If Germany had fought defensively against France surrendered in WW2

[RandomPoster]

Imagine Germany had not put as much into the Battle of Britain, mostly building fighter aircraft and air defenses to neutralize any air attacks from Britain. They also built a massive array of defensive fortifications in the East. How would a defensive war have gone for them if Russia launched an invasion? This is assuming Germany had prepared very well for it and was also looking to make occasional counter-attacks to encircle troops. They might even conquer the Ukraine for the food, except are wary of going deep into Russia.

Could the war have been a long standoff and eventual cease-fire followed by a cold war?

 

[Oddball]

Hitler had a non-aggression pact with Stalin, which was supposedly consecrated when they carved up Poland.

Holding the UK at bay in the air wouldn't have worked because they still ruled the seas...Especially after hunting down the Graf Spee and Bismarck.

Yeah.......No.

 

[Hossfly]

Imagine Germany had not put as much into the Battle of Britain, mostly building fighter aircraft and air defenses to neutralize any air attacks from Britain. They also built a massive array of defensive fortifications in the East. How would a defensive war have gone for them if Russia launched an invasion? This is assuming Germany had prepared very well for it and was also looking to make occasional counter-attacks to encircle troops. They might even conquer the Ukraine for the food, except are wary of going deep into Russia.

Could the war have been a long standoff and eventual cease-fire followed by a cold war?

History has proven that a defensive stance in war is senseless and not practical.

 

[RandomPoster]

Most of Russia's successes were based on counter-attacks on over extended German lines or after the German army had disintegrated fighting a hopeless two front war against the entire planet.

 

[francoHFW]

The Russians weren't going to attack anyone. Stalin couldn't believe Hitler attacked him.

 

[Picaro]

The Germans would have had an even bigger advantage on the defensive; the Soviets would have been by far worse off if they had thrown their western buildup into German lines. As it was they barely held on to Moscow only because of some timely British aid arriving. If they had launched an offensive against German positions, they wouldn't have been able to hold Moscow since the aid wouldn't have gotten there in time. The Germans would have arrived a couple months earlier with fr less opposition all across their front.

 

[RandomPoster]

This is also assuming that Germany is not trying to conquer Russia and has no intention of entering Moscow, Stalingrad, or Leningrad. They simply want to make the Russians decide that it is not worth it. A lot of the Russian resolve in the more dire parts of the war for them can be explained by the fact that they were being attacked, cornered, and knew they would be executed if they surrendered.

In WW1, even though the Czarist regime was dictatorial and ruthless, the Russian soldiers were being told to attack a country that was not attacking them. It actually led to the Revolution because they were being slaughtered by an enemy that only wanted peace. Their own government was the only one that wanted the war with Germany. This was not the case in WW2 when the Germans invaded their country and were slaughtering every village in their path with a stated intent to chase them all the way across Russia and kill every last one of them.

 

[Wyatt earp]

Imagine Germany had not put as much into the Battle of Britain, mostly building fighter aircraft and air defenses to neutralize any air attacks from Britain. They also built a massive array of defensive fortifications in the East. How would a defensive war have gone for them if Russia launched an invasion? This is assuming Germany had prepared very well for it and was also looking to make occasional counter-attacks to encircle troops. They might even conquer the Ukraine for the food, except are wary of going deep into Russia.

Could the war have been a long standoff and eventual cease-fire followed by a cold war?

America had the bomb...

 

[there4eyeM]

Might as well imagine Germany without Hitler.
Eventually, the Russians would have used their military to enlarge power. Poland and Finland were early examples. If there had been another strong leader than Hitler (without the idiotic antisemitism for example) Germany might have been able to re-arm enough for defense. Then, when Stalin came knocking, perhaps, along with the French and English, they could have held them off. Maybe they would have developed the bomb.

 

[fncceo]

If Superman had landed in a small town in the Rhineland instead of Smallville, Kansas, the war may have had a very different outcome...

 

[there4eyeM]

If Superman had landed in a small town in the Rhineland instead of Smallville, Kansas, the war may have had a very different outcome...

Der vichtige übermensch!

 

[whitehall]

The day the U.S. entered the war Germany's fate was sealed. The U.S. may have been reluctant to use the Bomb on anything but Japanese but if push came to shove Berlin would have looked like Heroshima.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Imagine Germany had not put as much into the Battle of Britain, mostly building fighter aircraft and air defenses to neutralize any air attacks from Britain. They also built a massive array of defensive fortifications in the East. How would a defensive war have gone for them if Russia launched an invasion? This is assuming Germany had prepared very well for it and was also looking to make occasional counter-attacks to encircle troops. They might even conquer the Ukraine for the food, except are wary of going deep into Russia.

Could the war have been a long standoff and eventual cease-fire followed by a cold war?

The Prize

Their war machine would have run on fumes, gasped, and stopped dead without Russian oil, so they needed to conquer the East.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Most of Russia's successes were based on counter-attacks on over extended German lines or after the German army had disintegrated fighting a hopeless two front war against the entire planet.

Draw Play

Stalin purposely provoked Hitler to attack, thereby suckering him in to overextend his supply lines. Just as historians have been fooled by Russia's planned military defeats at the beginning of that invasion, Hitler had perfectly good reasons to believe he would have finished off Russia by the time winter set in. FDR was fooled by Stalin, too, and couldn't let Hitler have all of Russia's resources, especially its oil, which was what all pundits, including Solzhenitsyn, thought was going to happen before 1942. So instead of following a prescient policy of letting the two totalitarian states destroy each other, he rashly provoked Japan into attacking us in order to keep Russia out of German hands.

When did Stalin finally and unexpectedly show his true hand? December 7, 1941.