What would a post World War Two Third Reich look like?

A post war Third Reich (for the sake of convenience I'll say that they've won in the sense they've cut the USSR our and pushed them behind the Urals and have a nasty treaty with them) would control Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. It has direct control over the Greater German Reich (Germany/Austria) the General Government Area (Poland) and the numerous Reichscommisarriates in what was once European Russia. It also has puppet states (France, Norway, the Yugoslav puppet states, the Low Countries) and its allies in Italy, Hungary, and Romania, and of those arguably only Italy and Hungary can be counted on as Hitler shafted the Romanians pretty badly.

As for things with the WAllies, well let's just say there's never the announced Unconditional Surrender policy post 1941, and beyond the air and sea war the Allies have from 1941-45 been dismantling the Empire of Japan and running interference in China. Call it by 1947-48 they realize at present they simply cannot defeat the Reich as it stands. A detente is reached where there is an armistice, but no peace treaty between the two power blocs. A "Cold War" is ensuing and the two sides developing weapons (with a Reich missile advantage arguably) to counter the other. The USSR, while defanged, is not down for the count and the WAllies are slightly busy policing Asia but wary of the Reich.

In the immediate post-1947/48 armistice the Reich demobilizes the mass of the Heer, giving men the option of joining the SS to bring that group up to 1 million men strong, while Goering is probably allowed something like 250,000 men to be in his little play army of the Luftwaffe ground forces. The Reich is the undisputed master of Europe (save for communist resistance groups and partisans across Europe, who either fight and die or go into hiding like the Spanish Maquis) with its allies possessing less than its combat power.

Economically since the Reich is suddenly going from war footing they're still looting Europe with massive "reparations" payments from France, Russia, and probably coercive economic policies with their "allies" that give the Reich all the purchasing power. Which means that for a while in Germany, life is good. Outside of Germany...well it might be good to be an Italian a Dane, or a Hungarian, but everyone else will be feeling the pinch as the Reich simply steals from them.

The big hit will be when the Fuhrer dies. Hitler is not going to outlive his father (d. at 65) as he is very unhealthy and his personal physician seemed insane. Let's say he checks out in 1953 at the ripe old age of 63. Goering (barring something spectacular) is then made leader of the Reich. Martin Bormann dies shortly after in mysterious circumstances, and anyone whom Goering dislikes is soon sent to a concentration camp.

The question then is, does Goering purge Himmler? Goebbels is a cowardly sycophant who can be relied upon to lick Goering's boots, but Himmler is dangerous since he loves power and was historically very prepared to throw his National Socialist ideals out the window when it suited him. So either he pledges loyalty to Goering, or he launches a coup to put the SS on top, cuing a brief civil war as Goering tries to use his now outnumbered Luftwaffe to save himself but he is deposed and you get Fuhrer Heinrich Himmler.

The rape of Europe continues, but how long till some inside pressure makes the Nazis react against their former enemies in the West...

After that... well Calbear wrote it best :p
 
Not sure if Fatherland is most accurate Axis victory AH scenario. At least it is very suspicious that Hitler would survive to 1960's.

Oh, I'm certainly not saying it's the be-all,
end-all look @ a Third Reich that won WWII.
But the picture it offers seems quite plausible, & it's a good read besides.
 
Actually Goering was definitely (till about 1944) the second top dog in the Reich. While his standing did suffer after the flop that was the Battle of Britain and the increasing Allied air war, he was never actually removed from his position as Hitler's successor until 1945 when Donitz was chosen in the moment when Hitler was going mad at the end. A Nazi German which (say in AANW fashion) reaches a state of detente with the West will probably have a Goering who remains powerful and Hitler's designated successor. His only real rival was Himmler, and both men trusted each other about as far as they could spit.

Honestly when Hitler dies, Goering assumes power, and if he feels he can get away with it he might purge the senior SS staff, but if he doesn't he keeps token SS guards but replaces them with his Luftwaffe ground formations. If Himmler is still alive then he probably has Goering assassinated at some point and replaces him as Fuhrer, simply put he could boss around others and had the muscle to back it up, as well as control of the Gestapo.

