svarogteuse t1_j7ljxgl wrote
As of the Casablanca Conference Jan 1943 the Allies via Roosevelt publicly announced they would not accept anything other than unconditional surrender. There were several reasons for this and possible dissention over the decision, but it would have been pretty hard to back down from it afterwards.
One of the main reasons for it was to preempt a WWI situation where Germany surrenders before Germany itself gets damaged and the resultant "stabbed in the back" mentality of the German people. It was also done to keep the Soviets in the war because if the Soviets negotiated a separate peace the U.S. and U.K. would not have been able to finish defeating Germany.
>have led to a truce being called during the war before axis lost
- Before Casablana, Hitlers death or overthrow by his own generals. * A defeat of the Soviets, like the capture of Moscow, Leningrad and the Baku oil fields and their withdraw from the war prompting the rest of the war into a stalemate and eventual peace.
>Would there have ever been any reality in which axis just decided they had conquered enough land and people and that point in time was a good time to quit?
Hitler didnt want to be at war with the U.K. Yes taking the entire Eastern portion of the Soviet Union would have been enough... for a while but eventually a new war would start. The Nazi economy was reliant on new conquests and not set up for a peace.
the_quark t1_j7ms4fv wrote
This is the answer. The Allied leadership - and respecially FDR - felt very clearly that WWII came out of not really beating Germany to the ground in WWI. There was a very conscious desire on the part of American leadership at least to get an absolutely unconditional surrender from both Germany and Japan in order to restructure those countries in ways intended to prevent WWIII from just inevitably coming along twenty more years later.
Kraagenskul t1_j7mwxrh wrote
>U.S. and U.K. would not have been able to finish defeating Germany.
It would have either taken much longer but Germany was going to lose its naval and air superiority with or without the Soviets help. It would have turned into a horrible grind but they would have had no effective counter to the US industrial juggernaut and British intelligence as well as facing attacks from the west, north, and south. Couple that with a continuous massive bombing attack to eliminate Germany's manufacturing and transportation infrastructure I don't see how the Allies couldn't have won.
And then US just drops a really big bomb on the Eagle's Nest one sunny August afternoon and Germany most likely surrenders.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments