WI: Germany allowed to retain it's colonial holdings

How would the course of the 20th century had played out if Germany was able to retain it's African colonial holdings post versailles?

What role would they have played during the Weimar Republic, rise of Nazi Germany and WWII?

Would they have been any better off than OTL modern day?
 
I can't see that Germany would be allowed to keep its colonies after WW1. It practically lost these already during the war. Germany had on 1919 only parts of German East Africa. If Treaty of Versailles allows Germany keeps its colonial remnants, probably it isn't so harsh and so Hitler and WW2 probably would butterfly away.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Which colonies ?

I could see a possible though unlikely will to leave some colonies to Germany only, if they were ... too unimportant to bother.

... But most weren't :
  • German East Africa : needed by Britain for its age-old "Cap-to-Cairo"-plans
  • Cameroon : a thorn in french flesh, dividing its central african holdings
  • Togoland : rich, well developed, a fruit ripe to pick
  • Kaiser-Wilhelm-Land (Papua neu-Guinea) : Australia "just" got the taste of Imperialism, also there has a trophy to be won for all of its sacrifices in men
  • Tsintao and the pacific islands : the very reason why Japan joined
  • German South-West Africa : quite the same as with Papua, only for South-Africa
So, whats left "unimportant" enough for the germans ?
All I can think of is the middle and northern part of South-West Africa, with its southern parts including Lüderitz-Bay, better arable land, ceeded to South-Africa.

Germany would be left with a huge chunk of ... nothing beside a lot of sand and a very hostile native population (the remnants of).
 

oberdada

Gone Fishin'
Loosing those colonies was the best thing that happened to Germany after WWI.

With most of the merchant fleet gone they would cost more than they would ever created in revenue.
And a 100000 army minus troops controlling in parts really hostile regions?

No thanks.

Without a German speaking population in a third-world country, at least call-center jobs and the like don't get outsourced, like it is common in the English speaking world...
 
Samoa and Togoland were the only areas to bring in a profit (I may need to double check that), the rest being kind of a bust. The British can't give up anything aken by or adjacent to their Dominions, as they would have been extremely hostile to having sent men to France and those colonies to die and not even get to stick around. The Japanese ain't giving anything up. The French got Syria and Cameroon after the British did the quick work of grabbing them, and if the French didn't get that land then I believe they would settle for... Half the Rhineland. Otherwise they keep moving their troops forward.
 
If Germany is going to be allowed to keep their colonies for... some reason, it might mean a peace we can't recognize, but if we try to hammer it into the framework of what existed at Versailles as we knew it:

- Germany might only nominally 'keep' the colonies, and administer them as mandates under some other power's observation under the League of Nations. This might keep them under the German flag but would remove them from any kind of serious consideration, especially given all the restrictions that were places on mandates and how they could be developed.

- If Germany does keep her colonies, she has good reason to plead for more allowances in terms of an army and a navy, to defend and police these far-flung corners of the world, over and above the force limits imposed at Versailles.

- Keeping the colonies may come at the cost of some other concessions on the part of Germany, but what I can't imagine.
 
First we might see no World War One and thus a very different timeline where Germany has its colonies but then we really unravel history, or as I prefer to ponder is either no British Empire involvement in the Great War or a different settlement to the war, all introduce butterflies like Mothra. One scenario I have wondered about is a surviving Kaiserreich still losing the colonies but engaged in a cold peace with the Entente (no USA in the war), it is the best way I keep things similar to the history we know. Fancifully I have the Germans and British rapprochement evolving to the thirties when the Germans succeed in getting the colonies returned under a "sort of" mandate paradigm since I have no true LON. That leaves the Pacific colonies still a hot point souring relations between Japan and Germany and improving relations with the USA since China is a strong ally to Germany in Asia. Perhaps a touch hand waived but it feels plausible.

This gets me a very different German colonial policy, one that seeks to create "model" states on a path to true independence, as Realpolitik it counters the British and French colonial empires and fulfills the "strings" placed by the Entente on Germany returning to the fold. So we get better investment and education in the African holdings overtime. I am giving Germany a spaceport at Mtwara in East Africa for example. Luft Hansa has more gravity to serve Africa and cooperates with Imperial to create connections. Part of how the British and Germans generally move to much better connections overall. I have more American investment in German holdings too since the Germans seek out greater trade relations with the USA given a more protectionist bent to British policy, mediocre relations with France and the spotty nature of relations in Asia outside China and perhaps DEI. Here I opine Italy is still a colonial power and colonialism lingers at least to the 1970s and likely well into the 1980s but you have Germany establishing four healthy economies better able to spread trade and development to their neighbors as the other powers concede to independence calls that are supported for differing reasons by the USA and Germany and Japan and China and the USSR. It gives me an "odd man out" colonial power, one holding colonies but aligned with independence, all to stir things very differently.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
@MichaelWest
:extremelyhappy:
Do you have an ATL somewhere about this ??

