WI: Nazi Europe as a Hellscape

[Emperor Norton I]

I have asserted my opinion that, if Nazi Germany were victorious, it is more likely that Europe would have devolved into a nightmare landscape than becoming a cultured Soviet stand in for an alternate Cold War against the United States. Nazi ideology was insane, and if they had won, there is no reason to pull back to keep the population fat, happy and loyal. Nazism is not vanilla fascism, or even fascism with abuse and genocide against a select list of the "other". It is a total rearrangement and upheaval of everything. Every terrible, demented, evil idea about what the world should look like would become policy. It is a vague concept of pure blooded Nordics existing in a Germany of rolling hills and farms, where troops go to no specific place in trucks, while Germania sits as the throne of power. In my opinion, it would become like the Khmer Rouge or Mao's China in the maddest throws of the Cultural Revolution; a fantastical, unbelievable hellscape that can only be imagined if someone has seen a Heavy Metal album cover, and has the imagination and tolerance to think that deeply about human evil, depravity and suffering in all the multitude of ways it could be arranged, and as far as it can go. So what if this happened? What if this was the shape of a Nazi controlled Europe with carte blanche to do what it wanted within it's own territory?

I was inspired to do this thread based on what I posted, and some related discussion in the thread "Environmentalism and Climate Change in an Axis Victory Scenario".

I will quote some things I said.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Nazi Europe would be a continent-wide Khmer Rouge. There's not going to be normality in Nazi Europe in the long term; that was all to keep the masses on board. It would quickly become a surrealist hellscape right out of Pink Floyd's worst "The Wall" acid trip.

I don't know if they have, but it should exist. If not, it needs to exist. Nazism did not wish to see "vanilla fascism", or even just vanilla fascism plus racism, plus limited genocide. It wanted to see a bad acid trip of insanity brought upon Europe.

The thing is, if you have an isolationist America, a decimated Soviet Union, all the European powers that are enemies under Nazi rule, the former colonies in disarray because of the collapse of the home government, and Japan doing its own thing in the East, then the Nazis really do have a complete and open reign in Europe. At worst, it could become like a political North Korea where the US may complain but the threat of nuclear exchange keeps it from directly interfering. Imagine a Maoist China, with Hitler Youth instead of the Red Guards, destroying centuries old landmarks and artifacts for a "new way forward", flocking to Berlin to see Hitler, reporting their parents as being counterrevolutionaries, traveling the country to indoctrinate everyone as their sacred duty, and taking on that quality of youth where they don't trust their parents or the social establishment and want to burn down the old world and forge a new one like the Red Guards or an evil inverse of the hippies, all for the man they were taught from birth was a god. If it were not in the name of such evil in and of itself, it would be deliciously ironic to see adults who supported Hitler in the 30s and 40s watch as their simple pleasures and middle class normalcy is burned away by the madness they themselves started. There are no record players with jazz music, cars, and weekend picnics in the countryside in Hitler's Germany in the long term. There is the insanity of a world burned over for some vague ideal of trucks carrying troops to no specific place through farmland while a gaudy Germania sits as the throne of power. It honestly is like a fantasy story, with the horror of what this really means when superimposed on reality, as it was in Mao's China and all the other Communist regimes in Asia. Nazi Germany does not want to be like the West, as strange as that seems because Europe embodies the West. To the Nazis, "the West" is decadence, corruption, and Judeo-Bolshevik Capitalism. The Nazis want to be a Nordic mythology.

But I am stealing away from the intended topic. I just really want to see someone write this scenario.

 

[samcster94]

This is North Korea on steroids.

 

[The Byronic Hero]

I would agree with you...as long as Hitler lives. His style of divide and rule led to the ease of many of these mad schemes and allowed maniacs and incompetents into the halls of power (Hitler loved the mediocre). Like the USSR after Stalin's death and China after Mao's, unless Himmler wins the power struggle, I see Germany reversing some of these policies. The empire needs to run and this chaos gets in the way. Goering never believed in Nazi ideology, neither did Speer, most of the military, etc.

