Discussion: Realistic Nazi cold war

So, when I read timelines or stories about the axis and the allies in a cold war I always see this idea of a Nazi Germany that is keeping up with the allies in tech and progress. But I always see this as Extremely ASB. I don't know why so many people believe this, it's a weird love-hate fetish thing with the Nazis.

Looking at real world examples; wouldn't Nazi Germany just be a blue eyed aryan North Korea?
A huge outdated army, a starving population with all the problems that come with to much led in the water and a lower IQ due to malnutrition. Something that we would pity?

Discuss.
 
So, when I read timelines or stories about the axis and the allies in a cold war I always see this idea of a Nazi Germany that is keeping up with the allies in tech and progress. But I always see this as Extremely ASB. I don't know why so many people believe this, it's a weird love-hate fetish thing with the Nazis.

Looking at real world examples; wouldn't Nazi Germany just be a blue eyed aryan North Korea?
A huge outdated army, a starving population with all the problems that come with to much led in the water and a lower IQ due to malnutrition. Something that we would pity?

Discuss.
I often run into your opinion but disagree. Here is why: For Germany to "win" ww2 is has to be pragmatic. No mass murder in the east, no Generalplan Ost, no armaments without looking for the economy.
You would deal with a different kind of beast, which is not really Nazi like, but a secert military dictatorship.
Besides, the Soviet Union proofed that you can be totalitarian and still send a man to Outer Space.

In the end: There are a lot of points which can make you think that a victorious Nazi Germany would look like North Korea, but that leads to the question how it was able to win in the first place.
 
I often run into your opinion but disagree. Here is why: For Germany to "win" ww2 is has to be pragmatic. No mass murder in the east, no Generalplan Ost, no armaments without looking for the economy.
You would deal with a different kind of beast, which is not really Nazi like, but a secert military dictatorship.
Besides, the Soviet Union proofed that you can be totalitarian and still send a man to Outer Space.

In the end: There are a lot of points which can make you think that a victorious Nazi Germany would look like North Korea, but that leads to the question how it was able to win in the first place.
Yeah, The problem here is:

1. I meant more of a stalemate.

2. Nazi Germany was none of the things you said that they needed to be.:p
 
Let's work with some of the more realistic Hitler dies PODs and due to contingencies, the Nazis mellow out a little. We have one here for example.

Usually what is agreed upon is that their successors (as the Nazis would never last) GDP would probably be third greatest in the world, behind CHina.

The question is, with a plausible POD, what is the longest a nominally Nazi government can last. Look at the US and segregation. Race has become the third rail in American politics. Eventually, Germans would wise up, denounce racism, and not want to have the word Nazi anywhere (anymore than the US likes the KKK today). The question is when.
 
Nazis were Nazis. They were an insane counterproductive ideology.

Aryan North Korea seems like an excellent analogy to me.

People say the USSR managed to advance, despite a totalitarian regime. Reasonably true, but look what happened when THEIR ideology got in the way. Lysenkoism, collective farms, massively inefficient factories (especially for non military goods).

The USSR has great masses of excellent farm land, but due to Soviet inefficiency, they had to import food.

Nazi Germany would be worse.

A Hitler led Nazi Germany is essentially impossible, but ANY Nazi regime will be a hellhole and only competitive in very select military areas. A Miltary coup that keeps totalitarianism, but turfs the Nazis pretty completely would do better, but not great.

The supposed 'consensus' of Nazi equality is at best a selection artifact.

Nazi victory TLs are so improbable that it is mostly Nazi fanbois that stick around to comment.
 

Deleted member 1487

For one thing North Korea lacked much of what Germany had at her disposal, especially if she wins. Nazi Germany can coast on the system built up prior, including the education, industrial, and thanks to victory wider economic area. North Korea was bombed flat, lacked Germany's natural resources, and had a tiny population that was not well developed in terms of education and economics prior to the Korean War. Thereafter it remained dependent on the USSR for trade and support, just as South Korea depended on the US until the 1990s (though even now they are still dependent on trade deals with the US). When the USSR collapsed North Korea lost its means of support and faced crippling sanctions which has reduced it to its current situation, which is a new bottom; they did much better back in the 1980s. Frankly North Korea and Nazi Germany weren't really comparable in terms of really anything; North Korea was half of a Japanese colony and Germany in 1940 was the World's 2nd largest economy. Even East Germany with the handicap of having lost WW2 and all that mean, having to pay reparations to the USSR and Soviet bloc for well over a decade, having their best people fleeing the country to the point they built a wall to keep them in, and being the poor half of pre-war Germany stripped of much of its economically important parts was still WAY ahead of North Korea. Frankly its just not a fair comparison at all, especially with Germany having access to international trade and was IOTL in the middle of major agricultural and industrial reforms when the war started that cut them off at the knees.

I agree that they likely fall behind the US as time goes on, unless them make political and educational reforms, but they wouldn't get to Soviet levels, let alone North Korean ones, because of where they started from in comparison. The earlier the war ends the less nazification of German society is enabled and the earlier Hitler dies the less nazification is pushed by the government. The less nazification, the less ideological and damaged the overall pre-war society is. So you really need to identify the scenario you want to discuss in detail to tell you how it ends up.

If Hitler dies relatively early on in the war then Goering's in charge and its very different than Hitler living until the 1950s or no war happening at all. Really though to have a surviving Nazi Germany for any length of time you need Hitler dead early on, probably prior to the invasion of the USSR, though there are some viable scenarios where it happens after, but not after the US enters the war.
 
The Nazis would be bankrupt and consumed by civil war long before they were ever able to compete with the West in an arms race.
 
Basically, yes. Germany will be a outdated and backwards country propped up by the SS (the army replaced with politically reliable, but also largely incompetent people after victory.) Research would be minimal for the first several decades, first under Hitler then under his successor (probably Himmler).

Himmler's successor MAY relax some of the Nazi policies in an attempt to catch up with the West (which will fail) but he may well be ousted by the SS if he tries for pursuing Jewish science. Meanwhile a civil probably starts after a while, leading to much of Europe being fought over by men who routinely order millions of people murdered. You can imagine how that will pan out.

This "Cold War" will be far more one sided, and likely more hostile, than the struggle of OTL and would largely be about containing the Nazi insanity against further expansion. The NATO equivalent will be more varied, likely containing nations like Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, etc.. Nazi Germany's collapse will be much less peaceful as well.
 
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