AHC A Greater Germany

Given the POD of your choice post-1929, how far can you enhance Germany's economic and cultural fortune without starting WW2?
 
Restore the Kaiserreich

This would require British cooperation, to keep the French from messing things up. This would require the British remembering the strong Imperial German economy and industry and the continental trade it supported, a desire for the revival thereof would convince the British to support an Imperial restoration. There would be restrictions of course: the Kaiserliche Marine would be restricted to 50% of the tonnage of the Royal Navy, and Germany would not be getting its colonies back. And the Chancellor would be responsible to the Reichstag, and not to the Kaiser, who would get British-style constitutional powers. There would be civilian control of the military, and a more streamlined constitution. However Britain forgives its share of reparations, and will allow Germany to rearm the Rhineland and expand its army to a level proportionate expected from a nation of Germany's size and industry. Britain would also put pressure on France to renegotiate on their share of reparations. Britain and Germany would also commit to a shared alliance against potential Russian moves into Europe.
 
The United Kingdom—after all the devastation of the First World War, but before German expansionism has dramatically destabilised Europe and made practically anyone look better than the presently ruling Nazis—wants the House of Hohenzollern to get Germany back.

In other news, Imperial Japan sets up a fully free and independent China, Nicholas II of Russia announces his deep and personal adoration for the principles of powerless monarchy and parliamentary democracy, and a squadron of pigs is spotted flying outside a small town in Lancashire.

More reasonably? Adolf Hitler catches a nasty cold. Germany manages to avoid a hard-right takeover of either the reactionary or the fascist sort—not profoundly likely, as the reactionary sort is highly probable in those circumstances, but not impossible either. The Weimar Republic just about survives. The Rhineland is eventually remilitarised. With Germany governed by a sane regime, there is no sudden burst of expansion, and Germany doesn't take any land from Poland or Czechoslovakia (Austria is a 'maybe', depending on Austrian popular will)… but Germany does gradually come out of the depression and over time it achieves gradual economic hegemony over the rest of Europe as it did in OTL, but with a great deal more territory than in OTL, and without launching a huge European war that ruins most of Europe and opens the way to American hegemony. Stalin's Soviet Union is too cautious to trigger a coalition of all three great powers of capitalist Europe by launching an aggressive invasion of an otherwise-peaceful Europe. Over time, Germany gradually becomes recognised as the key bulwark against the Soviet Union and as the German military becomes the shield of Europe German politicians gain influence in other countries, and German industry exports to those countries in Germany's sphere of influence. Other European countries inevitably feel threatened by Germany's power, but a non-aggressive Germany that is democratic and clearly mainly focused against the Soviet Union, forsaking any attempt at conquering Alsace-Lorraine or parts of Poland, stands a good chance of achieving stability in Europe in a scenario where Germany's position is very strong, though France and the United Kingdom also remain great powers and are still rivals of Germany, albeit friendlier rivals than before, with no territorial disputes and none of them planning aggression against the others. For this it is utterly essential that European countries do not feel that Germany is likely to try to take their land. As the USA remains isolationist and the Soviet Union industrialises, the three greatest powers of capitalist Europe are reluctantly drawn together out of fear of the Soviet Union—Germany fearing for itself and Eastern Europe, the French and British not directly threatened but fearing for their colonies. A European proto-NATO is born. Over time the British and French end up embroiled in huge colonial wars to maintain their rule in their colonies. They may well succeed if they're nasty and ruthless enough, but whether or not they do, it will be enormously costly in both money and lives and Germany will thus achieve a dominant position as the de facto leader of capitalist Europe. Eventually the Soviet Union collapses as its people desire the better quality of life seen in the European proto-NATO, and much of Eastern Europe is drawn into Germany's sphere of influence.

There. A German-wank. No territorial expansion, but in terms of Germany's actual power on the international stage and the quality of life of its citizens, it's as good as it gets, I think.
 
