How long can Nazi Germany last If it doesn’t invade any countries after Czechoslovakia?

I’ve heard before that Nazi Germany could not sustain its economy and political control without conquest. I don’t know enough to answer that so I would like to know how true that was, and what would have happened if Hitler knew that Britain and France really would go to war this time, and thus doesn’t decide to go to war with Poland. How long would he continue to control Germany after that?

I assume that he would actually be remembered nostalgically by Germany today because he removed the allied occupation of Rhineland and reunited with Austria.

What would happen to German Jews? Would there be a Holocaust within Germany? France, Poland, the USSR, etc would keep their Jewish population intact so Israel would be weaker even though I do think it would still exist.
 

Deleted member 1487

Depends. If they stop after March 1939 they'd have to stop rearming. They'd have the Czech gold to help them switch from rearmament to exports. But they'd have to export to keep their economy running. Depending on whether the Nazis continue running a vampire economy to fund rearmament or actually try and build a functional export economy, they could probably continue on for quite some time until the public and army get sick of them. Hitler would have to go to make this possible, so there is a limited amount of time Goering could keep his kleptocratic empire running until enough people got sick of his regime, assuming no reforms.
 
There is a theory that Germany's invasion of so many other countries was driven by the need for gold to sustain the Reichsmark as their economy was overheating. I think there are very good points made for it.
 
... a theory that Germany's invasion of so many other countries was driven by the need for gold to sustain the Reichsmark ...

Yes, but a over simplified distortion. The underlying assumption was the Aryan race (Germans) deserved to control all resources because they were smarter and more efficient. The Gold bullion in the depositories was one of numerous technical details in this. Getting control of the agricultural & industrial plant of the occupied nations was the larger economic goal & in the aggregate far more important than any single factor such as a pallet of bullion in a vault.
 

Deleted member 1487

Yes, but a over simplified distortion. The underlying assumption was the Aryan race (Germans) deserved to control all resources because they were smarter and more efficient. The Gold bullion in the depositories was one of numerous technical details in this. Getting control of the agricultural & industrial plant of the occupied nations was the larger economic goal & in the aggregate far more important than any single factor such as a pallet of bullion in a vault.
That and they needed things to fund their rearmament for a general war in Europe so they could establish dominance over the continent; gold was a means to that end, as it allowed for the purchase of more strategic materials for the war industry.
 
Depends. If they stop after March 1939 they'd have to stop rearming. ... actually try and build a functional export economy...

To understand if this can work a close examination of the raw material and technical expertise available can sustain a export economy. Germany had some advantages in advanced technology, but there were some unfortunate trends in advanced education and research under nazi administration.
 

Deleted member 1487

To understand if this can work a close examination of the raw material and technical expertise available can sustain a export economy. Germany had some advantages in advanced technology, but there were some unfortunate trends in advanced education and research under nazi administration.
This is a problem down the road, but coming by the mid-1940s. They invested in research, actually a great deal, but had very poor project management and a brewing education crisis. That said they could sustain an export economy because they were requiring workers to get all sorts of skills training for industry (not going to help with higher education of course) and were keeping worker wages low. Schacht also had a large number of barter deals worked out there were highly favorable to Germany, while there was the possibility of a sustainable deal with the USSR and a continuing of the deal with Poland that was dropped by May 1939 IOTL in the run up to war. So if there isn't an invasion of Poland all sorts of international trade could continue, perhaps including China. They'd probably need to bring back Schacht and go with the plan he recommended in 1936.
 
Saying the regime needs to conquer to survive is basically just another way of saying that its economic system is horrendously unsustainable, and even with that granted, I'm not totally convinced by the "conquest = economic growth" model. Historically at some point the costs of the modern military machine outstripped the benefits of conquering territory and I would be very surprised if we didn't pass that inflection point well before World War II. For an example of an empire ultimately too expensive to maintain, look no farther than Britain, obviously.

With that out of the way I would answer this in two ways, which I admit freely are contradictory. First, if we stay just to a sort of "foreign policy analysis" of this question, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that had Hitler stopped at Czechoslovakia, he would be regarded as a sort of brutal but effective reincarnation of Bismarck. With just the right amount of gall and bravado, he snatched away "German" lands from right under the Allies's noses.

Second, though, I think it would be hard to imagine the Nazis stopping there. Although I said modern wars were too expensive to justify themselves economically, that's not true at all politically. I don't know that Nazi Germany can just sit quietly within its own borders without things falling apart politically, maybe even sooner rather than later. Both in the government and in the economy, Nazi central planning was catastrophically inefficient. It's almost as if -- and I deliberately won't draw any contemporary political comparisons here -- you can't just ride into town as an upstart populist, change your entire country through the force of will power and rallies alone, and then expect things to go smoothly. You need to keep the people moving in some direction, and the easiest way to do that, obviously, is to keep them at war.
 
Top