The Anglo/American - Nazi War

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CalBear

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I would have thought Finland would be aligned with the Axis powers, and thus unwilling to pass weapons to anti-German armed groups.
The are aligned with the Reich. However, they have managed to do that without becoming a wholly owned subsidiary, which happened in France and the other states under actual occupation. There are no Gestapo Agents "advising" the Finnish internal security agencies, as a result some material makes it through thanks to a combination of sympathetic and corrupt officials (same goes for Turkey, but that is very difficult path one that the Reich is very sensitive about since the oil fields and the pipelines are very vulnerable to sabotage).

Not a huge amount gets through, some ammunition on occasion, but most of what gets through is "humanitarian" mostly medical supplies that are actually bought in Finland (at relatively high price points) and some straight up economic supports (counterfeit occupation Reichmarks in the main, although a bit of "regular" Reichmarks, some of which are even real, are included).
 
From what I can tell, iTTL, Finland wasn't really punished for its choice of "friends" iTTL.

Also, why did Finland reach the top tier of economies outside the A4 when Sweden did not?
 
From what I can tell, iTTL, Finland wasn't really punished for its choice of "friends" iTTL.

Also, why did Finland reach the top tier of economies outside the A4 when Sweden did not?
Luck most likely. Also as OTL alot of people probably remembered why Finland was forced into the arms of the Reich and didn't blame to hard.

In contrast Sweden was surrounded for two decades and probably forced into collaboration by default which would have done the economy all kinds of bad.
 
Luck most likely. Also as OTL alot of people probably remembered why Finland was forced into the arms of the Reich and didn't blame to hard.

In contrast Sweden was surrounded for two decades and probably forced into collaboration by default which would have done the economy all kinds of bad.

Well...

A Nazi colossus that could easily wipe Sweden out might be a little bit annoyed by them drifting to the US.
 
Well...

A Nazi colossus that could easily wipe Sweden out might be a little bit annoyed by them drifting to the US.
Well even OTL Sweden spent four years browning its pants with Nazi's on three sides and no ability to trade with the west. Trapped for decades they'd be highly intergrated into Axis Europe by default and economic catastrophy was shared by all.

In contrast Finland probably played it smart, diversified as much as possible and got really lucky.
 
Well even OTL Sweden spent four years browning its pants with Nazi's on three sides and no ability to trade with the west. Trapped for decades they'd be highly intergrated into Axis Europe by default and economic catastrophy was shared by all.

In contrast Finland probably played it smart, diversified as much as possible and got really lucky.

I pictured the Nazis dispensing with pretense and straight up occupying Sweden to get those delicious ores.
 
Well even OTL Sweden spent four years browning its pants with Nazi's on three sides and no ability to trade with the west. Trapped for decades they'd be highly intergrated into Axis Europe by default and economic catastrophy was shared by all.

In contrast Finland probably played it smart, diversified as much as possible and got really lucky.
Also, as a cobelligerant/ally Finland probably had more leeway than Sweden did.
 
Depends on how pragmatic.

The base problem of the Reich WAS the Nazi Party. Change them enough that they are no longer stealing everything that is insufficiently welded in place, stop murdering, on an industrial scale, anyone who doesn't fit into their ubermensch standards, and supporting their economy by territorial acquisition by force of arms and they are no longer the Nazis.

Yes, very much agreed.

If not for the resumption of the air war, you could plausibly argue that the economy of a Nazi-conquered Europe would be creaking pretty bad by the ATL early fifties. Proposing something like Speer and a cabal of Heer retirees who are frankly sick of all this shit deciding to kick the whole rotten edifice of the Nazi Party over and a resulting civil war in which the WAllies are forced to swoop in quickly and pick up as many pieces as they can would be an interesting departure from your base scenario. A whole different kind of horrible (imagine an Eastern Europe pockmarked with cancerous ass-pimples of Nazi settler holdouts), but interesting.

Biggest issue for WAllies actually would be France and the Low Countries. Into the early ATL '50s the WAllies still saw them as occupied friends, no fellow travelers with Berlin (something that was true into ATL 1948-49 when it became clear that the Calvary wasn't going to be riding over the horizon and France especially decided it had to accept the new order and do what it could to regain it place in European affairs).

This is actually one of the most depressing and plausible portions of your TL for me. OTL, collaborators and home-grown fascism have been kind of swept under the rug, but historically there was a generous sprinkling of them in the body politic of Western Europe, and they aren't just going to vanish absent an invasion.
 
