German WWI victory = Nazi-American Cold War?

[Faeelin]

Russia might be anti-German, but will have problems without the grain and the industry of the Ukraine. If we have the Soviets there these East European nations will have even greater ties to Germany.

Will it not have the Ukraine? Why is the German effort to prop up governments in Ukraine more successful than the Western powers?

Some of the major reasons why the NSDAP came to power were the economic problems that occured in Germany, which were directly caused by the repartations hat Germany had to pay after losing WWI. Another cause was the dissatisfaction of losing quite a lot of their country after WWI. A third cause was the way the allies had treated Germany in the treaty of Versailles and after (like the occupation of the Rhineland, where French soldiers treated the Germans relatively badly). All these reasons where directly linked to losing WWI. Simply put, without WWI there will be no Nazi's. There were other reasons why the Nazi party came to power, but without the causes that were directly linked to WWI, they will not be enough to make the NAZI party a dominant power in Germany.

I don't know. Remember, the Nazis didn't take over until the Depression hit; so how much can we blame the Great War for their victory?

 

[Deimos]

What are your opinions?

Tamerlane

I my opinion, the determinism that this essay portrays runs counter to the very idea of alternate history.
The premise is to view history as a multitude of variables that arranged to form OTL and further to that to understand that well-researched and plausibly forged alterations to these variables can lead to a different result.


Simple, unbased assertions like:

There is no reason to think that the heirs of a German victory in 1918 (or 1919, or 1920) would have been less likely to pursue these (Hitler's) objectives.

produce a interesting scenario but lack any logical depth, unless one might count a weakly supported appeal to probalility, to explain the specific result the author tries to present.

 

[Mikestone8]

Will it not have the Ukraine? Why is the German effort to prop up governments in Ukraine more successful than the Western powers?

Because Germany is a lot nearer, and its forces are well placed to threaten Petrograd and/or Moscow should the Bolsheviks make any attempt to reconquer Ukraine.

Even after demobilisation, Germany's normal peacetime army is around 600,000 men, so more than adequate to back up a pro-German government there.

 

[anotherlurker]

keeping the eastern european puppets in line should be easy enough - just point your finger in the direction of the remnant soviet russia.

they shouldnt have much issues, it's not like they're going to go from farm to farm and confiscate everything and then shoot the people. this is about having a captive market to buy german goods and to supply germany with cheap agriculture.

as for the rise of hitler... need i remind everyone that he nearly got shot in 1923? in a victorious environment with less chaos, no unemployed angry soldiers to draw manpower from, no right wing business wishing to produce banned things again he's not going anywhere. hell, he could even end up with the communists.

 

[wietze]

Britain was near bankruptcy but had colonies as collateral, add in that her nose was bloodied badly in the war and you get a Britain that.

no, the colonies were never collateral, that would mean they would be willing to sell them to keep getting money for the war effort, and that was never gonna happen.

 

[Mikestone8]

no, the colonies were never collateral, that would mean they would be willing to sell them to keep getting money for the war effort, and that was never gonna happen.

In any case, which ones?

The US had no interest in acquiring new possessions in Asia or Africa, and a few Pacific or Caribbean islands wouldn't come anywhere near raising the sums involved.

 

[MattII]

"A German Victory" isn't sufficient information, we need to at least know the year, because this will have significant effects on the peripheral theatres, the Balkans, the Middle East, etc. f.e. if this is before May 1915 the result will be different to after may 1915, simply because the Italians declared war in may, which will leave that theatre to sort out.

 

[historyfool]

I fail to see how anybody can think that Hitler or the Nazis would rise when Germany won the war.

The army won´t support them. First of all they won´t to finance groups like the SA as hidden reserves, when they can have a sizeable professional army. Second the army of 1918 was not all that right wing really except in the higher ranks. Only the breakdown afterwards, the resulting shedding of left wingers and the closed nature of the small Reichswehr allowed it to turn clearly to the right. And although the defeat radicalized a lot of its members (won´t happen here) officially it still clung to the ideal of a non-partisan soldier. Third they won´t mistrust the state to the same extent. Even if the SPD comes to power after the promised constitutional reforms it will have happened clearly legitimate nor will there be coup attempts sowing discord. Plus the peace negotiations will likely still be handled by the old government, making them clearly responsible for its terms. They will want to claim that for themselves. And finally it is unlikely that the victorious army will see a need to keep tap of unruly right wing bands roaming around (which won´t be much of a problem here) thus they won´t insert Hitler as an informer into them, thus starting his political career.

