Well technically the majority of Algeria's population is actually French. Following the flood of fleeing refugees from war torn France.
DBWI: Have Germany not be the world's main superpower
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CaliGuy
Banned
Correction: Was actually French; all of the pieds-noirs emigrated from Algeria starting from the 1950s.
CaliGuy
Banned
Oh, sure--especially if Germany, Britain, and France would have been crippled by another World War in the mid-20th century.
Have you heard of that timeline where that happened which featured a more radical Russian Revolution (with a German Revolution akin to OTL's Russian Revolution), some guy named "Adolf Hitler" somehow taking over Germany, Mussolini as a "Fascist" instead of a Socialist and so much more.Oh, sure--especially if Germany, Britain, and France would have been crippled by another World War in the mid-20th century.
CaliGuy
Banned
Oh, yeah; indeed, I certainly wouldn't want to be either a European Jew or a European Roma in that TL!
Cryhavoc101
Donor
If Britain had not had to scramble to fight the Ottomans land grab and threat to the Suez as well as the disturbances in India then I think they might have gotten involved on land (ie not sanctions etc)
There is another alt theory I once heard that has the British having a better relationship with France in the Noughties - but of course Napoleon 4th Put paid to that by continuing his father's aims and building a fleet that had one job - the invasion of England in the 1890s and first decade of the 20C
The subsequent revolution in 1908 that removed him from power did little to assuage the British or dampen their 'Victorian distrust' of the French.
OOC: I visited Fort Nelson last year one the hills above Portsmouth one of 5 'Palmerston follies' built to protect Portsmouth from 'land attack' by the French army that would have landed to the West of Southampton - and this idea is that Napoleon III is not deposed in 1870
There is another alt theory I once heard that has the British having a better relationship with France in the Noughties - but of course Napoleon 4th Put paid to that by continuing his father's aims and building a fleet that had one job - the invasion of England in the 1890s and first decade of the 20C
The subsequent revolution in 1908 that removed him from power did little to assuage the British or dampen their 'Victorian distrust' of the French.
OOC: I visited Fort Nelson last year one the hills above Portsmouth one of 5 'Palmerston follies' built to protect Portsmouth from 'land attack' by the French army that would have landed to the West of Southampton - and this idea is that Napoleon III is not deposed in 1870
Well technically the US is a superpower, just a dying one. Considering all the revolts they have to put down in their Latin American territories.Oh, sure--especially if Germany, Britain, and France would have been crippled by another World War in the mid-20th century.
Yes, Germany likes to believe that, but go tell that to any random guy in Budapest, Sofia, Stockholm, Istanbul, etc.
Should've stuck to isolationism. But Germany is nice enough to let them have one half of the world (the crappy half, sadly).
Yea, MacArthur's successors haven't had the success and competence of MacArthur, especially as the Socialist Republic of Brazil rises in prominence.
So, @theg*ddam*hoi2fan, what PODs would have been necessary to prevent Germany becoming the world's main superpowet?
To understand the problem, we have to think of what "superpower" means; it might be applied purely as an economic term, but the German Empire's status as a military superpower arose because it was the first state to develop and test a nuclear weapon, albeit in peacetime. German scientists have, since the scientific revolution of the early 19th century, been consistently the 'best' researchers, winning more than 75% of the Nobel Prizes in the time period 1870-2010. Hahn and Meitner's discovery of nuclear fission in 1933 ushered in a new field of research which was pioneered largely by Germans like Heisenberg and Einstein. When the first nuclear reactor came online at the Technical University of Berlin in 1940, nuclear fission was introduced to the masses as a way to cheap and abundant power -- and it has provided that. But, from the beginning, physicists knew of the military applications of uranium and especially einsteinium (Element 94, sometimes referred to by its archaic American name of 'plutonium'). The German Empire's traditionally strong land army grew exponentially more powerful when, in German East Africa in 1945, a 10-kiloton einsteinium implosion bomb was tested for the first time. The United States followed as the second nuclear power in 1949. American scientists Lawrence and Oppenheimer are credited with leading the US nuclear program. China and India joined the nuclear 'club' in the mid-1960s, with Brazil following in 1969; it is widely believed that Russia has about a hundred warheads, but the state does not confirm or deny their existence.
So, it is only the United States that might have challenged German supremacy in nuclear research in the critical period of 1930-1945. How might things have developed differently? The Great War is the logical point of divergence. The Germans have always known their victory was a "near run thing", to use a British phrase, which is why the Treaty of Versailles asked for little in the way of reparations and was primarily concerned with the distribution of colonies. Perhaps the United States could have been involved before the great spring offensives of 1918. Perhaps we might imagine a collapse of political support for the war -- we must remember that before 1921 there were even communist and other radical elements in the Empire. If Germany had lost the war, we now know, the Entente powers planned to install a "war guilt clause" and would have demanded that Germany become a republic. Without the stabilizing influence of the Kaiser, other institutions, like the universities, would not have entered the 1920s with a "properly" German level of order and discipline. We do not know what kind of society might have arisen in the place of the Empire in the 1920s and 30s, but it is important to remember that the loss of just a few key scientists to the United States might have cost Germany her lead in physics and chemistry, especially in the emerging nuclear fields. A resurgence of the antisemitism seen in Germany in the 1900s, for example, might have cost Germany its Einstein.
Ironically, it was Germany that gave rise to the sciences in America. Students of Bunsen, Liebig, and others emigrated to the United States in the late 19th century and mentored the first generation of truly American scientists. The Americans have done well in their research, gleaning 61 Nobel Prizes as of 2017, compared to Germany's 259. If something had happened in the 1920s or 1930s to give a sort of head start to the Americans, as might have happened if the Emperor was dethroned, those numbers might easily have been reversed. And the Americans, not the Germans, might have tested the world's first nuclear weapon somewhere in the Southwestern desert.
