A Nazi "Gorbachev"?

Let us suppose Nazi Germany either wins or avoids World War II, surviving through Hitler's natural life. (A reasonable assumption: he lives to the early 1960s.) Perhaps another Fuhrer or two down the succession line, is it possible that one becomes a "Gorbachev" - liberalising Nazi policies to the point of collapsing the whole system while keeping Germany intact as a country?
 
Have you read Harry Turtledove's In The Presence Of Mine Enemies? 'cuz it pretty much is that, or at least, the latter part of Gorby's era with the coup form hardliners. Just skip the Bridge Scenes :rolleyes:
 
Well, if Nazi economic planning landed the country in shambles finance-wise, it's not too unlikely that someone would eventually be forced to seek detente with the other powers of the world.
 
Down the line you could see it, but the problem would be that say by the late 1950s whoever is the up and coming star may be someone we have only vaguely heard of.

One might look for some one like Schellenberg, tho he would have to avoid dying of liver disease first! I don't know how/why he got it, he certainly liked a drink IIRC

Or maybe someone like Wolff as an older establishment figure emerging out of the shadows

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Last edited:
Interesting...

I've seen this tried on a number of AH forums and similar. As someone said up-thread, a lot of variables.

In a "Fatherland"-type world, where Germany dominates Europe and co-exists with the US, it seems probable that a less ideological figure would emerge post-Hitler, less a Gorbachev but more a technocrat committed to economic improvement while limiting political reform.

A closer parallel might be OTL China post-Mao. There might be a quiet purge of the extreme ideologues before this new technocratioc concensus emerges.

Another possibility is conflict between the SS and the Army down the line. The SS would have its strength in other parts of the Germanic Empire while the Army would be strongest in Germany and its immediate areas.
 

Eurofed

Banned
My own Axis victory TL, the "Long Night Falls", sees Nazifascist Europe gradually embracing a reformist course as the pragmatic technocratic wing of the regime keeps winning the power struggle with the hardliners, in successive crises in the late 40s (after the death of Hitler), in the 60s-70s (out of the pressures created by the 60s social changes and imperial overextension) and in the 90s-2000s (out of popular frustration for the regime's corruption and cronysm, and pressure for liberalization).

The final outcome is, by 2020, the evolution of Europe into a post-fascist semi-authoritarian federal superstate rather similar to (a much less crappy) Putinist Russia, even if in the meanwhile, the Nazi democide has run its course to its extreme consequences, the Slavs and Arabs have been wiped out as recognizable entities, and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, North Africa, and the Middle East have been assimilated by "Aryan" Europe. The Japanese Empire experiences a similar evolution, and turned into a right-wing, statist version of the PRC. It also assimilated Manchuria, Mongolia, Korea, Taiwan, and the former Russian Far East. Both powers remain locked into a seemingly eternal Cold War competition with a USA that over time absorbed the British Dominions and North America, made an EU-like compact with South America, and a NATO-like one with Britain, South America, and India.

So you might think that this TL would be an example of a *successful* Gorbachev-like evolution (or more properly, a Deng-like evolution), which reforms the empire without causing its collapse.
 
Last edited:
Technocracy. Increase of living standards was already one of Hitler´s focuses but whoever comes after him might neglect that. Keep to political reformes as long as they work. True liberalization, instead of a masquerade of it.

My own Axis victory TL, the "Long Night Falls", sees Nazifascist Europe gradually embracing a reformist course as the pragmatic technocratic wing of the regime keeps winning the power struggle with the hardliners, in successive crises in the late 40s (after the death of Hitler), in the 60s-70s (out of the pressures created by the 60s social changes and imperial overextension) and in the 90s-2000s (out of popular frustration for the regime's corruption and cronysm, and pressure for liberalization).


Pragmatism? Against corruption and cronysm? The bureaucracy and apparatchiks actually getting less power, instead of more? Except for the struggle against the hardliners, that is simply no Gorbachevism at all.

Instead of a semi-authoritarian federal superstate, the result of gorbatchevism would be just one, hugh continent-wide joke. A thoroughly embarrasing, unfunny and sad one.
 
Last edited:
If the Army is strongest in Germany itself and the SS strongest in the Reichkommersats (sp?), perhaps there's a center-vs-periphery political struggle if "Gorbachev" is supported by the historically-saner army and the hardliners by the SS?

Consequences could include an armed attempt on Berlin from the East and perhaps, if you want to go with the breakup angle, attempted secession by the RKs?

The Baltic is too close to Germany proper to survive, but Nazi-ruled Ukraine trying to pull a Rhodesia could be interesting.

