Postwar Germany after Hitler assasination

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Eurofed

Banned
early cold war propaganda, which disquietingly easily adopted some of Nazism's themes about the USSR.

Perhaps because they were actually true. It's not because the Nazis did the Holocaust anything they said or did was automatically wrong or false. That's the Hitlerophobic fallacy, Hitler was vegetarian so vegetarianism is wrong.
 
Sorry guys, a desire for the 1914 borders does not a Nazi make).

I second that! As for the topic ... I ran through the post relatively quickly but I don't remember seeing just what the surrender situation being created by this POD looked like? If there isn't a BoB and an earlier surrender sparing Berlin and possible Brandenburg/Pomeranian territory where are we assuming the Soviets end the war? Placement of Soviet and Western allied armies played no small part in the negotiating table. Or are we assuming the same territory exchange (ie Soviet keep her Sep. 39 theft of Polish land then offers German east as bribe)? Probably not likely, but a Western allied push that allows them to finish the war closer to the capital than the Reds might impact some of the post war discussion in relation to Poland and Germany. The strategy for establishing 4 zones of occupation might be changed to a type of general occupation.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Not only that, but what about the East Prussia refugees? Hitler left them in place as a motivational tool for the troops, defending the civilians schtick. But the new government would make an effort to evacuate, or at least let the people leave on their own accord instead of persued by the Russians in the dead of winter with their posessions in wagons. Maybe it means more survivors and a more innundated refugee situation.

These are very plausible assumptions.

Perhaps a stronger call for East Prussia's reclaimation post-war?

If they can keep Pomerania, Silesia, and Austria, I doubt it, I would expect the sting of losing EP to be far less burning.

Not only that, but perhaps the Americans make more of an effort to feed the Germans in the immediate aftermath of the war without the holocaust. I'm not one of those that believes in the "Other Losses" thesis, but there was a large shortage of food in the immediate years after the war, causing a large number of children to die. This had less to do with the destruction of infrastructure, though massive, than a policy of punishment by the Allies. So perhaps there are even more Germans in the 50's.

This is another very plausible effect. Without the Holocaust, American ill-will against the Germans is bound to evaporate even more quickly than it di for the Japanese.

But that being said, I doubt the German people would ever be pro-war after the experiences with bombings and Russian invasion.

As a general point, this is true, since even the Japanese and the Italians were made pacifist by WWII, but I would expect Germany to become a bit less radically pacifist with the PoD. Of course, if they indeed build a Pan-European Army in the early-mid 50s, it shall matter much less, the French are going to lead that angle of European integration and Germans and Italians shall eventually armonize to their degree of pacifism.

Again, an European Army at Suez or fighting for Algeria is going to make some interesting butterflies. Likely preventing the rise of DeGaulle if decolonization of Algeria is slower and more compromised to French interests with a stronger pan-European counterinsurgency (presidential reform of France is less necessary if there is federal Europe since the 50s). As for Suez, a stronger Pan-European intervention could maybe mean a more pro-European Israel ? Not to mention the fact this TL most likely sees a stronger Great Israel ? Perhaps even an early fall of Nasser, although I doubt it, the Egyptian people had a Stockholm Syndrome with the guy, the worst he screwed them with military defeats, the more they loved him.

Edit: Maybe the Western Allies are stronger in their demand for the return of German POW's in Russia. Many weren't returned until the 50's and several hundreds of thousands died in captivity. Not to mention what the French did with the Germans and mine clearing and mistreatment after the war, so maybe that doesn't happen as widely either.

This is yet another very plausible assumption. Yep, a more popolous (and prosperous) West Germany from lesser assorted war casaulties, besides having Austria.
 

Eurofed

Banned
If there isn't a BoB and an earlier surrender sparing Berlin and possible Brandenburg/Pomeranian territory where are we assuming the Soviets end the war?

Someplace between the Vistula and the Oder, and in the middle of Hungary and Croatia, most likely. The Germans are going to focus all their residual might in stalemating the Soviets before they accept conditional surrender.

The strategy for establishing 4 zones of occupation might be changed to a type of general occupation.

Or the zones may shift. I think the most likely outcome is a Soviet zone that includes Pomerania and Silesia and an American zone that includes Austria, with the British getting a bit more land, although other solutions are possible (e.g. the Soviets get eastern Austria and the West gets Saxony). A general occupation is less likely to be accepted by the Soviets but possible, in that case Greater Germany ends up as a mega-neutral state like OTL Austria. This shall hugely weaken NATO and EU during the Cold War, although it also denies the Communist bloc the resources of East Germany.
 