The only thing the two of them could probably agree on is that Martin Bohrman's life will be measured in hours if not minutes before Hitler's corpse is cold they both hated that man so much.

Well that's not completely accurate. The regular military (Heer/Kriegsmarine) was going to most likely be superseded by a more "politically reliable" force if the Nazis won, with soldiers being given the opportunity to continue serving so long as they joined the SS, and the SS expanded from its historic 38 to something like 100 Divisions or so, while the Luftwaffe might keep the (18?) field formations they formed or expand them when Goering becomes Fuhrer. The general staff will be put out to pasture. However, the Kriegsmarine will probably be the only one that survives intact (absent the planned carriers which from what I know of Goering would be a clusterfuck of the highest order).

The SS was the second strongest (and arguably second best, with some elite units) in the whole Nazi military structure. The Luftwaffe ground formations were nowhere near up to scratch, so its not much of a contest as to who was the second most powerful. The Hitler Youth was not a military organ per-se, but would simply end up as a recruiting ground for the SS.

Essentially the SS was going to become the Nazi military machine since it was loyal to the Party and had no unfortunate memories of the old Germany to fall back on or any moral scruples. The other organs of the party never held a candle to its raw strength, which was why Himmler got the SA gutted, and they would never be coming back on his watch, or Goering's.

De jure he was the successor after Hess took off. In practice, it was much more complicated. Nazi Germany was bound together by the fact that everyone swore paths to Hitler personally. That’s a key distinction; the didn’t swear to obey the Fuhrer or some “President of the Reich” (like how the U.S. military swears oaths to obey the lawful orders of the President *without regard to the man holding the office*, it’s to the office itself). See the actual text of the Hitler Oath. The key takeaway is that *it doesn’t carry over after he dies because it’s to him personally.*

What happens with the Nazi military depends a lot on when exactly Hitler dies. I am actually pretty skeptical he could live as long as a lot of alt-hist has him living given all the health problems he had. IOTL 1945 he was pretty much at the end. Without the stress of losing and the July 20th Plot, which seems to have sent him downhill, he might last a few years longer, but he still had addictions to a huge number of heavy drugs, Parkinson's, and possible late-stage syphilis along with other issues. I wouldn't put him past 1948-49 in most circumstances. If he dies then, the Wehrmacht isn't going to be fully dismantled yet. The other factor is the July 20th Plot. Hitler moving pretty slowly on beefing up the SS IOTL because he was worried about pissing off the Heer to an unhealthy level. The attempted coup is what really caused him to purge the hell out of the regular armed forces and elevate the SS faster. If Germany wins in 1943 as in AANW, which we seem to have accepted as our POD, that's going to be butterflied away because everyone involved in that plot was playing both sides of the street and only really turned against him when they started losing. So the institutional growth of the SS will be slower, leaving it weaker relative to the Luftwaffe and Heer. The other factor that's interesting is what happens in the Middle East when the borders of the allied zones in Iran and the Reich's freshly conquered Azerbaijani SSR hit each other. I honestly doubt the conflict would go cold there; I suspect there would be a long-running military campaign there on about the level of intensity of the OTL North Africa Campaign. If major ground combat is still going on (and it will be anywhere the Reich and the WAllies have a land border), it's much less likely the Heer will be dismantled. On the off-chance he dies later like in the late 1950s as in AANW, then yes, you're probably right.

The SA may or may not be reinstituted. It continued to exist right up until 1945, it just lost members as older and older men were called up for regular military service. Hitler wouldn't allow it to regain its prior prominence but he did like having his subordinates fighting with each other and he might view it as a useful tool to keep the SS focused away from any coup ideas. It would also have the function that made them keep it around IOTL, it being a useful paramilitary organization/social group for older Nazis who weren't qualified for the SS.
 
