What Stalin’s real intentions were, I don’t know — whether he wanted to move toward the Dardanelles, or to attack Germany. If we had granted Russia’s demands, we might have had her join with us in a four-power pact, replacing the Three-Power Pact. I did not want to attack Russia. I wanted to carry out the Gibraltar plan, and I also did not want to see my Luftwaffe split between the Eastern and Western fronts. Russia was developing a position completely and finally contradictory to the interests of the British.
>>18536979Carl Schmidt actually thought something similar to this. He got really upset when the news broke about Barbarossa.
Barbarossa was decided on despite the objections of the diplomats that actually worked with the Soviets at the time. The pact of four powers had a non-zero chance of becoming a thing. The Soviets were deeply invested in becoming part of the forming new world order.
The idea of nazis and communists actually joining together is retard level fanfic
>>18536979Stalin's demands were Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Hitler was obviously never going to grant that since it would make Germany entirely oil-reliant on Russia. Even ignoring NSDAP racial theory of Slavic untermensch and Jewish Bolshevism, a long term German-Soviet alliance is absurd on its face
>>18537485>Stalin's demands wereNegotiable. The thing is Hitler decided against any further talks and signed the Barbarossa instead. This was far from a unanimous opinion within the government. Both sides had enough strategic reasons to be pushed towards each other by that point.Hitler, Halder, etc. just genuinely thought that settling the dispute militarily would be an easier solution, which was validated by the power disparity demonstrated in the Winter war and the Battle of France.At most, you could argue that any sorts of agreements with NSDAP were moot, because of internal factionalism leading to extremely volatile decision-making, but ideology rarely hinders strategic benefits.
>>18537507>Negotiable.Not really, since by 1940, the Soviets held the winning position. Keep in mind Germany was still locked in a war with Britain that increasingly the Americans were playing a hand behind. The USSR was at war with no one and free to choose whether it wanted Germany or Anglo-America as its ally. In these circumstances, Germany is forced to either accept Soviet terms or prepare for war against them. Since Germany was unwilling to give up Romania or Bulgaria, it became inevitable Stalin would seek this sphere of influence from the Western powers instead, which indeed he did several years later in the Percentages Agreement. >Hitler decided against any further talksBecause he knew his only chance at victory was a surprise attack. The more he 'negotiated,' the more obvious it would be that such an attack was coming
>>18537507Simple geography dictates that Russia and the Anglosphere would have eventually seen one another as allies against a German-dominated Europe. Russia has all of South-Eastern Europe to gain by being an Anglo ally and almost nothing to gain by being a German ally.
>>18537478They are Slavic-in-armhttp://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx1fG83QjjH769EfF35vp_8jUCmuKy7rbw
