What should the German generals have done? (RAR)

[PeZook]

I'd actually be curious to know what Stas Bush, Thanas, or Pezook might do in the hypothetical situation. I don't know much history of this area compared to those on the board, but based on what I do know my best GUESS would be:

Frankly, with the constraints you give, I don't see an easy exist. Any ahistorical decision you make will butterfly things to hell. Plus, you did not specify exactly what sort of power or influence do we have in the Nazi hierarchy - and the nature of the Nazi system is such that you'd have to jockey with people to get what you want.

The biggest problem is that Hitler wants the holocaust, and he wants lebensraum ; If you are a genuine loyalist, these things are simply necessary. Sabotaging the holocaust to help the war effort can get you removed from power or executed.

You could help him in some ways, like rationalizing industrial production (standardizing tanks on the Pz.III/Pz.IV line for example) but the reality is, Hitler's goals lie in DIRECT opposition to the most powerful states in the world at that time: lebensraum in the east means you run over Poland, and that means running over France, which means running over Britain and you have to deal with Russia (except you can't), because they might eventually decide to do something about your little andventure.

In closing, the constraints of the scenario mean you can't really handle the big strategic issues, and anything operational or tactical you could do with hindsight will mean little.

3. A general can't really affect the Battle of Britain, so try to use the time exterminating as many non-Aryans as possible. To exterminate the Jews within the lands he ruled would be a legacy Hitler would probably be glad for even if he ultimately loses. Study the Soviets as much as I can without alerting them including the Finnish War, as I know from Mein Kampf if nothing else that they are an eventual enemy (and I can ask if necessary just to be safe).

Actually if you can convince Hitler not to stop fighting the RAF, you could maybe influence the BoB a bit ; But RAF had plenty of reserves, Sea Lion is out of the question, and Churchill won't agree to separate peace if he feels the US can be brought into the fight.

4. Since I know the Soviet war is inevitable and given the nature of Nazi command, I can start making preparations for winter wars, preparing provisions, and so on. There are limits to what I can achieve, but given the chaotic nature of the Nazi reigme I can do quite a bit as long as I conceal it from the Soviets. However, I don't allow this to distract me too much from killing Jews.

Frankly, there's a hard limit on how much winter supplies you can get to troops in the field. Sure, it's possible to organize the whole affair a bit better ; But you can only stuff so many supplies into the railways cars before the lines of supply become clogged. Soviets were aware of the limitation sof their own logistics, which is why they fought like they did ; Germans pushed hard and deep, but they had no other choice - letting the Red Army regroup and reorganize was a mortal danger.

5. If I have enough influence with the Furher, I should suggest drawing Soviet forces into regions where the infamous Russian winter doesn't apply as well as slow expansion on the basis that we can exterminate the locals before moving on. I give the argument that superior Aryans have been destroyed by the weather before- we may be able to overcome it but much less German blood will be spilt if we fight in better terrain. Privately, I consider the war unwinnable but make sure not to say so.

How are you going to accomplish that, exactly? Do you think the Russians will just cooperate?

6. I should try to be stationed on the Eastern front (as that's where I can make the most difference). My strategy during the initial invasion will be to focus on destroying Soviet forces unless I can somehow get a mad dash for Moscow approved (to capture Moscow would be a major strategic coup, whilst capturing Stalin even more so) or get away with it anyway. Even if my probability for capturing Moscow is a mere 30%, if Stalin is there I'll want to give it a go.

Congratulations: you have dashed madly towards Moscow, and thus your overextended army groups are now rife for an encirclement while you get bogged down in city fighting with undersupplied troops. The war is shortened by a year after a Stalingrad-scale disaster at Moscow.

That is, if you even CAN do anything like a "mad dash". The 1941 advance was already close to as quick as it could possibly be - remember that it wasn't just an unopposed march forwards, the Russians were actually fighting hard (just failing) and counterattacking all the time.

