Once Stalin came out of his depression and drinking binge over Hitler stabbing him the back, Stalin would have thrown every last man, women, and child at the German’s. We can’t be in his head of course, but it seems that considering that Staling learned the hard way an agreement with Hitler not worth the paper it was written on, he didn’t view surrender an option, and rightly so really. Hold the German’s off until winter arrives (what’s really saved the Russians historically) and grind the Germans down, etc. as they did. Even of they’d finally lost the large scale offensives, at huge costs to the Germans, it would have been one hell of an ongoing grinder and resource sucker. The Russians were many things, but they were not cheese eating surrender monkeys like the French. :stop:
In that context, I view Stalin as a constant. But, I’m not sure how the Allies viewed him at that point, so perhaps that’s how they hedged their bets he would not give up if they supplied enough stuff to allow them to turn it around and drive the German’s back finally.
“Churchill did not trust Stalin to keep his word about holding free elections in countries liberated from the Nazis by the Red Army. He believed it was Stalin’s intention to keep his troops in those countries and subject them to domination from Moscow, instead of Berlin, simply trading one absolute dictatorship for another.” and he was 100% correct and Stalin then murdered more of his own people than Hitler could imagine. F that guy.
As mentioned in the OP, various generals felt same, Patton, per usual, being the most vocal about it. Pushing the commies at least back to their own pre WWII borders may have made sense all things considered, but people were done with war and no doubt would have been a very un popular move. Coming back to the LLA:
“They would also benefit from removing the Allied assistance given to the USSR during World War II…”
Germany would have only cared that they punish those left alive in the former Soviet territories. There would be Germans in Ukraine and the westerns half of Russia. The former occupants, those deemed acceptable to live and work, would be relocated to the outer territories and governed by something like the Judenrat.
There would be a lot fewer Russians than you imagine to govern and the Germans would have set it up so that they were liquidating themselves. With a German victory the idea was to empty the new living space of ALL undesirables, keep those they deem suitable for labor as needed and then repopulate with Germans or others of aryan/nordic stock.
Not that I can really access, it’s at my mom’s house. If I find one, I’ll post. Sort of funny, but growing up there was an altimeter gauge from an American plane around the house that grandpa kept as a souvenir (hopefully not stolen from a functional plane). He died just before I was born, so I didn’t get any cool stories .