After Hitler's death, the likely winner is a group with a figurehead. The Slavs still remain slaves though the fervor of massacring them would have burnt itself out. The insane military spending is going to drop as the needs of the government comes to the forefront. Forget expansion as the Reich spends at least a generation digesting their conquests. To be honest, I see Germany going the way of China. They keep the veneer of Nazism but make gradual tweeks over time. There is no way it goes the way of an eighties dystopic b-movie. The main reason Germany became as fanatical as it did in the end was due to the approaching end of the war and the fear of what waited after the world discovered the horrors they had committed. They believed in Hitler and his promises because they had nothing else otherwise. Here they win and those who merely went along, the majority, do not get radicalized.

Now what becomes of Europe? Russia is broken. I just don't see them rising from what was intended. The heart of the continent is solidified in a German state. Likely a stronger version of the EEC is forced on everyone. Africa is abandoned save for maybe Libya; I'm assuming the UK survived and with American aid likely drove out most colonial forces. The economy eventually opens up. Maybe the Slavs are used as a cheap labor force. They'll eventually get nukes which will prevent any overt attempt to undermine the regime.

And this is running longer than I meant it to. Anyway, my two cents.

 

[John Dusk]

I'll quote CalBear with the most important parts bolded:

What would it have looked like?

Hell.

That would be on a good day.

The Poles would have ceased to exist, except for a few hardy souls working as slaves. It is worth remembering that it was 40 years after the end of WW II before Poland's population reached anterbellum levels. The cities of Poland and European Russia would have quite literally been elimnated from the map, brick by brick.

The Reich was run by a bunch of fools who actually believed their own BS (which made them at least twice as bad as the "Communist" leadership of the USSR post-Stalin). As a group they despised education, distructed any science that would not follow National Socialism doctrine (which pretty much excluded physics and economics as observed disciplines), and gave out responsible position of authority in non political spheres to Party loyalists instead of to actual compentent administrators and trained professionals. It was unable to manage a good economic outcome even when using slave labor. It would have, in probably less time than it took the USSR, economically collapsed into a militarily powerful state (although exactly how powerful that would actually have been, since the plan was to replace the Heer General Staff and the professional officer corps of the KM with SS leadership, and supplant the NCO cadre with "more reliable" elements from Nazi organizations) that was unable to feed itself despite having control of the European continent.

Depending on how it is before the West gets its act together and reasserts control over Europe the entire region would look like North Korea crossed with Somalia along with a soupcon of modern day Democratic Republic of the Congo for flavor.

 

[The Red]

Nazism is not vanilla fascism,

I don't think that any type of fascism can be described as "vanilla".

 

[Emperor Norton I]

I don't think that any type of fascism can be described as "vanilla".

My point is it is not just totalitarianism with the addition of hatred towards others and everyone else getting some normalcy. There are no comfortable moments in a family living room after work in Nazi Germany in the long term. Nazism wants to reach into your living room, your soul and your mind, and annihilate you and everything that lead to you if you are found lacking to their ideological dictates.

 

[The Wooksta!]

"We shall squeeze you hollow and then fill you with ourselves."

Wilhem had won the battle with himself. He loved the Fuhrer.

 

[The Red]

My point is it is not just totalitarianism with the addition of hatred towards others and everyone else getting some normalcy. There are no comfortable moments in a family living room after work in Nazi Germany in the long term. Nazism wants to reach into your living room, your soul and your mind, and annihilate you and everything that lead to you if you are found lacking to their ideological dictates.

Whilst I'm sure there would be some Völkisch fanatics who would obsess over the idea of the population being some sort of organism, there's nothing in actual experience of the Third Reich that imply they were against 'comfortable moments in the living room'. Like most fascist states they were terrified of their own population, especially the urbanised working class, and were desperate to keep them placated and distracted enough from the fact that they were banning unions. They were also incredibly incompetent when it came to bureaucracy, which is why it's usually glossed over as to how they actually won the war in these sorts of scenarios but also greatly limits their soul-interference abilities.

