"What if??" A thread for people who like to speculate

[Kat Stevens]

How about, invasion goes ahead, later than planned, but in the south of France, possibly after the Italians are completely out of the equation.  Stalin sees an opportunity to be the treacherous prick he was as more and more German forces are committed to stemming the invasion, and drives hard into the German heartland, possibly overrunning Berlin and most of the northern cities due to the lack of depth defence. Instead of an East/West dividing line, we end up with a North/Southdividing line, with the soviets posing a direct threat to a severely depleted U.K.

 

[MilEME09]

How about, invasion goes ahead, later than planned, but in the south of France, possibly after the Italians are completely out of the equation.  Stalin sees an opportunity to be the treacherous prick he was as more and more German forces are committed to stemming the invasion, and drives hard into the German heartland, possibly overrunning Berlin and most of the northern cities due to the lack of depth defence. Instead of an East/West dividing line, we end up with a North/Southdividing line, with the soviets posing a direct threat to a severely depleted U.K.

So basically you are saying Overlord doesn't happen or fails, but Operation Dragoon (the invasion of southern France which took place on August 15th 1944) does go ahead. The problem with that line of thinking I have is allied commanders like Montgomery would advocate hard to drive into Germany. I would predict Dragoon would be more at that point to relieve pressure and draw German Divisions off the Italian lines. Meanwhile a major allied offensive would push for the Austrian alps, with the strategic objective of Munich, and possibly branching out to Vienna.