The United Kingdom—after all the devastation of the First World War, but before German expansionism has dramatically destabilised Europe and made practically anyone look better than the presently ruling Nazis—wants the House of Hohenzollern to get Germany back.

In other news, Imperial Japan sets up a fully free and independent China, Nicholas II of Russia announces his deep and personal adoration for the principles of powerless monarchy and parliamentary democracy, and a squadron of pigs is spotted flying outside a small town in Lancashire.

More reasonably? Adolf Hitler catches a nasty cold. Germany manages to avoid a hard-right takeover of either the reactionary or the fascist sort—not profoundly likely, as the reactionary sort is highly probable in those circumstances, but not impossible either. The Weimar Republic just about survives. The Rhineland is eventually remilitarised. With Germany governed by a sane regime, there is no sudden burst of expansion, and Germany doesn't take any land from Poland or Czechoslovakia (Austria is a 'maybe', depending on Austrian popular will)… but Germany does gradually come out of the depression and over time it achieves gradual economic hegemony over the rest of Europe as it did in OTL, but with a great deal more territory than in OTL, and without launching a huge European war that ruins most of Europe and opens the way to American hegemony. Stalin's Soviet Union is too cautious to trigger a coalition of all three great powers of capitalist Europe by launching an aggressive invasion of an otherwise-peaceful Europe. Over time, Germany gradually becomes recognised as the key bulwark against the Soviet Union and as the German military becomes the shield of Europe German politicians gain influence in other countries, and German industry exports to those countries in Germany's sphere of influence. Other European countries inevitably feel threatened by Germany's power, but a non-aggressive Germany that is democratic and clearly mainly focused against the Soviet Union, forsaking any attempt at conquering Alsace-Lorraine or parts of Poland, stands a good chance of achieving stability in Europe in a scenario where Germany's position is very strong, though France and the United Kingdom also remain great powers and are still rivals of Germany, albeit friendlier rivals than before, with no territorial disputes and none of them planning aggression against the others. For this it is utterly essential that European countries do not feel that Germany is likely to try to take their land. As the USA remains isolationist and the Soviet Union industrialises, the three greatest powers of capitalist Europe are reluctantly drawn together out of fear of the Soviet Union—Germany fearing for itself and Eastern Europe, the French and British not directly threatened but fearing for their colonies. A European proto-NATO is born. Over time the British and French end up embroiled in huge colonial wars to maintain their rule in their colonies. They may well succeed if they're nasty and ruthless enough, but whether or not they do, it will be enormously costly in both money and lives and Germany will thus achieve a dominant position as the de facto leader of capitalist Europe. Eventually the Soviet Union collapses as its people desire the better quality of life seen in the European proto-NATO, and much of Eastern Europe is drawn into Germany's sphere of influence.

There. A German-wank. No territorial expansion, but in terms of Germany's actual power on the international stage and the quality of life of its citizens, it's as good as it gets, I think.


That's very good.

In such a scenario, could you see the German part of Czechoslovakia opting for unification?
 
That's very good.

Thank you.

In such a scenario, could you see the German part of Czechoslovakia opting for unification?

I don't think a crisis would necessarily arise in the Sudetenland. Without National Socialist interference the Sudetendeutsch situation wasn't actually that bad, contrary to what Hitler would have us believe; some parties wanted more autonomy as the state was very centralised, but there was a respectable amount of minority rights and recognition. Hitler funnelling lots of German money into the Sudetendeutsch separatist party and training a Sudetendeutsch anti-Czechoslovak paramilitary didn't solve problems for the Sudetendeutsch, but, rather, caused them.

