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?
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.
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.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:
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.
- 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)
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.
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 classic TL is
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=89874
a compilation of Weimar survives threads is here
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=325067
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.