A More Dangerous Hitler
By Michael W Moore
Part 4
(Authors note: I wrote ‘A More Dangerous Hitler’ as an answer to
the question, "Could Hitler have won the war?"
This ATL shows an outcome from a different set of decisions dating from
5/25/1940 in France. In this ATL Hitler and the German Army are so
successful so quickly that many of Hitler’s worst personality traits
don’t have an opportunity to kick in. My goal was to present a best-case
scenario for Nazi Germany in WWII, that was possible.)
By the end of campaigning in 1941 the German Army is in control of much
of the European Soviet Union. Most of the better parts of the Russian army
are dead or in prison labor camps.
Stalin is dead and Zukov is in loose control of the country. He has
rallied the shattered Army, which fell back in a disorganized panic from
the German onslaught. No counter attacks were possible over the winter. He
has formed a line stretching south from Orsk.
German and Axis casualties have been great, but Russian casualties have
been disastrous. All of the best Russian armies have been shattered and
most of its best officers and non-coms killed or captured.
The Soviet weapon losses from operation Barbarossa are immense-
69% of all Small-arms and Machine guns.
79% of all Anti-Tank guns.
72% of all Field guns and Mortars.
83% of all Tanks.
46% of all Combat Aircraft.
Approximately 25,000 Tanks and 13,000 Combat Aircraft were lost by
Soviet forces in this period.
Russian manufacturing capacity this ATL is much less than OTL.
Oil producing areas that remain in Russian hands have for the most part
been cut off. The loss of this oil is seriously crippling Russian
industry. All oil is directed to military use. The civilian suffering is
immense.
No lend lease from a non-involved USA is a further blow ATL. A flow of
USA material is beginning to be pushed through Vladivostok, cash and
carry. Soon Vladivostok will become one of the busiest ports in the world,
but the transportation problems of getting the USA supplies inland are
enormous.
On the other hand German manufacturing this ATL is greatly augmented.
Without an active air war in Europe and no British naval blockade
German production is booming and focused on the land war in Asia.
Indeed as per The Accord the British are partially supplying the German
war effort.
Especially useful are the 50,000 heavy trucks a year the Brits are
building for the Germans.
Speer's handling of Barbarossa's production and organization was so
impressive that Hitler has given him unprecedented control of all German
industry and the task of integrating it with the rest of the EDCU and
other occupied territories.
Operation ‘Rising Sun’ is due to kick off in early June.
Initial Spring Objectives:
Control of areas west of Urals in North
Breaking of the Orsk line and the destruction of remaining Soviet
forces
Capture of Magnitogorsk and eastern slope of Urals
Capture of Guryev
Concurrent with Operation Rising Sun is ‘Operation B’ for Baku.
Its Objective: to secure all former Soviet territory from existing
German lines to the borders of Turkey and Iran
Both operations kick off in mid June.
In the north, the west side of the Urals is secured by the
Germans by the end of July.
In the south, the cut off Soviet forces are squashed. Baku is
captured in mid July and the Caucasus secured by the end of August.
In the center, Zukov’s lines are broken almost immediately.
Soviet experience, equipment and fuel are far below the Germans at this
point and morale is non-existent.
In July Zukov again sues for peace and is once more rebuffed, Hitler
will at this point settle only for the whole pie.
By fall the remnants of Zukov’s reeling armies have reached the banks
of the Ob River. In January the Soviets ‘Ob River Line’ has been
cracked by the Germans who have learned how to fight very effectively in
the winter snows. Zukov accepts an un-conditional surrender Jan. 20th
1943 and orders all Soviet forces to lay down their arms.
No reliable Soviet military casualty figures were ever established,
however they were estimated to be in the range of 6 to 7 million. Soviet
civilian deaths through ‘42 were estimated to be in excess of 15
million.
Axis casualties for the Russian campaigns through 1942 were in the
range of 750,000, some 95% of that figure being German.
Advance German columns reach the Pacific Feb. 12th 1943 and
Hitler announces that it will be called ‘Adolfburg by the Sea’ (or
whatever in German). Also from henceforth Moscow will be renamed
Barbarossa. Lenningrad will be known as The Kaisersburg. Stalingrad is
re-named Hitlerburg.
In Dec.’42 Belorussia, the Baltic States as one, and the Ukraine join
the ECDU.
Georgia and Azerbaijan are joined in Jan.‘43 and admitted to the ECDU
as the Caucasus Republic.
