Germany produces a benelovent conqueror - a 'Second Napoleon' in the 1930s

I'm thinking of when Russia sent troops into the Crimea (part of Ukraine) shortly after the Winter Olympics in 2014, with the stated purpose of protecting the rights of Russian nationals.

Well, Ukraine wasn't automatically backed up by a large power, like Alsace-Lorraine was backed up by France.

Alright, Germany sends in a police lieutenant and five detectives to "assist" in investigating crimes against former German citizens. Shades of World War I and Serbia. And there's enough news coverage and enough muddiness and ambiguity on all sides that the story carries.

There's a pro-independent movement in Alsace-Lorraine which picks up a lot of supporters. Germany responds and publicly makes the offer that they will allow (non-voting?) representation in their Parliament if France will do the same.
 

Deleted member 1487

There isn't a right wing movement in Germany that would produce a benevolent conqueror. The German Nationalists were just that: nationalists. They were only thinking about greater Germany, not united Europe. I know Leon Degrelle lectured Hitler whenever they met about not just creating 'Greater Germany', but rather the need for a Europe-wide united Fascist movement that benefited everyone, but Hitler was just not that guy, really no Germany was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Léon_Degrelle

You'd need a leftist to get that, which means the communists would need to take over and go on a conquering crusade with Stalin to create a united, Soviet Europe. A 'Rosa's Reich' situation.
 
The best you'll get is if the KPD or other communists take over. More benevolent than the Nazis, but "benevolent" would be a difficult term to describe them. They might be anti-imperialist, but that doesn't mean they'll go dismantling colonial empires in favour of the natives. Or really start any wars in the timeframe Hitler did, since I'd assume these people might be a bit smarter than the Nazis and try and undermine governments from within. Obviously no ethnic group-related stuff, just communism.

It could be interesting if a German communism ends up being anti-Stalinist though, since Germany could easily establish a competing center of communism.
 
way I look at it, being anti-imperialist is a complete freebie for Germany.

They can take the high road entirely for self-interested reasons.

They can look for ins on trade, and tell newly independent countries or perhaps merely pro-independence movements that they want trade deals which benefit each side 50-50. The funny thing is, once this gets rolling, it might actually work out pretty good. Maybe, if we want to wank it a little, it turns out a real bonanza for the Third World as European powers end up genuinely competing on trade.
 

Deleted member 1487

way I look at it, being anti-imperialist is a complete freebie for Germany.

They can take the high road entirely for self-interested reasons.

They can look for ins on trade, and tell newly independent countries or perhaps merely pro-independence movements that they want trade deals which benefit each side 50-50. The funny thing is, once this gets rolling, it might actually work out pretty good. Maybe, if we want to wank it a little, it turns out a real bonanza for the Third World as European powers end up genuinely competing on trade.
Didn't Germany and Japan try to do that IOTL by working with anti-British Indian and Arab groups?
 
Didn't Germany and Japan try to do that IOTL by working with anti-British Indian and Arab groups?

It's also hard to tell whether Germany or Japan's attempts at doing so were more hypocritical. Let's see, people formerly involved in the Scramble for Africa until they utterly lost a major war, versus people who basically believe that instead of serving Europe or America, Asians should serve Japan instead.

But since Japan found people interested in helping them (even though most obviously had their own motives for doing so), Germany could find plenty of willing individuals too.
 
I really want to see this TL now.

upload_2016-6-16_21-17-49.png
 
Instead, he finds excuses to meddle in neighboring countries, such as Poland, due to the rise of dictators and the threat of Communism. Eventually he leads the liberation of Russia from Communism. German ex-Commitsrty

And then gets destroyed. Because without the looting of Western Europe, Germany lacks the power to penetrate into the Soviet interior and deal enough damage to Soviet industry to prevent the Red Army from crushing them on the rebound. Hell, depending on how long they wait to start the war, they might not even make it past the frontier region. The British and French may be delighted and willing to see a weakened Germans bleed itself fighting the Russians (at least, until the Red Army wins and Germany crumbles, at which point their liable to invade Germany to secure a buffer against the Red Army after some "too-little-too-late" aid to Germany), but they won't lift a finger to actually help until it would be far too late. And the German people are going to have a hard time being motivated to die by their millions in frozen fields as patsies of London and Paris, and all at no material benefit to themselves.
 
Germany was an industrial powerhouse, world leader in things like organic chemistry, and one of the world leaders in engineering and industry. Their best bet for European hegemony is to economically capture all of Mitteleuropa, and not try to physically conquer them.

The whole point of 'Germany' is a land of the Germans. If it swells so Germans are a minority, the country ceases to have a reason for existence.
 
As others have said, getting a strongman in Germany post-1919 is rather absurdly easy thanks to Versailles. However, depending on the nature of that strongman it would be difficult to go to war like Hitler did. A "New Napoleon" is simply out of the question for obvious reasons.

Any sort of far right strong man would be a militarist nationalist so on the wish list you have:

  • The Saarland returned to Germany
  • An Anschluss type deal with Austria
  • A landward connection of Danzig with Germany
I don't think they would seek the Sudentanland like Hitler did, but they would definitely want to kick the shit out of Poland sometime in the 1940s. I don't think that the powers would have a vested interest in stopping that particular land grab.

Any far left strong man just runs the risk of being a patsy for Moscow.
 
yes, given the Treaty of Versailles, almost absurdly easy for Germany to get some kind of strongman.

Just guessing, I'd say 60 % chance of some kind of centrist strongman
 
As others have said, getting a strongman in Germany post-1919 is rather absurdly easy thanks to Versailles. However, depending on the nature of that strongman it would be difficult to go to war like Hitler did. A "New Napoleon" is simply out of the question for obvious reasons.

