As I've read it the French accepted the armistice in the hopes of saving the population from a hostile occupation and preservation of the remnant of the French military forces in France. As it was they were wrong, but thats a different discussion. A demand for unconditional surrender would probablly have reverted the French leaders to the plan to remove the government to Africa. Reynaud had considered this with support from part of the ministers in his cabinent, and a portion of the Deputies he polled. However several Ministers and Deputies argued that the Germans would be reasonable and a lenient armistices was possible. Exhausted and lacking unity in his government Reynaud dropped the idea and left the government a few days later, replaced by Petain. Like the others Petain hoped for reasonable terms that would preserve French military power and independance. Like the others he was shocked at the terms dictated, but by then more precious time had run out and the French leaders now in power had their morale collapse.

A unconditional surrender diktat may very well have sparked the holdouts who had supported Reynaud to pressure Petain to make the move to Africa with the remnants of the government. Total anniliation of Metropolitan France is assured by either unconditional surrender, or another couple weeks of fighting. Just a matter of choosing which poison. Retreat to Africa preserves a independant French government and the possibility of later achiving better circumstances.

carl, i agree.
so in fact the "unconditional surrender" scenario might be this:
- the existence of a anti-nazi french government based i north africa, which can rely on the intact fleet.
- the mediterrenean would be dominated by the anglo-french units
- the italian fleet stay permanently in horbours
- crossing the mediterranean become a nightmare for axis, and of course germany don't send afrika korp,
- mediterranean becomes crucial and the british decide to reinforce egypt.
- libya is not resupplied and collapse soon!! french attack from the west and british from the east.
- in a few months all north africa becomes an allied stronghold threatening italy and southern nazi occupied france.
- germany reinforce france and send troops in italy. the invasion of britain is completly ruled out by germans

this is just an hypothesis, but it sounds quite scaring for the nazi, doesn't it?

i think the armistice was the best option for the nazi, definetely.

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If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons
- Winston Churchill

I can't see how the French had any option, the French Military could not defend itself against a combined Army Groups A,B & C and the 60+ divisions held in OHW reserve and throw in the Luftwaffe as well, and a cameo appearence of the Italians.

France at the time was going through the worst case senario in political instability, their military command and control was falling apart there was almost no effective communications between HQ and field commanders, when push came to shove planned offensives came to nothing, in essence the French Military was a organisation fighting a modern enemy with Napoleon tatics, France or more to the point Petain was in no position to reject an ultimatum of unconditional surrender. France by this stage had no stomach for war, like the Italians in 1943.

But to conclude, Hitler offers the French or the Petain Government many concessions such as retaining the military to maintain law and order and as a self defence force including her Navy. Paris and not Vichy would remain the capital. Also expanding the role of the French Foreign Legion as occupational forces in French territories. Plus i have added in something from left field of that France and Germany conclude a Mutual Assistance Treaty. France becomes a self autonomous nation of the Greater German Reich.

i disagree 100%
so basically u say:
- france has 1million man army
- nazi defeatd the french army
- so now the nazi have 1million french marching under german flags and ready to die for it.

can i say that it is unrealistic?

i recall you that all european countries that joined the axis were actually axis allied! italy, romania, hungary they were not conquered by germans! they joined the nazi!
no conquered country in europe gave its regular army to the germans (i'm not referring to the ss volunteers divisions). why should the french have done it????

and btw, u said the same for the british... sorry, but i really can't see a british army trapped in stalingrad and obeying to hitler's absurd orders.

so dear von Rundstedt, we are in a dead end road, what do we do now?

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If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons
- Winston Churchill

I agree with Neon Knight here Von, all of the soldiers that fought under the German flag were volunteers or governments loyal or sympathetic to the German cause. Even the the Russian troops from prison camps which decided to betray their country did so voluntarily, the rest faced their horrible fate.

While the choice of either dying or fighting against your country on the side of an enemy, might not have been much of a choice... It was a choice afterall. The countless of Red Army POW's which met their fate as a result of their loyalty to THEIR country contradicts your claim.

Who is to say that the French would not have done the same thing?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

And yet in 1944

Roumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Finland and the Baltic States who openly joined the Axis during 1940-42 became enemies of the Germans after Soviet invasions, they had switched sides and were welcomed as allies by the Soviets. That did happen so why would it not work with France, in considering the many French who willingly joined the SS later on.