Yes, very much agreed.

If not for the resumption of the air war, you could plausibly argue that the economy of a Nazi-conquered Europe would be creaking pretty bad by the ATL early fifties. Proposing something like Speer and a cabal of Heer retirees who are frankly sick of all this shit deciding to kick the whole rotten edifice of the Nazi Party over and a resulting civil war in which the WAllies are forced to swoop in quickly and pick up as many pieces as they can would be an interesting departure from your base scenario. A whole different kind of horrible (imagine an Eastern Europe pockmarked with cancerous ass-pimples of Nazi settler holdouts), but interesting.


In other words, Nazism was impossible to reform into a kinder, gentler, but still brutal version?

While Soviet Communism always had a chance to reform, the pillars of Nazism (genocide, plunder, and conquest) were too ingrained into the system to actually reform?


This is actually one of the most depressing and plausible portions of your TL for me. OTL, collaborators and home-grown fascism have been kind of swept under the rug, but historically there was a generous sprinkling of them in the body politic of Western Europe, and they aren't just going to vanish absent an invasion.

The other issue is that ITTL fascism...worked for a while.

TTL, if your a German kid who grows up in a world where the Nazi ideology conquered this vast, resource-rich nation, your not going to really question the ideology. French people have seen Germany triumphant and Britain forced to retreat to its island. While one should not bow to fascism, when one is stuck in a fascist dominated world, most people had to find the space under the thumb of Nazism to stay alive.
 

In other words, Nazism was impossible to reform into a kinder, gentler, but still brutal version?

While Soviet Communism always had a chance to reform, the pillars of Nazism (genocide, plunder, and conquest) were too ingrained into the system to actually reform?
The fact that stuff like gulags, purges, and the Holodomor were side-effects of the ideology of Soviet Communism and were not reasons the Communist Party existed in the first place as it, despite the crimes it inflicted, was founded on "positive" humanistic notions, unlike Nazism, where the Holocaust, Lebensraum, and Generalplan Ost were part and parcel of the core principles of Nazism is why this is the case.
 
Yeah, Nazism not just required but celebrated mass murder and Darwinian competition between ethnic groups and nations. Crucially, it didn't see diplomacy as legitimate or desirable; treaties, agreements, and negotiation were just one more tool in a universal struggle for ultimate dominance and as such made poor adjuncts to brute force at best, and the history of Nazi 'diplomacy' bears that out. After Barbarossa there was literally no guarantee the Nazi regime could offer another power that it could plausibly trust; Hitler's word was garbage and the whole word knew it. The negotiated surrender of such a power was an impossibility; no coexistence was possible as long as it retained any sort of striking power.

OTL, it was snuffed out after twelve brief years; ITTL, it staggered on another 14 at massive human cost, but in neither was it an ideology that could have been reformed.

(RE: fascism 'working' - it's less that it worked and more that it had another decade-plus to pillage resources to sustain it. Nazi Germany's structure was that of a bandit state - what it couldn't or didn't want to create, it stole, and ITTL it gorged itself on European Russia in addition to the rest of Europe. All the bodies fed into the furnace kept it going for a while, but I think CalBear shows the limitations of that approach pretty convincingly. Sooner or later you run out of things to steal.)
 
The fact that stuff like gulags, purges, and the Holodomor were side-effects of the ideology of Soviet Communism and were not reasons the Communist Party existed in the first place as it, despite the crimes it inflicted, was founded on "positive" humanistic notions, unlike Nazism, where the Holocaust, Lebensraum, and Generalplan Ost were part and parcel of the core principles of Nazism is why this is the case.

Yeah. The Soviet Union could've easily lived up to its ideals without falling apart. If Lenin had not been such a ruthless extremist, and Stalin's rise to power had been deterred, Soviet Russia could've remained an actual nation run by workers' councils.

The Nazi ideology, however, was a system that WAS built off of the idea that one must cut other guys throat to achieve greatness.

Yeah, Nazism not just required but celebrated mass murder and Darwinian competition between ethnic groups and nations. Crucially, it didn't see diplomacy as legitimate or desirable; treaties, agreements, and negotiation were just one more tool in a universal struggle for ultimate dominance and as such made poor adjuncts to brute force at best, and the history of Nazi 'diplomacy' bears that out. After Barbarossa there was literally no guarantee the Nazi regime could offer another power that it could plausibly trust; Hitler's word was garbage and the whole word knew it. The negotiated surrender of such a power was an impossibility; no coexistence was possible as long as it retained any sort of striking power.

