How would you fight the last 6 months of the War?
Relocate. Who needs Germany? Just attack Sweden and send a big army to Finland and build up! :-D
Go to Antarctica in UFO’s. That should be an option.
My strategy would be based on the premise that, by December 1944, the war was no longer winnable by Germany. My first option would be to negotiate surrender terms, but the question asks us to assume that peace is not an option. My next option would therefore be to concentrate most of my resources on the Eastern Front, while leaving just enough forces on the Western Front to maintain token resistance (and to fulfil the question’s requirement that I keep fighting).
The purpose of this strategy would be to delay the Russians as much as possible in the East, and to make it as easy as possible for the Anglo-Americans in the West to overrun as much of Germany as possible, while still maintaining the pretense that I was resisting their advance. My rationale is that most Germans (both civilians and soldiers) would be better off falling into the hands of the Anglo-Americans than those of the Russians, given how revenge-driven the Russians were for what they had suffered under German occupation.
This is in fact pretty close to what the German Army actually did in April and May 1945 as the war was ending: giving people as much time as possible to make their way towards the zones which had been defined for Anglo-American occupation after the war.
In my opinion, I would throw everything I had against the Soviets in Prussia and eastern Europe, even if it ment leaving the western half completely undefended. I voted to retake Hungary (but thats mainly because my grandfather was 100% Hungarian and Hungary didnt deserve the treatment it got at wars end) but it would be part of an over all Ostfront stratgey. I would literaly do everything I could and throw every unit I have against the Soviets, EVERYTHING, to try to save Hungary and Prussia and hope that the Western Allies would be able to move fast enough to conquer the rest. Ultimatley I would try to save bits of western Poland(another country that got a raw deal) with at least one major city so if nothing else you could have an free west Poland and a communist east Poland after the war.
I would not try to save Rumania, Bulgaria, or Yugoslavia as thoes countries are a bit to far east so it would be difficult from a logisitical standpoint, but all 3 here were already kinda pro-Soviet. The yugoslavs had Tito’s partizans that were pro-Soviet, the Bulgarians never commited troops to the east front as they we pro “Russian” (whether this was pro-soviet is debatable, but they never really wanted to fight) and Rumainia had switched sides and betrayed its allies so I would leave them to lie in the bed they’ve made.
I’m not sure how pro-soviet Yugoslavia was under Tito. In fact, Tito was the only communist leader in the area who resisted the Soviets. The Serbs being orthodox christian were pro-Russian, but Tito was not Serb, he was Croatian and was therefore Catholic. Tito was however equally repressive to all nationalities and therefore was able to hold the country together, in fact the country did pretty well under that version of the communist system. In fact, he was the partisans that pushed the Germans out of Yugoslavia, granted the Russian did hold a flanking position on Yugoslavian territory. It was one of the few places the Russian army packed up and left after the war was over.
In my opinion, I would throw everything I had against the Soviets in Prussia and eastern Europe, even if it ment leaving the western half completely undefended. I voted to retake Hungary (but thats mainly because my grandfather was 100% Hungarian and Hungary didnt deserve the treatment it got at wars end) but it would be part of an over all Ostfront stratgey. I would literaly do everything I could and throw every unit I have against the Soviets, EVERYTHING, to try to save Hungary and Prussia and hope that the Western Allies would be able to move fast enough to conquer the rest. Ultimatley I would try to save bits of western Poland(another country that got a raw deal) with at least one major city so if nothing else you could have an free west Poland and a communist east Poland after the war.
That’s what i would’ve done as well.
I’m not sure how pro-soviet Yugoslavia was under Tito. In fact, Tito was the only communist leader in the area who resisted the Soviets. The Serbs being orthodox christian were pro-Russian, but Tito was not Serb, he was Croatian and was therefore Catholic. Tito was however equally repressive to all nationalities and therefore was able to hold the country together, in fact the country did pretty well under that version of the communist system. In fact, he was the partisans that pushed the Germans out of Yugoslavia, granted the Russian did hold a flanking position on Yugoslavian territory. It was one of the few places the Russian army packed up and left after the war was over.
