There is some irony in that although Hitler acted on a treaty obligation to Japan in declaring war on the US, Japan had previously freed itself from an unfortunate campaign against the Soviets by agreeing on a truce with the Soviets. In consequence of the truce, the Japanese took a path that necessitated attacking the US Navy thus unifying US public opinion and the Soviets were able to shift their Siberian divisions west to stop the Germans at Moscow.

While nifty in concept, there are some very real historical problems with both the idea of what the German Army would have looked like in 1943, and what the Soviets were up to in 1941. While the Tiger I (PzKw-e) was in development, the refining of its design; not to mention the development of the Panther; was predicated on the discovery of the "unknown" T-34. There is no reason to believe, short of engagement, that Germany would have learned of this weapon, and German armored vehicle development taken the path it did. Second; Soviet leadership caught on that it had meade some awful mistakes in the disbanding of the mechanized corps, and during 1941 was in the process of a major, substantial TOE shift to revive these units. The German generals knew this, and on top of the very daunting prospect of the sheer size of Western Russia, these continued evolutions; on a much larger numeric scale than thier own foces; would have made the Soviet Union a far more imposing task in 1943. On almost every aspect of weapons development, the Soviets were forging ahead. While combat experience is perishable, particular German weapons developments only occured because of the combat during the years 1941-'43. Given the German behavior in occupied lands, and their propensity for use of slave labor on even the most labor-intensive of production tasks (Tiger-I, Panther, Fw-190., et. al.), there's no good reason to believe the German military machine would have been in that better a position technologically or numerically to have assualted the Soviet Union in 1943 as opposed to 1941. And, as was put forth already, there was that little issue of AH being stupid and declaring war on the United States prematurely. All that said, I agree that it was of colossal stupidity that the Soviet Union was attacked when Britain lay undealt-with. Stoopid.

You make two excellent point that I'd considered and, of course, dismissed as they make untidy my otherwise brilliant hypothesis. I agree with you about both T-34 disclosure and operational and TO&E changes undertaken by the Red Army in the spring-early summer of 1941. Still, consider the possibility of a T-34/KV-1 disclosure (May Day Parade, spy, etc.). Given my two year window, it could've happened. More importantly, would the Wehrmacht, without a few whacks on the nose by the aforementioned tanks, have recognized the revolutionary design and radical impact that these weapons would possess such to spur development of the TIGER and PANTHER series (even the need for the L43/L48 75mm kwk/pak). I would hope so, however Wehrmacht institutional arrogance was at an all-time high in 1940-41. More interesting to me is your contention that institutional changes within the Red Army, coupled with the presence of these tanks, would have made impossible the 1941 successes impossible to achieve by 1943. Perhaps. Still, the Red Army's record of rapid dissemination of equipment, much less changes in operational manuever theory down to lower units was poor. Worse still was the ability of lower unit commanders to absorb these changes throughout the army. Any army of the size of the Red Army would always possess large numbers of junior/senior officers with the appropiate tactical/operational acumen. Those officers, especially at division downward were lost in the institutional miasma that infected the army, as a whole, until war was forced upon the Soviets. My original point, though, may still have merit, even assuming the failure to disclose the T-34, and significant, implemented changes to Soviet doctrine. How? My bet might be that the Wehrmacht, with a defeated England, might still win this fight. Further tank improvement by the Soviets may well not have occurred in the absence of a conflict between 1941-1943. Afterall, with no evidence that a T-34/76 wasn't pre-eminent, there'd be no need to develop a T-34/85. Thus deployment of TIGERS/PANTHERS & JS-1/2 and T-34/85 may not have occurred until 1945 (as example). Moreover, no England, no Murmansk or even Iran lend-lease, wouldn't you agree? We needed their tonnage, ports, and navy to execute lend-lease to the Soviets. I don't know. I've just always felt that England remained the key to a German victory in the east-much less the ultimately decisive inclusion of the U.S. into the European theatre. Again, impossible without our "unsinkable aircraft carrier".

I am cuirrently reading "The Devil's Disciples" by Anthony Read. It is an account of the top level of Hitler's lieutenants and their constant maneuverings against each other and for Hitler's approval. One of the impressions I gain from this book is that Operation Barbarossa was something Hitler vehemently insisted on and Operation Sea Lion was something he was never enthusiastic (or even serious) about. Every time I read about Nazi Germany, what ever the specific topic is, it almost always ends up centered around Hitler's Nietzschian "will to power". The central fact here is that Barbarossa happened in 1941 because Adolf Hitler insisted on it. Would it have been wiser to postpone it until after Hitler had conquered England? Very possibly. It would have doubled or tripled the cost of waging war in Europe for the Americans. England was our "unsinkable aircraft carrier" and the essential base for our amphibious assaults on the European mainland. Albert Speer said that he realized after the war that the allied strategic bombing campaign was the critical fact in the war. It wasn't that it actually destroyed Germany's manufacturing or its will to fight. Speer said it was critical because it forced Germany to devote a million of the highest quality men to man the air defence system, along with half their artillery and aircraft. What would Germany have done with another million men, plus twice the artillery and air support on the eastern front? Would we have been able to mount that air assault if we had to retake England first?