7. After the initial invasion, if the situation isn't a Soviet collapse I try to get away with a defensive strategy. Since Hitler won't approve, I present my strategy as drawing the Soviets to places where they can encircled or otherwise trapped and destroyed (paralleling it with Napoleon's withdrawal from the Pratzen heights at Austerlitz- a brief loss of land that will be reclaimed soon anyway) and to an extent actually follow through. Meanwhile, I focus on trying to ship local Jewish populations west for later extermination.

The problem is that a defensive strategy favors the Soviets more than it favors you. Once you begin the invasion, you MUST knock the USSR out of the war quickly, otherwise they will mobilize (and as history showed, they still managed a MASSIVE mobilization even after losing millions of men in 1941!) and destroy you. If you let the Red Army regroup, their initial counteroffensives (yes, there were counteroffensives launched in 1941) won't be desperate and hasty delaying actions, but proper hammerblows.

The most likely result is failure but far more non-Aryans killed (as a General I will enthusiastically support Hitler and by my actions can get such policies started earlier than they otherwise would), particularly Jews- exterminating the Jews from Hitler's conquests will be difficult but barely possible (exterminating them from Germany is quite feasible). IF I conquer Moscow and kill Stalin (admittedly very unlikely), I've probably bought enough time to exterminate the Jews from Eastern Europe at the least.

Remember that the Holocaust itself requires manpower and transport capacity that you desperately need in the eastern front ; The cattle cars to Treblinka are a non-insignificant burden on the railway network which means less ammo, fuel and supplies for the front line.

[Simon_Jester]

I think I agree with whoever said that the kindest thing one of Hitler's generals could have done for him (and the rest of Europe) was to shoot him in 1938.

Once Hitler started making the string of decisions that followed logically (for him) from Munich, it was inevitable that he'd end up at war with a stronger combination of powers, try to conquer his way out, fail, and leave Germany a rubble heap in the end.

Up to that point, he'd done things not so out of line with other (tyrannical) rulers of the era, and which didn't guarantee that he'd be singled out for opposition and destruction. Munich raised Nazi Germany's target profile. And the January 1939 decision to annex Bohemia and Moravia against the Munich accords sealed the deal (that was when Chamberlain extended the famous guarantee to Poland).

Remove his influence in 1938 and the Second World War might have happened in a very different form, if at all.

[Carinthium]

Think Pezook has a good point and concede his superior knowledge of the area, so not contesting him.

Simon Jester, I'm curious on your idea of the nature of loyalty. If it truely is your idea of being loyal to Hitler to shoot him in 1938 that works but I don't see how you can justify it. Perhaps you could at least go into more detail on your reasoning?

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Exactly where have I supported the Nazi Regime's policies or said that they were in anyway a positive force in the world? Where have I supported and advocated those policies?

I havent. Never. And never will.

Then stop wanking to the bloody Nazis you utter helmet cheeser. Normal people make a few self-imposed restrictions: I won't show scat porn to grandma, I won't piss my pants in public, I won't masturbate over Hitler, that sort of thing. What exactly prohibits your retarded bollocks from being normal people?



On another note, one that has only passing relevance to Dummy's wankery, Germany simply can't avoid Russia. Attacking the East and cleaning out Stalin's neighbourhood is a grand way of pushing him into war; the badassery that was the Winter War was fought for much less important causes. So the more you postpone Barbarossa, the more you court Bagration. And funny thing is, with all the conquering you've done in Europe, America will aid the Soviets anyway. That's what you get for trying to play Genghis Khan.

[K. A. Pital]

Dr. Trainwreck is right - once Nazis start massacring their way through Poland and Yugoslavia, it is only a matter of time before Joseph Vissarionovich hears the - quite real! - cries of the slaughtered proletarian masses and floods the Balkans with weapons in a prelude to possible war. The USSR was cautious, but if there's a genocide and intense guerilla war right over the border, you can only ignore this and wait for so long. Sooner or later hordes of refugees - millions! - would explain the actual situation. To stop Hitler from expunging dozens of millions of starving people into the USSR - a logical consequence of genocide is mass flight - the USSR would have to go to war with him. And it would be in a better position to do so. This time there is no need to take Berlin either; just kick Hitler out of Eastern Europe to stop his madness.