 

[TheSpectacledCloth]

I have asserted my opinion that, if Nazi Germany were victorious, it is more likely that Europe would have devolved into a nightmare landscape than becoming a cultured Soviet stand in for an alternate Cold War against the United States. Nazi ideology was insane, and if they had won, there is no reason to pull back to keep the population fat, happy and loyal. Nazism is not vanilla fascism, or even fascism with abuse and genocide against a select list of the "other". It is a total rearrangement and upheaval of everything. Every terrible, demented, evil idea about what the world should look like would become policy. It is a vague concept of pure blooded Nordics existing in a Germany of rolling hills and farms, where troops go to no specific place in trucks, while Germania sits as the throne of power. In my opinion, it would become like the Khmer Rouge or Mao's China in the maddest throws of the Cultural Revolution; a fantastical, unbelievable hellscape that can only be imagined if someone has seen a Heavy Metal album cover, and has the imagination and tolerance to think that deeply about human evil, depravity and suffering in all the multitude of ways it could be arranged, and as far as it can go. So what if this happened? What if this was the shape of a Nazi controlled Europe with carte blanche to do what it wanted within it's own territory?

I was inspired to do this thread based on what I posted, and some related discussion in the thread "Environmentalism and Climate Change in an Axis Victory Scenario".

I will quote some things I said.

This would especially be true for the young generation. They'd be completely brainwashed by the Nazi ideology and be at the will of any leader that takes power in the Reich. The extent of the terror would heavily depend on whom takes the leadership. Hitler would obviously stick to his beliefs and his infamous irrationality wouldn't help at all. But it would serve as the basis for the Nazi regime. Goering, while immoral himself, was seen by the German public as a far more relatable man. As a man who loves grandeur, it's unlikely he'd do much of the things Hitler wished to do. However, his capability as leader depends on his morphine addiction and obesity. Unless he turns it around, he'll either be purged by rivals or die from heart failure. Hess, while poised to succeed Goering, would be a joke. No one would take him seriously and he'd have little clue on doing Hitler's job. Martin Bormann would easily be the most opportunist of choices, but he'd still keep a low public profile (for his own safety). Heydrich, while not nearly as committed to Nazism as his superior Himmler is, would still make the Reich just as, if not more, repressive as Hitler's reign. Himmler would easily double the racial lunacy in the Reich, placing even more emphasis on the importance of blond hair and blue eyes. But Goebbels would have to be the worst choice of all. He was head of propaganda, utterly devoted to Hitler, and cared nothing about the lives of the German people. And he was dangerously intelligent, meaning he could go to lengths that Hitler or Himmler could only dream. Speer would easily be a better choice than most, but I doubt his profile was that significant enough to make him leader. Very possible, though. Rommel and Guderian are probably the best choices. Anyways, the fate of the German Reich after WWII depends on who takes power.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

The gutting of education in particular has intrigued me before; actually, now that you make the comparison, China's Cultural Revilution does offer some insights here. Particularly, as in the case of China, the regime that took power following Mao's death set China upon the path that made it the powerful, ultra-"modern" nation it is today. So, as @Inferus said, Nazi Germany and subsequently Europe will set upon a whole new course following Hitler's death, which for our purposes, I think we can say lives at least into the 1960's.

 

[Byz]

I tend to agree with your vision far more than the traditional "Worse Soviets" theory. I think any Nazi TL requires not only a great deal of research, but also a great deal of creativity, with the author needing to know how Nazis think and what they might get to next.

