What if Germany was split up after WWI

The Allies split up Germany into 5 countries after WWI: West Prussia, East Prussia, Hessia, Saarland and Rheinland. What happens next?
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Well er um

Where's Bavaria in this ? Its by far the most likely to be spun off, well it and the Rhineland

Saarland as a separate country is intriguing

The problem with a name like 'West Prussia' is that it just doesn't work - its Polish for a start, and you would be beter with a rump Germany

Grey Wolf
 
Grey Wolf said:
Well er um

Where's Bavaria in this ? Its by far the most likely to be spun off, well it and the Rhineland

Saarland as a separate country is intriguing

The problem with a name like 'West Prussia' is that it just doesn't work - its Polish for a start, and you would be beter with a rump Germany

Grey Wolf
Make it 6 then, and make it Bavaria. You can split any political unit in two. The Allies do this to keep the Germans weak of course.
 

corourke

Donor
To do this, you would somehow have to prevent Wilson from drawing up his Fourteen Points. We have two options, a) no American involvement in the Great War or b) no Wilson (perhaps Roosevelt).

The main reason that Germany was not divided up (France was strongly in favor of this) is that Britain strongly embraced Wilson's ideals of self-determination & collective security, and dividing Germany up violated the principle of self-determination.

If we have the attacks on Verdun in February and April 1917 utterly fail, a German collapse could be possible providing we have the allies (lacking America) pursue the breakthrough. If Germany surrenders before America has a chance to enter the war, Germany could easily have been divided up into several states. I see a Bavaria, a Rhineland, a french-dominated southwestern state (Baden or Wurttemburg) and a rump Prussia bumping up against a smallish Poland in the east (depending on how the Russians are doing).
 
Conor O'Rourke said:
To do this, you would somehow have to prevent Wilson from drawing up his Fourteen Points. We have two options, a) no American involvement in the Great War or b) no Wilson (perhaps Roosevelt).

The main reason that Germany was not divided up (France was strongly in favor of this) is that Britain strongly embraced Wilson's ideals of self-determination & collective security, and dividing Germany up violated the principle of self-determination.

If we have the attacks on Verdun in February and April 1917 utterly fail, a German collapse could be possible providing we have the allies (lacking America) pursue the breakthrough. If Germany surrenders before America has a chance to enter the war, Germany could easily have been divided up into several states. I see a Bavaria, a Rhineland, a french-dominated southwestern state (Baden or Wurttemburg) and a rump Prussia bumping up against a smallish Poland in the east (depending on how the Russians are doing).

OK, Wilson dies before he writes the 14 points.
 
Delays reunification

German nationalism was a relatively strong force, and I do not believe that a breakup of Germany would have lasted more that 20 years.

Eventually some charismatic figure probably would have risen up and reunified the country, but I have a genuine question as to whether this figure would have been Hitlerian.

Conversely, I also question whether the expansion of communism might not have picked off a couple of these smaller German states before unification was complete.
 
Norman said:
German nationalism was a relatively strong force, and I do not believe that a breakup of Germany would have lasted more that 20 years.

Eventually some charismatic figure probably would have risen up and reunified the country, but I have a genuine question as to whether this figure would have been Hitlerian.

Conversely, I also question whether the expansion of communism might not have picked off a couple of these smaller German states before unification was complete.

Now that's an idea. If this guy was busy reuniting Germany it might keep the Germans focused on their own country instead of invading other people's.
 
Norman said:
German nationalism was a relatively strong force, and I do not believe that a breakup of Germany would have lasted more that 20 years.

Eventually some charismatic figure probably would have risen up and reunified the country, but I have a genuine question as to whether this figure would have been Hitlerian.

Conversely, I also question whether the expansion of communism might not have picked off a couple of these smaller German states before unification was complete.

Well it would keep the Germans busy fighting each other for a while and the state that comes out of it is going to inherit a bunch of bombed out factories and that is all the Allies want.
 