Nitpickers question :
Why the spaceport at Mtwara ? Seems a bit too far south ... for being 'ideal'.
More north towards the equator like Tanga seems more feasible ... in terms of inclination economy.
 
@MichaelWest
:extremelyhappy:
Do you have an ATL somewhere about this ??

Nitpickers question :
Why the spaceport at Mtwara ? Seems a bit too far south ... for being 'ideal'.
More north towards the equator like Tanga seems more feasible ... in terms of inclination economy.

That TL exists in my imagination! Pulling threads from the tapestry of history beginning around 1914 causes a lot of rabbit holes in time. One day I hope to pull it together.

I admit to being no expert on launch mechanics but I tried to find a place with nothing 200 miles down range, open water, at the equator or inside the tropics, open land, deep water port, etc. Mtwara popped up as the British sank millions there to fail on Ground Nuts, an inside joke in British humor, so it had the right qualifications and is a tweak to the Brits (and Easter Egg). I proposed it to Michel Van and he thought it was a suitable location so I rest on that endorsement.
 
Has anyone read the novel "Ghosts of Africa" written by William Stevenson?

Stevenson's novel inspired me to write a steampunk story based on a Zeppelin service connecting thriving German colonies in Africa: Cameroon, Namibia, Taganika, Tanganika and maybe a port on the Morrocan coast.
Zeppelins mainly haul high-value goods like gem stones and precious metal ores out while they haul guns and key personnel in. Zeppelins sometimes wander off-course to trade with Boers or Congolese.
This is where Alberto Santos Dumont gets involved, building airships and Demoiselles for Brazilian/Portugese companies that trade in the Congo. Santos Dumont is merely building upon a POD millions of years older POD where flying fish evolved in the Amazon ....
I have written a few scenes ......
 
always wonder if they could have dealt away some/all of colonies to neutral countries as front? (my understanding they tried to "return" China concessions?)

probably not East Africa, South West Africa, and Kamerun.
 
Has anyone read the novel "Ghosts of Africa" written by William Stevenson?

Stevenson's novel inspired me to write a steampunk story based on a Zeppelin service connecting thriving German colonies in Africa: Cameroon, Namibia, Taganika, Tanganika and maybe a port on the Morrocan coast.
Zeppelins mainly haul high-value goods like gem stones and precious metal ores out while they haul guns and key personnel in. Zeppelins sometimes wander off-course to trade with Boers or Congolese.
This is where Alberto Santos Dumont gets involved, building airships and Demoiselles for Brazilian/Portugese companies that trade in the Congo. Santos Dumont is merely building upon a POD millions of years older POD where flying fish evolved in the Amazon ....
I have written a few scenes ......

I can imagine a WW1 delayed 20 years, you would have regular airship service to the German colonies (perhaps with Helium?). Which would increase appeal and population of such colonial places,

Delayed 20 years, by the 1930s you would have air conditioning in public buildings at least which would make these places more bearable for Europeans.

The Germans developed Chloroquine in the 30s OTL for anti Malaria. I can see this earlier in the absence of WW1 with their lead in chemicals and actual colonies to need it in.

So I could see a 1930s setting with airships, more developed German colonies, diamonds from Southwest Africa, machine guns coming the other way.
 
This is an interesting discussion. One of the main problems with Versailles was how short sighted the European leaders were. Hell the basic reason WWI kicked off was due to the short sightedness of the leaders.

Anyways, if Versailles happened but Germany was able to retain all their colonies I would say that WWII would never of happened. With the economic upheaval happening inside Germany it would have forced mass emigration to the colonies. Typical German middle class citizens would have gone somewhere else and started over. They most likely would have gone somewhere still controlled by Germany, but not in the dead end zone that the mother country had become. So inside Germany you would have had the uber rich and the peasants. All the small business entrepreneurs would have fled to the colonies. This would have hurt countries like the US where many of those people immigrated to, and helped build up those economies.
 
