Is Nazi Victory ASB?

Those things tend to make sense in the specific context they happened in, however, rather than just being "Hey let's take a situation and dramatically alter it?" out of context things.

I think Nazi Victory would be theoretically possible, for a given definition of victory, but practically unobtainable.
 
You make good points. I think, though, that this means that calling things ASB that don't involve straight-up magic is kind of silly/overdone on the forum. I mean, there are plenty of things in OTL that would be called ASB if someone made them up and put them in a timeline - the concept is being applied to too broad an area.

I'd say that if you start at September 1, 1939, and run history from there thousands of times, Nazi Germany has about a 10% chance to do as well or better as in OTL. But it's kind of a weird use of probability.

If you ran enough simulations of an Operation Sealion, you could probably make one replay work.:D
 
Could the Nazis win the European War? (Note that thats what it was called early on). Yes, not perhaps terribly likely, but possible. Could they have done it after attacking Russia? Really unlikely. Could they do it up against the USSR, the US and UK?

Ive never seen anything to make me think thats short of ASB.

Note, too, that avoiding invading Russia means getting rid of Hitler before barbarossa.

So NAZIs winning wwii is possible, HITLER winning wwii is, at best, verging on ASB.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
It all depends on what are the restrictions on the POD and how we define victory. Nazi Germany is not going to conquer the whole world (USA/USSR/British Empire) with Hitler in charge or anyone else in charge. But no one else ever has either, so this is not saying much. So lets look at POD's.

1) After 1942, basically impossible baring something really bizarre. The only one I can see is the USSR decides to leave the war which would take a really powerful POD. It is too late for Nazi buff POD to work, it is only epic screwups on the Allied side. But something like FDR and Stalin having a falling out (one demands something the other just can't accept) or the Soviet leadership decides to make peace can work.

2) Between June 1941 and the end of 1942, some Nazi buff POD work. But it may well take a series of them an almost perfect decision making. The USA is too fresh to lose the will to fight, but the USSR can be broken. There is a difference between vast will to fight and unlimited. A TL here is plausible if someone is very talented at writing it and is willing to deal with a huge amount of writing obstacles.

3) Fall of France to invasion of Russia. Don't invade Russia. Nazi's generally win, IMO. We can also start with POD to make the UK life a lot harder. We now have an easy to write TL. Most of these TL will end up with a five power world. Soviets, British Empire, Germany, Japan, and USA.

4) Invasion of Poland to Fall of France. It now becomes easy to write a TL that hurts the UK. While Germany did exceptionally well, we can get to the classic capture of BEF TL's.

5) Before Invasion of Poland. Much like Germany in late 1916, Germany has the the war won, if it only has a little bit more wisdom. If Germany does not invade Poland, Hitler goes down as one of the most successful German leaders ever. He has manage to reverse the losses of WW1 with superior gains. Posen and West Prussia for Czechoslovakia and Austria and adding Italy and Spain as allies. It is only the insane aggressiveness of Hitler that lead Germany to disaster from here. And with the right foreign policy towards Poland, adding Danzig is possible.
 
You would have to have a Hitler that would have to be sensible <Not feasible> to accept a Stalin offer for an armistice / truce / cessation of hostilities in Sept & Oct of 1941 after the Ukraine was almost mostly lost and the Wehrmacht was just reaching the outskirts of Leningrad and Vyazma after Smolensk felled....
 
Not to mention the unnamed operation that can never work being the thorny issue in Germany's desire to knock the Brits out of the war. Sure, having the Germans take control of British airspace is one thing. Getting past the RN is another.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Like a Confederate victory in the American Civil War, there is nothing inherently impossible about a German victory in the Second World War. It's highly unlikely, but far from ASB.
 
It all depends on what are the restrictions on the POD and how we define victory. Nazi Germany is not going to conquer the whole world (USA/USSR/British Empire) with Hitler in charge or anyone else in charge. But no one else ever has either, so this is not saying much. So lets look at POD's.