A post war Third Reich (for the sake of convenience I'll say that they've won in the sense they've cut the USSR our and pushed them behind the Urals and have a nasty treaty with them) would control Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals. It has direct control over the Greater German Reich (Germany/Austria) the General Government Area (Poland) and the numerous Reichscommisarriates in what was once European Russia. It also has puppet states (France, Norway, the Yugoslav puppet states, the Low Countries) and its allies in Italy, Hungary, and Romania, and of those arguably only Italy and Hungary can be counted on as Hitler shafted the Romanians pretty badly.

As for things with the WAllies, well let's just say there's never the announced Unconditional Surrender policy post 1941, and beyond the air and sea war the Allies have from 1941-45 been dismantling the Empire of Japan and running interference in China. Call it by 1947-48 they realize at present they simply cannot defeat the Reich as it stands. A detente is reached where there is an armistice, but no peace treaty between the two power blocs. A "Cold War" is ensuing and the two sides developing weapons (with a Reich missile advantage arguably) to counter the other. The USSR, while defanged, is not down for the count and the WAllies are slightly busy policing Asia but wary of the Reich.

In the immediate post-1947/48 armistice the Reich demobilizes the mass of the Heer, giving men the option of joining the SS to bring that group up to 1 million men strong, while Goering is probably allowed something like 250,000 men to be in his little play army of the Luftwaffe ground forces. The Reich is the undisputed master of Europe (save for communist resistance groups and partisans across Europe, who either fight and die or go into hiding like the Spanish Maquis) with its allies possessing less than its combat power.

Economically since the Reich is suddenly going from war footing they're still looting Europe with massive "reparations" payments from France, Russia, and probably coercive economic policies with their "allies" that give the Reich all the purchasing power. Which means that for a while in Germany, life is good. Outside of Germany...well it might be good to be an Italian a Dane, or a Hungarian, but everyone else will be feeling the pinch as the Reich simply steals from them.

The big hit will be when the Fuhrer dies. Hitler is not going to outlive his father (d. at 65) as he is very unhealthy and his personal physician seemed insane. Let's say he checks out in 1953 at the ripe old age of 63. Goering (barring something spectacular) is then made leader of the Reich. Martin Bormann dies shortly after in mysterious circumstances, and anyone whom Goering dislikes is soon sent to a concentration camp.

The question then is, does Goering purge Himmler? Goebbels is a cowardly sycophant who can be relied upon to lick Goering's boots, but Himmler is dangerous since he loves power and was historically very prepared to throw his National Socialist ideals out the window when it suited him. So either he pledges loyalty to Goering, or he launches a coup to put the SS on top, cuing a brief civil war as Goering tries to use his now outnumbered Luftwaffe to save himself but he is deposed and you get Fuhrer Heinrich Himmler.

The rape of Europe continues, but how long till some inside pressure makes the Nazis react against their former enemies in the West...

After that... well Calbear wrote it best :p

I will just say that if the USSR loses its territory to the Urals, it is not only defanged but decapitated.
 

Anchises

Banned
I honestly think that most people in this thread "underestimate" the Nazis.

Sure the Nazis were incompetent, evil and corrupt fucks but to think that a victorious Nazi Germany would go down in massive Civil War once Hitler dies is wishful thinking. We would probably see a short and brutal "Night of the Long Knives" and a new dictator supported by a few key power players. Who would likely come out on top depends on TTLs WW2.

And for the economy:

I really don't believe that the Nazis would fuck up worse than the Soviets did IOTL. All the inefficiency and late war crazy stuff make it easy to forget how inefficient the Soviet central planning was. Ultimately the Soviets were dependent on the West for economic survival long before the late 80s. The Soviets were dependent on Western food and dependent on the European oil market.

Would the Nazis make it as long as the Soviets did if they are completely isolated from U.S. markets? Hard to tell and depends on who wins the post-Hitler power struggle.

Would they make it as long if they have a similar amount of economic connection with the U.S. as the Soviets did IOTL? Probably yes.

Why? Three Reasons:

1) Germany was a mixed economy and a planned economy wasn't a "Holy cow".

