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What If? : The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been

Failure on D Day would not have spared Hitler the problems of a two-front war, because of the Allied forces still intact in Britain, always posing a threat. Still, he would have been free to transfer at least some of his army in France to his Eastern front. Perhaps more important, he could have used the D Day failure to split the strange alliance of West and East. How hard would it have been for Goebbels and the Nazi propaganda machine to convince Stalin that the capitalists were ready to fight to the last Russian? It is not inconceivable that Hitler and Stalin would have groped their way back to 1939, when they were partners, and reinstated the Nazi-Soviet pact. It is also possible that Stalin might have overrun Germany, then France, and the war in Europe would have ended the Communists in control of the continent. The Red Army would have been on the English Channel. It is hard to imagine a worse outcome.

With the mounting Soviet threat and Operation Dragoon stalled in the South of France, Britain and the United States would have increased the severity of the bombing raids over Germany. A climax would have come late in the summer of 1945, with atomic bombs exploding over German cities. What a finish that would have been.

Today's passage comes from a collection of essays on what might have happened if history didn't happen the way it did. If you read What If? : The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been make sure to flip to the short story: Thanks, but no cigar by David Clay Large.

The passage is taken from an essay called 'What if the D Day had failed?' by Stephen E. Ambrose.