1) After 1942, basically impossible baring something really bizarre. The only one I can see is the USSR decides to leave the war which would take a really powerful POD. It is too late for Nazi buff POD to work, it is only epic screwups on the Allied side. But something like FDR and Stalin having a falling out (one demands something the other just can't accept) or the Soviet leadership decides to make peace can work.

2) Between June 1941 and the end of 1942, some Nazi buff POD work. But it may well take a series of them an almost perfect decision making. The USA is too fresh to lose the will to fight, but the USSR can be broken. There is a difference between vast will to fight and unlimited. A TL here is plausible if someone is very talented at writing it and is willing to deal with a huge amount of writing obstacles.

3) Fall of France to invasion of Russia. Don't invade Russia. Nazi's generally win, IMO. We can also start with POD to make the UK life a lot harder. We now have an easy to write TL. Most of these TL will end up with a five power world. Soviets, British Empire, Germany, Japan, and USA.

4) Invasion of Poland to Fall of France. It now becomes easy to write a TL that hurts the UK. While Germany did exceptionally well, we can get to the classic capture of BEF TL's.

5) Before Invasion of Poland. Much like Germany in late 1916, Germany has the the war won, if it only has a little bit more wisdom. If Germany does not invade Poland, Hitler goes down as one of the most successful German leaders ever. He has manage to reverse the losses of WW1 with superior gains. Posen and West Prussia for Czechoslovakia and Austria and adding Italy and Spain as allies. It is only the insane aggressiveness of Hitler that lead Germany to disaster from here. And with the right foreign policy towards Poland, adding Danzig is possible.

Well, yes. If you keep the Nazis from launching WW2 (by involving the US and the USSR. the Nazis could have their "victory" -- but then the Nazis probably aren't the same Nazis of OTL. I'd predict implosion of the regime and/or a very cold war with Britain if 3 or 4. Don't see 1 or 2. 5 improbable. In all, an unbloodied USSR may opportunistically hover. On ideological grounds alone, I see an eventual showdown between the 2.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Well, yes. If you keep the Nazis from launching WW2 (by involving the US and the USSR. the Nazis could have their "victory" -- but then the Nazis probably aren't the same Nazis of OTL. I'd predict implosion of the regime and/or a very cold war with Britain if 3 or 4. Don't see 1 or 2. 5 improbable. In all, an unbloodied USSR may opportunistically hover. On ideological grounds alone, I see an eventual showdown between the 2.

Well, for an ATL we have POD, so they are not likely our Nazi's. Even if we don't change any of the people involved, if we change events, the butterflies of the events will change the people involved. Hitler was a novice commander, and shows substantial evolution of thinking both for better and worse. I don't hold to the view the Nazi's were destined to make certain military judgments. And we can easily get a shuffling of people. Goering overdosing on pain medications and alcohol would drastically change how the Nazi military worked, as would Hitler having a trusted naval commander he listed too. For that matter, Hitler having a trusted army military adviser would also drastically change German decisions.

So we get to the title of thread and the first post, which basically says "All Nazi win POD are ASB", but if we really listed all the conditions we would get a statement that says "All Nazi win POD are ASB except for the one listed in the following 4 paragraphs of text".


Now to your rebuttal. I too don't think #1 or #2 are likely. But unlikely and ASB are vastly different items. Hitler winning in #1 or #2 is not less bizzare than some of the favorable things that happened to Prussia over the years.

On #3 and #4, I see it being a shooting (hot war), not a cold war. While neither side could use the bulk of its military at any given time, they would be using as much as possible. The rest of the details depend on the POD.

On #5, I am surprise people see this as impossible. Hitler under pressure made a deal with Stalin which is much more "ASB" than most alternative POD. OTL is one of the least likely possibility looking forward from 1937, 1938, or early 1939. There are dozens of POD that stop Hitler from invading Poland such as -- no deal with Stalin, Hitler dies or has illness, Poland compromises, Stalin invades/threatens another country, UK actually is able to communicate to Hitler it will go to war, France begins rearmament earlier/faster, UK begins rearmament faster/earlier, Stalin offers defense deal to Poland for border adjustment, etc. It is actually a decision that Hitler had trouble committing too, so it is an easy to change decision.

