The local populations that were not exterminated per the plan would fall in to one of two categories. I exclude here those who could establish themselves as Auslanddeutsch and are automatically Aryan. The vast bulk of the locals will be slaves of some sort or another. A few adults may be granted honorary Aryan status if they are close enough to the racial ideal and have some talents or skills that are especially desirable. Young children who are sufficiently "Aryan" would, as happened in OTL, be taken to be adopted by deserving Aryan couples. All of this would happen during the early years of the post war period. Once things settled down you might see some suitable slave women who met certain standards used for breeding more Aryans, however the rest of the locals would be locked in to permanent slavery.
Calculating the population/demographics of a victorious Reich?
- Thread starter varyar
- Start date
Obergruppenführer Smith
Banned
Before the Great Leap Forward and the resulting famine, PRC was having a 2.25% annual growth rate. Assuming a Germany population of 65 million (about 4 million being military deaths or people sent outside the 1939 borders) and 2.25% for 30 years (1945-1975) and then 1.5% for 40 years (1975-2015), we're looking at about 229.85 million Germans within the 1939 borders.
I think we can do 2.25% for 30 years and 1.5% for 40 years in general. Even at their worst ethnic Germans would have it better than pre-GLF Red China, so the Reich should be able to sustain such a population. Of course, this comes at the expense of everyone else, so I don't expect western Europe to be bigger than OTL, and eastern Europe is basically empty. So, Something like this I suppose:
- Ethnic Germans+ Eastern Territories: 240 million
- Western Europeans (France included): 120 million
- Total: 360 million
Basically..... we might be looking at a Reich that has almost the same population as OTL for the corresponding area (367.44 million).
This might seem a bit big, so here's an alternate calculation assuming 100 million ethnic Germans by the end of the war (1939 population + 30 million Volksdeutsche + population increases despite deaths up to 1950), add in 32.657 million surviving Eastern Europeans, and apply Red China's total increase of 129.95%:
- Ethnic Germans+ Eastern Territories: 305 million
- Western Europeans (France included): 120 million
- Total: 325 million
Assuming 15,000 PPP dollars per capita, the Reich (5.4 billion or 4.875 trillion PPP dollars) would be far behind the corresponding OTL region in terms of economy (14.131 trillion PPP dollars). In fact, it would be behind China at this rate.
Admittedly, PPP dollars do inflate a lot off the lower GDP countries, which can have this sort of difference. If you ask me, the Reich should have at least OTL Polish PPP GDP per capita of 26,500, leading to total GDP of 9.54 billion or 8.61 billion PPP dollars.
I think we can do 2.25% for 30 years and 1.5% for 40 years in general. Even at their worst ethnic Germans would have it better than pre-GLF Red China, so the Reich should be able to sustain such a population. Of course, this comes at the expense of everyone else, so I don't expect western Europe to be bigger than OTL, and eastern Europe is basically empty. So, Something like this I suppose:
- Ethnic Germans+ Eastern Territories: 240 million
- Western Europeans (France included): 120 million
- Total: 360 million
Basically..... we might be looking at a Reich that has almost the same population as OTL for the corresponding area (367.44 million).
This might seem a bit big, so here's an alternate calculation assuming 100 million ethnic Germans by the end of the war (1939 population + 30 million Volksdeutsche + population increases despite deaths up to 1950), add in 32.657 million surviving Eastern Europeans, and apply Red China's total increase of 129.95%:
- Ethnic Germans+ Eastern Territories: 305 million
- Western Europeans (France included): 120 million
- Total: 325 million
Assuming 15,000 PPP dollars per capita, the Reich (5.4 billion or 4.875 trillion PPP dollars) would be far behind the corresponding OTL region in terms of economy (14.131 trillion PPP dollars). In fact, it would be behind China at this rate.
Admittedly, PPP dollars do inflate a lot off the lower GDP countries, which can have this sort of difference. If you ask me, the Reich should have at least OTL Polish PPP GDP per capita of 26,500, leading to total GDP of 9.54 billion or 8.61 billion PPP dollars.
