A non anti semitic Nationalist Germany in world war 2

[EasternRomanEmpire]

The Duce was aping AH to the disgust of Balbo.

Who is Balbo?

... could you name one of at least some importances and/or popularity who wanted not to bring down the ToV - one way or the (communistic) other and/or advocated whatever part of the ToV to be ... "good"?

Not in the sense that people liked Versailles, but normal persons didn't desire to violate every single article of the treaty as that is way too provocative for anybody normal

... based on what evidence/source? The second armament program beginning 1st April 1933 to end 30th March 1938 was specifically designed to be accelerated at any point given additional funding and I dont see wha a nationalistic revisional german goverment would NOT pursue this way as soon as someone (Fritz Reinhardt in conjunction with Hjalmar Schacht or similar) would provide such funds.

Hitler was on the point of making the German economy collapse because of the military budget, most leaders wouldn't want to do that

A demand by the military almost from the beginning of the weimarian republik and already again demanded by the stuill Reichswehr in 1933 as otherwise their then set up expansion program would suffer from inadequat recruits. IOTL it happen for the general already somewhat (too) late.

Because objectively at the time the German army wasn't in a position to do this, it was just a bluff just as everything Hitler has done in the pre-WW2 and most persons wouldn't gamble everything in the hope the French don't respond. While it may happen I doubt it will be as soon as OTL

... as IOTL but it still didn't help ...

Yes but with a less crazy German leadership events probably don't follow OTL

... and the bluff worked rather well given the letters exchanged by the then leading british (Chamberlain, Halidax ...) or french or italian politicians.
... dunno why only Hitler should be able to 'bluff' ... prepared by Brüning even v.Papen and his 'barons' 'bluffed' (according to sooo many not too german friendly posters on this forum) the british as well as french diplomacy into believing the german inability of paying its reparations in 1932 convincing them these reparations were at least a/the mayor part of the economical crises of europe esp..

At the time the German army was composed of inexperienced recruits (as the good soldiers were fighting in Spain), who barely outnumbered the Czechoslovaks and who had a much weaker military industry than the Czechoslovaks (as they then stole their technology for tanks and aviation which they used in WW2)

My point is: Hitler was a madman and only a person like him would gamble everything each time as anybody who isn't blinded by ideology will see that that will almost certainly fail

 

[the Imperium of Canada]

Anti-Semitism was deeply rooted in right-wing German nationalism. I don't see how this could happen

 

[Pauh the federalist]

Anti-semitism is a feature not a bug of European nationalism.

Early italian fashism did not have antisemitism as policy until they started rubbing shoulders with the Germans to the best of my knowledge.

 

[prester.john208]

Who is Balbo?

Italo Balbo
Quadrumvir in the Grand Council of Fascism
Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa
Minister of Aeronautics
Italy's Marshal of the Air Force

 

[RedSword12]

Italo Balbo
Quadrumvir in the Grand Council of Fascism
Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa
Minister of Aeronautics
Italy's Marshal of the Air Force

Although he was critical of Italy's increasingly antisemitic legislation and Mussolini's pivot to Hitler, he also as Governor of Libya ordered Jews to be whipped if they closed their businesses on the Sabbath.

 

[Twin City Lines]

What would be the effects of a non anti semitic but still nationalist Germany in world war 2.
Basically as OTL with a leader very similar to the Austrian corporal, committed to making germany dominant in Europe , using force, but not prejudiced against Jews ? In this scenario German Jews are seen as Jewish Germans, have full rights and participate in the regime and its policies like their Christian compatriots

would this change the course of the war by much?

Depends. Is it still anti-Communist? That would be enough to have pretty much the same war. The other powers didn't really care that much about the Jews until after the war was over.

 

[RedSword12]

Depends. Is it still anti-Communist? That would be enough to have pretty much the same war. The other powers didn't really care that much about the Jews until after the war was over.

The "International Jewish Conspiracy" figured so much into Hitler's worldview and his decisions, that removing it would make the war nigh unrecognizable if it even happens.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

The "International Jewish Conspiracy" figured so much into Hitler's worldview and his decisions, that removing it would make the war nigh unrecognizable if it even happens.

