An Axis Manhattan Project

It would not be Nazism as we know it, but it is still quite feasible to imagine a fascist Germany without the genocidal racism. Make no mistake, the scenario assumes a lot of convergence and butterfly netting for the sake of meaningful comparison, but in the end it is quite plausible to imagine a fascist Germany without the antisemitism and a fascist Italy without the incompetence (if they have to plan a rematch against the Entente from the beginning), that stick together from the start and hence make a joint Axis "Project Manhattan". Heck, it isn't that difficult, even using some of the familiar faces. Picture Goring in charge, backed by the generals and moderate Nazi like Speer.

Hmmm, I wrote a novel about this ten years ago - well the first long five chapters anyway, and an outline for the rest.

Goering and Heydrich ruling the Reich into the 1950s IIRC

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

Eurofed

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But a Fascist Germany without Hitler would not have fought the European war in anything like Hitler's war. Many of Germany's early successes and later catastrophic failures were the result of Hitler's will and his total domination of OKW and the diplomatic corp. Someone more like Mussolini would likely not have pushed so hard after Munich. An Axis bomb in the late 40's or early 50's during a period of "hot peace." perhaps

True, this is the part of the scenario where we have to handwave convergent butterflies quite a bit in order to have a recognizable WWII. It is not impossible, however. I proposed a "CP Italy, Entente victory, no Hitler" PoD. Without the Austrian Caporal and his crazy lebensraum ideas, and Italy in all likelihood having its own revanchist claims against France even more than OTL, it is wholly conceivable that Germany and Italy, after Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia are done in, direct their revanchist claims on France, and WWII happens because of that. IOTL Hitler was so focused on going after Russia that he deemed Alsace-Lorraine a done deal, TTL Germany might have a different viewpoint. IOTL Mussolini claimed Nice, Savoy, Corsica and Tunisia, TTL Italy might add Aosta or Sardinia to the plate.
 

Eurofed

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You can still imagine a repeat of the German internal military propaganda pre-1914: "Russia is rapidly industrializing, we have to beat and weaken them before thy can do the same to us!" So you can still imagine some kind of Barbarossa - after, possibly, a joint dismemberment of Poland as IOTL but not as soon as OTL. Possibly around 1943, and this time possibly even really thought as a preventive strike (whether based on real threat or on lies told to themselves too often-you decide).

I would assume that this alt-Barbarossa would be much less successful than IOTL, but with much more limited goals (Brest Litovsk 2.0) it may still succeed.

True. Or alternatively, Stalin backstabs the Axis in 1943.
 

Eurofed

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You only need overwhelming advantage if you want to enforce the other's surrender. If your goal is to fight the invading power to a standstill, enforce a bloody stalemate and then negotiate, such advantage is not really needed. After all USA had an overwhelming advantage over North Korea and China in Korea war, over Vietnam in 1970s etc...

Quite true. Especially against a non-genocidal Axis, to assume an infinite Anglo-American will to fight is Alliedwank.

In many cases they would have access but didn't know that they had. The uranium ore in Saxonia for example, or the second largest tungsten deposit in Austria, were only found after the war.

Hmm, if the Germans and Italians start a major atomic project, wouldn't they also get more determined with seeking out uranium in Europe ? Or alternatively, with former CP Italy in the Axis from the start, we have to assume a different rearmament pattern (e.g. they would have to go for innovative naval tactics, and build an AC-focused and amphibious-focused KM and RM), and an earlier Anschluss. This may butterfly an earlier discovery of such resources.

An A-bomb is (with our OTL knowledge) is very useful as a blackmail weapon. Besides, building A-bombs has been CHEAPER than building up conventional army strength (or was at least since 1950s)

Yep.

Suppose A-bombs are used against the landing troops on Normandy beaches. The landing forces are not destroyed completely but are severely damaged. Normandy turns out to be another, larger Dieppe. Do you think the Allies would be ready for round three right away, especially against a non-genocidal axis (which would also necessarily have completely different war goals)? Or would American forces partly retire across Atlantic, partly fortify UK and swear revenge "some time in the future"? Because in the latter case, if the Axis leadership is sane enough to consolidate their gains and not try to bite off more than they can chew, the "revenge promise" will be kept up for a generation until it simply loses it's meaning for the allies' population.

We would then probably still see some kind of rematch a generation later but it will be a completely different war.

Quite true as well. OTOH, a Hot War rematch against a victorious Axis in the 1960s is deep-end ASB. The Germans and Italians would have plenty of ICBMs, intercontinental bombers, and thousands of thermonuclear warheads by then. A Cold War is the only rational strategy.

