AHQ: Is a Soviet occupation of all of Germany in WW2 possible?

Is it?

  • Yes, it is

    Votes: 90 84.9%
  • No, it isn't

    Votes: 16 15.1%

  • Total voters
    106
Could the Soviets have realistically liberated all of Germany (or at least the German territories east of the river Rhine) during the closing days of WW2? And if so, could the USSR have occupied all of Germany in the aftermath of the war, similiar to how the US singlehandedly occupied all of Japan? Would the Western Allies officially recognize it, or would the Soviets have to present them with a fait accompli? Would tensions be higher during the early Cold War years? Which PODs could realistically lead to such an outcome?
 
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Could the Soviets have realistically liberated all of Germany (or at least the German territories east of the river Rhine) during the closing days of WW2? And if so, could the USSR have occupied all of Germany in the aftermath of the war, similiar to how the US singlehandedly occupied all of Japan? Which PODs could realistically lead to such an outcome?

Perhaps D-Day failing or being much less sucessful? This slows down advance of WAllies
 
Could the Soviets have realistically liberated all of Germany (or at least the German territories east of the river Rhine) during the closing days of WW2? And if so, could the USSR have occupied all of Germany in the aftermath of the war, similiar to how the US singlehandedly occupied all of Japan? Which PODs could realistically lead to such an outcome?

You have to push the POD back a bit farther but yeah, it is possible.
 
Yeah its possible, but I think that any scenario that allows the soviets to push to the Rhine means they won't stop there.
 
One I've had in mind is where the Republicans win the Spanish Civil War and accordingly take an anti-fascist position internationally. If France falls roughly similar to OTL in 1940, then the Germans and Italians really have no choice but to strike over the Pyrenees into Spain (to prevent it from being a fortified base for a regroup of the Western Allies). While the Republican armies put up some resistance at the mountainous border, German armored offensives into Catalonia and the Basque coast quickly cause a general disintegration and the Germans fan out across the breadth of Spain and storm the Gibraltar fortress. This essentially spreads the Wehrmacht quite thin in a move reminiscent of Napoleon's 'Spanish Ulcer' and, combined with the invasions of the Balkans and the war in North Africa, the Reich misses the window in the summer of '41 to invade the Soviet Union. The opportunity doesn't come again, and the Nazi leadership is forced to content itself with a continued Germano-Soviet cooperation and focus on pressing the British in hopes of cracking their defenses. Needless to say, they become bogged down on a variety of fronts while they become increasingly reliant on the Soviet Union. Sometime in the summer of '42 or spring of '43, with the Molotov Line and its accompanying supply systems full stocked and the reorganized RKKA ready for offensive operations, they launch their invasion of Germany. Initially, it becomes a bloody slugging fest along the border regions, with the Red Army being thrown back in some sectors and seeing regional success in others. After operational failure in its initial offensive, the Soviets concentrate their heaviest forces and manage to crack the fascist defenses at select points and exploit the breaches. The Germans end up having to conduct a fighting retreat through Poland for the duration of the campaigning season, and by the winter the RKKA stands poised to enter Germany. At this point, the Western Allies are making landings in Africa, Italy, and Spain and the Wehrmacht begins to buckle under the weight.

The ensuing occupation sees the Red Army driving through Germany up to the river Rhine, occupying Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Austria in their entirety, and liberating some small portions of Italy. Diplomatic wrangling with the Western Allies ensue, but despite their insistence of dividing up the responsibility of occupying the former Reich, the Soviets categorically refuse and an uneasy peace ensues that straddles the occupying lines of the Soviet forces and the Western Allies. As others have pointed out though, in a scenario like this then it's entirely possible that the RKKA decides to continue its drive through Western Europe, but Stalin was cautious enough IOTL that I think there's a pretty good chance that the Soviets decide to focus on the Japanese and focus on building their new institutions/Sovietizing their occupation zones. Of course, this ensuing Cold War will be much more brutal and there's a likelier chance in some sort of WWIII eventually. This is because the Western Allies will be infinitely more paranoid and defensive, and so permit far more in the name of anti-communism and security. Meanwhile, the Soviets will be many magnitudes stronger than they were IOTL and so more willing to throw their weight around and engage in covert or military operations internationally. Not looking like a pretty world would come out of this, and there's at least a 40% chance of some sort of nuclear exchange occurring IMO...

