What if Germany never invaded Russia? No Operation Barbarossa, no Eastern Front, no Stalingrad. I ran this World War 2 what-if a million times to see who attacks first: Hitler or Stalin.

Then I follow one alternate history war, where Germany gets almost everything you've heard it needed: Malta, the Suez Canal, Iraq and a road through Turkey, all without one soldier in the Soviet Union. This is WW2 history asking a real question, built on sources: what could still have beaten Germany if the Red Army never had to?

The short answer: in most wars Germany goes east anyway, and that part is my assumption. Germany ends up holding Europe in 1.33 wars out of 100, most of those after an armistice with Stalin, and that's a terrible outcome, not a win. Every odd in the model is my judgment, written down with what informed it.

Think I've got it wrong? Run the war yourself, change the odds and read every source: https://realitymargin.github.io/no-barbarossa/

Chapters
0:00 One signature, one train
2:01 1941: the admiral's war
5:30 1942: the first date
7:51 The sea, the sky and Spain
9:23 Everything you asked for
12:07 1945: nobody can finish it
14:09 The clock
15:51 The title, straight
18:23 How it ends

Main sources: Fuehrer Conferences on Naval Affairs; Halder's War Journal; Germany and the Second World War (the German official history), vols 3 and 6; Tooze, The Wages of Destruction; Kershaw, Fateful Choices; Glantz; Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle; Harrison, The Economics of World War II; Jones, Manhattan: The Army and the Atomic Bomb; Hansard. The full list, line by line, is on the page above.

Who do you think attacks first? Tell me in the comments, and tell me what you got if ywou changed Malta.

#ww2 #whatif #alternatehistory