Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
Is this possible? I was thinking about a Military Junta in Germany leading the war rather than Hitler. But I wan't to look at possibilities.
Even without that Nazis take power WW2 is possible but not very plausible and it would be very different. I think that it could happen with next ways:
1. Lenin is succeeded by someone who wants spread Communism and begins WW2 sometimes in 1930's. Altough this is ratherly USSR vs. rest of Europe so hardly would be called as WW2.
2. Germany is recovering in 1930's and France is still extremely revanchist and goes war against Germany. Altough not sure if this escalates very much and hardly even this war is called as WW2.
There might be other ways too but you need much of preparatons for this.
I remember hearing Trotsky was way more radical and fanatical than Stalin in spreading communism.
So if the POD is Trotsky succeeding Lenin, then Trotsky would support German Communists, which were a very strong group even in OTL when Stalin abandoned them.
Unless the rest of Europe can't handle the USSR and the US intervenes. Bear in mind an expansionist Soviet leader (specially Trotsky) would not make the purges that destroyed the officer corps, so this means that the Red Army would be even more powerful than it was OTL.
he didn't join in the late night parties amongst the core Bolsheviks, which were almost compulsory and where Stalin, with his beautiful singing voice, shone
Part of the reason why I'll never do it though is I feel like it would almost legitimize German nationalistic ambitions and conveniently ignores some inconvenient truths about Germany and Europe. It feels like the "Hitler had some good ideas but went about it the wrong way" sentiment, which I dont like. But if you can find your way around that, Bismark minus the Nazi's...
That is an aspect of Bolshevik politics I had never heard about, that’s fascinating!
Would there be a way of doing this that would still show how it’s wrong? Like journalists revealing cultural genocide/outright suppression of the Poles in Germany, other issues like that?
Hypothetically round 2 might have occurred with the Franco/Belgian occupation of the Ruhr 1923-24. The civil actions & riots were not abating. Some demagogue could have incited a general civil revolt in the Ruhr. If this snowballs before the French can organize a face saving withdraw it could turn into a war. Kline-Albrandt estimated from interviews with Reichwehr era officers that around 300,000 armed and trained reserves of the 'black Reicheswehr ' could have been mobilized, to supplement the nominal 100,000 of the legal army. That he estimated was actually 120,000 to 150,000. So about seven well armed infantry divisions and another group of lighter armed divisions, with a hefty pool of well trained infantry replacements. On paper the Franco Belgian armies towered over this, but every corps mobilized was another blow to the economy and the French or Belgian treasuries.
At the international level this revived war or German revolt would rather embarrass the former Entente members of Britain, Italy, and the US who had given little support to the French for enforcing the Versailles Treaty.