April 1st, 1943. Four men are meeting to discuss the maps and territories of
a new world. Sitting around a large mahogany table are Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the man everyone fears the most,
Joseph Vissarionovich “Man of Steel” Stalin. Wait a minute, you’re now thinking. That never
happened. It couldn’ t have happened. These four dudes never met to discuss this kind of thing,
and Adolf “Adi” Hitler, was certainly never invited to draw up plans for dividing the world.
Yes, viewers, we agree, but this isn’t real life. Today we will look at an alternative history,
and things in our new world are very different. Let’s start with some truths, though,
before we get into the nitty-gritty of our whacky alternative future.
As you know, at the start of the war, Hitler’s army quite shockingly blasted its way through
Europe. The Blitzkrieg was more effective than people had thought it could be. At this point,
the Soviet Union and Germany had signed the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact,
an agreement that both nations wouldn’t scrap with each other for the next 10 years. As the saying
goes, that piece of paper was so worthless the two may as well have used it to wipe their backsides.
After Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the Soviets did the same on September
17. The short version of the story is that Poland got bashed in the West by Germany
and bashed in the East by the Red Army. As you know, the Germans marched on and on. The British
then got out of an embarrassing situation in Dunkirk, after which Hitler told his troops:
“My confidence in you knows no bounds. You have
not disappointed me… The greatest battle in the history of the world has come to an end.”
Churchill knew what was coming. He said later in a speech:
“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war…if we fail,
then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for,
will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age.” No one gave Britain a chance. Those in the US
who knew the war's ins and outs understood only too well that Britain was about to get
steamrolled. Some politicians in the US said it was better to do business with Hitler rather
than waste the lives of young men in another foolish European war. After all, the US was
becoming the world's new powerhouse. Still, a lot of other people understood the threat Hitler posed
to mankind, and they wanted to fight. The Soviet Union was another matter.
Hitler wanted to annihilate its people. For now, Britain was on its own, facing
down the most frightening force on the planet. On July 10, 1940, the Battle of Britain commenced.
Hitler was not intending to invade Britain by land. He did have a plan for that,
Operation Sealion, but he’d rather not let it get to that. After all, that little island had
been all but impossible to invade over the centuries. Hitler thought he could do it,
but his commanders warned him of how hard it would be. So, he thought if his air force could
do enough damage, the Brits would back out of the war and leave Hitler to do his worst elsewhere.
So, the battle was fought in the skies. British Spitfires and Hurricanes went
up against Germany’s Messerschmitt Bf 109s, and the bombers, the Ju 87s. These skirmishes
happened frequently, and the British were much better than most people had thought.
On one day alone, August 18, the Germans lost 69 planes. The British lost 34. Churchill said later,
“Our airmen have had a grueling time, but as each day passes the more magnificently,
they seem to carry on the fight.” He was right. For once, Germany was
looking like the weaker side. Hitler was not a happy man. The British weren’t supposed to
be this good. They didn’t just have air superiority in terms of skills, strategy,
and arguably hardware, but they had very clever technicians down below that could jam German radio
signals and read German communications. By October, the Luftwaffe had lost 1,294
planes compared to Fighter Command’s 788. This was an embarrassment to Hitler, so,
he did what anyone would do and decided it was time to kill a bunch of British civilians. Hit
them where it hurts, he thought, and the country would turn against its leaders.
On September 7, Hitler started a bombing campaign, what the British called The Blitz.
The Germans dropped tens of thousands of tons of bombs on important English
sites and also on the people, who, it seems, were quite resilient. Not what Hitler wanted.
We won’t explain everything that happened here as we need to move on. All we will say is that this
time Hitler was no match for the enemy. Still, the Germans were far stronger in terms of their entire
military. They’d just been beaten in the air. Many of the British had celebrated as if they
had won the war, and that was that, but all they’d really done was wafted away a bird
of prey. If it were a video game, they’d only beat the first boss on level one. Like in many
video games, the boss had retreated, vying to return and finish the job the next time.
In Hitler’s mind, that’s exactly as things stood. He just dusted himself down and told himself he’d
finish off those damned Englanders later. On June 22, 1941, a bunch of Russian border
guards at the Bug River bridge in Poland were called over by some German guards.
