DBWI: Germany Allowed to Rearm after WW2

For a time, the US and I believe UK had pushed for the ability to allow West Germany to rearm after the war. However, many European leaders (particularly France), shocked by what the German military had been able to do during the war, dug their heels into the ground and refused this fearing Germany becoming a threat once again. Thus, during the Cold war, the only defense for West Germany was the few army forces of foreign powers which occupied it.

However, what if the western powers had allowed West Germany to rearm? What effect would this have on the Cold War between the West and East?
 
It might have allowed some pro-western politicians to move Germany into the western camp. As it was, the neutralists won the upper hand. Thus, Germany only provided the battleground...
 
And after the Ivans rolled in in 75, we rearmed anyway. The war would have been over far earlier had we had a proper Army to begin with.
 
It might have allowed some pro-western politicians to move Germany into the western camp. As it was, the neutralists won the upper hand. Thus, Germany only provided the battleground...

I agree. The refusal of NATO to allow the Federal Republic to play a full role in the alliance led to the defeat of Adenauer's CDU in the first federal elections after 1949. Pro-western politicians felt abandoned and humiliated when the US and UK refused to push harder for a German military role in NATO, and later French proposals for a "European Army" including Germans in multinational units under French command only added salt to their wounds. Although the Social Democrats maintained power through much of the 1950's, this was only because many former CDU members flocked to the right-wing fringe groups and the Straussites. When the German Democratic Republic formally joined the Wasaw Pact, was rearmed, and given a seat at the UN General Assembly, conservative West Germans felt even more betrayed. When the Bundestag passed the Neutrality Act in 1961, the western Allies were put in the position of either abandoning their bases in Germany or ending the fiction that "West Germany" was an independent nation. The 1962 closing of the Federal Bundestag and restoration of military occupation zones was a predictable reaction. Since then, the US and UK have maintained an uneasy truce between themselves and the bitterly disappointed western Germans, who increasingly protest what they see as an illegal occupation of their portion of Germany and agitate for eventual reunion with the much more powerful DDR.
 
Honestly, this is ASB. There wasn't really that much of a scare towards the Soviet Union immediately after WW2. Some people did see the writing on the wall, hence the American push towards rearmament. But, for the most part, there was just a fear that Germany would once again start a new war. France, especially, would've just used its veto power in the UN to do away with any rearmament. After getting smashed in the Franco-Prussian War and two World Wars? No way would it want anything to do with rearming Germany.
 
It is hard to underestimate the level of hate that the Germans faced after 1946 and the discovery of their concentration camps. They killed seven million Jews in their concentration camps and resorted to biological weapons against the Soviets.

Germany would never be allowed to rearm after that slaughter. Heck, the Allies and Soviets had occupation governments in Germany for something like a decade after V-E day. We tend to forget just how pervasive the Nazi Party was in Germany--and the decision that "de-nazification" would involve a deep restart of Germany as a country.

In short, there is no way on this planet that the Western Allies, who had dropped nuclear weapons against Germany and cut deals with the Soviets for "Hard Control" of the region, would even think of approaching the German people as any kind of partnet in this process.

Frankly, the West was probably more scared of German Resurgence than a Soviet Attack; after the German Civil War of 1975-7, the USA called for Germany to get cut up into tiny little pieces before attempting any kind of militarization...
 

mowque

Banned
It is hard to underestimate the level of hate that the Germans faced after 1946 and the discovery of their concentration camps. They killed seven million Jews in their concentration camps and resorted to biological weapons against the Soviets.

Maybe if the War had gone easier? I mean without the smallpox attempts on Soviet Armies (for an example) or plague (not sure, or is a urban legend?) attacks in Ukraine wouldn't the West see Germany nicer? True, I have a hard time seeing Hitler NOT doing this stuff, but maybe?

Also, maybe a more aggressive Stalin could scare the Allies?
 
It is hard to underestimate the level of hate that the Germans faced after 1946 and the discovery of their concentration camps. They killed seven million Jews in their concentration camps and resorted to biological weapons against the Soviets.

Damn, do they teach you anything in schools. By November of '46. Holocaust had claimed 7.1 million Jews and another 7.5 million Slavs, communists, Roma and other unwanted minorities and ideological groups.

