save Nazi Germany from Bankruptcy
- Thread starter Kongzilla
- Start date
The only way to save them from bankruptcy requires a conscious decision to scale down armament program and orient their heavy industry into exports, possibly even a large part of their armament industry. This way they not only avoid bankruptcy, but also avoid WW2. So those two things are interrelated. More butter, less guns and peace, or more guns and plundering the butter through war.
Nietzsche
Banned
This is actually rather simple. Have Hitler order the invasion of Bohemia hours/mere days after the Munich Agreement. The Wehrmacht enacts their plans to kill Hitler(and likely Hess, potentially Goebbels) and thus Goering ends up the highest-ranking member of the Nazi Party as well as being Fuehrer.
Before anyone says the Wehrmacht would never trust Goering as HoS, understand that the Munich Agreement and the strive to solve the problem without a war was all him. In fact, Goering's intervention here is precisely where the Reichsmarschall's star began to fade. Hitler wanted a war, to take the entirety of Bohemia-Moravia in one fell swoop, and he felt that Goering(amongst others) 'cheated' him out of his war.
Now, Goering was no economic genius, but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone in the German government worse for the German economy than Hitler. Goering would've slowed down rearmament as well as seeking a general 'mutual understanding' with Britain.
The economy is still going to tank in 1940 at the latest(without conquest, anyway), but it in comparison between 1940 with continued rearmament and 1940 with drastically dialed back rearmament makes the latter look like post-Marshal Plan Germany.
Depends on a time frame. In long enough term, they could, though they can never surpass the USSR or USA of Cold War period on their own. They are simply too small and have limited access to the raw materials necessary. Besides, their ideology (if left intact) virtually prevents them from gaining too many friends. At best what they can hope to get is some sort of darker Warsaw pact sort of arrangement, but hindered in the long term by the inability of Nazi Germany to supply their clients with raw materials, unlike what Soviet Union enjoyed.
In short, no.
Long answer - after Munich nobody was going to tolerate any more German demands. They may have, using a careful and long term diplomatic campaign, get to readjust the border with Poland, but only on a small scale, possibly limited to obtaining an extra-territorial land corridor to East Prussia. Anything other than this sends them into a head-on collision course with the Western Allies. Such a small scale border adjustment, of course, gains them nothing in terms of improving the German economy. They need a large conquest to get an opportunity to plunder the entire country.
Their best bet would be to calm down after Munich and hope Stalin starts acting up. Which I doubt would happen without Germany acting up.
MSZ's timeline Kalter Krieg was a good description of what would happen. The biggest issue in any such timeline is getting around the basic insolvency of the Nazi economy. They simply painted themselves into a corner and without either internal unrest (resulting from increased inflation and unemployment as armaments and other government sponsored projects get scaled down), some plunder of the neighbors through war or getting access to an outside finance, this being most unlikely option, they have no way out.
The main issue in everything I said is the character of Nazi ideology itself. Perpetuating its major tenants required constant plunder and war. Perpetual conflict itself was a purpose and a goal, not a means to an end. That is what ultimately doomed them.
Kongzilla
Banned
Can Goring scale back the warmongering while playing on the Nationalist sentiments of other countries to make a few friends.
If there was no WW2 they wouldn't need to surpass America would they, and the USSR wouldn't be quite as large as the OTL cold war. Does Nazi Germany really need to supply their buddies to make friends do they. I'm not big on economics and such.
If they keep relations with Nationalist China warm and the Oil in Italian Libya is discovered what happens.
If there was no WW2 they wouldn't need to surpass America would they, and the USSR wouldn't be quite as large as the OTL cold war. Does Nazi Germany really need to supply their buddies to make friends do they. I'm not big on economics and such.
If they keep relations with Nationalist China warm and the Oil in Italian Libya is discovered what happens.
All this would mean a significant change of ideology, moderating many and eliminating some of the basic premises of Nazism. Can happen, perhaps even Goering can be an agent of such a change. But the point is it cannot happen overnight. Goering would need to use magic tricks at some point to avoid alienating the base of the Nazi party and causing internal unrest. Or an iron fist, to which, admittedly, he was no stranger.
