I want to create an alternate history novel that aims to challenge the common belief that a Nazi victory was always impossible and depict the grim reality of a world under Nazi rule, even for so-called "Aryan" Germans, as well as the danger of isolationism and allowing evil to flourish unchecked.
However, it is necessary for me to come up with a realistic way in which the Nazis could have won the war with as little change to the actual timeline as possible. When asked how the Nazis could've won WWII, a common snarky answer is "by not being Nazis, lol." However, I believe there was still a way the Nazis could've won WWI without abandoning any of their evil, twisted principles.
Before the Nazis began slaughtering them en masse, many Slavs in Eastern Europe initially welcomed and embraced Nazi occupation, perceiving it as a liberation from the oppressive and brutal rule of the USSR. As soon as it became clear the Nazis were going to be more hostile towards them than the Soviets, many had no choice but to support the Soviet cause. These Slavs could have worked and served in the German war machine, and many of them still did. Somewhere between 1 and 3 million Soviets served with the Germans against the USSR, despite a lack of official policy, sanction, or even, in many cases, proper equipment (let alone respect from most German soldiers), not to mention Nazi persecution and mass murder of many of them.
But let’s say that instead of immediately sending many Slavs to concentration camps and slaughtering them en masse, the Nazis first implemented a policy of systematically tricking all the Slavs, portraying themselves as liberators from the USSR and using them in their fight against the Soviets only to stab them in the back and murder them after winning the war. The Nazis viewed Slavs as subhumans who deserved to be enslaved and exterminated by the German Master Race, so in this scenario, the Nazis would still implement Generalplan Ost and enslave and exterminate groups of Eastern Europeans with a large population count such as Slavs, but only after winning the war. Unlike many other alternate history plots about the Nazi victory, this one is realistic and does not require the Nazis to “not be Nazis.” In fact, many members of Hitler’s staff, such as General Jodl, suggested following a “liberation” script to allow the incorporation of a significantly larger number of Slavs/Soviets in the fight against the USSR. In this scenario, the Germans would have:
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At least several hundreds of thousands of former Soviet soldiers with them
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More equipment and clothing suitable for Russian winter
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No worries about retaliatory actions
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A pipeline of future soldiers to compensate for rising German casualties
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A fully supportive labor force along their supply lines
In this scenario, it is fair to say that Operation Barbarossa could have ended with a different victor.
Just to be clear, in this alternate scenario, Nazi genocide of the groups they hated the most (i.e. Jews and Roma) would still occur during the war. For the Nazis, annihilating the Jewish race was just as important as winning the war, and any alternate history scenario in which they waited until after the war to accomplish one of their main objectives is highly unrealistic. Besides, it's a myth that the Jewish Holocaust alone significantly hindered Nazi war efforts: Jews comprised a tiny fraction of the overall population of conquered territories, and the Holocaust was extremely profitable, with extermination camps being operated at the lowest cost possible and
Could this singular strategic shift have been sufficient for a German triumph in WWII?
And if this alteration alone wouldn't ensure victory, what additional minimal change might have tipped the scales in Germany's favor, while staying as close to the actual historical timeline as possible?
