Althtough OTL militarily Britain was always going to be weak on land, strong at sea and competitive in the air. That hasn't changed ITTL. The RN is still going to have more than enough ships in home waters to curb stomp the German Navy if its foolish enough to come out to play in a real war. The Metropolitan units of the RAF will likely be as strong as OTL. They will also benefit from some of the lessons learnt fighting the Japanese.

Although many of the pre war regulars that made up the BEF will either have been deployed or about to be deployed to the Far East. However, Japan is a big enough enemy that the 14 divisions of the Territorial Army would have been called up and will currently be finishing off their training. IOTL these forces where pretty much paper tigers at the beginning of WW2. Enthusiastic armatures the Terriers may have been but completely lacking in modern equipment. However a big war in the Far East will see Britain moving to a war economy and these issues with equipment will slowly be rectified. Also like the RAF the training these forces would be getting would in part be based on the fighting in the Far East so some glaring deficits would be rectified. Therefore if the Germans decide to start trouble in Europe the British could in theory deploy to France larger and better prepaired forces than OTL!

Of course France and Germany might not see it that way.
 
What are the chances that the Nazi regime invades Scandinavia first
That... actually depends. Their invasion of Norway was motivated by the fact that the Norwegians were not going to do anything about British convoy raiders attacking German commerce in the Baltics - almost all of Germany's steel comes from Sweden, and cutting that would wreck Germany's economy and war effort. When a British raider captured a German commercial ship, the Norwegian government gave token protests, and the Germans couldn't just let that happen. So they preempted the whole thing and invaded Norway, while Sweden remained neutral for the length of the war and continued trading with Germany.

If the Royal Navy tries to affect German commerce in the Baltic, then we'd see an invasion of Norway. Otherwise, there'd be no reason for Hitler to start a fight when he's trying to save his strength for the USSR.
 
That... actually depends. Their invasion of Norway was motivated by the fact that the Norwegians were not going to do anything about British convoy raiders attacking German commerce in the Baltics - almost all of Germany's steel comes from Sweden, and cutting that would wreck Germany's economy and war effort. When a British raider captured a German commercial ship, the Norwegian government gave token protests, and the Germans couldn't just let that happen. So they preempted the whole thing and invaded Norway, while Sweden remained neutral for the length of the war and continued trading with Germany.

If the Royal Navy tries to affect German commerce in the Baltic, then we'd see an invasion of Norway. Otherwise, there'd be no reason for Hitler to start a fight when he's trying to save his strength for the USSR.
Its actually a little more unclear than this. For starters the ship in question was a Kreigsmarine auxiliary carrying British POW's, so the Norwegians should have actually interred her or forced her out of Norwegian waters before the RN took her anyway. Basically no one supported Norwegian neutrality properly, not even the Norwegians.

It is also unlikely that without the incident either side would have left Norway alone for long. The German Navy was pushing for an invasion of Norway as early as October 1939. They were worried both about the ore transport as well as the RN having bases in Germany with which they could tighten the blockade and threaten Germany proper. They were right to be concerned as the British Admiralty were looking at Norway for basically those exact reasons. There was talk of a limited Allied invasion of Norway as a step to supporting Finland in the Winter war (with a convenient stop to park most of the men sent on the Swedish Iron mines on the way by). Even as the German invasion was launched the RN was on its way to drop mines in Norwegian waters to cut of German iron shipments.

Both sides saw a lot of benefit to holding Norway. It seems likely that it was going to be forced into the war by somebody at some point.
 
That... actually depends. Their invasion of Norway was motivated by the fact that the Norwegians were not going to do anything about British convoy raiders attacking German commerce in the Baltics - almost all of Germany's steel comes from Sweden, and cutting that would wreck Germany's economy and war effort. When a British raider captured a German commercial ship, the Norwegian government gave token protests, and the Germans couldn't just let that happen. So they preempted the whole thing and invaded Norway, while Sweden remained neutral for the length of the war and continued trading with Germany.

