Europe Winnable Without United States?

[Moetron 9000]

Let me begin by saying that, yes, I am aware that the vast majority of military manpower and materiel was used and spent on the Eastern front, and that, by comparison, what the United States did in North Africa, Western Europe, and Italy was relatively small to the efforts that the Soviets put in.

That being established, what would the war in Europe look like if the United States either never entered WWII, or only entered into the war against Japan? My title is a question because I'm genuinely not sure as to whether or not the war in Europe would have been winnable by the combined Western and Soviet forces without the actual, more-than-just-supplies support of the United States. Did the Soviets desperately need the opening of an Italian and French front to bring pressure off of the East? Would they eventually have collapsed if not for Overlord, Avalanche, and other such Western Front operations? Or could they have slogged their way to Berlin and, eventually, the rest of the continent, albeit with far higher casualties? Could the British have performed any meaningful amphibious invasion of the Continent on their own? Not necessarily in France, but maybe in Scandinavia or Italy?

Bonus question: If America did not even provide supply and material support to the European Allied forces, what would the prognosis for Continental Europe be in that case? No lend-lease, no destroyers-for-bases, no arsenal of democracy, nothing.

 

[Mitchell Hundred]

With no American material support absolutely not.

With just no American military presence would a Europe that was in the cusp of Hitler's rule replaced potentially by Stalin's have been truly a Europe won?

 

[DrakonFin]

With just no American military presence would a Europe that was in the cusp of Hitler's rule replaced potentially by Stalin's have been truly a Europe won?

Compared to a Nazi victory, yes.

And then after such a Soviet victory the USSR would have likely been so bloodied and overextended that its continued grasp of Europe past the early 50s and Stalin's death might have been questionable. Maybe TTL's *de-Stalinization would be a Europe-wide protest movement that breaks the Soviet control of Europe?

 

[RodentRevolution]

Compared to a Nazi victory, yes.

And then after such a Soviet victory the USSR would have likely been so bloodied and oerextended that its continued grasp of Europe past the early 50s and Stalin's death might have been questionable. Maybe TTL's *de-Stalinization would be a Europe-wide protest movement that breaks the Soviet control of Europe?

Would the Soviets even be interested in the whole Europe? I think your point about the blood letting on the Soviet side is well made but perhaps does not go far enough. The nations fated to the be the Warsaw Pact were seen as a necessary buffer zone but beyond you get the whole over-extension problem without much gain. It is entirely possible that the British while being seen as strong enough to defend the ocean would be seen as entirely too weak to challenge on the continent. Germany will have been bled dry by its own masters and subsequently flattened, formerly occupied Europe with equally be in an even more parlous and denuded state than OTL and the USA are weird isolationists far away.

It would probably be a grimmer outcome for many than OTL but it is not for certain that it would be a Stalinist dystopia either.

 

[Mitchell Hundred]

Compared to a Nazi victory, yes.

And then after such a Soviet victory the USSR would have likely been so bloodied and overextended that its continued grasp of Europe past the early 50s and Stalin's death might have been questionable. Maybe TTL's *de-Stalinization would be a Europe-wide protest movement that breaks the Soviet control of Europe?

I'm not quite convinced the Soviet's on their own militarily would have had enough to achieve a total victory over the Germans. At some point with the losses mounting they'd have likely sue for a negotiated peace (or perhaps with Germany initiating the attempted peace) and you would have likely had a Europe then divided between Hitler and Stalin, laying the ground-work for maybe another world war at some later point.

 

[twistedirregular]

What effects could this have on Africa and Asia?

 

[RightHoJeeves]

Without the United States would the British be capable of completely wrecking the Nazi war economy the way the United States Army Air Forces did? If not then while the Soviets would eventually expel the Nazis from their territory they're going to have a hard time pressing the attack into western Poland and Germany proper if German industry isn't already a pile of ruin due to Allied bombing.