PC/AHC: Less Dystopian Axis Victory Scenario?

Zachariah

Banned
So, a plausibility check/alternate history challenge for you here. Does anyone think that it might be plausible for the world in an ATL where the Axis Powers won WW2 to pan out as being less dystopian (/more 'utopian') than our own world, IOTL? Generally speaking, of course, for the world as a whole- for instance, chances are that in almost any Axis-victory scenario, Europe's going to be markedly more dystopian than it was, and is, IOTL. But would the same be true in places like, say, Africa, Latin America, and India?

And if you think it might be plausible, how might such a world, objectively 'better' than our own in spite of the Axis Powers winning WW2, come into being? Added bonus points for anyone who can come up with plausible Axis Victory post-war scenarios which wind up this way without PODs prior to 1939, and where the nations of the Axis haven't all collapsed regardless by the present day. Reckon it'd be possible?
 
Hitler dies shortly after the war and Nazi Germany immediately collapses into civil war and subsequently revolution. The replacement non-Nazi government ends the Holocaust, Generalplan Ost etc and uses them to discredit its predecessor regime. It also withdraws occupation forces from the USSR and Poland in favor of puppet states garrisoned by local troops, which swiftly fall to revolutions of their own, forming a second Russian Republic which ultimately absorbs the rump USSR in Siberia. The Japanese military government is eventually overthrown due to discontent with its increasingly expensive war in China and the country redemocratizes. Italian fascism dies with Mussolini and the country sees a return to democracy along the lines of OTL Spain or Portugal. With the Soviets in no position to threaten anyone and no other powers to challenge the capitalist order, there is no Cold War, and anti-imperialist movements are more consistently US-backed and democratic in flavor. Germany and Russia both eventually develop functioning democracies and agree on a reparations plan that normalizes relations. By the end of the century, decolonization is complete and the nuclear powers, all more or less democratic and on good terms with each other, have agreed to total nuclear disarmament, and the new milennium looks to be one of peace and prosperity.

Now that's a pretty optimistic scenario, definitely on the lucky end of things, but given the prompt, well, you're going to need things to go pretty much as well as possible.
 
Not happening, the ideological divisions and discontent aren't there in an axis victory.

If Hitler dies without making an obvious succession plan, power struggles can replace ideology as the cause of a civil war. However, assuming he lasts as long or longer as OTL, and the Reich wins a settled peace by 1942 (their only realistic victory, and Im using that term loosely, is one where 1)the US is more isolationist than OTL, leading to no lend lease, 2)the Soviets collapse in late 1941 or early 1942, and 3) Germany forces Britain to a peace of exhaustion somehow) means the Final Solution and Generallplan Ost is fully implemented, which is already a huge tally in the negative column...

And decolonisation is likely to go worse than OTL, because the US likely won't want to anger Britain and other colonial powers, who in turn won't want to get rid of their colonies, which give them a chance in Round 2 against the Nazis. Meanwhile, the Nazis themselves will ideologically be less inclined than the Reds to support decolonisation, and furthermore will be funnelling resources into their reshaping of the East. Depending on the peace they sign, they might even have colonies of their own in Africa--I doubt theyd get anything back from the UK, but they could possibly retake Cameroon and maybe grab some other French colonies or the Belgian Congo as "compensation" for German East Africa.
 
Right. Because the one can never lead to the other.
Why would the military and German people die in the droves for a feudalistic war over leadership as opposed to waiting for a winner in whatever coup attempt. At worse you would something like the South Yemeni civil war which lasted 1 and half weeks.
 

Zachariah

Banned
If Hitler dies without making an obvious succession plan, power struggles can replace ideology as the cause of a civil war. However, assuming he lasts as long or longer as OTL, and the Reich wins a settled peace by 1942 (their only realistic victory, and Im using that term loosely, is one where 1)the US is more isolationist than OTL, leading to no lend lease, 2)the Soviets collapse in late 1941 or early 1942, and 3) Germany forces Britain to a peace of exhaustion somehow) means the Final Solution and Generallplan Ost is fully implemented, which is already a huge tally in the negative column...

And decolonisation is likely to go worse than OTL, because the US likely won't want to anger Britain and other colonial powers, who in turn won't want to get rid of their colonies, which give them a chance in Round 2 against the Nazis. Meanwhile, the Nazis themselves will ideologically be less inclined than the Reds to support decolonisation, and furthermore will be funnelling resources into their reshaping of the East. Depending on the peace they sign, they might even have colonies of their own in Africa--I doubt theyd get anything back from the UK, but they could possibly retake Cameroon and maybe grab some other French colonies or the Belgian Congo as "compensation" for German East Africa.