You have not addressed my point that France was a defeated Nation and was in no position to defy Hitler and Germany if so chosen to issue an ultimatum of Unconditional Surrender. Could France reverse the outcome. No she could not. Marshal Henri Petain would have no choice to accept any terms offered to him. If Hitler had given France very generious concessions such as i have indicated then France would have agreed, either that face total annihalation.

Petain now has two choices accept terms of unconditional surrender with generious concessions or reject the term and the whole nation gets wiped.

These countries, were absolutely blead dry from the losses suffered by the previous campaigns in the east. The people of these countries ( Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Baltic states ) were tired of fighting for the Germans, not to mention they also switched sides because the Soviet Union gave them an ultimatum.... Join in the fight against "the bad guys" or suffer total annihilation.

This was more then a generous offer, as these nations joined Germany in attacking the Soviet Union...

Yes, you are correct. It was a defeated nation, but it was not destroyed and had more then a few nationalists.

While Petain might have surrendered, this does not mean that the population would have. Belarus and Ukraine were fully occupied and so was Yugoslavia, partisans never stopped fighting and inflicted more then a handful of casualties and a mild head ache for the Germans. Who is to say that the French would not have continued fighting?

You must also consider the German position. It was not in their best interest to continue fighting in France. The armistice was offered and accepted by both parties because it was better then a possible alternative, for both nations.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

yeah slonik! u said it.
i'm going into this for the last time: french had the fleet and the colonies intact. pls read my scenario above.

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If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons
- Winston Churchill

I have to agree with Von here and your point has just backed up what he said. It's the same for the French, join the fight against the bad guys or suffer total anihalation.
And lets not kid ourselves, there were lots of people in Western Europe who hated communism. If Hitler had told Petain that there would be war against the Communists and he needed French help for that, then I reckon he'd have had plenty from them.

On your point about partisans attacking the Germans in Ukraine etc, of course this is true. But when the Germans came they were seen by many in these countries as liberators and had they been sensible and adopted a humane approach, offering these countries autonomy or independence if they joined the fight against the Russians, you would have seen resistence die out very very quickly. The only ones resisting would have been ultra communists, this would have numbered less than even in France, because those unfortunate souls in Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, had all had the experience of living under communist rule and suffering under Stalin. Why on earth would they fight for him?

It was not the Stalin but Hitler who invaded France. The French knew very well who the bad guys were. There was even a unit of brave French pilots which fled France and came to Russia in the fight against evil.

Really? Is this interesting observation of yours based on the countless of French troops fighting the Russians? Hess, tried to propose such a deal to the British and we know what happend to him. Everyone in Europe knew who the bad guys were and they were not the ones marching under the Red Flag.

Not all were so eager to welcome the Germans with open arms. Ukraine for instance was split in half. Belarus did not sympathize at all. However I must agree in saying that had the Germans came in as honorable men, truly with the intensions of helping the people in the east. They would have had a much better chance of success.

Always baffled me why it was so difficult for some to undersand that it was not Stalin but "Mother Russia" which the Russians fought for. By the way, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania did not fight on the Russian side.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

I guess you cannot put it 100% that way on these countries even though the guerilla warfare fought the Red Army once Barbarossa had begun.


For example Estonia: First Soviet occupation 1940-41

The Estonian army was reorganised into the 22nd Territorial Rifle Brigade, and many senior officers were persecuted.

In mid-July 1941, large Red Army forces managed to halt the German advance in Central Estonia — an advance that had been rapid with the help of the resistance movement for half a month. This gave the Soviet occupation regime time to introduce compulsory conscription in North Estonia and settle scores with the guerrillas and their civilian supporters.

The Soviet occupation authorities managed to conscript over 30 000 men and take them to Russia. Instead of serving at the front, the Estonians, together with several other ‘untrustworthy’ nations, were drafted into the labour battalions in Northern Russia where hard work and famine killed about one third of the conscripted men.

Estonica : History : The Summer War

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Yes Kai, I should have been more clear.

But I think its safe to say that the Russian sympathizers were the minority.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

To sum this thread up.

What did Germany need to win the war?
USA, USSR, UK as Allies, Italy as enemies.

