What happens to Germany if WWII is avoided?

I'm curious and hope some one has some ideas- several times Hitler did things that if the international community had stood up against him he would have backed down (occupying the Rhineland, if the French had stood ground and said "that's a violation and we're willing to fight" Hitler would have pulled out). What if Hitler never is appeased and never feels comfortable starting war in 1939 against Poland? What happens to Nazi Germany? How does Europe's history unfold? How does the Sino-Japanese War play out, do they still go on to invade French, British, Portuguese, and American colonies? Does no WWII lead to longer colonialism and a more protracted process for independence, possibly even wars? Whatever happens to Winston Churchill?!
 

Deleted member 1487

I'm curious and hope some one has some ideas- several times Hitler did things that if the international community had stood up against him he would have backed down (occupying the Rhineland, if the French had stood ground and said "that's a violation and we're willing to fight" Hitler would have pulled out). What if Hitler never is appeased and never feels comfortable starting war in 1939 against Poland? What happens to Nazi Germany? How does Europe's history unfold? How does the Sino-Japanese War play out, do they still go on to invade French, British, Portuguese, and American colonies? Does no WWII lead to longer colonialism and a more protracted process for independence, possibly even wars? Whatever happens to Winston Churchill?!

Well the French couldn't oppose him in 1936 because investors fled French banks in the run up to the reoccupation effectively rendering the system insolvent and the French government unable to finance mobilization. Plus the army was convinced the Germans would fight and that would require full mobilization and would probably cause Britain to back out on France and exert economic leverage to prevent a war, which would crush the French economy; Hitler knew all about these problems, which is why he was willing to risk the reoccupation in the first place. You'd need a lot PODs prior to this to get the Allies to stand up in 1936 or really even in 1938.

Your best bet would be having Chamberlain being willing to fight over Czechoslovakia and backing the German resistance that was offering a coup against Hitler to head off war. IOTL they didn't trust these guys and Chamberlain still thought he could work with Hitler by cutting a deal and buying more time for rearmament to enforce that deal. So have him be willing to take the resistance up on the offer and at that point you could well have Hitler killed in the coup:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_resistance_to_Nazism#Munich_crisis
On 13 September, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, announced that he would visit Germany to meet Hitler and defuse the crisis over Czechoslovakia. This threw the conspirators into uncertainty. When, on 20 September, it appeared that the negotiations had broken down and that Chamberlain would resist Hitler’s demands, the coup preparations were revived and finalised. All that was required was the signal from Halder.

On 28 September, however, Chamberlain backed down and agreed to a meeting in Munich, at which he accepted the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. This plunged the resistance into demoralisation and division. Halder said he would no longer support a coup. The other conspirators were bitterly critical of Chamberlain, but were powerless to act. This was the nearest approach to a successful conspiracy against Hitler before the plot of 20 July 1944.


As war again grew more likely in mid-1939, the plans for a pre-emptive coup were revived. Oster was still in contact with Halder and Witzleben, although Witzleben had been transferred to Frankfurt am Main, reducing his ability to lead a coup attempt. At a meeting with Goerdeler, Witzleben agreed to form a network of army commanders willing to take part to prevent a war against the western powers. But support in the officer corps for a coup had dropped sharply since 1938. Most officers, particularly those from Prussian landowning backgrounds, were strongly anti-Polish. Just before the invasion of Poland in August 1939, General Eduard Wagner who was one of the officers involved in the abortive putsch of September 1938, wrote in a letter to his wife: “We believe we will make quick work of the Poles, and in truth, we are delighted at the prospect. That business must be cleared up" (Emphasis in the original)[83] The German historian Andreas Hillgruber commented that in 1939 the rampant anti-Polish feelings in the German Army officer corps served to bind the military together with Hitler in supporting Fall Weiss in a way that Fall Grün did not.[83]


This nevertheless marked an important turning point. In 1938 the plan had been for the army, led by Halder and if possible Brauchitsch, to depose Hitler. This was now impossible, and a conspiratorial organisation was to be formed in the army and civil service instead.