OOC: In OTL American dominance of the sciences did not really begin until after World War I. So I have imagined how Germany might have maintained its lead in physics and chemistry past 1918. Admittedly the POD is simply "a bad outcome for Germany in World War I, however caused." But the key is that a few German and European emigre scientists, combining with American scientists and working in a structured, well-funded environment, allowed the US to be the first country to obtain nuclear weapons and become a "superpower". BTW, this is rather long and I'm new here... hope it's OK.
So, it is only the United States that might have challenged German supremacy in nuclear research in the critical period of 1930-1945. How might things have developed differently? The Great War is the logical point of divergence. The Germans have always known their victory was a "near run thing", to use a British phrase, which is why the Treaty of Versailles asked for little in the way of reparations and was primarily concerned with the distribution of colonies. Perhaps the United States could have been involved before the great spring offensives of 1918. Perhaps we might imagine a collapse of political support for the war -- we must remember that before 1921 there were even communist and other radical elements in the Empire. If Germany had lost the war, we now know, the Entente powers planned to install a "war guilt clause" and would have demanded that Germany become a republic. Without the stabilizing influence of the Kaiser, other institutions, like the universities, would not have entered the 1920s with a "properly" German level of order and discipline. We do not know what kind of society might have arisen in the place of the Empire in the 1920s and 30s, but it is important to remember that the loss of just a few key scientists to the United States might have cost Germany her lead in physics and chemistry, especially in the emerging nuclear fields. A resurgence of the antisemitism seen in Germany in the 1900s, for example, might have cost Germany its Einstein.
Ironically, it was Germany that gave rise to the sciences in America. Students of Bunsen, Liebig, and others emigrated to the United States in the late 19th century and mentored the first generation of truly American scientists. The Americans have done well in their research, gleaning 61 Nobel Prizes as of 2017, compared to Germany's 259. If something had happened in the 1920s or 1930s to give a sort of head start to the Americans, as might have happened if the Emperor was dethroned, those numbers might easily have been reversed. And the Americans, not the Germans, might have tested the world's first nuclear weapon somewhere in the Southwestern desert.
OOC: In OTL American dominance of the sciences did not really begin until after World War I. So I have imagined how Germany might have maintained its lead in physics and chemistry past 1918. Admittedly the POD is simply "a bad outcome for Germany in World War I, however caused." But the key is that a few German and European emigre scientists, combining with American scientists and working in a structured, well-funded environment, allowed the US to be the first country to obtain nuclear weapons and become a "superpower". BTW, this is rather long and I'm new here... hope it's OK.
CaliGuy
Banned
Have German Kaiser Wilhelm II choke to death on a bagel in early 1917. Then, have his son Kaiser Wilhelm III agree with Hindenburg and Ludendorff that USW should be resumed; in turn, this will bring the U.S. into WWI and thus guarantee defeat for the Central Powers.
Ungrateful Hungarians, Bulgarians, Swedes, and Turks--as usual!
Indeed, even while they live in German-dominated Mitteleuropa, they enjoy stoking their own egos! Yeah MacArthur may have been a ruthless conqueror. What with US conquest of the Japanese Empire and a good portion of East Asia but he did put a stop to the genocidal policies of his predecessors, thoroughly purged the entire klan and did a great job of integrating their territories and made their new subjects feel like they were really apart of the American dream.
Though now a days power and influence within the US has been slowly moving over to their East Asian states.
I think the very fact that Germany did not have a lot of colonies pre-Great War helped them very easily take the high road regarding free trade after the war.
A heck of a lot of poor countries and developing countries were a heck of a lot better off trading with German corporations than they had been 'trading' with Britain, France, Belgium, etc. I've read that the German government actually pushed German corporations to aim for trade deals which were genuinely 50-50, or no worse than 55-45, although both of these may have idealized views. I'm sure there were all kinds of exceptions.
But in the main, the twenty to thirty year period in which Germany was equalling and then exceeding the UK and France as a major ECONOMIC power turned out highly advantageous for the Third World. And afterwards, the countries of the former Third World could take care of themselves thank you very much.
A heck of a lot of poor countries and developing countries were a heck of a lot better off trading with German corporations than they had been 'trading' with Britain, France, Belgium, etc. I've read that the German government actually pushed German corporations to aim for trade deals which were genuinely 50-50, or no worse than 55-45, although both of these may have idealized views. I'm sure there were all kinds of exceptions.
But in the main, the twenty to thirty year period in which Germany was equalling and then exceeding the UK and France as a major ECONOMIC power turned out highly advantageous for the Third World. And afterwards, the countries of the former Third World could take care of themselves thank you very much.
Wasn't Adolf Hitler some obscure artist?
Anyway, I've read that TL and it sounded dreadful. I'm glad we don't have that Germany OTL.
It still gives me chills.
Actually he was a major movie director, set designer and writer during Germany's early film industry. Many of his movies are actually considered has masterpieces by critics around the world.
Indeed. True, there were cases of atrocities commited by small groups during OTL, but for the entire German military to engage in the mass murder of 20 million Slavs,Jews and Roma? Unthinkable. No civilised nation would ever resort to such barbarity. Worse yet? Apparently for justice to be served to the Hitler regime's victims, Germany's borders have to look like this:
Thank god the author got banned for obvious Germanophobia.
CaliGuy
Banned
His movies were also very erotic, no? Indeed, his failed artistic career appears to have made him a radical when it came to movie tastes--specifically with his combination of the erotic and the avant-garde.
Well he did a few erotic movies in his early days. Though his best were the non erotic ones, especially the ones about the Teutonic knights. Which pretty grandiose by the standards of the time.