If the Third Reich took over Britain, who would have led the colloborationist Gov?
- Thread starter IntellectuallyHonestRhino
- Start date
I do think that if London and Paris are both under Germany's thumb, that there would be more need to "accept" the German's dominant position in the world. And especially if a year later Moscow falls, when then …
IF Moscow falls
Yes, unlike OTL Germany isn't fighting a two front war and it has free reign in North Africa but on the other hand now Russia is getting help from both America and Canada/Australia and this time Stalin has no reason to doubtt that a german attack is coming
Odds are still stacked against Russia, and with Britain is out of the picture, it’s likely that US aid will be much less forthcoming
Unless Germany declares war against the USA like OTL
I believe that Pearl Harbor would happen like Otl but this time Hitler would be even less prudent about Barbarossa or the war with America
They won’t because Japan won’t. Complete British collapse allows the Japanese to sweep through SEA. If the Japanese are still intent on war, they would join Germany if it looks like the USSR is on the brink of defeat. Even if they don’t manage anything except blocking shipments to Vladivostok, it still shuts off all LL aid.
Why?
If american sanctions are still here and the people in charge are the same of OTL, an attack against america seems inevitable
So basically they are going to do the same thing that caused the war in OTL
Heck, you could argue that this is enough to start the war even without Pearl Harbor
But they didn't in OTL
Also wouldn't they be more busy with the vaious resistance movements in their territories?
Because American sanctions are circumvented by the DEI which is why Japan attacked IOTL. With the British gone, there is a much reduced chance that America will join the war, especially for Dutch imperialism. Japanese leaders would have recognized this and likely have viewed the odds of American intervention as not likely enough to warrant PH.
They aren’t.
This isn’t OTL, the circumstances have changed substantially
Sorry, my mistake
However the point still stands: as long as their attitude towards the black population is left alone, they will support Edward
It's a lot lot more complicated then that.
The SA PM at the time Jan Smuts was a loyal subject and a British Field Marshal. He was seriously considered for the role of PM of the UK if Churchill had died. He was a member of the Imperial war cabinet. All of this despite fighting Britain in the Boer war. If Jan Smuts is still alive and in power then SA continues to support whatever Free British government emerges as will the US.
At worst SA might have been Neutral towards Germany. The idea that they would have been loyal allies is just nonsense.
We are talking about the same guy who lost in 1948 because he wasn't racist enough
Also from wikipedia:
South Africa entered World War II on the side of the Allies against Nazi Germany and other Axis members. Many in South Africa, including the Afrikaner Ossewabrandwag (OB) movement, objected and sought to maintain South African neutrality during the conflict, if not enter the war on the side of Germany.[1]
Members of the OB refused to enlist in the South African forces, and sometimes harassed servicemen in uniform. This erupted into open rioting in Johannesburg on 1 February 1941; 140 soldiers were seriously hurt.[2]
More dangerous than this was the formation of the Stormjaers (English: Assault troops, literally stormhunters), a paramilitary wing of the OB similar to the Nazi Sturmabteilung. The nature of the Stormjaers was evidenced by the oath sworn by new recruits: "If I retreat, kill me. If I die, avenge me. If I advance, follow me" (Afrikaans: As ek omdraai, skiet my. As ek val, wreek my. As ek storm, volg my).[3]
The Stormjaers engaged in sabotage against the Union government. They dynamited electrical power lines and railroads, and cut telegraph and telephone lines.[2] These types of acts were going too far for most Afrikaners, and Malan ordered the National Party to break with the OB in 1942.[4]
The Union government cracked down on the OB and the Stormjaers, placing thousands of them in internment camps for the duration of the war. Among the internees was future prime minister B. J. Vorster.
At the end of the war, the OB was absorbed into the National Party and ceased to exist as a separate body.
By the standards of the day Smuts was no more racist than someone like Churchill, for example.
Also, he only lost in 1948 because of the vagaries of the electoral system, his United Party actually beat the National Party by more than ten percentage points.
Firstly, as has been discussed extensively on this website in a whole range of threads, Operation Sealion is not really a runner, the geographic, logistic and balance of forces are against a successful German invasion. For it to work you would need to have POD much earlier than 1939/40. You would need a more isolationist US President than Roosevelt and about a decade of pacifistic Labour Government in Britain under someone like George Lansbury who let the national defences be run down even further than they were under Baldwin coupled with an RAF and FAA procurement screw during rearmament involving building huge quantities of soon to be obsolescent aircraft like Fairey Battles or Gloster Gladiators rather than enough Spitfires and Hurricanes. Even then it would be a big ask of the Wehrmacht.