Obviously Libyan oil and Chinese resources would go a long way to mend the resource situation.
And now, in a self promotion that I tried to avoid
, I will point you to my own timeline, in addition to earlier mentioned [URL="https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=231829]Kalter Krieg[/URL], which unfortunately, due to author being banned has been discontinued.Nietzsche
Banned
This is arguably the best part of a Goering-Germany. He didn't care for Lebensraum, preferring the Mitteleuropa concept.Shaby said:
The problem is that, any allies Germany picks in this portion of the world is going to likely piss off one of its neighbors.
Any Reich under Goering is going to be much more bog-standard fascist military dictatorship. Especially if he can ensure Hess, Goebbels and Himmler also bite it during the coup/soon after.
Deleted member 1487
Goering was worse for the economy than Hitler, as it was Goering who ran the economy IOTL, NOT Hitler. Yes, in some ways Goering was responding to Hitler's changing demands, but when left to his own devices there was only chaos because he let his subordinates compete rather than achieve, because if they achieved they would try to overthrow him. I can easily imagine that he'd quickly start turning to purges like Stalin to maintain his position, because he trusted few of his subordinates and none of the able ones. He would have probably had Milch killed if not for Hitler saying that he was needed, while he also appointed Udet, even though both he and Goering knew he was unqualified for the position, but he needed someone less competent than himself to disempower Milch in the Aviation Ministry.
How about this: the war ends after the invasion of France and there is no invasion of Russia (or there is one, but ends in a stalemate where Germany gains Baltic states, Bielorussia, Ukraine and perhaps the Caucasus). When Hitler dies (in the 40s/early 50s), someone who is less insane takes power (Speer, Goring, or Goebbels(?)). The Germans loot Europe, create a EU and form their own bloc. The Nazi ideology has to be changed so its not/less warmongering and all white christian Europeans are considered Aryan (but some are more Aryan than others of course), which isn't that unlikely in such a scenario (and as Nazi Germany is totalitarian it wouldn't be that hard for the fuhrer to implement such a change). If they avoid nuclear wars and big economic crises nazi Germany might survive for a long time, even maybe to the present day (in a much different form however).
While it's not really what you were asking for, this timeline seems pretty good, have a look at it maybe:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...lence-NSDAP-1936-1991-(History-and-background)
While it's not really what you were asking for, this timeline seems pretty good, have a look at it maybe:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...lence-NSDAP-1936-1991-(History-and-background)
Nietzsche
Banned
And how is that any different than what happened under Hitler OTL? Hitler found the day-to-day operations of a country to be boring, and thus removed himself as much as he could from that process. The problem is that the way the government worked, the way he'd -made- it work, nothing could happen without Hitler's say-so. Honestly we should rename 'Byzantine', as compared to the Nazi system, Eastern Rome was a paragon of efficiency.
I feel you're being a little unfair. Goering was no teddy bear, but(like Stalin, really) his ruthlessness had pragmatic reasons. I just don't see Goering offing people left & right once he's obtained the highest office in the nation.
Deleted member 1487
Without Hitler Goering's worst proclivities would be unleashed. Goering was a kleptocrat of the worst sort who had no long term goals outside of what Hitler wanted; without Hitler driving the economy toward an end goal however inefficiently through Goering, Goering on his own would just live large with he sycophants rather than work toward a goal and keep the economy churning. There wouldn't be a war if Goering were in charge and there is a fair amount of evidence that he would be depressed if Hitler died. Of course if Hitler was getting removed by the military, they would just take out the Nazi leadership, which means Goering. He would not take over, because he would turn on the conspirators. Let's say Hitler is assassinated by a civilian, which he very nearly was several times before the Sudetenland crisis. In that case Goering is depressed and avoids war, probably begging Schacht to return to manage the economy to prevent it from collapsing. Goering just turns into a shitty version of Kim Sung Il.
No, his 'offing' people would have reasons: removing threats to his power. Sure he could dismiss people, but there would be some that he would feel threatened by and the Night of Long Knives demonstrated that he wasn't shy about brutally slaughtering his rivals or later with Blomberg engineering their public disgrace and downfall.