For Nazi Germany to successfully occupy a nation, the people do not need to be in favor of Nazism. They just need to be in favor of staying alive.
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I think the obvious answer is that, if the Germans succeed at Operation Sealion, the Americans concentrate their troops in Minas Tirith, because we're clearly in fantasyland.
I think way before invading England Germany needed a plan to do so which was carried out industrially and through doctrine. No alteration is too fantastic to rationalize.
They just... don't know how the Germans used to deal with the locals which appeared not to be enough polite
And this why the Germans have a problem. The Irish. While there has been some traditional animosity between the Irish and the English (to put it mildly) there has also been massive communication, population movement and links between the peoples of the British Isles. How long after some uncooperative London Irish start getting shot in the street before the Irish (secretly if they are not idiots) open their ports and airfields to the American and British governments. Indeed, the British retained legal right to use several ports as part of the agreement establishing Eire. Once the Americans have a base in Ireland they can interdict supply to Britain with ease, and the German occupation is no longer sustainable.
It’s certainly a possibility, and Ireland and America have always had strong relations (and even more so under a Democratic Party president who has the Irish as a key constituency). Britain and Ireland had a more nuanced relationship. For instance, Ireland didn’t allow Britain use of the treaty ports in question even though it was technically obliged to (a lot of Ireland’s path to full independence involved situations like this). Although I wonder if Ireland moves to occupy Northern Ireland as Britain is falling (or even gets offered it by Germany) possibly souring relations (UK might not have much say by this point though).
I can't see it. Ireland is a tiny country populationwise and at that time is very poor. The idea they are going to violate their neutrality just after the last obstacle to German domination to Europe collapsed is ludicrous, especially to the British government. The Germans would invade and swallow them up. A handful of London Irish getting shot in the streets isn't much different to London Irish getting killed in the blitz.
I don't know that the Free State would have tried to occupy Northern Ireland. The country was dirt poor at the time and recovering from its civil war. The last thing they needed was conflict with loyalists. Now the IRA had links to the Nazis and so it would hardly have been difficult to find willing collaborators for a German occupied Northern Ireland that was essentially run by Irish republicans. This micro-state would undoubtedly have had links to the Free State and I can imagine that if the Germans really wanted something from the Irish then they would have offered to the Free State. But what the Germans would have wanted from the Irish I really don't know and as I said the ability of the Irish to control Northern Ireland is in doubt.
The smell of blood travels far. Short term gains can lead to long term problems.
Their exact philosophy of occupation was the first pincer would be immediate seizure of the banks, the money flow, and the industrial leadership - people fell in line or thier jobs and money would melt and true misery would begin. That was always priority one in any occupation - control the banks under Nazi leadership and funnel the monetary stream into Party accounts controlled by Bormann while integrating the institutions into the IG Farben banking network design. Thus were the webs of the spider spun.
The second Pincer was Hedyrich, Mueller, and 'Night and Fog'. No one comes out of a Gestapo basement unchanged, or untouched by the visit of an Einsatzgruppen.
The same principles apply when Die Spinne and the Kameradenwerk take this show on the road to South America and 'Night and Fog' morphs into the 'Disappeared' and Einsatzgruppen are rebranded 'Caravans of Death'.
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For the Nazi Germany security apparatus, murder is both the short- and the long-term-solution.
I am not quite sure if everybody here fully understands the sheer ruthlessness of Nazi occupation methods. OTHER evil empires had no qualms about sinking to new depths of depravity, Nazi Germany eagerly employed heavy industrial equipment to find new lows. Since we are talking about Britain, is there some Dr. Who episode where the Daleks are defeated by some plucky resistance group?
I am well aware, and have written extensively, about the Nazi penchant for murder. I am not the one you need to convince.
Long-term nuisance. Germany had to deal with resistance / partisans pretty much everywhere. At the same time these fighters, brave as they might have been, were never going to liberate their respective countries without outside help.
If Britain falls then the war in the West is over. There may be continued resistance but it is doomed to fail. The Americans are too far away and Ireland is too vulnerable to allow itself to be a staging post for an American invasion.
If the Soviets aren't able to conjure up a miracle in the East then the Germans will have won and there is nothing that can be done about it.
Some nuance should perhaps be injected here, as people seem to assume that, in HOI terms, The Third Reich had one and only one occupation policy.
Imagine that broadly speaking this breaks down into "relatively benign so long as you are not Jewish or gay" and "horrific". And only those countries deemed racially worthy get the first policy. I also imagine that if there is too much reistance then the policy slider gets moved towards horrific. I don't think either way that the Germans would have much more than nuisance resistance to deal with.
Now I find myself in the role of the optimist. While dire, the US industrial-military complex was hugely powerful. While Germany probably could throw enough Luftwaffe assets to prevent a successful invasion at any one point, they would have needed to so at all points. The same problem they had historically, too much too cover. On the west end alone, Ireland & Scotland, Portugal and Morocco need to be covered. While simultaneously fighting in the Soviets in the east and whatever sideshow the US supplied British colonies can also open up.
Plus checking Google Maps, now, Färöer/Shetlands and Azores/Madeira would probably require a huge effort to even have a change to be held against the US, yet would provide the later with airbases too close for comfort.
I'm not an expert on World War Two but I think you are being a bit optimistic about the logisitics involved in moving massive flotillas / armies across the Atlantic. I think we forget how complex an operation d-day was. I'm sure that the USA could easily do this today but back then? Remember that the Germans had u-boats patrolling the Atlantic and would have air cover from British airbases. I don't think invading any islands anywhere near the UK would be a good idea.
Don't imagine that places such as the Shetlands are replete with resources. I don't know that they even have port that you could reasonably harbour a major warship.
True, but do not forget, be in the heart of Germany, or on the islands before Japan, the US forces were to my knowledge largely supplied from home, across the respective ocean. I know little about the US logistics, but for the reasons mentioned, I suspect them to be incredible.
As for the islands, I am not thinking resources, not even harbors, I am only wondering how many fighters they can house.
I don't think the Japanese had much in the way of submarines and the distances involved in the Pacific are vast (so air cover from Japan isn't always a factor). As long as you avoid the Japanese aircraft carriers, you are probably okay.
As for Germany, in the OTL, the USA had the royal navy as allies, and the Germans didn't have control over the seas around Britain. In this scenario, they start with naval / air bases in Britain (and of course the Faroes) and their u-boat fleets intact.