Even in 44 after the writing was really on the wall most of the military as well as the political figures stood by Hitler. Just because assorted top Nazis were arguing for a separate peace in the east [or said so afterwards possibly?] doesn't mean they would agree to the assassination of Hitler or the removal of the Nazi party from power by a military coup. Also as you say much of the rank and file were radicalised by Nazi propaganda so there is likely to be problems there.
Ah, I think understand the issue here.
Operation Flash was conducted by Anti-Hitler elements in the Army, not the party like Goebbels or Himmler; indeed, as the article points out, they attempted to kill Himmler too on the same day. Thus, they did not and would not authorize the assassination attempt, namely because it was being done by people who had nothing to do with them. The suggestion I'm making, however, is what comes after Hitler is killed. His designated successor was Goering, and with Goebbels and Ribbentrop for a peace, surprisingly backed by Himmler, I have no doubt Goering would open such open given historically he had concerns with Operation Barbarossa.
A manpower crisis that didn't stop them waging aggressive warfare and taking further heavy losses over the next couple of years. Also a crisis that in part they overcame by conscripting people from the areas they 'liberated'. Your now suggesting Germany gives then both relief from those casualties and access to even more manpower from those areas - without another couple of years of bitter fighting and German forced labour drafts.
Stalin might not re-enter the war in the short term but the Germans would be bloody foolish to assume they could trust his word not to attack at all, or to make any resource deliveries once he had his hands on the territory. Or he could attack the Nazis a couple of years down the line, once his forces had been upgraded and better trained and the Germans worn down by the western powers.
Okay, a lot to unpack here so I'm going to be using a lot of citations here; sorry if its a lot to read!
Bagration, 1944, Osprey Campaign Series -
"Soviet rifle divisions were generally smaller than their German counterparts, averaging 2500-4000 troops. At the time of Operation Bagration a concerted effort was made to bring these units up to an average of 6000 troops. No serious effort was made to bring them up to their nominal TOE strength of 9600 troops."
Red Army Handbook, 1939-1945, by Steven J. Zaloga -
"By this time, however, it was becoming apparent that the Soviet force structure of 500-plus Divisions simply exceeded their capacity to support it. [..] in mid-1944 more drastic action was necessary. Either some of the rifle divisions would have to be demobilized and their personnel used to fill out other units, or divisional strengths far below envisioned norms would have to be accepted. The Stavka opted for the latter alternative."
Soviet Military Doctrine from Lenin to Gorbachev, 1915-1991, by Willard C. Frank -
"Soviet sources reflect manpower deficiencies by emphasizing the low strength of rifle units and the draconian measures used to enlist soldiers in liberated regions. By 1945 Soviet rifle divisions were often under strength, with only 3,500 to 5,000 men each."
Thus, even with the recovery of Belarus and Ukraine over the course of 1943-1944, the manpower situation of the Red Army continued to be critical. They, however, had two saving graces: they, unlike the Germans, were not fighting a two front war and they had Lend Lease, which enabled them to focus their manpower in a way the Germans could not. That last one is critical, because with the event of peace, the Soviets lose that advantage. To give context to this, I return to Sokolov for citations.
Boris V. Sokolov (2007).
