Is there anyway for the Nazi government to remain in control of Germany without total victory against the allies?
The idea I have for an outcome would be some sort of Germany where, after the Nazis take over, Hitler dies (either from natural causes or assasination), and more moderate members of the party take control. This could be before the war or during it. Whatever peace that comes after is more out of a stalemate.
One plus would be for Nazi racial doctrine to be dropped, either from internal or external pressures.
Another plus would be to have the Nazi regime survive to the present day, gradually liberalizing from stricter policies of the past.
This has been the subject of several novels. The problem--who was a moderate Nazi?
If one looks at the July plotters plan for a post-Hitler Germany, it only planned to swop the top Nazis with Far-right wing nationalist Army Officers. They thought about keeping Speer-- who was really a party outsider.
Look at them.
Goering--because he came from an upper-class background was considered a moderate in the 1930s, but he was instrumental in setting up the Gestapo and the (not-extermination) Concentration Camps.
Goebbels represented the Left wing of the NSDAP-- with the accent on the socialism and would have tried eliminating the capitalist part of the German economy making enemies of the people who really put the NAzis into power.
Himmler--well, a space cadet really totally wedded to the racial policies.
The Gauleiters, who controlled the rank and file of the party were mainly 'old-fighters'--all died-in-the-wool anti-semites.
The 'second generation' of Nazis represented by the likes of Heydrich and von Shirach were better educated, but had, if anything, more extreme philosophy.
The NSDAP needed race enemies as surely as communism needed class enemies. A scaled back Nazi party would look a bit like the Falangists.
When Stalin died the Bolsheviks became more liberal. Beria was bumped off,
millions rehabilitated from the Gulag and some of the worst excesses of the regime admitted. But people under Russian domination didn't get much of an improvement to their lot for another 50 years.
You might work on one theme.
Communism/Fascism/Nationalism were all reactions to the failiure of capitalism. Fascism itself was a reaction to the Bolshevik revolutions and Liberal-Socialist. In the 1930s, Fascism appeared to be a workable system and it operated in more countries than one usually thinks.
At the start of WW2 the only democratic ( by modern standards) governments in Europe were Britain, France, the Scandinavian and Benelux countries. Poor, long-suffering Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary were Fascist as was Italy, Spain and Portugal. There was no democracy in the independent countries of Asia ( Chang Kai Shek's regime was typically fascist) and most South American countries adopted the system.
Fascism seemed to work--for a while and must have looked pretty good to those guys on bread lines during the Depression.