Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

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Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#1

Post by Sludge Factory » 18 Apr 2022, 06:27

Alas, any scenario that doesn't involve the Eisenhower's Army meeting the Red Army on the pre-war eastern Polish border likely involves Stalin keeping at least some of the Polish territory he stole in 1939. Koenigsberg is probably doomed no matter what, unless Hitler is overthrown before 1943, and maybe not even then.

But, if the allies had really pushed for it, could Germany have retained Stettin and the section of Silesia south of the Oder and west of the Eastern Neisse? This map shows the Oder-Eastern Neisse border (but not Stettin, although I doubt Poland would get Stettin if Germany kept (most of) Breslau).
Image

Poland would ideally have retained Lemberg in this situation, which follows Curzon Line B. Grodno would have also been nice.

I suspect this would lead to Glatz being given to Czechoslovakia (perhaps Poland can keep Zaolzie in exchange?)

Perhaps the Allies could have compensated Stalin by giving more money or weaponry to the USSR, or by allowing the entirety of Austria to become an Eastern Bloc state?

This would save ~3 million innocent human beings from being ethnically cleansed by the Red Army, and would mean that modern Germany is 80% the size of the Weimar Republic instead of just 76%.

Over all, a much less unfair (although still very unfair, the lesser of two evils) post war settlement. (If I were Truman, I would have DoW'd the USSR to prevent the borders from being redrawn)

If this was unfeasible, the Allies should have at least pushed for Oder-Bober-Queiss (including German Stettin, after all, it is West of the Oder...)
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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#2

Post by T. A. Gardner » 19 Apr 2022, 01:49

The "better deal" would have been for the West to back and force Stalin to allow free, open, and fair elections across Eastern Europe. Had that happened, virtually all of Eastern Europe would have rejected the Communists and Soviet rule. That would have left the Soviet Union occupying Eastern Germany with only limited means to maintain a serious military presence there.

The Soviet Union was in no condition in late 1945 to enter another, new, war against the West. While such a war would have been highly unpopular in the West, it was at least doable. That leaves Stalin in a position where he either agrees to such terms then perhaps tries to undermine them in any case, or he potentially ends up in another war with the front being in hostile territory with a huge insurrection going on. For example, in Poland, a big chunk of the military is Western equipped, trained, and oriented politically.

Russia couldn't take another round of heavy losses coupled with now no material support from the West.

Of course, all that hinges on the Western powers being able to come to a consensus and having at least some knowledge of just how bad off the Soviet Union was economically and in terms of manpower.


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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#3

Post by Sludge Factory » 20 Apr 2022, 11:43

T. A. Gardner wrote:
19 Apr 2022, 01:49
The "better deal" would have been for the West to back and force Stalin to allow free, open, and fair elections across Eastern Europe. Had that happened, virtually all of Eastern Europe would have rejected the Communists and Soviet rule. That would have left the Soviet Union occupying Eastern Germany with only limited means to maintain a serious military presence there.

The Soviet Union was in no condition in late 1945 to enter another, new, war against the West. While such a war would have been highly unpopular in the West, it was at least doable. That leaves Stalin in a position where he either agrees to such terms then perhaps tries to undermine them in any case, or he potentially ends up in another war with the front being in hostile territory with a huge insurrection going on. For example, in Poland, a big chunk of the military is Western equipped, trained, and oriented politically.

Russia couldn't take another round of heavy losses coupled with now no material support from the West.

Of course, all that hinges on the Western powers being able to come to a consensus and having at least some knowledge of just how bad off the Soviet Union was economically and in terms of manpower.
I would actually say that reducing/avoiding the amount of land changing hands (and thus the number of people expelled) was more important than enforcing democracy in Eastern Europe. Democracy can always be gotten back at a later date. Lands that have been ethnically cleansed, not so much...

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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#4

Post by T. A. Gardner » 20 Apr 2022, 18:56

Sludge Factory wrote:
20 Apr 2022, 11:43
I would actually say that reducing/avoiding the amount of land changing hands (and thus the number of people expelled) was more important than enforcing democracy in Eastern Europe. Democracy can always be gotten back at a later date. Lands that have been ethnically cleansed, not so much...
The historical version is that Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, et. al., were forced into having Moscow friendly Communist governments imposed on them against their will. East Germany is a bit different in that the nation was occupied rather than returned to self-governance. West Germany was the same way at the time. Stalin simply would not tolerate having the countries of Eastern Europe run by anything less than puppet governments that kowtowed to Moscow.