OTL, it was snuffed out after twelve brief years; ITTL, it staggered on another 14 at massive human cost, but in neither was it an ideology that could have been reformed.

I'm paraphrasing a bit, but Gandhi once said that Nazism is imperialistic violence WITHOUT any kind of humanitarian mission.

The Nazis never pretended they were "uplifting" a savage people, or spreading Christianity. They were like "you Slavs and Jews are monstrous vermin, and I am going to take your shit."



(RE: fascism 'working' - it's less that it worked and more that it had another decade-plus to pillage resources to sustain it. Nazi Germany's structure was that of a bandit state - what it couldn't or didn't want to create, it stole, and ITTL it gorged itself on European Russia in addition to the rest of Europe. All the bodies fed into the furnace kept it going for a while, but I think CalBear shows the limitations of that approach pretty convincingly. Sooner or later you run out of things to steal.)

What I mean by "working" is that Nazism ITTL proved, in the eyes of many, to be something that could achieve its goals.

The average person living in 1943 ITTL isn't really aware of the whole structural problems with Nazism. They are only aware of the fact that this central European nation conquered the largest nation on Earth. Going into 1953, this state is know providing an excellent standard of living for the German people.

OTL, a person who witnessed the fall of Saigon in 1975 wouldn't guess that within 16 years, the Soviet Union would fade from memory. But it was only in the 1980s that the profound economic and social weaknesses of the Soviet Union became apparent to most people. Even then, no one expected Soviet Russia to vanish completely.
 
Yeah. The Soviet Union could've easily lived up to its ideals without falling apart. If Lenin had not been such a ruthless extremist, and Stalin's rise to power had been deterred, Soviet Russia could've remained an actual nation run by workers' councils.
Probably not. Leaving aside the practicality of that type of system in and of itself (a discussion which belongs in chat) all of the Soviet early leadership were ruthless murderers who would probably only of been more competent than Stalin.For example, Trotsky (who probably would of taken the reins if Stalin had been eliminated) was the one who actually hatched all of those industrialization schemes which lead to Holodomor and was directly involved in to all of the Red Army's numerous war crimes during the Russian Civil war. All he would of done is not purge the officer corps and be dead set on spreading the Murderous ideology across Europe,which while it may have the positive side effect of eliminating the Nazis in the short term, it would of ultimately screwed everyone as Facism is seemingly Justified and a second world war is sparked
 
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Probably not. Leaving aside the practicality of that type of system in and of itself (a discussion which belongs in chat) all of the Soviet early leadership were ruthless murderers who would probably only of been more competent than Stalin.For example, Trotsky (who probably would of taken the remind if Stalin had not been eliminated) was the one who actually hatched all of those industrialization schemes which lead to Holodomor and was directly involved in to all of the Red Army's numerous war crimes. All he would of done is not purge the officer corps and be dead set on spreading the Murderous ideology across Europe,which while it may have the positive side effect of eliminating the Nazis in the short term, it would of ultimately screw everyone as Facism is seemingly Justified and a second world war is sparked

The point is that the Soviet Union could've reform. But Nazism was BUILT (economically and socially) on oppression, subjugation, and dehumanization.
 
The level of psychopathic aggression that Nazism showed really wasn't comparable to anything in the Soviet toolkit. They were never that aggressive-slash-insane, and they could be trusted to a point (maybe don't send them your gold reserves).

It's the lack of higher ideals plus the glorification of amoral violence for its own sake as an aesthetic standard that made Nazism so repugnant and so dangerous.
 
@Bookmark1995 @GOU Limiting Factor I agree with both of you, and wish to add my two-pence on this train of thought. Even at their worst (and I am as far from an apologist for Communism or the Soviet Union as you can get), the Soviets were rational. There was some logic of statecraft behind their actions, even as immoral and heinous as they were. The ultimate goals and endgame for Soviet interests were based in reality more often than not.

The same could never be said in any fashion whatsoever for Nazism. It was probably the most "successful" death cult to have ever taken power. By that, I don't just mean its incredible ruthlessness or cravenness, but the very heart of its doctrine and reason for being was the stuff of nightmares, and no mountain of bodies or burned-down countries would've been enough for the Third Reich as long as it lived. And considering how short a time it was on this Earth, that's saying something.
 
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