Nazis make peace with UK, what then?

[Neubob]

Nazis would have worn themselves down to the nub sooner or later. The Russian citizenry, namely their partisans, played a major role in the victory, and would have continued to do so.

You say 'mopping up' like it's an afterthought. If modern history has shown us anything, ending a committed partisan presence is anything but easy.

[Airscrew]

I was thinking about the Japan angle too.  One of the reasons for Japan's attach on Pearl Harbor was a preemptive strike because they wanted to expand in the Pacific for more resources.   Hitler might have presuaded the Japanese to hold off on expanding east to the pacific and could have suggested they attacked Russia instead.

[B@tfinkV]

out of all the allies in WW2 i think the Russians were the most determined and the best at fighting.

Even more than the Americans, the Russians were then, and always will be, an extremely hard nation to go to war with and win.

Hitler knew this and would have been a fool to attack Russia if he had no resistance to the south, north and west.

[lazs2]

soo.. japan attacks America and then America declares war on japan.

And then what happens?  

lazs

[B@tfinkV]

why would japan bother? their involvement was purely on the grounds that 'everyone else is at war we might as well try and cash in too'.

[lazs2]

Hmm?   I thought that they "expand or die"?   they had no natural resources.. the US was helping china.  we would never allow them to become rulers of the asian world.  we would not have done anything differently and neither would they.

I think the euros here are very myopic on the war... for us.. it was a two front war.. it was inevitable and it was just.

It just seems that the euros here tend to marginalize the whole pacific war.   Simply because we took the load.  we shouldered the burden.. the english were driven from the pacific with little or no effort by the japs.    I believe that the brits would have had every bit as much trouble... more.. than we had if they had tried to take on the japs.

because of us.. they didn't have to.

Is there no mention of the pacific war in your-0-peeean history books on WWII?

lazs

[lasersailor184]

The success of Germany against the soviets rested solely with the cutting of the Murmansk Run.  Regardless of what happened to Britain, had it been cut, the soviets probably would have fallen.

[B@tfinkV]

actualy lazs, when i was in school (this was rare) we were told that the brits won the BoB and the Americans won WW2. not too different to what your books say, i'd wager.

on the other hand we spent 2 years learning about hitler and germany's politics, and about 2 lessons learning about the rest of the war.

most of the euro historians are far more interested in the mind and politics of a fascist dictator than 'who won the war' where as americans only seem to care about who kicked the crap out of who.

[Curval]

..and what is interesting is that the US vets who fought the war appear to be alot less concerned about getting pats on their backs for "saving Europe or the world" than Americans who weren't even born when they did so.

[B@tfinkV]

great point right there.

[Boroda]

Originally posted by lazs2
are you guys forgetting the japs?    I don't think that they would be too happy with a policy of leave America alone.   What would the new axis do when japan attacked America?

Soviet counter-attack near Moscow started on December 5th. I doubt the information on the scale of counter-attack was understood before mid-December.

Japanese thought that USSR is already done with, so they decided to attack the US.

One week - and Japanese call off Kido Butai, no Pearl-Harbor attack, now this is a "what if"...

[Angus]

The Japs were after resources that they needed badly. The "embargo" that the USA had on them meant a choice between war or some submission, - which doesn't exactly suit a Samurai.
With the UK out, at peace with Axis, Japan would have had it's trade and resources within the British resources. Burma. Malasya. British parts of China.
The USA could not muster a power to stop that, and the only foe of Japan apart from China would be...USSR. Time for revenge after the 1937 (or was it 1938) disaster.
And Lazs, you didn't take the load. IMHO the Russians did, and as a relative thing, the British.
The British took the heading course in the summer of 1940. So this is just a speculation what would have happened if they hadn't.
Now, back to Barabarossa.
Someone said that the USSR would have been prepared much better had Britain been out. While the USSR would then only have to worry about Germany, they only had to worry about Germany! In my "scenario" They would also have to worry about Japan! On a funny side, the USA was USSR's big Ally in the far east by keeping Japan tied up on their resources, and eventually getting into a state of war.
Germany would have been much faster as well as much stronger (as Nash has pointed out regarding the LW, although I only guessed at losses from&with BoB + the med + the western fron untill spring 1941, - carefully!!). You see, lingering on with some plans of invading Britain in 1940, and testing the UK resolve took quite some time. Instead of turning to the USSR maps in July 1940, Hitler firstly did so in December. So I'd rather discard the theory of the USSR being prepped because of UK stepping out, - I'd put the scale on trouble brewing up in the east as well  as Hitler being much faster and much stronger.
Then on to the airforces. The numbers didn't tell much. The USSR had numbers, but lacked quality, training, experience and tactics.
The LW had those, but needed more numbers. Yet, with what they had, they really gave the red airforce a bloody nose. Even in 1943 or 1944 the huge red airforce never even closed in on the LW's losses in the med and the W-front. So, I have little doubt who would have been the ABSOLUTE king of the air with thousands of extra aircraft and expert crew over Russia, - if not just in 1941, then in a prolonged war.

[Boroda]

Originally posted by B@tfinkV
true, but was this only as a byproduct of the resistance europe showed?
without resistance in europe stopping him taking a huge ammount of land why would hitler have bothered with russia?

it is impossible to determine what would have happened, i just think that with an easy dominance in europe the nazis would have not been that interested in a frozen land mass that stretched from their eastern borders half way round the world.

just my thoughts tho, not worth anything much.

Europe showed almost no resistance at all.

Stalin's mistake was expecting France and UK to get nazis sucked into a positional war like WWI. In fact "allies" implemented Stalin's plan: interfering at the point when both sides are exhausted enough to make them easy targets.

On June 22nd Soviet leadership was scared to death expecting Royal Navy operating in the Baltic Sea together with nazis against USSR. In June Baltic Fleet made desperate attempts of laying mines in Baltic Straights...

[Angus]

Boroda:
"On June 22nd Soviet leadership was scared to death expecting Royal Navy operating in the Baltic Sea together with nazis against USSR. In June Baltic Fleet made desperate attempts of laying mines in Baltic Straights..."

In 1941??????????????????????????????????????????????

LOL, I guess they had too little sense of realism, for the British were locked in a fierce war with the Axis at sea, in the air, as well as in the Med (land sea and air).

It expresses the fear of a Black Sea opening though, so Boroda, I guess you would know the area much better than many of us others, - A Black Sea Scenario with both the Kriegsmarine and the Italian navy would be quite bad as well.....
There was a plug in the bottle, - the Royal Navy.

[B@tfinkV]

thanks boroda, good infomation.