My comments were clearly around the evolution of armor vis-a-vis the Soviets and Nazi's. But there were other elements, or military specifics, that altered development. In 1941 the Soviets had two superior anti-armor guns embodied in a long caliber 57mm and a 107mm weapon. There are photographic examples of a T-34 unit armed with the 57mm weapon (destroyed, alas) outside of Leningrad. Why they abandonded further development of the 107mm weapon has yet to be adequately explained to me. There is no question that Stalin's spasmodic purges crippled the Soviet armed forces, and made them a far less effective force when the Germans struck in June of '41. By 1937 the Soviets demonstrated that they had an aircraft that could fly from Moscow to the continental US, and had several other advanced projects in the works. Also, the switch in emphasis from strategic long-range bombing aircraft to tactical strike aircraft beginning in 1935 had a profound affect on the German air force's ability to prosecute the war in Russia in 1941. Although attractive in terms of what-if, Germany simply lacked the technological skills to make the most of the resources it had available (in the "homeland" and captured territories) during the 1940-41 time frame prior to the invasion of Russia. You have a point that there is no logical reason to expect the Soviets would have continued with further developments of the T-34. The D-10 100mm gun was a better armor-penetrator than the 122mm; and came in cartrdige manner rather than two-piece; and the only explanation I was ever provided was the low manufacturing numbers of the D-10, relegating it to the SU-100. Another aspect is rocket arty; where the Germans and Soviets were both well along. The difference during war-time was the specific manufacture of rocket rounds by the Germans, and the use of quality-control failures for rocket warheads by the Soviets. The Germans were also able to make a working 75mm HEAT round, while by the summer of '43 the best the Soviets produced was a round that exploded halfway along the barrel length in their 76.2mm guns. One aspect you overloooked was that, with all of the additional territories gained had Germany waited would have been the increase in raw materials vital to the production of jet engines, fuels, and new armor-piercing ammunition. Also, the US would have really pressed ahead with a bomber that could strike Europe from CONUS bases. I say it's a dice roll, but I sure would enjoy gaming it out. One sci-fi aspect was S.M. Sterling's "Marching Through Georgia".

Although it is true Germany had a mutual defense treaty obligation with Japan, I wonder how influential on A.H's decision to declare war on the US would have been our Lend Lease agreement with the UK, our escorting convoys on our side of the Atlantic and our stationing of Marines on Iceland to free up British resources? Der Fuhrer could have believed the US was already waging war of sorts with him under the color neutrality and he could have desired to formalize what he may have believed was already going on. I am speculating that had the home island of the United Kingdom ceased to be a combatant by the time the US was attacked by an oil hungry Japan, Hitler may not have felt compelled to wage open war on the US. If he had not, then would US public opinion have allowed Roosevelt to declare war on the Germany and Italy? As I understand it, Japan attacked the US to secure its importation of oil from its to be newly conquered Indonesian possessions. Had Germany gained access to Middle East oil before that as well as before war with the USSR, Japan may have been able to get oil from the the Middle East without necessitating immediate war with the US. Germany might then have prevailed upon the Japanese to stay with a cooperative strategy against the USSR instead. So I think whether Germany would have benefited from concentrating on neutralizing the UK and delaying its attack on the USSR until 1943 or later should be seen as fairly conditional on how it used the opportunities thus made available to it in the meantime. It is a little ironic that Hitler's early run of external policy success up to the Battle of France seemed to follow a pattern of isolating his intended victim from the international community, giving a disarming argument to make a case for his aggression and persuasively protesting that he had no further aims after this(that was then, this is now). After France fell and the RAF handled the Luftwaffe he seems to have abandoned this pattern, perhaps out of hubris or perhaps because it ceased to be credible, and to have pursued a more direct (grand) strategy. Had Hitler stayed as close as he could have with his original formula he may have been able to have grown Germany's power enough before he attacked the USSR that he could have overwhelmed it.

My knowledge of pre-war Japanese strategic economic requirements is very limited, however I assume that the Japanese wished to secure far more than oil. A dismembered commonwealth would have invited Japanese aggression in Hong Kong, Singapore, and India!!!, as well as the certain jewels that the Dutch East Indies would have provided, regardless of whether Hitler could independently assure the Japanese of oil through the straits of malacca. You raise an interesting point about AH declaring war upon the United States. Making "formal", as well as expanding, an undeclared war in the Atlantic served no useful purpose to Germany that I can see. As badly as I believe that Roosevelt wanted our nation in a shooting war with Germany, our Navy's involvement was still quite limited by law, and would have withered were England to fall. With no declaration of war upon the United States by Germany and England prostrate and her colonies occupied?, Japan could attack the East Indies, Hong Kong, and Singapore while avoiding direct conflict with the U.S. in the Phillipines and Pearl Harbor, thus achieving many Japanese objectives while avoiding war with the U.S. Is the Soviet far east the next Japanese ambition, and could Hitler convince the Japanese to that effect?