Of course, an Axis that is not wasting its resources in the Mother of All Genocides in Russia (in all likelihood, they would still strive to Germanize/Italianize Czechia, western Poland, Albania, Slovenia, Dalmatia, and North Africa, but that's small potatoes as resources go in comparison) and is not crapping its education system with racist theories might face a Cold War challenge rather more balanced than it was for the Soviet bloc. Although as the example of Spain and Portugal shows, fascist regimes are still quite exposed to collapse in the long term.
 
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As I understand things, allied nuclear scientists (jewish expatriat and otherwise) wholeheartedly worked to convince the US and UK governments to speed unimaginable sums on Manhattan because they saw it in part as insurance against the possibility a world-conquering "evil" Nazi regime might get there first.

In this TL, why would German, Austrian, Hungarian, and Italian scientists work together to convince relatively soft fascist revisionist governments to develop such weapons unless there was the risk that some, more dangerous and "evil" power would get there first? Perhaps a post-WW1 Europe in which Stalinism was unmasked earlier - and the USSR was more aggressively exporting world revolution might do the trick. But a mere desire for Hungary and Germany to regain their prewar borders (the most likely goal of a non-Nazi fascism) would not. Most of these scientists would sit on their hands.
 
It is easy to forget that in the years before WW II Fascism was perceived by many western progressives to be an extremely positive development. Even Cole Porter in an early version of his tune "You're the Top" included the lyrics:

"you're the top!
You're the Great Houdini!
You,re the top!
You are Mussolini!"

So, if our German "Mussolini" was clever diplomatically, he might actually have the US not as an enemy but as a friendly neutral. and the struggle in Europe viewed by Americans as a defense of Europe against Stalinism. Word of the Soviet labor camps and deadly purges could certainly have been used to great effect by the Axis propagandists to gain US neutrality
 

Eurofed

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It is easy to forget that in the years before WW II Fascism was perceived by many western progressives to be an extremely positive development. Even Cole Porter in an early version of his tune "You're the Top" included the lyrics:

"you're the top!
You're the Great Houdini!
You,re the top!
You are Mussolini!"

So, if our German "Mussolini" was clever diplomatically, he might actually have the US not as an enemy but as a friendly neutral. and the struggle in Europe viewed by Americans as a defense of Europe against Stalinism. Word of the Soviet labor camps and deadly purges could certainly have been used to great effect by the Axis propagandists to gain US neutrality

That's true. A clever Axis leadership might also see the deadly trap hidden in an alliance with Japan and leave it to its own devices. I would assume that without US resources and the expatriated European scientists, the British nuclear project is screwed, they would always come second to the Axis project.
 

Eurofed

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As I understand things, allied nuclear scientists (jewish expatriat and otherwise) wholeheartedly worked to convince the US and UK governments to speed unimaginable sums on Manhattan because they saw it in part as insurance against the possibility a world-conquering "evil" Nazi regime might get there first.

In this TL, why would German, Austrian, Hungarian, and Italian scientists work together to convince relatively soft fascist revisionist governments to develop such weapons unless there was the risk that some, more dangerous and "evil" power would get there first? Perhaps a post-WW1 Europe in which Stalinism was unmasked earlier - and the USSR was more aggressively exporting world revolution might do the trick. But a mere desire for Hungary and Germany to regain their prewar borders (the most likely goal of a non-Nazi fascism) would not. Most of these scientists would sit on their hands.

A more aggressive Soviet Union is quite feasible. The main butterfly management scenario then becomes how to jusitfy that the Entente and the Axis still come to blows instead of making a united front against such an obvious common enemy. When faced with an aggressive Soviet Union, Britain and France would throw Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia under the bus in a moment if that is what it takes to have an anti-Communist alliance with Germany and Italy.

I would not underestimate the patriotism of German, Italian, and Hungarian scientists under a soft-fascist regime when their countries are at total war, however.
 
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A more aggressive Soviet Union is quite feasible. The main butterfly management scenario then becomes how to jusitfy that the Entente and the Axis still come to blows instead of making a united front against such an obvious common enemy. faced with an aggressive Soviet Union, Britain and France would throw Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia under the bus in a moment if that what it takes to have an anti-Communist alliance with Germany and Italy.

I would not underestimate the patriotism of German, Italian, and Hungarian scientists under a soft-fascist regime when their countries are at total war, however.

Certainly Romania and Hungary did not oppose Fascism IOTL, having their own home-grown variations, as did the Croatians. The Axis could pitch the formation of a pan-European Fascist alliance system ( an Axis NATO?) to counter the Comintern. With the greatest population, Germany of course would call the tune.
 
Even with smarter leadership, TTL's ITaly and Germany will never be able to match OTL's USA in terms of industrial output and economic might. As such there is almost no way that any kind of A-bomb project will get as much funding is the manhattan project did.
True, although the US a) had multiple projects going on at once, b) did it in a huge hurry and c) were ramping up for industrial scale production.

