WI- A MAGA Hitler instead of genocide

[Vuu]

Very possible and not as hard - all Hitler has to do is not rush on the expansionism part and not gear it towards war economy. That's basically pretty much the only part of the economy that would need to be changed - all the other laws made the common man's labor rather well-paid compared to the previous situation

 

[jacobk]

If you want maximum Nazi nostalgia, the best bet is probably for Hitler to fall down some stairs shortly after Munich, then for his successors to weaken each other to the point that the Nazis lose power. In the end, some unfortunate German general seizes control of the country right in time to catch the blame for the financial collapse.

Since German generals, unlike the Nazi higher ups, don't believe in war for its own sake and the German generals had a pretty good grasp of the balance of power between Germany and everybody else, they would most likely ride out the collapse without launching a world war. Germany eventually muddles on through to a constitutional monarchy with larger than present-day borders and everybody wishes that Hitler fella could have lived long enough to avert the "black forties."

 

[GDIS Pathe]

In HOI4 there's a focus called "Danzig for Slovakia" wherein Czechoslovakia is partitioned between Poland and Germany, and Poland gives Danzig to Germany.

The day the Poles slave their economic dependence to a backstabbing untrustworthy regime is the day when hell ices over

 

[Michele]

Very possible and not as hard - all Hitler has to do is not rush on the expansionism part and not gear it towards war economy. That's basically pretty much the only part of the economy that would need to be changed - all the other laws made the common man's labor rather well-paid compared to the previous situation

And, therefore, by themselves would not solve the unemployment problem, but make it worse.

Germany actually needs to do more in a New Deal sense. The Nazi government did build state projects, such as the Autobahnen and big governmental buildings, and that's the right thing to do. But it was only a small slice of their battle against unemployment. They also put thousands of men in uniform, and they had the military factories employ tens of thousands more men. Those easy solutions are not available if they don't go all out for war preparations.

Some of the double-duty German production of the late 30s only made sense if you chiefly expect the second duty - the military one - to be the more important. Does Germany really need those fast mail aircraft, or those fast passenger planes? Heck no, the point is to have them ready for wartime. Is producing synthetic rubber and synthetic fuel more economic than importing natural rubber and crude oil from abroad? Not at all, economically it's stupid, it only makes sense if you expect the sealanes to be blockaded. So 90% of the personnel working on nominally civilian industrial projects, such as those airplanes and synth fuel plants, are actually to be fired on the spot, if you choose to go for a peace economy. But that will mean more unemployment, not less.

Note that the Germans also massaged the unemployment statistics. They encouraged employers to fire women, so that they would go home and tend that for the man of the family, and make babies; this made the women's jobs available to men. They made Jews ineligible for many jobs, so that good Aryan men would get those. But while the Nazis did not count either the Hausfrauen or the Jews as unemployed, so that the statistics looked better, in the first case you have a family relying on one paycheck instead of two, and in the second you have a Jewish family with no paycheck - the country's overall poverty isn't improved.

Also note that some of those governmental make-work projects made use of forced labor from the early camps, and other nearly-forced-labor measures. The work did get done, but insofar as it made use of unpaid or nearly unpaid labor, it did not mean more employment. Still, those forced or nearly forced laborers were, you guessed it, not counted as unemployed, so again a plus for the Nazi statistics.

So yes, something is "possible", but "not as hard"? Think again.

 

[Michele]

Because that's when the credit crunch will strangle the German economy. The real world isn't HoI4: you usually don't pay for things by shipping out a civilian industry but with foreign currency. By '39 OTL, the Germans had kicked things back as long as they could: trying to go for autarky as much as possible with synthetic technology, the giant ponzi scheme that was the MEFO bills, import/export exchange bargaining. All of those had started coming apart by '39. The last gasp was when Hitler released Germany's strategic reserves of materials, which helped push production through to 1940, but once that was exhausted there was nothing left.

I would add that a massive amount of state bonds were going to have to be paid in 1940. In OTL, the war was used as a justification for the state unilaterally postponing the payment to (I don't remember... 1943? 1945?). In peacetime, the state would have had to default. The hit would have been mainly taken by German individual savers and German banks. An additional nail in the coffin of the German economy.

 

[Michele]

In HOI4 there's a focus called "Danzig for Slovakia" wherein Czechoslovakia is partitioned between Poland and Germany, and Poland gives Danzig to Germany.

That's probably because for a present-day gamer in a country other than Poland, a patch of colored map on a computer screen is not that much unlike another similar patch. For an actual Pole living in real Poland back in 1938, things would be different.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

The Nazis wouldn’t have gained power in ‘33 by promising to revitalise the economy. The only thing that made them a halfway viable political concern was their violent rhetoric and promises of regaining lost territory. Plenty of other candidates or parties put economic works front and centre of their platforms and were consigned to the also-rans of Weimar politics.