The role of lend‐lease in Soviet military efforts, 1941–1945, The Journal of Slavic Military Studies: Vol. 7, issue 3, pages 567-586:
One of the bottlenecks of the Soviet economy before the war was the production of aviation and, to a lesser extent, automobile gasoline. High-octane benzoins were especially lacking. So, in 1941, on the eve of the war, the need for aviation gasoline B-78 was satisfied by only 4%. {7} In 1940, the USSR produced 889 thousand tons of aviation gasoline, in 1941 - 1269 thousand tons, in 1942 - 912, in 1943 - 1007, in 1944 - 1334 and in 194 5. - 1017 thousand tons. {8} In total, during the war years in the United States under Lend-Lease and within the framework of Soviet orders, 666 thousand tons of aviation gasoline were delivered, of which, after shipment, 37.65 thousand tons were redirected to other places, so that the net delivery was 628.4 thousand tons. {9}In addition, the net supply of light gasoline fractions from the USA to the USSR reached 732.3 thousand tons.In addition, Great Britain supplied 14.7 thousand tons of aviation gasoline and 902.1 thousand tons of light gasoline fractions to the USSR from the Abadan oil refinery ( these supplies were reimbursed by the United Kingdom (USA). To this must also be added 573 thousand tons of aviation gasoline supplied to the USSR from oil refineries in Great Britain and Canada. {ten}In total, all this gives 2850.5 thousand short tons of aviation gasoline and light gasoline fractions received by the USSR from the USA, Great Britain and Canada, which is equal to 2586 thousand metric tons. In the Soviet Union, imported aviation gasoline and light gasoline fractions were used almost exclusively for mixing with Soviet aviation gasoline in order to increase their octane number, since Soviet aircraft were adapted to use gasolines with a much lower octane number than in the West. Suffice it to say that more than 97% of imported gasoline had an octane rating of 99 and higher, while in the USSR, as we have already seen, there was even B-78 gasoline in a huge deficit. Therefore, in fact, the aviation gasoline supplied under the Lend-Lease was included in the Soviet production of aviation gasoline and amounted, therefore (together with light gasoline fractions), 51, 5% of Soviet production 1941-1945 If we subtract from the total Soviet aviation gasoline production for the first half of 1941, estimating it at about half of the annual production, then the share of supplies under Lend-Lease will rise to 57.8%. It turns out that the deliveries under Lend-Lease of aviation gasoline, which took place from August 1941 to September 1945, were 1.4 times higher than the actual Soviet production. From other sources of aviation gasoline supply, the USSR was able to capture in 1944-1945. 82.8 thousand tons of trophy gasoline in Romania, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, to September 1945, which was a drop in the ocean. It is obvious that without Western supplies of fuel, Soviet aviation simply would not have been able to support its troops in the required volume. It should also be taken into account that due to the much higher octane numbers of western aviation gasoline, its role in providing Soviet aviation was actually even more significant than could be concluded from weight alone.
Further:
The Red Army's vehicle fleet was also largely secured by Western supplies. The production of cars in the USSR in 1940 amounted to 145 390, in 1941 - 124 476, in 1942 - 34 976, in 1943 - 49 266, in 1944 - 60 549, in 1945 - 74 757. {15} At the same time, in the first half of the year 1941 was produced 73.2 thousand cars, and in the second - only 46.1 thousand {16} , so that from the beginning of the war until the end of 1945, the total production of cars can be determined at 265.6 thousand units. During the war years, 409.5 thousand cars were delivered from the USA to the USSR, which is 1.5 times higher than Soviet production during the war years. By the end of the war (as of May 1, 1945), cars delivered under Lend-Lease accounted for 32.8% in the Red Army's car park (58.1% were domestically produced cars and 9.1% were captured cars).{17}Taking into account the greater carrying capacity and better quality, the role of American vehicles was even higher ("Studebakers", in particular, were used as artillery tractors). The pre-war fleet of Soviet cars (both in the Red Army and withdrawn from the national economy at the beginning of the war) was badly worn out. Before the war, the needs of the Red Army in motor transport were determined at 744 thousand cars and 92 thousand tractors, while there were 272.6 thousand cars and 42 thousand tractors in stock. It was planned to withdraw 240 thousand cars from the national economy, including 210 thousand trucks (GAZ-AA and ZIS-5), however, due to the severe wear of the vehicle fleet (for passenger cars, cars belonging to the 1st and 2nd categories , i.e., not requiring immediate repair, was 45%,{18} Obviously, without Western supplies, the Red Army would not have acquired the degree of mobility that it possessed at least from the middle of 1943, although until the end of the war, the use of motor vehicles was constrained by a lack of gasoline.
Also, the functioning of Soviet railroad transport would have been impossible without Lend-Lease. Production of railway rails (including the narrow gauge rail) in the USSR varied as follows (in kt.) 1940 - 1360 1941 - 874 1942 - 112 1943 - 115 1944 - 129 1945 - 308 {19} According Lend Liza was delivered to the USSR 685.7 thousand short tons of railway rails, {20}which is equal to 622.1 thousand metric tons. This is about 56.5% of the total production of railroad rails in the USSR from mid-1941 to the end of 1945. If we exclude from the calculation narrow-gauge rails that were not supplied under Lend-Lease, then American deliveries will amount to 83.3% the total volume of Soviet production. If we exclude from the calculations of production for the second half of 1945, taking it to be equal to at least half of the annual production (in fact, in the second half of 1945, significantly more than half of the annual production of rails was produced due to a reduction in the actual war production), then the Lend Lease on rails will make up 92.7% of the total volume of Soviet rail production. Thus, almost half of the railroad rails used on Soviet railways during the war received from the USA. The sharp reduction in the production of rails by the Soviet industry made it possible to direct additional capacities and resources of steel for the production of weapons (in 1945, the production of rails was 13% of the 1940 level, and in 1944 - only 5.4%).
