This is obviously where we disagree, I see the Nazis as an extreme multiplication of things that were already preexistent in Germany (and Europe). Germany could have taken another road, for sure, but I sure dont believe the Nazis came from outer space. They were not an aberration any more than Bolsheviks were.
I also dont believe a victorious WW1 Germany would have meant business as usual.
Well, disagreement is good in GD. 
I don’t believe things would have been business as usual either…merely that it would have followed similar patterns and norms, not deviated radically. The Nazis were a radical deviation due to several factors. The near collapse (the actual collapse really) of Germany in the latter days of the war and in the post war period. The general disillusion of the people due to the war…especially in a losing cause. The psychological impact of that loss. The rise of the communist party in Germany in the post war period and the strife that caused. The depression. The Weimar Republic’s weakness and fundamental flaws. The focus of the blame for much of the above, especially by certain segments of the population (especially in places like Bavaria) on the Jewish population.
I don’t see this combination of events happening in a victorious Germany…not unless the ‘victory’ came in 1917 or later (when Germany was on the cusp of collapse as well, and in the post-Revolution period of Russia). What I see is the expansion of the German empire and a more aggressive and expansive colonial thrust, but along the same lines as the empire moved in the pre-war period. Obviously YMMV, but I’m just not seeing how victory would transform the empire so radically in the directions away from an empire and imperium towards a national socialist type model, or to the types of policies and social directions that Nazism went.
-XT
I’m not as knowledgable as many on this thread, but I, too, can see a Nazi party arising in Germany, especially if there is still a Great Depression. They would just change the emphasis for war from “we was robbed” to “let’s finish what we started.”
The potential for something like the Nazis or the Bolsheviks exist in every country. There’s always going to be an extremist fringe. But most societies reject these extremists. The only time they take power is when society suffers a series of disasters and it appears that none of the mainstream institutions can handle it. That’s when people get desperate and turn to the extremists.
And, like others, I don’t see that happening in a victorious Germany. Sure there might have been Nazis - but there wouldn’t have been a Nazi regime.
There might be a Cold War but as I’ve said it would be less ideological in terms of an apocalyptic struggle of “good vs. evil” and more of a simple game of politics over economic and political influence.
Look I’m at school until three, I get home at four and then I have to eat and do homework.
Your slanders and libel against the German state, people, and culture are absurd. Adolf Hitler was not only an ethno-nationalist who wanted to unite not only all the German peoples but also create a massive lebansbrum for settlement in the East and promoted bizarre racial theories. Imperial Germany on the other hand especially under Bismarck wanted a Kleindestuchland based around a Prussian/Protestant core to avoid Catholic minorities and/or a large Slavic population. Nor did they want to conquer all of Europe.
Some more thoughts:
Even if France and/or Russia tries to rearm, Germany may end up being less of an appeaser (and certainly far more militarized) than Britain and France were in the 1930s against them and may simply stop them in their tracks.
Germany, in 1912 elected the Social Democrats as the largest party in the Reichstag, thus a democratic, constitutional change was inevitable especially if the war veterans of a victorious Germany start demanding it.
A war in the Pacific between America and Japan I think is still quite likely-they were natural rivals for areas such as China, the Philippines, and the South Pacific islands.
It always baffles me when people find this important. Is it an entertaining and substantive thread or isn’t it?
Slander and libel would have been grand sounding accusations actually based on something if what I described hadnt actually happened. You may disagree with the conclusions I draw but Germany had practiced genocide on what it considered inferior races and had massacred European civilians in a time other European powers (at least the Western ones) had ceased doing so.
Adolf Hitler didnt invent those racial theories, they were very active across Germany to justify “protection of the Germanic peoples”. An ideology based on a superior “German Race” is not what Hitler brought upon Germany. What he brought was a specific way of translating that politically.
As for not wanting to conquer all of Europe, that’s a Germany that has to play with a rival power on the Continent, remove that, and the dynamics are profoundly modified. People that have no counter powers tend to act in the most atrocious way. Just check Europe’s history in dealing with its colonies, or the US with its Native American pop.
P.S: and the colonization of territories East of Germany was certainly not a concept invented by Hitler.
I think that one big problem with pointing out actions in German Southwest Africa is that almost the opposite was going on in German East Africa, which was quite possibly the “best” of the European African colonies (insofar as “best” can ever be applied to that period).