The Germans said they just wanted a chat. As the Russians got closer, thinking nothing was amiss,
they were all shot down by German machine guns. Before you could say, “Oh my Stalin,” about 3.6
million Axis troops were walking towards the Soviet Union, intending to kill in numbers
like had never happened before. Hitler, hubristic as always, thought his armies
were far superior to those commie devils, and he’d have this over and done with in no
time. His confidence ultimately lost him the war. But what if this didn’t happen. What if instead,
Hitler focused on Britain, throwing as much manpower as possible at the little nation. That’s
3.6 million Axis troops not fighting in the Soviet Union and instead being sent to invade Britain.
We know from various biographies of Stalin that his aspiration was to spread communism
around the globe. He hated the Germans and distrusted Hitler. He was just waiting for
the Germans to weaken before he attacked them. Some scholars say he had a written plan to attack
Germany in 1941, but that’s been debated. As the Germans fought, Russia made money by
selling the Germans oil and food, so we think that if the Germans concentrated entirely on beating
Britain, Stalin would have probably bid his time. He would have waited. He might have been half-mad,
but he was as canny as they come. Britain and Germany fighting to the death would have been
wonderful for Stalin and his dream of world domination. He would have waited it out while
using German money to strengthen his military. The Nazis would not have launched Operation
Sealion, though, while the RAF had so much control in the sky. But what if that air
battle just went on and on? Since no one was winning outright, it would have turned
to what’s called a war of attrition. That’s when two sides try to wear each other out.
Let’s also imagine that now Hitler has decided to keep fighting in Britain, he’s made the
clever move of concentrating on bombing British airfields. Also, in this scenario, Hitler accepts
the help that Italy’s Benito Mussolini, and receives high quality fighter aircraft
from his fellow Facist ally to maintain his war effort in the British skies. Many academics agree
that things would likely have been different if Germany had done this. Nonetheless, Hitler would
still have hoped for Britain to capitulate and sign a deal. He never wanted to throw everything
in the German arsenal at Britain. That was dangerous. Still, let’s just imagine he did.
Hitler knew that the Brits had the best navy in the world. Launching a land invasion would have
been darned miserable for the Germans. The proud British would have thrown everything
at the Germans, too. As a German naval commander said, “A German invasion of England would be a
matter of life and death for the British, and they would unhesitatingly commit their naval forces,
to the last ship and the last man, into an all-out fight for survival.”
Germany lacked good landing crafts, so getting troops, tanks, and other vehicles across to
England would have been hard, to say the least. It would have meant a huge swathe
of the German army being killed and God knows how many British. Basically, this battle would
have become the main part of the war, somthing akin to Operation Barbarossa in our timeline.
No one doubts that the Germans had a stronger military, but invading that island would have
been very hard. Napoleon found that out himself, and he was not exactly
lacking when it came to military prowess. Still, Germany would have launched this land
attack from various points in France: Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne, Le Havre, and Cherbourg,
to name a few. Hitler’s troops would have landed in many places, including Dover, Brighton,
and Portsmouth. German ships and submarines would have also created a blockade, attempting to
prevent Britain from getting supplies. Remember, this is only possible if he gains air superiority,
but if Germany had ignored the Soviet Union, we think that this isn’t unlikely.
The problem is that the Kreigsmarine wasn’t as powerful as the British Navy, not even close,
but in this scenario, since the Luftwaffe is successful, life is very precarious for
the British ships. Still, at the start anyway, many of the Rhine river barges
that the Germans use are unsuitable for the operation, and many men die, despite Germany
having spent months devising their plan. Even so, Germans do land on various British
beaches, and their tanks make it across, too. The Royal Navy starts shelling these troops, and the
Germans suffer huge losses of manpower. To add to the misery, many of the German tanks break down,
and fixing them is impossible. The Germans also have shortages of fuel, food, and ammo.
Many of the German soldiers are captured, so the British have to build POW camps for
them. All this happens over many months, and for sure, Hitler at times really regrets he
went through with the invasion. Nonetheless, he’s all in now. Pulling out is not an option.
More German infantry and mountain divisions get across to England, as do Germany’s
motorized infantry and Panzers. Meanwhile, the German war industry is working overtime,
which includes using factories in France. The Germans also make good use of their POWs. Let’s
remind you again that almost all of Germany’s war effort is now concentrated on this invasion.