He wouldn't have declared war on the U.S. if he hadn't thought that German descendents were under a Jewish government

 

[kham_coc]

In my opinion not every politician in Weimar Germany wanted to violate every single point of the Treaty of Versailles
A non-Hitler government would be much less radical (or simply wouldn't) in increasing the army & military budget, re-militarizing the Rhineland...
While the annexation of Austria was popular in Germany and in Austria this would encounter a few problems:
1. The government of Austria didn't want to be annexed by Germany
2. Italy considered Austria in its sphere of influence and would oppose this plan, IOTL they accepted the Anschluss because of a naval treaty between Germany and Britain (which also caused Mussolini to decide to invade Ethiopia)
3. Without Germany quickly re-militarizing Appeasement might not be considered necessary
Also the Sudetenland is impossible to gain without a crazy person like Hitler because objectively Germany didn't have the military strength to do so at the time and he gained it by bluffing

This changes the timeline of events, but not the outcomes - Germany would still re-arm, more slowly yes, but the fundamentals are still there, the Rhineland would still be re-militarized albeit later, The Austrian government would still find it's position intolerable, even more so if Hitler isn't in charge, and Anschluss would still happen, and once that happened, Benes would reach out (as OTL) and since Hitler isn't in charge, the Sudeten issue would be resolved.
The only real question is Danzig, and that's mostly regarding whether or not the Polish government is capable of rational analysis.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

I would still see a nationalistic german goverment after an "Anschluss" of Austria would not hesitate - given the opportunity like some ethnical ... 'problems' there - to 'push' for whatever kind of Anschluss for the Sudenten as well. ... at whatever point of time with wathever means.

Very likely. Germany actually had a rather strong hand to play regarding Sudetenland.

It's true that Hitler had to bluff and threaten at Munich to get his way - to be seen as dangerously crazy. But that was in part because he was already seen as dangerously crazy. The cession of Sudetenland would enable his crazy dangerousness, and was opposed by some for that reason. Hitler overcame this by "doubling down" on the threats.

A non- or minimally-threatening Germany (such as Weimar gone more nationalist but not massively rearming) could decide to push on the issue. Under the Wilsonian logic of Versailles, an ethnic minority on the wrong side of a national boundary had the right to have a even a long-standing boundary revised to match linguistic "facts on the ground".

This principle had been applied in other regions: on behalf of ethnic Poles in upper Silesia, ethnic Danes in Schleswig, ethnic Romanians in Transylvania, and ethnic Slovaks, Serbs, and Croats in other parts of Hungary. (In the cases of Posen and the "Polish corridor", the current national boundaries were relatively recent.)

Arguably, Sudetenland's ethnic Germans had the same right to such border revisions as those groups. Czech dominance in Czechoslovakia was more annoying than oppressive, but if sufficiently annoying could provoke secessionism in Sudetenland and sympathy in Germany. Economic and diplomatic pressure, plus perhaps civil disobedience in Sudetenland, could force Czechoslovakia to yield. And if Germany is not a rising military threat, neither leadership nor public opinion in France and Britain would care much.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

This changes the timeline of events, but not the outcomes - Germany would still re-arm, more slowly yes, but the fundamentals are still there, the Rhineland would still be re-militarized albeit later, The Austrian government would still find it's position intolerable, even more so if Hitler isn't in charge, and Anschluss would still happen, and once that happened, Benes would reach out (as OTL) and since Hitler isn't in charge, the Sudeten issue would be resolved.
The only real question is Danzig, and that's mostly regarding whether or not the Polish government is capable of rational analysis.

This completely changes the politicians that are there Benes wouldn't be in charge at that moment, as re-arming isn't an easy process as Hitler despite almost bankrupting Germany was nowhere near ready for war if he hadn't annexed the Sudetenland. A Germany that doesn't do crazy things wouldn't be as feared, also changing the moment when this happens would completely change Italo-German relations and as the Italians giving up is one of the main reasons why the Anschluss happened, and the Sudetenland would never be preferred over Austria.

 

[CHKeeley]

I think it would help the discussion for the OP to sketch out exactly which non-Nazi nationalist party takes over Germany. Depending on the group, there’s different paths open to them. A Konservative Revolution or a regime similar to the Harzburg Front coalition is going to look different from von Schleicher regime which is going to look different from a more classical Italianite fascist party that could’ve arisen in the absence of the NSDAP.

As others have noted, avoiding an eliminationist anti-semitism isn’t hard but avoiding anti-semitism in general and finding a nationalism that champions Jewish Germans as undifferentiated members of the volksgemeinschaft is a challenge.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Very likely. Germany actually had a rather strong hand to play regarding Sudetenland.

