Pretty much everyone who knows anything about the history of film knows about the importance of German cinema in the years following the Great War (roughly 1919-33); what is less known is that one production company, Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, dominated this industry, and it did so as it was specifically set up as a government monopoly in 1917, as part of the war effort, by consolidating various smaller private production studios making up the German cinema at the time. In other words, had the First World War been avoided or been brought to an end at least a year sooner (scenarios often discussed on this site), the German film industry would have looked very different during the 1920's and early 30's.
So what do you guys think? How would German Expressionist Cinema look different without UFA?
CONSOLIDATE: Some initial thoughts - without being consolidated, do any of the smaller production companies try to make high budget epics to compete with Hollywood (eg Nibelungen or Metropolis)? It seems unlikely, in any event, that Alfred Hugenberg (head of the DNVP) evokes the massive film mogul Germany got OTL.