DBWI: Nazi Germany avoids collapse?

Okay so as I'm sure we're all aware, tomorrow is the the 60th Anniversary of the collapse of the Third Reich.

I know that this has been done to death but it only seems right to do it, can anyone think of anyway where Nazi Germany can avert collapse?

Of course the obvious one is having Hitler pick a half decent successor rather then letting all his cronies gather enough power to themselves that they all thought they were entitiled to the mantle, and I heard someone suggesting that shedding some of the less valuable territories in Siberia would be pretty beneficial, at least in avoiding the overstretch, but then again if he was sensible he wouldn't be Hitler would he?
 
I don't know. I have been looking into the history of the Finnish (and the Finnic "kindred") units that were sent to Northern Russia for occupation and police duties after the collapse of the Stalinist regime, and one can see in the correspondence of the higher-ups that even the Finnish government at the time was sort of waiting for the Third Reich to come crumbling down. I am talking about 1947-1949 here.

Now, maybe to the Americans or to the Spanish, say, the Reich looked formidable in its victory and all those grandiose celebrations it put on around Europe. But really its eventual and in fact pretty rapid downfall must have been evident to all who were even somewhat in the know during the late 40s. To fix the mess Hitler's Reich was one should go back for many years - I am not quite sure how the Nazi state, the way it was, could have survived any better with only minor tweaks. Remove Hitler altogether before 1939, say, and there might be some hope for something called a Third Reich surviving beyond the 50s.

And honestly I think the German Federation, even with all its problems and disunity, is something much to be preferred over a surviving Third Reich.:)
 
The third reich was doomed from the start. Their economy was shit they couldn't pay for their army anymore and there was revolt and guerilla everywhere.
 
I don't know. I have been looking into the history of the Finnish (and the Finnic "kindred") units that were sent to Northern Russia for occupation and police duties after the collapse of the Stalinist regime, and one can see in the correspondence of the higher-ups that even the Finnish government at the time was sort of waiting for the Third Reich to come crumbling down. I am talking about 1947-1949 here.

Now, maybe to the Americans or to the Spanish, say, the Reich looked formidable in its victory and all those grandiose celebrations it put on around Europe. But really its eventual and in fact pretty rapid downfall must have been evident to all who were even somewhat in the know during the late 40s. To fix the mess Hitler's Reich was one should go back for many years - I am not quite sure how the Nazi state, the way it was, could have survived any better with only minor tweaks. Remove Hitler altogether before 1939, say, and there might be some hope for something called a Third Reich surviving beyond the 50s.

And honestly I think the German Federation, even with all its problems and disunity, is something much to be preferred over a surviving Third Reich.:)

Well of course any entity that isn't quite as trigger happy as the Nazis is preferable to the Third Reich, but it's only now that most of the shit that came about after the collapse is finally being sorted out.

I mean just imagine how many millions could be saved if someone sane had taken over? Like, many people died in the in the Third Balkan war alone, never mind the German Civil War or all the "unpleasentness" in the East.

The third reich was doomed from the start. Their economy was shit they couldn't pay for their army anymore and there was revolt and guerilla everywhere.

Could you be anymore vague? :rolleyes:
 

GarethC

Donor
Well, you always have to wonder what would have happened if Hitler had joined in the Pacific War. Maybe the Co-Prosperity Sphere would have been stopped by the US if there had also been Luftwaffe jagdgeschwader defending FIC and the DEI.
 
Avoid the collapse of the Reich? Well I don't see how that could happen. Maybe if we avoid that maniacal Himmler from reaching power the Reich might survive.
 
Technically the German Federation is still Nazi Germany to a certain extent. Sure, the empire is gone, the party spilt up and the rebellion of the Gauleiter's and Reichskommissars created something that only superficially resembles genuine federalism, but in all other aspects it is the direct legal continuation of the Greater German Reich and it still operates mostly with National Socialist laws. We still call the ruler of Germany Führer und Reichskanzler, Jews are refused citizenship, the Peoples Courts still operate and every year on Sieg Tag the Wehrmacht dusts off an old Nazi flag (sorry, the "victory flag") for the Nuremberg parade.

If we'd had Rosenberg it's possible that the Reich would have not been so prone to ethnic rebellions from it's Slavic subjects, as he never approved of the annexation of Eastern European territory and was a known advocate of making Eastern European and Central Asian ethnic minorities allies in the struggle against Communism. It's also important not to overstate the importance of debt in the collapse, since immediately after securing Germany's living space Hitler abolished the very concept of debt when he completely cut off Germany from the international financial system (along with the 'surprise' nationalisation of larges parts of Germany industry). The problem with the National Socialist economy was that not enough foreign markets were available to it, and a lack of effective technological innovation caused by the predominance of psudo-sciene in the Reich's intelligentsia.

A smaller Reich would certainly be a more stable one, too. Had Hitler stopped at incorporating the Hanseatic cities and the Baltic and left the rest of Eastern Europe to anti-Communists puppet states, they wouldn't have had half the problems they had.
 
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Technically the German Federation is still Nazi Germany to a certain extent. Sure, the empire is gone, the party spilt up and the rebellion of the Gauleiter's and Reichskommissars created something that only superficially resembles genuine federalism, but in all other aspects it is the direct legal continuation of the Greater German Reich and it still operates mostly with National Socialist laws. We still call the ruler of Germany Führer und Reichskanzler, Jews are refused citizenship, the Peoples Courts still operate and every year on Sieg Tag day the Wehrmacht dusts off an old Nazi flag (sorry, the "victory flag") for the Nuremberg parade.

That is true, of course. But it is mostly just tradition and obsolete vestiges of the old system. Comparing to Hitler's and Himmler's Third Reich, the German Federation is at the very least least a functional and sustainable construct. Neither are words one could use to describe the true Nazi state.

I think we can honestly say that looking at the situation in Germany circa 1958, when the last months of the Civil War were being played out and the Warsaw Rebellion was just around the corner, it would be very hard to see Germany become the orderly and more-or-less progressive, even if flawed state it is today.

Stability and democracy have come a long way in Central Europe. Consider the post-Civil War history of the German Social Democratic Party, for example. And, say, the career of Willy Brandt prior to his assassination. The SPD rose from the ashes to become one of the most important power brokers in the Federation.

A continuing Third Reich would have pushed this process of slow democratization back for several decades. I shudder to think what kind of a hellhole Germany would be (to say nothing about Eastern Europe or the Russias) if the Third Reich managed to drag itself along until, say, the 70s or 80s and only then collapsed to reveal to the world how truly rotten that system was.
 
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