Armenia was tossed to the Turks as a bone for their late entry into the
war as the Germans pushed south in the spring of ’42. Turkey is granted
ECDU membership Feb.’43.
The Crimea is annexed by Hitler, becoming a new German state.
Bessarabia is awarded to Romania.
The Greater German Empire now stretches from the North Sea to the
Pacific. For the time being Hitler lolls like a fat satiated cat in
the sun contemplating the future.
With the Soviet surrender all of their remaining tank production fell
into the hands of the Germans. A decision was made to continue producing
the T-34 as the Mk-VIII with a German redesigned 5-man turret.
It was decided in mid ’43 that the redesigned Mk-VIII and the new
Panther Panzer were to be the backbone of the Panzer Corps. Panzer
divisions were to be expanded to 30 by mid 1944.
Production of the Jad Panther and Tiger II were accelerated.
Long-range heavy bomber and jet programs have been greatly accelerated.
By the end of 1943 Admiral Donitz’s dream of a 300 U-boat navy has
been realized.
With much greater resources at his disposal, Hitler has given the
German A-bomb project a top priority and a huge increase in funding.
Speer is busy integrating the ECDU.
European and Asian Russia has been broken into two states that will be
brought, along with the former SSR Kazakh, into the ECDU in 1943.
If we thought the carnage of the Holocaust had been terrible in OTL, it
is dwarfed by the toll of human suffering in this one.
The Jews actually got off lighter in this ATL. Speer considers them a
resource and they are worked to the bone but for the most part are kept
alive. Vague plans for a Jewish nation to be established somewhere in
Africa are made.
Hitler’s greatest wrath instead falls on the ‘non-racially
acceptable’ in the former Russia and Kazakh SSRs. A five-year plan is
inaugurated at the end of 1943. Those without useful skills or light hair
and eyes, are designated to be literally worked to death to the glory of
the Greater Reich. The subsequent death toll will be in the tens of
millions.
By the end of 1942 all provisions of ‘The Accord’ had been honored
and all prisoners had been exchanged as per its terms.
The only real scare had come in mid ‘42 when Hitler had provoked a
spat with the Portuguese as an excuse to seize their African colonies.
Britain protested but was not about to upset The Accord over Portuguese
colonial possessions.
With the addition of Angola, German West Africa now stretched some two
thousand miles from Kameroon to the Orange River.
German East Africa had combined Tanganyika and Mozambique.
The USA and Japan have remained on the sidelines.
USA- by mid 1943 as the war seems to be winding down all USA war
production, except naval, begins to slow down.
Roosevelt casts a wary eye on both Germans and Japanese, and seeks
closer ties with the British Commonwealth.
The USA A-bomb project also slows.
Japan- had been spoiling for a fight but Soviet tanks in the
north and the Pacific Defense Pact navies in the south had dissuaded her
from entering the war.
Having not entered the war Japan had fared much better than OTL.
She was afforded the opportunity to continue her subjugation of China
while all were preoccupied elsewhere.
With very little effort on her part she had picked up the former Dutch
East Indies and French Indochina. In doing so had acquired a vast array of
much needed natural resources, most especially oil.
She had coveted Soviet Pacific territories but had delayed getting into
the fight until too late and now had Hitler as a neighbor on Manchuria’s
northern border. A sobering thought indeed.
Italy- had also fared much better this ATL. For her part in the
Russian campaigns Mussolini had received the southern Soviet ‘Stans. She
now had a much expanded hodgepodge of an Empire and Mussolini’s’
prestige was great in Italy.
As an added pleasant surprise oil was discovered way ahead of OTL in
Libya in late 1943.
Britain and the Commonwealth- had got off much lighter at this
point but faced potentially a much more dire situation with greatly
augmented German and Japanese war machines. All were now armed to the
teeth and awaiting new developments.
As a result of war strains all were drawn that much tighter together.
Their relationship with the USA had also been greatly strengthened by Lend
Lease and the PDP.
India- had been a constant source of irritation. However
without the distraction of an ongoing war as in OTL, Britain had more
troops available to put down any uprisings and it had been comparatively
quieter in this ATL.
So….
As 1943 draws to a close we look out on a vastly different
landscape in this ATL.
All wonder what that maniac Hitler will do now.
If open war doesn’t break out again soon, where do we go from here?
There are 4 power blocks in the world, all fledgling Super Powers:
: An unrealized USA.