And we can look at other decision Hitler flipped flopped on - Tyrol was critical until Italy become a convenient ally, Japan replaced China, Anti Soviet to neutrality deal, neutrality deal to invading Soviets, reclassifying whole ethnic groups in the racial plan, 1/2 Jews can serve in army to kill all 1/4 Jews, naming his personal train Amerika to declaring war on America. Hitler is a great example of an erratic decision maker outside of his racial policies. And even these policies were not consistent in the tactical details. It amazes me that people say the Nazi's can't change. We can't make the Nazi good guys, but we can have them make different military and diplomatic decisions.
 
In accordance with the OP, could you have PoDs outside of Germany, that have no impact on how WWII breaks out in 1939, but that, at the very least, bring Nazi Victory closer to plausible? B/c if so, I'd definitely nominate the US doing worse in the Great Depression (say, by having Zangara kill FDR), so that their in no position to do Lend Lease 1940-41. (As a bonus, this makes Japanese victory, at least outside of China, a lot more plausible as well.)

When you add all that up it becomes ASB to expect Germany to reach the levels of perfection required to defeat the Soviets while holding off the WAllies.

What about a successful, short war w/ the Western Allies, then turning their attention to the Soviets?
 
You would have to have a Hitler that would have to be sensible <Not feasible> to accept a Stalin offer for an armistice / truce / cessation of hostilities in Sept & Oct of 1941 after the Ukraine was almost mostly lost and the Wehrmacht was just reaching the outskirts of Leningrad and Vyazma after Smolensk felled....
Stalin offer was something like Brest-Litovsk repeated-peace signed only to get time to prepare for second round. Germans would still need dozens of divisions in the East to occupy territory and watch the Soviets. Stalin just get time to reorganize his armies, new factories are build in Ural and Siberia, and the most important-now Soviets have time to train new soliders (having army of greenhorns every year was serious problem for USSR, because of heavy loses there was no enough time to train new units properly before they were sent to the front). After year or two Red Army beats Wehrmacht even more than in OTL.
 
It all depends on what are the restrictions on the POD and how we define victory.


[/4QUOTE]
Let's say POD is after 1 September 1939
Don't invade Russia.
1) without Ukrainian grain Reich will be short of food soon
2)It doesn't mean that war with USSR will not happen, Stalin would just invade first, USSR military potential increased faster than Third Reich one.
 
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Britain with a few changes to the timeline and worse leadership could have made peace, not surrendered after the battle for France causing the U.S. to lose interest in Europe.

I don't think a UK-Germany peace deal would cause the US to lose interest in Europe, quite the opposite in my opinion. The US navy expansion act was passed in July 1940 as a response to the fall of France. It signified an American understanding that the Atlantic was in danger of becoming hostile waters - even though the UK was still fighting and had attacked the French Fleet in Mers-el-Kebir! If the UK comes to terms with Germany then the US will see that the dominant European naval power is now less reliable as a friend. This will spur further US interest in Europe and in naval matters.
 

sharlin

Banned
If the Nazi high command and generals were RPG players from 1939 to 1941 then their GM would have given up because all they could seemingly roll was the right numbers on the dice. If they were at a casino they would have been kicked out for cheating.

The Nazis were aided by good planning and preparation on their side as well as good gear but the biggest help was a huge slice of luck. The Allies reactions to german moves were poor, Norway was a fiasco, the state of preperation of the French army was lets be honest, in most cases laughably poor, allied doctrines were wrong (fatally wrong in Frances case) as well as an underestimation of the Germans capabilities.

When they attacked the soviet union the terrible state of their military leadership (in most cases) as well as Stalin's meddling handed the Germans victory after victory.

The Japanese also joined the Nazi's RPG club and also rolled freakishly high but their luck ran out at about the same time as the Germans did.

