Coexistance

[Arch-Angel]

Would it be possible for Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to coexist with a mutual border and one "winning" WW2 with out destroying the other? Sort of like a cold war. Or would they continue to fight until one is gone?

 

[Adam Parsons]

Maybe, but you'd have to change the leadership for both countries. While a lot of Nazi doctrine was focused on Lebensraum in Eastern Europe and Western (Russian) Asia, a clever politician might be able to bury that idea. As for the Soviet Union, Stalin was considering going after the Nazis in 1942, but it's uncertain what anyone else in his government thought (besides, of course, what Stalin WANTED them to think).

 

[BTD]

Maybe, but you'd have to change the leadership for both countries.

I agree, kind of. Stalin might have made a compromise with the germans, however I can't see Hitler making any compromises with the jewish threat that was fostered by Karl Marx.

 

[Arch-Angel]

What if Germany were to capture some lands in the USSR and a coup replaced Stalin. Would it be possible? The USSR is weakened but can come back and Germany is war weary.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Hitler was particularly nasty and obsessive about this...as long as he is alive, any peace will be very short-term, "breathing periods" between new crusades into the East.

Now, in the "Sealion Failed" ATL, the anti-Hitler generals make their move a bit early (during the period OTL-equivalent to the siege of Moscow) so that they can shorten their lines and rescue some stranded troops. Perhaps some German assassinates Hitler when he gives his "no retreat" order (and perhaps nails Himmler to be sure) and the resulting post-Hitler Nazi government makes a peace with the USSR where the Sovs cede Ukraine, the Baltics, and Belarus and that's it.

However, the Soviets will want those lands back, and even if the lesser-fanatical branch of the Nazis is satisfied with these gains, the Soviets will probably make their move. However, several failed adventures in this respect might force them to give up forever, just as Maria Theresa was forced to permanently surrender all claim to Silesia.

 

[wkwillis]

If Hitler was killed in 1940, before the Blitz gave Churchill his excuse for the air war, then the Germans could have maintained the sub blockade of Britain to counter the naval blockade of Germany. It would have been hard for the war to continue without the Germans attempting to take over the British fleet. Say, Italy finds out about the death of Hitler and doesn't get into the war. Then France makes an armstice, the Germans sign a better armistice from the French view (you know, Alsace and Lorraine), the German generals unofficially blame everything on Hitler and sign easy armistices with the Dutch, the Belgians, the Czechs, etc. They still keep Poland. They make the French pay a reparation disguised as buying out the proGermans in Alsace and Lorraine at say, twice the assessed value. That gets them enough people to move to Germany to save face for the revanchist Nazis.
Britain has a problem. They can threaten to blockade France and Spain and Italy to keep the blockade up against Germany, but there is a limit to how much the French, the Spanish, and the Italians will put up with. Fighting Germany is popular. Fighting everybody in Europe is not going to be popular.
Then the fact remains that the Russians want the Baltics and eastern Rumania, like they already took by July of 1940. So the trade in population is made. Russia gets the Poles, the Balkans get the eastern Rumanians, etc. Probably settle them in transylvania and crowd out the Rumanians.
And it all quiets down.
Britain and Germany get an armistice after a few months of sub wars. No urban bombing. The POWs go home. No trade relations between Britain and Germany, but the Europeans don't care. The Fascist puppet governments assign voting rights to areas instead of populations and use the conservative rural areas to maintain control of the cities. Lots of European socialist types wind up in the Commonwealth.