WI no "cash and carry"?

[Akiyama]

The Neutrality Acts of 1939 allowed the US to sell arms to European democracies (i.e. Britain and France). Prior to that, the Neutrality Act of 1935 prohibited US citizens from selling arms to any country at war. The 1939 policy was nicknamed "cash and carry", since the buyer had to pay up front (that meant no credit; after all, what if they lost?).

I wonder, WI the US was more isolationist and there was no cash and carry? Would it make a difference?

The reason I'm asking is because the role-playing game supplenment GURPS Alternate Earths has a timeline ("Reich 5") in which Roosevelt is assassinated by Guiseppe Zangara in 1933 (same POD as "The Man in the High Castle"), the well known fascist sympathiser Charles Lindbergh becomes President (same as in the recent book "The Plot against America" by Philip Roth" and "K" by Daniel Easterman).

To quote from GURPS Alternate Earths:

"Britain might have survived with American aid but, trapped in isolation and depression, the US ignored the war. With the fall of Britain, Hitler was free to turn on the Soviet Union . . ."

In Reich 5, the "fall of Britain" happens in 1940.

It just seems highly unlikely to me that US isolationism would make any difference to the course of the war in 1940. But Reich 5 is a cool timeline and I'd like to able to believe in it.

 

[Forum Lurker]

You could always push the timeline back a few years. If Hitler stoppers up Britain on its island, sics his U-boats on the British merchant marine, and turns towards the Middle East, he can get enough oil to support his war machine. If fighting only against Russia, he might win, especially if the U.S. is so isolationist that Japan feels comfortable leaving them alone, seizes the East Indies, and then focuses on Asia, including some support against Russia through Manchukuo. Then, with all of Europe and Asia under fascist control, he can build up an invasion fleet, mass the Luftwaffe to clear the RAF from the Channel and bomb hell out of the RN, and achieve his Sealion dreams.

 

[Max Sinister]

It's maybe the only way how a fascist world would become possible, and there are still many weak points. Even if the US won't help Britain, could the Germans conquer it with barges? Even if we assume that they shoot down the complete RAF... ok, while we're on it, let's also assume that on the day of the German invasion the weather is perfect, too.

One thing that bothered me about Reich 5: The successor of Heydrich (who succeeded Hitler) in ~1983 is called Viktor Alchsneiss, which is a pretty stupid name. First, I'll bet that there's noone in Germany with that last name. Second, though Viktor sounds otherwise like a good name, it's not what the nazis considered a good aryan name - why not something along Adolf/Wilhelm/Horst/Erich?