Bit depends POD but taking how anti-Germans people are and the world is probably more cynic due much longer and more traumatic WW2, I don't think them expecting that being too much better.
The Anglo/American - Nazi War - The on-going mystery
- Thread starter CalBear
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Bit depends POD but taking how anti-Germans people are and the world is probably more cynic due much longer and more traumatic WW2, I don't think them expecting that being too much better.
I think it could be the opposite, the world went so bad because of "ze germns" that a hypothetical world where Hitler got levelled by
George Carty
Banned
Personally I wouldn't class the Nazis as ultranationalists: rather I think of them as fundamentalist Social Darwinists. The Nero Order shows that at the end of the day they didn't really give a shit about even German life.
We could even parody the Muslim Kalimah to describe Nazism as "there is no god but Race War, and Hitler is his prophet".
The problem is this: the Nazi order TTL not only lasted much longer, but the damage it inflicted on society is more obvious and visceral.
In the same way that OTL Americans have their view on Islam defined by ruin in Manhattan, TTL Americans' view of Germans isn't Volkswagons or Rammstein but the ruins of Paris, the empty fields of Eastern Europe where once great cities flourished, the attack on New York, the millions of refugees fleeing horror unimaginable cruelty, and millions of traumatized soldiers pushed to their limit on several occasions.
It doesn't help that these monsters happily broadcasted their destruction.
Let's throw in that Imperial Germany also did terrible things in WW1 and Africa, and simply put, Germany has a lot of historical baggage that will take centuries to overcome.
I think there is a good element of Social Darwinism in the TTL Nazi's actions. The whole ideology was "we either must slaughter the undesirables or our children will become effeminate homosexuals."
But when I say ultranationalism, I'd say "a cult-like obedience to the state." Millions of Germans cared only for their loyalty to the Fuhrer, and in that loyalty, they committed tremendous barbarity because their loyalty to their regime mattered more than any other social value. And while some German officers through in the towel, it was only to protect Germans. They didn't particularly care when the Jews were practically wiped out and when Paris was destroyed.
All that mattered to the Germans was "the Fatherland." The evil of Hitler's cabal is not surprising, but the willingness of millions of Germans to hurt and kill countless people is the true horror.
Hey @CalBear, I've been re-watching Oppenheimer (2023) and reading American Prometheus (2005) and I have some questions regarding the Bomb in TTL.
- With the Nazis gaining the upper hand after Stalingrad in October 1942 and the Soviet surrender in June 1943, how did this affect the development of the Manhattan Project?
- What date does the Trinity test take place ITTL?
- After the Trinity test, did Los Alamos still expected the Bomb to be used on the Nazis or at least deployed?
- What was Los Alamos' reaction when they were told/found out that the Bomb was not going to be used at all (or at least not immediately)?
- What happened to Los Alamos during and after the war?
- What happened to J Robert Oppenheimer during the first phase of WW2, the Warm War, the Hot War and after the War?
- How is Oppenheimer remembered and viewed ITTL?
I wonder how they would view our world: on the one hand, Nazism only lasted little over a decade, Germany become democratic and united with Europe, Paris and Israel exist, Poland is a prosperous state.
On the other hand, we have Putin, Xi, Orban, and Erdogen, and the not very enlightened political climate in the US. And our world is less technologically advanced.
So our world maybe not nearly as traumatized, it doesn’t seem to have learned from history all that much.
I guess that in OTL is many things what they dislike. Germany is united. Wars and genocides. Anglophone World seems too lazy and not interventionist enough. And some current politics would frustrate them.
In other hand they would are happy that Europe is more prosperous.
The problem with orbital kinetic bombardment is being confident of hitting the target.
Historically, ballistic capsules don't land on very precise spots after re-entering the atmosphere. Very small errors in timing or unforeseen slight variations in the density of atmosphere you re-enter through can lead to very large misses. So if you're aiming for a specific target, as opposed to causing fully generic destruction out of a general desire to kill everyone in the urban area, that kind of weapon isn't going to be very reliable.
I'm not sure the A4 cared what part of Stettin it hit. The question is just how large would the misses be?
I suspect many of the ruins here were bulldozed and tasteless architects rebuild population centers from concrete and steel.
They may share the same names, but most of the old cities would be gone - and they're replacements wouldn't be the same.
The use of the word civilized probably depends on how humble the victors wish to be. And from what happened up to 1960 I don't think they're going to be very humble about winning.
For some reasons I'm getting some vibes of the Third Mithridatic War when looking at TTL's Europe in the 40s and 50s.
I don't know. The way that CalBear wrote it, I wonder if the victors of the war would be too damaged to be celebratory. Probably relieved that the age-old enemy that destroyed European civilization was gone, but not exactly celebratory because the sheer damage the Nazis inflicted on Europe was too high to be repaired truly, and that is on top of having to keep the former Germanies on a leash.
The saddest scene to me personally was when that one naval clerk, Jocko Clark, quit the war because of the sheer burnout he experienced his entire life. You know your war is bad when even the most battle-hardened soldier writes a letter saying, "I've killed enough people for one lifetime, I just want to go home and rest."
In such a moral and emotional environment, I don't think there would be boasting, just a quick beer, a desire for home, and a sobering analysis at how an advanced society could commit so much barbarity.
ITTL, racism is even more stigmatized, since it was the Nazis own belief in their superiority, among many things, that led them to commit such enormous assaults on human decency.
Laws and policies to deter "hate speech" would be far less controversial.
And the Nazis would definitely not be a source of comedy in sitcoms/Mel Brooks-type films in this reality!
It is important to note that even Mel Brooks had his limits on this kind of thing: he disliked the movie Life is Beautiful for overtly sanitizing life in a concentration camp. While OTL Mel Brooks liked to mock Nazis, whitewashing their actual atrocities was in poor taste. In a world where the Nazis succeeded in completely annihilating the community of his ancestors, he'd be a far less jovial man to say the least.
Nazism TTL wouldn't be seen as merely an atrocity but a monstrous plague that wiped out centuries of progress, having succeeded in destroying everything from the English Channel to the bloodstained hellscape that is Soviet Siberia. Even comparing it to the Dark Ages would be inappropriate because even the medieval knights had more mercy and compassion than the jackbooted. The fact that Himmler, Hitler's successor, committed even more appalling atrocities in his short-lived career would only add to the sheer revulsion.
OTL, both George Orwell and Winston Churchill felt that Mein Kampf deserved massive scrutiny by future historians, and TTL the appropriate attitude is a serious attempt to understand the conditions for Hitler to rise to power.
Alfred Hugenberg was a key figure in inadvertently helping Hitler's rise to power:
Alfred Hugenberg - Wikipedia
Alfred Hugenberg was a key figure in inadvertently helping Hitler's rise to power:
Alfred Hugenberg - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
OTL, he died in 1951.
TTL, I wonder if any surviving Weimar politicians who brought Hitler to power, like Franz von Papen, spent their nights lying awake over the monster they inadvertently unleashed on civilization. They would view their actions as having shaken hands with the devil.
A significant element that helps set OTL Operation Valkyrie into motion was revulsion at the atrocities in the East, which were MUCH greater in TTL.
The July Plot: When German Elites Tried to Kill Hitler | HISTORY
Fed up with Hitler, though only partially for moral reasons, high-level German resisters nearly succeeded in assassinating him in July 1944.
www.history.com