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Professional historian Henry Ashby Turner, and countless others have speculated on the Hitler and the Nazi party failing to come to power with some alternative military, monarchical or democratic regime in its place.

Turner, for his part, elaborates on what he sees as the likely foreign policy aims of a "Notzi" Germany under say, Wilhelm Schleicher. His conclusion, WWII would not happen, but a German-Polish, localized war, is probable

(2) There very likely would have been another war, but only with Poland.
The generals had no great desire for Alsace-Lorraine--the Alsatians and
Lorrainers had from their viewpoint made very poor Germans from 1871 to
1918. Nor were the generals much interested in Austria and the
Sudetenland. Finally, they did not dream of Lebensraum in the East and did
not harbor hostility to the USSR. In fact, they had been working with the
Soviet military for years to circumvent the disarmament clauses of the
Versailles Treaty.

(3) With respect to Poland, things were different. The generals, like most
other Germans, did want the Corridor back, and the Poles were unlikely to
yield on this. So a German-Polish war was likely. But it is doubtful that
this would have been a *world* war. A great deal of prior provocation on
Hitler's part was necessary to have Britain and France issue guarantees to
Poland. By holding on to limited demands (which it could justify on
grounds of self-determination, especially for Danzig and much of the
Corridor), Germany could probably avoid British or French intervention.
Soviet intervention would be avoided, as in OTL, by giving the USSR eastern
Poland (or if you prefer, western Ukraine and western Belorussia). But in
order to avoid western intervention, the Germans would allow a Polish state
to remain (shorn of some territories, such as the Corridor). Essentially,
everyone would be satisfied with the results except the Poles--and even
they of course would fare much better than in OTL.

However, how much territory could Germany plausibly gain in such a war on Poland, without triggering a declaration of war by Britain and France?

If either by accident or design, Germany is grabbing large, unmistakably ethnic Polish territories, can Britain and France stay out of it?

As for the Poles, if a German land grab is successful in Danzig and the corridor, will they keep fighting, hoping the war will spread and bring in other powers? Or will the Poles settle, however sullenly? If the Poles in German occupied lands or from the still Polish territories do guerrilla warfare or raids against occupying German forces in the corridor, how thoroughly will Germany seek to squash this violation of the international pecking order? In other words, how hard or easy is it to stop a German-Polish war short of total annihilation and occupation?

Getting back to the question of potential German gains in victory, I've illustrated some examples below:

a)
Notzi gains-8, Danzig & 4-cornered  land bridges for Germany and Polan.gif




b)
Notzi gains-9, Danzig & wide West  Prussia corridor, landlocked Poland.gif

c)
Notzi gains-10, Danzig & wide West  Prussia corridor & upper Silesia, landlocked Poland.gif

d)
Notzi gains in Polish War1.gif

e)
Notzi gains in Polish War2.gif

f)
Notzi gains in Polish War3.gif

g)
Notzi gains in Polish War4.gif

h)
Notzi gains in Polish War5.gif

i)
Notzi gains in Polish War6.gif

j)
Notzi gains in Polish War7.gif
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