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The boy with an arse for a face, every week on five...

I had to read this and re-read it again

The Russians were just as bad as the Germans. Both committed the most inhumane and barbaric acts. It's easy to say that the Germans invaded Russia and committed those acts first, but that didn't mean the Russians had to follow suit.
I'm certainly not aware of widespread rapes committed by the Wehrmacht in occupied Russia. Yet it happened thousands upon thousands of times as the Russians took German territory.
I certainly don't think it was all happy days (when the Russians agreed a carve up of territory under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) for the baltic states and half of Poland.
I doubt those present at Katyn in 1940 would have agreed with you that the Russians were the good guys.

I'm not defending the Germans, what they did was disgusting and should never be acceptable in a theatre of war. However, the Russians were just as bad, they came through Europe not as liberators but as an alternative occupying force. And after the war, Stalin continued to persecute his own people and kill millions of them. I think 20 million is the conservative estimate.

The best outcome would probably have been for the Germans to defeat Russia, and so exhaust themselves doing so, that the Western Allies could then win the war and impose new systems in Russia and Germany.

Weaker Allied leaders would help Germany. The French leaders ultimately were unwilling to place their civilian population in the hands of the Germans and naively believed a armistice would save them. So the French surrendered. A few French leaders considered moving the government to Africa and fighting on, but the threat of German occupation discouraged this.

In Britian Churchill was willing to risk all rather than negotiate a peace. Others such as Halifax were less aggresive and favored peace. Had Churchill broken his neck tripping on his cane in 1938 it is unlikely the British leaders would have continued the war after France collapsed. A peace between Britian and Germany makes it unlikely the US will interfere in anything else Germany does in Europe. This leaves Germany free to concentrate on the USSR.

In the east Germany was countered by Stalin and several capable army leaders and the head of the Soviet internal security department. These men overcame the shock of their initial military defeats and stayed in the fight. Had they succumed to panic and fled with the remnants of their army to the Urals or Siberia Hitler would have won European Russia just as he planned.

In either case, if the British negotiate a peace, or the Communists flee to Siberia Germany has a fair chance of winning without the need to change anything in military terms.

As I have said before, if the Red Army fought with the same chivalry and honor as the Glorious Germans had, then the German population would have suffered in the same way the Russians had. 2 million German women raped ( while awful ) is hardly a comparison to 20 million civillians massacred, countless more tortured and abused and a country left in ruins.

As for accupying these innocent countries, this buffer zone was created for Russias security and protection from the same countries which have had a history of invading it, not the other way around.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Look how many divisons were born out of the invaded countires, Holland and France especially. The fact remains many people within those countries still remain sympathic to fascism.

In late 1940, the creation of a multinational SS division, the Wiking, was authorised. Command of the division was given to SS-Brigadeführer Felix Steiner. Steiner immersed himself in the organisation of the volunteer division, soon becoming a strong advocate for an increased number of foreign units. The Wiking was committed to combat several days after the launch of Operation Barbarossa, proving itself an impressive fighting unit.

Soon Danish, French, Azeri, Armenian, Belgian, Norwegian, Arab, Swedish, Finnish and Dutch Freiwilligen (volunteer) formations were committed to combat, gradually proving their worth. Hitler, however, was hesitant to allow foreign volunteers to be formed into formations based on their ethnicity, preferring that they be absorbed into multi-national divisions. Hitler feared that unless the foreign recruits were committed to the idea of a united Germania, then their reasons for fighting were suspect, and could damage the German cause.

Himmler was allowed to create his new formations, but they were to be commanded by German officers and NCOs. Beginning in 1942–43, several new formations were formed from Bosnians, Latvians, Estonians, and Ukrainians. There were plans for a Greek division, but the plan was abandoned after the Greek partisan resistance blew up the organizing party's headquarters. Many Greeks from Southern Russia, however, enlarged the divisions as Ukrainians. Himmler ordered that new Waffen-SS units formed with men of non-Germanic ethnicity were to be designated Division der SS (or Division of the SS) rather than SS Division. In some of these cases, the wearing of the SS runes on the collar was forbidden, with several of these formations wearing national insignia instead.

