realistic political/strategical situation from the more or less realistic political/tactical situation. I must admit I didn't expect much of it, but at least I've tried. I was hoping to get an educated guess of how the fighting at the Eastern front would have developed in some detail. Ah well.

But the political is the strategic - the tactical doesn't enter into the equation. It's like the economists describing the actions of participants in the market as being driven by greed or fear: when you have a good, close look at it, greed is fear.

If you want to know about the tactical results you need to know about the inputs at the strategic level, some time previously. All that is happening is that the discussion between the sergeants is being taken over by the colonels: get used to it, it happens all the time.

Well i think the Option to conquer Britain was not Lost totaly in 1941, if Hitler didn't would go to war with USSR, giving more resources and stay on Focus in Britain will undoubtedly led to a realistic Chance of neating Britains Homeland.

Any Peace Offers from that point, that would restore the Western Countries without them needing to fight for it (UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Denmark, Norway) as sovereign States, could not have been denied by any prime Minister of Britain in the World.

Poland would have been lost for sure, but even in this Light there would be strong arguments against keep the Fight when the above conditions would have been present.

Uedel, I think that's a good call but Hitler was intent on occupying Eastern Europe for the opportunity it gave Germany to be self sufficient in the same way the UK was through its dominions. He'd said as much throughout his rise to power and I don't think Stalin was blind to his ambitions: the Anglo-American banks (in particular) would not be letting the UK go peacefully into a German hegemony. There would have been accords made to ensure an assault borne by the armies of the USSR, supplied by the industry of the US (pretty much what happened). The revolt of the German populace against the banking systems that originally arose from the Napoleonic wars (as represented by the decisions of Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler) needed to be taken up by the peoples of the world to have any chance of succeeding - the means adopted by Hitler pretty much scotched the chances of that happening.

[Los]

This is what happens when you carry a few open buckets of gasoline into closet full of chain smokers...

Los

[H1nd]

It is also likely that the conversation is turning to the politics because it is actually very very hard to speculate tactical details on entire front scale. Would require quite some serious study to make any realistic asumptions. However the Wacht am Rhein in east would be very interesting gameplay wise, especially if conditioned that the AG north had properly retreated to Prussia and souther front was held in proper positions along carpathian mountains and northern Romania. Germans were still able to inflict some tactical defeats for soviets in 45 so practicaly some sort counter offensive as part of sucessfull elastic defence is at least a remote possibility. On the other hand had the soviet found their way to south blocked by good enough defences I bet they would have simply pushed everything to Poland in even more impressive waves of mechanized offensives everywhere along the that front. Total colapse of the south was really a huge boon for Soviets in many ways but was it necessary for forcing Germany to surrender by may 45?

[JasonC]

"Would half a million of men and some thousands of tanks on the German side have made a difference?"

No, the margin against them in the east was way, way larger than that. They faced 30,000 tanks. Thirty. Thousand.

"An Ardennes offensive in the East would have been suicide, yes, but what if those forces would have been used to bolster the defence at the Oder?"

Asked and answered - if they just shore up the front in Poland, they lose the war in the southeast. And vice versa.

You keep pretending that nobody answered your question, when we did. You just didn't like the answer.

[JasonC]

On the LL silliness, people do not understand modern complex economies. Shortages hitting modern complex economies are not felt where they first fall, but where the directors of that economy - consumers or the state as the case may be - choose to let them fall. Every shortage can be eased by shifting additional resources and substitutes to meeting that requirement. It is exactly such overall shortages that total value budgets measure. When we say that LL contributed 7% of Russian war output by value, we mean that it could have produced the same goods mix out of its own resources if it reduced the physical volume of goods to 93% of what it actually had. That is what values measure - the marginal ability to substitute one form of output for another.

Shortages fall where they are felt least, because if they would otherwise hit some bottleneck where they would be felt more than that, the economy just shifts resources to ease that constraint and the cost of making do with less of other items of lower marginal importance. It is always the items of the least marginal importance that are actually paid to fund such a shift. Concretely, if Russia needed more indigenous motor transport it would have foregone light armor and light tanks to make trucks in the same factories, and for a larger shift it would have used less of its motor industry output for twin engine bombers and more for ground vehicles, and so on. It doesn't get an army that can't move if it doesn't get US trucks, it gets a bit smaller medium bomber force and fewer BA-64s for its recce formations, or similar adaptations.

