What if we had stood united with Hitler against Russia......

[Sixpack]

I like 'what if' discussions even if they are painfully confronting.

But it puts things in perspective, and the lads (and lady) here are man enough to take the abuse...

So here's a first 'What if' for ya:

What kind of Europe would have developed ?

-A fascist Europe, yes.

-Hitler as ruler surpreme: For a while: Yes. However we all know what happened to GJ Caesar. Nobody is immortal and it can be over with a flash of a knife.

-Communism outrooted; no cold war (No Korea, Vietnam, East Block etc.)

-Russia prosperous like the rest of Europe; and a real part of the European empire. A vast European common market !

-Relationships with ME and East: For sure better than they are now

-No Israel where it is today (real sorry for the Jews)

-and ????


Feck, no wonder the Americans were keen on liberating us !

[Sixpack]

PS. Before remarks are dragged out of proportion:

I think in this 'what if' scenario there would not have been a Holocaust and prosecution of Jews had the fight swiftly and Euro-collectively been aimed at wiping out the communist threat and conquering all of Russia...

I assume Jews could have struck an early deal which would have left them in an isolated peace (somewhere) as part of the European Empire.

[Skybird]

Two centres of gravity, where only can be one. Assuming that the Nazis would have come to power in the same way and America making deal with them in the mid-30s, the reality on American ground (society, political tendency towards isolationism) would not have been of the hard-steeled nature that would have been needed to stop the Nazis from hollowing it out from within, means: taking over the power all by themselves by economical dependencies and treaties and secret action. Nazism was more aggressive than Americanism of that time. Once the ideological breeding program would have had 10-15 years of time to infiltrate the head's of America's young, it's fall to Nazism would have been pretty much a secured course of history, I think. The american mentality with it's high respect for it's own interpretation of a "Führergestalt" - the president - makes it vulnerable for such personal cults like has been established by the Nazis.

Hitler's death wouldn't have changed things much, I think. A short and brutal fight for power, some assassination and arrests and executions, and then another one of the leading elite would have taken his seat. Bohrmann, maybe Goebbels, and for sure: Goehring - these three come to my mind as the most likely candidates.

Horrible vision.

[Sixpack]

A lot more can be said on this piece of alternative history, Skybird. You surely can do better (dig deeper) than that. Though it must be embarassing for Germans in general to think this through freely, as I understand, which only shows again you have the cajones of a new breed of free spirited Germans

Interesting addition regarding America's part tho', as I was at first only thinking America would have remained a harmless isolated 'island' between 2 oceans, at least while the imperial European interest would have focussed on consolidating EURASIA and stubborn Britain.

I also think that after a relatively short brutal reign of Hitler and/or one or two of his henchmen to secure absolute power things might have developed for the better all over Europe and a centrally controlled
self government of regions (by puppets) would have developed throughout the empire in a natural way. Sort of like when Augustus ruled the empire after Caesar.

So no democracy like we know it, but acceptable if and when the system would protect the elite and common people and insure them prosperity and good trade. In other words, when the majority of people would have felt okay with their micro situation a lasting not so brutal yet powerful European imperial (federal ?)system might have emerged.

[to be continued after the break]

[August]

I don't believe the reign of Hitler would have been short at all and whoever did replace him would have been no better and perhaps even worse. I also don't believe the nazi

The Nazis with their ideal of Aryan racial superiority would have made living in the occupied countries a hell without end as they solidified their hold over Europe and Western Asia and the Jews would still have been massacred.

[Sixpack]

Originally Posted by August

The Nazis with their ideal of Aryan racial superiority would have made living in the occupied countries a hell without end as they solidified their hold over Europe and Western Asia and the Jews would still have been massacred.

Yes, this bit puzzles me in this 'what if' scenario.

It's likely that would happen but for some reason I am not so sure.

Hitler started his journey into madness out of sheer personal frustration. Remember the dude wanted to enter art school and felt miserable about the WW1 defeat.

Had he felt he was a succesful human being and Germany a leading proud country, his mental state and views might have changed for the better or at least made him seek different arrangements for the Jews, like move them to a remote inhospitable part of Europe or otherwise out of core-Germany possibly under strict rules. Not nice by any means, but beats a holocaust any day.

So yes, the fate of the Jews is the weakest part of the chain in this alternative history. It's thin line between hero (*) or zero.

Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon are generally admired for their achievements.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sixpack

Yes, this bit puzzles me in this 'what if' scenario.

It's likely that would happen but for some reason I am not so sure.

Hitler started his journey into madness out of sheer personal frustration. Remember the dude wanted to enter art school and felt miserable about the WW1 defeat.

Had he felt he was a succesful human being and Germany a leading proud country, his mental state and views might have changed for the better or at least made him seek different arrangements for the Jews, like move them to a remote inhospitable part of Europe or otherwise out of core-Germany possibly under strict rules. Not nice by any means, but beats a holocaust any day.

