Hitler's plan had he conquered Russia.

The main aim of the war in the East for the Nazis was the concept of Lebensraum, or "Living Space". The idea was to ethnically cleanse Eastern Europe and Russia of its native populations and install pure-blood German/Aryan/Nazi "planters" on these lands. To have the space and natural resources to create the Nazi "Master Race", the land and resources of Eastern Europe and Russia were needed. This was the ultimate aim of Operation: Barbarossa.

Secondary to this ultimate aim of Lebensraum, other aims would have come into play, either directly or indirectly, as a result of this victory in Russia.

-Turning the war effort onto Britain and other Western Allies. Had Barbarossa succeeded, it is quite probable that with the increased resources, that Operation: Sealion (the Nazi invasion of Great Britain) could and would have proceeded.

-Turning war effort towards China and the Far East to assist the Japanese Empire in her expansionist efforts.

-The ultimate stage of the Holocaust would have become a grim reality; millions upon millions of Russians, Slavs, communists, Jews, etc. would have been herded into the dozens of new concentration/death camps that would have surely been built by the Nazis in their new empire.

-Africa, the Middle East and areas like modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan would have fallen to the Nazis. Particularly the oil fields of Azerbaijan near Baku. These oil fields were the primary target of the Nazis during their Southern advances through Russia (that culminated in the Battle of Stalingrad). Had the Nazis succeeded at Stalingrad, the oil fields of Asia would have fallen into their hands. This would have led to the supply of awesomely huge amounts of oil to the Nazi War Machine and would have led to a massive shortage to the rest of the world.

Basically, the Nazis, had they defeated the Soviet Union, would have swept all before them (in Europe, at least). The possibility would be that the Nazis would be absolutely undefeatable at this point and the United States (possibly without the support of the UK) would negotiate a peace, rather than risk getting destroyed by the powerful Nazis (who would now control Eurasia and all of its peoples and resources).

The new Cold War would be between the Nazis and their allies, and the United States and her allies.

Snickers Man wrote: »

You've read Fatherland by Robert Harris, then?

What would have given that away?!

The United States would never have dropped an atomic weapon upon Europe, even in the face of the Nazi war machine.

This is down to surely the chance of American casualties from the nuclear weapons, but also down to racism. The Americans viewed the Nazis as undoubtedly savage and brutal, but as human. Their views of the Japanese were much more racist and xenophobic. They viewed the Japanese as little more than vermin. An American military commander in the Pacific Theatre urged his troops onwards to "... kill the yellow monkeys" and to "... go out and get some more monkey meat".

The use of an experimental weapon that nobody knew exactly how destructive it was would not have been used against an enemy that was seen as human (added the chance of American, Allied and Soviet casualties should an atom bomb have been dropped on Europe). However, in the eyes of the American military and the American leaders, the Japanese were not human, and the use of such a weapon upon them was acceptable and mattered not.

There was also the theory that the bombs were used on Japan merely as a chance for the Americans to flex their military muscle in the face of the Soviets and so on. But who really knows. But the fact is that barring an unbelievable set of circumstances, the USA never intended or wanted to use an atomic weapon upon the Germans.