What if instead we has a Coldwar with the Nazis?

[President Clark]

Say if Hitler was war weary ala Stalin in late 40's, weary of direct conflict with the West and other nations and instead kept his satellite nations such as Hungary and much of the Balkans in his indirect control, what would be the detertimental effect on the German economy?

*Could it suffer a spiralling arms race that would eventually mean it could not supply the 'guns and butter' Their people wanted?

*Would they have had to rethink thier racial philosophy as the world progressed on human and racial rights?

*His helping to 'Stem the tide' of the Stalinist camp let some European leaders rethink their view of him?

*Would it have eventually turned into a North Korea?

 

[cgannon64]

A three-way arms race would have been interesting.

I do not think Facism would have caught on such as communism did---I think, as a government, it is inherently self-destructive. I don't believe Facist Germany could have survived, because political pressure would have been put on the US to act was the Holocaust happened (on a much larger scale, b/c it would've happened during peace-time). Don't say the Holocaust wouldn't have happened if WW2 didn't---it started in the mid-30s, just caught on in WW2.

Would have made quite an interesting scenerio. However, if WW2 never happened, I think decreased military spending would have made nuclear weapons discovered later.

 

[stalin006]

well lets really think about it,the germans were ahead of everyone!!! rocket and jet engine techs, in the historical cold war, both teh soviet and american weapon tech were from german scientists, so if there had been not WW2, the germans would have the top military technolofies of the day, and would probably had started a war by teh 50s, but now tehy are so ahead noone could stop them!!!

 

[Hades]

The facist economy was based strickly on war. I can't imagine how it was sustain in peace time in a cold war. It needs "hot" wars to keep it going.

 

[stalin006]

didnt teh soviets had something similar but yet survived till 1989??

 

[knowltok2]

I think we need more info. When did the war stop? Under what terms? Is Britain still independent? What about the Soviet Union, was there no war, or did it die out with a return to status quo? How were things left in Africa? Did the war end before or after US entry? What happened in the Pacific?

Good hypothetical, but it needs fleshed out more.

 

[joespaniel]

If the German armies in Russia attacked Moscow instead of Kiev in the summer of 1941, Russia would have been destroyed.
Germany, after consolidating, would have been the worlds super-power.

With Russia decapitated, Japan strikes west into Siberia instead of east, and Pearl Harbor never happens. The US does not enter the war.

The second battle of Britain would then be fought, and after much wholesale carnage, the UK falls.

America and Nazi Germany enter the cold war...

 

[stalin006]

ah, but wait, japan would also become a superpower, then both axis powers would build up to invade the US simuntaneusly!!

 

[President Clark]

The Soviet Union still exists, and Japan does have a course of expansion, but the United states still has a war with them.

I think that the Pacific war was inevitable, clash of interests.
Italy eventually becomes a client state. The economic situation of the Soviet Union is more healthy.

Remember that Hitler admired Britain, and wanted not to destroy her, but for them to become allies. The Western European powers have a much more powerful stance so Hitler stays back.
Nazism is as bad as Communism, why doesn't it have to last long?

 

[stalin006]

i think nazism is worst

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Well, most likely the US would have eventually won the war with the Japaneese, maybe later maybe earlier thanks to not having to fight in Europe.

Let's say the Japaneese and the US enter into war perhaps in 1943-1945. War drags on for 3 or 4 years, atomic bomb ending it.

Most likely soon after Nazi Germany and the US would have had to enter into a cold war. What was left of the Soviet Union if anything would only be a minor player. With no communists in Russia, perhaps China would have taken a more democratic stance. The cold war could have resulted in two things. Nuclear holocaust or Germany collapsing into a democracy or even communism.