Thus, without American Lend Lease, the Soviets would've been unable to logistically support an attack upon the Germans because the VVS (Red Air Force) would've been grounded, and their motor vehicle pool as well as railway infrastructure would've been unable to support the Red Army logistically. The only way they could address these deficiencies would be to massively decrease their production in other areas as well as to demobilize large portions of the Red Army to provide the manpower needed in the factories. This, however, would cause another issue:
According to our estimates, based on a decrease in labor costs per unit of various types of weapons and equipment in 1941-1943, the production of tanks and combat aircraft during the war years was at least doubled. Taking this into account, the share of Western supplies of weapons and military equipment turns out to be approximately twice as high as is commonly believed. {56} 7,057 tanks and self-propelled guns were delivered from the USA, 5,480 from England and Canada. 15,481 American aircraft, 3,384 British ones. Of the total of 18,865 vehicles, about 17,000 combat vehicles were received {57}Taking into account the overestimation of data on Soviet production, the share of Western deliveries for combat aircraft will not be 15%, as was traditionally believed, but about 30%, for tanks and self-propelled guns, the share will increase from the traditional 12% to 24% of the total production level in the USSR in the military years. As for the artillery, only anti-aircraft artillery was supplied from the United States - 7944 guns. {58}Soviet historians usually correlate this number with the total production of guns and mortars in the USSR - 482.2 thousand guns and 351.8 thousand mortars, which makes the share of American deliveries less than 2% of the total volume of Soviet gun production, and less than 1% - from the total production of guns and mortars. Meanwhile, it is only necessary to compare here with the Soviet production of anti-aircraft guns - the most scarce type of artillery for the Red Army, and here the share of American supplies turns out to be much higher (unfortunately, an accurate calculation is still impossible due to the lack of data on the production of anti-aircraft guns in the USSR).
In order to attempt to make up for their lack of trucks and railway infrastructure, they would have to sacrifice their production in tanks and AFVs which, combined with the loss of Lend Lease shipments, would leave the Red Army virtually without any armor. In short they would be faced with either no logistics and no air force or no air force and no armor divisions. Either precludes a successful offensive strike against Germany for very obvious reasons, given the nature of modern warfare. Their issues do not, however, stop there.
Hunger and War: Food Provisioning in the Soviet Union during World War II:
Keeping the Red Army mobilized, without Lend Lease, means the Red Army starves to death or the workers providing it with equipment do. The only way to combat this is to mass demobilize it, and switch truck production to tractors and prioritize agricultural fuel supplies over military ones. Even then, as Havlat notes in Part II of his own work:
While Soviet and Russian historians are reluctant to admit the great impact Allied deliveries had on the Soviet war effort, the numbers available do not allow for any other conclusion. The Soviet Union was in a perilous state throughout the entire war, which Lend-Lease helped overcome. On average, the nearly 4.5 million tons of food were enough to feed over 3 million people every year, or roughly half the active Red Army. When compared to a population of nearly 200 million before the war, this might not seem much; however, even with these deliveries, the people of the Soviet Union were desperately short on food. In fact less than a year after the cancellation of Lend-Lease, the USSR experienced a famine that cost the lives of between 500,000 and 1.5 million people.171 Food was rationed very strictly: Soldiers and industry workers received the most, while people not vital for the war effort were allocated almost no food at all. Children and the elderly received just 700 calories, while ordinary industry workers received between 1,300 and 1,900 calories a day.172 In both cases this was roughly half the required amount. To maximize food production, the government allowed the creation of urban gardens. Besides the fields, food was grown in parks, public gardens, and alongside roads to the cities. In 1942 there were already 5 million of these public gardens; by 1944, this number had increased to 16 million.173
Besides delivering large quantities of food, such as 1.154 million tons of grains, 672,429 tons of sugar, 782,973 tons of canned and 730,902 tons of smoked meat, Lend-Lease also delivered 37,477 tons of seeds, which enabled the Soviets to grow large quantities of additional food on their own land.174 While the supplied grain represented just over 1 percent of Soviet domestic production for the years 1942–1944, the 1.5 million tons of meat compared favorably to a domestic supply of just 7 million tons.175 Without American food, of which nearly all went to the Red Army, the government would have been forced to reduce the food supply for the civilian population even further, which would have resulted in decreased productivity, more dead, and in some instances, possibly even outright rebellion against the Soviet regime: ‘[. . .] one can reasonably conclude that the shortage of food in Russia in World War II was so acute that without the American help Russian resistance might have collapsed from want of food alone’. 