I agree with Norman's position. Eventually you would have something like 1848; the German people would rise up against the Allies' puppet governments just as their ancestors rose up against their kings, dukes, etc to create a national state once again.
 
Matt Quinn said:
I agree with Norman's position. Eventually you would have something like 1848; the German people would rise up against the Allies' puppet governments just as their ancestors rose up against their kings, dukes, etc to create a national state once again.

Eventually yes, but it would take time as each country is large enough to have a small army. There are always people around who will do anything for money. Also there would be fighting about exactly WHO is in charge. Will the Prussians prevail again or will the Rheinlanders. Both the heads of Prussia and Rheinland will want to be number one and only one can be.
 
"Eventually yes, but it would take time as each country is large enough to have a small army."

Will it remain loyal, or melt away like the Sh'ia draftees in Saddam's army?

"There are always people around who will do anything for money."

True. I'd expect a reunified Germany in TTL to have some very nasty post-reunification stuff going on...take the aftermath of the libertation of France and make it 100x worse, as "traitors" get lynched.

"Also there would be fighting about exactly WHO is in charge. Will the Prussians prevail again or will the Rheinlanders. Both the heads of Prussia and Rheinland will want to be number one and only one can be."

That is a good point. Thing is, if Germany is broken up, wouldn't there be a lot of nastiness directed against the "Prussian militarists" who were the supposed cause of WWI? How many of them would be left to try to reassert control?

Let's see...the remnants of the Prussian military aristocracy, the Rheinlanders (what are their views on things?), the Bavarians...what other factions might there be?
 
Matt Quinn said:
"Eventually yes, but it would take time as each country is large enough to have a small army."

Will it remain loyal, or melt away like the Sh'ia draftees in Saddam's army?

"There are always people around who will do anything for money."

True. I'd expect a reunified Germany in TTL to have some very nasty post-reunification stuff going on...take the aftermath of the libertation of France and make it 100x worse, as "traitors" get lynched.

"Also there would be fighting about exactly WHO is in charge. Will the Prussians prevail again or will the Rheinlanders. Both the heads of Prussia and Rheinland will want to be number one and only one can be."

That is a good point. Thing is, if Germany is broken up, wouldn't there be a lot of nastiness directed against the "Prussian militarists" who were the supposed cause of WWI? How many of them would be left to try to reassert control?

Let's see...the remnants of the Prussian military aristocracy, the Rheinlanders (what are their views on things?), the Bavarians...what other factions might there be?

Exactly, they all want unification but under THEMSELVES. I would think you would see a lot of German-German wars! You also might wind up with so many Germans sick of war that they may remain peaceful for a while after a lot of infighting.
 
It has been just 50 years from the proclamation of the Empire (which came in the wake of a stunning military victory, remember). Additionally, the german Empire was not a movement from the bottom, it was a political construction engineered by Bismark, and with a very strong Prussian flavor.
Overall, I would not necessarily bet on a reunification in 20 years. My guess is that Germany will stay happily split, probably forming two power blocks: a protestant germany in the North, centered on Prussia, and with some bones to grind against the Polish; and a Southern catholic confederation centered on Bavaria, which would eventually drag Austria in its orbit.
The real question is if the Allies are happy enough with the partition of Germany and the territorial losses, and refrain from imposing too much of punitive damages on the new states.
You might even go for some garrisoning right, a la WW2 (a naval basis in Kiel for the UK, Saar garrisoned by the French, Italians in Tirol, keeping an eye on Bavaria).
I agree there might be the risk that one of more of the mini states might go communist, even if I believe that the Allies would intervene.
 