All soldiers of non-German citizenship in these units had their rank prefix changed from SS to Waffen (e.g. a Latvian Hauptscharführer would be referred to as a Waffen-Hauptscharführer rather than SS-Hauptscharführer). An example of a Division der SS is the Estonian 20.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (estnische Nr.1). The combat ability of the divisions der SS varied greatly. For example, the Latvian, French and Estonian formations performed exceptionally, while the Albanian units performed poorly.
While many adventurers and idealists joined the SS as part of the fight against Communism, many of the later recruits joined or were conscripted for different reasons. For example, Dutchmen who joined the 34.SS-Freiwilligen-Grenadier-Division Landstorm Nederland were granted exemption from forced labour and provided with food, pay and accommodation. Recruits who joined for such reasons rarely proved good soldiers, and several units composed of such volunteers were involved in atrocities.

Towards the end of 1943, it became apparent that numbers of volunteer recruits were inadequate to meet the needs of the German military, so conscription was introduced. The Estonian 20.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS is an example of such a conscript formation, which proved to be outstanding soldiers with an unblemished record.

Not satisfied with the growing number of volunteer formations, Himmler sought to gain control of all volunteer forces serving alongside Germany. This put the SS at odds with the Heer, as several volunteer units had been placed under Heer control (e.g. volunteers of the Spanish Blue Division). Despite this, Himmler constantly campaigned to have all foreign volunteers fall under the SS banner. In several cases, like the ROA and the 5.SS-Freiwilligen-Sturmbrigade Wallonien he was successful, and by the last year of the war, most foreign volunteers units did fall under SS command. Still another unit, the Indian Legion was composed of Indian troops, mostly prisoners of war recruited by the Germans with help from a marginal Indian anti-colonial leader named Mohammed Shedai. The unit became a part of the political plans of another, more famous, Indian nationalist: Subhas Chandra Bose, who ousted Shedai from his position of favour with the German military authorities, and who wanted the Legion to participate in a German invasion of British India. After Bose left Germany for Japanese-controlled south-east Asia in 1943 to take charge of the Indian National Army (similar to the Indian Legion, but much larger), the Indian Legion was diverted from its original goal of fighting the British in India and absorbed into the German attempt to hold on to occupied Europe. Morale dropped sharply in consequence. The unit was deployed in France, where it earned a reputation for atrocities, although some individual members deserted to the French resistance. The Indian Legion disintegrated in the aftermath of D-Day.

While several volunteer units performed poorly in combat, the majority acquitted themselves well. French and Spanish SS volunteers, along with remnants of the 11.SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-Division Nordland formed the final defence of the Reichstag in 1945.

Among the more unusual units to exist in the Waffen SS was the British Free Corps, a unit composed of citizens of the British Commonwealth, was led by John Amery but never had a strength of more than 27 men at any given time. An attempt to use IRA agents to recruit an Irish unit from among British Army POWs was a similar failure.

After the surrender, many volunteers were tried and imprisoned by their countries. In several cases, volunteers were executed. Those volunteers from the Baltic states and Ukraine could at best look forward to years spent in the gulags. To avoid this, many ex-volunteers from these regions joined underground resistance groups (see Forest Brothers) which were engaged fighting the Soviets until the 1950s.

Helped by ODESSA network, Walloon volunteer leader Leon Degrelle, who fought at the Battle of Berlin and was decorated by Hitler, escaped to Spain, where, despite being sentenced to death in absentia by the Belgian authorities, he lived in comfortable exile until his death in 1994. John Amery, the leader of the Britisches Freikorps, was tried and convicted of treason by the British government. He was executed in December 1945.

Disclaimer: The information above is taken from an other source. Whilst I appreciate it's very poor form to plagiarise, the information is accurate and therefore serves a purpose of directing the debate onto area's such as whether it could happen again.

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Both sides massacred civilians. Could you point me towards your evidence for the figure of 20 million Russian civilians massacred?

I'd also add that I don't think the Russians needed the Germans to butcher their own people, they did a very good job of it themselves. I've seen 20 million put as the figure under Stalin as a conservative example. I've also seen figures as high as 60 million.

You can't defend Soviet Russia, just as you can't defend Nazi Germany. Both regimes were evil, that's it.

As for your buffer zone, well, it all sounds very realpolitik, just brush over the fact that independent states were occupied, their ruling classes executed and countless more murd