If a Sudetendeutsch separatist party did gain a lot of votes in spite of these changes (which is far from certain), realistically I don't think one can hope that Germany would be completely impartial in the Sudetendeutsch question because there is obviously the linguistic link and it's not as though democracies are always peaceful and bear no ambitions to conquer territory they regard as rightfully their own for nationalistic reasons, although in that regard virtually any imaginable German regime would be better than the National Socialists. I think that the question is how much Germany interferes, not whether Germany interferes. If Germany merely pressures the Czechoslovak government to grant greater autonomy and adopt a new, more federalised constitution, rather than outright demanding annexation (which is also quite possibly even for a more democratic Germany), the scenario holds; if Germany demands annexation, my scenario essentially cannot work, because it depends on Germany being trusted by other European states. Even the first case is sufficiently intrusive that it may well cause Czechoslovakia to align itself with the Soviet Union on the rather reasonable basis that Germany is being more aggressive and interfering against Czechoslovak sovereignty than the Soviet Union is; Stalin we know from OTL would be pragmatic enough to have a capitalist ally for the sake of Soviet national interest rather than insisting that Czechoslovakia adopt Bolshevism in order to work with him, though I expect that he would make efforts to infiltrate and swing the Czechoslovak political order leftward over time, with the eventual goal of a Bolshevik Czechoslovakia.

As I don't think that Weimar Germany would go to war due to Czechoslovakia signing a defensive alliance with the Soviet Union, since even Hitler didn't and since France would also seek to defend Czechoslovakia from any German aggression, that sounds likely to be the resolution of the crisis: Czechoslovakia as a state in limbo between the great capitalist alliance and the Soviet Union, due to being friendly with both France and the Soviet Union but highly unfriendly with Germany. Whether Czechoslovakia would come out of limbo remains to be seen.

I think Poland would be likely to be in a similar situation as a state friendly with France and suspicious of Germany, though without the links to the Soviet Union. Over several decades of peaceful German behaviour and rising Soviet threat, without the Soviet Union having been so wrecked by murderous German atrocities as it was in OTL, this might relent.

My German-wank scenario is rather unlikely in my opinion because it requires the occurrence of not just some but all of several questionable things:

  • Hitler to die early (easy)
  • Germany to not subsequently be taken over by the Prussian establishment and a DNVP-esque party in a hard-right authoritarian regime following parliamentary gridlock, leftist electoral victory or some other 'failure of democracy' (which was the usual result of a 'failure of democracy' in inter-war Europe, the rise of the National Socialists in Germany being the exception rather than the rule—this is probably the least plausible part of my German-wank)
  • the German democracy to avoid being too aggressive over places like Danzig and the Sudetenland (hard, but not as hard as the second point)
My German-wank is too implausible to be TL material, but hey, it is a wank; one doesn't expect such things to be highly plausible. The most I would say for it is that it could have happened, though it is rather unlikely because it requires quite a lot of things to go Germany's way.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Without the rise of the Nazis and the Dolfuss regime in Austria some kind of Anschluss would have happened at some Point (either the French would just allow it, or Germany would have grown strong enough to ignore French protests).

One have to remember that it was the aim of not just Germany, but of Austria too to unify in the 20s.
 
Without the rise of the Nazis and the Dolfuss regime in Austria some kind of Anschluss would have happened at some Point (either the French would just allow it, or Germany would have grown strong enough to ignore French protests).

One have to remember that it was the aim of not just Germany, but of Austria too to unify in the 20s.

Not everyone in Austria wanted to be annexed by Germany. The forces that wanted to preserve Austrian independence rather than be annexed by Germany included the party that supplied almost every Chancellor of Austria from the foundation of the Austrian Republic to the PoD in 1929.

I don't think Anschluß is inevitable. Possible, yes; inevitable, no.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Not everyone in Austria wanted to be annexed by Germany. The forces that wanted to preserve Austrian independence rather than be annexed by Germany included the party that supplied almost every Chancellor of Austria from the foundation of the Austrian Republic to the PoD in 1929.

I don't think Anschluß is inevitable. Possible, yes; inevitable, no.