A project that went only for a plutonium bomb (breeder reactor/Candu-oid), and only produced a few bombs each year would be a LOT cheaper than the gaseous diffusion plants using uranium hexafloride that the US went with.

Also, didn't the italians and Germans lack direct access to all the resources needed for a bomb project?
No. The tonnes of Pitchblende that Marie Curie used to separate out miniscule amounts of e.g. Polonium came from mines in ?Czechoslovakia?. My mind's blank on the name. That would give you enough uranium for the small scale program that is likely all they could afford anyway.

True, some of the odd metals wanted for alloys might be hard to get, but I suspect that would make things tougher, not impossible.
 
Given sufficient resources, I would guess that Japan would have the best chance of getting The Bomb. The Japanese were ruthless and fought savagely, but they were a lot more rational than the Nazis (which really isn't saying a whole lot). They wouldn't have that teams competing against each other nonsense to start with.
 
I think that some of the scientists might have still left a non-Nazi fascist Germany, if they were of generally left-wing or democratic sympathies, but the majority who left in OTL would have probably stayed. In terms of scientific talent, a close German-Italian alliance fighting France and the UK/Commonwealth would have been pretty competitive in a race for the atomic bomb. France and the UK would still get the advantage if the USA joined them.

I think that there were significant uranium deposits in the mountains along the German-Czech border. Probably not nearly as much as what was available to the Allies, but enough to have a viable program. That's where the Germans got the Uranium for their program in OTL, and their failure was not due to lack of uranium ore.
 

Eurofed

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I think that some of the scientists might have still left a non-Nazi fascist Germany, if they were of generally left-wing or democratic sympathies, but the majority who left in OTL would have probably stayed. In terms of scientific talent, a close German-Italian alliance fighting France and the UK/Commonwealth would have been pretty competitive in a race for the atomic bomb. France and the UK would still get the advantage if the USA joined them.

I would reword that statement as: "a close German-Italian alliance that fights France and the British Empire and keeps the vast majority of its scientific talent would have a definite advantage in the race to the Bomb. France and the UK would remain pretty competitive only if the USA joined them". Dedicated left-wingers or pro-democracy sympathizers were not many among expatriated Axis scientists. On their own, the British took up to the early 50s, and the French up to the early 60s, to develop nuclear weapons, so they are quite unlikely to win the race.
 
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I would reword that statement as: "a close German-Italian alliance that fights France and the British Empire and keeps the vast majority of its scientific talent would have a definite advantage in the race to the Bomb. France and the UK would remain pretty competitive only if the USA joined them". Dedicated left-wingers or pro-democracy sympathizers were not many among expatriated Axis scientists. On their own, the British took up to the early 50s, and the French up to the early 60s, to develop nuclear weapons, so they are quite unlikely to win the race.

I don't know much about the biographies of the expatriate scientists, so I can't really comment on that. Still, I think it would be very close - Germany probably had more leading physicists than any other single country, but the UK and France were hardly devoid of talent as well. Even without the USA, they probably would have more resources to devote to a nuclear program if they worked together than the German-Italian alliance would - and would have places where they could work on such a project without getting bombed (I'm thinking Canada especially).

Edit - I don't think a comparison to OTL development dates is necessarily that helpful - in OTL neither the UK nor France were in a shooting war, and they were both fairly closely allied to the world's first and leading nuclear power, so it wasn't as high a priority as it would be if they were in a direct war with an enemy alliance that was working toward the same goal. Also, in OTL France was recovering from a lot of industrial and infrastructure damage after a major war, and so was the UK to a lesser extent, whereas in this scenario they would not be any more hindered by this than their enemies.
 
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Eurofed

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I don't know much about the biographies of the expatriate scientists, so I can't really comment on that. Still, I think it would be very close - Germany probably had more leading physicists than any other single country, but the UK and France were hardly devoid of talent as well. Even without the USA, they probably would have more resources to devote to a nuclear program if they worked together than the German-Italian alliance would - and would have places where they could work on such a project without getting bombed (I'm thinking Canada especially).

Given that a close German-Italian alliance leads to a more efficient Italy, I think it is unlikely that France would fare any better than OTL, so rather soon it would become Britain alone vs. Germany-Italy. The vast majority of the resources that went into Manhattan Project were American, not British. Sure the British had some definite talent as well in the Tube Alloys, but IOTL it took them up to the early 50s to develop their own nuclear weapons, despite being able to rely on Manhattan example and results. It is quite unlikely they could do any better than that without working in a team with America.

It's not just keeping German scientists. Italy had these guys, and ITTL the Axis would almost surely keep Enrico Fermi and Emilio Segrè. Edoardo Amaldi was an anti-fascist, but he reamined in Italy and kept working on physics during the war, so ITTL he would most likely stay as well and work for a less brutal Axis. Majorana's disappearance could easily be butterflied away, and he was a friend of Heisenberg.
 
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