One pitfall that Nazi TLs fall into, IMO, is describing in horrible detail Generalplan Ost and then just generally saying "And that's that, this was the worst tragedy in human history but now the Nazis are just a shitty authoritarian state with a dark past". The gigantic machinery to complete the TTL Holocaust would involved millions of people and have an immense influence on government, like the often complained about military-industrial complex of the United States, except unlike the U.S its goal is not to start wars and expand U.S market interests, but instead to exterminate mass populations of people. It is remarkably easy to kill a great deal of people with modern industrial technology, and once they began I think our theories that the Nazis would face mass resistance and get bogged down are overblown. Killing people can become mathematics, and mathematics is a problem that can be solved. Once the Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Jews, Gypsies, and other groups are mopped up, there are a number of targets it could, depending on the extent of Nazi control, turn its head to exterminating next:

1. Africans. Already fits perfectly into Nazi Ideology viewing them as subhuman. This is restricted based off how much the Nazis control, but assuming they have a nuclear deterrent against the USA/Britain/India/whatever, they should at least be able to do this in their own territory. The question relies on how much they control; if all of France and Italy's colonial holdings are protected by the Nazi Nuclear Umbrella, that's a LOT of people to kill. We may see the Nazis seizing colonial territory from their allies for themselves, or just clearing it out and allowing the French and Italians to have their own, subordinate Empire.

2. Southern Slavs. Although mostly ignored by the Nazis IOTL, once they're done in Russia there are very conveniently more Slavs for the killing machine to exterminate, creating more land to fill with Germans and possibly Italians. Perhaps they just go after Yugoslavic groups and ignore Bulgaria, but it's not like Nazis are unafraid to turn on people they've had agreements with.

3. Caucasians. Could be targeted simply as spillover from the Russian genocide, and expanded from there. Easy to target as they're very different from Germans and close to an area Nazi Germany may care a lot about: the Middle East.

4. Other Balkan Groups; Turks, Greeks, Albanians. They might just pick one and exterminate them, but these are always an option, especially if relations with, say, Turkey, sour.

5. "Latins". Nazi Ideology and particularly Hitler is crazy enough to turn on France, Italy, and other "allies" of the German Reich once their position is secure and they've decided they'd be better off Aryan. I find this one exceedingly unlikely, but possible, and may involve more of a standard ethnic cleansing+cultural genocide, though still flavored with OTL Nazi actions.

Really the sky (or rather Hell) is the limit on who they might target next, but I find it fairly likely they will target a group under their control simply because that is what they must do, ideologically, and because the forces driving Generalplan Ost will not want to see their position of power and importance removed.

But how to fill all this new territory? Many people have already said that your average German might not be interested in starting a new life in the Russian plains when they have a pretty good one working in Hamburg. I find this argument compelling. What I do not find compelling is the argument that this will make any difference to the ideologically-driven German leadership. If the Fuhrer wants 10,000 Germans in Hitlerstadt (Moscow), then he'll get 10,000 Germans in Hitlerstadt. This is not a case of the Nazis being efficient, but of them just completely not caring about the interests or desires of their own people. The SS will be insanely powerful after a victory in World War Two, and the Nazi Party will be the force that singlehandedly turned Germany around from humiliation and defeat to glory. Not to mention every German will know by this point that resistance is death.

If this happens enough, Germany could destroy its own industrial power and cripple itself as a nation. But they are led by ideologues that will not care, and when that happens any number of terrible things can be justified. The Soviet Union crippled its own agricultural output with Collectivization, leading to mass famine. Did they care? Of course not. And the Nazis are even more insane than the Soviets.

Can this insanity be reigned in? It's possible. But history shows us not to underestimate the dreams of madmen when they are put in charge of a nation. Especially not with Hitler.

 

[fscott]

My point is it is not just totalitarianism with the addition of hatred towards others and everyone else getting some normalcy. There are no comfortable moments in a family living room after work in Nazi Germany in the long term. Nazism wants to reach into your living room, your soul and your mind, and annihilate you and everything that lead to you if you are found lacking to their ideological dictates.

