One effect is that the concept of a "Blitzkrieg" won't really exist as we know it, as even with the usage of tanks, the fallback infantry element is something which the old Prussians cannot fully let go of.
8mm to the Left: If Hitler Died in 1923
- Thread starter KaiserKatze
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Plus, why go West when they have far weaker and more acceptable targets Eastwards?
Tbh, that strategy did gave the Nazis a lot of fruits since it allowed them to capture several important cities, encircle and make POWs out of thousands of troops and occupy key regions like the Baltics and Ukraine while also having cities like Leningrad under a fine line of falling to them. They just had several disadvantages like a lack of oil, bad supply lines, western material support to the USSR as well as the own hugeness of the Soviet Union, it's industrial capability and the talent of it's generals and soldiers essentially meant that the Nazis had doomed their Reich the moment they set foot in the USSR.
Here L-V has some of the issues the Nazis had and some that they don't but even in the case he manages to unite a few countries like the Baltics, Romania, Poland and maybe Finland against the USSR, it would be a massive undertaking of men, material and money that a Germany that hasn't been aggressively militarized or has the same battle experience would go through and they might try to quit it when they realize that reaching Moscow is kinda hard and try to negotiate a deal unlike the Nazis who fought to the bitter end.
Any plan would probably be a limited war to at most take the Ukraine and establish a buffer. Trying to get it all is what did for Hitler and in any case unlike him L-V went to war college. He will be well aware of what happened to Napoleon and Russia's habit of trading space for time and this heer won't go charging after them but consolidate it's position before the Bear swings back around.
Also unlike Hitler L-V's reaction to the Ukrainian people welcoming him with open arms will be, "Yes we're here to free you," and set up a puppet state. Which given what Stalin did to them (the famine and the terror) will have mass public support from the locals.
Honestly, history is so lucky that Hitler was as foolish as he was to mistreat the people of the occupied regions in the USSR. Imagine the Nazis if they had gotten the Ukranians, Baltics, Balkans, and more behind them
ie as dumbledore said if he were not Voldemort he wouldnt have lost
Fortunately Nazi hatred of the unlike was so strong even the concept of pretending to work with the locals instead of murdering and slaving doesn't seem to have occured to them. Hitler could probably have got alot further in the SU (or at least lasted longer in the fight) if he'd played nice but "All slav's are fit only for Death or slavery," and that was the end of that (and the start of a strong resistance that even lasted for a while post war against Stalin. Although a very unpleasant one little better than what it opposed given they engaged in ethnic cleansing).
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It does make me wonder how those sort of broader race politics would develop without Nazism in my story's world. Grouping people into "Germanic", "Latin", "Slavic" certainly existed before Hitler, but he really typified it, as did the borders following WW2 which drew relatively hard ethnic lines.
For one, this Germany has no issue with Slavs as a whole. Just good old-fashioned nationalism and dislike for a rival group, i.e Poles
Possibly, but still putting all those eggs in the Ukrainian basket is just asking for the Soviets to use Crimea as a stronghold thanks to their navy and use it alongside the eastern Ukrainian frontier to counter attack any forces. It should also be noticed that the Ukrainians who supported the German invasion at first were mainly from places like Galicia and the westernmost regions(which had not coincidently had border disputes with Poland) while Central and Eastern Ukraine showed resistance to the invaders, even if they're not overly fond of Stalin, the majority would still defend what they see as their home, especially if it becomes a battleground where the Poles that they don't like are invading.
You do raise a good point, namely, Poland. Even if somehow Poland could be aligned against the Soviets, they would seek territorial expansion into Belarus and Ukraine, which Germany would have to oppose to prevent Poland from.becoming too strong. A difficult quandary
And they can't attack the USSR if they don't have the collaboration of Poland because their other alternative would've been a long march through Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania before they could actually attack the Soviets which would've given them enough time to began an attack of their own.
Of course that is something that Poland could explore in a attempt to gain better diplomatic leverage like the Danzig question.
That is assuming that Poland trusts Germany enough to honour such an agreement. Didn't work out well for Italy or Bulgaria
As always, Poland is stuck between two neighbors it doesn't trust and who want to carve away their territory or at least parts of them.
True, though in that sense it might be in their best interest to not extend further East and instead try to consolidate what they have
Especially with how Pilsudski envisioned an Intermarium before his death and all that.
In many ways, the ideology of Nazism was a major factor in why Germany lost, especially with how the Germans were initially greeted as liberators by so many in the USSR in our timeline.
And where the Ukrainian national identity was the strongest, for that matter.
On that note, something like Stepan Bandera’s proclamation of an independent Ukraine would be met here with “sure, we’ll recognize such a proclamation as long as you obey us”.
Well even the name "Ukraine" has historically referred to the Western part of the region, which was also the part most influenced by Poalnd-Lithuania and the like. To this day, Western Ukraine has words and influences linked back to Polish, while Eastern Ukraine doesn't. Arguably, it was the German creation of a Ukranian puppet state in WW1 and its continuation as the Ukranian SSR which really unified those peoples. Without that we mightve seen those in Western Ukraine calling themselves Ruthenians or Ukrainians, with people from Eastern Ukraine being "Malorussians" (Little Russians) or "Novorussians" (New Russians) based on the historical names for the regions, like Belarus
The event of a future war with Russia will definitely see a clash between the old-world views of Mitteleuropa and the more modern view of national liberation. For example, Germany's chance to annex and integrate the Baltics is gone
And on that note, what could be interesting could be the chance that, in addition to Ukrainian and Caucasian nationalists, we could note Vorbeck’s interactions with White emigres here.
I’m not sure that would be the case.
The Nazis didn’t really dare touch the army till 1938, so the doctrine-makers would be mostly the same. Furthermore, I think it’s worth noting the pattern of the winners of the last war clinging to their war winning formula, while the losers adapt, which happened both to the Germans between the Franco-Prussian war and WW1, and to the British and French between WW1 and WW2. Both those factors are still present ITTL, and I think the changes in the political situation didn’t really affect the military that much.
The definition of “Blitzkrieg” is also very muddied by pop culture and mystified by the wild German successes of early war, but in the end, it’s just a name for the first real example of combined arms warfare we got to see. Heavy use of close air support, massing armor for breakthroughs and operations between enemy lines are just very logical conclusions to reach, and indeed, some soviet officers had thought along he same lines before the purges with their own “Deep Battle” concept, that would play a key role in their late war victories.
So, if we interpret Blitzkrieg as Fall Gelb-esque, all-or-nothing gambles, then yeah, they won’t be doing that, but the rest of it wont probably change.
He'd probably recognise them for the busted flush they are. It's been over a decade since they lost and they don't have anywhere near the support to get another civil war going. The better bet is still the nationalist groups especially if it can be portrayed as a protectorate from the big bad commies further East.