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Comparing to the PRC is a bad measurement because the PRC was a state going through its demographic transition, with extremely high birth rates and mortality rates that had plunged, incidents like the Great Leap Forward notwithstanding. Germany had already mostly completed the demographic transition. Even if we assume a post-war baby boom and higher birth rate from settlers sent east (which probably won't reach the levels of a pre-demographic transition state, since the cultural ramifications of the demographic transition are essentially impossible to undo, once knowledge of intra-couple fertility control is present, as opposed to control achieved by various traditional societal methods like delaying marrying age to prevent birth rates, it is very hard to put back in the box).
No state has managed to actually reverse this and to restore birth rates equivalent to pre-demographic transition levels, with the post-war baby booms being temporary alterations that managed to push the fertility rate higher before returning to lower fertility. Even these did not achieve anything like their previous levels before the decline in birth rates happened;
(seems to be going for something about economics but this is the one I found the most quickly which does TFR, my favored measure for calculating births)
In China the total fertility rate meanwhile was... significantly, higher.
The Nazis won't be able to achieve anything like the Chinese rates as they had already gone through the demographic transition and fertility rates had fallen across the board in Germany, including in the rural regions. Those sent East can have a boost to their TFR but won't revert to pre-fertility transition TFR and only so many Germans will be sent east. There might also be negative policies since the 1970s; the Nazi Germans would presumably be extremely conservative and rigid concerning their gender policies, which has ironically tracked with poor fertility since the 1970s, as seen in the Southern European countries and Germany itself. Of course, that is also a reaction to economic and social situations which will be tremendously different in Germany, but a continual population boom driven by German natalist policies is not inevitable, and these very policies might prove to be counter-productive in the end.
I would suggest that the best equivalent we might have available of a long term developed state with a pro-natalist policy is France, which did manage an unusually high birth rate post war and continues to have a high birth rate, and for totalitarian states - much more akin to Nazi Germany - is either Communist Romania or the USSR. None of them managed to achieve growth rates of x3 or x4 times their original population. Romania was only able to increase it a few million, Russia seems to have increased its population by 50% in the RSFSR at the end of the system, similar to France. I think we should generally therefor assume German growth of, let us say, in between 50-75%. Assuming a starting population of 80 million, which was the German population in the 1939 census (might be bumped a few extra million from absorbing Alsace-Lorraine which I presume the Germans annexed in whatever scenario is under discussion and various German minorities from the rest of Europe) and we end up 120 million to 140 million.
Obergruppenführer Smith
Banned
The way I see it, much of the possible population boom would happen because now the Nazis have the resources of the continent and "infinite" slave labor. Aside from the ideological push, the costs of child care can be handwaved through the use of slave labors and subsidies from the state (which comes from plunder). Once you remove the constraints of child care, then there can be the incentive for higher fertility. Of course, this can only be sustained for so long before the Reich would have to cut down drastically, which would lead to the drastic fall in births and thus the drive to obtain brides from abroad (like the example of that girl being married to an SS).
So perhaps Red China's example might be pushing too much, but even with 50% increase, we're seeing 168 million from ethnic Germans and eastern people. Make that 75% for ethnic Germans and 50% for Easterners, and we get 175 million Germans and 48 million Easterners for 188 million. Adding non-French Westerners would total to 221 million at the lowest and 241 million at the highest.
So perhaps Red China's example might be pushing too much, but even with 50% increase, we're seeing 168 million from ethnic Germans and eastern people. Make that 75% for ethnic Germans and 50% for Easterners, and we get 175 million Germans and 48 million Easterners for 188 million. Adding non-French Westerners would total to 221 million at the lowest and 241 million at the highest.
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According to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latgalians_(modern), it may have been due to linguistic differences between Latgalians and the rest of the Latvians.
Obergruppenführer Smith
Banned
So assuming a PPP GDP per capital of 26,500 dollars, then we're looking at 6.386 trillion PPP GDP, or about only 1.5 times that of OTL Germany and 1.2 times that of OTL Japan. In fact, it's lower than India.