September 1938 is the best time to get the army to coup Hitler and upon that they might well find themselves in a civil war over it, but the Nazi party was significantly weaker politically then it would become after the Munich Deal with Hitler was proven right that the Allies wouldn't find and he was able to them break the Munich Deal without significant consequence. Plus the German military was much weaker without annexing Czech lands and getting their finances and armaments to equip over 22 division, plus all their coal, industry, and electrical infrastructure (much of which actually serviced Germany).

If the army supports the coup based on Allied willingness to fight Hitler probably dies even if the coup fails. In the end the coup probably would fail given how much of the military had already been Nazified, even though there was a lot of anger in the officer over what had happened to Fritsch and Blomberg earlier in the year. So the conspirators are probably executed for their troubles, Goering likely takes over as the 2nd most powerful Nazi in 1938, Germany is stymied from annexing anything else, but the Nazis remain in power.

At that point Germany is clearly too weak to fight and without the Czech inheritance Germany is forced to abandon rearmament and deal with their finances; this is probably fatal to the Nazis in the long run, as the Austrian money would dry up by the end of 1939 at the latest even if they stop recklessly spending, while exports might be tough to sell after they removed their best and most internationally trusted economic guru, Hjalmar Schacht. So its likely things get pretty rough for the Nazis by 1940 over the economy, as unemployment is going to be a major problem. Their entire legitimacy was based on delivering jobs and economic/political stability, which will dry up once rearmament does. Living within their means means going back to normal economic policy, which would be a lot better than things were in 1932, but still far short of what was achieved IOTL in 1939 and on and far less than the Nazis need to keep the public passive.

I imagine the restive public ends up forcing the Nazis out no later than 1942, but then its anyone's guess what happens given the butterflies set off by the political mess left by Hitler's death in late 1938. Undoubtedly the military would have to step in and seize control, which Germany's neighbors would like not and they would not be very tolerant once Germany's economy stops spending on their goods; IOTL a lot of the leeway Germany got was its economic power to buy off potential rivals. Europe's economies will take a hit as a result of the German downturn and political issues and probably create another crisis, but probably one short of war. Still Europe rearms and gets a fair bit more hostile all around come the 1940s even without war. Germany will have missed its chance and be left to try and find an acceptable government based on domestic and international pressure. Your guess is as good as mine whether it will be a Fascist military linked regime or a civilian one like what emerged in Greece after its military Junta fell.
 
An interesting question

The difficulty, of course, is avoiding WWII in the first place ;)...any rational leadership in Germany would have realized it was suicide to go up against the Soviet Union and the Western Allies simultaneously. And the Nazi leadership, to put it mildly, was not rational.

My solution to this problem would be to somehow prevent the Italo-Abyssinian war: not sure how to keep Mussolini from taking this course of action, but let's suppose for the sake of argument that he at least decides to delay it a few years past 1935. Without the unprovoked invasion of Ethiopia, Italy is never pushed into the waiting arms of Nazi Germany, and the nucleus of the Axis never forms. Indeed, Italy and Germany remain hostile due to conflicting spheres of influence (il Duce would have liked to avoid the Anschluss) and the question of ethnic Germans in South Tyrol. Germany and Japan would still be friendly throughout the late 1930s (provided the former doesn't decide to skew towards Nationalist China too blatantly), and perhaps an Anti-Comintern Pact between the two could still form: but there were many in the Japanese military who still supported the Anglo-Japanese accord, so perhaps there would be no formalization of the friendship.

Without the Axis, I think Germany will be a little less forceful in pursuing her revanchist claims. Some will be gained (I think that at least the Sudetenland and possibly Memelland will fall to the Nazis), but if open war with Italy/France/Soviet Union is avoided, WWII is butterflied away. (Kill off/depose Hitler, and this becomes a heck of a lot easier...)

As far as what happens after, I'm not sure. It would be interesting to see how long Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire will survive as their recognizable tyrannical selves in (relative) peacetime. I don't think Japan will opt to openly invade European possessions in the Far East; subterfuge will be far more sensible.
 