Given that East Africa seemed to be doing better, who’s to say that a victorious Germany might not use that as the model going forward for whatever other colonies it would pick up in the final treaties?
If the victory were quick, something like the German’s original plans, would Germany even feel the need for seriously harsh conditions on France–as they’d just beaten them twice in living memory.
A-H would have still been a problem and the likely future crisis point. It would have been propped up that much longer, now probably including Serbia (in essence, if not on paper), probably with increasing brutality on every side.
That’s quite true. I believe the French had thoughts along those lines when Napoleon was in charge, no? Here’s the thing…there is little doubt that, having lost a major war, the Russians and French would have had some pretty heavy reparations to pay. And little doubt that Germany (and their allies) would have probably taken territory as well. But there is no way that Germany could have occupied either France or Russia…it just wasn’t in the cards. Nor, having won, did Germany have a huge national need for territory (that was already inhabited, at least wrt France) in Europe. Their main territorial bones of contention in our universe was with the lands taken from them at the conclusion of WWI…especially lands that had large German speaking populations in them. They also wanted elbow room in contiguous countries to Germany because they were in no position to expand their non-European empire by the '30’s. Neither of these things would have been a factor in 1914 or 1915 with France and Russia defeated and the Brits either defeated or having stayed out of the war. It would have been a completely different situation.
As Little Nemo said:
There was nothing inherently in the German people that lead them to a Nazi regime. It was a combination of factors and pressures, internal and external, that lead them down that path. It was the frustration and desperation and anger that lead them there. It could just as easily have happened in any number of other European countries, given the right set of circumstances and pressures…but it wasn’t something that was bound to happen unless those exact circumstances and pressures materialized. A victorious Germany wouldn’t have had most or any of those pressures or problems…they would have had others which would have driven them in other directions.
-XT
Yeah, A/H was definitely crumbling, and even with an early victory it would have been merely a matter of time…just like the Ottoman Empire. And the Balkins would have certainly been a continuing flash point as well.
I doubt they would have imposed harsh conditions on France’s European territory…probably a lot less harsh than Germany imposed in our universe when they conquered it in WWII. My guess is they would have probably taken possession of a number of Frances colonial territories, or forced the French to make them open to the Germans and possibly demilitarized as well (probably both things if they didn’t out and out annex them). I figure there would have been similar conditions on Russia as well, though A/H might have been the ones to demand concessions there.
-XT
Much of the German atrocities in Belgium were due to panic and paranoia of guerrillas and confusion rather than brutality. In addition the policies of other colonial powers were in some cases quite comparable to the Herrero genocide.
Racial theories may have been “popular” but in the same sense as theories on alien abduction or ghosts are in the present-day US-they are not the official policy of the government.
Except there would still be other European powers-while they might not wage aggressive wars against Germany, Germany would probably not want to waste most of its resources by using to troops to keep everything from the Atlantic to the Urals under occupation not to mention the US, the British Empire, and Japan.
It wasn’t like Imperial Germany tried to apply any Final Solution in Alsace and Lorraine or Slesvig and Holsten during the decades they occupied those territories.
Which is precisely what would have happened in France, Poland, Western Russia and the Balkans had Imperial Germany managed to conquer them. The Nazis themselves had no end of troubles with partisans and were fighting them the only way they knew how: a partisan kills a soldier around village X, shoot 50 villagers. A train is derailerd, herd all the villagers back into the village and raze it/burn it to the ground. And so on, and so forth. As you may have gleaned from recent news, counter-insurgency is a losing game.
You seem to be under the illusion once Germany had won its war, all would be well and rosy in its newly extended empire. Maybe you reckon the Poles would greet the Hun as liberators ?
Of course they would, because they would rightly realize the minute they’d show a sign of weakness, the next imperialistic power over would pounce on them. So they’d keep conquering more, as much to increase their own power and get some aggression buffers as to deny your enemies the same benefits. Which of course extends the borders, bringing a new crop of neighbours (and locals) to defend against.
Well, Napoleon’s conquests of Europe is a case study of how not to do it. Besides, it was conquest, not colonization. I certainly dont remember Napoleon “clearing up some elbow room” in Eastern Europe for French settlers (actually I dont remember Napoleon doing that anywhere in Europe).