The Italians were never that lucky, Benito no doubt complained that someone had stolen his dice.
 

sharlin

Banned
Fall of France to invasion of Russia. Don't invade Russia. Nazi's generally win, IMO. We can also start with POD to make the UK life a lot harder. We now have an easy to write TL. Most of these TL will end up with a five power world. Soviets, British Empire, Germany, Japan, and USA.


Why would the nazi's not invade Russia? They had made it part of their doctrine that they would always go east, it was part of the Nazi ideology, to suddenly make them go 'You know lets not try that...' you'd need to have a POD a damnsight earlier than Dec 1939. And even if they didn't the Soviets would have had more control over the Germans industry and ability to feed its populace than any country would be willing to accept. That and the whole Nazi economy seems built on the need for conflict so it can support itself.
 
Yes there are ways that Germany could win WWII but as shown here they mostly require a reasonable Hitler or a less ideological Nazi party and so yes you probably do need an ASB to intervene to achieve that.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Let's say POD is after 1 September 1939

1) without Ukrainian grain Reich will be short of food soon
2)It doesn't mean that war with USSR will not happen, Stalin would just invade first, USSR military potential increased faster than Third Reich one.

Hunger does not mean an automatic loss. Back then, people at 3000 to 4500 calories per day. It is only once the calories per day fall below 2000 and often below 1500 for months or years that government collapse. And we are talking about Hitler. He will starve the "subhumans" such as Jews or various Slavs. Now maybe 10 million Poles die in a famine in 1941, but there is plenty of food to feed the Germans at a 3000+ calorie diet and selected non-Aryans at 2000+

Now on Stalin, this is one of the more hotly debated issues related to WW2. There are those that believe Stalin always attack. IMO, Stalin was a cautious man who attacked when the odds favored him. He will most likely wait until the Nazi are clearly losing before attacking. And the correct answer to this is only knowable to god and maybe Stalin. Two years before Stalin signed the treaty with Hitler over Poland, did he believe that he would do it? Probably not. In the same way, it is impossible to know with certainty what would happen in 1943 or 1944.
 
Personally, I think that the Nazis would have done better to have played a longer game pre-war if they really wanted Great Power status again. Building alliances with right-leaning regimes in Eastern Europe, quietly encouraging German migration east, a long shot would be toning down the anti-semitism to persecuting practising Jews. Then they could use the Yiddish speakers as a sought of German-speaking vanguard. I think using 'Nazi missionaries' could radicalise extant German populations sufficiently to get lots of calls for plebiscites. If you get a messy map with lots of German enclaves/exclaves, it wouldn't be hard to subject the neighbouring countries to some sort of vassal status, with a long term goal of colonisation and conquest. This of course is reliant on the would-be Allies turning a blind eye. This could be achieved by exposing nastiness in the Soviet Union, and legitimising the view that the Nazis dominating Eastern Europe is better than the Soviets doing it.
 
Personally, I think that the Nazis would have done better to have played a longer game pre-war if they really wanted Great Power status again. Building alliances with right-leaning regimes in Eastern Europe, quietly encouraging German migration east, a long shot would be toning down the anti-semitism to persecuting practising Jews. Then they could use the Yiddish speakers as a sought of German-speaking vanguard. I think using 'Nazi missionaries' could radicalise extant German populations sufficiently to get lots of calls for plebiscites. If you get a messy map with lots of German enclaves/exclaves, it wouldn't be hard to subject the neighbouring countries to some sort of vassal status, with a long term goal of colonisation and conquest. This of course is reliant on the would-be Allies turning a blind eye. This could be achieved by exposing nastiness in the Soviet Union, and legitimising the view that the Nazis dominating Eastern Europe is better than the Soviets doing it.

The Nazis couldn't afford to play a longer game. Time was against them the moment they took office.

For a start Hitler wanted things to happen during his own period of office.

The expansion of the Soviet economy and military power was close to phenomenal and things would soon reach the stage where a German expansion east would be impossible.

No amount of Nazi missionaries would counter balance a Soviet superpower by about 1943.

The German economy was running into trouble in early 1939 and the re armament program was facing cuts. France and Britain were rearming at a faster rate than Germany and any delay in the OTL timetable helps the Allies.
 
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