It sounds like Big Brother

 

[John Dusk]

It is remarkably easy to kill a great deal of people with modern industrial technology, and once they began I think our theories that the Nazis would face mass resistance and get bogged down are overblown. Killing people can become mathematics, and mathematics is a problem that can be solved.

It's especially easy when you're simply working people to death (Extermination Through Labor) in mines, factories, the Atlantic Wall, laying down railways, roadwork, demolition of their own cities etc and allowing anyone who can't work to starve and die of disease and exposure. A few million "subhumans" worked to death every year for several decades straight adds up to over 100 million deaths and that's just the Slavs and Poles, not including those sent from the rump USSR as tribute and any other group the Reich turns on (listed by @TheByzantineOttoman).

Think about that. Over 100 million people exterminated through overwork, starvation, and disease. No gas chambers or Einsatzgruppen necessary. A victorious Nazi Germany that managed to accomplish Generalplan Ost would make any historical dictatorship you can name (Khmer Rouge, Stalin's USSR, Mao's China etc) look like amateurs both in terms of body count and sheer maliciousness.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

It sounds like Big Brother

The logical conclusion of Nazism is horror in ever way imaginable, and no perversity is out of bounds. Unlike 1984, this is a system that would collapse in on itself. Imagine Cambodian killing fields from Brittany to the Baltics and beyond. Imagine a leader liquidating all dissenters in his regime, making himself into a god, and turning his brainwashed followers into soldiers for correct behavior. Imagine rule by terror even among those around him. Imagine a man with all that force behind him deciding to force an entire city to abandon to the countryside to take up farming, or to produce one industrial product at the expense of food and actual economics, leading to mass starvation and decay. That can be an increasingly erratic and paranoid Hitler or Himmler, but it does not have to be because this is the illogical logical conclusion to radical totalitarianism. The Nazis are not the people who created the great works of Europe, nor it's millenia of culture. They were usurpers to that and vandals of that, and they will tear down the house they stole. We have the OTL template for this, including the Khmer Rouge, North Korea, and Maoist China. It's just that they did not have a continent to murder or an entire existing industrial base to annihilate for whims of ideological and racial purity. Fascism turned outward to foreign enemies and native people deemed foreign outsiders, and logically it will turn in on itself and its own people. When reality is attempted to be made into ideological mythology, it leads to horror.

 

[The Byronic Hero]

The logical conclusion of Nazism is horror in ever way imaginable, and no perversity is out of bounds. Unlike 1984, this is a system that would collapse in on itself. Imagine Cambodian killing fields from Brittany to the Baltics and beyond. Imagine a leader liquidating all dissenters in his regime, making himself into a god, and turning his brainwashed followers into soldiers for correct behavior. Imagine rule by terror even among those around him. Imagine a man with all that force behind him deciding to force an entire city to abandon to the countryside to take up farming, or to produce one industrial product at the expense of food and actual economics, leading to mass starvation and decay. That can be an increasingly erratic and paranoid Hitler or Himmler, but it does not have to be because this is the illogical logical conclusion to radical totalitarianism. The Nazis are not the people who created the great works of Europe, nor it's millenia of culture. They were usurpers to that and vandals of that, and they will tear down the house they stole. We have the OTL template for this, including the Khmer Rouge, North Korea, and Maoist China. It's just that they did not have a continent to murder or an entire existing industrial base to annihilate for whims of ideological and racial purity. Fascism turned outward to foreign enemies and native people deemed foreign outsiders, and logically it will turn in on itself and its own people. When reality is attempted to be made into ideological mythology, it leads to horror.

