WI: Nazi Germany attacked immediately.

In this timeline, as soon as Hitler makes himself Führer of Germany, the UK and France invade in order to restore German democracy. Do they succeed?
 
Yes, they would certainly succeed. Militarily Germany would have no chance in 1933.
they wouldn't be invincible and procced to conquer the world!?!? ;)

the question asked was to restore democracy and would that succeed. on that note I would have to say, who was democratic back in the 30's?

also the Germans might feel very put upon if attacked with out some blatant justification in 1933, I agree that the French and british could make short work of this, but in reality just moving in a threatening manner would be sufficient since the Germans would know they would loose.

Now take all that with a grain of salt, but invading based on election results might not be a smart idea. sort of like, hey if you went back in time and killed hitler in the cradle is that ethical or proper? what did infant hitler do? My question would be what did Germany 1933 do to warrant being attacked.

Nazi Germany could have been stopped pretty much up to Sept. 1 1939 and at no point did the west say, hey Austria, Czechia, etc.. maybe this guy isn't going to stop, and hey where did he get that military from that he is supposed to not have?

The west was fearful of another war, stuck in the rut of the depression and for the most ignoring the situation
 
The west was fearful of another war, stuck in the rut of the depression and for the most ignoring the situation

Right and the nazis, well aware of Germany's weakness, feigned a benign and peace loving attitude to avoid provoking other states, or demobilize them psychologically. It is true that after Hitler came to power the Poles proposed a preventive attack but France wouldn't go along. Before long Hitler's political acumen resulted in Poland itself being detached from the French system of alliances.
 
Yes, they would certainly succeed. Militarily Germany would have no chance in 1933.

What forces did Britain and France have in anything like war readiness? How would their respective populations and political establishments react to their governments launching a war of aggression over Germany repudiating a treaty that any reasonable person could see was overkill?
 
Perhaps rather than 1933, a POD of 1936 when Hitler remilitarised the Rhineland?

Could argue that Hitler’s approach was a pretty decent use of salami tactics. Didn’t attempt everything from Day One, rather slice by slice with the first slices being easier to justify and therefore easier not to put a halt to.
 
It's politically unrealistic, as others have mentioned. Militarily, Germany was a pushover in 1933, and probably wouldn't even have put up any serious resistance (the army was not "gleichgeschaltet" right from the start, so even if Hitler would have gone for a suicide defense mission, the generals may well have just hoisted the white flag regardless), knowing the outcome. Restoring democracy? Well, you could have an Anglo-French puppet chancellor ban the Nazis, free the political prisoners and intern some of the SA instead, which would go a long way to bringing back a Weimar 2.0 which doesn't have to collapse at all. The big problem really is the political one, the lack of the hindsight we have now. And, of course, Nazism would benefit from TTL's martyr myth.
 
Doubt that it will be seen as a legitimate reason for world and actually being against democracy by most nations, Germany will be the victim of british and french agression in the world's eyes.
 
Doubt that it will be seen as a legitimate reason for world and actually being against democracy by most nations, Germany will be the victim of british and french agression in the world's eyes.

The first CB the Brits and French could probably get away with would be Hitler's announcement that Germany would no longer abide by Versailles military limits, no?
 
In this timeline, as soon as Hitler makes himself Führer of Germany, the UK and France invade in order to restore German democracy. Do they succeed?

Restore what democracy? The elected President of Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1932_German_federal_election had appointed Hitler Chancellor, the NSDAP was the largest party in the Reichstag, and parties completely opposed to Weimar democracy (NSDAP, DNVP, KPD) got 58 percent of the vote in the November 1932 Reichstag election. Well before Hitler came to power, governments had ruled by presidential decree. Of course the Allies had the military ability to march to Berlin and overthrow Hitler but this would just be an occupation regime, not a democracy. If the occupiers were to call new elections, they would either have to ban three major parties or risk another anti-democratic Reichstag. So they would just have to occupy the country indefinitely.

Anyway, there are so many reasons why the Allies are not going to do this--the question, "after Hitler who?" (a military regime? Bolshevism? Neither looked like an attractive alternative...), the fact that the Allies were preoccupied with the Great Depression, the bad experiences the French had had occupying the Rhineland, let alone all of Germany, the instability of governments in France, the disagreements between the UK and France, the widespread image of Germany as an underdog that had been mistreated by the Versailles treaty, etc.--that it is simply not a plausible what-if.

The one country that may have contemplated a pre-emptive war was Poland, but even that is extremely dubious, as I discuss at https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...rman-polish-war-of-1933.436527/#post-16491409 but even if Pilsudski did discuss the idea with the French (and there is no proof that he did) there is no way the latter would accept the idea.
 
If on day one of taking power Hitler:

Renounced the Versailles Treaty

Defaulted on all Germany’s foreign debt

Launched a Kristallnacht style pogrom against the Jews

Burnt down the Reichstag

Revealed details of Germany’s secret collaboration with the USSR on tank and aircraft development

Then just maybe, possibly you might get the British and French to take action, but it would still be far more likely that they would impose a few economic sanctions and send some strongly worded diplomatic notes. The reality is that in 1933 there is no appetite for anything that even looks like another European war and the assumption was that Hitler was little more than a figurehead for conservative elements inside Germany. At the time he was certainly far more palatable to the British establishment than a bunch of Bolesheviks taking over.
 
Thinking following the above, many of what we would now call hawks in the British political class were initially somewhat favourable of Hitler, so short of doing anything borderline ASB on Day One, hard to see anything happening.
 
The first CB the Brits and French could probably get away with would be Hitler's announcement that Germany would no longer abide by Versailles military limits, no?

The abrogation of the reparations payments. This threatened a banking crisis, as the Depression was starting to recover in Europe. Ten years earlier France & Belgium had occupied the Ruhr to enforce reparations payments. Had France & Belgium preserved the will to invade again it would be a major PoD.
 
The abrogation of the reparations payments. This threatened a banking crisis, as the Depression was starting to recover in Europe. Ten years earlier France & Belgium had occupied the Ruhr to enforce reparations payments. Had France & Belgium preserved the will to invade again it would be a major PoD.

The problem was that the 'Intervention' in the Ruhr in 1924 was widely seen as a failure in both France and Belgium: A costly deployment with nothing to show for it in the end. Occupying Germany again in 1933 might just end up in an even more chaotic 1936 French election with all in favor of the invasion being booted out if office.
 
I agree. Like I wrote this happening signifies a major PoD occuring. Essentialy France rejects the defensive policy & move further into a proactive aggressive policy. To make this work ongoing political preparation is necessary, and changes in the military need to go in a different direction than OTL.
 
I imagine Britain and France attempting to "restore democracy" by invading Germany after an election would go as well as believing that Ahmed Chalabi could just be parachuted (metaphorically) into Iraq post-Saddam to "restore democracy"

After the Germany army has surrendered, who is going to govern Germany? It can't have elections since the KPD and the NSDAP were the largest parties and presumably in this scneario Britain and France see them as "undemocratic"
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
The first CB the Brits and French could probably get away with would be Hitler's announcement that Germany would no longer abide by Versailles military limits, no?
Going to war over an announcement won’t be enough to get the support of the British and French public, let alone the rest of the world. A better CB would be the reinstatement of the draft or the remilitarization of the Rhineland.
 
The German Heer, realizing that its no where close to being ready for war, launches a coup on the orders of President Hindenburg. Hitler is deposed and the leading NAZI's are imprisoned. A military government takes power and has to contend with protests made up of Germans who voted for the NAZI's.
 
Top