AHC: Punish Germany as harshly as possible after WW2
- Thread starter Orko
- Start date
Oh I know that the allied punished Germany on paper with impressive prison sentances, that stayed on paper look how many served more than a few years (the execption being Hess for some reason).
How SS officers in todays Germany can wear their medals, use their former rank equivalents and get full pension for served time (all this is btw not allowed for NVA officers).
As for reparations 16 billion US$ was written off in 1946.
I dont understand how rebuilding the army is a punishment?
Pretty sure thats rubbish. The SS is a criminal organisation in Germany. But I would not be surprised if they still got their pension.
yep it is disgusting NVA officers were mostly fired and their pensions are laugable while Wehramcht and Waffen SS soldiers are getting their pensions.
CthulhuFhtagn
Banned
Germany was bombed to rubble and split in half. I'd hardly consider that "punished on paper", and the Allies were probably willing to call it even on the whole reparations thing.
As for the army, it was kind of a punishment because the Germans had to pay for it.
No, they aren't, except for the ones conscripted into the Waffen-SS after 1943.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS said:
It in every way advantaged Stalin by both keeping the German Army fighting in the West and by if enacted leading to a man caused famine that discredits the West in general during the Cold War and very well could cause a Soviet backed uprising in Germany.
A lot more countries look favorably on the Soviet bloc during the Cold War.
A truncated North German federation (with some northern parts of Germany going to Soviet Poland),the Rhineland (Rhenish Republic) is a good one, Bavaria needs to be there (it's the only part that retains a greater devolution independence movement to this day) and, of course Austria needs to be separated like OTL.
Best POD would probably be the western allies doing better and thus ending up with most of Germany while the Soviet Union does worse and ends up with at most Poland, the Baltic States and Chzechoslovakia.
Like I said before, maybe make sure the new German states are enticed to join an alt EU type of organization (maybe forgiveness of war debt/reparations contingent on the German states joining the organization, as well as having it be in charge of any ATL Marshall Plan equivalent) whose secondary purpose is the ensure the German states don't reunify again. Of course unless the UK joins it as well it would make France the dominant power in post-war Europe.
And like Calbear said, if the former German states develop into prosperous little countries by the turn of the century the influence of the generation who actually remember being citizens of a united Germany and want to reunify it will be on the wane (much like OTL South Korea where interest in reunification is less among the younger generations even without considering the costs of said reunification, or Chipperback's fictional balkanized USA, where most parts of the former USA do seem to be somewhat more prosperous as smaller countries).
Best POD would probably be the western allies doing better and thus ending up with most of Germany while the Soviet Union does worse and ends up with at most Poland, the Baltic States and Chzechoslovakia.
Like I said before, maybe make sure the new German states are enticed to join an alt EU type of organization (maybe forgiveness of war debt/reparations contingent on the German states joining the organization, as well as having it be in charge of any ATL Marshall Plan equivalent) whose secondary purpose is the ensure the German states don't reunify again. Of course unless the UK joins it as well it would make France the dominant power in post-war Europe.
And like Calbear said, if the former German states develop into prosperous little countries by the turn of the century the influence of the generation who actually remember being citizens of a united Germany and want to reunify it will be on the wane (much like OTL South Korea where interest in reunification is less among the younger generations even without considering the costs of said reunification, or Chipperback's fictional balkanized USA, where most parts of the former USA do seem to be somewhat more prosperous as smaller countries).
How is it a good idea if punishing them too much didn't work out the first time?
On the OP, balkanize them, give them all unpayable reparations, put heavy sanctions in place for all of them, and give large swaths of their territories to the allied countries.
Realpolitik
Banned
The big winner from a famine ravaged, wrecked Europe, which is what a Morgenthau Plan would cause, was Joseph Stalin, regardless of who came up with it. Anybody who could honestly think it was in US interests was too irrational or dumb to be let anywhere near the seat of power.
