The wrong side won WW2.

submitted by radicalcentristNational Centrism from self.debatealtright

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[–]Bullet-Jesus 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Capturing the BEF at Dunkirk and forcing Churchill to negotiations would probably have been the best chance.

It probably would be the best chance but even then it is not likely. By the time Churchill was PM he had utterly united the British nation behind the war effort. The was no political will to call it quits then.

Even had the British been interested in talks, Hitler's word was extremely suspect by 1940, with Czechoslovakia and all that.

The next best chance would have been, if Japan had started a second front against the Soviet Union. In this scenario, Stalin would have had to split up his army. This might have been enough for the Axis to win some of the important battles.

This is a real longshot. By 41' Japan had no capacity to launch an invasion of the Soviet Union and after Khalkhin Gol likely wouldn't have won anyway.

The most significant thing the Japanese could have done is close the Pacific lend-lease route. However in '41 and '42 Allied lend-lease to the USSR was fairly limited and by the time it came into effect in significant amounts Germany had definitively lost the initiative in the East.

Theorising about ways for the Axis to win WW2 is possible but you often have to go further back than '39 or even '33, in order to create a believably chain of events that would lead to a German victory.