WI/AHC: Fascism Survives

DStecks

In OTL, due to the circumstances of its birth, Fascism wasn't sustainable. It was too bent on conquest and driven by passion to ever be a stable system of government. But suppose cooler heads had prevailed.

Suppose that Nazi Germany were in the hands of those who knew what they were doing, rather than having a madman running the show. Could it be conceivable that WWII might end in a ceasefire? That Nazi Germany might survive, and seek to establish itself as just another world power. And at what point would such a handover need to occur, for the Allies to accept anything but unconditional surrender?
 
Lapsed Pacifist

Lapsed Pacifist

You'd probably have to get rid of the worst of the Nazi's racial policies and butterfly away the Holocaust entirely in order for any modern party to actually identify itself as 'fascist'.
A surviving fascist Italy might help as well.

But who knows what fascism might look like today, Nazi policies and ideas have made a huge impact on fascism in general, as it was arguably the most "successful" form of it.
 

Snowstalker

Fascism did survive World War II.

franco-spain-U.S.-%2Bsupport-fascism.jpg
 

Wendell

There are a few good timeline timelines which get into this. The Conference of Montreux timeline based on this is the one I'd recommend.

Shaby's timeline about Georg Elser succeeding in his effort to assassinate Hitler might well head in a similar direction to what the OP asks.
 

Deleted member 1487

DStecks said:
In OTL, due to the circumstances of its birth, Fascism wasn't sustainable. It was too bent on conquest and driven by passion to ever be a stable system of government. But suppose cooler heads had prevailed.

Suppose that Nazi Germany were in the hands of those who knew what they were doing, rather than having a madman running the show. Could it be conceivable that WWII might end in a ceasefire? That Nazi Germany might survive, and seek to establish itself as just another world power. And at what point would such a handover need to occur, for the Allies to accept anything but unconditional surrender?
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I suppose the best option for that using OTL cast of characters is somehow get a military dictatorship under von Schleicher. He was all for war though too, but was in less of a hurry to get there; I also think that he wouldn't be able to play the peacenik card that Hitler did as a political outsider, so Schleicher would get a lot more push back (and potential foreign intervention, as he didn't have the strong anti-communist credentials of Hitler, nor the approachable supporters around that Hitler had that made Britain less interested in confrontation). Poland would be far more eager to initial violence early on, because they did not trust this guy either, as he was explicitly anti-Polish, pro-Soviet (insofar as they would be an ally against everyone else, he was not a communist) unlike Hitler who normalized relations with Poland early on IOTL.

I don't think Nazism was possible without Hitler, as no one else IOTL had the stupid force of will that he did, nor the political talent (and extreme luck). Frankly the most likely thing without Hitler is a socialist led coalition taking over after another round of elections in early 1933. Unless you want to invent a new person to lead a German Fascist movement with the same trajectory as Hitler, but sans incompetence and rabid violent streak I don't think you suggestion of a smarter Nazi movement is possible.
 

MarshalBraginsky

Banned
Lapsed Pacifist said:
You'd probably have to get rid of the worst of the Nazi's racial policies and butterfly away the Holocaust entirely in order for any modern party to actually identify itself as 'fascist'.
A surviving fascist Italy might help as well.

But who knows what fascism might look like today, Nazi policies and ideas have made a huge impact on fascism in general, as it was arguably the most "successful" form of it.
Click to expand...

How about Hitler dying in the Beer Hall Putsch instead of Scheubner-Richter? This organization having a greater influence could help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aufbau_Vereinigung
 

DStecks

Snowstalker said:
Fascism did survive World War II.

franco-spain-U.S.-%2Bsupport-fascism.jpg
Click to expand...

I said survives, not survives WWII.

The scenario I'm trying to engineer is essentially one where WWII begins as OTL, but ends with the Axis at least mostly intact. Perhaps if Hitler were to die or become incapacitated soon after the fall of France, then his successor could possibly use that as a bargaining chip. Of course, such a course of action assumes that the Nazis would want to stop the war and forfeit such a victory, at the moment of their greatest strength.

The most interesting ramification for such a result is the possibility of a three-way Cold War. If Nazi Germany could survive long enough for the Bomb to disseminate to them, then foreign intervention against them would become an absolute last resort.
 

Wendell

DStecks said:
I said survives, not survives WWII.

The scenario I'm trying to engineer is essentially one where WWII begins as OTL, but ends with the Axis at least mostly intact. Perhaps if Hitler were to die or become incapacitated soon after the fall of France, then his successor could possibly use that as a bargaining chip. Of course, such a course of action assumes that the Nazis would want to stop the war and forfeit such a victory, at the moment of their greatest strength.

The most interesting ramification for such a result is the possibility of a three-way Cold War. If Nazi Germany could survive long enough for the Bomb to disseminate to them, then foreign intervention against them would become an absolute last resort.
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So, Kalter Krieg with a shooting war between France and Germany?
 

UncleDynamite

The problem with fascism is that its definition is largely situational. You can do a lot of the same things as fascism, but it's not fascism unless it follows a specific set of conditions and attitudes. To make it more of a challenge, I'm not counting whatever the hell you call what Franco had fascism- Franco neutered the actually radical and totalitarian parts of the Falange and by the end of the Civil War, what was left was authoritarian reactionary conservatism with a fascist face to get military aid from Italy and Germany(Not saying that anything Franco did was OK, but fascist it was not).

Anyway, here goes:

Germany and Italy go to war in 1934 over Austria.

Alarmingly, the Italians win and the regime whose entire myth of the indefatigable Germans comes crashing down in a few months is driven from power(perhaps not willingly ie a military coup).

Germany is now under the control of a conservative nationalist military dictatorship. They run WWII without a Holocaust or as many crazy decisions, but they still manage to lose in the end.

Italy sticks with the Allies and true fascism remains. As a reward, they probably get some of the Adriatic coast. Without WWII, fascism(or fascistic principles) remain living ideologies in Europe to the present day.
 
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katchen

Banned
Yes, you did say fascism. Not Naziism. Basically, all that would have had to have happened for fascism to survive World War II would have been for Mussolini to do what Franco did---either stay out of the war altogether or ally with the Allies. Mussolini might have fit in very well in postwar Europe as a bulwark against Communism. Who knows? Mussolini might even have been permitted to hang onto Ethiopia if he fought for the Allies as the Russians hung onto the Baltic States.
 

Curiousone

Banned
katchen said:
Yes, you did say fascism. Not Naziism. Basically, all that would have had to have happened for fascism to survive World War II would have been for Mussolini to do what Franco did---either stay out of the war altogether or ally with the Allies. Mussolini might have fit in very well in postwar Europe as a bulwark against Communism. Who knows? Mussolini might even have been permitted to hang onto Ethiopia if he fought for the Allies as the Russians hung onto the Baltic States.
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Fascism in Spain & Portugal fell by the mid 70's. Not sure that if Italy stayed neutral it'd last much longer.

Maybe if there was a 'principality', something the size of Lichtenstein but hidden away between Spain & Portugal, propped up as a militarized mountainous tax haven. No such small nations in the right place though.

Like Belorussia continuing on with the last dictator of Europe.
 

J.D.Ward

Donor
Curiousone said:
Maybe if there was a 'principality', something the size of Lichtenstein but hidden away between Spain & Portugal, propped up as a militarized mountainous tax haven. No such small nations in the right place though.
Click to expand...

Andorra comes to mind, but you really want somewhere with a coastline or another reason for the outside world beyond Spain and France to take an interest.

With a c. 1920 POD, can you do anything with Fiume becoming an independent state governed by the successors of d'Annunzio?
 
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