If the Royal Navy tries to affect German commerce in the Baltic, then we'd see an invasion of Norway. Otherwise, there'd be no reason for Hitler to start a fight when he's trying to save his strength for the USSR.
It is also unlikely that without the incident either side would have left Norway alone for long. The German Navy was pushing for an invasion of Norway as early as October 1939. They were worried both about the ore transport as well as the RN having bases in Germany with which they could tighten the blockade and threaten Germany proper. They were right to be concerned as the British Admiralty were looking at Norway for basically those exact reasons. There was talk of a limited Allied invasion of Norway as a step to supporting Finland in the Winter war (with a convenient stop to park most of the men sent on the Swedish Iron mines on the way by). Even as the German invasion was launched the RN was on its way to drop mines in Norwegian waters to cut of German iron shipments.
Well given how the British Navy is currently tied up Japan at the moment, wouldn't this be a golden opportunity to invade.
 
Well given how the British Navy is currently tied up Japan at the moment, wouldn't this be a golden opportunity to invade.
Sure, but if the British Navy is mostly not in Europe there may not be the drive to do so either. The reasons for doing so IOTL was to secure the iron ore from Narvik, keep the British from gaining bases in Norway and gain them for the U-boat campaign against Britain. If Britain is not involved. then @Saint_007 is correct, the Germans probably won't bother. IOTL they ended up bullying the Swedes into extending the railway from their iron mines south. They could probably just try and do this earlier ITTL and Narvik becomes less of an issue.
 
Sure, but if the British Navy is mostly not in Europe there may not be the drive to do so either. The reasons for doing so IOTL was to secure the iron ore from Narvik, keep the British from gaining bases in Norway and gain them for the U-boat campaign against Britain. If Britain is not involved. then @Saint_007 is correct, the Germans probably won't bother. IOTL they ended up bullying the Swedes into extending the railway from their iron mines south. They could probably just try and do this earlier ITTL and Narvik becomes less of an issue.
There's also the fact that Nazi regime will financially collapse under Hitler's pet projects unless it plunders another country of it's resources.
 
It's either that or Yugoslavia with Italy and Bulgaria. Which is an easier conquest in hindsight
It also depends upon how the Germans view the strategic situation. The UK cannot afford to ignore a German grab of Norway whereas war in Balkans is just more of the same and would most likely cause nothing more than sharply worded editorials.
 
There's also the fact that Nazi regime will financially collapse under Hitler's pet projects unless it plunders another country of it's resources.

This point is easily and frequently overstated.

It's true that Germany couldn't run a war of continental conquest without plunder (Barbarossa would be unthinkable with native German resources, for example). But Tooze has shown quite thoroughly that in 1939 there was no economic or financial collapse on the horizon for Germany. The inflection point was that the military build-up could not go on an infinite crescendo: at some point all that equipment would have to be put to use, or the rearmament drive would have to be scaled back. This convinced Hitler to go to war at that time because it intersected with Allied rearmament gathering speed, which meant that the balance between German and Allied military preparedness was as favourable to the former as it was ever likely to get. The calculus will not be the same OTL: Poland is clearly not going to be invaded soon, and while Hitler would surely consider a war of aggression against the French, I imagine this would come *after* (in his view) the USSR has been conquered and its resources shackled to Germany's war machine. But there isn't the urgency to attack the USSR in 1939/1940 that Hitler had OTL to move on Poland before Allied rearmament surpassed Germany's. So if for whatever reason Germany does not go to war in the timeline's next twelve months, its economy will not collapse. The German leadership will however have to face some really tough questions and decisions about their third consecutive failure at greatly expanding the scale of their rearmament programme, and by then the voices in the regime who were willing to actively promote a slowdown and diplomatic escalation had been well and truly sidelined. I expect the Goering-Hitler discussions of September 1939 will look rather different than they did IOTL.
 
This point is easily and frequently overstated.

It's true that Germany couldn't run a war of continental conquest without plunder (Barbarossa would be unthinkable with native German resources, for example). But Tooze has shown quite thoroughly that in 1939 there was no economic or financial collapse on the horizon for Germany.
I find that hard to believe given the size of the debt they had run up and all the Mefo bills circulating that they were using ever more desperate tactics to avoid repaying. Add in a total lack of foreign exchange reserves, the utter dependence on state work of much of the economy ( stop making tanks for instance and what do the factories do ) and a collapse ( or at least a major recession ) as early as 1940 is on the cards.