So yes, the fate of the Jews is the weakest part of the chain in this alternative history. It's thin line between hero (*) or zero.

Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon are generally admired for their achievements.

I disagree about Hitler. He had plenty to be proud of. His party brought the German nation back from the depths of a depression that was far worse than anything experienced in the US or anywhere else for that matter. He gave the German people back their pride lost after WW1 which was the key to the nazis success.

He could have stopped there without dragging the world into war and he would have accomplished far more than most national leaders in history ever did, but he didn't.

As for the Jews, i have never subscribed to the idea the holocaust happened because the war made it impossible to just send them away. Take the Ukranians for example. They were constantly murdered in wholesale lots in spite of the fact they would have been willing allies against the Soviets.

Like the Jews they were in the way and I believe it shows they and all other "sub race" of people would still have been eliminated. If anything I firmly believe the Nazis would have been far worse (if you can imagine that) without the war to inhibit their actions.

[Sixpack]

Point of this alternative scenario is, or so I guess:

[after contemplating once again what has lead the world to the status quo]

FACT: Europe as a whole was the big loser of WW2 and laid in ruins

FACT: America became the superpower because of Europe's misery (which Europe had only itself to blame for)

FACT: Europe has ever since been and is still stuck between:

-Soviet Union ; collapsed into unstable underdeveloped parts, with a couple of exceptions
-ME (time bomb)
-Emperor America

Europe is struggling ambiguously to survive in this world and even flourish in the middle. It will be hard to achieve as wonderful Europe drops more and more behind.

It's destiny might as well have been a totally different one: A 1000 years empire

[tycho102]

I'll play this game!





What if we had let Patton, who knew that the Communist Russia would be the next world-dominating enemy, conquer the Russians like he wanted to?

What if we had dropped nukes on St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, and Grazny?

What if Lawrence of Arabia had been assigned to some frozen wasteland, and Britian allowed the Ottoman Empire to continue exterminating the "Palestinians"?

What if a bacteria was found that could convert oil into carbon-nanotubes, and a terrorist put some into the seawater that is pumped into Arabian oil fields, effectively "destroying" all the oil contained in that reservoir?

What if my local liquor store actually increased their supply of Carlsberg, or raised the price, so there was actually some beer there when I'm shopping?

[Sixpack]

Tycho, you got the hang of it better than I do. Rock on

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

I disagree about Hitler. He had plenty to be proud of. His party brought the German nation back from the depths of a depression that was far worse than anything experienced in the US or anywhere else for that matter. He gave the German people back their pride lost after WW1 which was the key to the nazis success.

The price was too high for just giving Germans back their pride. Doing so was not so much the goal he wanted to accomplish, but a tool for reaching far beyond Germany, and cleaning non-Aryan people off the face of the earth. "Mein Kampf", as far as I am aware of it and was told about it, made that clear since very early. Where others would have sought to reestablish Germany's status amongst the other powers, and then eventually would have fallen victim to megalomania, Hitler already had fallen to that idea when he talked of overcoming of Versailles and giving Germans back their pride. It was only a tool to do so, not the final goal.

Another interesting "waht if"-scenario. What kind of Germany would we see today, if the Nazis did not came to power, Germany did not brake the treaty of Versailles and would have choosen to stuck in the economical misery it was in. Civil war? Another bad guy showing up? War nevertheless? Annexation by france, or a Western alliance? Russian intervention? Maybe there are evn more alterntaives how history would have developed than in the case of the Scenario sixpack originally described in this thread.

Let's talk about quantum physics, Kopenhagen and Schroedinger's cat, and alternate universes Who knows, maybe, despite all horror in our world, we nevertheless do live in one of the better realities there are, or will be, or has been....

[Happy Times]

I also think this scenario should have happened after the fall of Germany, arm them again and take on the Soviets. Patton had the foresight and knew this but too many pussys in the US goverment. It wouldnt have been impossible to get the Euros to attack Russia with the right propaganda.

[August]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

I also think this scenario should have happened after the fall of Germany, arm them again and take on the Soviets. Patton had the foresight and knew this but too many pussys in the US goverment. It wouldnt have been impossible to get the Euros to attack Russia with the right propaganda.

I seriously doubt the western Allies could have beaten the Soviets militarily in 1945-46, especially with the war in the Pacific still going strong.

We did have the atom bomb but not very many of them and it would have taken a lot to wipe out the huge Soviet army that was already in Germany and eastern europe. I think long before we could have built and deployed them in sufficient numbers to do so, the Soviets would have been so closely engaged with our troops their use would have hurt us as much as them.

[Happy Times]

I dont know, i think that astrategic bombing campaign in USSR with the force allready at disposal and maybe a few a-bobms would have breaken the soviets back. Promising independence to Eastern Europe and Ukraine would have caused a massive resistance movement. After Japan fell it would have been a two front war for USSR.

[Happy Times]

And just because the Cold War was cold and not as "Hollywood" story as the WW II, it should be more celebrated as the real liberation of Europe of totalitarism.