Over the months, the Germans launch airborne divisions. These divisions have the most
success at Folkstone, an important port from which the Germans can use to resupply their
troops in England. They don’t succeed in landing at Brighton, where German ships
and troops are continually under heavy fire. As Germany tries to take more ports and harbors,
the country suffers an astounding number of casualties, but so does Britain.
One of the main issues for the Germans is that its planes are unable to destroy Britain’s
many ships and motor gunboats. Even though the Luftwaffe remains strong, it’s still overwhelmed
by the sheer number of British destroyers in the water. Also, British merchant ships have seemed to
avoid catastrophe for the most part. It’s German mines, not air assaults, that have done the most
damage to British ships. German confidence is bolstered by the fact its mines are too
much for British minesweepers to deal with. Something the Brits never expected was the
German “Seilbomb,” or rope bomb in English. This is a secret weapon the Germans have been hiding.
They are used at night, hitting power grids when German Messerschmitt Bf 110s fly low over England.
This is a disaster for British residents who lose power repeatedly over the months of the attack.
Regarding residents, Britain’s war effort is now at the forefront of everyone’s life.
People suffer. They lack food, but it doesn’t matter. More men join up to fight the Germans,
and the women work around the clock in the factories. The 59,192 people in Britain registered
as Conscientious Objectors, change their mind. Hardly anyone is not involved in the war now.
Most people are willing to fight to the death. The war is everything. Over five million Brits
are mobilised for this invasion, and the armies of the Commonwealth arrive, too, at least when they
are able to get past German blockades. But it’s the same for the Germans,
who can match Britian man for man. Its navy is being expanded all the time, too. Much work has
gone into transforming barges into landing craft designed in various ways to take people, tanks,
armored vehicles, or artillery across the channel. While we tend to think of sea battles involving
big warships, German success in this invasion relies on landing craft. Getting
men and equipment onto land is tricky, to say the least, which is why in real life,
the D-Day landings took so long to plan out. For the Germans, getting tanks down ramps is
problematic, and it takes U-boats, destroyers, and torpedo boats, to help keep those landing craft
safe. It should also be said that both sides have huge cross-channel guns that are causing a holy
mess in the water. The Germans have more of these than was expected, and the British lose a number
of destroyers and smaller craft because of them. Still, as it happens, even when the Germans do
reach the coast, some of the tanks fall off the ramps in what would look comical if it
weren’t deadly serious. The Germans at least have their Schwimmpanzers, swimming tanks,
which are able to float in the water and have a propeller to move them forward.
They also have the Tauchpanzers, which, being totally waterproof, can drive through the water.
Little do the British know that the Germans have converted 100s of tanks this way. They've also
developed the Seeschlange (Sea Snake), a floating bridge that can be attached
to ships from where vehicles and men can disembark. The Germans make these things
at an astonishing rate, knowing how important they are. In fact,
much of the German equipment used in this invasion is state of the art, hardly even
tested before. They’re not just throwing all their manpower and machines at the British,
they’re also throwing all their brainpower. At the same time, the entire fleet of the
British Navy is now focused only on this invasion. The Navy actually gets hoodwinked,
though, by a sneaky German plan named Operation Herbstreise. This consists of a huge convoy of
German transport ships sent to England's east coast. The Brits have to defend this,
so British ships head to this area. The reason this is sneaky is because
those German transports are totally empty. The movement is a ruse to draw the British over to
the east while a German invasion force is carried on barges to the southern coast.
We should also state that while the US isn’t fighting, it is sending arms to
the British under the Lend-Lease agreement. This helps the British cause considerably,
and since the equipment arrives at northern ports, there’s not so much the Germans can do about it.
So, with all this effort, could Germany have successfully invaded Britain?
Most historians conclude that no, it couldn’t have happened, not even with Germany’s full
force. Just getting supplies, 1000s of tons of them, across the channel would
have been a logistical nightmare. We guess in our scenario today, many things have to go right for
the Germans for them to succeed. Weather would have also played a big part, and would have been
critical to Germany's success in this invasion. There are others matters, too, such as military
intelligence. In this regard, the British were arguably the kings of the world. Still,
if Germany’s spies, under Operation Lena, had been successful things could have been different.
And then, even if somehow the Germans managed to occupy Britain, they would have had to rely
on the help of British fascists to maintain control. Hitler, of course, as outlined in his
“Black Book,” would have made sure all his enemies were captured and likely executed.