From what I understand, this would pretty much require removing the Nazis from power, as their world view was that unless they launched a war to secure the resources needed to make Germany self-sufficient, the imagined World Wide Jewish Conspiracy (principally America, the British Empire and Bolshevism) would economically strangle the Reich. So the alternative to war is what they perceived as the annihilation of the German race, meaning Hitler's likely to go for broke in pretty much any scenario. He's been preparing Germany for war since taking power, and at this point he'll feel he has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Assuming war is somehow avoided, Germany under the Nazis is likely to become more and more economically isolated and so accelerate consumption of its internal resources rather than living off the spoils of war. Standards of living will plummet in the early '40s, and the state will become even more repressive in response. I don't see a popular uprising being possible in this scenario, and even a palace coup would be hard given how strong a grip Hitler had on the state. Without that, Germany becomes a European North Korea, though probably with more porous borders allowing large numbers of people to escape to other countries by the mid-to-late forties.

Britain and France will continue to re-arm with US support. The USSR is harder to predict. They may set up something similar to the economic support they gave Germany under Molotov-Rippentrop, but if we're assuming no invasion of Poland then the Nazi's aren't able to offer to split the spoils, so it's not clear what they could offer the Soviets. With Soviet support, the Nazis could probably cling on longer, maybe by decades. Perhaps the Soviets would see this as a good distraction for the capitalists, but it's hard to see the situation remaining stable.
 
Hmm. Couldn't the Nazis blame any economic troubles on "Jewish saboteurs", "Communist wreckers" or "French spies"?

If war is avoided somehow, I have confidence that the Nazis will be able to find enough trade partners to avoid a complete North Korea situation - plenty of people still wanted German goods, and Hungary, Britain and America were plenty interested in selling goods to Germans. So yes, if war is avoided, there would be a crash as the costs of the excessive re-armament catch up with the Germans, but I think there is a chance for the Nazis to hold on and for the economy to recover.

I wonder if the Germans will end up taking their long-term economic performance by diverting too much resources to the military? (Like how the Soviet Union killed its civilian R&D by diverting too many technicians to military R&D.)

The effects of Nazi ideology and Nazi social policy on German culture if it continues for a couple generations would be pretty scary.

fasquardon
 

Deleted member 1487

Hmm. Couldn't the Nazis blame any economic troubles on "Jewish saboteurs", "Communist wreckers" or "French spies"?
They can try, but that's not going to play with the public.

If war is avoided somehow, I have confidence that the Nazis will be able to find enough trade partners to avoid a complete North Korea situation - plenty of people still wanted German goods, and Hungary, Britain and America were plenty interested in selling goods to Germans. So yes, if war is avoided, there would be a crash as the costs of the excessive re-armament catch up with the Germans, but I think there is a chance for the Nazis to hold on and for the economy to recover.
Given their debt levels all over Europe and how much they'd pissed off everyone else they are going to be in for a massive correction and with their political troubles and general corruption/party control of the economy the public is not going to give them much leeway in terms of fixing the problems before they get very upset. Germany can't buy goods due to its foreign exchange problems, so is going to be in a bad way.

I wonder if the Germans will end up taking their long-term economic performance by diverting too much resources to the military? (Like how the Soviet Union killed its civilian R&D by diverting too many technicians to military R&D.)

The effects of Nazi ideology and Nazi social policy on German culture if it continues for a couple generations would be pretty scary.

fasquardon
Yeah, its not going to be good.
 
What if Hitler never is appeased and never feels comfortable starting war in 1939 against Poland?

Here’s one: What if Poland agrees to the referendum of the future of its western provinces?

They vote to return to Germany, Germany gets WWI lands back, and then Hitler focuses on the threat of Stalin.
 
Here’s one: What if Poland agrees to the referendum of the future of its western provinces?

They vote to return to Germany, Germany gets WWI lands back, and then Hitler focuses on the threat of Stalin.

Everything I've read has said that France was Hitler's first priority.

ObWI: Poland agrees to the referendum and the western provinces vote to remain in Poland, what happens next?

fasquardon
 
I remember reading that Hitler gave up the German claim to Elsaß-Lothrigen as an overture of peace. Unless you meant something other than territorial reclamation.

I've never heard of this, but it isn't incompatible with what I read - which was that Hitler wanted to defeat France to secure his read and to humiliate them in revenge for Versailles.

fasquardon
 
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