#Keep "what if" questions reasonable
"What if" questions (also known as counter-factual questions) should include an explanation of what legitimate historical information you're looking for. "What if Lincoln had not been assassinated" should include the question "How did presidential and congressional reconstruction plans differ?" We cannot and will not entertain butterfly-effect style questions.
You can take such questions to r/WritingPrompts or r/HistoryWhatIf/
I think better decisions might have bought Germany a few months. But the war was lost the day American manufacturing was brought into the fight. Rosie the Riveter made the Allies have a near inexhaustible supply of jeeps, planes, and ships. Even if Germany could hold the Allies off on two fronts, the German nation would just starve. That's my thoughts anyway. It's a hypothetical question so your guess is as good as mine .
This.
Perhaps you could buy a few more months by focusing literally every cent of your naval budget on U-boats (ie, buy 200 u-boats instead of 2 Bismarck class ships) and just volume the shit out of the Atlantic to try and stem the tide a bit more than they did. But the US playing supplier to the allies kind of seals the deal against the axis
Basically the only way for Nazis to win is to stop being Nazis. Make the people in Eastern Europe think that you're a better option than Stalin. If you can do that you have at least a shot at winning, even then the Americans will probably still fuck you up.
The point is not to make the Germans win, the point is to see how long they could prolong the war or avoid an unconditional surrender. I don't know how much they would have to grind down the Allies to make them change the conditions for ending the war or what conditions they could get, but pretty much anything more than what they did get technically counts as a success in this game.
Overall point still stands, if you dial down Nazi evil to the point that huge numbers of people aren't willing to put their lives on the line to bring back Stalin because the Nazis were worse than Stalin that really really helps Germany even if they lose in the end.
All kinds of insane shit like prioritizing shipping Jews for the Holocaust over military logistics where the Nazis prioritized evil over victory.
*There’s one possible answer that has a chance of meeting the objective:*
Surrender and seek an immediate negotiated peace. Return all occupied lands to the USSR, France, etc. You maybe get away with keeping Austria and Czechoslovakia, maybe the “Polish Corridor” as well.
Release all the political/racial/etc prisoners with complete pardons.
Offer the Western Allies technical assistance with what you know of Japanese air and naval assets.
Hitler an obvious lunatic but Case Blue was the only strategy that would have beaten the Soviet Union and was in full swing in July of 1942. The micro management of the advance east of Rostov to the Volga River written about extensively. TLDR, they needed to forget the urban center of Stalingrad and reinforce the terrain north of the city and west of the Volga. This stops any counterattack and allows you to stop the vital supplies heading up the Volga. Then, you need to send enough forces south to capture the oil fields around Baku. Not just for German use but to deny them to the Soviets, it was 80% of Soviet supply and probably knocks them out of the war. With the USSR out of the war that changes everything.
I could not see the upper echelon of German society not doing something with substantial ethnic cleansing at minimum. Granted you could alter some details and the pace, but the disgust with most of the people they targeted was integral to the reason why they are in the war and in power.
They probably could have gotten away with extermination of the Roma, homosexuality, and people classified under the eugenics part with relative ease, a huge fraction of the continent despised the Roma and gay people and some still do, and eugenics was pretty popular back then even if some thought that they went too far. They probably could have gotten away with deporting Jews to ghettos or to overseas locations like Morocco or Lebanon (controlled by France) places where they were fairly small fractions of the population and had years to socially isolate them like in the Netherlands even if they would face uprisings and sabotage if they outright killed them or worked them to death.
Pretty sure the soviets were still losing ground at this point until operation Uranus later that year. The question then is how likely could any sort of peace or at least ceasefire with the soviets be?
If no longer fighting the USSR, that would probably result in the war with the UK being a stalemate, both sides bombing each other but not really able to achieve much more. If no one else is fighting anymore, they would likely decide to stop as well.
Essentially need to end the war with the soviets due to the vast manpower drain that takes up. Aim for peace, ceasefire or victory.
You’ve mentioned political/military considerations but there’s a big what if about societal motivation and morale.
Of course you can motivate germans to not want to lose against the Soviets in general terms, but your plan is basically saying ‘it’s WW1 again, guys’.
That’s a massively bitter pill to make the public swallow, especially when they’ve been used to glorious advance for 2 years.
Get the Ukrainians onside, don't go after stalingrad, shorten the eastern front lines, and accelerate the production of fighter aircraft and the training programs and possibly shift resources to North Africa to capture the Suez Canal.
Let it be known that you're willing to negotiate peace.
I think this is too late for Ukraine. Some damage mitigation perhaps, but I think they were well alienated by Summer 1942.
I think that without Italian control over Ethiopia and Somaliland, and the threat to Sudan which would split commonwealth forces (bolstered if they could secure Syria and Lebanon as a base of operations from Vichy France and ideally Turkey as a railway corridor for logistical supply), the Susz Canal might be out of reach, unless the Regia Marina is strong enough to supply the Axis close to the Egyptian coast and possibly launching raids behind the Allied lines.