In reality, Germany’s invasion would have weakened the military so much that the Soviets
could have jumped in later and exploited Germany’s vulnerabilities. Europe falling to the fascists or
the communists was not great news for the US. As Churchill had warned, it could have been next.
The relationship between Germany and the US and the Soviet Union was a complicated one.
Let’s remember Time magazine had Stalin as Man of the Year twice, and Hitler won it in 1938.
This didn’t mean Time was saying Hitler was a good man, just that
he had considerable power. He had the most influence that year, good or bad. Time wrote:
“Without loss of blood he reduced Czechoslovakia to a German puppet state, forced a drastic
revision of Europe's defensive alliances, and won a free hand for himself in Eastern Europe
by getting a ‘hands-off’ promise from powerful Britain (and later France), Adolf Hitler,
without doubt, became 1938's Man of the Year.” We mention the Time thing only because we think
it shows how powerful the US thought Hitler was. As Time said, Hitler was changing the
face of Europe, and most American people had no intention of getting involved with that.
We have to ask if Pearl Harbor would have happened in this alternative reality because,
if it had, the US might have joined the war and helped Britain out. If that were the case,
maybe the Germans wouldn’t have been successful in invading Britain. Still,
had the Germans not fought the Soviets, we don’t think the Japanese would have launched
their attack on the US. After all, it would have been worrying about that massive Red Army that
was twiddling its thumbs in the Soviet Union. Even so, had Britain been down on its knees, the
US would have understood the existential danger to itself. So, let’s imagine the UK and the US end up
defending Britain after a German invasion. This would have been one hell of a brutal
war. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union would have been watching with glee as these three powers weakened
themselves. If this had happened, the Soviet Union could have quietly grown into a beast.
We think that the British, Americans, and other allied nations would have been successful,
but things would’ve ended much differently than in our timeline. Japan wouldn’t have been hit with
nuclear bombs, but the Brits and Americans would have still made them. We just don’t think in our
alternate timeline that the war would have lasted long enough for the bombs to be ready for use.
Germany would have agreed to pull out of the war if conditions
were fair. That’s why the meeting that we talked about at the start takes place.
The Soviet Union and Germany were always far behind the Brits and Americans when it came
to making the atomic bomb. There’s a chance they could have used it on Germany, but as we said at
the start, that meeting takes place in 1943, before the bombs were tested. With an allied
US and UK, Germany agrees to retreat without the use of nuclear bombs, but if the war had gone on,
they would undoubtedly have been used on Germany. We haven’t even mentioned the Holocaust, which
would have been found out at one point or another, but as it stands at that meeting, many things are
unknown outside of Germany. The Nazis make sure to cover much of it up before and after they
sign for peace. Of course, since the year is 1943, and Germany hasn’t invaded Russia,
what happens in those camps is considerably different from what happened in real life. Still,
Germany would have gone ahead with its extermination program no matter who they
attacked. After all, the hatred towards the Jewish people was one of the main driving forces of the
Nazi party. Their paranoia of ruling Jewish agents and their belief in Aryan superiority
would have been the same in any scenario. So, what if that meeting took place and
Germany agreed to stand down as long as it got what it wanted in terms of territories?
Germany would have been considerably weakened fighting the Allies in Europe, and the Soviets
would have remained untouched while making money in the war. If later, Stalin launched attacks
in Asia and also against Germany. There’s a chance the US and UK would also be involved.
The Communists, as happened in real life, would have taken much of Eastern Europe,
and in this reality, Stalin may have moved into western Europe. Germany would be destroyed,
not being strong enough to defend itself. The Cold War was unavoidable. The Soviet Union
would be the strongest country since the US and UK had thrown so much into their war with Germany.
The one thing that scares and annoys Stalin, though, is the fact the alliance of the US and
UK come up with the nuclear bomb before he does. As happened in real life, a Cold War would have
ensued, just with a stronger Soviet military and a weakened Allied military. Still, the outcome,
in the end, would have been pretty similar to what happened in real life. What might have been
different is the US launching a nuclear strike against the Soviets. We’re just not sure what the
Soviets would have had to do to make that happen. It’s very likely, though, that those first bombs
could have fallen on Russia rather than Japan. Now you need to watch “Hitler's Plans for
the World if He Won.” Or, have a look at “Europe if Hitler Won.”