Germany would probably still lose against the UK and the USA in the end, but probably they could have settled for 1943 borders if someone other than Hitler was to be on command. I tend to think Hitler would have been killed by his own high-rank officials once they figured out that even after the soviets losing there would still be a limit to what they could accomplish considering the US had the bomb as lebensraum/generalplan öst was always a bust (heck by 43 they still hadn't figured out what to do with the poles living in the reich) and their fuhrer and a few of his madmen toe only ones not able to see it.

The URSS would probably broke up 45 years earlier in the end though, and instead of a cold war we'd have... Something else. US dominance with Japan and Germany as secondary powers.

Considering there were numerous attempts on Hitler's life then it would probably be safe to assume there would possibly be more (even with a Soviet defeat).  Hitler also wasn't in very good health since he either had late stages of syphilis, Parkinson's disease, or both.  Hitler was able to work wonders with his army (while very advanced techniques at the time, Germany's army wasn't entirely mobile/high tech (lots of horse drawn units, etc... in the beginning).  However, it was the Soviet campaign that later showed Germany was beatable (Stalingrad and all the later battles to come).  I like the idea of perhaps settling with 43 borders but that would leave Germany with most of Europe still.  Not sure if the Allies could accept those terms unless it was deemed impossible to defeat Germany without the help of the Soviets (since they were defeated in my hypothetical question).

They were very close with the atom bomb but still had some problems to work out with it.  If Hitler didn't lose a lot of top scientist that happened to be Jewish then the Germany would have been even further along.  I always found it pretty funny that Albert Einstein and others escaped and then helped the US develop the atom bomb.  V1 and V2 are very interesting considering no other country had a rocket program like Germany did.  If they were able to develop the technology even more then they could have rained down even more terror.  It was surprising that they didn't load the rockets up with chemical weapons but I believe Hitler was semi against this since he was gassed during WW1.  Weird that you can try and eliminate an entire race (eventually using gas against the Jews) but have second thoughts about using chemical weapons to achieve victory.

The Russians have millions of reserves but if Germany was able to take Leningrad, Stalingrad (and push further into the Caucasus), Moscow and a few other key areas they would have weaken the Soviets greatly (yet they still wouldn't be defeated).  Russians have proved throughout history that they are nearly impossible to invade.  Only Genghis Khan was able to roll through Russia with little problem due to their superior army and military tactics at the time.  Napoleon and Hitler both failed miserably.  I have studied a great deal about Russia in the past although there are plenty of Russian events that I am unaware of.  Part of my fascination of Russia is due to Vikings helping to establish what was to become Russia.  The credit doesn't entirely go to the Vikings but they opened up river trade routes that were blocked by other tribes/barbarians.  They were also known as the Rus Vikings or The Rus'.  Hence where the name Russia comes from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus%27_people

Well if the Russians got invaded by the Japanese at the same time as the Nazi's took all of Russia towards the Urals perhaps...

I remember reading the Russians had a huge number of forces to counter the Japanese armies in China. If Russian forces all went and attacked the invading Germans from the West, the Germans would have to keep a massive force in Russia.
If the Japanese attacked, then the Germans would have been able to win however I doubt the Japanese could have fought against the Chinese, British (Commonwealth), Russians and the US at the same time.

Yea, the Japanese would have to post pone their attack on the US if they were to help Germany with a pincer attack.  I believe this would probably be a better strategy for the Axis.  If they were able to knock the Soviet Union out of the war before USA even joined then it would have made things a lot harder.  Of course Japan thought they achieved a great victory at Pearl Harbor but since there were no USA carriers lost during Pearl Harbor they really didn't knock the Pacific fleet completely out.  Those carriers being safe from the Pearl Harbor attack allowed USA to bounce back quick with a major victory at the Battle of Midway.  It seems like the Axis didn't cooperate as effectively as the Allies.

Well Japan elmintaing the Soviets would have freed up a lot of troops sitting in Manchuria and they could have then more easily controlled China, South East Asia and Burma and such.

In reality, Japan was forced to keep a big army against the Russians, fight China, the British (Commonwealth) in Burma and South East Asia and the Americas who were steamrolling through the pacific.

If the Japanese were able to get rid of Russia and control most of East Asia, Japan would have become far far more powerful as they would have a secure hold on resources.

Combined with increased power and their strong fighting spirit, I think the Americans would have a much harder time (they had a very hard time anyways). America did not display its full potential in WW2, but I think America would have been quite stressed fighting a much stronger Japan and Germany.

I am hoping this question of the week gets even more replies than the first one, and after FattyDingDong stole some thunder from my thread with his own WW2 question regarding the Soviets not getting enough credit. This question/topic should be even more intriguing.

What do you think about the entire internment camps in the US during WW2? The Japanese Americans of course suffered the most. I'll just post a little info from wiki on the Japanese Americans internment.


"Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.[1][2] The internment of Japanese Americans was applied unequally throughout the United States. Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast of the United States were all interned, while in Hawaii, where more than 150,000 Japanese Americans composed over one-third of the territory's population, 1,200[3] to 1,800 Japanese Americans were interned.[4] Of those interned, 62% were American citizens.[5][6]

President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066, issued February 19, 1942, which allowed local military commanders to designate "military areas" as "exclusion zones," from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and most of Oregon and Washington, except for those in internment camps.[7] In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion orders,[8] while noting that the provisions that singled out people of Japanese ancestry were a separate issue outside the scope of the proceedings.[9] The United States Census Bureau assisted the internment efforts by providing confidential neighborhood information on Japanese Americans. The Bureau's role was denied for decades but was finally proven in 2007.[10][11]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment

I would like to keep this thread going but I know it might be a lost cause. I really love anything related to WW2. It isn't because I am a secret Nazi but a war historian. I consider WW2 the last "fair" war in which any side actually stood a chance in combat. I love the tank battles (especially battle of Kursk). Now, a days modern warfare just doesn't do it for me. Sure there were terrible casualties that all sides incurred but at least they knew it was expected of war. Today war seems too modernized (drone strikes) and it lost its grim reality. Sure people cringe at suicide bombers or comrades dying but where are the days where 80k soldiers perished on the battle field? This isn't a call back to glorify human bloodshed it is only meant to be a reminder. WW2 was the greatest battle on Earth.  Enjoy the Panzer Song!  One more time but different footage!

Different. If it had been, say, Nazi Germany or Stalin fighting in the middle east or in South Vietnam, they would have won, if only through "burn every village to the ground" tactics.

Which isn't at all to say we should do that. I'm just saying the Viet Cong, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the Taliban understand the moral limitations we have to put up with, and the successes of their strategy are based on exploiting that.