Had the West imposed enough--let's say, 'arm twisting'--on Stalin to force free and open elections, Eastern Europe wouldn't have been communist at all. Instead, they'd have been Western-style social democracies of the sort the rest of Europe already had. They could have been neutral or some other arrangement to placate Stalin but their being open societies means they'd have recovered economically much faster.

It would also have put a buffer zone of neutral countries between the West and Soviet Union that neither controlled. It might well have prevented the Cold War from getting as bad as it did.

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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#5

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 21 Apr 2022, 03:10

I don't see what's so unfair to Germany here. If anything, the Rhineland should have been broken off for a Jewish state.
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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#6

Post by Peter89 » 21 Apr 2022, 09:42

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
21 Apr 2022, 03:10
I don't see what's so unfair to Germany here. If anything, the Rhineland should have been broken off for a Jewish state.
To evict people from their homes and give them to new owners in the only area where Hitler lost the last free elections?

Besides... "Jew" is not necessarily a nationality. In most cases it is a cultural affiliation. So for example my Jewish relatives would not relocate to a state carved out of Germany, because they are "at home" already in Budapest.
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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#7

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 21 Apr 2022, 20:52

Peter89 wrote:
21 Apr 2022, 09:42
Besides... "Jew" is not necessarily a nationality.
Obviously but, equally obviously, a nation state was created at the expense of people far less culpable for Jewish suffering than the Germans.
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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#8

Post by Sheldrake » 22 Apr 2022, 00:43

Sludge Factory wrote:
18 Apr 2022, 06:27
Alas, any scenario that doesn't involve the Eisenhower's Army meeting the Red Army on the pre-war eastern Polish border likely involves Stalin keeping at least some of the Polish territory he stole in 1939. Koenigsberg is probably doomed no matter what, unless Hitler is overthrown before 1943, and maybe not even then.

But, if the allies had really pushed for it, could Germany have retained Stettin and the section of Silesia south of the Oder and west of the Eastern Neisse? This map shows the Oder-Eastern Neisse border (but not Stettin, although I doubt Poland would get Stettin if Germany kept (most of) Breslau).

Poland would ideally have retained Lemberg in this situation, which follows Curzon Line B. Grodno would have also been nice.

I suspect this would lead to Glatz being given to Czechoslovakia (perhaps Poland can keep Zaolzie in exchange?)

Perhaps the Allies could have compensated Stalin by giving more money or weaponry to the USSR, or by allowing the entirety of Austria to become an Eastern Bloc state?

This would save ~3 million innocent human beings from being ethnically cleansed by the Red Army, and would mean that modern Germany is 80% the size of the Weimar Republic instead of just 76%.

Over all, a much less unfair (although still very unfair, the lesser of two evils) post war settlement. (If I were Truman, I would have DoW'd the USSR to prevent the borders from being redrawn)

If this was unfeasible, the Allies should have at least pushed for Oder-Bober-Queiss (including German Stettin, after all, it is West of the Oder...)
At the risk of weighing down this flight of fantasy with the leaden weight of historic detail...

This ATL is about tweaking the western border of Poland in Germany's favour. I doubt that many British or US military or political leaders wanted to preserve German territory I agree that the Red Army had made the 1939 Western border of the USSR a 'fact on the ground.' Nothing short of the liberation of Poland by the Western Allies would have given any Western leverage over Stalin's control over Poland. The suggestion to compensate Poland with German territory made sense.

In 1944-45 no one had much sympathy with the Germans. The Morgenthau plan "Suggested Post-Surrender Program for Germany" envisaged turning Germany ioto an agricultural state. There was little outcry over the millions of German refugees expelled from their eastern neighbours. 3 million innocents? Weren't these the people to supported or tolerated Nazi rule? Hadn't many more millions of Slavs and Jews been enslaved, expelled or exterminated for their benefit?

Although Churchill was very wary of the Soviets, Roosevelt was keen to get the USSR into the war on Japan and was willing to take Stalin at face value to get he USSR to support his big post war project the UN.

Nor was there any appetite among the British or American publics for hostility to the Soviets, or favours for the Germans. The only people talking about a future conflict between the west and the USSR were Germans..... It would take four years and the Berlin air lift before public opinion would see the Germans as potential allies.

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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#9

Post by Peter89 » 22 Apr 2022, 08:28

TheMarcksPlan wrote:
21 Apr 2022, 20:52
Peter89 wrote:
21 Apr 2022, 09:42
Besides... "Jew" is not necessarily a nationality.
Obviously but, equally obviously, a nation state was created at the expense of people far less culpable for Jewish suffering than the Germans.
In my opinion, Jewish suffering does not make a very good foundation for a state; nor does Christian suffering, Buddhist suffering or Islam suffering. I believe it was a good idea to establish a Jewish state in their spiritual homeland, and not some random land in Europe. Somewhere where they could finally feel their souls at home.

