How long could the Third Reich last?

Let's say, Germany wins World War 2 somehow and it stretches across Europe from Flanders to the Ural Mountains and from Norway to Austria. Let's also say that this is accomplished by about 1947, how long could the Third Reich stand? And, when it falls (if you think it will fall), how?

Sorry if this is question is asked too frequently on here but I'm curious about it. :)
 
How long could it last? Well I suppose the limit for most states tend to be a couple centuries,so that? Though a few decades seems more common.
The end? Who knows, nuclear war,revolution of any colour, loosing some super world war (though that would likely run into the nuke thing), asteroid impact, climate change?
 
Let's say, Germany wins World War 2 somehow and it stretches across Europe from Flanders to the Ural Mountains and from Norway to Austria. Let's also say that this is accomplished by about 1947, how long could the Third Reich stand? And, when it falls (if you think it will fall), how?

Sorry if this is question is asked too frequently on here but I'm curious about it. :)
Glad you asked.
Hitler has to be dead by 1960 from Parkinsons. Himmler is dead as soon as he tries to take over, and Bormann would probably follow him to hell.
From there on I envision Goering ruling for some time before obesity and drug use catches up to him.
Afterwards its probably a troika composed of Speer, Heydrich, and Goebbels.
After that I have no idea.
But the Reich would go down pretty quick. Regimes built on corpses don't last. The corpses rot and decompose and then whole rotting comes down on the Nazis.
The Nazis would probably not make it past the 1980s, unless they were lead by a amazingly competent pragmatist similar to Speer, with the political cunning of Hitler, and the military foresight and wisdom of the whole OKW. Which is impossible.
 
I’d predict collapse on a timespan similar to the one in a Thousand-Week Reich or The New Order: Last Days of Europe. At best it could make it to the early 1980’s, there’s a good chance it collapses by the mid-1950’s and I would predict it would not long outlive Hitler
 
Probably some time into the 60's. The Nazis never really ran a functional economy, it was basically a pyramid scheme kept going by various acquisitions. Postwar they have a runaway and inefficient military industrial complex and a megalomaniac with lots of crazy and expensive ideas, so that won't change, especially given the probable Cold War with the US. The glut of resources they acquired will allow them to paper over the cracks for quite some time by looting the USSR, and to a lesser degree the rest of Europe, and Hitler's reputation as the man who made Germany great again and managed to outdo Napoleon and make it stick will allow them to keep up a bluff. Once he goes, and his health was bad, the edifice won't last long, no one really has the reputation to step into his shoes. The economy will collapse and the state won't last to long
the military foresight and wisdom of the whole OKW.
Given the OKW's actual lack of foresight and wisdom once you ignore the sort of whitewashing they were allowed to do postwar to enhance their reputation, this isn't that hard
 

Deleted member 94680

Hitler has to be dead by 1960 from Parkinsons.

Highly probable.

Himmler is dead as soon as he tries to take over, and Bormann would probably follow him to hell.

How do you figure this? Himmler having had all those years to build and secure his power base simply dies as soon as he utilises the SS and Gestapo? As well as all civilian police?

From there on I envision Goering ruling for some time before obesity and drug use catches up to him.

You envisage Goering outliving Hitler into the 60s?

Afterwards its probably a troika composed of Speer, Heydrich, and Goebbels.

At least two of those three have no interest in sharing power if they’re in a position to be supreme ruler.
 
Highly probable.



How do you figure this? Himmler having had all those years to build and secure his power base simply dies as soon as he utilises the SS and Gestapo? As well as all civilian police?



You envisage Goering outliving Hitler into the 60s?



At least two of those three have no interest in sharing power if they’re in a position to be supreme ruler.

Everyone going gang up on Himmler. He's the emo weirdo that no one in the Reich liked. Most likely way of assassination is sabotaging his plane.
The SS is no use to you if you aren't alive to command it.

Goering living in the 60s is a maybe. Hence why I mentioned the obesity and drug use.

I did make a mistake though, Goebbels has to go. Speer and Heydrich were pragmatic enough to realize that cooperating was the best choice.
 
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Probably some time into the 60's. The Nazis never really ran a functional economy, it was basically a pyramid scheme kept going by various acquisitions. Postwar they have a runaway and inefficient military industrial complex and a megalomaniac with lots of crazy and expensive ideas, so that won't change, especially given the probable Cold War with the US. The glut of resources they acquired will allow them to paper over the cracks for quite some time by looting the USSR, and to a lesser degree the rest of Europe, and Hitler's reputation as the man who made Germany great again and managed to outdo Napoleon and make it stick will allow them to keep up a bluff. Once he goes, and his health was bad, the edifice won't last long, no one really has the reputation to step into his shoes. The economy will collapse and the state won't last to long
Given the OKW's actual lack of foresight and wisdom once you ignore the sort of whitewashing they were allowed to do postwar to enhance their reputation, this isn't that hard

I must amend my statement. Some of OKW. Blomberg, Fritsch, Rommel, and Heinrici were among that small group.
The rest were just a bunch of average generals.
There was one man that stood out from the rest. General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord. He literally classified officers into categories and his classification is surprising accurate. He and many other good Generals all opposed Hitler. Hence why the Nazis lost.
 
This is General von Hammerstein's famous quote.

