Would the World be Better or Worse if WW2 Never Happened?

[Flying Mathias]

Imagine that a time traveller went back to 1933, killed Hitler, and caused WW2 to never happen.

My question is, in this scenario, would the world be a better or a worse place it live in? On one hand, there would have never been a holocaust, bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or a Pearl Harbour attack. Eastern Europe would never have become part of the USSR, and they would likely be in a better economic situation. Western Europe would have been spared from the invasion of Hitler, and France, Britain, The Low Countries, and Norway would not have suffered the loss of manpower in the war.

However, had WW2 never happened, I imagine that the world would also be worse in some ways. Women's and minorities's rights would likely be set back, possibly never happening at all. Several inventions caused by the war, such as microwave ovens, computers, nylon, and the radio, may not exist. Nor would the technology that allowed for men to be launched into space, and eventually, land on the Moon.



So, what do you think?

 

[TheLastOne36]

Fascism wouldn't have died with Hitler should he be assassinated by a future time traveler in 1933.

 

[SeekTruthFromFacts]

You should read Stephen Fry's novel Making History if you're interested in this question. It explores exactly this topic. Don't look it up on Wikipedia, because knowing the plot will ruin the book. Having said that, I should point out that another big theme advocates Mr Fry's (well-known) views on the place of homosexual people in society, on which YMMV.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

Isn't this the plot of the game Red Alert?

 

[Lord Baal]

Isn't this the plot of the game Red Alert?

Yes. Yes it is.

 

[Leoreth]

I wouldn't exist, so my personal answer is worse.

 

[Veles]

Nevermind

 

[Luckymoose]

USA'd still be #1

 

[r16]

the tech stuff would have still happened , maybe delayed a couple of years by lack of funding .

and ı have doubts about the premise anyhow , the war , some war would have happened no matter what .

 

[Lord Baal]

To give an actual, thoughtful response to this question: this is impossible to answer adequately. While the world would obviously be better off in the short term without the Holocaust and the numerous massacres, murders and war-related deaths. Then there are the deaths caused in the Arab-Israeli conflicts, the Cold War and it's various proxy wars, decolonization, etc..

The fact remains, however, that the war also had some positives; the collapse and discrediting of fascism on an almost worldwide scale, the reorganization of German and Japanese economies in a much less exploitative way, many other aspects of decolonization, nuclear power and space travel, etc.. After this amount of time has passed, it is impossible to say whether the absence of WWII is a net positive or a net negative.

 

[r16]

not looking for a fight , but what's the reasoning behind the lack of fighting in Palestine or the Cold War ? If one is to base the Cold war to the presence of nuclear weapons ı have quite a few of unprovable stuff on how everybody was on it anyways ; it should be in Wikipedia that the Russians started their programme in 1943 .

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Without the war, I would assume that Britain is assumed to still be financially capable of sustaining her empire, and thus have a greater interest in restricting Jewish emigration to Palestine, or in maintaining order in that area where, when the time for disorder historically came, the Brits cared only long enough to extract themselves from the situation.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

It would be almost impossible to predict such a world. But one thing I guarantee is that there would have been some war in the 40's-or 50's. Be it the USSR making a play for eastern Europe, or Japan and Russia fighting over Siberian Oil, or a US/Australian and Japanese war over control of the Pacific, or the Spanish Civil War expanding into a much smaller version of WWII, there most certainly would have been some kind of violent international relations event. how it changes the timeline is debatable.

Israel probably wouldn't exists without some kinda of Holocaust event. Some form of NATO without the U.S. might have formed in response of some kind of Soviet or Fascist threat. The British empire might face some kind of massive rebellion in India, which without WWII they might win.

 

[Leifmk]

I think we did luck out in one respect: Nukes were developed and used during this conflict, but only one power managed to get them before the war ended, and their use was limited (only two quite primitive low-yield devices dropped on populated targets).

Imagine a world where nukes are developed (and they would be developed, only a little bit later) in peacetime. Most likely, multiple powers would develop them within a few years of each other (this is almost unavoidable given espionage etc.)

Imagine, then, a situation where the next time a major war breaks out, every major power has a significant arsenal. And the damn things have never been used in anger so the horrors they represent have not been adequately described and publicized; maybe people just think of them as big damn bombs. Imagine the likely consequences of that situation.

 

[Ramius75]

so you mean, Japan will never Invade China and the Kongmintan will not be weakened by the attacked. And communist china will never appear?

I think that is a very good idea... China could be the super world power by now if it havent stagnant for 40 years...

 

[r16]

Without the war, I would assume that Britain is assumed to still be financially capable of sustaining her empire, and thus have a greater interest in restricting Jewish emigration to Palestine, or in maintaining order in that area ...

ı would say by 1939 a serious Arab revolt had been crushed by the British using the Sionist organization as the stick and themselves as some sort of carrot . Or maybe as a hammer and anvil thing .

I think we did luck out in one respect: Nukes were developed and used during this conflict, but only one power managed to get them before the war ended, and their use was limited (only two quite primitive low-yield devices dropped on populated targets).

Imagine a world where nukes are developed (and they would be developed, only a little bit later) in peacetime. Most likely, multiple powers would develop them within a few years of each other (this is almost unavoidable given espionage etc.)

Imagine, then, a situation where the next time a major war breaks out, every major power has a significant arsenal. And the damn things have never been used in anger so the horrors they represent have not been adequately described and publicized; maybe people just think of them as big damn bombs. Imagine the likely consequences of that situation.

by 1960s the victims of Hiroshima were there for all to see and that didn't stop people from building or comptemplating the use of nuclear weeapons . Yesterday ı saw an internet link that discussed Harold Brown , Carter's Secretary of Defence "using" strategic nukes to attack "Soviet" tactical units in exercises . This guy is the "father" of Stealth and an "architect" of present day aerial bombardment by guided weapons . Yet , it is still nukes , including the famed Neutron one . It's merely the unknown capacity of the Soviet pre-emptive attack that deterred the West from war , and that going quickly nuclear . There is a reason why the Russians still field a ring of nuclear armed SAMs around Moscow and the risk of Russkies hearing it before American weapons leave their subs and silos still remains .

 

[Dachs]

ı would say by 1939 a serious Arab revolt had been crushed by the British using the Sionist organization as the stick and themselves as some sort of carrot . Or maybe as a hammer and anvil thing .

The stick was the British Army, and the carrot was the example of the privileges that the Yishuv enjoyed.

 

[KaiserElectric]

In my opinion, going back in time to kill Hitler wouldn't do a damn thing. There are always madmen out there willing to do what he did, and if Hitler didn't do it, someone would.

Not to mention that even without Hitler we still had people like Stalin and Mussolini kicking around.

 

[Leifmk]

by 1960s the victims of Hiroshima were there for all to see and that didn't stop people from building or comptemplating the use of nuclear weeapons .

Building and contemplating their use, sure. But I suspect one major reason why we never (so far) got a real nuclear war was precisely because of the powerful deterrent effect which existed because of the horrible examples from when nuclear weapons WERE used (again, only two devices and pretty small ones as nukes go). Absent those, nukes might be less of a boogeyman and the threshold for actually using them might be significantly lower. Add that to a likely multipolar geopolitical situation and we'd be lucky not to see a significant nuclear exchange at some point.

 

[r16]

won't debate about Palestine '39 apart from there would be a Partition and it would be as debatable as the events that took place .

regarding nukes Curtis LeMay explained the bruises on his face as the result of hatch that fell onto him on an inspection flight on a B-50 in 1948 or so . The threshold was quite low in the Cold War , right to the end .