Evans quotes Hitler in 1936 as stating the Germany economy "must be fit for war within four years" and Hitler again stated in 1937 that Germany needs small wars of plunder to support the struggling German Economy or it would collapse ( as recorded in the Hossbach Memorandum )
 
The use of the word collapse is certainly overstated

But the use of MEFO bills and other unsustainable financial practices had already started to bite by 1939

Wages had not risen for several years, foreign investors were no longer willing to touch the place with a barge pole and eventually the musical chairs of who owns the debt when the music stops was causing concern among those who held it

No war and many of the projects (Autobahns and scaling up of the Military which took millions of working age men away from their jobs etc) and initiatives (ie RAD Battalions and the jobs they did etc) would have to have been stopped or been scaled back.

This is what 'collapse' would have looked like - the nation would not suddenly have ceased to function overnight

And all of this might have seriously lossened the Nazi's hold on Germany - if not in reality certainly in their minds
 
The calculus will not be the same OTL: Poland is clearly not going to be invaded soon, and while Hitler would surely consider a war of aggression against the French, I imagine this would come *after* (in his view) the USSR has been conquered and its resources shackled to Germany's war machine. But there isn't the urgency to attack the USSR in 1939/1940 that Hitler had OTL to move on Poland before Allied rearmament surpassed Germany's. So if for whatever reason Germany does not go to war in the timeline's next twelve months, its economy will not collapse. The German leadership will however have to face some really tough questions and decisions about their third consecutive failure at greatly expanding the scale of their rearmament programme, and by then the voices in the regime who were willing to actively promote a slowdown and diplomatic escalation had been well and truly sidelined. I expect the Goering-Hitler discussions of September 1939 will look rather different than they did IOTL.
Now that you point that out, the added time would give Hitlers regime time to develop projects that were never finished in OTL. Like their nuclear projects.
 
I find that hard to believe given the size of the debt they had run up and all the Mefo bills circulating that they were using ever more desperate tactics to avoid repaying. Add in a total lack of foreign exchange reserves, the utter dependence on state work of much of the economy ( stop making tanks for instance and what do the factories do ) and a collapse ( or at least a major recession ) as early as 1940 is on the cards.

Evans quotes Hitler in 1936 as stating the Germany economy "must be fit for war within four years" and Hitler again stated in 1937 that Germany needs small wars of plunder to support the struggling German Economy or it would collapse ( as recorded in the Hossbach Memorandum )

What all of this means, functionally, is that rearmament could not continue indefinitely or escalate beyond the very real limitations of the German economy. It also means that living standards were set to deteriorate, as Schacht warned in his rather apocalyptic memorandum after the annexation of the Sudetenland. You also should not judge Hitler's quote uncritically, as his view of economics is inevitably determined by his worldview. To him, an inability to rearm to the point needed for a successful military conquest of the east means the death of Germany, because surely "world Jewry" will then have the time and breathing room to destroy Germany at its leisure. The only option in an inevitable war was to choose the time and place of the battle, so that you could strike first and gain the initiative. But that's how things look like in his embattled mental universe. We on the other hand look at the economic reality, which indeed does tell us that German rearmament is not a long-term sustainable proposition on the scale wanted by Hitler, and that German living standards would suffer as a result of its wind-down. But this does not represent a collapse, and the regime had been through economic hardships before, and survived - the winter of '34/35 was bad, and that was on far shakier political ground too. Moreover, even as Hitler was removing Schacht's last vestiges of influence to place the Reichsbank under "firm National Socialist leadership" rearmament had to compromise with the very factor you cite, the lack of foreign exchange reserves. Precisely at the time when theoretical planning for a gigantic rearmament programme meant to put Germany in a position to fight both Britain and France was reaching a feverish pace, the army got its steel allocation cut from 530,000 tons to 300,000 tons. Why? To bolster exports...
In short, the picture is a lot more complex than it's usually made out to be. That would be even truer in ITTL 1939, since British preoccupation with the Far East likely reduces German frenzy for the last gasp of rearmament expansion required to fight a two-front general European war.