At this point, the Reich is going to need Soviet-level military expenditures (15% of GDP, or 957 billion PPP dollars compared to PRC's 438 billion or US's 639 billion) to keep up with its rivals. This might be possible with some use of industrial and computer automation that the Soviets never achieved along with exploitation of all that oil, but still there will be a lot of strains in the system similar to that of current Russia.
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MERRICA
Banned
Comparing to the PRC is a bad measurement because the PRC was a state going through its demographic transition, with extremely high birth rates and mortality rates that had plunged, incidents like the Great Leap Forward notwithstanding. Germany had already mostly completed the demographic transition. Even if we assume a post-war baby boom and higher birth rate from settlers sent east (which probably won't reach the levels of a pre-demographic transition state, since the cultural ramifications of the demographic transition are essentially impossible to undo, once knowledge of intra-couple fertility control is present, as opposed to control achieved by various traditional societal methods like delaying marrying age to prevent birth rates, it is very hard to put back in the box).
No state has managed to actually reverse this and to restore birth rates equivalent to pre-demographic transition levels, with the post-war baby booms being temporary alterations that managed to push the fertility rate higher before returning to lower fertility. Even these did not achieve anything like their previous levels before the decline in birth rates happened;
(seems to be going for something about economics but this is the one I found the most quickly which does TFR, my favored measure for calculating births)
In China the total fertility rate meanwhile was... significantly, higher.
The Nazis won't be able to achieve anything like the Chinese rates as they had already gone through the demographic transition and fertility rates had fallen across the board in Germany, including in the rural regions. Those sent East can have a boost to their TFR but won't revert to pre-fertility transition TFR and only so many Germans will be sent east. There might also be negative policies since the 1970s; the Nazi Germans would presumably be extremely conservative and rigid concerning their gender policies, which has ironically tracked with poor fertility since the 1970s, as seen in the Southern European countries and Germany itself. Of course, that is also a reaction to economic and social situations which will be tremendously different in Germany, but a continual population boom driven by German natalist policies is not inevitable, and these very policies might prove to be counter-productive in the end.
I would suggest that the best equivalent we might have available of a long term developed state with a pro-natalist policy is France, which did manage an unusually high birth rate post war and continues to have a high birth rate, and for totalitarian states - much more akin to Nazi Germany - is either Communist Romania or the USSR. None of them managed to achieve growth rates of x3 or x4 times their original population. Romania was only able to increase it a few million, Russia seems to have increased its population by 50% in the RSFSR at the end of the system, similar to France. I think we should generally therefor assume German growth of, let us say, in between 50-75%. Assuming a starting population of 80 million, which was the German population in the 1939 census (might be bumped a few extra million from absorbing Alsace-Lorraine which I presume the Germans annexed in whatever scenario is under discussion and various German minorities from the rest of Europe) and we end up 120 million to 140 million.
Well, where there's a will there's a way. Remember that the Nazis are going to be raising the children from birth to repopulate the East and for more Aryans.
It can only be hand waved so much. Only a certain number slave laborers can be trusted in those positions, there plenty of competing positions which will suck up labor, the population of recruits is going to fall quickly, and there are costs beyond childcare to take into account. At a certain level the problem of child-raising can only be compartmentalized so much from the rest of the population; what happens when we get into the problems of housing sizes for example? If we do assume 80-100 million Germans, then you need a simply vast amount of people of people for childcare for that. It'll only at most affect the period of the baby boom which we already assume anyway and which happened in France, since by the later period the German population would have risen to the extent that the slave labor population available for it will be insufficient. These slave laborers also carry their costs too, even if not having them with wages hides them. Of course, we lack a real example of an equivalent empire, so to some case it is just guessing for the Germans.
