Let's say in the late 1930s, America falls into a Second Civil War triggered by the Depression. As a result, it is powerless to stop the Axis powers and the Nazis and the Japanese go berserk. Nazis take over all of mainland Europe up to the Urals but Britain remains free. Japan conquers eastern China, and all of Southeast China. Which empire would last longer in peacetime, the Nazis or Japanese? Can either have a chance at surviving into the 21st century?
Who would last longer? Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan
- Thread starter Berkeley2017
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Imperial Japan, as their administrative system wasn't a mess which would collapse the moment their dictator kicked the bucket.
True but the premise of the thread isn't if the Japanese could have won but what things would be like if they did win.
The population of Japan in 1940 was roughly the same as Germany+Austria, while the population of China was 4 times greater than the Soviet Union. That will be a lot harder to hold down.
All they really need to hold for the long term is the East Indies and Manchuria/Korea. Malaysia and Burma would be nice but not essential, I believe.
Conquering eastern China does not imply "defeating" China. Simply put, it would most likely be a stalemate with the Japanese holding the coast and the Chinese holding the interior.
It's ASB for the U.S. to fall into civil war at that point. I literally can't imagine how it could possibly happen. In the ACW, there was a cleancut divide and a natural constiuency for rebellion that happened to include a large portion of the military and officer class (southerners), while the military itself wasn't big enough to quickly strangle the rebellion. That is very much not the case by the time of the Great Depression.
Eventually, it would have started to recover on its own. Could have been a lot slower but most of the really dystopic scenarios where it goes on for decades or whatever aren't very plausible.
Eventually, it would have started to recover on its own. Could have been a lot slower but most of the really dystopic scenarios where it goes on for decades or whatever aren't very plausible.
Nazi Germany was technologically and infrastructure-wise far superior to the Japanese. Either the Japanese collapse due to overexpansion and adventurism or turn into a Thailand-situation where there are too many couping factions to be called a continuous form of government.
OTOH, the Third Reich's administrative system was such a mess that the post office had a nuclear program!
Might be that German technology and infrastructure was more advanced than Japan but German administration was such corrupt mess that after Hitler's death there would be serious power struggle if not civil war. At least Japanese power transition was more developed and it hadn't so factioned military and politic leadership.
I suggest you all read The Falcon Cannot Hear for the Second American Civil War being implausible.
I think there were several surviving Nazi TLs on this website that prove that even with Hitler being a fuckup the institutions lead the country to survive - furthermore I'm positively surprised Japan's power transition/factionalism being so underrated, I think if Nazi Germany had the same amount of time OTL they'd prove themselves to be equally or better at peaceful transitions.