The Uber dystopic worlds people create when speaking about the Nazis border on sci-fi/fantasy tropes. No modern state can exist if it were to totally embrace such genocidal insanity. The Belgian brought horrors to Congo but eventually found their senses. The Cambodians went along largely because they were a small and isolated people. Hell, look at Turkey and the Armenians, the Soviets and the Ukrainians, even the US and Native Americans. Did the rampage continue past limited goals? History is full of these nightmares but they didn't progress to Sauron's quest to subjagate all life. Humanity has it's limits to the evil we can accomplish. Either everything comes apart within a decade or it liberalizes. The belief we'd have lampshades of human flesh, cups made from skulls, and humans devoid of emotion; this is not the Classical era of barbarians and men hardened by difficult times. The trope of the Nazis being an absolute evil that would swallow the world is cliche. They were banal, short-sighted, angry men, sure, but to grant them the Spielbergian aura they've acquired, that is a step too far. Look to any other Fascist regime. Once they realize their governments can't give them what the capitalists have, they'll demand reform. That is human nature regardless of your origin.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

The Uber dystopic worlds people create when speaking about the Nazis border on sci-fi/fantasy tropes. No modern state can exist if it were to totally embrace such genocidal insanity. The Belgian brought horrors to Congo but eventually found their senses. The Cambodian went along largely because they were a small and isolated people. Hell, look at Turkey and the Armenians, the Soviets and the Ukrainian, even the US and Native Americans. Did the rampage continue past limited goals? History is full of these nightmares but they didn't progress to Sauron quest to subjagate all life. Humanity has it's limits to the evil we can accomplish. Either everything comes apart within a decade or it liberalizes. The belief we'd have lampshades of human flesh, cups made from skulls, and humans devoid of emotion; this is not the Classical era of barbarians and men hardened by difficult times. The trope of the Nazis being an absolute evil that would swallow the world is cliche. They were banal, short-sighted, angry men, sure, but to grant them the Spielbergian aura they've acquired, that is a step too far. Look to any other Fascist regime. Once they realize their governments can't give them what the capitalists have, they'll demand reform. That is human nature regardless of your origin.

Nazism is not a sane ideology. It is not an ideology about self imposed limits or level headed thinking. Nazi ideology is precisely a Sauron quest because it is insane. And the Spielbergian aura is based on actual things the Nazis were capable of doing. Spielberg got criticism for overdoing Amon Goth in "Shindler's List", when the reality is, what that guy actually did was even worse and Spielberg toned down his evil to make it more believable. Reason is not going to save Europe, because Nazism is not reasonable. Racism, genocide, and atrocity are not byproducts of this nation as with your examples. They are the entire point. We have seen the human nature of absolute power and fanatical ideology. It leads to evil, and an assumption built day by day, accepted horror by accepted horror, that the ideology is reality and that reality must be made to fit the ideology because it is the truth and reality is not.

 

[KuboCaskett]

The Uber dystopic worlds people create when speaking about the Nazis border on sci-fi/fantasy tropes. No modern state can exist if it were to totally embrace such genocidal insanity. The Belgian brought horrors to Congo but eventually found their senses. The Cambodian went along largely because they were a small and isolated people. Hell, look at Turkey and the Armenians, the Soviets and the Ukrainian, even the US and Native Americans. Did the rampage continue past limited goals? History is full of these nightmares but they didn't progress to Sauron quest to subjagate all life. Humanity has it's limits to the evil we can accomplish. Either everything comes apart within a decade or it liberalizes. The belief we'd have lampshades of human flesh, cups made from skulls, and humans devoid of emotion; this is not the Classical era of barbarians and men hardened by difficult times. The trope of the Nazis being an absolute evil that would swallow the world is cliche. They were banal, short-sighted, angry men, sure, but to grant them the Spielbergian aura they've acquired, that is a step too far. Look to any other Fascist regime. Once they realize their governments can't give them what the capitalists have, they'll demand reform. That is human nature regardless of your origin.