As for OTL - really I should quote the whole chapter "Nothing To Gain By Waiting" but in the interest of brevity, here are two crucial quotes by Tooze in "Wages of Destruction" (bold mine, not the author's):
The German armaments economy had once more reached the impasse that, since 1934, had repeatedly interrupted its expansion. Of course, by extreme measures it would have been possible to raise the share of national income going to the military to above the 20 per cent level already reached in 1938, but only at the expense of abandoning any pretence to a normal peacetime economic policy. Alternatively, Germany could have done what it had done in 1936-8. It could have held off from accelerating rearmament for a period of twelve to eighteen months, accumulating enough foreign exchange for one last burst of military expenditure. But this was hardly an attractive outlook when one considers Thomas's statistics on the global arms race. With close to 20 per cent of its national economy already dedicated to military spending and the Wehrmacht's share of critical raw materials hovering between 20 and 30 per cent, Germany's 'wartime economy at peace' had reached a critical threshold.
As of 28 August, Hitler was driving towards war, fully aware of the likely involvement of the British. Both at the time and after the event there were those in and around the leadership of the Third Reich who refused to believe that Hitler could be deliberately courting such an enormous risk.129 We, however, should not flinch from this enormity. To talk of 'miscalculations' and 'mistakes' in relation to the outbreak of World War II is to underestimate the deliberateness of Hitler's intent.130 As we have argued in this chapter, Hitler was encouraged to pursue this course of quick-fire aggression by interlocking economic and strategic pressures. We have deliberately avoided here any talk of 'crisis'. In 1939 there was no crisis in the Third Reich, either political or economic.131 The means of coercion and control developed since the near-crisis of 1934 were too effective for that. But what could not be obscured by May 1939 was the complete frustration of the medium-term strategic vision that had taken shape in the aftermath of Munich.132
 
Now that you point that out, the added time would give Hitlers regime time to develop projects that were never finished in OTL. Like their nuclear projects.
There is absolutely no chance Germany could do that, either ITTL or OTL. The cost requirements are so enormous that even the combined economies of the Axis powers could never contemplate it. German scientists are also on the wrong track with heavy water and a complete lack of interest in plutonium, without which mass manufacturing of nukes is impossible.
What is likely to happen ITTL is that the political leadership will react to the renewed armament crisis of February-March 1939 by cutting resource allocations to the army and bolstering exports - the OTL strategy in the same time frame, but pursued more vigorously since there is no immediate prospect of a general European war. Twelve to eighteen months of foreign reserves accumulation could give Germany the opportunity to then start a new and final rearmament drive, as well as try to get the other "Axis" countries of ITTL such as Poland into a row and ready for a joint strike east. However we must also consider the possibility that things had already changed right after the POD, so that some truly bizarre choices on the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine were likely not made in 1938 the way they were IOTL. It's possible Plan Z is butterflied away entirely in this scenario, for example.
 
Basically the Nazis are forced to be Notzis by economic necessity. I think they would rather stay Nazis and declare war on someone. ITTL France looks like a good target.

Quick M-R style deal to recognise Soviet interests in Finland and the Baltics in return for oil and other raw materials and you're good to go. Whilst Poland and Romania nervously watch your back
 
The use of the word collapse is certainly overstated

But the use of MEFO bills and other unsustainable financial practices had already started to bite by 1939

Wages had not risen for several years, foreign investors were no longer willing to touch the place with a barge pole and eventually the musical chairs of who owns the debt when the music stops was causing concern among those who held it

No war and many of the projects (Autobahns and scaling up of the Military which took millions of working age men away from their jobs etc) and initiatives (ie RAD Battalions and the jobs they did etc) would have to have been stopped or been scaled back.

This is what 'collapse' would have looked like - the nation would not suddenly have ceased to function overnight