Well, I didn't say the POD couldn't be prior to 1939- just said you'd get added bonus points if it wasn't. And you do have other ways in which the world in general could be better off. China and India, for instance, the world's two most populous regions by far, and those which could have the greatest impact upon whether the world as a whole could be considered to be more or less dystopian in general- might a unified, unpartitioned India, governed by Subhas Chandra Bose and Azad Hind, wind up being less tumultuous and dystopian than Greater India (incl. Pakistan & Bangladesh) wound up becoming IOTL? And if, say, Kuomintang China were a member of the Anti-Comintern Pact, and thus of the Axis Powers (since the most plausible way for the Japanese to wind up on the winning side in WW2 is by not fighting the Second Sino-Japanese War or the USA at all), and it subsequently won the Chinese Civil War against the Communists, might the entirety of China (excluding Manchuria, of course) follow a path of liberalization, progress and development bearing a closer resemblance to that of OTL's Taiwan; and would this China be less dystopian than OTL's PRC?

And the Nazis were actually more ideologically inclined to support decolonization than you'd think; India's the foremost example of that, but the same was true in several other places. Indonesia, Siam, Ethiopia, Madagascar- the list goes on. Remember, we're talking about the world in general, and how things are for the general populace as a whole. Also worth mentioning- one can't be living in a dystopian world if you're dead, or if you were never born. Sure, Europe'd likely be far more dystopian, but wouldn't it likely be far less populous than Europe IOTL (what with the holocausts, prohibitions on racial admixture and all)? And as a result, wouldn't the state of affairs in this Europe have markedly less weight and relative significance when judging the state of this AU world as a whole?
 
Well, I didn't say the POD couldn't be prior to 1939- just said you'd get added bonus points if it wasn't. And you do have other ways in which the world in general could be better off. China and India, for instance, the world's two most populous regions by far, and those which could have the greatest impact upon whether the world as a whole could be considered to be more or less dystopian in general- might a unified, unpartitioned India, governed by Subhas Chandra Bose and Azad Hind, wind up being less tumultuous and dystopian than Greater India (incl. Pakistan & Bangladesh) wound up becoming IOTL? And if, say, Kuomintang China were a member of the Anti-Comintern Pact, and thus of the Axis Powers (since the most plausible way for the Japanese to wind up on the winning side in WW2 is by not fighting the Second Sino-Japanese War or the USA at all), and it subsequently won the Chinese Civil War against the Communists, might the entirety of China (excluding Manchuria, of course) follow a path of liberalization, progress and development bearing a closer resemblance to that of OTL's Taiwan; and would this China be less dystopian than OTL's PRC?

And the Nazis were actually more ideologically inclined to support decolonization than you'd think; India's the foremost example of that, but the same was true in several other places. Indonesia, Siam, Ethiopia, Madagascar- the list goes on. Remember, we're talking about the world in general, and how things are for the general populace as a whole. Also worth mentioning- one can't be living in a dystopian world if you're dead, or if you were never born. Sure, Europe'd likely be far more dystopian, but wouldn't it likely be far less populous than Europe IOTL (what with the holocausts, prohibitions on racial admixture and all)? And as a result, wouldn't the state of affairs in this Europe have markedly less weight and relative significance when judging the state of this AU world as a whole?

Short answer: trading lives is a fundamentally bad idea, and saying people killed in the greater Holocaust (Final Solution, Generallplan Ist, various other POW camps) shouldnt count to our assessment of how the world is fundamentally dangerous--not to mention the fact that the Nazis might well move the killing infrastructure to other groups that OTL were a lesser priority, so to speak, than the Jews.

As for the rest of the world, I can easily see butterflies resulting in a longer lasting Jim Crow, and I doubt that Chang Kai Shek will be competent/nondictatorial enough to do as well as you give him credit for, particularly when communist partisans enter the picture. Better than OTL, certainly, but better enough to counteract lasting colonialism (the UK never gives up the Raj and other colonies without a fight ITTL IMO), segregation, and the Swastika-painted elephant in the room?
 
It would be hard to do without a fairly limited definition of "victory" and/or supposing that Hitler and the Nazi leadership would behave with a little more restraint in the aftermath. For example, if Britain sues for peace and the U.S. and the Commonwealth nations stay out of the war, is there any chance that the Nazis would concentrate on consolidating their control over continental Europe rather than launching Barbarossa, and that they don't end up trying to implement the Final Solution or Generalplan Ost?

I'm guessing that a Nazi Continent along those lines would still eventually have its government falter and fracture, so then there's the question of whether that happens relatively peacefully, along the lines of a Colored Revolution with at least the pre-WWII democracies revived, or if another war starts with German factions turning against each other and/or the recently conquered nations start fighting to re-establish independence.
 
Quite frankly, a German state that doesnt do a Barbarossa and either a Final Solution or something essentially as bad simply isnt Nazi, thus, WW2 doesnt exist ittl. For the idea of a Nazi victory in WW2 as opposed to a German victory in a big war to make sense, you're looking at a POD after 1933 and probably after 36 or even 38.
 
Top