A historical what-if-question

[mapuc]

in my own thread "Military coup in Turkey "

Skybird mentioned Hitler and what happened to Europe-Starting World war 2.

But and here's my what if question

What if Hitler stayed put in his own country, doing the same thing terrorize his own people, killing thousands of communist, Jews a.s.o But did not attack Poland, France, England etc

Would that give England, France or other countries the right to attack Germany ?

I made a new thread ´cause I wouldn't derail my own thread.

Markus

[August]

Originally Posted by mapuc

in my own thread "Military coup in Turkey "

Skybird mentioned Hitler and what happened to Europe-Starting World war 2.

But and here's my what if question

What if Hitler stayed put in his own country, doing the same thing terrorize his own people, killing thousands of communist, Jews a.s.o But did not attack Poland, France, England etc

Would that give England, France or other countries the right to attack Germany ?

I made a new thread ´cause I wouldn't derail my own thread.

Markus

I think hitler would not have lasted very long before the nazis replaced him with someone more expansionist minded.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Would that give England, France or other countries the right to attack Germany ?

By international laws inked down after WWII, they would not just even have had a right, but even a legal obligation to attack, if they cannot stop in by other means. The anti-genocide convention says that when a state acting in genocide, which means not only the extermination an ethnic groups' individuals, but trying to delete the culture and identity by destroying its cultural heritage, banning its language and so forth, any state knowing of that genocide then has the legal obligation to take measure that help to stop it.

That is the reason why you can observe in modern present that many states in the world can be confronted with obviousy cases of genocide happening in Africa or the Middle East, but still strictly refusing to call it as that - because then they would face legal obligations to do something about it, whatever it needs to stop that. And that need often is military axction.

Back then, the question is whether France and Britain actually could have successfully fought against Germany when attacking Germany first. German Panzer for exampel were inferior to French and British and Russian designs, okay, but still were led by superior tactics and command flexibility - this and not the quality of the German tanks with their thin armour and inferior weaponry was the reason why the German Panzerwaffe was so successful. Later came the Tiger, okay, that was technical superiority - but again: also techncial vulnerablity, they were terrible to maintain and gave the engineers hell - but then the Russians had the T-34 already - maybe the best tank of the whole war, and in enormous quantities.

What should be done, and what could be done, must not nessecarily be the same thing. In an ideal world, there would be a button I press, and the bad guy drops dead in place. In reality, I could push that button and see him dropping dead - and face nuclear retaliation myself.

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by mapuc

But and here's my what if question

What if Hitler stayed put in his own country, doing the same thing terrorize his own people, killing thousands of communist, Jews a.s.o But did not attack Poland, France, England etc

It was not in Hitler's DNA to just stay at home. Hitler could not have been Hitler for that to happen. He was pretty big in economic self-sufficiency for the Nazi state and despised the idea of being dependent on any other nation for imports of raw strategic materials. For Germany to be a self-sufficient autarky in things like oil, aluminum, tungsten copper, rubber, etc. it had to expand to take those things from other nations. Not to mention all those unsettled borders issues with Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc. that got the expansionist ball rolling.

[Skybird]

Yes, but that was not his question.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by August

I think hitler would not have lasted very long before the nazis replaced him with someone more expansionist minded.

Funny you should mention that...

[Betonov]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Funny you should mention that...

Original Red alert scenario

[Jimbuna]

Those being terrorized by Hitler would most likely have sought help from other countries and at least one (Stalin) would have seen the opportunity to expand westward with the likely prize being Geman industrial complexes and the resultant counter-effect would most likely see western countries, France, UK etc. moving against such communist based expansion.

[STEED]

I think based on the question the West as it was back then would not have acted against Germany. I think the French would have bolstered the maginot line and extended it all the way northwards. Stalin would have completed the molotov line and Germany would have been sort of boxed in. Just to add siegfried line would have been made stronger and maybe some sort of line in East Germany. Probably some sort of cold war may have come about, hard to say.