WI: German Civil War in 1932

Uriel, OTL the communists never reversed their Moscow-ordered hostility to the Socialists even when it meant Hitler in power. There also comes a point when a temporary reversal ordered by Stalin will be treated with all the lack of respect it deserves by the Socialists.

Having ruined any chance of cooperation with the Socialists there would not be the slightest chance of the communists winning or even being a major factor and France would prefer Papen over Hitler any day.



Todyo1798, I barely know where to begin...

No one needs to offer positions in government to the generals, let alone the leaders of the Freikorps. If Papen is successful in his first efforts it can only be because the military agreed with his actions.

Hitler fleeing to safety in Munich is nonsense. Within days of Papen's decree Hitler is either on the run, in hiding or has fled Germany. There is no place where the SA's limited numbers and non-existant arsenal can hold out against the army backed by the freikorps, nor are there any radio stations which feel any desperate need to be seized for crimes against the state.

You seem to be under the impression that large numbers of firearms existed in the private sector in Germany and of a sort to permit street thugs and rioters to stand up against regulars or even to storm military bases. This is not the case.

The small size of the German Army meant that existing weapons were secure on a limited number of bases, this wasn't the US with National Guard armories scattered hither and yon, so any such SA attack is going to involve prohibitive losses for the Nazis, and what military vehicles? Versailles is still in effect so the SA isn't charging machine guns to get some trucks.

As already noted Nazis, communists and socialists working together to even a limited degree in an illusion with no basis in historical reality.

Street thugs without arms can not last for weeks, against hundreds of thousands of soldiers and the Freikorps with arms.

Your right with almost everything, but I want to mention a few things:

The KPD took a more antifascist-peoples front stance for a time in the 20s, before it switched to the heaviliy anti-SPD course on Moscows orders. If (Big if, I know) Moscow changes its mind again (as in Spain & France) the KPD would switch back.
The SPD would not forget what happend before but probably not want to hang seperatly.


On weapons: The rual population had (as almost everywhere else at that time) lots of weapons (hunting, poaching, war souveniers).
There was also the "Black Reichswehr" a "network" of Freikorps & Militias that had recived military weapons & training by the army, as a means to circumvent the Treaty of Versailles.

So there were a few more weapons around, as you claimed.
But ironically the prime benefactor from this would be Papen, as peasants & Freikorps would have mostly supported him.

Hitler holding out in Munich is ASB I agree & the Reichsbanner (SPD milita) had almost no value as a military force.

I also still doubt, that the Nazis would ally with the left.
Either they would stay out of the fight as much as possible and wait for a chance to seize power or most of their members would follow their hearts and support Papen (like the christian-democratic CEDA in Spain; outlawed by both sides most members supported Franco).


Has anyone allready noticed the paralles to Dollfuß taking power in Austria?
-Conservative Self-Coup (Dollfuß was Papen with charisma and a bigger party behind him)
-Short fighting against socialist militias
-Nazis go underground and later try a coup (which fails, but kills Dollfuß)
 
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Street thugs without arms can not last for weeks, against hundreds of thousands of soldiers and the Freikorps with arms.


Don´t know where you got hundreds of thousand of soldiers from. The Reichswehr had hundert thousand men. Freikorps didn´t existed at this time anymore and reestablish them would be difficult, because mostly of the potential recruts would sympathy with Hitler more then with Papen and because the weapons for this new Freikorps would have to come out of the hidden depots of the Reichswehr, which would be very vulnerable for plunderers. The real problem for Papen would be, that the Reichswehr would be everything he had. I assume Papen had at this only 10% of public support. You can´t sit on bayonnets forever and I think the 100.000 bayonets of the Reichswehr are just not enough to keep the Reich in order. They wouldn´t even have the indisputed support of the Police. Okay, the prussian Police was under Reichs-controll at this time, but a lot of the prussian policemen actually where Social-democrats. IOTL Hitler could takeover the prussian Police because they made a lot of SA-men policemen, but Papen don´t have this option. There are still Länder with a SPD or even Nazi-goverments and I think they could use the policeunits in the Länder or at least their weapons (which often included machineguns).
 
I find it itneresting that everyone is focusing on France. The Reichswehr's concern in the event of a civil war wasn't France, it was Poland, who they thought would grab Prussia.
 
I find it itneresting that everyone is focusing on France. The Reichswehr's concern in the event of a civil war wasn't France, it was Poland, who they thought would grab Prussia.

How would the Soviets have responded to Poland invading Germany? Could they have used it as a pretext to go to war with Poland?
 
Ya,I'm kinda curious to know what the USSR would be up to(even if Poland doesn't invade Germany). Would Stalin still end up invading Finland and occupying Lithuania(?) or would the German civil war cause chain reactions in Europe that make Stalin change his decisions on what countries to occupy?

Who would win the Spanish civil war if the non-communist side still got supported by Mussolini?(But then again Mussolini might have already sent some troops to Austria due to the German civil war so I dunno if there would be any left to send to Spain if something does happen there)

In my (possibly wrong) opinion Stalin would just occupy a few countries one by one at an extremely slow rate,possibly over a 20 year span,then get kicked out of the League of Nations and then get heavily critisized by Churchill(while not being the prime minister of UK)

While USSR occupies small countries,Fascist Italy and possibly the British or French might send some small forces and support to resist the communists but not directly confronting Soviet forces just like the real life Cold war.Wash,rinse,repeat right until the 1950s.

Dunno if all this will finally end up as a full scale war or who discovers the A-Bomb or if it will even be discovered.Or when will it be discovered if it does get discovered.

If anyone can provide a timeline from this alternate timeline from the German civil war from 1932 to 1950 or whenever Stalin's assumed death would be I would appreciate it very much.

(I tried emailing the Cambridge professor from Sovietstory.com for his opinion but didn't get a reply yet :( )
 
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