The idea of the state managing to waive away all of the costs for childcare is also exaggerated. It isn't something that any state has managed, and the plunder the Nazis can steal from Europe is only so much, and it is one that is going to shrink relatively over time. Initially it will doubtless be very extensive but it'll shrink quickly either due to the Nazis having to lighten up on the conquered economies because their economies are collapsing... or because their economies collapse. The war-time plunder is not sustainable in the long run. The Germans reports themselves indicated that the Soviet Union would be a net financial drain to them. Combine this with tremendous spending that'll go to other things like whatever the Nazi military programs are, prestige projects, whatever inefficient dreams they come up with post war, and the amount of money that can get directed to their fertility programs will be limited. This will get worse if we adopt the most optimistic German population growth projects since the ratio of Germans to their plundered subjects in the rest of Europe will rise.
A highly militarized society will also reduce the population growth rate as conscription has a negative effect on fertility.
Ultimately the Germans won't be able to have a fertility policy that is able to be dramatically different than other policies, and there are doubtless going to be counter-productive things, since we're mostly focusing on prospects that are positive for German fertility rates. I would consist 175m Germans to be very much the upper estimate. I'd probably estimate the number of Germans total at 90 million maximum taking into account those within Greater Germany and those Volkdeutsch which are taken in during the case of the war. This is going to get up to again, probably 150 million maximum, and easily smaller.
Nope. Do you think that France, Romania, the USSR, didn't have a "will" for their own natalist programs while the Germans, by virtue of being blond and blue eyed superior Teutonic supermen, are somehow on another level that will make their natalist programs more successful?
Every evidence from modern history is that pro-natalist programs, with even the French program being the most successful, have failed to make dramatic changes in TFR. They can raise TFR a few tenths, at most. The German one will be no different.
No more than 150 million "true Germans" in the entire Greater Reich in the "best" case (for the Nazis). As for the extermination plans I assume they in the end wouldn't be fully implemented, due to their sheer impracticality: cooler heads would prevail after the war, leading the approach from extermination to "simple" mass enserfment and/or linguistic/cultural assimilation. Anyway, huge numbers of Slavs would flee East into "free" Siberia, or in other cases percolate South into relatively less brutal Italy and Turkey (what would Ustashe Croatia do of, say, fugitive Czechs, fellow Slavs but in Nazi terms un-Aryan Untermenschen?). What then of the non-Russian but heavily Russified minorities of European Russia (Finnopermians, Tatars, Caucasians etc)? They'd probably stay and relish the massacre of their former overlords, only to later regret it.
MERRICA
Banned
Except that Nazi Germany is batshit crazy to say the least. The Germans will raise the post-war generation from BIRTH to venerate Nazi ideals and to produce children for the Fatherland. That sort of ideological indoctrination throws a big-time wrench into any data speculation.
Great analysis, all! People who know statistics and specifics impress my tiny amateur brain 
I had a sketchy idea for the trajectory of fertility in TTL. They'd have something of a baby boom in the mid/late 40s after the heavy fighting in the East was concluded and most of the soldiers came home, and a smaller one around 1970 as the younguns came of age, but a steadily declining rate overall, perhaps juuuust over replacement rate by their 2017. I don't know if that seems plausible or not.
As for the economic state of the Reich, bad, definitely bad. I was picturing Russia as I wrote the narratives hthis thread is based on, even if it didn't always come across very clearly. (Esp. in the second story, which takes place on a white elephant/expensive train.)
I had a sketchy idea for the trajectory of fertility in TTL. They'd have something of a baby boom in the mid/late 40s after the heavy fighting in the East was concluded and most of the soldiers came home, and a smaller one around 1970 as the younguns came of age, but a steadily declining rate overall, perhaps juuuust over replacement rate by their 2017. I don't know if that seems plausible or not.
As for the economic state of the Reich, bad, definitely bad. I was picturing Russia as I wrote the narratives hthis thread is based on, even if it didn't always come across very clearly. (Esp. in the second story, which takes place on a white elephant/expensive train.)
And what if I told you that the Soviet Union and Romania did exactly the same thing? The Soviet Union didn't establish the Mother Heroine medal for no reason. Motherhood wasn't glorified because the USSR wanted to be nice, but because they wanted more children. Did the Soviets lack for institutions to instill socialist values and what they viewed as the ideal family? The same holds true for Romania.