At the very least, it'll squander the "lesser of two evils" image that so benefited the Americans in Germany OTL. Big time. When compared with "the potato patch plan", Communism won't look too bad. And the rest of Europe will follow, if Washington decides ruining Germany is more imperative than rebuilding Europe.
The only pensions mentioned are war disability pensions. Until I see evidence to the contrary, I'm going to continue to assume that non-disabled Waffen-SS veterans (except for those conscripted after 1943) remain pension-ineligible.
King Thomas
Banned
How about giving an Israel-sized part of West Germany to the Jewish people in 1945, instead of creating Israel out of Palestine with all the trouble that has created? The number of terrorist attacks against German Israel would be tiny, first because Germany would be too busy recovering, then because of embarrassment about the Holocaust, and if it was supported as much as OTL by the US, it would become a rich first world state very quickly.
Ming777
Monthly Donor
Some frivolous punishments.
-seize all German Beer companies and move them to the Allied Powers. Only American beer allowed in Germany.
-all sausages made in Germany must be made as bland and rubbery as hot dog weiners.
-the Luftwaffe may only operate the F-104G starfighter for combat aircraft.
-German professional football players only allowed to play in world cup for other nations.
-No David Hasselhoff. Ever.
-seize all German Beer companies and move them to the Allied Powers. Only American beer allowed in Germany.
-all sausages made in Germany must be made as bland and rubbery as hot dog weiners.
-the Luftwaffe may only operate the F-104G starfighter for combat aircraft.
-German professional football players only allowed to play in world cup for other nations.
-No David Hasselhoff. Ever.
CthulhuFhtagn
Banned
I love this idea. The USMNT has seen a huge leap in quality since we started using Germans (Klinsman, Green, Brooks, Jones, Johnson, Chandler). Just imagine how good Turkey would be with Ozil and Khedira.
I'd say it had more to do with the stab-in-the-back mythos. After all, when the cease fire went into effect, Germany still occupied a portion of France. Following WWII, Germany was pretty much burnt to the ground. They were good and truly whooped so it'd be hard to blame it on any conspiracy.
You don't put the terms of a conquered nation on a nation you didn't conquer. Rome's lesson during the Punic Wars and France and Britain's lesson for the first World War.
If people wanted Germans to accept the shit they got after WW1 they needed to take the war well into Germany.
That's a bit too optimistic. There's a big difference from offering east Prussia to the Jews than offering something in west Germany. Germany in its current borders I believe was always considered the heartland, if you give some of that away your just asking to inflame the situation. While there might be no state sponsored terrorism against this theoretical Israel, there will be a lot of bitterness. One must keep in mind that this is a country that has been totally devastated by fire bombings which has basically leveled most major cities into rubble, not to mention that Hitler has essentially thrown them to the wolves for failing to realize his dream and has tried to start a campaign to destroy everything left standing to prevent it from falling into allied control.
If the allies try to pull this stunt all that's going to happen is that various nationalist groups, such as for instance the nationalist socialist underground, will gain way more support guilt or no guilt and carry out the same sort of attacks that the Palestinians were undertaking. War guilt will only go so far and really that only really happened as the horrors of the holocaust became more widely known in the late 50's into the 60's, making it an even harder pill to swallow.
Maybe I'm a bit biased since I have Austrian/German ancestry but stuff like draining the population of Austria, Bavaria or a slither of North-Rhein Westphalia for a state for the Jews is ASB, it causes too many problems. Though east Prussia is more plausible you would need to make Israel a pipe dream and the UK/UN shooting the idea down. I may be wrong about this, I'm just going on stuff I remember from various History classes and documentaries but I'm pretty confident that there will not be a reconciliation with Israel at the level we have now if such a plan were to go forward.
Notice the date... the date the Cold War effectively ended. The decision was I believe part of a wink wink nod nod agreement that West Germany be the main land force in Europe to defend against the Soviets saving America trillions of dollars and we agree to defer certain expenses for Germany. West Germany couldn't afford to rearm and rebuild while suffering WW1 reparations and the rest.