[PeZook]

You gotta appreciate the beauty of the Pepeshka as a partisan weapon, and you can be damn sure the partisans would get as many as they wanted: see how many Stens the Polish Resistance had (20+ thousand...think about that...), and they had to be airdropped from Britain or made on-site. With a land border and dozens of airfields in vicinity, you can conceivably see every single partisan who wants to having access to at least a machine pistol.

Historically Russians did not supply a great deal of equipment to Polish partisans because of ideological issues, but eventually a communist underground did form ; And each passing month without Barbarossa would see an increase. And if Britain stays out of it for automagical reasons, then I don't think resistance fighters are going to be particularly picky.

[K. A. Pital]

If Britain stays out, Poles would view the events of alt-39 much like the Czech and Slovaks viewed the events of 1938 - a literal betrayal. In case Britain keeps ignoring them while Rosenberg, Hitler and co. start pushing forth with massacres and GPO, even in the toned-down "push out all Slavs into Siberia" version, it is only a matter of time before the entire resistance figures out how to say the following: "Suure we read some Marx, now give us weapons". It is not like the USSR was entirely against supplying nationalist, but republican, resistance with weapons - just look at the KMT in China. Since any anti-Reich movement is pretty much guaranteed to be a republican... yup.

And look how well Japan fared in securing Manchuria and China... not. That was also a proxy war with the US and USSR supplying Chinese resistance to the Japanese invasion and occupation. In Eastern Europe supplying would be simplified with the enormously long land border.

It is as if everything speaks out against the "Eastern colonization". I'd say Hitler could have a greater chance of successful Reich expansion if he kept going somewhere to the South.

[Simon_Jester]

Think Pezook has a good point and concede his superior knowledge of the area, so not contesting him.

Simon Jester, I'm curious on your idea of the nature of loyalty. If it truely is your idea of being loyal to Hitler to shoot him in 1938 that works but I don't see how you can justify it. Perhaps you could at least go into more detail on your reasoning?

Put it this way.

Hitler was going to die sooner or later; the only real question is how he would be remembered by the future- what impact would his actions have on Germany?

In real life, Hitler got his war, got his Holocaust, got all the logical implications of the horrors he desired. And as a result, Europe burned and starved, and Germany was ruined and divided. It took two generations for Germany to recover from Hitler and Hitlerism. Some nations and cultures never did recover from what he did. He is rightly remembered as the most evil man of the century, one who committed cruelty and evil that would shock the conscience of Attila the Hun.

There is no way for Nazi Germany to win World War Two. No way to keep America out of the war, no way to avoid British blockades or the invasion of Russia as long as it's Nazi Germany doing the fighting. At best, making the 'right' choices might have drawn out the war into autumn 1945... at which point you get American B-29s nuking Berlin and Dresden from airbases in Britain. Game over. Drawing out the war just makes the agony suffered by the German people worse, and Hitler is responsible for all of it.

What would have happened if Hitler had been run over by a bus in 1938- either before Munich, or perhaps immediately after it? In the aftermath you'd have a united Germany, one that nobody would actually want to attack. Germany is in a good position, and if they just don't fight the war, try to wind down the war mobilization and re-stabilize their economy, that position will become extremely strong over time.

The best thing that could possibly have happened to Hitler was a death in 1938, when no one would yet know just how horribly evil his regime could become- because he had not had the time to drive it to commit those evils. And that is also the best thing that could possibly have happened to Nazi Germany, other than Hitler never having come to power in the first place.