And we wouldn't see a lot of the desperate measures of OTL. Losing the war triggered a lot of craziness...

2) The Nazis were VERY careful to guarantee a certain standard of living to the German Population. They believed into the Dolchstoßlegende and were VERY careful to not allow shortages. At some point they would have allowed more free market oriented structures to guarantee a high standard of living for the "Aryans". And there were enough qualified people to make a mixed economy work.

3) The whole plundering and the command economy were means to reach the "Endsieg".

Sure the Nazis would plunder and kill millions after their victory (I can't stress that enough: they were a bunch of unbelievaby evil degenerates) but at some point they would be forced to create a sustainable economic model. Even Himmler favored a perverted form of free market economy because of his Social Darwinist beliefs.

I don't think that the Nazis would create a booming free market economy, their own corruption and authoritarianism wouldn't allow the necessary conditions. The know-how from Weimar and a certain ideological flexibility towards economic matters would probably create something more effective than Gosplan.

Most likely scenario is a mixed economy with sluggish growth, high corruption and a bloated defense sector.

Years of "brain drain" (genocide) and large scale destruction have scarred the economy to a large degree. Outside of Germany and Austria the standard of Living would be low and even the Greater German Reich would be nowhere near as rich as the USA or OTLs Germany.

At some point in the 80s/90s the system would probably collapse due to rampant military spending and ideological exhaustion.
 

The problem was that all the players in the Third Reich had their own private armies. Makes it much more combustible. That, and the fact that there were no political institutions that could make policy collectively or appoint a successor (this was not the case in the USSR; even after the ravages of Stalin they did have the Politburo and the Party Congress, which made the key difference). It was all based on one-man diktat in Nazi Germany.

Even if they do no worse than the USSR they still collapse (and the USSR was lucky to last as long as it did; the oil shocks in the late 60s to early 70s might have bought them decades).

IIRC, the economic postmortems of the major WWII players showed that the Nazis ran the least efficient war economy of anyone. It was a command economy, just of a somewhat different kind. There was heavy state involvement and ownership and businesses were expected to conform with national and racial goals that habitually ran counter to basic common sense and profitability. Banks were forced to loan to the government (to cover for the infamous Mefo bills scam), cash was looted from insurance companies and savings accounts, trade was totally cut off, and wealth was straight-up looted from people who were then gassed. This was how things were running from the moment Hitler took over. The whole Nazi economy was a giant pyramid scheme. It was, in its way, worse than the USSR, and it was much too big of a mess to reform. Germany had made too many enemies to seriously lower military spending (which was causing an enormous deficit, and since the WAllies cut them out of international markets and scams only take you so far that all would have come crashing down at some point), and the people at the top had no idea what they were doing.

I have to respectfully say that Nazi Germany did indeed have shortages, and lots of them. I don't know where you could find info that says otherwise.

They will last for a while but they will be toast quickly. They have no trade, no lines of credit, massive debt, a massive deficit, and a social contract based on genocide and plunder. Good luck riding that horse very far.
 
De jure he was the successor after Hess took off. In practice, it was much more complicated. Nazi Germany was bound together by the fact that everyone swore paths to Hitler personally. That’s a key distinction; the didn’t swear to obey the Fuhrer or some “President of the Reich” (like how the U.S. military swears oaths to obey the lawful orders of the President *without regard to the man holding the office*, it’s to the office itself). See the actual text of the Hitler Oath. The key takeaway is that *it doesn’t carry over after he dies because it’s to him personally.*