And all of this might have seriously lossened the Nazi's hold on Germany - if not in reality certainly in their minds
Sorry, I had missed this. Autobahns and other such civilian work creation programmes had been put on the backburner as early as December 1933. That is how early in the regime priorities shifted away from the civilian economy and to military preparations for a new world war. This in part triggered the 1934 recession whose social, economic, and political effects were precisely as you describe, but the situation in 1938 and 1939 was quite different. For one, Hitler's popularity in the wake of the seemingly miraculous foreign policy successes, and the increased permeation of the Nazi Party in every aspect of public life, meant the hold on the country was far stronger than in 1934, certainly beyond any similar economic downturn's ability to loosen. We are, after all, talking about the same regime that still held on to power with Soviet artillery firing point-blank shots into the Fuehrerbunker in spring 1945. It would be good to believe a recession would turn Germans away from the dictatorship, but that is imho vastly overoptimistic. For another, while metalworkers would certainly suffer from a scale-down in rearmament, it wasn't just the fellow travelers of the regime that benefited whenever rearmament was relaxed in favour of exports, ordinary Germans did so too. There are also regional divides at play here, it would not have the same effect in say Hamburg vs Silesia. You are quite correct in saying that the Nazi leadership would be very worried about the effects of a downturn on public opinion, BTW. Also remember that in 1939 German civilians were already living under the restrictions of basically a full-time war economy, and relaxation of these would create a false perception that things were getting better, even during a general economic downturn. But when presented with these dilemmas Hitler always reacted by doubling down on the belief that the only way to gain more "butter" was through "guns". His ultimate preoccupation, more than the cohesion of the home front, would be the supposed existential threat of the international conspiracy against Germany. Domestically a wind-down of armaments in 1939 would not look very different from similar previous occurrences in 36-38. The more interesting effect would be on the psychology and perception of the Nazi leaders vs the international situation.
 
What is likely to happen ITTL is that the political leadership will react to the renewed armament crisis of February-March 1939 by cutting resource allocations to the army and bolstering exports - the OTL strategy in the same time frame, but pursued more vigorously since there is no immediate prospect of a general European war. Twelve to eighteen months of foreign reserves accumulation could give Germany the opportunity to then start a new and final rearmament drive, as well as try to get the other "Axis" countries of ITTL such as Poland into a row and ready for a joint strike east. However we must also consider the possibility that things had already changed right after the POD, so that some truly bizarre choices on the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine were likely not made in 1938 the way they were IOTL. It's possible Plan Z is butterflied away entirely in this scenario, for example.
That makes sense.
 
Basically the Nazis are forced to be Notzis by economic necessity. I think they would rather stay Nazis and declare war on someone. ITTL France looks like a good target.

Quick M-R style deal to recognise Soviet interests in Finland and the Baltics in return for oil and other raw materials and you're good to go. Whilst Poland and Romania nervously watch your back
Really hard to say with any degree of finality what they would opt for tbh. Remember that while we know how the OTL campaign against France went, no one in 1939 had any idea, not even Hitler, who OTL was contemplating a very long war in the West. And it's a place where Germany's new allies cannot help, either. Moreover, consider that the alliance with Poland and British entanglement gives Hitler (or at least he would believe so) precisely what he most wanted: a free hand to strike in the east. There is no need to depart from the blueprint of Mein Kampf ITTL, whereas OTL they were forced by post-Munich circumstances to improvise.
They might still do just what you describe, but I don't really see the event chain that leads to that decision now that France has been deprived of allies in the east and Britain is busy. It's also difficult to see how they could appease both Poland and the Soviets at the same time, while also clearly conducting intimidatory military exercises whose only plausible target is the Soviets themselves. Of course might be wrong and we'll never know for sure. In my humble opinion what Hitler would do ITTL is reduce focus on the Kriegsmarine and plan a new round of expansion for the Army and Luftwaffe (the latter of which would still be considerably smaller than the absolutely unhinged and physically impossible expansion plan of OTL which was meant to outbuild all the Western Allies combined, and fell apart within literal weeks). This round would come after 12-18 months of armament slowdown and focus on exports to accrue the necessary currency, and would also provide a window to further test German-Polish interoperability and assess respective equipments and doctrines. It would also provide time for military planning for a strike from positions within Poland, which was obviously not a factor of consideration in the past. If this happens and the last rearmament burst happens in the summer of 1940, we might see a strike against the Soviets, ironically, in 1941. Or a coup to prevent it, if the Generals are a lot more pessimistic than OTL.

To be clear, I think France would be the next target. But this would happen only after Germany has digested its new eastern conquests, and maybe even "terminated" its alliance with Poland if you know what I mean. This would give Germany the strategic depth, resource access etc to confront the West on a more even footing. Of course this is all in Hitler's head. If he does go ahead with the strike, Germany will lose the war in the east a lot faster than they did IOTL.
 
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