Essentially, you could get a scenario like this by preventing Barbarossa as OTL and giving the RKKA enough time to rebuild itself and attack the Reich on its own terms. This doesn't necessarily have to be an occupation of Spain, but it's one scenario anyways.
 
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Another question: Is it possible to archieve such an outcome with an ''Operation Overlord Fails''POD?
That's a whole other level of "how do we get that" though. Things were very much in favor of the Allies by that point and they won't launch the invasion if it doesn't have a reasonable chance of success.
 

McPherson

Banned
One I've had in mind is where the Republicans win the Spanish Civil War and accordingly take an anti-fascist position internationally. If France falls roughly similar to OTL in 1940, then the Germans and Italians really have no choice but to strike over the Pyrenees into Spain (to prevent it from being a fortified base for a regroup of the Western Allies). While the Republican armies put up some resistance at the mountainous border, German armored offensives into Catalonia and the Basque coast quickly cause a general disintegration and the Germans fan out across the breadth of Spain and storm the Gibraltar fortress. This essentially spreads the Wehrmacht quite thin in a move reminiscent of Napoleon's 'Spanish Ulcer' and, combined with the invasions of the Balkans and the war in North Africa, the Reich misses the window in the summer of '41 to invade the Soviet Union. The opportunity doesn't come again, and the Nazi leadership is forced to content itself with a continued Germano-Soviet cooperation and focus on pressing the British in hopes of cracking their defenses. Needless to say, they become bogged down on a variety of fronts while they become increasingly reliant on the Soviet Union. Sometime in the summer of '42 or spring of '43, with the Molotov Line and its accompanying supply systems full stocked and the reorganized RKKA ready for offensive operations, they launch their invasion of Germany. Initially, it becomes a bloody slugging fest along the border regions, with the Red Army being thrown back in some sectors and seeing regional success in others. After operational failure in its initial offensive, the Soviets concentrate their heaviest forces and manage to crack the fascist defenses at select points and exploit the breaches. The Germans end up having to conduct a fighting retreat through Poland for the duration of the campaigning season, and by the winter the RKKA stands poised to enter Germany. At this point, the Western Allies are making landings in Africa, Italy, and Spain and the Wehrmacht begins to buckle under the weight.

The ensuing occupation sees the Red Army driving through Germany up to the river Rhine, occupying Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Austria in their entirety, and liberating some small portions of Italy. Diplomatic wrangling with the Western Allies ensue, but despite their insistence of dividing up the responsibility of occupying the former Reich, the Soviets categorically refuse and an uneasy peace ensues that straddles the occupying lines of the Soviet forces and the Western Allies. As others have pointed out though, in a scenario like this then it's entirely possible that the RKKA decides to continue its drive through Western Europe, but Stalin was cautious enough IOTL that I think there's a pretty good chance that the Soviets decide to focus on the Japanese and focus on building their new institutions/Sovietizing their occupation zones. Of course, this ensuing Cold War will be much more brutal and there's a likelier chance in some sort of WWIII eventually. This is because the Western Allies will be infinitely more paranoid and defensive, and so permit far more in the name of anti-communism and security. Meanwhile, the Soviets will be many magnitudes stronger than they were IOTL and so more willing to throw their weight around and engage in covert or military operations internationally. Not looking like a pretty world would come out of this, and there's at least a 40% chance of some sort of nuclear exchange occurring IMO...

Essentially, you could get a scenario like this by preventing Barbarossa as OTL and giving the RKKA enough time to rebuild itself and attack the Reich on its own terms. This doesn't necessarily have to be an occupation of Spain, but it's one scenario anyways.
Quite interesting, but Stalin has to go to make it work.
 
Yeah its possible, but I think that any scenario that allows the soviets to push to the Rhine means they won't stop there.
They would stop. If Germany is literally in that bad of a situation, they'll take everything out of France and willingly let the Wallies in.