Is this 'loyalty' in the conventional sense? No. It is not. But I find it interesting to wonder- what would a good German of 1938 have done if they knew what was going to happen in the years to come? Somehow I doubt they'd choose the path of "just like what happened to us in 'that other history,' only with a few details changed."

[K. A. Pital]

Technically if you point Hitler's colonial expansion elsewhere (Africa?) you could keep the Nazi in "Nazi Germany" and quite likely not encounter a large European war due to a shot at redrawing African borders.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Were I truly loyal to Hitler but fully aware of what would happen, I think the only course open to me would be to resign and flee the country. I know I cannot save Hitler's Germany and the loyalty I have to the man prevents me from actively opposing him. Hence, leave.

[AniThyng]

Think Pezook has a good point and concede his superior knowledge of the area, so not contesting him.

Simon Jester, I'm curious on your idea of the nature of loyalty. If it truely is your idea of being loyal to Hitler to shoot him in 1938 that works but I don't see how you can justify it. Perhaps you could at least go into more detail on your reasoning?

Put it this way.

Hitler was going to die sooner or later; the only real question is how he would be remembered by the future- what impact would his actions have on Germany?

In real life, Hitler got his war, got his Holocaust, got all the logical implications of the horrors he desired. And as a result, Europe burned and starved, and Germany was ruined and divided. It took two generations for Germany to recover from Hitler and Hitlerism. Some nations and cultures never did recover from what he did. He is rightly remembered as the most evil man of the century, one who committed cruelty and evil that would shock the conscience of Attila the Hun.

There is no way for Nazi Germany to win World War Two. No way to keep America out of the war, no way to avoid British blockades or the invasion of Russia as long as it's Nazi Germany doing the fighting. At best, making the 'right' choices might have drawn out the war into autumn 1945... at which point you get American B-29s nuking Berlin and Dresden from airbases in Britain. Game over. Drawing out the war just makes the agony suffered by the German people worse, and Hitler is responsible for all of it.

What would have happened if Hitler had been run over by a bus in 1938- either before Munich, or perhaps immediately after it? In the aftermath you'd have a united Germany, one that nobody would actually want to attack. Germany is in a good position, and if they just don't fight the war, try to wind down the war mobilization and re-stabilize their economy, that position will become extremely strong over time.

The best thing that could possibly have happened to Hitler was a death in 1938, when no one would yet know just how horribly evil his regime could become- because he had not had the time to drive it to commit those evils. And that is also the best thing that could possibly have happened to Nazi Germany, other than Hitler never having come to power in the first place.


Is this 'loyalty' in the conventional sense? No. It is not. But I find it interesting to wonder- what would a good German of 1938 have done if they knew what was going to happen in the years to come? Somehow I doubt they'd choose the path of "just like what happened to us in 'that other history,' only with a few details changed."

On the other hand, would a strong Nazi Germany without Hitler, one that never had the lesson of WW2 seared into its collective consciousness manage to avoid becoming itself a sort of lesser evil Power in the decades to come? Instead of a black and white WW2 we get a repeat of the morally ambigious WW1 type war again in the 50's?

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Instead of a black and white WW2 we get a repeat of the morally ambigious WW1 type war again in the 50's?

Perhaps. Arguably the first shots of WW2 were the signatures on the Treaty of Versailles, so it is possible that some other idiot will eventually come to power and lead Germany to war to "avenge German pride" and equally bullshit nationalistic speech. This is a war with nuclear weapons (whether they'd be used or not depends), a stronger Soviet Union, etc. Also a war without the Holocaust and the total obliteration of Nazism in the public mind.

I guess the last one is what keeps the alt-history wanktards going. 90% of them have authoritarian, near-fascist urges, like our good Dominarch here, so they dream of a world where authoritarianism in general is not demonized like it is today and they are free to express themselves. This is why I called Dummy a neonazi earlier; he doesn't have the name, but the moronic callousness he demonstrates is quite the kind a NDSAP member would show.