It's true that Hitler had to bluff and threaten at Munich to get his way - to be seen as dangerously crazy. But that was in part because he was already seen as dangerously crazy. The cession of Sudetenland would enable his crazy dangerousness, and was opposed by some for that reason. Hitler overcame this by "doubling down" on the threats.

A non- or minimally-threatening Germany (such as Weimar gone more nationalist but not massively rearming) could decide to push on the issue. Under the Wilsonian logic of Versailles, an ethnic minority on the wrong side of a national boundary had the right to have a even a long-standing boundary revised to match linguistic "facts on the ground".

This principle had been applied in other regions: on behalf of ethnic Poles in upper Silesia, ethnic Danes in Schleswig, ethnic Romanians in Transylvania, and ethnic Slovaks, Serbs, and Croats in other parts of Hungary. (In the cases of Posen and the "Polish corridor", the current national boundaries were relatively recent.)

Arguably, Sudetenland's ethnic Germans had the same right to such border revisions as those groups. Czech dominance in Czechoslovakia was more annoying than oppressive, but if sufficiently annoying could provoke secessionism in Sudetenland and sympathy in Germany. Economic and diplomatic pressure, plus perhaps civil disobedience in Sudetenland, could force Czechoslovakia to yield. And if Germany is not a rising military threat, neither leadership nor public opinion in France and Britain would care much.

Wilsonian logic was followed by Wilson only, nobody cared about that; if Germany is perceived a less of a threat that would mean that the Allies make less concessions, not more.

 

[pjmidd]

What would be the effects of a non anti semitic but still nationalist Germany in world war 2.
Basically as OTL with a leader very similar to the Austrian corporal, committed to making germany dominant in Europe , using force, but not prejudiced against Jews ? In this scenario German Jews are seen as Jewish Germans, have full rights and participate in the regime and its policies like their Christian compatriots

would this change the course of the war by much?

No practical difference at all. Just things like 3 million Poles not being killed for being Jewish, just lumped in with the 3 million Poles killed for being Poles. The only difference is after the war, no Israel as no guilt or perceived need for European Jews to leave. You have to make a lot more changes to end up with notnazais that are not undiluted evil. None of their polices were actually new, most were typical Prussian ones turned up to 11 and then taken to extremes in a systematic way.

 

[kham_coc]

No practical difference at all. Just things like 3 million Poles not being killed for being Jewish, just lumped in with the 3 million Poles killed for being Poles. The only difference is after the war, no Israel as no guilt or perceived need for European Jews to leave. You have to make a lot more changes to end up with notnazais that are not undiluted evil. None of their polices were actually new, most were typical Prussian ones turned up to 11 and then taken to extremes in a systematic way.

Yeah you can conceive the entirety of OTL, with the Nazis not caring at all about Jews.
Many Jews would still be killed, but because they are Slavs instead of Jews, and many Jews would (ironically) be treated as Volksdeutche and if this means a loss in WW2, which seems reasonable, I wouldn't want to be Jewish in the USSR.

 

[thezerech]

Yeah you can conceive the entirety of OTL, with the Nazis not caring at all about Jews.
Many Jews would still be killed, but because they are Slavs instead of Jews, and many Jews would (ironically) be treated as Volksdeutche and if this means a loss in WW2, which seems reasonable, I wouldn't want to be Jewish in the USSR.

You probably wouldn't want to be Jewish in the USSR IOTL anyways.

I mean, von Schleicher, to my knowledge, was not anti-semitic, although he seems to be Machiavellian enough that he wouldn't care hiring anti-semites in government. I recall reading somewhere that there was a Jew involved in the Kapp Putsch, and this caused them to be critiqued by some anti-semites and rival Right-Wing groups, but I don't have that book on hand. Most of the Kapp Putsch organizers seem like anti-semitic types from my recollection.

You certainly have explicitly non-anti-semitic German nationalists on the right. You even have a guy like Ernst Kantorowicz, a Freikorps veteran, conservative historian, and a Jew. Certainly uncommon, and doesn't change the fact the Freikorps and German right was generally anti-semitic , but one can see how it wasn't necessarily universal. If Hitler gets killed during the upheavals of 1918/1919, or during the Beer Hall Putsch, this would help. Anyways, there were some Conservative Revolution types who weren't anti-semitic, although some obviously were.

I think the best chance involves a von Schleicher regime, since he wasn't, to my understanding, personally anti-semitic.

 

[mjwebb76]

As many people have pointed out antisemitism was deeply engrained in right-wing European political thought. Therefore, the idea of completely non antisemitic Nazi's is implausible. Therefore, I would propose the group needs to assess different degrees of antisemitism.