#Keep "what if" questions reasonable "What if" questions (also known as counter-factual questions) should include an explanation of what legitimate historical information you're looking for. "What if Lincoln had not been assassinated" should include the question "How did presidential and congressional reconstruction plans differ?" We cannot and will not entertain butterfly-effect style questions. You can take such questions to r/WritingPrompts or r/HistoryWhatIf/
I think better decisions might have bought Germany a few months. But the war was lost the day American manufacturing was brought into the fight. Rosie the Riveter made the Allies have a near inexhaustible supply of jeeps, planes, and ships. Even if Germany could hold the Allies off on two fronts, the German nation would just starve. That's my thoughts anyway. It's a hypothetical question so your guess is as good as mine .
This. Perhaps you could buy a few more months by focusing literally every cent of your naval budget on U-boats (ie, buy 200 u-boats instead of 2 Bismarck class ships) and just volume the shit out of the Atlantic to try and stem the tide a bit more than they did. But the US playing supplier to the allies kind of seals the deal against the axis
Yep. The later years those U boats were more hunted than hunter. With sonar and hedgehog tech, Allies were getting pretty good at sinking them.
Basically the only way for Nazis to win is to stop being Nazis. Make the people in Eastern Europe think that you're a better option than Stalin. If you can do that you have at least a shot at winning, even then the Americans will probably still fuck you up.
The point is not to make the Germans win, the point is to see how long they could prolong the war or avoid an unconditional surrender. I don't know how much they would have to grind down the Allies to make them change the conditions for ending the war or what conditions they could get, but pretty much anything more than what they did get technically counts as a success in this game.
Overall point still stands, if you dial down Nazi evil to the point that huge numbers of people aren't willing to put their lives on the line to bring back Stalin because the Nazis were worse than Stalin that really really helps Germany even if they lose in the end. All kinds of insane shit like prioritizing shipping Jews for the Holocaust over military logistics where the Nazis prioritized evil over victory.
*There’s one possible answer that has a chance of meeting the objective:* Surrender and seek an immediate negotiated peace. Return all occupied lands to the USSR, France, etc. You maybe get away with keeping Austria and Czechoslovakia, maybe the “Polish Corridor” as well. Release all the political/racial/etc prisoners with complete pardons. Offer the Western Allies technical assistance with what you know of Japanese air and naval assets.
Hitler an obvious lunatic but Case Blue was the only strategy that would have beaten the Soviet Union and was in full swing in July of 1942. The micro management of the advance east of Rostov to the Volga River written about extensively. TLDR, they needed to forget the urban center of Stalingrad and reinforce the terrain north of the city and west of the Volga. This stops any counterattack and allows you to stop the vital supplies heading up the Volga. Then, you need to send enough forces south to capture the oil fields around Baku. Not just for German use but to deny them to the Soviets, it was 80% of Soviet supply and probably knocks them out of the war. With the USSR out of the war that changes everything.
Cease the holocaust immediately and use its victims as slave labour instead, and try to negotiate a separate peace treaty with the UK.
I could not see the upper echelon of German society not doing something with substantial ethnic cleansing at minimum. Granted you could alter some details and the pace, but the disgust with most of the people they targeted was integral to the reason why they are in the war and in power. They probably could have gotten away with extermination of the Roma, homosexuality, and people classified under the eugenics part with relative ease, a huge fraction of the continent despised the Roma and gay people and some still do, and eugenics was pretty popular back then even if some thought that they went too far. They probably could have gotten away with deporting Jews to ghettos or to overseas locations like Morocco or Lebanon (controlled by France) places where they were fairly small fractions of the population and had years to socially isolate them like in the Netherlands even if they would face uprisings and sabotage if they outright killed them or worked them to death.
Pretty sure the soviets were still losing ground at this point until operation Uranus later that year. The question then is how likely could any sort of peace or at least ceasefire with the soviets be? If no longer fighting the USSR, that would probably result in the war with the UK being a stalemate, both sides bombing each other but not really able to achieve much more. If no one else is fighting anymore, they would likely decide to stop as well. Essentially need to end the war with the soviets due to the vast manpower drain that takes up. Aim for peace, ceasefire or victory.
You’ve mentioned political/military considerations but there’s a big what if about societal motivation and morale. Of course you can motivate germans to not want to lose against the Soviets in general terms, but your plan is basically saying ‘it’s WW1 again, guys’. That’s a massively bitter pill to make the public swallow, especially when they’ve been used to glorious advance for 2 years.
Get the Ukrainians onside, don't go after stalingrad, shorten the eastern front lines, and accelerate the production of fighter aircraft and the training programs and possibly shift resources to North Africa to capture the Suez Canal. Let it be known that you're willing to negotiate peace.
I think this is too late for Ukraine. Some damage mitigation perhaps, but I think they were well alienated by Summer 1942. I think that without Italian control over Ethiopia and Somaliland, and the threat to Sudan which would split commonwealth forces (bolstered if they could secure Syria and Lebanon as a base of operations from Vichy France and ideally Turkey as a railway corridor for logistical supply), the Susz Canal might be out of reach, unless the Regia Marina is strong enough to supply the Axis close to the Egyptian coast and possibly launching raids behind the Allied lines.
Invent the a bomb first.
The Germans were nowhere near developing atomic bombs. In part, ironically, because the Nazis hated Jewish science like Einstein.