What If Hitler Went For the Caucasus in 1941?

[LWD]

If it looked like Germans were responsible for Kemal's death in a case like the above the Turks might have been pushed into the war on the other side as well. Pushing the Turks is one thing making sure they continue in the direction desired is another.

[BDV]

To top it off, Bulgarians, a key Germany ally in the Balkans would be totally bummed if too hot an amitie would open on the Berlin-Ankara axis. Between Kemal's intransigence, Schicklgruber-Ribentropp impotence, and geopolitical limitations in the Balkan-NearEast region, a total non-starter.

[alltoes]

I am curious how Germany would attack the Baku oilfields from Turkey. Would they drive through Armenia? Go around through Georgia? Or drive through northern Iran?
Any thoughts? This is also presuming during 1941 during Barbarossa. How about during 1942. Also presuming Turkey allowed transit rights.

[thaddeus_c]

To top it off, Bulgarians, a key Germany ally in the Balkans would be totally bummed if too hot an amitie would open on the Berlin-Ankara axis. Between Kemal's intransigence, Schicklgruber-Ribentropp impotence, and geopolitical limitations in the Balkan-NearEast region, a total non-starter.

well, Germany could have used the Bulgarians to threaten Turkey (Operation Gertrude) and sided with the Kurdish peoples.

30 - 40 million Kurds, never have had a real patron? centered in eastern Turkey through Iraq all the way to Iran.

all Germans need to do is have access to airfields in Van Turkey for a few months to bomb Soviet ships in the Caspian Sea, they had to move oil by tanker to (present day) Turkmenistan after the invasion.

follow a plan similar to that instead of futile attempt to take Stalingrad and Moscow, move more u-boats into the Black Sea to consolidate.

[BDV]

How many kurds were there in 1940? How much a sway had Great Britain over them after the tribal pacification actions of the 1920s and 1930s?

[thaddeus_c]

How many kurds were there in 1940? How much a sway had Great Britain over them after the tribal pacification actions of the 1920s and 1930s?

35 - 45 million today in Kurdistan areas today and a large number have emigrated (800k in Germany alone)

30 million in ME during WWII era was educated guess since the diaspora happened post-war.

Great Britain was mainly focused on holding the oil resources in Iraq (the reason Kurdistan was not created?)

of course the best outcome for Germany is Turkey joining the Axis, not trying to start a civil war there.

[Cantankerous]

If Hitler had chosen to invade the Caucasus after overrunning the Ukraine and bypassing Stalingrad, then Nazi Germany would have had a secondary source of oil to keep its planes, tanks, submarines, jeep, and other weapons of war running. Also, tens of thousands of German troops would not have died of frostbite creating by the Russian winter and once the Soviet war machine ground to a halt, then the Russian Fascist Party headquartered in Manchuria would have launched a revolt against the Soviet government in a show of anti-communist solidarity with Hitler and Mussolini, overthrown Stalin's government and brought the Russian Orthodox Church back to life while throwing copies of Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky's works into a bonfire just because Marx and Trotsky had Jewish ancestry, sending Stalin back to Georgia, and granting Armenians, Georgians, and Azeris their independence. Hitler thought he was learning from the mistakes made by Napoleon in his failed invasion of Russia in 1812 by choosing to send separate contingents of German troops to the outskirts of Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad, but this didn't work out for him because the Soviet armed forces were stronger than he had thought.

[ljadw]

1 To capture the Caucasus would not mean that millions of tons of oil could be transported to Germany
2 If the SU was defeated,Hitler would not need a secondary source of oil
3 There was NO Russian Fascist party in Manchuria or elsewhere in the SU .

[Terry Duncan]

Pointless necromancy yet again.