More plausible is a peace through exhaustion as Britain runs out of funds and the US does not enter the war. This wouldn't be a collaborationist regime though, it would be a fairly unfriendly neutral thereafter. Churchill discredited and probably Halifax, Hoare or Leo Amery (particularly if you can avoid his son heading up the Legion of St George in Berlin) in charge. Possibly the capable reassuring figure of Lord Woolton
However assuming a decade of total ineptitude by Britain prior to 1940 and the Germans getting very lucky, the most likely choice is David Lloyd George who Hitler apparently favoured for the role. Hitler didn't rate Oswald Mosley very highly (called him the "Woolworth Duce") and he would have been unlikely to get anything at all unless the BUF's electoral prospects improved. The Germans could gauge levels of popular support from electoral mathematics just like anybody else. And they wanted a respected figure who would command some degree of public respect and acquiescence. Halagaz is entirely right in the assessment above. The Nazis didn't want a strong unified mobilised rival, they wanted a tributary state.
Enoch Powell was probably correct in his reading of R.A. Butler whose political priorities were domestic and who would principally have been concerned with ameliorating the lot of the civilian population. I suspect that Walter Monckton, Harold Macmillan and Harry Crookshank would all have thought much the same way. And there is also Walter Runciman, a keen appeaser and ready and willing to sell out the Czechs. And Sir Samuel Hoare, a fairly ruthless pragmatist. None of these men are Nazi fellow-travellers or traitors but when your country has been militarily defeated and occupied by the enemy and (unlike DeGaulle and Free France) there isn't a neighbouring co-belligerent prepared to carry on the war they will be forced to deal with the situation as best they can. The same is true of Attlee - it was his concern for the common man that brought him into Labour politics in the first place rather than a comfortable life as a barrister.
Churchill may or may not be executed (probably not -in France only Mandel was executed and him not until 1944) but he isn't going to be a great rallying point any more than Renaud or Daladier were in France. Basically will be seen as a useless blowhard TTL.
Government in exile? Anthony Eden, Duff Cooper, Paul Emrys-Evans, Sir Anthony Page-Croft and Vyvyan Adams. Probably Sir Stafford Cripps, the most ideologically driven member of the Labour shadow cabinet, Sir Richard Acland and Eleanor Rathbone. Most probably Michael Foot and Sefton Delmer.
Leslie Hore-Belisha, Sydney Silverman, Herbert Morrison, Israel Sieff, Emmanuel Shinwell, Herbert Samuel and Victor Rothschild, Victor Gollancz would have had no option but to flee.
More plausible is a peace through exhaustion as Britain runs out of funds and the US does not enter the war. This wouldn't be a collaborationist regime though, it would be a fairly unfriendly neutral thereafter. Churchill discredited and probably Halifax, Hoare or Leo Amery (particularly if you can avoid his son heading up the Legion of St George in Berlin) in charge. Possibly the capable reassuring figure of Lord Woolton
However assuming a decade of total ineptitude by Britain prior to 1940 and the Germans getting very lucky, the most likely choice is David Lloyd George who Hitler apparently favoured for the role. Hitler didn't rate Oswald Mosley very highly (called him the "Woolworth Duce") and he would have been unlikely to get anything at all unless the BUF's electoral prospects improved. The Germans could gauge levels of popular support from electoral mathematics just like anybody else. And they wanted a respected figure who would command some degree of public respect and acquiescence. Halagaz is entirely right in the assessment above. The Nazis didn't want a strong unified mobilised rival, they wanted a tributary state.
Enoch Powell was probably correct in his reading of R.A. Butler whose political priorities were domestic and who would principally have been concerned with ameliorating the lot of the civilian population. I suspect that Walter Monckton, Harold Macmillan and Harry Crookshank would all have thought much the same way. And there is also Walter Runciman, a keen appeaser and ready and willing to sell out the Czechs. And Sir Samuel Hoare, a fairly ruthless pragmatist. None of these men are Nazi fellow-travellers or traitors but when your country has been militarily defeated and occupied by the enemy and (unlike DeGaulle and Free France) there isn't a neighbouring co-belligerent prepared to carry on the war they will be forced to deal with the situation as best they can. The same is true of Attlee - it was his concern for the common man that brought him into Labour politics in the first place rather than a comfortable life as a barrister.
Churchill may or may not be executed (probably not -in France only Mandel was executed and him not until 1944) but he isn't going to be a great rallying point any more than Renaud or Daladier were in France. Basically will be seen as a useless blowhard TTL.
Government in exile? Anthony Eden, Duff Cooper, Paul Emrys-Evans, Sir Anthony Page-Croft and Vyvyan Adams. Probably Sir Stafford Cripps, the most ideologically driven member of the Labour shadow cabinet, Sir Richard Acland and Eleanor Rathbone. Most probably Michael Foot and Sefton Delmer.
Leslie Hore-Belisha, Sydney Silverman, Herbert Morrison, Israel Sieff, Emmanuel Shinwell, Herbert Samuel and Victor Rothschild, Victor Gollancz would have had no option but to flee.
Max Sinister
Banned
Ralph Giordano writes in "If Hitler had won the war" that he had planned to deport all men between 17 and 45 to the continent. Admittedly, that was crazy even for Hitler...
Other than that, I guess it's Mosley. He'll probably never have a majority of the Brits behind him, but the nazis didn't bother about that re: Quisling in Norway either.
Other than that, I guess it's Mosley. He'll probably never have a majority of the Brits behind him, but the nazis didn't bother about that re: Quisling in Norway either.