[Elfdart]

Technically if you point Hitler's colonial expansion elsewhere (Africa?) you could keep the Nazi in "Nazi Germany" and quite likely not encounter a large European war due to a shot at redrawing African borders.

But one of the reasons Hitler wanted to colonize the east was because Germany could only keep its overseas colonies as long as Britain and France let them. They had already lost Tanzania and Namibia in WW1.

[PeZook]

By the way: I did some digging to try and figure out just how troublesome it would be to run the railways in Poland if no war happened and Germans killed everyone. It turned out that the state railways employed...215 thousand people in 1939. That number actually went up through the war.

So imagine this: Germany would have to keep the railways running in order to supply the troops on the eastern border (you need them there for obvious reasons), but it would need to get 200 thousand railway workers from SOMEWHERE.

These people would, of course, also need food, clothing, shelter, electricity, water, shoes, furniture, entertainment, etc - either all of those things would have to be imported from Germany wholesale, or you'd need to keep the entire local economy going in order to provide them, which means keeping the people working the factories alive, which means you still have potential insurgents operating next to one your primary strategic industries.

I seriously doubt 1952 is a realistic date for murdering everybody in Poland just for this reason: if Germany wants to keep the railways running, they'd have to keep the local workforce until the proud German mothers can mass produce enough fresh manpower to man the lines. That means the insurgency keeps sizzling and producing bodies and trouble and expenses, and it will be true in every country you conquer.

Or you man them all with soldiers and eat the massive expense of trained manpower and funds.

[phongn]

By the way: I did some digging to try and figure out just how troublesome it would be to run the railways in Poland if no war happened and Germans killed everyone. It turned out that the state railways employed...215 thousand people in 1939. That number actually went up through the war.

So imagine this: Germany would have to keep the railways running in order to supply the troops on the eastern border (you need them there for obvious reasons), but it would need to get 200 thousand railway workers from SOMEWHERE.

Don't forget that the Germans deferred much capital and recurring expenditure on the Reichsbahn, too. Their rail system was facing severe difficulties as it was even domestically!

[Thanas]

Instead of a black and white WW2 we get a repeat of the morally ambigious WW1 type war again in the 50's?

Perhaps. Arguably the first shots of WW2 were the signatures on the Treaty of Versailles, so it is possible that some other idiot will eventually come to power and lead Germany to war to "avenge German pride" and equally bullshit nationalistic speech.

That won't happen if you actually manage to integrate Austria and the territories gained in Munich and if the Poles can either be persuaded to part with the corridor or Poland could be partitioned again. Nobody would then really want to go to war over the small corridor, which might be a non-issue.

The only issue left on the table is then Alsac-Lorraine. However, it is much easier to fight a war in the 50s with a stable economy behind you and no war looming on the eastern front than it is in 1939, especially considering the political shifts that might have happened in the USA, and with France possibly being weakened already by a lot of colonial fighting.

[PeZook]

If Britain stays out, Poles would view the events of alt-39 much like the Czech and Slovaks viewed the events of 1938 - a literal betrayal. In case Britain keeps ignoring them while Rosenberg, Hitler and co. start pushing forth with massacres and GPO, even in the toned-down "push out all Slavs into Siberia" version, it is only a matter of time before the entire resistance figures out how to say the following: "Suure we read some Marx, now give us weapons". It is not like the USSR was entirely against supplying nationalist, but republican, resistance with weapons - just look at the KMT in China. Since any anti-Reich movement is pretty much guaranteed to be a republican... yup.

The dynamics of power between historical resistance movements in eastern europe are pretty fascinating. Didn't the Soviets insist on centralizing all partisan groups under the command of Moscow before they could receive any supplies?

Not that our hypothetical partisans betrayed by Britain would have any choice - I think the biggest reason why the polish People's Army was so small was that there existed a viable alternative for most Poles to join, in the form of the Home Army. Since most Poles were very anti-soviet, they weren't very keen on joining up with a communist formation.