What I was refering to was the “Drang nach Osten” policy
( Drang nach Osten - Wikipedia )
Hitler didnt invent neither the lebensraum concept, nor the pan-German policies. He just pushed them to their natural conclusion.
So your take is that Nazism only happened because of WW1 and the incredible slight against the German people that was the Versailles Treaty. I had understood that (as much as you probably had understood my own take, given that both of us have been saying the same thing on 5 or 6 posts already).
Consider the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, where Germany was not in a losing position, and doesnt have the "I can take everything cause I was slighted "ticket, the demands were more than exorbitant. So you get a clear vision here of what would have been the behavior of a victorious WW1 Germany, if the peace treaty following the Franco-Prussian war wasnt already a serious hint.
And Germany wasnt the only European country that was shaken by Fascism. All European countries were, some managed to resist, others fell to it. Those that fell usually had at best a fragile democratic tradition. Maybe Germany, with a few more decades of democracy under its belt would have been able to resist Nazism.
In any event, it failed.
You’re not getting it. We’re not saying the Versailles Treaty was unfair to Germany. We’re saying the Germans perceived it as being unfair to them.
If the interest is in what kind of peace Germany would have dictated had they prevailed in a short war, it might be informative to look at the so-called “September program” published by von Bethmann-Hollweg only 5 weeks into the war, when everything seemed to be going Germany’s way and a victoriuos conclusion seemed to be almost in grasp.
The proposals included:
* The annexation of Luxembourg.
* Disabling of France. A crippling war indemnity of 10 billion Reichsmarks for France, with further payments to cover veterans' funds and to pay off all Germany's existing national debt. The ceding of some northern territory such as steel producing Briey, and a coastal strip running from Dunkirk to Boulogne-sur-Mer. The French economy will be dependent on Germany and all trade with the British Empire will cease. France will partially disarm by demolishing its northern forts.
* Turning Belgium and the Netherlands into satellite states, if not annexing Belgium altogether. Parts of Belgium will be annexed to Prussia and Luxembourg. Germany would retain military and naval bases in Belgium and possibly the Netherlands, and they would be ruled under Germany's "guidance". Abolition of neutral states on Germany's borders.
* Creation of a Mitteleuropa economic association dominated by Germany but ostensibly egalitarian. Members will include newly created buffer states carved out of the Russian Empire's west such as Poland, that would remain under German sovereignty "for all time".
* The German colonial empire will be expanded. Most importantly, the creation of a contiguous German colony across central Africa at the expense of the French and Belgian colonies. Presumably leaving the option open for future negotiations with Britain, no British colonies were to be taken, but Britain's "intolerable hegemony" in world affairs was to end.
These demands, while admittedly harsh, are still a far cry from what the Nazis hoped to attain and actually partially achieved before their defeat.
I agree with those who think that a German victory way well have led to a Fascist/Nationalist upswing in France as a consequence, though I would still take virulent French nationalism any day over Nazi racial insanity (though I find both repugnant).
Vichy France was into eugenics too.
And of course we were more than happy to lend a zealous hand in pogroming, denouncing and deporting them Jews, often before the Germans even had to ask. Had our own concentration camp and everything.
A German victory in 1871 and the humiliating/ not-humiliating following peace agreement did not lead France from a democracy to a dictature, it actually did exactly the contrary.
Besides, the conditions stated in this document, at the very least in the area of land grabbing were far harsher than what France was forced to agree in 1940. So calling it “harsh, still a far cry from what the Nazis hoped to attain and actually partially achieved before their defeat” is a bit strange.
Yes, but that’s only because they were getting rid of Napoleon III. If the Third Republic goes down in flames in 1915, I don’t see it surviving the immediate post-war period without a challenge from the Right.
With regards to ceded territory, you are completely wrong. In 1940, Germany occupied a wide coastal strip stretching from Belgium to Spain - the entire Atlantic coastline.
And as to other terms, your rough equivalence of the Kaiser with the Nazis is simply bizarre. I don’t recall any part of the September program which called for French territory to be swept by Einsatzgruppen or for millions of French laborers to be sent to the Second Reich as slave laborers… :dubious:
Shhh… I was giving you guys a break. Didn’t even mention the Peninsular War or anything. 