LordKalvan said:
It has been just 50 years from the proclamation of the Empire (which came in the wake of a stunning military victory, remember). Additionally, the german Empire was not a movement from the bottom, it was a political construction engineered by Bismark, and with a very strong Prussian flavor.
Overall, I would not necessarily bet on a reunification in 20 years. My guess is that Germany will stay happily split, probably forming two power blocks: a protestant germany in the North, centered on Prussia, and with some bones to grind against the Polish; and a Southern catholic confederation centered on Bavaria, which would eventually drag Austria in its orbit.
The real question is if the Allies are happy enough with the partition of Germany and the territorial losses, and refrain from imposing too much of punitive damages on the new states.
You might even go for some garrisoning right, a la WW2 (a naval basis in Kiel for the UK, Saar garrisoned by the French, Italians in Tirol, keeping an eye on Bavaria).
I agree there might be the risk that one of more of the mini states might go communist, even if I believe that the Allies would intervene.

I don't know about happily split but they could well keep split more then 20 years. I figured the Allies were happy enough with the split and some garrioning rights.
 
Brilliantlight said:
I don't know about happily split but they could well keep split more then 20 years. I figured the Allies were happy enough with the split and some garrioning rights.
After WW2, West Germany was living happily and making a lot of money, although they were separated from their brethren in the East. How happy they were, they only learnt after the reunification. :D
It is almost equally true that also the East Germans discovered that maybe they were not so bad in Eastern Germany :eek:
 
LordKalvan said:
After WW2, West Germany was living happily and making a lot of money, although they were separated from their brethren in the East. How happy they were, they only learnt after the reunification. :D
It is almost equally true that also the East Germans discovered that maybe they were not so bad in Eastern Germany :eek:

The USSR was occupying East Germany and they had atomic weapons. Even a near brain dead three year old would know he couldn't do anything about it and make the best of it.
 
Brilliantlight said:
The USSR was occupying East Germany and they had atomic weapons. Even a near brain dead three year old would know he couldn't do anything about it and make the best of it.
You must have never heard of Budapest 1956 or of Prague 1968: Talleyrand once said that it is very uncomfortable to govern sitting on the point of bayonets (or something to this effect :eek: ). I subscribe this position, and add that nukeing your subject peoples is not the best way of using them.

My point was different, however: the east Germans thought that the fall of the wall would have brought paradise on earth. It did not :D . Nowadays, they think fondly of the good old days, and at the elections post-communist and post-nazi parties are significantly increasing their votes (look at last week results)
 
LordKalvan said:
You must have never heard of Budapest 1956 or of Prague 1968: Talleyrand once said that it is very uncomfortable to govern sitting on the point of bayonets (or something to this effect :eek: ). I subscribe this position, and add that nukeing your subject peoples is not the best way of using them.

Or Berlin 1948, that isn't the point. The point is that Russia had enough nukes, tanks etc. to keep things on an even keel. As for the Germans, I expect that the transition period of the reunification process will take some time yet but only a fool expected it to happen overnight. Unfortunatly there are a lot of fools in the World.
 
Brilliantlight said:
Or Berlin 1948, that isn't the point. The point is that Russia had enough nukes, tanks etc. to keep things on an even keel. As for the Germans, I expect that the transition period of the reunification process will take some time yet but only a fool expected it to happen overnight. Unfortunatly there are a lot of fools in the World.
yeah, the Berlin wall went down just 15 years ago, just nothing compared to the stately progress of history :eek:
 
Brilliantlight said:
Eventually yes, but it would take time as each country is large enough to have a small army. There are always people around who will do anything for money. Also there would be fighting about exactly WHO is in charge. Will the Prussians prevail again or will the Rheinlanders. Both the heads of Prussia and Rheinland will want to be number one and only one can be.

At first, the rhinelanders would have to get the rhine province out of prussia.

Second, every seperatist movement would look like at best playing in the french and polish´hands. The saarland is really really small, 800.000 inhabitants today.

a catholic orientated southern federation has the problem that the catholic group is split in half by at this time fiercely protestant württemberg, but of course, bavaria would be a top contender in the point of secessionist likeliness. I could imagine that saxony- industrial heartland of germany and also a freestate and former kingdom would secede as well, but that´s another factor negating the catholic cause.
 
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