But if Britain stays out and does not provide support? The power dynamic would change significantly.

[K. A. Pital]

Didn't the Soviets insist on centralizing all partisan groups under the command of Moscow before they could receive any supplies?

Depends on the... uh... the case and cause. In the case of Yugoslavs, for example, they got aid from Moscow without direct command.

When I mentioned a loan of $200,000, he called this a trifle, saying that we could not do much with this amount, but that the sum would be allocated to us immediately. At my remark that we would repay this as well as all shipments of arms and other equipment after the liberation, he became sincerely angry: "You insult me. You are shedding your blood, and you expect me to charge you for the weapons! I am not a merchant, we are not merchants. You are fighting for the same cause as we. We are duty bound to share with you whatever we have."

It was decided to ask the Western allies to set up a Soviet airbase in Italy, from which Yugoslav partisans would be supplied.

"Let's try", Stalin said, "We'll see what stance the Western allies take and to what extent they are ready to help Tito."

I should add that this base - with ten transport airplanes, if I recall correctly - was set up quite soon.

"But airplanes are of little help", Stalin continued, "One cannot supply an army from airplanes alone, and you are already a real army. You need ships. But we have none, our Black Sea fleet has been destroyed."

General Zhukov intervened: "We have ships in the Far East. We could transfer them to our Black Sea harbour and load them with arms and whatever else is needed."

Stalin interrupted him rudely and categorically. He had been restrained and almost impish; now another Stalin emerged. "What in the world are you thinking about? Are you in your right mind? There is a war going on in the far east. Somebody is certainly not going to miss the opportunity to sink those ships. The ships have to be bought. But from whom? Turkey? The turks don't have many ships, and they won't sell us any anyway. Egypt? Yes, we could buy some from Egypt. Egypt will sell anything, so they will certainly sell us ships."

Yes, that was the real Stalin, who did not mince words. But I was used to this in my own Party, and I myself partial to this manner when the time came to reach a final decision.

General Zhukov swiftly and silently made note of Stalin's decisions.

But the ships were never bought and the Yugoslavs were never supplied by sea. The main reason were the Eastern Front developments - the Red Army soon reached the borders of Yugoslavia and was able to supply us directly over land.

I think that Stalin earnestly wanted to help us at that time.

With an independent, but earnestly Soviet-aligned insurgent group, something like this was well possible. Land borders would already be there without Barbarossa.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Stas, would you happen to have any info about Stalin's relationship with the Greek partisans?

[K. A. Pital]

I only know that before late 44 (the infamous "partitioning of influence zones" between Churchill and Stalin) the Soviet airplanes which were stationed on British airbases in the Balkans used to drop supplies into Greece. USSR was also asking to get access to the Bari airfield for ELAS supply drops in 43, but only got it in 44. It immediately started making ties with the Greek partisans (before there were only "free guns", Russians/Soviets who went to join the Greek partisans, this apparently started as early as 1942, but they were not integrated in the command structure and did not serve as communication links w/ the USSR). Some of this is described in detail in HSU P. Mikhailov's memoirs (he actually ran the planes into Greece).

After October 44 USSR and Bulgaria backed out because of the "partitioning". Churchill won Greece; ELAS was told to "make do" and, in Dimitrov's words, "Shipments to ELAS which would pit Bulgaria and Yugoslavia against Britain would hardly help the Greek comrades, but may severely harm both Bulgaria and Yugoslavia". Of course Tito continued to aid Greece in secret, whereas Dimitrov followed what the USSR had to say, which was leave Greece alone.

[AniThyng]

Is this 'loyalty' in the conventional sense? No. It is not. But I find it interesting to wonder- what would a good German of 1938 have done if they knew what was going to happen in the years to come? Somehow I doubt they'd choose the path of "just like what happened to us in 'that other history,' only with a few details changed."