If we're going with the Gorbachev angle, I would imagine letting France, the Benelux, and Norway go would be analogous to the freeing of the Warsaw Pact. Perhaps Mussolini or his successors are stand-ins for Romania?
 
I think the best bet is for Todt or, gasp, Speer, to create an economics ministry with a self-perpetuating technocratic culture, one where future permanent bureaucratic heads are allowed to pursue a certain amount of rational planning methodology despite what the Party says.
That's a beginning, but it doesn't solve the central problem facing a Nazi Gorbachev--getting him entry into the party's inner councils. Red Gorbachev was a technocrat from within his regime's political elite, after all.

Nazism is much more obsessed with militarism than the Stalinist CPSU was, let alone the post-Stalinist party. That's going to be a major impediment to a civilian policy wonk in a Nazi empire. He'll be locked out of the real decision making process.
 
If the Army is strongest in Germany itself and the SS strongest in the Reichkommersats (sp?), perhaps there's a center-vs-periphery political struggle if "Gorbachev" is supported by the historically-saner army and the hardliners by the SS?


More likely, the army is the first to takes armes against the smiling idiot willing to reduce it to a pale shadow of its former self.
When some of his supporters tries to make a stand, the High Command comes to the SS with a deal.

"We take power and share some of it with you, if in exchange you help us hunt down all those pompous, scheming party fools who supports that wischer. We need paratroopers for the dome, as many as the 3 transporters waiting at the neartest aerodrome can handle. Tell them to follow the standards set by good ´ol Roosevelt, we didn´t name this operation Tränen der schwarze Blut for nothing."
 
Last edited:
The Nazi regime dies with Hitler. Though a moribund Nazi goverment might limp on for a few years...

Really Nazism like Italian Fascism was built around one-man, when he diesthe regime has it's heart ripped out. Also Nazism has no coherant idealogical underpinnings, unlike the Soviet Communism/Marxism, whose reformists did have plausable idealogical justification to do what they did.
 
I did a half-assed TL on this subject once, with Fuhrer Speer presiding over the dissolution of the German Reich in the 1960s or 1970s, I forget which. I didn't think it would take as long as the Soviet Union, for various reasons.
 
I did a half-assed TL on this subject once, with Fuhrer Speer presiding over the dissolution of the German Reich in the 1960s or 1970s, I forget which. I didn't think it would take as long as the Soviet Union, for various reasons.

Heh, Speer sometimes gets a historical hero upgrade. Which he really dosnt merit. The man was only good in comparison to the hacks he replaced when it came to running Germanys war-production. And he knew about Nazi crimes despite his relentless post-war lying.

Without ASBs, there is no way in hell Speer would best bulldozers like Bormann or Goring in a post-Hitler power struggle. Assuming he'd even try to...
 
Heh, Speer sometimes gets a historical hero upgrade. Which he really dosnt merit. The man was only good in comparison to the hacks he replaced when it came to running Germanys war-production. And he knew about Nazi crimes despite his relentless post-war lying.

Without ASBs, there is no way in hell Speer would best bulldozers like Bormann or Goring in a post-Hitler power struggle. Assuming he'd even try to...

I didn't say that he did anything heroic, merely that he presided over its dissolution.

In my TL, Bormann, Goering, and Himmler are eventually outmaneuvered in the late 1940s by Heydrich (don't ask, it was a butterfly), who is followed by a series of war-era Nazi functionaries who drop dead and allow Speer to ascend.
 
Well, if Nazi economic planning landed the country in shambles finance-wise, it's not too unlikely that someone would eventually be forced to seek detente with the other powers of the world.

The Nazis were never half as much into economic planning as the Soviets (and limited state planning has so far not caused Sweden, Japan or France to collapse).
Even Soviet economic worked in the Stalin era, when it ruthlessly exploited the Russian peasantry, what was exactly what the Nazis intended to do.

By the way: Speer was the one championing central planning, while Himmler advocated free markets.

I think a Portugal-like development is more likely:
The insane racism leads to constant rebellions and massive mismanagement in the Eastern "colonies", leading a new generation of officers and economic leaders to question the old guards ideas.
 
Also Nazism has no coherant idealogical underpinnings,

What is a dolichocephalic? What was the 25-point Program?

Bormann or Goring in a post-Hitler power struggle.

Goring would be in worst health than Hitler, unless someone orders him to rehab or a POD in 1923.

(and limited state planning has so far not caused Sweden, Japan or France to collapse).

In the case of Sweden, the reduction of central planning hovewer, is causing economic troubles.
 
Last edited:
Top