All good points and I was aware of Titos leadership style and rather anit-soviet (or more like anti-Stalinist as relations later warmed during the Khrushchev era) stance. However, Titos anit-soviet stance didnt really come about till after the war and as of this scenario, its 1944 and I think Titos stance would be relative to the time. Germans occupy Yugoslavia, We are fighting the Germans, the Soviets are fighting the Germans, GO SOVIETS! (enemy of my enemy type logic). Also, abandoning the Balkans would free alot of precious German troops that I could better throw at the Soviets in Poland and Hungary and leave that region open to Allied invasion. That and forces in this region wouldnt really be able to invade German territory in response to my evacuation so better to use these troops on the offensive.
Too bad the us had to turn over so many surrendered germans to the russians especially after they kept fighting to get to us lines France and uk had a beef with germany,although they declared war on germany first,but germany never really did anything to the us until they declared war on each other The us ended up backing the germans over the russians pretty soon after the war anyways
Defend against the Communist Hordes!!! To the Last Man!
Taps FMG on his heer helmet, whilst lifting the 7.9mm belt feeding into the MG-42
Put everything in the west, and allow communist takeover of Europe. After all, the strong must defeat the weak per my own ideology (assuming that if I’m in charge in Germany, I’m the guy with the silly little mustache). And if the ‘west’ doesn’t like my regime, they ain’t gonna like what comes after either. So it’s either ‘join together vs Russkieland’, or ‘fall together’.
@RedArmySoldier:
Put everything in the west, and allow communist takeover of Europe. After all, the strong must defeat the weak per my own ideology (assuming that if I’m in charge in Germany, I’m the guy with the silly little mustache). And if the ‘west’ doesn’t like my regime, they ain’t gonna like what comes after either. So it’s either ‘join together vs Russkieland’, or ‘fall together’.
Isn’t this what happened in real life?
@RedArmySoldier:
So it’s either ‘join together vs Russkieland’, or ‘fall together’.
Isn’t this what happened in real life?
Not really. In the last days of the war in Europe, the Nazis entertained all kinds of fantasies that the Anglo-Americans would come to their senses and would team up with them to fight the barbarous Soviet hordes, but it never happened. The Soviet/Anglo-American alliance held together until the surrender of Germany, and indeed until the surrender of Japan: Stalin fulfilled his prior commitment to go to war against Japan three months after Germany surrendered (the time which had been allocated for him to shift some of his forces from Europe to the Far East). Germany surrendered on May 7, and the USSR invaded Manchuria almost exactly on schedule on August 9. In Europe, the Soviet, American and British armies all settled into the occupation zones which had been defined ahead of time for each power. The predefined occupation zones were even respected where the fighting had taken the Americans into areas assigned to the Russians (such as Leipzig) and the Russians into areas assigned to the Anglo-Americans (such as parts of Austria, and of course the western half of Berlin).
@CWO:
@RedArmySoldier:
So it’s either ‘join together vs Russkieland’, or ‘fall together’.
Isn’t this what happened in real life?
Not really. In the last days of the war in Europe, the Nazis entertained all kinds of fantasies that the Anglo-Americans would come to their senses and would team up with them to fight the barbarous Soviet hordes, but it never happened. The Soviet/Anglo-American alliance held together until the surrender of Germany, and indeed until the surrender of Japan: Stalin fulfilled his prior commitment to go to war against Japan three months after Germany surrendered (the time which had been allocated for him to shift some of his forces from Europe to the Far East). Germany surrendered on May 7, and the USSR invaded Manchuria almost exactly on schedule on August 9. In Europe, the Soviet, American and British armies all settled into the occupation zones which had been defined ahead of time for each power. The predefined occupation zones were even respected where the fighting had taken the Americans into areas assigned to the Russians (such as Leipzig) and the Russians into areas assigned to the Anglo-Americans (such as parts of Austria, and of course the western half of Berlin).
Yeah, but afterwards the West set up the ‘denazification’ because they needed the former Nazis to run West Germany, while taking a blind eye to both the fascist regimes of Portugal and Spain since they were anti-communist as well, and had no problems in supporting dictatorships everywhere to prevent the communists from taking power.
