>>>>Since you're lacking in historical perspective, here's some help. A map of Europe in 1944 at the invasion of Normandy:
>>>>http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/citizensoldier/conflicts/WWIIeto/images/europomap.gif
>>>>
>>>>Germany owned all of Europe, and would have continued to do so if the US had not entered the war. I didn't say no one else contributed, but the US was the deciding factor.
>>>>
>>>to the embolded part:
>>>the US entering was the deciding factor to divide germany via the iron curtain into 85 %west and 15% east -
>>>largely measured by ground occupied at cease fire time and #/power of troops in germany -
>>>and then exchange a lot of ground for Berlin.
>>>
>>>Now just as a SWAG: without the US entering odds were IMO:
>>>01-03% of germany keeping as much ground as your map showed (needs major advance somewhere)
>>>25-33% of germany getting a cease fire with the red army somewhere along the lines first agreed upon with Stalin
>>>40-50% of most of germany becoming a vassal of UDSSR and countries west of it staying half-neutral at first
>>>15-25% of countries west of germany becoming a vassal of the UdSSR same as all of germany as well.
>>>
>>>Charles ? Jos ? your take on such a scenario ?
>>
>>I'm not much for odds or percentages. US (unbombed) manufacturing capability was certainly a big factor for both Britain and the USSR. American Air power became a big factor from 43 on. Manpower was a factor for D Day and actually logistics was as big a contribution as anything.
>>
>>Technology played a big part and that was a lot of Brit -Bletchley Park, Britain's superior intelligence organization that taught OSS, radar.
>>
>>Without what Britain accomplished (with material US aid but with Brit and Empire pilots and some Polish and US vols) in making Sea Lion unattractive was a very very big deal, since it led to Barbarossa and Hitler turning toward Russia and kept Churchill's big aircraft carrier in place for opening a wester front in 44.
>>
>>Ground troops and armor it was USSR all the way. Best tanks in the war, most grounds troops ever assembled. A willingness to take casualties only possible with the guiding hand of Stalin and NKVD squads to shoot deserters.
>>
>>Once Hitler committed to 2 fronts he lost the war.
>>
>>Even if Germany had not had to fight on 2 fronts, as long as USSR could have kept supplied through Murmansk and kept the oil fields Germany could hope for an eastern front stalemate at best but no long term stability. If one of the airstrikes had taken out Churchill and Halifax and his crowd prevailed a separate piece would have been possible. For that matter if Edward VIII had not abdicated 1939 may have played out very differently. France could have been managed. At some point resistance there and in Holland, Benlux etc would have be manageable.
>>
>>There was always the Joe Kennedy - Lindberg crowed in the US that could have lived with a German Europe - especially if it was in a death struggle with Stalin.
>>
>>Hitler being truly crazy was the best allie the allies had. Most other factors were very much in play.
>>
>>History is tricky. Few things are inevitable. Something as big as WWI - WWII - Cold War ( the same war in 3 acts with weird intermission after act one) has a lot of what ifs.
>>
>>There is some great Alternate History fiction on this subject.
>>
>>The Man in the HIgh Castle (Phillip K Dick)
>>SS/GB (Len Deighton)
>>Farthing (Jo Walton)
>>Ha'penny (Jo Walton)
>>Fatherland (Robert Harris)
>>
>>are my favorites.
>
>Even with a death toll of 23,400,000, (almost 14% of its population) I suspect the USSR would not have given up partly, if not mostly, due to Operation Barbarossa it would likely have gone on until the last man was standing. Many would disagree such as Hubert P. Van Tuyll in Feeding the Bear.

Of course USSR would/could never have been "conquered". You can occupy Holland or Belgium or maybe even Poland. But there weren't enough Germans in all Germany to occupy even Russia, let alone Ukraine and all to the East, even if they had pulled every soldier from the Western front and occupied Europe.

And the behavior of the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front quickly turned those who saw them as liberators into enemies.

Even the mistakes of a criminal bungler like Stalin weren't enough to offset the even more criminal bungles of Hitler.

The Russians could have lost Ukraine easily, but I agree they would have never given up Russia. Stalin may have removed himself to someplace in the mountains in Georgia and Beria would have probably gone over to the Germans if it suite him, but Zhukov etc would have been very tough to defeat.