All of these other parties had been in power. attempted to deal with the Depression by conventional methods and failed. The NSDAP offered a radical new program, and unlike the other parties, appeared to have the willpower actually to do drastic and unconventional things.

It should be noted that the NSDAP had been emitting violent rhetoric and promising revanche all through the 1920s, and never reached 5% of the vote. It was when the Depression hit home, and Germans wanted an economic savior that the NSDAP vote took off. When the Depression began to ease the NSDAP vote fell off.

 

[Tibi088]

Im interested in the question what would have happened if instead of starting WWII the way of OTL the germans try something with Danzig. I mean organize a coup or a popular uprising in the city (with german/nazi help of course) that swiftly declares its intention to join germany and invite german troops. Germany accepts and obliges - just happen to have troops in the neighbourhood.

How would Poland react? The league of nations - if anyone still cares for it? If this turned to WWII would Poland be the agressor? Or would everyone accept the Fait accompli. Or go the Crimean route and dont accept it officially but dont do anything to change it?

 

[Michele]

Im interested in the question what would have happened if instead of starting WWII the way of OTL the germans try something with Danzig. I mean organize a coup or a popular uprising in the city (with german/nazi help of course) that swiftly declares its intention to join germany and invite german troops. Germany accepts and obliges - just happen to have troops in the neighbourhood.

How would Poland react? The league of nations - if anyone still cares for it? If this turned to WWII would Poland be the agressor? Or would everyone accept the Fait accompli. Or go the Crimean route and dont accept it officially but dont do anything to change it?

Depends when. If it's after August 25, 1939 - i.e., really "instead of" WWII - then Germany would find itself at war with Poland, Britain, and France. Like per OTL. Why the date? Because it's the date of the formal military alliance between Poland and the UK. Articles 2 and 3, while not mentioning Gdansk by name, do cover exactly such an occurrence, which evidently was considered as a real possibility by the decision makers.

If it's before that date, but after the dismemberment of rump Czechoslovakia, then the result is less certain, but probably the same. Hitler had expended all of its capital of credibility, Britain and France were rearming anyway, and Gdansk could serve as a line in the sand anyway.

If it's before the Protectorate but after the Sudeten, then maybe France demurs, and Britain has no written commitments. Poland would fight. It is not a given that France would be convinced that Germany was the aggressor.

If it's before Munich, then Poland would probably be fighting alone. Germany might win that (not a given either, without the Slovakian collaboration, the Czech springboard into southern Poland, the decent Czech tanks etc.), but even that would be a Pyrrhic victory. Germany would then be a pariah state, with no international trade possible, knee-deep in the Polish morass, and no hope to continue with the other non-war expansions it carried out in OTL. And no Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. It's a real possibility Italy would sniff the wind and not sign the Pact of Steel either.

Things were done in that sequence for a reason.

 

[Michele]

All of these other parties had been in power. attempted to deal with the Depression by conventional methods and failed. The NSDAP offered a radical new program, and unlike the other parties, appeared to have the willpower actually to do drastic and unconventional things.

Where "drastic", given the level of violence in the streets at the time, in which the Nazis were protagonists, is an euphemism for Stenz's "violent".

 

[JamesBond88]

Depending on how far you let the territorial expansion happen, things could get interesting. A Hitler that's a bit more stable and trustworthy could grow Germany both economically and in terms of territory, while also arranging the countries of Eastern Europe in a front against the Soviets without actually invading. The economy is going to be the difficult part. If Germany fulfills some of the major territorial objectives like the Anschluss and acquisition of the Sudetenland and war isn't around the corner the transition back to a peace time economy is going to be interesting. A Germany that's willing to open itself up economically is going to be a hard friend to ignore for many nations in Europe.

 

[Nicola]

The Nazis wouldn’t have gained power in ‘33 by promising to revitalise the economy. The only thing that made them a halfway viable political concern was their violent rhetoric and promises of regaining lost territory. Plenty of other candidates or parties put economic works front and centre of their platforms and were consigned to the also-rans of Weimar politics.

and the fact that people cannot see the irony of condemning Hitler while sat their in their MAGA hats as Trump assaults anyone who is not a psychopathic white supremicist and con man is something which really must be noted. USAmerican exceptionalism has gone beyond the ridiculousness it was under Dubya or Obama into the kind of fever that has been seen with other Fascist regimes .

 

[Michele]

and the fact that people cannot see the irony of condemning Hitler while sat their in their MAGA hats as Trump assaults anyone who is not a psychopathic white supremicist and con man is something which really must be noted.

Define "assault".
Does that mean, "attack in the street through a bunch of armed brown-shirted thugs that the police won't stop"?
Does that mean, "throw in a concentration camp for an undetermined period of time, thanks to exceptional government powers that no judge can review"?

 

[CalBear]

This is current political bait right from the title.