[GandalfTheGrey]

Lets say by some utterly implausible turn of events the Soviet Union and Germany agree to a ceasefire and all hostilities on the eastern front cease - around say the beginning of 1944. The SU exit from the war, but retain the European territory they held up to that point. Germany then spend the next 6 months or so redeploying troops and equipment from the eastern front to western Europe. By June 1944 all German military resources are available to defend Italy and meet the impending invasion of France. In such a scenario, could Germany prevail against US and British attacks on German occupied continental Europe - including an invasion of Normandy?

[JohnRawls]

No , it would take a couple more years for the americans to mass up more ships , bombers and equipment for a more scale assault , mainly the bombardment of beaches/fortification to force the armored divisions far from the coast to launch an invasion but in no sense , German industry would be able to produce enough AA guns/Planes etc to stop that.

Not to mention the nuclear bomb.

The whole problem for germany is that allies, with their superiority on water , have the ability to mass any ammount of trained personal they want and then lunch the invasion while being supported by the ships , against which the germany had no defense at all , well their large artilery pieces were not accurate enough to do anything. And V-rocket series was also ineffective against moving ships.

It is just the question of time for the allies.

And last but not least , germany main problem during the war was Oil.

[Oxymoron]

I dont think the Allies would invade Europe if the Soviets withdrew from the war. The Germans would have had the resources to develop more accurate missles which would have helped against the ships, they would have many Panzer divisions, and more air support for them. They could have put more resources into U-boats to disrupt Allied shipping. The Allies only hope of victory was fighting a small force incapable of responding to a mass landing, with all resources from the Eastern front the Americans would be cut down.

[MB.]

In such a scenario, could Germany prevail against US and British attacks on German occupied continental Europe - including an invasion of Normandy?

No. The Nazis would be defeated. The expanded invasion force would land sometime in late 1945 and likely be accompanied by the atomic bombing of Berlin.

The Germans would have had the resources to develop more accurate missles which would have helped against the ships, they would have many Panzer divisions, and more air support for them. They could have put more resources into U-boats to disrupt Allied shipping.

You completely ignore two points; firstly, that the Nazis were dependent upon resources they had acquired through the invasion of the USSR and, secondly, the blockade and airstrikes would be continuous. There is no conceivable way that Nazi industry, even after reorganization by Speer, and assuming some kind of Soviet-Nazi ceasefire, could be sustained in a war effort against the Allies.

No , it would take a couple more years for the americans to mass up more ships , bombers and equipment for a more scale assault , mainly the bombardment of beaches/fortification to force the armored divisions far from the coast to launch an invasion but in no sense , German industry would be able to produce enough AA guns/Planes etc to stop that.

I agree completely.

The whole problem for germany is that allies, with their superiority on water , have the ability to mass any ammount of trained personal they want and then lunch the invasion while being supported by the ships

What you are stating is that Allied seapower could not have been challenged and therefore eventual Allied victory was inevitable.

[Oxymoron]

You completely ignore two points; firstly, that the Nazis were dependent upon resources they had acquired through the invasion of the USSR and, secondly, the blockade and airstrikes would be continuous. There is no conceivable way that Nazi industry, even after reorganization by Speer, and assuming some kind of Soviet-Nazi ceasefire, could be sustained in a war effort against the Allies.

If a cease-fire was signed that would mean that the Germans would be able to trade with the Soviets.

[MB.]

And do you expect that Stalin would trade with Hitler after June 22 1941?

I want to get back to a statement you made before:

The Allies only hope of victory

Are you suggesting that historically the Allies had few prospects for victory in early 1944?

[Oxymoron]

Are you suggesting that historically the Allies had few prospects for victory in early 1944?

Yes, they had no chance of taking Europe without the Soviets. If the Allies landed their forces would be easily repelled.

[JohnRawls]

Afther Midway and Stalingrad , it was a race of who would get to berlin faster.

[Potemkin]

Afther Midway and Kursk , it was a race of who would get to berlin faster.

Fixed it for you.

Stalingrad was a turning point, but not the beginning of the end. It was the Battle of Kursk which was the moment at which Nazi Germany lost the military initiative in WWII and never regained it. From Kursk onwards, so long as the Soviets didn't do anything stupid, the outcome of the War was inevitable.

[JohnRawls]

Under stalingard , the Nazis lost around 800-900k people and 600 tanks while under kursk they lost around 180k people and 1000 tanks. It is like saying that the Ardensse offensive was the most decive part of the war(on the 2nd front) , since after that , the nazis lost all initiative.

[Potemkin]

I didn't say that Kursk was the most decisive battle of the War, I said that after Kursk the eventual outcome was pretty much inevitable. That's not the same thing.

[Figlio di Moros]

Why '44? It seems to be a very unlikely and arbitrary scenerio. Why not, what if the Axis coordinated better? If the Soviets made the offense against the Nazi's first? If the Soviet were to have stayed out of the war?

[Smilin' Dave]

Why '44?

Supposedly a ceasefire offer (I forget who by) was made some time in 1944... I'm not sure how well supported this claim is though.

Anyway, back to the OP:
The scenario is very similar to the pre-cursors to the German Spring Offensive/s of 1918. Relatively fresh troops are released from the Eastern front, possible improved supply situation due to having fewer fronts to fight etc. The big difference is that (with the exception of Italy) there are not already major Allied formations in the land war. So while the the Spring Offensive was defeated in large part by German exhaustion and Entente strategy, the prospect of having to storm Europe against an opponent with plenty of preparation creates the problem of that maybe there won't even be a chance to mount the starting blocks before the game is lost. Some kind of Cold War is possible if no clear military victory is available to either side... after all if the 'war' continued for too long without result, the Allies might have to reach an accomodation of their own.