Gentlemen. You are overlooking one basic fact. Hitler was constantly on the verge of bankruptcy: 1. The Nazi praty was saved by the political swing toward the small peasants and the promises to big industry. 2. Running the country he used money big time for orders to industry, but could not raise taxes, as that would make a workers revolte. So he started stealing from the jews; but they did not have anyway near the money he needed, so the circus was financed with 3 month promisory notes on the national bank. These were constantly renewed - untill the bankmanager refused to honour them any longer and resigned. 3. Ups problem! How to make money?? Earn it: NO WAY. Steal YES. So Adolf started annexing bits and pieces in Europe - untill Poland was to steep for even the French to swallow. The army and navy had constantly told him that they would not be ready for war untill 1944 at the earliest. 4. In feb 1940 Hitlers enters a trade agreement with Russia delivering raw materials for 18 months against a promise to deliver industrial goods to Russia within 27 months (a promise Hitler had neither the intention nor the ability to honour). The raw materials were used to conquer western Europe, but he had not time to invade England, as it could not be done in 1940, which meant the russian would get unrestive around summer 1941 due to non-delivery. Originally the pact with Japan was thought against Britain; but there is little doubt that Hitler inteded the Japanese to attack Russia - which the russian knew perfectly well the japaneese wouldn't - due to Richard Sorge - which meant the russians could thin out in the far east and send these divisions against Germany.

"...which meant the russian would get unrestive around summer 1941 due to non-delivery." Verge or not, he managed to bankroll a rather grand defeat. No small accomplishment!!! Still, as for Soviet restiveness, supply trains continued west to Germany literally up to June 22, 1941. Kalaloch throws some interesting monkey-wrenches into my scenario, arguing effectively that Soviet weapons dvlp. would have remained largely unknown to the Germans, thus negating the dvlp. of Tiger I and Panther during 1941-42 as a direct result of combat experiences with T-34 and KV1 tanks. This possibility, coupled with the continuing expansion of Soviet armored forces and their associated employment doctrines would have made for a different Barbarossa '43, as opposed to June, 1941. I've argued that the benefits gained by the defeat of England would have offset any equipment advantage, and doctrinal improvement within the Soviet forces, and only delayed the inevitable German reaction in the development of their own heavy armor. I've questioned the Soviet's ability to disseminate their doctrinal improvements and effectively exercise those changes throughout the Red Army in the two years of notional peace between 1941-1943 that this theory submits, suggesting that the purges had largely negated any Soviet ability to effectively implement these changes without the crucible of war to act as a catalyst for change. Neither points can be proved one way or the other, thus perfect for this kind of inperfect speculation.

Excatly my point. If Russia was to be attacked it would have to be in 1941 - before he ran out of supplies! Hitler thought he had Britain over a barrel and they would comply after the defeat of France! As Britain refuses to perform to his expectation - and as invasion in 1940 was unrealistic - that invasion could not be postponed til 1941 as the deliveries from Russia could not be expected to continue supplying after august 1941. And especially oil was not obtainable anywhere else! As Patton said: "My men can eat their belts; by my tanks gotta have gas!" True the scale of the bankrupcy was large, but the fraudulent technique Hitler used is simplicity itself: Pay one promisory note with another extending the time limit and increasing the amount. In itself it is not fraudulent, if the creditor has security - and this is why if you as a private person dishonours a promisory notes (at least in Denmark), the creditor has immediate access to all your assets. But entering into a promisory note, where you beforehand know you cannot honour it, that is fraudulent. The conclusion is that if Hitler had polished England of first, he would not have had the ability to attack Russia - at all! NO GAS. If Hitler had not attacked France and Britain, the build up of the British and French forces would have progressed to a point where a German defeat was certain - in the event the German effort wasn't good enough, as Britain could not/was not be invaded. I once made a comparative study of the RAF comparing Order of Battle in september 1939 and august 1940: The whole force composition had changed radically to the better. The point being: The declaration of war after the attack on Poland was very inconvinient to Hitler - and seen from a preparation point of view to early for the French and British. Against the allied Hitler had a window of opportunity, that in so far was wide enough; but not high enough, because Hitlers strength/technical advantage was not large enough to defeat France AND Britain. In short the technical kalaloch promoted is valid enough; but not regarding Russia. the Russian problem was supplies. That is called caught between a rock and a hard place!