AHC: Grayer WWII

In a way, it is - there was a lot of hypocrisy in that war, like how the afro-americans where still screwed, the COLONIAL POWERS claiming to be good guys...

Not to mention the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland, the Soviets successfully eliminating the existence of the three Baltic states and failing to do so with Finland, giving the Nazis ports to end-run the Allied Blockade, ensuring the Nazis had land trade that end-ran the blockade......

Of course the Nazis intended Omnicide of everyone and everything that was not pleasing to them, where the Soviets were in practice Tsarism's more efficient successor, but including the Soviets in 1939-41, and the unrestrained horror of the Eastern Front from 1941-5 and emphasizing that it was here more by far than in the West where Nazism disintegrated pushes the war well out of the moral superiority in a White and Black sense, and into Grey and Black.

After all the USSR had no problem itself eradicating the independence of entire countries.......

Well, yeah, the Allies weren't angels, but compared to the Nazis...

On the other hand OTL tends to neglect that WWII was an Omnicidal Maniac fighting Tsar Nicholas II's more competent Magnificent Bastard dictatorial successor, in terms of the sheer scale of land combat. The war was won much more by the Red Army and the Soviet Union on land than it ever was by Ike and company. And the greatest moral advantage the USSR had was that it wasn't the Nazi state intent on wholesale eradication of civilizations and reducing survivors to illiterate slaves, but instead defending itself from such people who wantonly attacked it.

A proper history of WWII would emphasize the USSR's role in the full six years of war in Europe, and note that while the Nazis were indisputably worse, it was not by any means a case of the USSR being blushing innocents.

Make one of the Axis powers democratic, have the allies start the war, remove the Nazis from power in Germany and have them behave reasonably towards the Ukrainians and poles and you have a recipe for a rather more morally ambiguous war.

You mean like Finland?
 
You mean like Finland?
Damn, beat me to it. Though I guess if we're talking about relatively 'good' Axis powers, Bulgaria would count as well. Only occupied Macedonia and Thrace when the Germans offered it, didn't give their Jews up even if they did make some laws against them to please the Germans, had their Tsar obviously assassinated by the Nazis for refusing to cooperate with them, and got invaded by the Soviet Union even when it was obvious the Bulgars didn't want to fight for the Axis any longer.
 
Butterfly away the Holocaust (maybe Hitler dies before 1941 and a less genocidal leader becomes Fuhrer... Goring?) and have the German occupation forces of Russia be nicer to the locals then add a Fascist France and give the US over to a fascistic President... Maybe Huey Long takes power? John Nance Garner becomes president after Roosevelt is assassinated? Maybe some other guy?

Seriously? You suggest Goering as Fuehrer? That nutcase? He was about as crazy as Hitler and a much more fanatical Nazi. If anything, we'd see both a shorter war and much more terrible atrocities (if that's possible). John Nance Garner was a progressive, not a fascist. Not even near fascism. His presidency, however, would screw up the US. Huey Long on a spectrum including the Nazis is the very lightest of gray. His usage of corrupt methods and authoritarian tendencies are nowhere near even the level of gray that Britain and the USSR were IOTL.
 
I would just keep the USA out.

Make the British a bit nastier in the inter-war period. Butterfly Hitler away, and replace him with a militaristic, nationalistic, right-wing coalition as anti-communist as the nazis.

Britain and France get hit harder during the depression, and react by taxing their empires more. This leads to earlier anti-colonialist movements, and nastier actions by the British and French. The sours the USA-Allies relationship.

When WWII starts, the USA very much views it as various colonials fighting each other. The Japanese have a stroke of common sense, and ignore the Americans. WWII evolves as a brutal fight with the British-Soviet alliance finally defeating Germany/Japan in 1947. The USA is neutral throughout. The war brutalizes both the USSR and UK even more than in OTL, while Japan is starved into submission, and Germany alt-Morgantheau'd. No holocaust, but more death.

Mike Turcotte
 
Hitler dies in 1918 and the Nazi party never becomes more than an extremist group. The Wiemar Republic was already breaking the military terms of Versailles before Hitler ever took power. As peaceful as they were the republic refused to accept their eastern border as permanent. The vast majority of Germans considered the Versailles treaty unjust and felt they had a right to recover the territories they saw as stolen from them.

Rather than a dictator being motivated by hatred and ambition you could have a democratic republic starting a war with Poland over what they see as legitimate claims to Danzig and the Corridor. France and Britain go to war to essentially enforce Versailles and keep Germany weakened.

All of a sudden the war is much murkier and who is 'right' really does depend on your point of view.
 
Having a democratic Germany randomly invading Poland is a bit of a change, as well. :p

No doubt. But I don't see it as really that much of a drastic dream. Not only can the Germans use the usual excuse ("it's our land, hurr durr"), but they can also use the excuse of fighting fascism, which might actually inspire the US to side with 'em.
 
Also... Have *Poland* invade FIRST?
Bigass POD needed there, who may butterfly WWII, if not *I*, AND probably ASB-insane, but...
 

MSZ

Banned
Also... Have *Poland* invade FIRST?
Bigass POD needed there, who may butterfly WWII, if not *I*, AND probably ASB-insane, but...

Not necessarly. I recall that diplomatic corespondence between Poland and France (conducted during the Danzig crisis before the war) stated that should Danzig declare its incorporation into Germany and Germany officialy accept it, Poland would move into Danzig by force to prevent it (as opposed to Danzig declaring its incorporationand Germany ignoring it, which Poland would treat as an "incident"). So even OTL the war could have started this way.
 
Fascists! Fascists everywhere! :D

Basically what's been said before. Make Britain and France go nasty in the Depression and replace the genocidal nutcases in Berlin with more effecient versions of Italians. Oh and if you really want to go with the Fascist thing, have the "Whites win the Civil War, turn into neo-Tsarist dickbags" cliche. That way it is an entirely Fascist affair, with everyone being some level of right-wing, authoritarian bastard.

Then it literally turns into WW1: Part Two.
 
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