Typo

Banned
Perhaps because they were actually true. It's not because the Nazis did the Holocaust anything they said or did was automatically wrong or false. That's the Hitlerophobic fallacy, Hitler was vegetarian so vegetarianism is wrong.
And to be fair, Russia has -always- been a giant horde of semi-Asiatic beings bent on devouring everything in its path in the eyes of Europeans, it wasn't just a nazi thing.
 

Deleted member 1487

It's really ironic how often I get called a Germanophobe in these threads.

I freely admit I think that the German slide into barbarism was inevitable, with its people only purified by the righteous bombings of the B-24. There were no wise German statesmen who could have averted Hitlerism. Nope. None. Predetermined from Tannenberg, or, being charitable, 1919.

I suppose the love of the generals who had no problem looting and raping their way across the steppes can be chalked up to the fact that the SPD is less sexy.


Not really ironic when you are staking out a flat anti-German stance right here. Nothing in life is as cut and dry and what you just wrote. There is a LOT of scholarship that contradicts just about everything you wrote here. Nothing was predetermined, and it was an ugly fluke that Hitler even managed to get power at all. His party only every got 32% of the vote and many non-Jewish Germans left the country to get away from his regime, a fact that seems to be negelected in the above statement, which basically takes the Sonderweg position. That was discredited after the 60's when Fischer first developed it. The Nazi time was full of nuance and I hate to break it to you, but the Brits and Soviets did some pretty shitty things during the war too. Not to mention the Americans. Now what the Western allies did doesn't, in most, cases even come close to the horrors of the Nazi regime, but to paint Germany and the Germans with one brush completely ignores any sort of reasonable nuance of the period and is frankly ignorant.

To state that "the German slide into barbarism was inevitable" smacks of bigotry and racism, completely ignoring the number of factors at play and the limited numbers involved in the barbaric activities. It also ignores the barbaric actions of the Allies too, regardless of their moral equivalancy. Where the Russians inherantly barbaric and predestined for the mass rapes and murders in Eastern and Central Europe? Did British colonialism and paternal attitudes cause them to engineer mass starvation of revolting Indians during the war? Keep the flame baiting and national chauvanism off this board.
 
Someplace between the Vistula and the Oder, and in the middle of Hungary and Croatia, most likely. The Germans are going to focus all their residual might in stalemating the Soviets before they accept conditional surrender.



Or the zones may shift. I think the most likely outcome is a Soviet zone that includes Pomerania and Silesia and an American zone that includes Austria, with the British getting a bit more land, although other solutions are possible (e.g. the Soviets get eastern Austria and the West gets Saxony). A general occupation is less likely to be accepted by the Soviets but possible, in that case Greater Germany ends up as a mega-neutral state like OTL Austria. This shall hugely weaken NATO and EU during the Cold War, although it also denies the Communist bloc the resources of East Germany.

Just a question, why would these Prussian generals accept the loss of Prussia to keep Silesia and Pomerania, wouldn't it be more logical for Germany to retain a part of East Prussia, without the areas subjected to plebiscite, and to loose Silesia up to the Oder.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Just a question, why would these Prussian generals accept the loss of Prussia to keep Silesia and Pomerania, wouldn't it be more logical for Germany to retain a part of East Prussia, without the areas subjected to plebiscite, and to loose Silesia up to the Oder.

Are you aware that "Prussian", in that sense, is a cultural label that refers to the militarist heritage of the old Prussian state, which included Brandenburg, half of Saxony, Pomerania, Silesia, as well as Prussia proper ? Yep, many in the officer class came from noble families in Eastern Germany, but they were spread all over the region, not just Prussia. Silesia was infinitely more precious to Germany than East Prussia could ever be, it held the second most important industrial zone of Germany and many of its mineral resouces, any inch of Silesia was very valuble. The Heer generals were hard-eyed professionals, they are going to cripple Germany's economic and strategic livelihood for some misguided romantic sense of loyalty to the centuries-old heritage land of their namesake.

If you wish a comparison, it would be like the defeated USA would prefer to cede California instead of New Hampshire because the latter was one of the original 13 colonies. And if you wish a rather similar counterexample, in 1860 the ruling class of Savoy did not hesitate to sacrifice Nice and Savoy in order to get North Italy, because the lattwer was far more valuable, even if the former were the ancestral land of origin of their state and dynasty.