Tbh I am not sure which nation is the most culpable for the "suffering" of the Jews and which nation gave the most to them; yes, Nazi Germany probably killed the highest number of Jews, but it was a relatively short period in history and it happened at a time when the population of Jews were relatively high, compared to eg. the Medieval Age. Also, the 100% German culpability for the Holocaust is not correct et all, for example, the Hungarian authorities were extremely keen to assist the Germans, but pogroms and assistance in Holocaust happened in a lot of other countries as well. But, it is not really up to my taste to measure which suffering was better or worse, I'm just saying that suffering and culpability are not good foundations.
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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#10

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 22 Apr 2022, 21:41

Sheldrake wrote:In 1944-45 no one had much sympathy with the Germans. The Morgenthau plan "Suggested Post-Surrender Program for Germany" envisaged turning Germany ioto an agricultural state.
As someone who claims to have read Todman, you can't have read it too closely. Here's Todman on the Morgenthau Plan:

At the end of September, the Morgenthau plan was leaked to the press.
Its severity appalled US commentators and gave a final boost to delighted Nazi propagandists. With the election imminent, Roosevelt dropped the plan, denied all knowledge of it and cast Morgenthau out of his inner circle
I'm still dumbfounded by the OP's notion that the WW2 settlement was somehow unfair to Germany.
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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#11

Post by TheMarcksPlan » 22 Apr 2022, 21:56

T.A. Gardner wrote:The Soviet Union was in no condition in late 1945 to enter another, new, war against the West. While such a war would have been highly unpopular in the West, it was at least doable
While this viewpoint was already insane in 1945, it's doubly insane from the viewpoint of 2022. Free and fair elections in what became the Soviet bloc would have installed something between the prewar and post-1989 regime's that prevailed intl those parts. The former being proto-fascist conservative authoritarians, the latter being various flavors of corrupt illiberal democracy. The idea of waging WW3 to get an Orban or Putin decades earlier... Again it's at least understandable - still crazy - if drunk with "end of history" delusions in 1989. At least from that vantage you can believe in holy war that brings the eternal reign of liberal democracy and capitalism. To say this today, to wish WW3 for it, is absolutely bonkers.

The "doability" of such a war was also flatly rejected by the JCS at the time, even with nukes.
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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#12

Post by ljadw » 23 Apr 2022, 07:47

Sludge Factory wrote:
18 Apr 2022, 06:27
Alas, any scenario that doesn't involve the Eisenhower's Army meeting the Red Army on the pre-war eastern Polish border likely involves Stalin keeping at least some of the Polish territory he stole in 1939. Koenigsberg is probably doomed no matter what, unless Hitler is overthrown before 1943, and maybe not even then.

But, if the allies had really pushed for it, could Germany have retained Stettin and the section of Silesia south of the Oder and west of the Eastern Neisse? This map shows the Oder-Eastern Neisse border (but not Stettin, although I doubt Poland would get Stettin if Germany kept (most of) Breslau).
Image

Poland would ideally have retained Lemberg in this situation, which follows Curzon Line B. Grodno would have also been nice.

I suspect this would lead to Glatz being given to Czechoslovakia (perhaps Poland can keep Zaolzie in exchange?)

Perhaps the Allies could have compensated Stalin by giving more money or weaponry to the USSR, or by allowing the entirety of Austria to become an Eastern Bloc state?

This would save ~3 million innocent human beings from being ethnically cleansed by the Red Army, and would mean that modern Germany is 80% the size of the Weimar Republic instead of just 76%.

Over all, a much less unfair (although still very unfair, the lesser of two evils) post war settlement. (If I were Truman, I would have DoW'd the USSR to prevent the borders from being redrawn)

If this was unfeasible, the Allies should have at least pushed for Oder-Bober-Queiss (including German Stettin, after all, it is West of the Oder...)
Image
Questions
1 Why should the Western Allies have negotiated a better border deal for the Germans,which meant a bad border deal for Poland ? The Germans were the enemy and no one cared about their fate .
2 The Eastern part of Poland was a multicultural region where the Poles were a minority and where the Polish army had to protect them against the OUN. Thus, were the Poles not lucky to be rid of of this territory,as a peaceful coexistence of Poles and Ukrainians was impossible ?