Russia outproduced Germany 2 to 1 in tanks on its own, from the same industrial base, because it mobilized its war economy sooner and focused it more narrowly on armaments output already in 1942, where Germany was still funding stable consumer expenditure through the fall of 1942, and long term investment as late as early 1943 - rather than focusing on armaments more exclusively. This was not a result of western assistance, it was a pure "own goal" of the Germans out of their own overconfidence. They were switching plants *away* from producing artillery ammunition as early as the fall of 1941, when they thought they had already won the war in Russia.

Management stupidity and focus, and time lost or gained through getting such things wrong or right, mattered far more to the relative armament "odds" between Germany and Russia, than LL did.

Incidentally, Germany got about the same portion of its total war output from the exploitation of the rest of occupied Europe, as the Russians got from LL. But both were smaller than the increase in armaments output either achieved in a single calendar *quarter*, from indigenous "ramp" of their own production. A 3 month delay in hitting the "on" switch was worth more to either than LL on the one hand, or all the exploitation of occupied Europe on the other.

[H1nd]

JasonC since you dont consider this subject apropriate for speculation what would you consider as feasible alternate scenarios? Surely you can see that history was not completely predetermined and was in many points in crossroad from wich multitude of possibilites emerge? Do you consider it apropriate to experiment with the idea of overlord in calais area? or elsewhere in France? or Germany delaying barbarossa for any amount of time or actually going ahead with it earlier? Is there anything you are actually willing to speculate on? Because you are so outright hostile in this thread that it takes away from the good things you bring to it. Like I do agree with you on the LL stuff for example but I can't figure out why you are so intent on insulting people just because they ask the question of what if? Even if it is bit badly formed or not tough out completely it's still just a question and doesn't deserve your hostility one bit.

[sburke]

I'm not interested in what Roosevelt and his pro-Soviet ambiance thought or how Uncle Sam singlehandedly won the war or how many US trucks were delivered to the Red Army. I'm interested in the military options the Germans still had left in the autumn of 1944 in a tactical sense. It wonders me how difficult it is to raise an interesting question here at this forum, without it being smothered in sarcasm and vague accusations of apologism or revisionism. I'm sick and tired of that.

LOL well you poked the bear.

Unfortunately as others have noted there is no way to somehow come up with German tactical alternatives without understanding the situation you want to create and it's implications.

Just off the cuff let's say Hitler is dead and somehow the Reich manages to not fracture and establishes a military leadership that can continue to prosecute the war while negotiating with the Western powers. The first question you should be asking is how in the world would Britain ever agree to a ceasefire with Germany when the question of Poland is unresolved. It is one thing for the West to understand they did not have the military conditions to force Russia to recognize Polish independence. It is quite another to expect them to accept continued German occupation regardless of what was going on with the Eastern Front. Unconditional surrender might have been taken off the table as a precondition, but there is no way the US and Britain are simply going to ceasefire and allow Germany to continue prosecution of the war and occupation of Europe.

If you are trying to create a fictitious arrangement to then run some kind of alternate history op layer game with CM:EF when it comes out, that is one thing (and possibly quite fun). A serious consideration of alternative history however is another. There just isn't an alternative to surrender that is even remotely credible.

[DLaurier]

A What If scenario cannot be run without considering ALL the parameters.

The only hope Germany had was this...

That A) the british were stopped from escaping from Dunkerque.

And that Hitler's plane crashed while approaching Paris.

With no army, and with Hitler dead, Churchill might have negotiated with Goering. Especialy if Goering had offered the Italian colony of Libya, and the French colonys of Syria, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morroco to Churchill. And offered to alow a rump state of Poland within german Poland.

You will notice that all of this has to take place before the end of september 1940.

Chancelor Goering could then keep the Soviets off ballance by secretly training Estonian and Latvian anti communists, armed with captured British and French weapons... and using then to keep a guerilla war going in the baltic.

Meanwhile all german jews would need to be restored to full citizenship, and offered compensation for the harm suffered under the Nuremberg laws.

