Is Nazi Victory ASB?

[Jan Olbracht]

Inspired by this thread: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=258211
I would say yes-at least 99,9999%ASB. With ww2 in the shape we know (UK, USA and USSR vs Axis) Nazi Victory seems to be impossible, especially dreams of Lebensraum (literally 100% ASB). It's just no way for nazi Germany to prevail over such strong alliance, Allies just had way more people and resources, stronger economy, were motivated to beat Reich, their victory was just question of time. I just see the whole Nazi Victory idea on pair with such ideas like Sealion succeding. What's your opinion?

 

[mowque]

Victory over what? Germany? Poland? Antarctica?

 

[M. Adolphe Thiers]

Inspired by this thread: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=258211
I would say yes-at least 99,9999%ASB. With ww2 in the shape we know (UK, USA and USSR vs Axis) Nazi Victory seems to be impossible, especially dreams of Lebensraum (literally 100% ASB). It's just no way for nazi Germany to prevail over such strong alliance, Allies just had way more people and resources, stronger economy, were motivated to beat Reich, their victory was just question of time. I just see the whole Nazi Victory idea on pair with such ideas like Sealion succeding. What's your opinion?

Nazi victory in a World War requires a certain level of reasonability that is inherently exclusive to the ideology. So, yes.

 

[MattII]

Pretty much, yeah, oh if they were prescient they could do things better, but overall they were destined to lose one way or another.

 

[Herzen's love-child]

I kinda wish that all Nazi WW2 victory scenarios would either all go to ASB or have a Sealion-like sticker...

 

[Beedok]

All but totally. WWI is far more variable.

 

[Riain]

I think in theory they could have carved out their continental empire. On paper when you add up their fighting power, industrial quality and the like they could have conquered European Russia and held off the WAllies.

But in practice no country can achieve the levels of perfection to make paper strength into real strength. Alll major powers made mistakes, we see Nazi Germany's mistakes as glaring faults but the British, US and Soviets all made glaring mistakes which we argue here ad nauseum. 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.

 

[NHBL]

Depends on the POD, and what "Victory" is

The ideology leads to severe over-reaching, but that doesn't mean that a replacement leader in the early '30's couldn't be much more long term thinking. Revenge and living space is both a part of the ideology--but so is anti-communism. In the early '30's, perhaps a replacement leader after Hitler's demise could be thinking, "One war at a time--and the USSR's the first target.

Long term victory-as in taking over all of Europe--very close to ASB.

 

[jmc247]

Define victory.

If you define it as Hitler building a World Empire then yes its ASB.

If you define it as Nazi Germany dominating everything from parts of France to the Urals it is close to ASB, but not quite there. 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. Germany tossing everything it had OTL in the West and North Africa into their attack on the USSR, having international markets open to them, being able to mass produce war material in the West without their factories being bombed and the USSR not getting Lend Lease... well I would say the USSR could be pretty much doomed. The best Stalin could hope for would be a beggers peace leaving him to rule Russia and build up for a potental second round.

If you are talking about about Nazi Germany holding on to more of central Europe then when they started the war yes that isn't ASB either.

 

[The B]

Since the Allies were so strong, then shouldn't WWII have been a walkover?

Their plans going perfect to the letter are highly implausible, but a basic Nazi victory is certainly not implausible. To say otherwise is foolish.

 

[Shaby]

Once they made the war into the fight to life or death, it is over for them. And the sole nature of Hitler's goals all but guaranteed it will come to this, eventually.

 

[Beedok]

Since the Allies were so strong, then shouldn't WWII have been a walkover?

Their plans going perfect to the letter are highly implausible, but a basic Nazi victory is certainly not implausible. To say otherwise is foolish.

A guarantee isn't always easy. If I keep beating away at a wall I'll break through eventually, but it'll hurt.

 

[Jan Olbracht]

Victory over what? Germany? Poland? Antarctica?

Victory in ww2, of course. I just get bored with all those "Post-Nazi Victory blablablah" threads.

 

[Bmao]

I wouldn't say that a Nazi victory in WWII was ASB, but it is certainly a low-probability event, especially after the US joins the war. Basically, once the US joins the war, if you play over the next four years one hundred times, Nazi Germany gets defeated 99 times out of 100 so that's as close to ASB as you can get. Before that, and no US intervention in WWII, Nazi chances in WWII get better; something like one in five chance; unlikely but within the realm of realistic possibility.

