So, I was looking at the "Allies Divide and Annex Germany" thread in ASB, and a different (and perhaps slightly more plausible, though perhaps still a stretch) POD came to mind-what if, after World War II, the Allies decide that the last seventy-five years are proof that a united Germany is simply too militaristic and too strategically destabilizing to be allowed to exist? Furthermore, lets say that, as a starting point for dividing up Germany, the allies use the borders of the pre-1933 Imperial states and Prussian provinces, with some alterations for practicality (ie, Hesse and Thuringia are united, and perhaps Hannover absorbs several of the smaller states surrounding it). A massive propaganda campaign is launched, portraying a "German" identity as the evil creation of Prussian and Nazi imperialists, which people can escape from by identifying as good Saxons, Hessians, or Rhinelanders. The states are still occupied as OTL Germany was, but are distributed among the Allies-so, say, the USSR gets Brandenburg, Saxony (both Saxony and ex-Prussian Saxony), Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and Thuringia, the US gets Bavaria, Wurttemburg, and Hesse, Britain gets Hannover, Oldenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and the smaller surrounding states, and France gets Westphalia, the Rhineland, and Baden.
In other words, something a bit like the Morganthau plan, albeit less vindictive-the "Germanies" can have modern industry, they just can't unite. Presumably, the kinds of inter-German cooperation allowed are strictly regulated by treaty, and Allied occupation troops remain to enforce it...although gradually, as in OTL, the "occupation" gets sucked into the growing Cold War, with the British, American, and French troops justifying their continued presence as defending against Communism, and the states in the Soviet zone falling into the Soviet sphere of influence.
Remotely plausible? And how might the cultures and national identities of the various German states develop as they navigate through the 20th century and the Cold War?
In other words, something a bit like the Morganthau plan, albeit less vindictive-the "Germanies" can have modern industry, they just can't unite. Presumably, the kinds of inter-German cooperation allowed are strictly regulated by treaty, and Allied occupation troops remain to enforce it...although gradually, as in OTL, the "occupation" gets sucked into the growing Cold War, with the British, American, and French troops justifying their continued presence as defending against Communism, and the states in the Soviet zone falling into the Soviet sphere of influence.
Remotely plausible? And how might the cultures and national identities of the various German states develop as they navigate through the 20th century and the Cold War?