Any sort of far right strong man would be a militarist nationalist so on the wish list you have:

  • The Saarland returned to Germany
  • An Anschluss type deal with Austria
  • A landward connection of Danzig with Germany
I don't think they would seek the Sudentanland like Hitler did, but they would definitely want to kick the shit out of Poland sometime in the 1940s. I don't think that the powers would have a vested interest in stopping that particular land grab.

Any far left strong man just runs the risk of being a patsy for Moscow.

Why would they want to fight with Poland but not Czechoslovakia if they were a nationalist? Maybe they wouldn't care to set up something like the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, but the Sudetenland seems like a logical expansion for German nationalism. Difference is they might wait a bit longer than Hitler if they were able to (as Hitler himself did, of course).

If Tito was able to split from Moscow's will, I think it's likely a German commie leader would end up doing something similar if they ended up having sufficient disagreements with the Russians. Since the USSR and Germany are comparatively close in terms of economic strength, Germany would have significant negotiating power in their own right.
 
Why would they want to fight with Poland but not Czechoslovakia if they were a nationalist? Maybe they wouldn't care to set up something like the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia, but the Sudetenland seems like a logical expansion for German nationalism. Difference is they might wait a bit longer than Hitler if they were able to (as Hitler himself did, of course).

If Tito was able to split from Moscow's will, I think it's likely a German commie leader would end up doing something similar if they ended up having sufficient disagreements with the Russians. Since the USSR and Germany are comparatively close in terms of economic strength, Germany would have significant negotiating power in their own right.

Before Hitler Germany had an obsession with restoring the 1914 border in the east, and the idea of a modus vivendi with Poland on different conditions was almost heresy. The trouble is that a fourth partition of Poland almost automatically gives Stalin a border with Czechoslovakia. Italy may farther complicate matters by trying to get part of the Balkans, leaving Germany with dangerously little of central and southeastern Europe to counter the expanded USSR. If Stalin gets it into his head to spread the revolution to Germany, and the western powers choose appeasement, this might be a recipe for a red Europe if Stalin is lucky.
 
Try reading Doragon's Turtledove winning TL "Pax Germania," which somewhat follows your main idea of a more benevolent German dictator fighting and winning WWII.

The fun catch? That dictator... is Hitler himself.
 
Here's a map from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

https://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/media_nm.php?MediaId=1620

Following WWI, Germany lost 13% of its European territory, including ceding territory to Denmark, Poland, and Lithiuanua.

If a different strongman had arisen and rearmed before the rest of Europe, he or she could have focused on any one of these territories.

Actually the map in the link is a curious one. The mapmaker decided to mark Alsace-Lorraine and the territories ceded to Belgium in one color, and to use a second one for both the remaining territorial losses as well as the demilitarized zone. Also, only Alsace-Lorraine is described as "returned", even though Poland also used to posess the areas it got at Versailles. All in all, the map seems to discretely suggest that the loss of Alsace-Lorraine and Eupen-Malamedy was somehow legitimate in a way Germany's remaining losses were not. This may have something to do with the fact that at the time of Versailles the Franco-Prussian war was still in living memory while the partitions of Poland were already 100 years past, or the idea that the claims of great powers are inherently more legitimate then those of smaller ones. I wonder if it is carelessness on the mapmaker's part, a very clever portrayal of certain viewpoints at the time (if so, it's a shame it wasn't described as such), or proof that some of those ideas persist today.
 
Last edited:
Actually the map in the link is a curious one. The mapmaker decided to mark Alsace-Lorraine and the territories ceded to Belgium in one color, and to use a second one for both the remaining territorial losses as well as the demilitarized zone
Yes, thank you for pointing this out. The demilitarized zone probably should have merely been marked with some kinds of cross lines and remained the German color.

I'm focusing on the verbal claim of 13%. That Germany lost 13% of its territory because of the Treaty of Versailles. For example, I don't know if I ever knew that some of the land was nibbled away and given to Denmark.

And yes, as you insightfully point out, the map describes Alsace-Lorraine as "Returned to France," and probably for the reason you say. That the war of 1870 and its result was within living memory. (I'm not near as familiar with the regions ceded to Belgium)

So, was it carelessness on the mapmaker's part, or clever portrayal of certain viewpoints? I hope it's not the latter. Probably is a case of simplifying too much. At least I hope it is.
 
Last edited:
If Tito was able to split from Moscow's will, I think it's likely a German commie leader would end up doing something similar if they ended up having sufficient disagreements with the Russians. Since the USSR and Germany are comparatively close in terms of economic strength, Germany would have significant negotiating power in their own right.

Ever heard of Constantine Fitzgibbon? A prominent British intellectual in the 1950s; the author of When the Kissing Had To Stop, a novel about a Soviet occupation of Britain. (For which he was dubbed a 'fascist hyena' by an East German commentator).

A collection of his essays and articles was published as Random Notes of a Fascist Hyena (which I have). Fitzgibbon added an autobiographical introduction. He mentioned that he had spent a year or so studying in Germany in the 1930s (mostly reading Marx).


One night, in a corner tavern, he fell into conversation with a young SS officer. The SS man spoke Russian and had recently returned from the USSR. He surprised Fitzgibbon by speaking with admiration of the Soviet regime's strength and achievements, and concluded that it was unfortunate Germany had not gone Communist. Fitzgerald asked how he could approve of socialism; he answered that economic theories were for academics - power was what really mattered. Communist Germany would have united with Communist Russia, and become the dominant partner, commanding all the resources of both. Morgen die ganze welt.
 
Top