Was the Second World War Avoidable?

The other 10% of the time, a more competent Nazi takes his place and fascism survives a couple of decades longer as a viable ideology.

I don’t think you can pin a second Great War mostly on Hitler without taking Versailles, German irredentism and the threat of a rapidly-industrializing Bolshevist state into account. He was a key figure, but there were plenty of contenders ready to take his place.

Naw, the other 10% of the time Germany starts the war and loses even harder. A “more competent” Fascist regime wouldn’t take the sort of gambles Hitler did that allowed Germany such big early gains.
 
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IMHO the Munich Accord was the point of no return. The Rhineland, Anschluß, re-armament all enhanced Hitler's prestige internally. Failure at any of those points might well have resulted in reversal of the Nazi dictatorship or keeping it caged in Germany. With Munich, and the subsequent dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, it became apparent that the anti-German alliance system was a sham. Furthermore Hitler now had five years of "proof" that his plans for continuing expansion and war were viable against a soft and squishy west. The success of Munich and the subsequent Czech dismemberment also convinced Stalin to switch horses which led to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement. Had the UK and France supported the Czechs, even with some nods to a more privileged minority status for the Sudentendeutsch but no border changes, the cascade that led to September, 1939 is halted. After that, hwo knows - would Britain have tolerated Plan z, and so forth.

Of course the usual "Hitler dies in a car crash in 1931" sort of thing could very well prevent WWII, were any other Nazi leaders charismatic and driven enough to achieve the electoral success and push themselves in to being Chancellor (and then go to rule by decree)? My point is that here I agree with Churchill to a large extent, had the British and French stood up to Hitler between 1933 and 1938 at some point, and done so quite firmly, WWII in September, 1939 would not have happened. Would Hitler have been thrown out? Would the Nazis have been replaced by something else? Would the generals have "pulled the trigger"? Hard to say.

Absent war starting when it did, with the resources of an intact Czechoslovakia under German control, could Germany have sustained the rearmament plans? This is doubtful, and the consensus seems to be that British and French rearmament/reorganization was going to leap past Germany in the near future. Also, of course, an free Czechoslovakia as part of an anti-German coalition would make life miserable for the German military...
 
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What the Weimar Republic may have really done well with, though, might be an equivalent to De Gaulle, an unquestionable patriot and war hero who is hostile to the Soviets (satisfying the conservative right) while also anti-fascist, loyal to the democracy and aware that some state intervention was needed to alleviate the condition of the working class (so satisfying the liberals and social democrats). This man as Chancellor might smooth relations with France and Poland in the interest of containing the Soviets, easing the concerns of the army and militarists by renegotiating Versailles to allow some limited rearmanent and remiliterising the Rhineland. Having the confidence of the people, he might then move the country toward a new constitution that offered more stability and had more resilience against extremist, antidemocratic parties like the NSDAP and KPD. ...

There were one or two Chancellors who had the juice to do this. Not necessarily personalities like DeGaulle, or Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, but capable politicians. Unfortunately the French leaders of those years failed to grasp the opportunity. They offered nothing useful to the German leaders. The Brits who were a bit more sympathetic failed , in they left the decision to the French. So did the US for that matter, ignoring its considerable economic interests in Europe and choosing political isolationism. All moral failures in leadership. The Dawes and Young Plans of 1924 & 1929 were cosmetic changes, reworking some temporary economic problems to redirect cash flow & keep the complex of loan payments flowing into the US and European banks. But neither plan solved fundamentals. After 1934 the bankruptcy of French stubbornness, British passiveness, and US isolationism policies was complete. The German centrist leaders were out of power & the monster emerged.
 
Mussolini only decided to invade Greece and Albania once Germany gave it the go ahead by invading Poland and declaring war on the allies, before then Italy was on good terms with Britain and France.

Italy "invaded" (occupied without resistance) Albania in late 1939. The other powers basically ignored this.

Italy declared war on Britain and France in June 1940, ending "good terms". Italy invaded Greece in November 1940 - incidentally without telling Germany first.
 
If a less expansion-minded German alt-Nazi regime had in September 1939 limited its war aims in an invasion of Poland to seizure of the West Prussian "corridor" and Danzig (and after extorting the Memel strip off Lithuania as in OTL) only, and halted offensive operations once they had attained those boundaries, leaving say 80-85% of Polish state territory intact and pointedly not advancing any annexations of Posen or Polish Silesia, is there a chance they could have brokered a reasonably easy peace with the UK and France, with the fig-leaf justification of having merely righted "unfair" post-1919 border delineations in the east?
First, nearly all German nationalists wanted to regain the 1914 borders. Posen was big, and there was a lot of friction over Silesia (the Freikorps was active there). So it would be very difficult for Hitler to justify war for just the Corridor.

Second, this doesn't work with the Hitler-Stalin deal. Stalin can't take half of Poland in this situation. The Poles aren't broken, and will fight seriously. Stalin might settle for the Baltic states and a free hand with Finland; but OTL he didn't move on those areas until Poland was gone.

Three, while we know in hindsight that the Germans are just holding back, to contemporary observers it would look as though the Poles are holding them off. Thus the French would continue with their planned build up and attack into the Rhineland. And the Germans have to leave a lot of troops in the east to contain the Poles.
 
Perhaps if the White Russians win the civil war, you may butterfly Hitler away as there will be no Communist boogeyman. The Pacific is much more complicated. The Japanese already have territorial concessions in China. You would require the civilian government to keep the militarists at bay which got more difficult once the Depression set in.
 
If Germany didn’t start WW2, then the Soviets would have.

I doubt that. At least Stalin wasn't stupid enough that he would had went to war against whole Europe. You would need someone aggressive and stupid leader instead Stalin. Stalin was ratherly ruthless opportunist who took that what he knew could to take. But he is not going fight against whole Europe.
 
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