Yeah, well the 1931 Custom Union plans was probably correctly interpreted by France as the first step to an Anschluss (which is why the French forbade it). I think a custom union followed by a common currency would probably pave the way for unification. It would be a slow process though. And if people like Hitler and Dolfuss rise to power as OTL, any slow peaceful progress based on a mutual agreement would be out the window.
 
I don't think a crisis would necessarily arise in the Sudetenland. Without National Socialist interference the Sudetendeutsch situation wasn't actually that bad, contrary to what Hitler would have us believe; some parties wanted more autonomy as the state was very centralised, but there was a respectable amount of minority rights and recognition. Hitler funnelling lots of German money into the Sudetendeutsch separatist party and training a Sudetendeutsch anti-Czechoslovak paramilitary didn't solve problems for the Sudetendeutsch, but, rather, caused them.

If a Sudetendeutsch separatist party did gain a lot of votes in spite of these changes (which is far from certain), realistically I don't think one can hope that Germany would be completely impartial in the Sudetendeutsch question because there is obviously the linguistic link and it's not as though democracies are always peaceful and bear no ambitions to conquer territory they regard as rightfully their own for nationalistic reasons, although in that regard virtually any imaginable German regime would be better than the National Socialists. I think that the question is how much Germany interferes, not whether Germany interferes. If Germany merely pressures the Czechoslovak government to grant greater autonomy and adopt a new, more federalised constitution, rather than outright demanding annexation (which is also quite possibly even for a more democratic Germany), the scenario holds; if Germany demands annexation, my scenario essentially cannot work, because it depends on Germany being trusted by other European states. Even the first case is sufficiently intrusive that it may well cause Czechoslovakia to align itself with the Soviet Union on the rather reasonable basis that Germany is being more aggressive and interfering against Czechoslovak sovereignty than the Soviet Union is; Stalin we know from OTL would be pragmatic enough to have a capitalist ally for the sake of Soviet national interest rather than insisting that Czechoslovakia adopt Bolshevism in order to work with him, though I expect that he would make efforts to infiltrate and swing the Czechoslovak political order leftward over time, with the eventual goal of a Bolshevik Czechoslovakia.

As I don't think that Weimar Germany would go to war due to Czechoslovakia signing a defensive alliance with the Soviet Union, since even Hitler didn't and since France would also seek to defend Czechoslovakia from any German aggression, that sounds likely to be the resolution of the crisis: Czechoslovakia as a state in limbo between the great capitalist alliance and the Soviet Union, due to being friendly with both France and the Soviet Union but highly unfriendly with Germany. Whether Czechoslovakia would come out of limbo remains to be seen.

I think Poland would be likely to be in a similar situation as a state friendly with France and suspicious of Germany, though without the links to the Soviet Union. Over several decades of peaceful German behaviour and rising Soviet threat, without the Soviet Union having been so wrecked by murderous German atrocities as it was in OTL, this might relent.

My German-wank scenario is rather unlikely in my opinion because it requires the occurrence of not just some but all of several questionable things:

  • Hitler to die early (easy)
  • Germany to not subsequently be taken over by the Prussian establishment and a DNVP-esque party in a hard-right authoritarian regime following parliamentary gridlock, leftist electoral victory or some other 'failure of democracy' (which was the usual result of a 'failure of democracy' in inter-war Europe, the rise of the National Socialists in Germany being the exception rather than the rule—this is probably the least plausible part of my German-wank)
  • the German democracy to avoid being too aggressive over places like Danzig and the Sudetenland (hard, but not as hard as the second point)
My German-wank is too implausible to be TL material, but hey, it is a wank; one doesn't expect such things to be highly plausible. The most I would say for it is that it could have happened, though it is rather unlikely because it requires quite a lot of things to go Germany's way.
Also SdP took a lot of votes from other German parties in Czechoslovakia which had in 20-ties and 30-ties almost after every election one or two ministers in Czechoslovak Government.

With Germany more economically successful Sudetland Germans will gain from this as industry in area was mostly orientated for export to Germany.

