Germany and the Soviet Union

[panzer228]

When the germans and the soviets signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in 1939, what if Hitler never decided to invade the Soviet Union, but rather stay as an ally to them? Im saying that Russia was one of the Axis forces in World War 2 and was not part of the allies. Would the allied forces still be able to defeat Germany, Russia, Italy, Japan, and other axis countries?

[McCoy]

Stalin was gearin' up for a war of aggression with Germany but to start at the earliest in '43.

[Jim O]

I agree with McCoy. War between those two was inevitable. They were never really allies as such, but rather co-belligerents in Poland. They had divided their spheres of influence and stuck by them pretty well until Barbarossa.

Assuming though that were true allies, in the sense that allies come to each other's defense in time of war, I find it unlikely that Normandy would have been successful. Germany would not have been fighting on the Ostfront and so would have huge resources available to repel Overlord, especially with Soviet troops to help them if needed. So no, the UK and the Commonwealth forces (give or take the US as who knows if the US would have gotten involved in a war in Europe at this point) would have had a very nearly impossible time winning on the continent. Most likely the war would have ended as a stalemate with a negotiated peace between the sides.

The problem with this scenario is that besides Hitler and Stalin being archenemies, part of Hitler's raison d'être was to obtain Lebensraum in the east and to destroy "Judeo-Bolshevism". I doubta that an alliance between Nazi Germany and the USSR would have lasted long at all.

[JohnnieB]

Not gonna happen. Hitler wanted Lebensraum, he wished to remove the blight of Untermenschen and the treaty was one more scrap of paper- to be ripped up as soon as it suited his purposes.