I can't agree more, one must understand that while insanely warped, Nazism is a product of mere humans who believe that dominating others by violent means race-wise will lead to better societies; the other totalitarian, undemocratic ideologies can easily apply. If anything really, believing that Nazism being the only evil thing on earth is really naïve, especially given that other organizations like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Khmer Rogue, the Korean Worker's Party, and ISIS can prove that they can not only match the horrors Nazism brought out IOTL but do immense damage to outside societies given the chance; the Nazis were only lucky to somewhat getting started with Generalplan Ost but thankfully the peoples of Russia and the Soviet Union stopped them (despite them being under said regime). And I mention the Soviets as being able to match the Nazis since they were founded on hatred of the "upper than lower classes" and tried numerous times, to various extent, to spread their totalitarian ideology around the world as part of their goal to "spread the revolution" and "establish a worker's state". There's a reason the Cold War was waged and we out to be happy that the USSR died in 1991, though sadly it has many fans to this day but that's another subject for another time.

Though knowing how illegitimate Nazism is, the Nazis trying to reform and be "rational" (by their standards) would be quite a feat for them considering that they have to deal with many enemies on all sides in such a TL.

 

[The Byronic Hero]

Nazism is not a sane ideology. It is not an ideology about self imposed limits or level headed thinking. Nazi ideology is precisely a Sauron quest because it is insane. And the Spielbergian aura is based on actual things the Nazis were capable of doing. Spielberg got criticism for overdoing Amon Goth in "Shindler's List", when the reality is, what that guy actually did was even worse and Spielberg toned down his evil to make it more believable. Reason is not going to save Europe, because Nazism is not reasonable. Racism, genocide, and atrocity are not byproducts of this nation as with your examples. They are the entire point.

Nazism is a reactionary ideology against Versailles, against Modernism, and most of all globalism. But like every movement it burns out. Nazism is no better than the communists in Russia and China, the New Turks, FARC in Colombia, or the various despots in Africa. Things change or collapse. The Germans wouldn't hold all of Europe and function as a modern state for long if they stayed in perpetual bloodlust. Where would the capital come from? The means to keep everything running? Seriously, they either get a decade of hell on Earth before it implodes (likely following Hitler's death) or they liberalize.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

Nazism is a reactionary ideology against Versailles, against Modernism, and most of all globalism. But like every movement it burns out. Nazism is no better than the communists in Russia and China, the New Turks, FARC in Colombia, or the various despots in Africa. Things change or collapse. The Germans wouldn't hold all of Europe and function as a modern state for long if they stayed in perpetual bloodlust. Where would the capital come from? The means to keep everything running? Seriously, they either get a decade of hell on Earth before it implodes (likely following Hitler's death) or they liberalize.

It would collapse. But if your argument is that Nazi ideology is not reasonable, then that is an argument against the ideology, and not that the ideology is not what it is.

 

[KuboCaskett]

Nazism is not a sane ideology. It is not an ideology about self imposed limits or level headed thinking. Nazi ideology is precisely a Sauron quest because it is insane. And the Spielbergian aura is based on actual things the Nazis were capable of doing. Spielberg got criticism for overdoing Amon Goth in "Shindler's List", when the reality is, what that guy actually did was even worse and Spielberg toned down his evil to make it more believable. Reason is not going to save Europe, because Nazism is not reasonable. Racism, genocide, and atrocity are not byproducts of this nation as with your examples. They are the entire point.

You know, while I never seen the film, I honestly wished that Spielberg keep his evil antics intact just to capture how horrific he really was just as in real life, but that might have gotten the film an NC-17 rating and probably some people shocked out of their senses (not in a good way) or at least in disbelief at such atrocities.

Nazism is a reactionary ideology against Versailles, against Modernism, and most of all globalism. But like every movement it burns out. Nazism is no better than the communists in Russia and China, the New Turks, FARC in Colombia, or the various despots in Africa. Things change or collapse. The Germans wouldn't hold all of Europe and function as a modern state for long if they stayed in perpetual bloodlust. Where would the capital come from? The means to keep everything running? Seriously, they either get a decade of hell on Earth before it implodes (likely following Hitler's death) or they liberalize.

Indeed, though the Nazis still need an enemy of sorts to keep their rule going, just like any other totalitarian regime would do; though the Jews would still work as a convenient scapegoat for them.