 

[stalin006]

no, altough the USSR did helped mao and his revolution, he was ahead of the nationalists, his popularity was growing, i think mao could had won anyways but still it wuld had been a different world and a cold war, china would had become the top communist country, that meatn thattehy didtn really do much like russia, no nuclear arsenal, no worldwide spy actions, no multinational revolution grants, in the other side, it is hard to wonder how would had nazi germany after hitlers death, who knows who would had replaced him, probably all european jews would had died in the holocaust, and since it was in such secresy no israel creation.

 

[cgannon64]

I think you guys are extrapolating a little too much. Stalin does have a point though, about the advanced Nazi scientists. Were they working in the atomic weapons field, though? If they were, they would have surely developed it before the US. If they weren't it would have been a little closer.

I wonder if WW2 couldn't have happened. I don't think Hitler's trigger finger could have stayed still for that long...

 

[stalin006]

no ww2??????? lets ask what if no ww1! no hitler, no russian revolution no cold war, who knows ^_^

 

[Aphex_Twin]

If all the major world powers woulf have aquired the nuclear weapon in the same time, such a "cold war" would have been bossible. Still, not a three sided war (it rarely happends).

Germany would have allied itself with the west vs. USSR. There were much more differencies between the nazis and the soviets than between the nazis and the western europeans.

 

[stalin006]

well....... i odnt think nazi germany would give the US and other nato countries free trials on their state of the art tech, i say they stay alone, germany gets a chance of still doing ww2 by the 50s, since the a-bomb would sitll hadent been invented.......wasnt there a soviet plan ot invade europe in 43? b4 they had to defend themselfs from operation barbarossa?

 

[joespaniel]

OK, in Clark's scenario Fall Weiss (Poland) never happens, so Germany never goes to war with the Allies.

I envision that it would be a race to see who got the atomic bomb first, probably the US, but even then since no world war occurs nobody uses it at first.

If Germany gets it first, Hitler blackmails the Allies into concessions.

However, even if Germany gets theirs last (before Russia though), I envision the cold war ending in holocaust instead of peace.

Hitler was crazy enough to use it even in the face of MAD. The ending of WWII nearly saw the complete destruction of the German state without such weapons, imagine with...

 

[Lord Lolig]

The nazi scientists probably came up with the abomb a bit before the US did - but where well aware of the consequences of trigger happy Hitler having 'em, so in their right minds kept the A-BOMB technology to them selves. If this was true and the scientists had eventualy announced the tech to hitler, i think the world would have been facing nuclear winter right about now. thats my little theory.

 

[Panda]

Reich Armament Minister Albert Speer describes in his book "Der Sklavenstaat. Meine Auseinandersetzungen mit der SS" (should translate into English as something like "The Slave State") how, in early 1940, the research on the Atom Bomb was halted and resources re-allocated to other projects. The idea of developing an Atom Bomb wasn't brought up again until January 1945 and dropped after 30 minutes of consultation.

The reason - Hitler's order to cease research of 'Jewish' science.

So while the 3rd Reich certainly had the means to produce an atom bomb, it's highly unlikely they would have been the first ones to develop it.

 

[Panda]

I once read a study (I'm sorry to say I can't remember the author) that speculates that Hitler was actually terminally ill. The footage that shows him in 1945 would suggest Parkinson's disease. The author concludes that because Hitler realised in 1939 he hasn't too many years left, and hence won't see his 1000-year-Reich strech from the Atlantic Coast to Urals, he starts WWII. This even though previous German plans stated that the Wehrmacht wouldn't be fully prepared for conquest until 1943.

Now, there are plenty of counter arguements to that illness theory - like that Hitler didn't expect France and England to go to war over Poland, or that the German industry was declining due to huge armament projects and 'needed' a war. So let's pretend Hitler is actually physically healthy, and continues arming the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine.

However -

in 1942, Stalin has finished the reforms of the Red Army, and starts his conquest by invading Poland, easily trashing the poor Pollacks, and continuing towards Germany.

Could we see a Western Coalition led by Hitler against the Soviet menace, or would the Germans stand alone?