Wow, terrific post.
Thanks for putting this up.
It’s always exciting to discover that someone else has clearly expressed things you have thought about for decades.
Now, I have a question for the many part time World War II historians on this thread who, like me, who are drawn to books like this.
What would have happened in Europe after June 1941 if the USA had not supported the Soviet Union?
Many people do not realize the truly massive scale of military supplies we sent.
I think the USSR would have collapsed, or, at the very least, Stalin would have had to surrender everything west of the Volga.
How would we have fought the war in Europe if Hitler had been comfortably ensconced in western Russia without a serious military threat on that front?
My general feeling is that Hitler would hav been in this position if we had not provided lend-lease military aid to Stalin and once Hitler was so ensconced, he would have been very difficult to remove. So despite my misgivings of having Stalin as an ally and despite all that happened after that, I think it was necessary. But I am no historian in any sense. This is but a seat of the pants judgement. Would love to see some more learned judgements.
the germans would have had their army split as long as they abandoned any idea of attacking Britain
that would have left them weak and 1000 miles away from their other front
The Russians would have kept fighting without our help, not as well, but kept at it
Too many Ukrainians liked the Nazis, though, the german army would have had a lot of free warriors
The better question is “would Hitler have come to power” if the Soviet Union did not exist?
His main enemy in the German street were Communists. Fighting them was his legitimacy.
If Kerensky had prevailed, would any of this have happened?