Stalin wouldn't push the issue either, he's far too cautious to go anywhere past the Rhine, especially since he knows that the Americans have the A-bomb.
 

mial42

Gone Fishin'
That's a whole other level of "how do we get that" though. Things were very much in favor of the Allies by that point and they won't launch the invasion if it doesn't have a reasonable chance of success.
A *really* poorly timed storm is the only plausible way I see it happening. By D-Day that Allied advantages were just too big for the Germans to stop them (with the benefit of hindsight. I expect it was a lot less obvious in the moment).
 
The Allies had made deals on the division of Germany. Could they? Yes. Would they? No. So is it possible? No.
Certainly past OTL 1941/42, I think the division of Germany is set in stone and a completely botched D-Day isn’t going to do much to help, but I do think with a PoD early enough you could achieve it. The Soviets didn’t get an occupation zone for Italy or Japan, and if we have a PoD where they’re in a much stronger position I think they might offer symbolic concessions to the Western Allies in a Soviet occupied Germany such as a sector of Berlin and “joint occupational duties” with the large Soviet reconstruction authority, but I doubt Stalin would back down when he’s in an very strong position. They can try and call his bluff, but if he’s in a position where he has a vastly stronger RKKA and a mere fraction of the Soviet civilian and industrial casualties of IOTL then they aren’t in a position to force him into only a designated swathe of Germany really.
 
One I've had in mind is where the Republicans win the Spanish Civil War and accordingly take an anti-fascist position internationally. If France falls roughly similar to OTL in 1940, then the Germans and Italians really have no choice but to strike over the Pyrenees into Spain (to prevent it from being a fortified base for a regroup of the Western Allies). While the Republican armies put up some resistance at the mountainous border, German armored offensives into Catalonia and the Basque coast quickly cause a general disintegration and the Germans fan out across the breadth of Spain and storm the Gibraltar fortress. This essentially spreads the Wehrmacht quite thin in a move reminiscent of Napoleon's 'Spanish Ulcer' and, combined with the invasions of the Balkans and the war in North Africa, the Reich misses the window in the summer of '41 to invade the Soviet Union. The opportunity doesn't come again, and the Nazi leadership is forced to content itself with a continued Germano-Soviet cooperation and focus on pressing the British in hopes of cracking their defenses. Needless to say, they become bogged down on a variety of fronts while they become increasingly reliant on the Soviet Union. Sometime in the summer of '42 or spring of '43, with the Molotov Line and its accompanying supply systems full stocked and the reorganized RKKA ready for offensive operations, they launch their invasion of Germany. Initially, it becomes a bloody slugging fest along the border regions, with the Red Army being thrown back in some sectors and seeing regional success in others. After operational failure in its initial offensive, the Soviets concentrate their heaviest forces and manage to crack the fascist defenses at select points and exploit the breaches. The Germans end up having to conduct a fighting retreat through Poland for the duration of the campaigning season, and by the winter the RKKA stands poised to enter Germany. At this point, the Western Allies are making landings in Africa, Italy, and Spain and the Wehrmacht begins to buckle under the weight.

The ensuing occupation sees the Red Army driving through Germany up to the river Rhine, occupying Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Austria in their entirety, and liberating some small portions of Italy. Diplomatic wrangling with the Western Allies ensue, but despite their insistence of dividing up the responsibility of occupying the former Reich, the Soviets categorically refuse and an uneasy peace ensues that straddles the occupying lines of the Soviet forces and the Western Allies. As others have pointed out though, in a scenario like this then it's entirely possible that the RKKA decides to continue its drive through Western Europe, but Stalin was cautious enough IOTL that I think there's a pretty good chance that the Soviets decide to focus on the Japanese and focus on building their new institutions/Sovietizing their occupation zones. Of course, this ensuing Cold War will be much more brutal and there's a likelier chance in some sort of WWIII eventually. This is because the Western Allies will be infinitely more paranoid and defensive, and so permit far more in the name of anti-communism and security. Meanwhile, the Soviets will be many magnitudes stronger than they were IOTL and so more willing to throw their weight around and engage in covert or military operations internationally. Not looking like a pretty world would come out of this, and there's at least a 40% chance of some sort of nuclear exchange occurring IMO...