With no pressure from Germany Czechoslovak alliance with Soviets may not even come forward. It was opposed by some parties.
 

Deleted member 1487

Yeah, well the 1931 Custom Union plans was probably correctly interpreted by France as the first step to an Anschluss (which is why the French forbade it). I think a custom union followed by a common currency would probably pave the way for unification. It would be a slow process though. And if people like Hitler and Dolfuss rise to power as OTL, any slow peaceful progress based on a mutual agreement would be out the window.

The French couldn't forbid the customs union, so they instead pulled their money out of the Austrian banking system, collapsing it and precipitating the deepening the German banking crisis, as it was heavily invested in Austria; that lead directly the economic conditions that caused the rise of the Nazis. Allowing the union in the long run prevents the Nazis and improves Europe's overall economy by preventing the Germans from falling into deeper economic issues while stabilizing the Austrians by attaching them to Germany and improving their economic situation; the French really did a hell of a lot to turn Europe into a mess after the Great War, first with their unreasonable reparations demands before the German economic and political situation stabilized and then with their currency manipulations in the 1920s, and then by collapsing the German banking system via Austria. Then they gave the German political cover to rearm by refusing to deal during the World Disarmament Conference in 1932-34. You'd really need a whole different French mentality after the Great War to change their harmful behavior to get anything remotely like the OP wants.
 
This would require British cooperation, to keep the French from messing things up. This would require the British remembering the strong Imperial German economy and industry and the continental trade it supported, a desire for the revival thereof would convince the British to support an Imperial restoration. There would be restrictions of course: the Kaiserliche Marine would be restricted to 50% of the tonnage of the Royal Navy, and Germany would not be getting its colonies back. And the Chancellor would be responsible to the Reichstag, and not to the Kaiser, who would get British-style constitutional powers. There would be civilian control of the military, and a more streamlined constitution. However Britain forgives its share of reparations, and will allow Germany to rearm the Rhineland and expand its army to a level proportionate expected from a nation of Germany's size and industry. Britain would also put pressure on France to renegotiate on their share of reparations. Britain and Germany would also commit to a shared alliance against potential Russian moves into Europe.

Do you realize how this is just an enormous ASB ?

Britain feeling such admiration and respect for Germany that it paves all the way to having Germany dominate Europe, Britain included.
 
Have Hitler die just before the war, sometime in summer of 1939. No one person can succeed him, the generals will be anxious not to anger France or Britain so some sort of peace can be made. Poland retains the Danzig corridor, maybe this gets revisited later as they are aware how serious the Germans are about it. Slowly, Germany will have to pay back the massive loans it has borrowed to keep its economy afloat to this point, but it has not only managed to take over much of central Europe but also done so in the face of *the world*. Economically it may still fall apart, but the world has a very different look in 1950 (and 2015) and German is probably still one of the two major languages of science and technology.
 

Yes, but from what I can see they all have a P.O.D. earlier than 1930. I'm interested in whether the situation can be retrieved after a substantial minority start thinking of National Socialism was a Good Idea. I suppose the inevitable side-effect will be that ITTL there will be lots of people writing starry-eyed Hitler Survives What-Ifs. :rolleyes:
 
Have Hitler die just before the war, sometime in summer of 1939. No one person can succeed him, the generals will be anxious not to anger France or Britain so some sort of peace can be made. Poland retains the Danzig corridor, maybe this gets revisited later as they are aware how serious the Germans are about it. Slowly, Germany will have to pay back the massive loans it has borrowed to keep its economy afloat to this point, but it has not only managed to take over much of central Europe but also done so in the face of *the world*. Economically it may still fall apart, but the world has a very different look in 1950 (and 2015) and German is probably still one of the two major languages of science and technology.