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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#13

Post by ljadw » 23 Apr 2022, 07:59

T. A. Gardner wrote:
20 Apr 2022, 18:56
Sludge Factory wrote:
20 Apr 2022, 11:43
I would actually say that reducing/avoiding the amount of land changing hands (and thus the number of people expelled) was more important than enforcing democracy in Eastern Europe. Democracy can always be gotten back at a later date. Lands that have been ethnically cleansed, not so much...
The historical version is that Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, et. al., were forced into having Moscow friendly Communist governments imposed on them against their will. East Germany is a bit different in that the nation was occupied rather than returned to self-governance. West Germany was the same way at the time. Stalin simply would not tolerate having the countries of Eastern Europe run by anything less than puppet governments that kowtowed to Moscow.

Had the West imposed enough--let's say, 'arm twisting'--on Stalin to force free and open elections, Eastern Europe wouldn't have been communist at all. Instead, they'd have been Western-style social democracies of the sort the rest of Europe already had. They could have been neutral or some other arrangement to placate Stalin but their being open societies means they'd have recovered economically much faster.

It would also have put a buffer zone of neutral countries between the West and Soviet Union that neither controlled. It might well have prevented the Cold War from getting as bad as it did.
No one cared about Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania as they were only German allies and deserved what they got .
FDR did not care about Poland and CZ as the inhabitants of these countries could not vote against him .
No one protested when Poland became a Soviet puppet.
The only exception was CZ and even this case was much exaggerated .
The reality was that if the Soviets did not occupy Eastern Europe,the Wallies ( US and UK ) should have done it .And this was impossible : Britain was broken and the US public opinion wanted only one thing : the boys had to go home .In 1948 there were 2 US divisions in Europe.How many would be needed to occupy Eastern Europe and the Balkans ?
US was better without Eastern Europe .

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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#14

Post by Peter89 » 23 Apr 2022, 19:15

ljadw wrote:
23 Apr 2022, 07:59
T. A. Gardner wrote:
20 Apr 2022, 18:56
Sludge Factory wrote:
20 Apr 2022, 11:43
I would actually say that reducing/avoiding the amount of land changing hands (and thus the number of people expelled) was more important than enforcing democracy in Eastern Europe. Democracy can always be gotten back at a later date. Lands that have been ethnically cleansed, not so much...
The historical version is that Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, et. al., were forced into having Moscow friendly Communist governments imposed on them against their will. East Germany is a bit different in that the nation was occupied rather than returned to self-governance. West Germany was the same way at the time. Stalin simply would not tolerate having the countries of Eastern Europe run by anything less than puppet governments that kowtowed to Moscow.

Had the West imposed enough--let's say, 'arm twisting'--on Stalin to force free and open elections, Eastern Europe wouldn't have been communist at all. Instead, they'd have been Western-style social democracies of the sort the rest of Europe already had. They could have been neutral or some other arrangement to placate Stalin but their being open societies means they'd have recovered economically much faster.

It would also have put a buffer zone of neutral countries between the West and Soviet Union that neither controlled. It might well have prevented the Cold War from getting as bad as it did.
No one cared about Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania as they were only German allies and deserved what they got .
FDR did not care about Poland and CZ as the inhabitants of these countries could not vote against him .
No one protested when Poland became a Soviet puppet.
The only exception was CZ and even this case was much exaggerated .
The reality was that if the Soviets did not occupy Eastern Europe,the Wallies ( US and UK ) should have done it .And this was impossible : Britain was broken and the US public opinion wanted only one thing : the boys had to go home .In 1948 there were 2 US divisions in Europe.How many would be needed to occupy Eastern Europe and the Balkans ?
US was better without Eastern Europe .
The difference is that US/Britain/France didn't need to station troops in Eastern Europe to extend their influence there. Exercising power via sheer violence is not their way of ruling; they abandoned the colonies as well. The rationale here was simple: nobody wanted to continue the war or another war for Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, etc. These countries did not have a key strategic position either, so that's that.
"Everything remained theory and hypothesis. On paper, in his plans, in his head, he juggled with Geschwaders and Divisions, while in reality there were really only makeshift squadrons at his disposal."

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Re: Could the Western Allies have gotten a better border deal in exchange for other concessions to Stalin?

#15

Post by Steve » 24 Apr 2022, 15:59

Britain and the USA opposed the Polish border running along the Western Neisse they also opposed the inclusion of Stettin in Poland. It was agreed at Yalta that “the final delimitation of the Western frontier of Poland should therefore await the Peace Conference.” After Soviet occupation of the territories Stalin ignored the British and US objections. Poland would be a lot smaller today if Churchill and Roosevelt had had their way.

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