Alternate History Idea - Hitler dies in early 1936 - then what?

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

Mm ... regardless of any other factor, I think that without Hitler, WWII never starts, and if so, Germany loses decisively and early.

I'm pretty sure you still get WWII. If the Western European powers get their act together and bolster Germany, you might get a Cold War. I'm not sure that, without MAD, you don't get an east/west alliance war in short order. I suppose Imperial Japan might draw Stalin's attention enough to dilute the threats, resulting in lots of proxy wars with the main players being; US, West Europe, Soviets, Imperial Japan. On the other hand, when US and West Europe, due to common joint interests, formally ally, I'd bet the Soviets and Japanese come to an agreement on their disputes.

[Nereidalbel]

Wasn't this pretty much the set-up for Command & Conquer: Red Alert? Hitler being taken out of the picture early led to the Russians starting World War II.

[Keiko]

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

For an alternate history idea, what would have happened if Hitler was assassinated around late 1935-36 or so? After remilitarizing the rhineland, but before annexing Austria. I suppose the Nazi party would have picked a new leader, perhaps Goring? I guess rearmament would have continued on all sides, but what would the new Nazi leader's foreign policy be, and how long until ww2 started, if at all?

Interesting question. The Nazi regime was really only tied together at the very top -- Hitler kept the upper echelon of his underlings poised in dynamic tension, none of them powerful enough to take him out. Furthermore, Hitler was the one with the conqueror complex -- Rosenberg was an oaf without a power base, Goering just wanted to live large, Hess was a natural second fiddle. Himmler comes closest, but he didn't have the personal charisma to pull the others together the way Hitler did. What you're left with is a gaggle of people with their own agendas who would have had a very difficult time working together. Personally I think Germany settles into a rather unpleasant Fascist technocracy not too dissimilar to Franco's Spain.

Looking at Germany's neighbors, France's Third Republic was lurching on in a highly unstable manner, with Communists, Fascists, and even residual Royalists all shoving each other as hard as they could, a mixture so voluble that I think *something* would have happened to tip over the applecart by 1945. Italy was led by the swaggering, incompetent Mussolini, but they did actually have a reasonable arms program that would have produced a highly effective military by, again, 1945. Austria was in a hard way, and I think it ends up in some sort of association with Germany in very short order even without Hitler. Czechoslovakia was a stable and inoffensive democracy, and given enough time, they could have used the combination of their industrial base and their mountainous terrain to make themselves a tough nut for anybody to crack. Poland was a Fascist dictatorship more afraid of the Soviets than of Germany, so with more pragmatic sorts leading Germany a modus vivendi could probably have been reached, to include a defensive alliance against the USSR. The Balkans were, as ever, a bubbling stew of instability, but Fascism was very strong in Hungary and Romania, while the Bulgarians were torn between Fascism and the lure of an anti-Turkish alliance with the USSR and Greece. The USSR was spoiling for a fight -- well, not a fight so much as a massive land grab at the expense of someone (most likely many someones) else; they were the proverbial bull in a china shop, and they were definitely gonna break something. Britain desperately wanted to avoid war, and a lack of Hitler means they could have avoided it for longer than they did, but eventually something would have happened. Something always happens.

