Not only are there not many scenarios where the Germans don’t fight the Soviets, I don’t know if there are that many scenarios where the Germans beat the Soviets. The only one I can think of is that the Germans go into the campaign with the idea of fighting a two-year campaign instead of six months, do a better job of organizing Western Europe’s resources and industry to support the campaign, and somehow manage to up-gun their panzers very quickly in response to the T-34.
But in a few months from now, after the Soviets crack the German line on the Dnepr River, Stalin will tell his generals he doesn’t need a second front to beat the Germans; he can do it alone. By then, he was probably right.
I also agree the Russians could have one it without the second front, but I'm sure glad we went in and all Germany didn't become a Soviet satellite.
It's been quite a few years since I read it and the book got away from me in a move but if I remember correctly, Otto Skorzeny wrote in My Commando Operations that Hitler told him had he known the Russians had so many tanks, he would not have attacked them.
I don’t know if there are that many scenarios where the Germans beat the Soviets.
I also seem to recall Skorzeny writing that in the first half of 1943, both sides were extending armistice feelers in what Skorzeny termed the Ankara Affair. The failure of Operation Citadel removed any prior Soviet interest in an armistice.
Several of the German Generals went on record after the war expressing a belief that had Hitler allowed a "flexible defense", the Germans could have bled the Russians white and forced an armistice. Instead, owing to Hitler's not one millimeter back mentality, German retreats were undertaken in desperation following Soviet breakthroughs.