I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage.
-Kurt von Hammerstein, 1933
 
No later than the late 1960s and probably implodes in the early to mid 1950s. If it survives long enough for Hitler to die , Himmler is swiftly knifed and Heydrich tries to team up with someone preferably gullible and stupid to knife the competition and take over. Maybe Goering or Speer. Rule of thumb, Heydrich will backstab anyone he can't control. Anyone with half a brain will know this. Goering will piss off anyone halfway competent with his ego and drug addicted incompetence. Bormann is a moron. Goebbels is a moron. Eichmann will keep his head down so Heydrich doesn't see him as a threat. OKW will be run exclusively by massively racist politically adept assholes by the'50s.

So...imagine the Death of Stalin but with Nazis and America waiting in the wings with enough nukes to render Germany proper uninhabitable and just waiting for an excuse. And that's the optimistic situation for the Nazis.
 
Highly probable.

How do you figure this? Himmler having had all those years to build and secure his power base simply dies as soon as he utilises the SS and Gestapo? As well as all civilian police?

You envisage Goering outliving Hitler into the 60s?

At least two of those three have no interest in sharing power if they’re in a position to be supreme ruler.
IIRC, Beriya tried to do something similar to what you’re suggesting for Himmler and he failed.
 
It’s likely Hitler would live at least a decade after winning the war considering his largest source of stress (which exacerbates illness) would be gone and his father and all his siblings died in their 60s and 70s.

He also wouldn’t need anywhere near as many drugs and quack medical treatments as he did IOTL when the war (and his condition) got worse and worse which would further extend his lifespan.

As to how long would the Reich last if they won the war a reasonable estimate is the 1970s (assuming the fanatics like Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels remain in charge) once most of the slave labor is dead. It’s likely they attempt to capture more territory or conquer their “allies” for resources to keep themselves afloat a little while longer.
 
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Aren't all nations built on corpses ?
Not like the Third Reich.

Besides the 15+ million they killed IOTL they made explicit plans to kill and enslave more than 100 million people for being “subhuman” (50% of Estonians, 65% of Ukrainians etc).

If the Reich won the war they would have almost certainly made Stalin, Mao, Saddam and Pol Pot combined look like amateurs.
 
Not like the Third Reich.

Besides the 15+ million they killed IOTL they made explicit plans to kill and enslave more than 100 million people for being “subhuman” (50% of Estonians, 65% of Ukrainians etc).

If the Reich won the war they would have almost certainly made Stalin, Mao, Saddam and Pol Pot combined look like amateurs.
Let's face it, if the Third Reich got their perfect world they'd devolve into the Daleks basically. Their ideology is evil, pure and simple
 

Deleted member 94680

Everyone going gang up on Himmler. He's the emo weirdo that no one in the Reich liked. Most likely way of assassination is sabotaging his plane.
He was unliked because of his power. The plane thing is just lifted from Fatherland, it’s not the most likely way at all. Heydrich was loyal to Himmler, by and large, so will likely support the SS until the power struggle is won at least.


IIRC, Beriya tried to do something similar to what you’re suggesting for Himmler and he failed.
I don’t believe Beriya had the same level of control over the NKVD that Himmler had over the SS. That and the SS is more (and likely will be even more of, given the years of repression and guerrilla combat in the East) a combat unit than Police as the NKVD was.

IMO if the Nazi regime survives this long, the succession to Hitler will be more organised and political, it wouldn’t be a power struggle like many are suggesting. We can’t use July ‘44 as a template, as the society and balance of forces will be entirely different.
 

Vaporized

Banned
The Nazi government probably ceases to exist within two decades. Germany itself may remain a large power in Europe however even after.

Most of the German economy grows as a result of military spending and taking what it can from those the government eliminated or occupied. Once the fighting in Europe ends drive in the economy will decrease greatly and stagnation will set it. I would say within a decade, the wealth stolen from further populations eliminated in the Holocaust can no longer support it anymore. Not to mention most of Europe will be in ruins needing to rebuilt, largely with slave labor and a destroyed system of infrastructure that will take decades to reconstruct. Recovery after the war will be very slow.

Beyond slaves, Hitler's other means of tapping into the conquered natural resources of eastern Europe will be to force select German families to relocate there and attempt to open up industry and farming again. Germany will never subdue the British Empire, remnants of the Soviet Union, or United States who will use their own means to undermine the Reich. They will do what they can to support terrorism, the millions of partisans who are not captured or eliminated throughout Europe. Efforts to expand Germans into eastern Europe will be under constant efforts of attack and sabotage. Little is built, many die from being massacred, malnutrition, exposure, disease, even famine due to poor planning by the government and also corruption from the military officials who administer them. In parts of Germany civil disorder will emerge due to food shortages, low wages, limited opportunity, and further.

Hitler will die sometime in the 1950s, possibly be assassinated even before then. Moderates will succeed him and see forced German expansion into eastern Europe as madness and end it. The Nazi ideology fades with the poor results produced by Berlin. Hitler's successors probably do suppress the civil disorder and demonstrations against the government with violent force which can trigger a civil war. As the German Civil War consumes resources due to infighting, it allows the rump Soviet Union to reclaim former territory it once held before the war. They will fund other uprisings/insurgents to assist in this effort. Britain and the United States also attempt to give similar aid to former democratic nations in western Europe. The Soviet Union may by this time resort to a command economy with a more hostile regime in power than the Kremlin would've been.

The moderates that claim victory over Berlin agree to withdraw German forces from formerly occupied territories. Germany probably is controlled by a military junta seeking open relations with the West sometime in the 1970s. It'll probably take half a century for Europe to have any sense of recovery. A military and economic arms race of sorts does occur between the rump Russian state and western Europe. It won't be on the scale of the Cold War though.
 
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