A teary eyed Goering could overturn those laws, and open the internment camps to foreign inspectors, while sobbing about that dasterdly Austrian usurper and his cruel secret policys. Send Himmler and Dietrich to Geneva to stand trial, and break up the SS.

At the same time, the Polish rump state is ruled by a military junta and a body of counts, barrons, and princelings, that knows exactly which side its bread is buttered on. They wont want to cozy up with Stalin any time soon.

Meanwhile in the west, Goering strips France, Holland, and Belgium, of everything of value, or military usefullness. And withdraws to a defencible border that puts Alsace on the German side.

With this in place, and NO luftwaft bombings of british citys, a peace could be possible.

[Michael Emrys]

I was hoping to prevent this, Altipueri, by seperating the realistic political/strategical situation from the more or less realistic political/tactical situation. I must admit I didn't expect much of it, but at least I've tried. I was hoping to get an educated guess of how the fighting at the Eastern front would have developed in some detail. Ah well.

The game of What If? can be terrific good fun, but IMHO only if the founding premise is at least plausible. What I and others have tried to show is that your scenario fails on that count. Although I am sure you didn't think of it this way, it is equivalent to saying, "Suppose the Nazis had had a secret factory on the moon that was turning out hypersonic flying saucers with tactical nuclear weapons." Yeah, well...not terribly interesting to a historian; maybe to a science fiction fan.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Well i think the Option to conquer Britain was not Lost totaly in 1941, if Hitler didn't would go to war with USSR, giving more resources and stay on Focus in Britain will undoubtedly led to a realistic Chance of neating Britains Homeland.

The problem with that is that Germany had absolutely no way to transport, protect, and supply an army of sufficient size across the English Channel or North Sea. The plans for Seelöwe were laughable. I think even Hitler knew that in his heart of hearts, which is why he canceled it.

Any Peace Offers from that point, that would restore the Western Countries without them needing to fight for it (UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Denmark, Norway) as sovereign States, could not have been denied by any prime Minister of Britain in the World.

That might have been a smart move, but how many military dictators have been willing to give up any ground they had conquered? Hitler might have been willing to allow a certain measure of self-government to the conquered lands after peace, but only within a greater German empire.

But it is always the same Story, People (Hitler and his Nazis) try to bite more then they can Eat and fail miserably at it.

I can't argue with that. That is a very human failing and the Nazis were far from being the only ones to succumb to it.

Michael

[Aragorn2002]

It is also likely that the conversation is turning to the politics because it is actually very very hard to speculate tactical details on entire front scale. Would require quite some serious study to make any realistic asumptions. However the Wacht am Rhein in east would be very interesting gameplay wise, especially if conditioned that the AG north had properly retreated to Prussia and souther front was held in proper positions along carpathian mountains and northern Romania. Germans were still able to inflict some tactical defeats for soviets in 45 so practicaly some sort counter offensive as part of sucessfull elastic defence is at least a remote possibility. On the other hand had the soviet found their way to south blocked by good enough defences I bet they would have simply pushed everything to Poland in even more impressive waves of mechanized offensives everywhere along the that front. Total colapse of the south was really a huge boon for Soviets in many ways but was it necessary for forcing Germany to surrender by may 45?

That's the kind of comment I'm looking for, H1nd, it only would have postponed the inevitable end, but it would have been a much more interesting situation, in tactical respect. Without the withdrawl of AG North a more impressive last stand is almost unthinkable. And in the early autumn of 1944 this would still have been possible over land. The main problem was that there was no depth anymore to defend in. In that respect the Germans lost too many opportunities. But with more infantry divisions from other locations some of the Panzer divisions could have been taken out of the fighting to be refreshed. Another important factor would have been that the Luftwaffe could have concentrated it's fighter force in the East to protect the ground forces, who suffered heavily under the attacks of the Red airforce. Of course fuel would still have been a huge problem, both for the tank units as for the Luftwaffe and would have limited the operations severely.

I know the Russians could have broken through anywhere they chose, but they could be made paying a higher price for it, when more Panzer units were available to counterattack. History shows that such attacks should be launched as soon as possible, because after the Russians had some time to consolidate it was near to impossible to throw them back again.