Besides, there are strategical concerns that drive the choice. In mid-late 1944. East Prussia is all but unsalvageable from Soviet advance, whileas elastic defense can keep the Ruskies off the rest of Eastern Germany up to the surrender. It is far easier to bargain guarantees about territories that the enemy never conquered before the conditional surrender, than about ones that it already overrun and your own national all but emptied in flight. Ask the Palestinians.
 
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Valdemar II

Banned
One aspect of the potential Knife in back myth here, is whom sold them out, the Nazis started the war and the generals was in power when they lost it, so in any such myth here would be anti-right and anti-establishment.

Another aspect of the whole less ashamed Germany is that, German after the war wasn't really ashamed, they were pissed they lost and but they sought international cooperation, so they had to apoligise, it was first in the 60ties their children created the guilt society of Germany, in rebellion against their parents and their Japanese style denial, and I see no reason why the same shouldn't happen here.
 
Not really ironic when you are staking out a flat anti-German stance right here. Nothing in life is as cut and dry and what you just wrote. There is a LOT of scholarship that contradicts just about everything you wrote here. Nothing was predetermined, and it was an ugly fluke that Hitler even managed to get power at all. His party only every got 32% of the vote and many non-Jewish Germans left the country to get away from his regime, a fact that seems to be negelected in the above statement, which basically takes the Sonderweg position. That was discredited after the 60's when Fischer first developed it.

Eh, yes and no. At the end of the day the German military preferred a Nazi government than democracy, as they made abundantly clear throughout the early 1930s. And their hatred of the Social Democrats is of course infamous.

The Nazi time was full of nuance and I hate to break it to you, but the Brits and Soviets did some pretty shitty things during the war too. Not to mention the Americans.

I have no idea what point you wre tryig to make here. Nothing America did was comparable to the occupation of Poland or the holocaust.

Did British colonialism and paternal attitudes cause them to engineer mass starvation of revolting Indians during the war? Keep the flame baiting and national chauvanism off this board.

I have no idea what you're saying here, since the Germans did intentionally plan mass starvations. This is historical fact.

(The Wermacht, it should be noted, didn't really protest.)

The Heer generals were hard-eyed professionals, they are going to cripple Germany's economic and strategic livelihood for some misguided romantic sense of loyalty to the centuries-old heritage land of their namesake.

Why not? They crippled Germany's economic and strategic livelihood in OTL by raising to oppose Social Democracy throughout the 1920s.

'Tis possible.

However, the propaganda sword cuts both ways. Look at CanadianGoose, who was brought up in the Soviet Union.

I don't know what you mean, but the odor of what I was referring to wafts across this thread. "Elastic defense saves the Germans from the Soviets."

Well. Yea. The Germans had such good generals that they fought a masterful series of retreats, routs, envelopments, and casualties all the way from Moscow to Berlin.

The Jews still starve, incidentally. The Fourth Reich of this TL is hardly going to cut rations in the middle of a coup to feed them, and the lack of grain is well attested (Tooze's Wages of Destruction, as always, is invaluable).

Eurofed said:
I claim the Gorbachev and Mandela argument.

You're missing the point. I have eyet to see the amount of time spent on "German generals cut a deal in 44->European army kills the uppity brown people" spent on looking at electoral results in 1928 Baden, say, or figuring out how to save the Weimar Coalition.
 
One aspect of the potential Knife in back myth here, is whom sold them out, the Nazis started the war and the generals was in power when they lost it, so in any such myth here would be anti-right and anti-establishment.

Another aspect of the whole less ashamed Germany is that, German after the war wasn't really ashamed, they were pissed they lost and but they sought international cooperation, so they had to apoligise, it was first in the 60ties their children created the guilt society of Germany, in rebellion against their parents and their Japanese style denial, and I see no reason why the same shouldn't happen here.

Your first point would of course feed into a revival of Strasserist National Socialism. As to the second, you're pretty much right as well. Some really creepy polls were taken in the 50s showing most Germans thought National Socialism had been a good idea carried out poorly, and the country was better off without the Jews.
 
I think this would make for a good TL. Ive thought about it before, and it makes sense that if the Staufenberg (or whoever there is there, it hardly matters as long as they havve an ounce of commo sense) goverment 'co-operates' with the Western Allies as focuses on defending the Pomerania+Silesia border instead.