Has anyone read the novel "Ghosts of Africa" written by William Stevenson?

Stevenson's novel inspired me to write a steampunk story based on a Zeppelin service connecting thriving German colonies in Africa: Cameroon, Namibia, Taganika, Tanganika and maybe a port on the Morrocan coast.
Zeppelins mainly haul high-value goods like gem stones and precious metal ores out while they haul guns and key personnel in. Zeppelins sometimes wander off-course to trade with Boers or Congolese.
This is where Alberto Santos Dumont gets involved, building airships and Demoiselles for Brazilian/Portugese companies that trade in the Congo. Santos Dumont is merely building upon a POD millions of years older POD where flying fish evolved in the Amazon ....
I have written a few scenes ......

Since the Zeppelins get some affection, I have assumed that at least in the 1920s through end of the 1930s, or until fixed-wing can cover the distances, airships have a part to play in German civil aviation. In other words they would have a Trans-Atlantic service and since German craft might not be permitted over Italian or French territory, Airships offer the best long legged option, think South African Airways routing during the 1980s. In my wandering thoughts I can see Zeppelin assisting both the USA and UK in development of airships, hence the Germans get access to helium and the Germans improve ties with the British as Imperial and DLH build a true global network. At least that is "possibilities".
 
Since the Zeppelins get some affection, I have assumed that at least in the 1920s through end of the 1930s, or until fixed-wing can cover the distances, airships have a part to play in German civil aviation. In other words they would have a Trans-Atlantic service and since German craft might not be permitted over Italian or French territory, Airships offer the best long legged option, think South African Airways routing during the 1980s. In my wandering thoughts I can see Zeppelin assisting both the USA and UK in development of airships, hence the Germans get access to helium and the Germans improve ties with the British as Imperial and DLH build a true global network. At least that is "possibilities".

It would defiantly be interesting to timeline this out. Like I mentioned above if you have a large quantity of middle class entrepreneurs going out to the German colonies I could see many of them becoming prosperous fairly quickly. If the Zeppelin service becomes profitable (based on the colonies becoming profitable) it could change how goods and freight moves around the world. The world could look totally different today.
 
It would defiantly be interesting to timeline this out. Like I mentioned above if you have a large quantity of middle class entrepreneurs going out to the German colonies I could see many of them becoming prosperous fairly quickly. If the Zeppelin service becomes profitable (based on the colonies becoming profitable) it could change how goods and freight moves around the world. The world could look totally different today.

My assumptions are that airships are more viable in that "interwar" period based on their range and payload capability, a thing Germany might exploit better with connections to its African holdings. Further I can see Zeppelin either partnering or spurring the British effort to put airships into service, salvaging the Airship Scheme for its fans. Zeppelin already partnered with Goodyear and I think that might bear better fruit here, especially on pacific routes. My assumptions are that Germany does better building trade partnerships, especially with the USA and if the colonies are returned as part of a peace treaty scheme then relations with Britain are on a better footing, Germany agreeing to allow Imperial to cross East Africa for example and use the other colonies airports to create connections, especially if Anglo-French relations cool. That is a lot of assumptions and "what if" or "could be" scenarios, but then this is alternate history where one should explore possibilities.
 

Perkeo

Banned
If post WWI Germany has colonies, the Germans sell them to pay off the war debt (even if there are no reparations). If noone wants the German colonies, neither do the Germans. The only scenario that I can imagine is an early defeat without regime change - but with the OTL ending, no way.
 
If post WWI Germany has colonies, the Germans sell them to pay off the war debt (even if there are no reparations). If noone wants the German colonies, neither do the Germans. The only scenario that I can imagine is an early defeat without regime change - but with the OTL ending, no way.

Countries like Portugal and Spain had colonies still in 1900s when they would have been better off selling them I am sure and using the cash for home country infrastructure and or debt payments. Its a prestige and politics thing to keep them (We are a colonial power were still important).

If in a more negotiated settlement, let say the Allies let Germany have back only Togoland (small, no good potential naval base). I am sure Germany would keep it for the prestige.
 
Hitler's racist imperialism was predominately aimed towards "the East" rather than Africa, even so far apparently as Hitler having a reluctance of even getting involved in North Africa but Hjalmar Schacht advocated for Germany to buy Angola from Portugal, having a slight effect on the Nazi party. Ultimately, Nazi interest waned during WWII in regards to Africa
 
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