Why is German propaganda going to be so much more effective than Soviet or Romanian propaganda?
Generally people don't have children because some bureaucrat is handing out medals for having children or because people tell them about how they have to have children for the glory of the Reich, they do it for personal reasons. State propaganda for having children is a policy to do it on the cheap, and is the most ineffective of all policies.
Obergruppenführer Smith
Banned
Neither the Soviets nor the Romanians had the resources to bring up those children. You're trying to ram the examples of paupers into the hole that is a victorious Reich.
Obergruppenführer Smith
Banned
Anyway, assuming we use France's postwar growth, we're still dealing with a 62.89% increase, with the immigrants from the Americas and South Africa plus the temporarily higher birth rate standing in for the OTL immigrants to France. That gives us around 146.6 million if we start from 90 million.
I suppose rounding to 150 million might work out, maybe a bit higher depending on how many came from abroad. Increasing the PPP GDP per capita to around 32,500 dollars (Czech) would round things to
- Total population: 216 million
- PPP GDP: 7.02 trillion dollars
I suppose rounding to 150 million might work out, maybe a bit higher depending on how many came from abroad. Increasing the PPP GDP per capita to around 32,500 dollars (Czech) would round things to
- Total population: 216 million
- PPP GDP: 7.02 trillion dollars
Why assume that the Nazi natalist program will be just pull factors?
That was the greatest reason the Soviet natalist program failed.
In the Reich, I can see serious penalties from the government for women who don't have enough children.
Not just for the wife but her spouse and maybe even family too.
Picture this, because a german wife only has had one child, her husband can't be promoted, and her family is fined every month.
Financial pressure plus the social pressure that would create would work wonders for the natalist program.
That was the greatest reason the Soviet natalist program failed.
In the Reich, I can see serious penalties from the government for women who don't have enough children.
Not just for the wife but her spouse and maybe even family too.
Picture this, because a german wife only has had one child, her husband can't be promoted, and her family is fined every month.
Financial pressure plus the social pressure that would create would work wonders for the natalist program.
The Reich gets to rule over a destroyed Europe that they've smashed and are trying to build into a slave labor state, with probably figures equivalent to the Soviets getting poured into their military. I'm not convinced that life is going to be a paradise there, even for the Germans, especially when the faults of the Nazi economic policy start to appear. Furthermore the link between GDP per capita vs. children is one that is questionable in its link. In the current day GDP per capita generally corresponds to lower fertility rates. HDI is a more tenuous link as there is a terrible sink hole around the high but not highest level which has a very poor fertility rate, while those lower tend to fall into very high fertility (mostly these are developing nations), and those at the highest tend to have sustainable fertility rates. Of course, this is for modern figures and the social environment earlier on is different, but richer and more resources does not equal by necessity more children.
If you want I could use the French model as my example for propaganda; France wasn't a totalitarian state of course but it was also the most vigorously pro-natalist Western country and there is a vast amount of literature that exists on French pro-natalist propaganda in the 20th century. It also is useful because it tried to do things almost purely by propaganda for the most part in the 20s and 30s with basically no effect. Italian pro-natalist projects foundered on similar endeavors.
Find me a pro-natalist program which has resulted in a dramatic increase in births which has been sustained over a long time, more than the French program which has probably just pushed up French demographics a few tenths of a point above the rest of the Western European and Northern European countries, and sure, we can contemplate vast German population growths. The fact that there exist literally no examples in developed countries that I am aware of doesn't indicate that Nazi Germany will be an exception, it'll indicate it'll hit the same problems as the rest. A vigorous German pro-natalist program will succeed in a mild increase in births and nothing dramatic otherwise.
Deleted member 1487
For one thing the Soviets weren't a racialized as the Nazis were and as the German people were sort of primed for in the 1940s. I know of no Lebensborn program in the USSR:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn
There are different ways to go about trying to raise fertility. The fact that the Nazis tried one of the more bizarre ways to do it (and one that would have only a marginal effect on the actual birth rate) doesn't say anything about the relative strength of Soviet ideological state apparatuses vis-à-vis their German counterparts.