With this scenario, Germany could still be devided into zones. Austria goes with Bavaria to make the US zone, France gets Baden-Wuttenberg, part of Rhineland, and Britain gets the rest of the West. Hell, if you're really hopeful, you could actually have the border through Berlin itself (symbolically I mean, as the soviets will still have Saxony and most of Brandenburg plus Pommerania and Silesia).

Withought most of the Holocaust guilt, and the pride that they 'saved themselves' by coup, the germans will become patriotic quicker and the very soul of Germany will recover faster. It would be a real waste to make this bigger Germany neutral, but it might be a price to pay.

All in all, it will be interesting to see what the international effect would be if anyone could write this into a TL.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Eh, yes and no. At the end of the day the German military preferred a Nazi government than democracy, as they made abundantly clear throughout the early 1930s.

True, but then again, they were hardly alone in that. Pretty much all the professional militaries and conservative public opinion in Europe back then preferred a fascist regime to a left-wing government if they got half a chance, and very few expected Hitler was going to go genocidal on the world. Almost everybody expected him to be a German Mussolini.


And their hatred of the Social Democrats is of course infamous.

Very true, but then again, they were no different from French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian etc. officers in that.

Why not? They crippled Germany's economic and strategic livelihood in OTL by raising to oppose Social Democracy throughout the 1920s.

This is just spiteful and wrong, and you know it. An anti-socialist vicious bias is completely different from being unable to understand basic fact about which regions are most valuable to your own country. If you want a comparison, the Argentinian and Chilean armies waded in blood to uproot left-wingers in the 1970s, yet that made scarcely willing to trade the most valuable chunks of their own countries off.

Again, the vicious anti-SPD prejudice of the Heer was so wrong, but almost nobody foreseen that Lebenstraum was going to come out of anti-Weimar plots, instead of say a German Napoleon III. And anyway, Versailles and the Great Depression double-punch killed Weimar, not the Heer plots, which were just opportunistic. Avoid either, and Weimar is saved.

"Elastic defense saves the Germans from the Soviets."

Not in 1944, not unless they can get a ceasefire with the Western Allies. OTOH, Peter Tsouras wrote a compelling scenario about how with that, a post-Nazi government could exhaust the Red Army to a truce.

Well. Yea. The Germans had such good generals that they fought a masterful series of retreats, routs, envelopments, and casualties all the way from Moscow to Berlin.

And of course the mustachioed guy breathing on their necks about not to give any inch of Russian land until the last German soldier in the area is dead had nothing to do with it. :rolleyes:

The Jews still starve, incidentally.

Hmm, is the bodycount difference between starving and running the death chambers familiar to you ? People all over occupied Europe felt the starvation pinch to some degree towards the end. But the bodycount is nowhere comparable to half the Holocaust.

You're missing the point. I have eyet to see the amount of time spent on "German generals cut a deal in 44->European army kills the uppity brown people" spent on looking at electoral results in 1928 Baden, say, or figuring out how to save the Weimar Coalition.

That's because wars and (counter)insurgencies look much cooler to the average AHcomer's mind eye than messing with "boring" political details. We are all children of Hollywood, and we all crave fire and blood in our entartaintment (sp?). The bias towards military stuff is something I've noticed in all kinds of favorite AH scenarios, not just the Valkyrie one.
 

Deleted member 1487

Eh, yes and no. At the end of the day the German military preferred a Nazi government than democracy, as they made abundantly clear throughout the early 1930s. And their hatred of the Social Democrats is of course infamous.

I have no idea what point you wre tryig to make here. Nothing America did was comparable to the occupation of Poland or the holocaust.

I have no idea what you're saying here, since the Germans did intentionally plan mass starvations. This is historical fact.

(The Wermacht, it should be noted, didn't really protest.)

Look I am not trying to equate allied actions with the nazis. I am saying that the Allies did behave in less that moral manners throughout the war. The Soviets it goes without saying, but, although what the Nazis did in the holocaust was worse, the bombing campaign targeted civilians in a brutal manner. The point that I did make about the British in India was that they withheld food surpluses during famine in Bengal and let millions starve to death. While they did not engineer it, they certainly did nothing to help. This book review by the New Yorker mentions it: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/08/13/070813crbo_books_mishra?currentPage=3

Yes you are right about the way that the Germans behaved in Eastern Europe. It was barbaric, but Germany and the German people are not to blame as a whole for the actions of certain individuals. Just as the American people are not to blame for the actions of the US government in Vietnam which included bombing campaigns against civilians using more tonnage of bombs than was used in WW2 and rounding up civilians to thrust in concentrated villages, while burning theirs to the ground all in support of a corrupt puppet regime. Taken in isolation, ie not compared to the actions of the nazis, the US behavior is pretty horrific. But just because some of the members of the armed forces conducted these campaigns doesn't mean that there is something in the American culture that made this behavior inevitable.
 

