Germany literally wiped off the map

sans-germany.jpg


OK, maybe this belongs in ASB but there were at least some fringe elements during World War II who did advocate the elimination of Germany (not just its breakup into small states) and its partition among its neighbors. For origins of this map, see https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/337-europe-without-germany/

(As a friend of mine remarked, "If I was Swiss I'd be disappointed with this outcome.")
 
Last edited:

Nebogipfel

Monthly Donor
(As a friend of mine remarked, "If I was Swiss I'd be disappointed with this outcome.")
Probably not - the balance between the swiss germans/french/italians and rhaeo-romans was/is quite delicate. I don't think expanding the already dominating german speaking part with members of uncertain political allegiance would be very popoular (even among swiss germans)
 
Looks like Nederland now has more (former) Germans than Dutch. That's going to change the politial landscape.
 

Aphrodite

Banned
The Austrians might have something to say about France getting Bavaria.
The Austrians wouldn't get any more of a say. The only reason they'll survive is because Stalin had lived there and was convinced they weren't really Germans.

Wiping Germany off the map and deporting the Germans to the Sahara really wouldn't be off the table. There was nothing but hatred for them and few distinguished between Nazis and Germans
 
Probably not - the balance between the swiss germans/french/italians and rhaeo-romans was/is quite delicate. I don't think expanding the already dominating german speaking part with members of uncertain political allegiance would be very popoular (even among swiss germans)
Well, the other option (particularly if Italy under Mussolini is intransigent enough) would be to have Switzerland expand into Italy at about the same time it expands into Germany. Okay, so Switzerland wouldn't get Mulhouse back (as it had been before the French Revolution), but I could definitely see the Aosta Valley (good news for Francophones) and some parts of Lombardia that used to be part of Switzerland (mostly ensconced in the province of Sondrio) would be one place to start. That is, of course, if Italy decides to violate Swiss neutrality and attack it directly, eventually involving the Nazis at some point (cf. Greece as precedent). In that case, the Swiss Germans would just exclusively switch to dialect, as would the Swiss Italians, as an expression of Swiss identity in defiance of any attempts to split up their country (the Swiss French would be in a bit of a bind, as the imposition of French at the expense of Arpitan means there's no such fallback option - but even then, Swiss French is pretty unique on its own). That's basically the only way I could possibly see Switzerland expand, but in ways that would try to include balance among the 3 dominant languages. For example, any expansion into Low Alemannic territory, such as the Upper Rhine (the same dialect group as Basel German and Alsatian), would have to be balanced elsewhere.
 

Garrison

Donor
I can see Germany as an entity being dismantled, perhaps starting pre 1900 with losing in 1870, and then getting dismantled or having parts of Imperial Germany secede, but I can't see all the German states just being subsumed into other nations, maybe some alternate smaller blocks of German speakers form and so there is no state actually called Germany?
 
No Fulda gap problem thank God ! Enlarged Warsaw Pact would be more of a threat to NATO
France will have no choice but to shoulder most of the burden of NATO

So it’s clear FRG was created to utilize German cannon fodder to slow soviet advance to the Rhine
 
I can see Germany being broken up into more pieces (Saxony, Bavaria, and so on), or losing more territory, but simply being partitioned in its entirety between its neighbors like this would probably not be viable unless the Allies became outright genocidal. Like, a bit of back of the envelope math suggests this map would get you a Netherlands that was two thirds German, and a Denmark and a Poland that were more than 40% German each. Even France would be a quarter German under this scenario, although it's more like a fifth if you count Algeria. You can fiddle with these numbers depending on how populations are shifted around, but at the end of the day the fact remains that you've got more than sixty million Germans and they've got to go somewhere.
 
The Austrians wouldn't get any more of a say. The only reason they'll survive is because Stalin had lived there and was convinced they weren't really Germans.

Wiping Germany off the map and deporting the Germans to the Sahara really wouldn't be off the table. There was nothing but hatred for them and few distinguished between Nazis and Germans
It's not just Stalin though. Unless things have gone much worse on the Western Front, there would have to be a reason for the British and Americans to go along with this.
 
No Fulda gap problem thank God ! Enlarged Warsaw Pact would be more of a threat to NATO
France will have no choice but to shoulder most of the burden of NATO

So it’s clear FRG was created to utilize German cannon fodder to slow soviet advance to the Rhine
No Fulda gap problem thank God ! Enlarged Warsaw Pact would be more of a threat to NATO
France will have no choice but to shoulder most of the burden of NATO

So it’s clear FRG was created to utilize German cannon fodder to slow soviet advance to the Rhine
Yep, in some ways the Allies’ solution is pretty darn dark and required the Soviet Union to be the Big Bad (and Vice versa with the West), but in a way it was poetic and appropriate given the horror of WWII and collective guilt.

Make the entire nation of Germany one big battlefront in the event of WWIII and add a fratricidal element with each side’s military spearheads being Germans against Germans. Especially once nukes come everyone dies, but Germany gets 100% annihilated.
 
Short of outright and large-scale genocide, on a level that would make Pol Pol blush, you now have three countries with Germans as a near-majority. That's a recipe for instability, and also for a German-focused party to potentially become dominant and establish a ruling coalition.

You could literally have German-ruled Denmark, German-ruled Poland, and German-ruled Netherlands. Why would any of them agree to accept that risk?
 
Short of outright and large-scale genocide, on a level that would make Pol Pol blush, you now have three countries with Germans as a near-majority. That's a recipe for instability, and also for a German-focused party to potentially become dominant and establish a ruling coalition.

You could literally have German-ruled Denmark, German-ruled Poland, and German-ruled Netherlands. Why would any of them agree to accept that risk?
Poland was rather confortable with genociding the Germans whose land the majority of Polish territorry now occupies. I doubt they'd mind killing and expelling a few million more, smh.

Denmark and the Netherlands are the ones that could, in theory, face that problem.

I could also see France engaging in the genocide of germans, since Germans as a people had been very much essentially dehumanized and demonized (and vice versa) since at least the 1870's, I doubt the french wouldn't go for some kind of radical solution in such a scenario.

The Czech Republic is also either killing or expelling both it's native and conquered germans, like they did OTL.

Austria is probably going to be the most comfortable of all these states.
 

Aphrodite

Banned
Short of outright and large-scale genocide, on a level that would make Pol Pol blush, you now have three countries with Germans as a near-majority. That's a recipe for instability, and also for a German-focused party to potentially become dominant and establish a ruling coalition.

You could literally have German-ruled Denmark, German-ruled Poland, and German-ruled Netherlands. Why would any of them agree to accept that risk?
Genocide wasn't off the table by any means especially for Stalin.

There is the more politically correct solution of deportation for the Western powers.

A look at the way America treated it's Black population (who even had voting rights) shows how far Democracies could abuse people.
 
Top