Likewise the judicative won´t be opposed to a surviving Kaiserreich thus won´t be willing to look the other way or treat mildly the multiple irregularities and crimes which the Nazis shrugged of otl.

The industry won´t support the nazis to the same extent either, a few true believers excepted. Iotl they were willing to ignore the insane parts of the Nazi economic program because the rearmament and the like was seen as beneficial to their business. Here those measures will be open to a moderate government as well, but without the less palatable parts. Furthermore otl the economic effects of Versailles strengthened heavy industries, which will be less dominant in most other circumstances.

That does not mean that antisemitism, eugenics and other ugly things won´t be around, but they were around in most other countries at the time without transforming them into actions. In a victorious Germany party founded upon them simply won´t be able to have any success.

 

[pompejus]

I don't know. Remember, the Nazis didn't take over until the Depression hit; so how much can we blame the Great War for their victory?

Germany was hit hard by the recession, partly because of the reparations it had to pay.. Those for example caused the hyperinflation that completely ruined German economy. This was a major cause for the rise of the NSDAP.

 

[President Farrakhan]

This thinking is pretty near to rascism and specialy when it comes to Germany and its fall to Adolf Hitler and his lunatics.

The italics was from Reilly, I forgot to add quotes. (he was conceding its a minority opinion that goes against the grain too, geez) Calling it racist is pretty ridiculous imho, nobody's saying it's built into their DNA. More like "all that love of Antisemitism and Militarism was gonna go SOMEWHERE" because lord knows Hitler didn't invent it.

Also, I see a lot of people acting like we're talking "Hitler and the Nazis rise as in OTL". C'mon. Reilly said....something very like the Nazi Party...we're talking about an ideology with frightening similarities, not a carbon copy. I take it as a given that Hitler is a nobody ITTL and "National Socialism" isn't the name of our Nazi analogues.

Well, in 1920s America they were sterilizing "idiots" with a distinct preference for ones from racial minorities. Did that make America "dangerous"?

Pfft, forced sterilization was low on a Black person's list of problems during the "Nadir of American race relations"...

 

[Blue Max]

I think a second world war, following WWI, is very likely even if the Central Powers wins. Germany may legitimately be larger and stronger following the victory, but Austria-Hungary would probably either be fracturing or entirely falling apart. The Ottoman Empire would be reinvigorated, but it would also be fragile and probably doing some nasty business on its borders.

I just see Germany struggling to hold down the nations that are embittered or angry against it with the support of their weaker allies. Italy would almost certainly be seriously punished for its betrayal in WWI. The Soviet Union is a gigantic boogeyman on the Eastern Front that might not consider Stalin's restraint of building a Model Socialist Society in favor of global revolution in Germany's backyard.

The UK will broke, humiliated, and likely facing a breakdown in its colonies.

The scenario certainly doesn't suggest Nazis coming to power in Germany, but I think it does suggest radicalism in some corner of Europe. I could be mistaken--France might be clobbered so badly after WWI that they've given up any hope of retaking A-L or simply have Paris occupied by Germans after they attempt to revolt against reparations.

But sooner or later people are going to want to push Germany off its pedestal. And I'm not sure that the OTL answer--an atomic truce--is going to arrive in time to stop it from happening.

 

[Mikestone8]

The Soviet Union is a gigantic boogeyman on the Eastern Front that might not consider Stalin's restraint of building a Model Socialist Society in favor of global revolution in Germany's backyard.

Will there be a Soviet Union?

Even OTL, at one point the Bolsheviks in early 1919 held only maybe half of European Russia. At that point, a German thrust at Petrograd and Moscow could have finished them. Alternatively, the Germans might have dictated a truce which left the Reds with only what they currently held, and forced them to leave the rest of Russia to the Whites.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Will there be a Soviet Union?

There might be. It is entirely concievable that Imperial Germany decides that everything east of the Brest-Litovsk peace line is not their problem for the moment.

 

[Alex1guy]

I'm going with utter bullshit.

The Nazi's were utterly unique and were a product of German defeat, a product of national feelings of betrayal and resentment coupled with crushing economic stress of the times not some sort of historical destiny for Germany which seems to be posited here. I call complete bullshit on the author and question his knowledge of ANYTHING about the entire time period. It seems like revisionist history where the author forms an opinion and will pick facts to suit it AKA, crap.