Essentially, you could get a scenario like this by preventing Barbarossa as OTL and giving the RKKA enough time to rebuild itself and attack the Reich on its own terms. This doesn't necessarily have to be an occupation of Spain, but it's one scenario anyways.
What sort of casualties might the Soviets face here? Civilian casualties would obviously be lower because there are no Nazi boots on their soil, but what about military losses? Would the post-purge Red Army, with people like Budenny at the helm, be able to defeat the Wehrmacht in Poland? It seems that there would be some serious teething troubles before such a Soviet offensive could get off the ground. And without having so much of its combat strength blown in the plains of Russia (which cost far more than any hypothetical Spanish Ulcer 2.0 might), I fear the Nazis will be able to put up a serious fight on the approaches to Berlin. From the Nazi perspective, defending the routes to your capital- from the 'Bolsheviks', Hitler's worst enemy, no less- is far more important than defending the Rock of Gibraltar or propping up Mussolini. (Diverting forces from the Kursk salient to do this is one thing; diverting forces from the Vistula River is another). Those units which participated in Barbarossa OTL are still there, except they're fighting on their own soil, with superior logistics, and have the additional motivation of defending their homes, families, etc. Not going to be easy for the post-purge Red Army to defeat, and certainly not in the span of a year or two. The Battle of Berlin was one of the costliest battles on the Eastern Front (Wikipedia says 80,000 Soviets and 100,000 Germans killed; don't have my books on me at the moment). And that was with a triumphant Red Army attacking a broken German force, where Volkssturm kids had to pad the lines against endless T-34s and Katyushas. If the two are tactically even.... it won't be a cakewalk, that's for sure.
The Russians have to be competent. With Stalin alive and in play from 1938-1943 that is not going to happen at all.
I'm sure letting political appointments such as Simeon Budenny run the show will only end well.
On the plus side, it'll be easier for incompetents (a la Vlasov) to defect to safety than OTL... ;)
 

CalBear

Moderator
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Monthly Donor
Another question: Is it possible to archieve such an outcome with an ''Operation Overlord Fails''POD?
Problem then becomes getting Overlord to fail.

Simply was not going to happen short of the Reich being able to shout out a magic wyrd and make the landing force disappear. WAllies had the whole thing wired, and waited until they had overwhelming advantages in force, total air supremacy, and had utterly and unalterably convinced the Nazis that 2+2=47, and could confirm that by reading Berlin's mail. Even the most difficult landing, at Omaha, resulted in the landing forces getting off the beach starting within three hours of the initial landings and the entire position sexured within 10 hours of the initial landings (the prebattle planners expected the forces to be off the beach by H+2). Omaha has the reputation of being a slaughterhouse because 1) It happened in the ETO, where large landings were surprisingly casualty light, 2) The whole world was watching Normandy, Omaha was the only place the Heer actually managed to put up a real fight, and it was a very nasty 5-6 hours* and 3) Omaha resulted in nearly as many casualties as the other four beached combined (at Utah Beach the 4th Infantry division took a total of 197 casualties out of 15,000 men put across the beach, Gold resulted in around 1,000 casualties with 347 reported KIA, Sword with total losses of under 700, and the Canadians at Juno taking casualties very close to those at Gold Beach).

If the WAllies hadn't had the whole thing wired, they would never have landed to begin with. The gutsy thing about going on June 5/6 was that the weather was marginal something that could have greatly increased casualties had the forecast been wrong.

* To show a couple comparatives: At Omaha U.S. V Corps casualties were ~2,600 (you will commonly find that losses in the Airborne divisions are lumped into the Omaha casualties, this gives a somewhat distorted perspective on losses). Eight day later, on Saipan, the landing force took 3,000 casualties the first day. At Tarawa, the initial landing force took 1,500 casualties, out of total landed count of 5,000 men. At Iwo Jima losses on the first day are nearly identical to Omaha They were all desperate fights, with heroism on display that boggles the mind, but Omaha tends to be held up as an unequaled bloodbath. It really wasn't. Difference was that the latter actions were in the Pacific out in the middle of a whole lot of water and not much else and Omaha Beach was 150 miles from London.
 
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