Operation sealion...I'm not touching that with a 50 foot pole.

 

[Jan Olbracht]

I just think to win war with USSR Nazis should not be Nazis (then they could use anti-communist Russians as useful allies against Stalin to start something like October Revolution in reverse, destroying USSR from inside, treating Slavs like animals they just increased their loyalty for Soviet regime), but non-Nazi Germany victory doesn't count as Nazi victory.

 

[jmc247]

Since the Allies were so strong, then shouldn't WWII have been a walkover?

Their plans going perfect to the letter are highly implausible, but a basic Nazi victory is certainly not implausible. To say otherwise is foolish.

Basic victory as control of most of continental Europe yes.

Because, something did happen doesn't mean it was preordained to happen. I think the loss of the BFE would have been the real time at which the war could have been fundamentally altered. It very likely could have set up a whole row of dominos making contries that fell into the Allied camp including the U.S. and others stay neutral and you would have seen more nations join the Axis camp.

That doesn't mean Hitler still couldn't screw it up, but he would have been in a vastly better position come 1941 and 42. His Empire would have either imploded or exploded within a few decades, but not before it killed tens of millions of people.

 

[RGB]

In most given replays of the war, I doubt the Germans would even do nearly as well as they did did OTL.

There's a tendency to assume that ALL OTL results are something approaching a mean average in terms of possible outcomes. That to me is a fallacy. Even if a near-infinite amounts of universes exists with a near-infinite amount of outcomes, it is still entirely possible that OTL outcome is nowhere near the mean and is in fact somewhere in the "less likely" if not "only driven by incredible luck" zone.

I definitely think that Germany's performance OTL isn't anywhere close to the mean. That would also imply that to make them do better, you're going farther and farther away from said mean, into the region of below 1%.

Mein zwein groschen.

 

[Citizen Samuel]

In most given replays of the war, I doubt the Germans would even do nearly as well as they did did OTL.

Agreed. The 7-week defeat of France was alone an utter fluke.

 

[jmc247]

In most given replays of the war, I doubt the Germans would even do nearly as well as they did did OTL.

There's a tendency to assume that ALL OTL results are something approaching a mean average in terms of possible outcomes. That to me is a fallacy. Even if a near-infinite amounts of universes exists with a near-infinite amount of outcomes, it is still entirely possible that OTL outcome is nowhere near the mean and is in fact somewhere in the "less likely" if not "only driven by incredible luck" zone.

I definitely think that Germany's performance OTL isn't anywhere close to the mean. That would also imply that to make them do better, you're going farther and farther away from said mean, into the region of below 1%.

The problem is that the USSR, France and England were all thinking in terms of the last war.

Stalin agreed to divide up Eastern Europe with Hitler expecting Germany, France and England to spend years in France wrecking their armies and for him to be able to step in when he wants to and finish of Germany and if he is lucky maybe grab some of Western Europe.

France and England were thinking of this is World War 1 terms as well as were their generals. When things happened differently then they expected they panicked a very human reaction leading to the easy fall of France.

Germany didn't in my view do so amazingly well early on just because of luck, though that was certainly a factor. It did early on because the other major powers of Europe were divided with Stalin giving Hitler an easy fight in the East which one basically provided Germany a one front war in 1940 and two Germany was ready to wage a very different kind of war then expected. After victory in France it gave Hitler pretty much a one front war to be able to wage against the USSR the next year.

Oh and thanks to Stalin the Soviet armed forces were suffering from major brain damage for some time into the war as the officer corps are the brains of an Army and he purged the heck out of them.

So, Hitler had alot of help in getting to where he got other then luck.

 

[Mr.J]

In most given replays of the war, I doubt the Germans would even do nearly as well as they did did OTL.

There's a tendency to assume that ALL OTL results are something approaching a mean average in terms of possible outcomes. That to me is a fallacy. Even if a near-infinite amounts of universes exists with a near-infinite amount of outcomes, it is still entirely possible that OTL outcome is nowhere near the mean and is in fact somewhere in the "less likely" if not "only driven by incredible luck" zone.

I definitely think that Germany's performance OTL isn't anywhere close to the mean. That would also imply that to make them do better, you're going farther and farther away from said mean, into the region of below 1%.

Mein zwein groschen.

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.