re: History Buffs: What Would Have Been The Consequences If We Had Not Gotten Involved in WWII

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There wouldn’t be any debate on whether or not you gonna wear a mask if Hitler was in charge

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I agree, he'd just put you in a ghetto if you dissented. Now take your low brow trolling to another thread

So looked at a few older posts and I think we generally agree.

I think WWII has for a long time been in a lot more Popular media.

Even contemporaneously there were WWII movies when WWII was happening, and there have been ver sense.

My only Point is that people were into WWII before Brokaw’s book. Literally my only pint because otherwise I generally Agree
Most people learn about WWII outside the classroom.

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History Buffs: What Would Have Been The Consequences If We Had Not Gotten Involved in WWII

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Well it depends on what you mean by “not gotten involved”. Does that mean no active participation in the fighting? Or do you mean no support to the Allies whatsoever? Either way, in my opinion here’s how both would most likely play out.

1. Stay out of the war but provide support to the Allies:

If this had happened the Allies would possibly have still won, though this would result in a far different looking post-war Europe. Basically instead of the Iron Curtain coming down across the eastern half of Europe, it would have gone down across virtually the entire continent. If the Soviets has succeeded in reaching Berlin, they’d have kept going through the Low Countries, France, and possibly (as revenge against Franco for the Spanish Civil War) onto the Iberian peninsula. Even Italy would be on the chopping block.

But there is also a good chance Germany would win. Thanks to the Germans not having to tie down forces in the west, they would have had approximately an extra five Army Groups worth of divisions to commit in the East. That’s a whole lot of forces. Plus without having the 8th Air Force flying into Germany on a daily basis to pulverize strategic industrial centers, the Germans would not had many of the logistic shortfalls to hinder their war effort. These factors very likely could have made enough of a difference to where Germany at least could have forced the Soviets into a negotiated peace.

2. Stay out of the war and give no support to the Allies:

The Red Army would have collapsed. Period. Soviet industry could churn out massive amounts of weapons like tanks, fighters, cannon, machine guns, and rifles. But what the Soviets could not produce on a scale even close to supporting the Red Army was food, fuel, tires, and most importantly motor transport. Without supplies flowing from America the Red Army would be a starving mob with thousands of immobile (and thus useless) tanks and planes piling up at factories in the Urals. Most likely the war would have been over by 1943-44 at the latest with the outcome being the Germans being in possession of most, if not all, of European Russia. At that point, Great Britain would have no alternative than to sue for peace as well.

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If the USA continues lend lease, I think the Soviets would eventually turn the tide in a long and brutal war and sweep across Europe by 1950. If the USA never does lend lease, I think the Germans beat the Russians and we see a sort of fortress Europa thing that collapses in on itself when Hitler dies.

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I think this is a good explanation of it. The Soviet Union likely had sufficient manpower to still win, but they needed supplies, fuel, vehicles, weapons, munitions, etc. from the U.S. However, one strike against the Soviets would be the fact that a largely one front war would have allowed Germany to dedicate a much greater force to the Eastern Front, likely reducing the issues the Germans seemed to frequently have where Hitler stretched their armies too thin. The Soviets likely have to push further west than they did to totally destroy the Germans. Hitler likely flees Berlin, so the war doesn't basically end with the fall of Berlin.

In the Far East, Japan likely takes massive control of the West Pacific. We lose all of our territories there. I don't think war with Japan was every going to be avoidable for the U.S., the Japanese just made it easy for the U.S. to enter when they attacked Pearl Harbor.

Beat me to it Darth. George Zhukov’s first major victory. Japan didn’t want anything to do with an open land battle after the Soviet tanks destroyed them. They had a great navy, fighter group and defensive set up. Once they began sustaining losses to their planes and ships, it was just a matter of time.

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Without a war to fight there's no major incitive for the US to build the A Bomb, they will eventually because they know the Soviets are but it's the USSR that builds the first bomb and probably uses it somewhere and Europe as a warning shot to the entire world.

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I don’t think the Soviets would get the bomb first, if at all. I say this because it was the use of Soviet spies infiltrated into the American Manhattan Project that got the Soviet Atomic Bomb Project moving. Without America in the war there would have been no Manhattan Project and thus the Soviet program would have gone nowhere.

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The real question is what if Hitler never invaded Russia.

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That was inevitable. He told everyone from day one he wanted land in the east.

We'd be speaking Japanese and German.

What if the Germans had broken through on the Marne in 1914? Old Europe doesn’t lose an entire generation of young men and a 2nd one twenty years later. We don’t get the release of Lenin into Russia by Germany so we likely don’t get national socialism as well communism. Europe doesn’t have to transfer their wealth to the US to fund a war not to mention border changes. It’s fascinating to think about really.

I'd known about the sheer luck it took for it to happen but I had no idea of his political plans. It is crazy to think of all the things that had to go right for him to get killed.