I would propose the least antisemitic would be "WASPY Antisemitism" or the antisemitism prevalent amongst the American elites or WASPS. For example, many nicer hotels did not allow Jews (or blacks). Harvard, Princeton etc had a Jewish quota. The "best" law firms would not hire Jews (or blacks).

Next we would imagine "Apartheid/Segregation Antisemitism." Here, the antisemitism is more explicit in the same way that Jim Crow was more explicit that WASPY antisemitism. As most people know, the 1935 Nuremberg laws were explicitly patterned on American Jim Crow laws.

Finally, we have genocidal antisemitism or Hitler of our timeline.

Obviously this is a spectrum. Himmler and Goering for example may have been slightly less genocidal than Hitler.

With this in mind, I will offer my thoughts on how these different types of antisemitisms would have impacted Nazi success.

WASP Antisemitism: Obviously, in this case the scientists would have stayed, diplomatic relations with the US and Britain would have been better. However, a fundamental Raison d'etre for the Nazi's was to combat the "Judeo-Bolshevik" conspiracy, which to them and many right wing Germans was an existential threat to the world. Therefore, they would be arguing Jews are an existential threat to the world!!! Let's not form Law partnerships with them!!" It doesn't really work, and I do not think "polite Nazi's" ever get near power.

Segregation Antisemitism: This is arguably what the Nazi regime did until ~1938 (or perhaps even 1941). In this case, the scientists leave and you still get the same diplomatic results you get IOTL. Arguably all of Hitler's bluffing with the Rhineland, the Sudentenland etc would still occur. You would not have the Einsatzgruppen following behind the Wermacht in 1941. In this scenario, the Germans would not devote resources to genocide (e.g. prioritizing trains to the death camps over troop trains) but ultimately I think this would have little impact on the broader military outcome. Perhaps we would view the Nazi's as slightly less odious than we do today or perhaps history would focus more on their depravity toward Slavs and the Eastern Front in general.

 

[TheMaskedDiscombobulator]

Hitler arguably had four political goals: overturn Versailles, destroy communism, gain Lebensraum and implement antisemitism. Now, it is true that Hitler and others associated both Versailles and communism with Jews, but given how immensely tenuous the link is it seems plausible that a German leader could deny these links.

The thing is, in practice reactionary ideology doesn't work by letting you carefully pick and choose which things to believe. It works by giving you an aesthetic, a vibe, an idea about how the world is being poisoned by (((them))) and the way to fix it is to band together, throw all your total loyalty and support behind a Maximum Leader, ignore every law or custom or prompting of conscience or common sense that might restrain the Maximum Leader's power, and just keep stomping on faces in the Maximum Leader's name until the golden future is achieved.

This idea does not allow itself to be contained easily, and it tends to leak out "sideways" in pursuit of more aggressive destruction of groups that officially "eh, we never liked them anyway."

I don't really think you can have German ultranationalism, and especially not a fanatically anti-communist ultranationalism, without things like antisemitism, the mass murder of the Roma, the mass targeting and killing of LBGT people, and so on.

Because the desire to 'purify the race,' and specifically to do so by killing, is part and parcel of the deliberate rejection of both socialism and Weimar-style liberal democracy as 'degenerate.' And without that rejection and that desire to 'purify' by killing, you don't really have the motivation to start a world war in the first place. Sane people who value human life don't start that kind of conflict willingly, not in the post-WWI political environment. They don't do it out of love for their own people; they do it because they believe in purifying or redeeming their own people by killing someone else's people.

 

[EasternRomanEmpire]

Segregation Antisemitism: This is arguably what the Nazi regime did until ~1938 (or perhaps even 1941). In this case, the scientists leave and you still get the same diplomatic results you get IOTL. Arguably all of Hitler's bluffing with the Rhineland, the Sudentenland etc would still occur. You would not have the Einsatzgruppen following behind the Wermacht in 1941. In this scenario, the Germans would not devote resources to genocide (e.g. prioritizing trains to the death camps over troop trains) but ultimately I think this would have little impact on the broader military outcome. Perhaps we would view the Nazi's as slightly less odious than we do today or perhaps history would focus more on their depravity toward Slavs and the Eastern Front in general.

Hitler is the only person who would bluff as much knowing in how bad of a situation he is if the Allies stop Appeasement, most persons wouldn't be blinded by ideology enough to not see the reality in front of them.