Outside of ASB intervention, or a completely exhausted USSR going on immediate offensive against Allies there is nothing to ever make anyone allow Germany to rearm.

Only Truman's calm (and some say Germanophilia) saved Raich from full planed delivery of 25 atomic bombs, they got off quite easy after only 5. Once V2's loaded with sarin started hitting London and newly liberated Pairs in late '45. and when commandos captured bioweapon payloads for next V2 batch... Allies could have ignored Soviet fury and desperation but now were in the same hell.

And to imagine that relatively benign original Morghentau plan was considered as too extreme by some in '44...

After starting two world wars, after 89 million dead in WWII and all 15 million victims of Holocaust, there is no amount of plot induced stupidity that could have made Allies rearm Germany. Sure sure, the horrible threat of Red Menace. What Red Menace, Soviets were still putting out resurgences of epidemics in late '50es.
 
Damn, do they teach you anything in schools. By November of '46. Holocaust had claimed 7.1 million Jews and another 7.5 million Slavs, communists, Roma and other unwanted minorities and ideological groups.

Outside of ASB intervention, or a completely exhausted USSR going on immediate offensive against Allies there is nothing to ever make anyone allow Germany to rearm.

Only Truman's calm (and some say Germanophilia) saved Raich from full planed delivery of 25 atomic bombs, they got off quite easy after only 5. Once V2's loaded with sarin started hitting London and newly liberated Pairs in late '45. and when commandos captured bioweapon payloads for next V2 batch... Allies could have ignored Soviet fury and desperation but now were in the same hell.

And to imagine that relatively benign original Morghentau plan was considered as too extreme by some in '44...

After starting two world wars, after 89 million dead in WWII and all 15 million victims of Holocaust, there is no amount of plot induced stupidity that could have made Allies rearm Germany. Sure sure, the horrible threat of Red Menace. What Red Menace, Soviets were still putting out resurgences of epidemics in late '50es.

My apologies, I don't mean to omit the full death toll of the holocaust. The Nazis did terrible things, like raze Warsaw to the ground after it attempted to rise against Germany. They performed hideous medical experiments on Jews, and later Slavs, after the "Judenfrei" declarations of 1946.

Part of the history of the Third Reich that we should consider is the profound mental illness of Hitler. In 1946, he died literally days before the surrender. Surviving confidants remark that he made few speeches or public announcements in that last year, as his physical condition deterioriated.

Indeed, recent discoveries suggest that Hitler never actually ordered the gas attacks, but that his army warlord Wilheim Keitel made that decison. Clearly though, Hitler had gone totally mad by Die Untergang.

The decision to respond to nuclear attacks with "Every weapon in our arsenal" might be the best explanation on why this happened, but it is important to note that had History been different--had Germany not been able to encircle and grab Leningrad and use its ports to resupply in the East, had the landings in Salerno not been crushed by the Wehrmacht, and had the Red Army had better luck throughout its conflict--it could have been over sooner.
 

mowque

Banned
The decision to respond to nuclear attacks with "Every weapon in our arsenal" might be the best explanation on why this happened, but it is important to note that had History been different--had Germany not been able to encircle and grab Leningrad and use its ports to resupply in the East, had the landings in Salerno not been crushed by the Wehrmacht, and had the Red Army had better luck throughout its conflict--it could have been over sooner.

What about the other way? A Nazi state so successful that while beating them was possible and was done, it was so ...ingrained (?) that dismantling it completely was impossible and foolhardy?

Don't stone me for stupid questions!
 
And after the Ivans rolled in in 75, we rearmed anyway. The war would have been over far earlier had we had a proper Army to begin with.

That was a just a skirmish Civil War between the East and West Germany, and was resovled by the great powers anyway. If Ivan(The Russian Army) had moved in, it woulda been a nuke war. Honestly, if the Germans had been allowed to rearm, then joined WALTO(Western Atlanitc League and Treaty Organization), then the West may have been able to take on Ivan in a coventional war, and the massive nuclear arms race may have been averted. Even now, there are hundreds of those now defunct nuclear bunker mines in West Germany. God, I'd hate that job, just waiting for the day Ivan crosses the border and you have to press the button. Then again, they just replaced those with massive artillary cannons with nuclear shells. If there ever was a WWIII, it'd be nuclear. Our ground forces are heavily outnumbered by the Ruskies.
 
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