PC: Fascist Germany after CP victory in WW1

Reply Japan has not experienced a dynastic change in over 2500 years. Emperors were not deposed but their temporal power was marginalized during the ascendance of the Shogunate.

True enough but as I understand it the Emperor served as the figure head above the fray between the factions, power itself rested beyond the person sitting on the throne and despite the dynasty stretching back in time I believe the bodies changed rather easily, as even the seat could be moved if desired, hence the capital ends up in Toyko. I agree in any event, the thrust is that Japan is very different in its infighting where Germany wrestled instead with the distribution of power between the States led by its biggest, Prussia. Japanese democracy served to represent the old factions beneath the Emperor, these being essentially the families who had re-ordered Japan and put a new polish on the otherwise weak and disused Emperor, whereas German democracy has its root in the 1848 revolt and the unification, limiting the Monarch. The power struggles stem from different places to serve up Japan as a guide to how German democracy fails.
 
And they were two of four "winning" Entente-partners, who were badly dissapointed if not betrayed by what the "big-four" finally drew-up at Versailles, Saint-Germain, Neuilly, Trianon and Sevres, not to forget the LoN-charta (japanese "Racial Equality Proposal").

The other two were IMHO :
- China and
- the Arabs​

Indeed, it is the disillusionment in victory that propels Italy to Mussolini, discredits the Anglophile Japanese, alienates China and leaves the Arabs feeling betrayed by it all. Germany in victory is not disillusioned by not getting more but by the terrible price paid, that feeds the pacifists and left not another even more virulent war monger dictatorship. The more realistic issue is how the Germans deal with the "French" in A-L who look suspect or the Poles who might have rebelled. And we know anti-Semitism was not yet dead. Sadly there is room for a post-war "racist" application of retribution, suppression and discrimination, but even in that I think things fall very far short of state sanctioned murder, and even then it might be totally apart from anything the state condones. None of which should make a big bump for the usual right-wing parties let alone the NSDAP who at best might remain a weird lefty want-to-be nationalists too party that the USPD and SPD will crush under their own boots as the political left recovers. Hitler is far more a revolutionary than Mussolini in my book so I think he cannot slither into the same costume under the Kaiser's reign.
 
On the other hand, part of the reason for the Fascism(although it isn't quite accurate to call it that) of both Italy and Japan was the perception that they had been cheated; a lot of Mussolini's early popularity came from anger at the "mutilated victory" and in Japan nationalist sentiments were inflamed when the main powers of the Entente were seen as not respecting them enough, IE with the Washington Naval Treaty. I doubt that Germany, the hegemon of the Central Powers, would have had that issue.

Anyway, I see it as possible, but certainly not Nazi Fascism. It would likely resemble the takeover of the Imperial Japanese Army more than anything else, though less likely to happen IMO, because German democracy had more legitimacy than in Japan. I guess the main issue with any non-military Fascism in Germany is: what's in it for the Kaiser? Why should he put his support behind some Hitler-or-Mussoliniesque loudmouth when he could have a loyal General? The military would support the Kaiser over any Fascist, so I just don't see the Kaiser turning to some unknown quantity over the power base of the House of Hohenzollern since Frederick Wilhelm I.

Agreed. And I would accept that Italy or Japan might swing to this Germany because of how badly their war went. Germany has other issues.

The Prussian officer corps does not look readily subject to jumping ship from the Kaiser, it always remained loyal to the state, sadly it did not always respect the democracy yet subjected itself even to Hitler because he was elected. Interposing the existing structures and the Kaiser should prevent any usurping the Army by revolutionaries, right or left.

The Kaiser and the Prussian elite have no need for a Hitler, they barely need a popular General, the Reichstag is going to be the battleground and the Kaiser and elites will focus on anything but a revolutionary party rooted in socialism or get behind the distasteful rhetoric of "lower-class" fears and prejudices no matter how they might share them in private. Even SDP here was loyal to the Kaiser, the upstarts are the USPD and possibly an offshoot of them becoming the KPD. The patriotic rhetoric might get spun out by the right but I think it quickly settles into a working relationship with an SPD led coalition. German democracy has enough strength to recover from being marginalized during the war, it needs reforms but peace should allow it the next evolution to further withstand a calamity and in fact not be so easily side stepped again.
 
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