Typo

Banned
It was barbaric, but Germany and the German people are not to blame as a whole for the actions of certain individuals. Just as the American people are not to blame for the actions of the US government in Vietnam which included bombing campaigns against civilians using more tonnage of bombs than was used in WW2 and rounding up civilians to thrust in concentrated villages, while burning theirs to the ground all in support of a corrupt puppet regime.
The American public actively protested against those atrocities, the German people went along with it until they started to lose the war, when a small fraction of the elite rebelled because they were losing. I'm of the opinion both the German people and the American people are responsible to a certain degree for the atrocities committed during WWII and Vietnam respectively. The degree differs, of course.
 

MrP

Banned
I freely admit I think that the German slide into barbarism was inevitable, with its people only purified by the righteous bombings of the B-24. There were no wise German statesmen who could have averted Hitlerism. Nope. None. Predetermined from Tannenberg, or, being charitable, 1919.
I'd try to write a supporting joke in response, but the number of people who've taken your sarcasm for your true opinion makes me want to get drunk.
That's the Hitlerophobic fallacy, Hitler was vegetarian so vegetarianism is wrong.
That long-discredited claim always irritates me, since he was about as vegetarian as a lion. I suspect the lie only lives on because of a dislike of vegetarians; it makes about as little sense as the comparison of modern governments to Nazis for limiting smoking.
 

Eurofed

Banned
That long-discredited claim always irritates me, since he was about as vegetarian as a lion. I suspect the lie only lives on because of a dislike of vegetarians; it makes about as little sense as the comparison of modern governments to Nazis for limiting smoking.

Actually I was not trying to support that particular claim. I was just trying to quote something suitably harmless and beneficial. If we want to quote something harmless and beneficial that the Nazis actually supported, we might use sexual freedom, or smoking bans.
 

MrP

Banned
Actually I was not trying to support that particular claim. I was just trying to quote something suitably harmless and beneficial. If we want to quote something harmless and beneficial that the Nazis actually supported, we might use sexual freedom, or smoking bans.

Don't worry; I didn't misunderstand. I was just expressing how I feel when someone does honestly suggest it.
 
True, but then again, they were hardly alone in that. Pretty much all the professional militaries and conservative public opinion in Europe back then preferred a fascist regime to a left-wing government if they got half a chance, and very few expected Hitler was going to go genocidal on the world. Almost everybody expected him to be a German Mussolini.

Oddly, the militaries and public of France, Britain, the Benelux, and Scandinavia didn't prefer fascist regimes.


Again, the vicious anti-SPD prejudice of the Heer was so wrong, but almost nobody foreseen that Lebenstraum was going to come out of anti-Weimar plots, instead of say a German Napoleon III.

Hitler's ideology was just WW1 German victory plans taken to their logical conslusion. The heer refused to fight the Nazis when they were asked if they would, if push came to shove; and they helped intrigue to bring down von Seeckt.

And of course they all stood silent through 1933 and 1934, and throughout the rest of the decade. Traitors to the Volk, all of them.

And of course the mustachioed guy breathing on their necks about not to give any inch of Russian land until the last German soldier in the area is dead had nothing to do with it. :rolleyes:

Of course not. WW2 isn't about the Allies winning; it's about how the Germans managed to lose to bumbling incompetents.


That's because wars and (counter)insurgencies look much cooler to the average AHcomer's mind eye than messing with "boring" political details. We are all children of Hollywood, and we all crave fire and blood in our entartaintment (sp?). The bias towards military stuff is something I've noticed in all kinds of favorite AH scenarios, not just the Valkyrie one.

Pff. Nobody saves France in 1940. Never. A pure military engagement, and instead we get ink spilled over this.

The point that I did make about the British in India was that they withheld food surpluses during famine in Bengal and let millions starve to death. While they did not engineer it, they certainly did nothing to help. This book review by the New Yorker mentions it: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/08/13/070813crbo_books_mishra?currentPage=3

Deliberately withholding food supplies is murder, whereas the British can be accused, at worst, of negligence. And I say this as somebody who isn't known as a fan of the Pink Empire.


