What single change would have given the best chance for the Axis to win World War 2?
A common topic in alternate history fiction works is the question what would have happened if a major war had been won by the other side. These usually focus on the events after the war, and the change itself is not depicted in a realistic way: it's either not discussed, or attributed to a superweapon or deus ex machina.
I know that WW2 was a very complex war, with a huge number of social and economic factors in it so that there was no single realistic "miracle" which would have guaranteed a certain different outcome, therefore I list a number of disclaimers, in order to make this question fit into the topic of this site.
It doesn't have to guarantee an Axis victory, but it has to significantly increase its probability.
A victory doesn't necessarily mean global domination (which neither power had any realistic chance of achieving). If Germany ends up in control over most of Eastern Europe (like the Soviets ended up doing in real life after the war), with a Soviet Union unwilling to fight, and with a peace treaty with the western Allies at least slightly favorable to Germany, it would count as a victory for Germany.
The change has to be a single event, or a collection of tightly coupled and interdependent events. It has to happen either during the war, or not more than a few years before it. The war should, at least in the beginning, look very similar to what happened in real life: the alliances should be roughly the same, the events like the conquest of Poland, the occupation of France, an attack against the Soviet Union, and a naval war between the USA and Japan should occur (or at least begin), even if at different dates or different order. The major participants should be the same.
The change should have a realistic justification (so no secret nazi superlaser), I would think in the following changes: events progressing slightly faster or slightly slower than in real life, a single large battle or series of interconnected battles won by the opposite side (if that had even a small chance of happening)
I'm thinking along the lines of Germany and its allies advancing faster against the Soviets and crushing them before they had any chance of putting up a good defense, or Hitler not antagonizing scientists so they could develop even better equipment or maybe even a nuclear bomb, or Japan winning the battle of Midway and keeping the USA from entering the European theater, or a different sequence of diplomatic events leading a peace on one front which in turn could lead to a victory on the other front, etc.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/30758. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Assassinate Hitler
In 1941, mid war, Hitler is assassinated with the hope that this would weaken the German top ranks, cause infighting, hurt morale, and bring a faster end to the war.
Instead Erich von Manstein is able to seize control quickly and stop the march against Russia. Using this as a way to open ceasefire talks, they are able to avoid having to fight on as many fronts, directing more forces against England and the allies.
The "martyrdom" of Hitler also doesn't hurt morale as hoped, but give the German soldiers something to rally behind.
This gives them time to dig in, which brings the allies to the negotiation table to work out an end to the war.
Score: draw (but not a loss, satisfying bullet point 2).
Edit: After a bit more reading, it's possible, even likely, that Germany would still have attacked Russia if Hitler was killed in 1941, but some historians believe that it would have been successful (as it very nearly was) if Hitler had listened to his generals and focused Moscow first, instead of trying for the oil fields first.
Continued: (disclamer, I got a lot of what follows here if you want to skip to the source)
tl;dr: Why might they attack Russia? They needed oil. Their choices were to attack the British in Egypt on the way to the middle east, or attack Russia. Russia was the stronger of the two, and was massing troops along the border. The theory was that Russia could attack in the summer of 42, so they decided to attack first, before Russia was ready. And Russia was not ready at all. Despite Having a bigger army, they had poor leadership (Stalin killed a lot of the best officers), poor communication, and poor training.
Germany had victory after victory in Russia, capturing or killing millions of Russian soldiers. They got within 20 miles of Moscow before winter. They just couldn't push that last little bit.
The reason is that Hitler wanted to take the oil fields first, depriving the Russians of the resources, while the generals want to take Moscow first in order to remove the Russian leadership, and they could only put their main power behind one. Half way through Hitler decided the generals plan was better, but it was to late, and they didn't make it before winter. Russia was able to bring in more troops and push them back, hurting them badly.
Without Hitler the generals would have put the main push against Moscow and probably would have been able to take it by September.
Edit 2
Since comments were moved to chat, there have been some good comments about Germany attacking Russia that improve the answer
Mints97
just my couple of cents here: taking Moscow may not have necessarily meant taking Russia. Napoleon took Moscow, but he was as far from conquering Russia as he was when he started his invasion...
Agreed, and that's specifically why Hitler didn't want to focus on Moscow. He wanted to avoid the mistake that Napoleon made, and go after the resources first. For some reason his military leaders thought that Moscow was important, and managed to convince him to switch. Maybe it would have been better to stick to his original plan, or maybe they had information I don't know about.
I remember reading that the communist Russian army under Stalin was not very good at taking initiative, since he killed all the independent thinking ones that might try to take over. It wasn't the same Russia that Napoleon invaded.
It's possible that with the government gone that the army would have just folded up. Or maybe not. Another what-if.
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