One possibility is that the Allies think up a way to encourage the Soviets back into the war. Perhaps the Allies yield to some of the Soviets more unusual demands like Northern Iran (to be re-branded into a bigger Azerbaijan) or even the Dardenelles or something. If things look particularly dire after the re-alignment of forces, such concessions might be more attractive if it will 'rebalance' the Axis. IIRC some generous offers were made to keep Imperial Russia in WWI too, so again the comparison might be worth bearing in mind.

[GandalfTheGrey]

Why '44?

Because I was thinking specifically of the 1944 normandy invasion. People love to make "what if" scenarios about normandy - what if German troops were deployed here or there, what if Rommel had total command etc. The prevailing opinion is that Germany at that stage was far too weakened by 2-3 years of allied poundings - plus of course the enormous resource drain that was the eastern front - to have any chance whatever they did. In my scenario, you still have the war-weary and war-weakened Germany (1944), but they can concentrate all their resources in just one theatre of war (if you count both Italy and France as one) - a not insignificant point considering something like 70-80% (correct me if I'm wrong) were deployed on the eastern front at the time of the normandy invasion. So really my interest is how still strong was German military might at that period of the war and how effective could it be when it wasn't hampered by being stretched along a massive eastern front fighting an enemy many times its size.

[Potemkin]

The problem would have been that even with a ceasefire with the Soviet Union, Hitler could not have simply redeployed all those troops to the Western Front. Stalin would have watched him do this with a bemused expression on his face, and then as soon as all the German troops were gone he would have ordered his own armies to launch a massive attack. Hitler would have had to keep massive forces deployed on the Eastern Front, just in case Stalin decided to repay the favour of Operation Barbarossa. This means that even a ceasefire on the Eastern Front would probably have had little to no effect on events on the Western Front.

[GandalfTheGrey]

even with a ceasefire with the Soviet Union, Hitler could not have simply redeployed all those troops to the Western Front.

Yes thats a very good point. So when the Russians bowed out in 1917, presumably the Germans still kept a sizable force on the eastern front?

[Tailz]

This "what if" scenario is so unlikely, once the shooting had started the Soviets and the Nazi's were idelogicaly committed to wiping each other out that they could not have come to some form of ceasefire - even a "Lets both take a short break to regain our breath before we have a go at round two...."

But hey... why not...

I'd have to say, the Germans being able to deploy fully to Europe would create the following changes:

• Assuming a Germany First policy remains in effect...
• The D-Day landings would get pushed back by a year or more.
• American forces would be deployed to Europe first as a priority, then once Nazi Germany is defeated, redeployed to the Pacific.
• The Atomic weapons would become tactical weapons used to clear German troop concentrations (as the Americans were planning, if they had to invade the Japanese mainland). The down side to this is the Allied ground troops would end up walking into a radio active hell, being irradiated along the way from the now radioactive battlefield, and thus German and Western Allied soldiers would discover the side effects of radiation sickness instead of the Japanese.
• The USSR would be battling Japan in China during all this, on its own. Doubtful that Mao would ever be and China may end up a Soviet province.
• Japan may even make it to Australia with the British totally occupied in Europe (fall of Singapore, who cares, the British fortress Island is at risk now!), and the American navy out of the picture in the pacific.

Now the wild card is if the Americans hang the British out to dry, because of the increased German presence on the European mainland (because hey, the bulk of German forces were deployed in the Ost War, if they were all turned west, oh my!).

[Oxymoron]

Dont forget that the German scientists captured in Germany sped up the Atom Bomb.

Second, the Germans could retailate with Chemical weapons using V2 rockets against Britain.

[Potemkin]

The USSR would be battling Japan in China during all this, on its own. Doubtful that Mao would ever be and China may end up a Soviet province.

Do you think Mao just popped up out of nowhere in 1948? And the Soviet Union did invade Manchuria in 1945, yet China did not end up as a Soviet province.

Japan may even make it to Australia with the British totally occupied in Europe (fall of Singapore, who cares, the British fortress Island is at risk now!), and the American navy out of the picture in the pacific.

Invading and occupying Australia would have stretched the Japanese forces too thin; they were having enough trouble in China as it was. And Australia on its own was no threat to the Japanese.

Now the wild card is if the Americans hang the British out to dry, because of the increased German presence on the European mainland (because hey, the bulk of German forces were deployed in the Ost War, if they were all turned west, oh my!).

The German forces on the Eastern Front could only have been turned west following the total defeat of the Soviet Union, as I pointed out. And yes, the Germans did keep a huge deployment of troops on the Eastern Front following Russia's withdrawal from WWI in 1917. They used them to (try to) occupy massive swathes of territory. Little good it did them.

[fuser]

Let's say for the sake of argument that if Nazi Germany do manage to free their troops from east and deploy them in west through a cease fire or any miracle, I don't see a successful Normandy invasion. Romania still would be under Germany with her oil fields hence Panzers wouldn't had been just sitting ducks. It took three years for allies to prepare for such an invasion which Germany fought with her 20 % strength. I see a stalemate scenario with nukes becoming a very important tool but USA didn't had nukes in bulk to pacify both Germany and Japan then.

But then there was no reason for Nazi Germnay to fight with west (Hitler always looked west as ally against so called judeo-bolshevism) except France, the "traditional enemy".

If they would had signed a ceasefire with USSR, there was no reason to fight in west. And west would had understood that very soon with failure at normandy and nukes becoming the only strategic option.