It was barbaric, but Germany and the German people are not to blame as a whole for the actions of certain individuals.

That's fine, but I blamed the generals who are leading this post-coup Reich.


I'd try to write a supporting joke in response, but the number of people who've taken your sarcasm for your true opinion makes me want to get drunk.

Even Gustav Stresemann wanted to revise the border, and it's one small step from ethnographic adjustments and the Corridor to feasting upon the bones of Soviet children. Monsters, all of them.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Oddly, the militaries and public of France, Britain, the Benelux, and Scandinavia didn't prefer fascist regimes.

About France, this is hilariously untrue, need I have to mention how Vichy France was massively popular among the French, and Petain a venerated retired general, up to very late in its parable ? The French right-wingers and would-be military dictators enthusiastically seized their own opportunity for their own brand of nasty fascism as soon as they got one. "The divine surprise of defeat", as Charles Maurrais said. In Britain and Sweden, there never was a similar opportunity, and Benelux and Norway shifted far too quickly to pure military occupation for the local fascists to set up something truly their own.

Hitler's ideology was just WW1 German victory plans taken to their logical conslusion.

Sure, sure, because between setting up Baltics and Ukrainians as vassal states with German princes in the Kaiserreich economic spheres, and exterminating them there is no difference, sure. William II was just Hitler with a funny hat, and Stalin was just implementing plans laid down by Nicholas II wehn he exterminated the Kulaks.

The heer refused to fight the Nazis when they were asked if they would, if push came to shove;

Same happened in Italy. Sadly, nowhere in continental Europe, pre-WWII armies were going to pick a fight with fascists without a direct order from an head of state they acknowledged as legitimate and really meant it.

and they helped intrigue to bring down von Seeckt.

Hardly a main cause of Nazi takeover.

And of course they all stood silent through 1933 and 1934, and throughout the rest of the decade.

Honestly, how many among the German people, or the other European peoples, cared so much about democracy as an ideal that they were going to put it before and above getting some economic security, public order, and satisfaction of nationalistic grievances ? Maybe one in three or two out of five, if it went down to making a choice in the ballot box, or giving passive allegiance to a regime ? And maybe one in five of them, if it went down to risk personal safety to defend democracy ? The way the 1920s-1930s officer coprs were trained and recruited, deeply seeped in far right wing sensibilities, how can we expect them to have more democratic sentiments than the public itself ?

Besides, your statement is false, the first well-organized attempted military coup happened in 1938, and failed for the kind of outrageous coincidences (Chamberlain accepting Munich terms a few hours too early) that routinely punctuated Hitler's career an saved him from coups and assassinations. Fuses failing to fire, bombs moved and schedules changed at last minute... how does the military resistance (or ofor that matter, civilian lone wolves like Georg Elser) bring direct responsibility for that kind of thing ?

Of course not. WW2 isn't about the Allies winning; it's about how the Germans managed to lose to bumbling incompetents.

Of course not. Everyone knows that the invincible Soviets had the infallible guarantee to win every World War the moment it starts, no matter the odds, opponents and situation, thanks to their magical Siberian factories, cloning facilities, and officer corps directly trained and inspired by the Gods of wank... err war themselves. No one and nothing could ever stop them, it was only the cowardice of their leaders and unsportsmanlike American threat of nukes that kept them from effortlessly conquering everything to the Atlantic like they were foreordained to.

Pff. Nobody saves France in 1940. Never. A pure military engagement, and instead we get ink spilled over this.

I have seen "Stalin backstabs Hitler in May 1940" TLs.

That's fine, but I blamed the generals who are leading this post-coup Reich.

And of them, how many can be directly and substantially linked to previous Nazi or Wehrmacht atrocities, to such a degree that bringing the Nazis down does not wipe the slate clean ? Passive allaegiance to the regime does not make anyone a monster. The generals tried the coup previously and by sheer unluck, failed, every failure amping the historical tragedy, when the military situation made a political opening possible. Bringing down a dictatorship is difficut enough when the dictator is screwing up the nation and making himself unpopular with the people and the elites, when he's piling up successes and popularity it is effectively impossible, even if such successes drip the blood of some minority or other nation. Such is human nature, nationalism and self-interest almost always trump humanitarian idealism.
 
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