What if Britain and Germany sign peace agreement

Too open a question: who takes over command of the Reich in this case? Germany is still at war, and the preliminary plans for invading the Low countries, and perhaps France, are being developed. Hitler had already offered peace to the Western powers on the 6th of October, and they had turned him down by the 10th (Britain) and the 12th (France).

The ensuing internal power struggle within the Reich: which political leader takes over, and how much free hand does the military get to run the war? Which military generals now gain favour? Without Hitler, von Manstein & Guderian are unlikely to introduce their changes to the plan for the invasion of the Low Countries, and the race for the channel. How indecisive is the new leadership? Hitler may have had many faults, but at this stage, he was bold. Inaction on the West would have been the "worst" possible outcome for Germany.

But even with Hitler assassinated, I don't see any peace deal being struck with Nazi Germany. If the assassination lead to a Military coup a purging of the Nazis from power by the Heer, and a withdrawal from Poland... I don't think that is likely, at all.

Far more likely that the assassination leads to a brief power struggle, and jockeying for position amongst the top, the invasion plans continue to be developed, but are not nearly as bold enough (von Manstein shufled off into East: but his staff can't get the ear of the new leader), and while the Low countries collapse after a few weeks France doesn't fall, and instead casualties are far higher (on both sides). Unable to win decisively in the West, Germany faces defeat much, much sooner.

In continue the strife between Germany and the West, The Soviet Union continues to pour more and more resources into propping up the Nazis, in the form of food stuffs, rare materials, until they decide it cannot hold itself up any more (1942-43), and invade with armoured divisions, capturing large chunks of western Poland, and Eastern Germany.... Certain Soviet Generals argue for a continued push into France, but cooler heads prevail. Nazi leadership flees to Franco's Spain and Mussolini's Italy.

 

I thought the nazi plans to invade Holland had to be changed because one drunk guy (I loose who was) landed there! I guess all of the "bad guys" knew they couldn´t afford an other estalemate once again...

I guess no Norway invasion before the Scyte opertaion (it was the name, wasn´t it?) ... more common sense in the Reich leadership ... and the guy who betrayed his promises in the Munich agreement out of the picture.

More posibilities for the agreement?

 

the attack in the west was abandonned,because
a)the incident of Mechelen on the Meuse
b)of the bad weather
AFAIR,the German pilot in question was not drunk .

 

The only way I can see this working (ie a peace treaty) is if Britain is truly on the ropes with Germany. This would likely have required the Germans to have all or most of the following:

Have a sustained air offensive that was succeeding over Britain such that their industry and cities were being hit very hard (possible but not likely).

Germany successfully invades Britain itself (highly unlikely).

Germany has defeated the British army in the Middle East and taken most or all of the Mediterrainian basin (doable if they aren't engaged in the East).

The U-boat war is going well (possible)

The Luftwaffe joins in the shipping war big time (doable)

Japan does their historic number on British possessions in Asia (historically accurate).

Germany throws in with the US against Japan (highly improbable but not beyond the possible) ending Lend-Lease.

Russia refuses to become involved in the war against Germany (probable).


Basically, if Britain were standing alone or nearly so against Germany and faced wars on other fronts that were going badly I could see the British accepting a peace to take some pressure off. Short of that, I doubt Britain would have taken a negotiated peace from Germany.

 

NW Europe in January ... obviously they had bad weather. I read about the event ... the drunk guy was the oficcer that took the wrong plane or something like that, I'll try to found the book tomorrow.

 

While both the pilot (Erich Hoenmanns), and the courier (Helmuth Reinberger), had decided to take the flight over drinks the night before, it isn’t clear that either were "intoxicated" at the time of the flight. Hoenmanns was trying to keep up his "flight hours", as well as take his laundry to Koln, and Reinberger was trying to eliminate the lengthy train trip which his courier route would have required. At least that is what I've been able to find just looking around. They lost their way in the fog and bad weather, and landed "poorly" in Dutch territory.

 

I found it in Kurt Zentener´s ILLUSTRIERTE GESCHICHTE WWII ... I guess the word is "hangover".

That motivated the penultimate "error" of Colonel Hans Oster. The allied inteligence no longer considered him a reliable source.

 

double post

 

One correction :they landed in Belgian territory

 

IIRC, they were carrying an older version of the invasion plans, plans which confirmed the Allied view of what the Allies expected the Germans to do, but as those preliminary plans were either due for revision, or under review (being very preliminary), the incident played into the German's hands anyway.

Secondly, the major change suggested by Guderian & von Manstein and put forward to Hitler, would never have occured: Guderian's ideas were rather too radical for many in the German High Command (so much so, that Manstien removed all reference to Guderian when originally putting them forward), but they captured Hitler's imagination, even if they were watered down before the actual implementation.

 

Right, and those possibilities, could only occur much later in the war, say post 1941.

Luftwaffe weren't about to get involved in the Anti-shipping war for the same reason they didn't have large numbers of 4-engined aircraft: they consume too much fuel.

The DAK didn't reach Africa until the beginning of 1941, after the Italians lost their entire 10th Army. Hitler only got involved in Africa to save the Italians; it wasn't part of his master plan in the least. In fact, the invasion of the Soviet Union had to be postponed because of the Italian Army's disastrous attack against Greece. HItler would have been far better off without Italy as an Ally.

So there really is no way Britain is going to sign a peace treaty until 1942, and by then Hitler was too busy in the East. The example of the Finnish winter war has him convinced the USSR was a paper tiger. Hitler wasn't interested in Africa, nor the Mediterranean.