Mmm, I'm sceptical. By that stage Germany's economy has already spent years under the National Socialists' tender care, and therefore can't survive without conquest and profiting off the backs of the conquered. With Germany not facing off against the French and British, Stalin has little incentive to give Hitler the great deal of support he did in OTL. Likely result? With the economy booming under Hitler and then collapsing under his allegedly less-radical successors (which is far from certain anyway—Hitler who died in the summer of 1939 may well be succeeded by some other National Socialist politician rather than a conservative nationalist military dictatorship dominated by the Prussian upper class, which would be more reasonable) a lot of ordinary Germans are going to blame those successors… which means the National Socialists spring up again like a jack-in-the-box. As for what happens if Hitler is succeeded by another National Socialist, any National Socialist regime faced with economic collapse will decide that the solution is "attack the Slavs"; they're irrational in that way.

Even if you avoid a National Socialist resurgence, which is decidedly difficult, there's little guarantee that the only reasonable plausible successor to a National Socialist regime at this point, namely a conservative nationalist military dictatorship, would be so anxious to please the British and French. Undoubtedly the Prussian officer class were more cautious than Hitler, but they were far from friendly with Poland—much more so than any of the other German conquests under Hitler before the war, because Poland regaining its territory was a reverse of the conquests of Prussia itself and thus of Prussian pride, whereas the annexations of Austria and Czechoslovakia were far less emotionally significant to that class—and I doubt they would maintain a permanent peace with Poland; give it a few years after Hitler has died and Germany continues to recover, and they will pick on Poland again. That step would delay the Second World War and change the character of the German regime from the utmost awfulness to a lesser awfulness, but not prevent the war.

Certainly Poland will not willingly give up Danzig/Gdańsk unless France and the United Kingdom abandon Poland à la Czechoslovakia, which they would be fools to do; and even then Poland may well not do so. It would be politically suicidal for the Polish government to do so, and nationally suicidal for Poland's hopes of independence as well, because it would take away Poland's main ability to receive help from the French and British and also because Germany had already helpfully demonstrated exactly how mercifully it would treat a state from which it had already stripped vitally important defensive territory in the name of redeeming ethnic Germans. Every Pole would know that if Poland gave Germany Danzig, let alone the whole corridor, or even the whole of the land that Poland got back from Germany at the end of the First World War, then the rest of Poland would surely be next. By that stage the British and French already have excellent reason to distrust any promise Germany makes—namely, that Germany has broken its promises for the sake of expansion so dramatically before—so they are unlikely to abandon Poland.

There was no light at the end of the National Socialist tunnel. Hitler was not an able politician who would have been a master if only he hadn't started the Second World War; the action of the National Socialist regime was irrational belligerent blustering that could not have been successful forever. National Socialist foreign policy consisted of issuing threats and lies to the rest of the world for the sake of constant expansion to prop up an economy and society ruled by an inefficient and corrupt system, while blinded by ideology that prevented the imposition of any rational limits on which nations could be antagonised, leading to Germany facing a hostile coalition of greater strength than it could possibly handle. The policy of the National Socialists was not a policy that could have resulted in a stable, peaceful or trusted Germany, let alone all three.

In response to the OP's latest post, I would argue that the success of National Socialism was not yet inevitable by 1929 or 1930. Kill Hitler before 1932 and I think it is plausible for Germany to end up under a conservative nationalist military dictatorship rather than the incredibly irrational National Socialists. After the National Socialists have 230 seats in the Reichstag (out of 305 required for a majority) as the largest party therein, I think it is too late to avoid the Hindenburg clique choosing them as an ally in its effort to keep the left out of power.

In conclusion: The way for Germany to be successful, I contend, was to avoid the disaster of National Socialism altogether. That's not to say that a German avoidance of National Socialism would necessarily have resulted in a stable, peaceful and trusted Germany; but it could have done, whereas National Socialism couldn't.

(That said, however, a realistic look at the consequences of Hitler dying after coming to power and before the war, as opposed to a nice shiny German-wank implausible utopia, would make an interesting TL, though one that I lack sufficient knowledge of the period to write properly.)
 
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