This assumes that, having neutralized Britain, Hitler would move on to invading the US before he invaded the USSR. It seems that he would take the land invasion first.
That is especially true if we believe that Lebensraum was a key part of his motivation (as opposed to a generic “rule the world”). German farmers weren’t going to be moving to North America before they moved to Eastern Europe. The logical order is to turn east as soon as his western flank in secure.
And The Man In The High Castle supposes that the Nazis nuked Washington DC into oblivion and won the war. They and the Japanese partitioned the US. I think the Italians initially had a piece, but the Nazis took over Italy too.
And to bring this full circle around, back to the original (pre-split) topic: they were largely “successful” with the Holocaust although in the Americas there were still a few people remaining with a little Jewish ancestry. Not many and of course they had hide it.
Yeah, all those boats they used on the eastern front.
Keep in mind that the military actions that were realized were done with knowledge (and trust to a large degree) of what other parties were doing between the USSR and other Allied forces.
A lot of the strategy executed by the Allied Forces were based on Germany having to fight on two fronts. Eisenhower had to keep both Monty and Patton in check to advance in a coordinated fashion to keep a broad front pressure so that Hitler couldn’t concentrate resources.
If the USSR wasn’t an active partner, I’m positive that the Allies would’ve done something vastly different than what we know they did.
Also, during the “end game” strategy of the European front of WWII, the USSR was working toward a political victory in getting to Berlin first and capturing the capital while the Allied Forces were fighting for a conclusive military victory.
Possibly. But if the USSR was neutral would Hitler have sought to quash the enemy first?
Eh, they had boats. They would have needed more to launch an invasion in North America, sure. Maybe they could have built more boats and fewer tanks if they weren’t busy fighting the Soviets.
If they had put everything they actually put into fighting the Soviets into fighting the Americans instead, I don’t think we could have overcome that.
We being the US? I don’t think Germany had much realistic hope of successfully invading the US. WW2 was a battle of economic capacity, no way the Germans could match the US manufacturing capacity.
Eh, would have depended on a lot. Could they buy equipment from the USSR? Are they coordinating efforts with Japan?
The underlying reason for Hitlers attack on Russia was petroleum . That’s why they went southeast to Baku and Stalingrad. Stalingrad is not “on the road” to Moscow. To continue the war, Germany needed oil.
When the USSR was an ally, Hitler looked to take over their land. Why would that have changed by USSR being neutral?
The Allies w/o the US? I would agree with that statement.
But one of the biggest resource that the US brought to the war was a very different way of thinking about warfare that wasn’t taken into account by the over-confident German war machine.
One of the reasons that D-Day was so overwhelmingly successful was that the “local” leadership had considerable latitude to make on-the-spot decisions in reacting to unforeseen situations. The German “local” leadership had to wait for orders from an appropriate field-grade officer (think major to colonel) before taking action. THAT mindset would be extremely difficult for the German war machine to change and overcome.
The German surface navy was completely obliterated at the very start of the war, to the extent that they took guns off of the handful of surviving ships and used them for coastal defenses. If you compare the logistics and air superiority required to cross 30 miles of water for Normandy with what would have been needed to cross the Atlantic, a German invasion of the US is impossible.
There is also an argument to be made that the German shortage of oil would have proved fatal no matter what happened. The Eastern front accelerated that, but the Germans were going to run out of oil no matter what.
Because we’re in the hypothetical world where Germany did not idiotically invade the USSR.
No, the Allies without the USSR.
Uh, not if they’re buying it from the Soviets.
Then Germany would’ve run out of oil…
I’m quite sure that Hitler didn’t care about “neutral”.
I think he wanted territory and the territory he wanted was in eastern Europe.
Fair enough.
I don’t think things would’ve turned out all that different. The only real contribution that the USSR provided was having a second front that Germany had to defend.
Once the US entered the war, the Allies had far better logistics for resources and materiel (including personnel for fighting). Germany was severely restricted in replenishing a lot of their resources, especially fighting men, as the war went on. The USSR had zero interests in providing troops to defend Germany–the initial treaty was far more political so that Hitler wouldn’t invade USSR territory than it was any form of agreement on a philosophical level (in fact, Hitler spoke out against communism early in his rise to power).
And as I pointed out in the prior post, the US brought a very different mindset for fighting a war in the idea of allowing local commanders to take initiatives that were deemed to help the war effort. The best example of this was demonstrated in the movie Saving Private Ryan where the team took a “slight detour” to destroy a radio antennae of the Germans. Nothing in their orders indicated to do any such actions (it was strictly to find and retrieve Pvt. Ryan).
The difference between the USSR fighting on the Allied side vs. supporting the Axis was primarily the time table for German capitulation. I do not see Germany having a different time table for developing nuclear capabilities (or long-range missile capacity) simply because they weren’t fighting on two fronts and the casualties for the Allies would be much greater.
Germany lost 4,300,000 soldiers in WWII (according to their government… other sources say more) and about 3,300,000 of them fell at the hands of Soviets.
I think with an extra 3,300,000 soldiers at their disposal the Nazis would have caused a LOT more damage to the Americans. 
And that’s not counting all the Nazi soldiers that we killed that we might not have killed if they’d had stronger numbers on the western front.
The whole theoretical Germany doesn’t invade USSR simply wouldn’t work. Not just because the Nazi’s hated the Russians as much as the Russians hated them but because Germany had no where else to go to get access to oil. Can’t run a modern army after 1900 without fuel.
The Russians did provide a lot of manpower to the war effort. But frankly they would have lost quickly without the logistical support of the other allies. We sent them a lot of food, fuel, equipment, and ammunition. If they hadn’t been in the war those supplies and the manufacturing behind them would have been used elsewhere. The war would have cost us a lot more men, but the outcome would have been the same. Except perhaps Frankfurt gets nuked instead of Hiroshima, or in addition to.