"scorched earth" Germany

what if Albert Speer (and others) carry out a nationwide scorched earth policy in Germany under the orders of Hitler? or Hitler didn't let him get away with not doing it? what would Germany look like after the war through to today, how much would it change things?
 

Cook

Banned
Reconstruction would certainly be slowed initially, and famine just after the war couldn’t be ruled out.
 
How much scorchier than OTL are we talking? I mean, the strategic bombing didn't leave a whole lot standing by 1945.
 
How much scorchier than OTL are we talking? I mean, the strategic bombing didn't leave a whole lot standing by 1945.

well thats kind of the question, I know that a lot of the German War manufacturing went underground, how much of that turned into post-war manufacturing I do not know, how much rail-lines or whatever else was left after the bombings I do not know.
 

Cook

Banned
How much scorchier than OTL are we talking? I mean, the strategic bombing didn't leave a whole lot standing by 1945.

Destruction of all power stations, rail networks, sewerage systems, factories, hospitals…

If you can think of it, it was meant to be destroyed. Speer probably earned his pardon from the death sentence in not carrying out those orders; destruction of the rail network alone probably would have resulted in widespread famine.
 
Millions of Germans would suffer and you'd see a lot more deaths through famine, malnutrition and disease.
 

Cook

Banned
No and no Boonz.
The Morgenthau Plan was never put into practice and there was never deliberate starvation of civilians or Prisoners in any of the occupied countries.

Go read something with a bit more credibility than Wikimakeupwhateverbullshityouwantnoonesevergoingtocheckpedia.
 

BooNZ

Banned
No and no Boonz.
The Morgenthau Plan was never put into practice and there was never deliberate starvation of civilians or Prisoners in any of the occupied countries.

Go read something with a bit more credibility than Wikimakeupwhateverbullshityouwantnoonesevergoingtocheckpedia.

The scorched earth concept reasembled in part an agrarian Germany concept I recall was mooted by Roosevelt. The Morgenthau Plan itself may not have been put into practice, but it inspired those plans that were.

Perhaps 'deliberate stavation of civilians' should instead be phrased as the 'deliberate withholding of food suppplies from civilians, who subsequently got really, really hungry...' The scale and effect of the withholding and the scale and effect of the hunger are the debatable points.
 
Top