What happens with the Nazi military depends a lot on when exactly Hitler dies. I am actually pretty skeptical he could live as long as a lot of alt-hist has him living given all the health problems he had. IOTL 1945 he was pretty much at the end. Without the stress of losing and the July 20th Plot, which seems to have sent him downhill, he might last a few years longer, but he still had addictions to a huge number of heavy drugs, Parkinson's, and possible late-stage syphilis along with other issues. I wouldn't put him past 1948-49 in most circumstances. If he dies then, the Wehrmacht isn't going to be fully dismantled yet. The other factor is the July 20th Plot. Hitler moving pretty slowly on beefing up the SS IOTL because he was worried about pissing off the Heer to an unhealthy level. The attempted coup is what really caused him to purge the hell out of the regular armed forces and elevate the SS faster. If Germany wins in 1943 as in AANW, which we seem to have accepted as our POD, that's going to be butterflied away because everyone involved in that plot was playing both sides of the street and only really turned against him when they started losing. So the institutional growth of the SS will be slower, leaving it weaker relative to the Luftwaffe and Heer. The other factor that's interesting is what happens in the Middle East when the borders of the allied zones in Iran and the Reich's freshly conquered Azerbaijani SSR hit each other. I honestly doubt the conflict would go cold there; I suspect there would be a long-running military campaign there on about the level of intensity of the OTL North Africa Campaign. If major ground combat is still going on (and it will be anywhere the Reich and the WAllies have a land border), it's much less likely the Heer will be dismantled. On the off-chance he dies later like in the late 1950s as in AANW, then yes, you're probably right.

The SA may or may not be reinstituted. It continued to exist right up until 1945, it just lost members as older and older men were called up for regular military service. Hitler wouldn't allow it to regain its prior prominence but he did like having his subordinates fighting with each other and he might view it as a useful tool to keep the SS focused away from any coup ideas. It would also have the function that made them keep it around IOTL, it being a useful paramilitary organization/social group for older Nazis who weren't qualified for the SS.

I think it largely depends if Hitler is cognizant enough of how his reign is coming to an end to appoint a literal successor, and considering even when his health (and mind) were utterly collapsing he passed his powers largely over to Donitz, I think he would have been capable of naming a successor and ensuring they had an oath of loyalty sworn to them. Largely because he at least believed in his own madness enough to want it to have a stable second generation when he passed on. Which (IMO) means that absent some substantial screw up Goering becomes the next Fuhrer.

However, with the military he is definitely going to be shoving the General Staff out the door and replacing them with reliable yes-men lite Keitel, essentially moving to replace the more intelligent men with boot lickers. Then with Himmler doing his level best to increase the standing of the SS, I'd argue the Heer is either eventually downgraded into irrelevance as the senior staff are put to pasture. Hitler thought he knew best and this would "prove" to him that he was a military genius, so I can easily him see he could do away with the Heer in peacetime and replace them with a more "pure" formation, which seems to have been in the offing.

The reason the SA won't be formally reconstituted is that Hitler at this point didn't trust more than one armed security apparatus running around, and Himmler was actively discouraging (and literally murdering) most real competition for the SS. Goering got his ground formations because he was a Hitler favorite, and AFAIK the SA doesn't have a high up Nazi to sponsor them or really the ability to be a real threat at this point, unless Bormann wises up how dead he is most likely going to end up and decides to try and make a move, but with how much he never seemed to realize he was going to end up dead in a Goering or Himmler ruled Reich I'm skeptical.
 
Poor and brutally oppressive. The Nazi economic model made that of Maoist China look great by comparison. Depending on plunder, idiotic central management, being cut off from international trade, over-mobilization, and huge debt would have brought the economy crashing down.
Do you really think international trade would be that much of a factor that it is today with a nazi victory in europe?
 
Do you really think international trade would be that much of a factor that it is today with a nazi victory in europe?

Yes. Any and all efforts by a country, even one as big as a victorious Reich would be, to cut itself off from international trade ended in poverty and disaster.

Assuming that both Operation Sea Lion and Operation Barbarossa suceed what then?

The first one will never happen. Ever. Only the second.
 
Yes. Any and all efforts by a country, even one as big as a victorious Reich would be, to cut itself off from international trade ended in poverty and disaster.



The first one will never happen. Ever. Only the second.

What was it that the reich lacked from the outside? Would not many of the internal supply difficulties be solved by a victory followed by consolidation.
 
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