176 Other extremely important deliveries were metals such as aluminum, copper, zinc, and nickel, which are vital for the production of modern military equipment like tanks and aircraft. Soviet industry had produced just 285,418 tons of aluminum in the years 1941–1944; during the same time the Western Allies had delivered an additional 261,109 tons, nearly doubling Soviet supply of this metal.177 Additionally, during 1941–1944 the Soviets had produced 573,000 tons of copper, while total Western deliveries amounted to 391,711 tons, roughly 40 percent of total Soviet wartime supply.178 Domestic production of zinc and nickel in the years 1942–1944 had been 142,100 and 38,100 tons respectively, while the Western Allies supplied 54,826 tons of zinc and 13,843 tons of nickel, in both cases more than a quarter of total supply.179 Another field in which Lend-Lease helped the Red Army was communications. Throughout the war, the United States delivered 40,000 radios, 380,135 field telephones, and 1.25 million miles of telephone cable, which made the Red Army a far more organized and efficient fighting force.18
In short, with the cessation of hostilities, the Red Army would've have to been demobilized for very many years just to keep it and the Soviet Union at large from being starved to death. In order to lay the basis for a future offensive, they would've had to sacrifice years of tank production to repair their railway network and then waited additional years to rebuild their armored strength. Why? Soviet losses exceeded production in every year except 1944 and 1945 and the lack of further combat losses are made up for by lost Lend Lease supplies. When would they be ready again? To quote from the
Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race: The Truman Administration and the U.S. Arms Build-Up by Raymond P. Ojserkis:
"There was evidence indicating that the Soviet economy was weak. Even the Soviet government's published statistics, which were thought to be generally exaggerated, revealed an economy far behind the west. Soviet diplomatic actions in the immediate post-war period, whether in the form of attempts to gain more favorable conditions for Lend-Lease payments, Soviet lobbying for a large German reparations payment, Soviet demands to gain Austrian oil, or the transportation of basic infrastructure from conquered eastern Europe to the Soviet Union all indicated economic deficiencies. General Walter Bedell Smith, a future head of the Central Intelligence Agency, estimated that it would be another 10 to 15 years before the Soviets had recovered from the last war. The CIA's Office of Research and Estimates (ORE) tried to appraise the Soviet Union in terms of war potential, looking at the industrial strength, technology, and possible bottlenecks to increased production. The ORE concluded that Soviet economic weaknesses gravely limited the ability of Moscow to fight a prolonged war with the North Atlantic Treaty nations."
"In particular, American analysts felt that the Soviet petroleum industry would find it difficult to produce enough high octane fuel, the Soviet machine tool industry did not produce enough spare parts, there was insufficient rolling stock to handle war time needs in the USSR, and the Soviets had perennial shortages of certain non-ferrous metals and certain types of finished steel. Complicating these problems, and, to an extent, causing them, were the Soviet deficiencies in properly trained technological personnel and managers."
10 years from 1943, so 1953 would be the earliest they could contemplate a strike. Also, as a final note on the matter of AV Gas,
Air Power and Maneuver Warfare by Martin van Creveld states that 87% of German counterattacks against Soviet exploitation forces happened outside the range of all fire support except for the Soviet air force. With such a steep reduction in aircraft and fuel production, the VVS will be unable to play this vital role to the same extent and more Soviet offensives will collapse due to German counter-attacks as a result.
Yes the Soviets faced a problem with in some areas let to low level resistance for several years. It didn't stop them waging war against Germany OTL so in a position where their stronger that's not going to be a serious problem.
Steve
The areas that the resistance would be in would be areas Soviet logistics to the border with have to pass through, meaning that any future attack would have attacks on its rears and likely-given German ties to said groups-advanced notice to Berlin. In our various discussions before you've cited this resistance as a compromising factor to German operations before. It is therefore worth noting that, at the height of the Eastern Front, the Germans had 180,000 partisans in their rear in 1944. To put this into comparison, between the Ukraine and the Baltics alone, there was 150,000 Anti-Soviet partisans in 1945-1946. If you include Poland, which I have not since it would be split with the Germans, there was another 50,000. If we assume that 50,000 would be proportion, given Poland was split roughly 50-50 between the USSR and Nazi Germany in 1939, that would mean another 25,000 partisans in Soviet rear areas.
All together, 175,000 partisans. To be fair, you've stated elsewhere that the Soviet resistance to the Germans would be an issue; why would a similar level of Anti-Soviet resistance not be in reverse to the Russians?