This is really an interesting point I want to bump - I think the same applies to Imperial Japan too - as noted, today's Germany and Japan are the products of the way the war unfolded - if you knew that historically, 70 years hence the survivors would be living in two of the most developed economically and culturally influencial countries in the world, would you risk changing that? If Nazi Germany avoids the excesses of Hitler and becomes a not-evil yet still authoritarian and aggressive world power, and Imperial Japan continues with terrible colonial injustice in Korea and Manchuria, is this a "good" outcome?

Maybe the way to go is to somehow ensure the Western allies make it to Eastern Europe before the Soviets, though I don't know if that would necessarily lead to a different outcome since those areas were promised to Stalin by Roosevelt IIRC.

[Simon_Jester]

That leads to the 'resign and leave' outcome, because there's really no way for the Germans to change the final line of surrender much without "do not invade Russia" or other major shifts to basic policy.

[Dominarch's Hope]

That leads to the 'resign and leave' outcome, because there's really no way for the Germans to change the final line of surrender much without "do not invade Russia" or other major shifts to basic policy.

Yup. You basically need to get some massive wins for the British Fascist or other sympathizers to the Nazi Regime. That or...

1.The British go for peace in the immediate aftermath of France falling.

2.Someone other than Roosevelt is in office and they are perfectly fine with trading with the Nazis or whoever really. Which might result in Lend-Lease. But to BOTH powers.

2b.The British decide to supply and sell to the Nazis what they want. Be it oil, rare minerals, rubber, whatever.

2 could also be sold by claiming Malefic Realpolitik. As in, we are going to deal with one of them, lets deal with both of them and encourage them to bleed each other dry.

1 is ASB but could be wrangled. 2 and 2b is almost impossible.

3. America, for some reason during the Interwar Period, grabs the Manifest Destiny ball again, claiming that Canada and Aus and NZ should be joined along with permafying the Phillipines as a American territory. Hilarity Ensues. Terrible, Terrible Hilarity.

This is the most impossible. But also most devastating.

[AniThyng]

That leads to the 'resign and leave' outcome, because there's really no way for the Germans to change the final line of surrender much without "do not invade Russia" or other major shifts to basic policy.

Yup. You basically need to get some massive wins for the British Fascist or other sympathizers to the Nazi Regime. That or...

1.The British go for peace in the immediate aftermath of France falling.

2.Someone other than Roosevelt is in office and they are perfectly fine with trading with the Nazis or whoever really. Which might result in Lend-Lease. But to BOTH powers.

2b.The British decide to supply and sell to the Nazis what they want. Be it oil, rare minerals, rubber, whatever.

2 could also be sold by claiming Malefic Realpolitik. As in, we are going to deal with one of them, lets deal with both of them and encourage them to bleed each other dry.

1 is ASB but could be wrangled. 2 and 2b is almost impossible.

3. America, for some reason during the Interwar Period, grabs the Manifest Destiny ball again, claiming that Canada and Aus and NZ should be joined along with permafying the Phillipines as a American territory. Hilarity Ensues. Terrible, Terrible Hilarity.

This is the most impossible. But also most devastating.

I fail to see how this addresses the question of if it was better that Nazi Germany be properly and decisively discredited so that by the turn of the millenium Germany is a wealthy pacifist country at the forefront of the European Union.

In fact, wouldn't it make sense to try to arrange things such that when the time does come, you are one of the ex-Wehrmacht officers recalled back to take charge of the post-war Bundeswehr, or if you choose to withdraw from the military, try to survive and become one of the people tapped by the Americans to lead West Germany into the 50's and beyond? *edit* Implied invalidation of the loyal to Hitler the man clause.

[Thunderfire]

Say you were one of the German high command circa 1936. You have the advantage of hindsight, and for some reason you are genuinely loyal to Adolf Hitler, and are trying to do the best you can for him.

Hmm butterflies... I do the logistical parts of his travels -> He has more time to speak to his fellow germans on November the eighth 1939 -> Elsers bomb kills him.