Lets say that the ones who first took a look at the insides of the nucleus ate a lot of sausages and that the initial two ‘experiments’ took place on an offset of tens of lat/long degrees. Also keeping in mind that the disruption in the time continuum is four generations long.
Okay, I’m going to take a stab at translating this into English. Are you asking what would have happened if the Nazis had developed the atomic bomb instead of the Americans?
This was my take as well.
At a WAG, I’m welling to bet Hitler would have strongly considered using nuclear warheads against England.
As to how practical that would be, I really have no idea. Germany had rockets and medium bombers, but would they be enough to launch/carry a warhead to England? From my understanding, the Enola Gay (a B-29) had a few issues with carrying Little Boy to bomb Japan.
But, for the sake of argument, if Nazi Germany did develop nuclear weapons and used them against England, I think England would have fallen and the US would have a very difficult time fighting Germany. Assuming we even got into it.
Assuming Nemo’s translation to English is correct:
I doubt it. He’d have used them against Russia (The Northern parts anyway, since he wanted the breadbasket region for the Germans…that was the whole point of the invasion). He might have threatened to use them after demonstrating what they could do against Russia (and probably knocking them out of the war if he managed to get Stalin), but he didn’t really want a war with the UK…he just wanted them to capitulate.
The German’s had bombers capable of carrying an atomic bomb. Heck, they had plans for a bomber that could have, theoretically hit New York (one way IIRC), so Moscow would certainly be in their range (as would London if they actually would have considered dropping it there, which I doubt)…it’s only about a thousand miles between Berlin and Moscow, and they could have staged bombers much closer until the last year of the war.
I think it depends on exactly when and how much information the Allies have before the event. I also think Hitler would have first used his nukes against Russia. Remember that Germany had no reliable method of delivering the bomb against Britain. OTOH Dunkirk would have been a very tempting target.
If by “reliable method” you mean the RAF would have a good chance of defending against such an attack, then I can see that.
I was thinking that Germany did an OK job against England in the Battle of Britain. At least in the beginning, but thinking about it, the chance of successfully nuking England would probably be low. I mean, they didn’t have all that much success anyways.
Russian OTOH, had a poor air force in the beginning, at least according this wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Air_Forces#Early_combat.
So now, if say Hitler did nuke Russian/Moscow, and say the Russians surrendered, what would England and the rest of the Allies do? What about neutral countries?
One atom bomb would have put an end to Leningrad holding out. Moscow was also an obvious target. Others might have been Sevastopol, Stalingrad, and Nizhny Tagil (if the Germans could deliver a bomb that far).
Yeah, they would have nuked Russia forcing a quick victory in the east. London would capitulate and negotiate a truce. What happens next depends on how fast the Americans develop a bomb of their own and how quickly the Germans develop trans-Atlantic bombers/missiles.
OP here.
Apologies if the opening post sounds obscure but I was asking about how would life in the West feel today, not so much how would they have attained their military victory.
Would the socialist and nationalist ideology survived unchanged to this day? The heads of the party would have retired and some would have died of natural causes by now, with perhaps some new generations of politicians in between.
BrainGlutton, thank you for the link, it is very rich. It seems they wanted to pick up where the Holy Roman Empire left and carry on from there.
However they would have overcome the other governments, I doesn’t seem that the heads of the party wanted to have direct control over all of Europe. Maybe their sympathizers around the globe would eventually gain control and rule in conjunction with Berlin. At least a partnership with Britain was on the cards, in order to maintain her empire.
7 decades later would their policies be more liberal, more strict, more liberal in the North, more strict in the South and East?
Apparently, they weren’t that big on materialism and financialism. What kind of economy would have evolved in that particular hegemony?
What direction would technological development take, after de-militarisation?
I suspect the state of Israel wouldn’t exist.
[QUOTE=mr wolf]
Would the socialist and nationalist ideology survived unchanged to this day? The heads of the party would have retired and some would have died of natural causes by now, with perhaps some new generations of politicians in between.
[/QUOTE]
Probably too many variables to answer. It would all hinge on when the Germans got the bomb and how they used it. My WAG is if they got it before 1943 and used it against the Russians it could have been decisive, especially if they managed to get Stalin. After 1943 though…well, depends. By that point simply whacking Stalin probably wouldn’t be enough, but if they hit some of the key logistics hubs it could have bought them more time. And if they had several of the things?
If the Germans had knocked the Russians out of the war with a series of atomic bomb strikes then most likely the US and UK would have sued for peace…certainly the UK would have, since they would be equally vulnerable to similar strikes. Also, if the Russians folded that would have pretty much been it for round two of the great war. The US, secretly developing their own bomb, and the UK probably in on it would have been pressing to get a bomb of their own asap. Assuming that Germany would be content with some period of consolidation after a Russian capitulation and with some sort of armistice with the UK and the US then most likely they would have carved out their own empire consisting of most of western Europe, eastern Europe and at least the western half of the Soviet Union, if not the majority of it. Perhaps we’d have had another great war (round 3) at some point, as the US and UK would eventually come into conflict with this new empire (plus there was still the Japanese…I seriously doubt that even if the US agreed to peace with Germany that we’d have stopped short of a Japanese surrender).
Impossible to say, really. We’d have had several generations of leaders since Hitler and his cronies, and National Socialism would undoubtedly have evolved in response not only to its own internal flaws and contradictions - remember, it was only around for twelve years, and wartime conditions enabled it just to put a lot of inherent problems to one side for worrying about later - but also to changes in the world since them.
In 1949, who would have predicted that Communist China would have evolved to where it is today? And a Greater German Reich, even if it held together, would be at least as different from Hitler’s Reich as China in 2010 is from China in 1949.
TLDR: look to Russia and Spain today.
Posits: Germany gets the Bomb in 1941 and conquers mainland Europe from the Channel to the Urals, a peace is forced with Britain, and the Pacific War does not happen.
Great Britain and America rapidly develop nuclear weapons in response. Germany makes great advances in nuclear power and the treatment of radioactivity, thanks to disposable untermensch being used for the most dangerous work and as test subjects for treatments.
Central control of such a large empire requires advanced communications. Slaves build a network of autobahns and lay a network of telephone cables.
NATO becomes an anti-German organisation, with the Faeroe islands coming under British control.
Rapidly, the non-Germanic peoples in mainland Europe are exterminated and replaced by Germans. With high standards of healthcare (at least for Germans), motherhood being encouraged, and families of 10+ being common, the Germanisation of Europe proceeds apace. With peace, the Gestapo and SS are eventually reined in and repurposed for foreign adventures and prosperity returns for the survivors. Italy, Germany, and Spain form a European Fascist Union. Italy profits immensely from the discovery of oil in Libya. In the East, India gains independence from Britain, but Britain maintains control of Palestine and Arabia and its oil. There is a sort of Cold War in the North Sea after the discovery of oil. Africa remains colonised, with Germany and Britain fighting wars by proxy over the parts that aren’t their colonies.
After the deaths of the ‘old guard’ there is a great liberalisation, just as there was after the death of Franco and in the Soviet Union in our timeline.
Life in Europe at this point is pretty good if you’re British, Germanic, Hispanic, or Italian.