Consider the following scenario: the Spanish Civil War ignites on schedule, but without the concerted German effort there, the Italians and the Soviets take the lead and the war drags on, generating even more mutual atrocity. Trades union clashes with rightist elements grow more bitter in France over economic issues as well as the country's lack of support for the Republicans in Spain, leading to a period of anarchy and the end of the unlamented Third Republic; whether or not the Communists come out on top, massive and barely-disguised aid flows in from the Soviets, escalating hostilities there. Britain is alarmed by the progress of Communism in Western Europe and seeks to prop up a foundering Germany and an Italy bogged down in a Spanish quagmire the two Fascist nations can't seem to either win or back out of. The Soviets rattle their sabers along the Baltic, demanding territorial concessions and extraterritorial rights in Finland, the Baltic States, and Poland. Poland is alarmed and the Wehrmacht, unable to tolerate the instability at the top of the regime, takes a stronger role in German government and pushes for an anti-Communist alliance. The powder keg is ignited in the summer of 1942 when open civil war breaks out in France and the Soviets demand the right to send aid to their Communist brethren heroically fighting for the rights of the proletariat in France, while Britain institutes a blockade across the northern Atlantic to keep the filthy Reds in the savage East where they belong; looking for another avenue, the USSR demands transit rights in the Bosporus, and when Ataturk balks, the Black Sea Fleet attempts to force the issue. Greece and Bulgaria join the fight to seize European Turkey, which forces the British to come to the assistance of the Noble Turks (tm). The Third Balkan War and the Second French Revolution need only a link to connect them, a link provided when the Germans and Poles sign an ironclad nonaggression pact and mutual defense treaty aimed and closing the Baltic to the Soviets -- and bam, you got yourself a world at war.

[adm]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

...Goering? The Army never would've allowed his accession -- aristos almost to a man, they considered him a jumped-up parvenu...

Originally Posted by Rasputin

...The guy was a war hero, which made him popular with the public. His father was a colonial administrator in Namibia and he had the highest possible marks from his military schooling, earning him the personal commendation of the Kaiser. If they could accept a hick Bavarian corporal like Hitler, they could accept Göring. (And Hess, not Himmler, was the other choice at this time. Since Hess was a known bisexual and four years from going mad, he would have been nixed fast.) Göring almost assuredly would have been a weak leader, and wasted his time trying to loot the German treasury...

People often forget what a hero Göring was to the German people after WW I. He ended the war with 17 aerial victories, and in command of Richtoften's Circus(Red Baron). When he wasn't high on morphine, or being a hedonist, he could be surprisingly effective, and very dangerous.

Originally Posted by Gedrin

...However, it's unlikely that he'd be in office, and Churchill taking the role of anti-Soviet rather than anti-Nazi is natural.

Actually, until the rise of the NAZIs, Churchill was known as an implacable foe of Communism, and Stalin in particular. When he realized the more immediate threat that Hitler was, he concentrated his efforts against him. At first when Churchill tried to warn everyone, he was treated as a frightened old man who was trying to re-fight WW I, later after he had become Prime Minister and Hitler declared war against the U.S.S.R., some of his political opponents accused him of inconstancy with his willingness to help Stalin.

Originally Posted by Keiko

Interesting question...

A well thought out alternate history.

[tantric]

Let's see...without Hitler, the Reds win out over the Fascists, giving rise to the German People's Republic with Karl Liebknecht as the GenSec. The communist have no problem with Jews or intellectuals, and thus most of the Manhattan project scientists remain on the continent. The GPR props up the Syndicalists in the Spanish Civil War, causing the British to support the Nationalists. There is also conflict with the USSR, which supports the state communist faction. Easy victory in Spain leads to an invasion of France, which leads to war with the UK. The Battle of Britain ends with the detonation of a nuclear device in Manchester. The US, which had been supporting England with materials, sues for peace in order to better fight the Japanese. In a surprise move, Liebknecht, who utterly despises Stalin as a traitor to the revolution, turns the war machine against Russia. 12 nuclear bombs are used before there is no Soviet government left.

Missing Hitler yet?

[gruundehn]

Originally Posted by tantric

Let's see...without Hitler, the Reds win out over the Fascists, giving rise to the German People's Republic with Karl Liebknecht as the GenSec. The communist have no problem with Jews or intellectuals, and thus most of the Manhattan project scientists remain on the continent. The GPR props up the Syndicalists in the Spanish Civil War, causing the British to support the Nationalists. There is also conflict with the USSR, which supports the state communist faction. Easy victory in Spain leads to an invasion of France, which leads to war with the UK. The Battle of Britain ends with the detonation of a nuclear device in Manchester. The US, which had been supporting England with materials, sues for peace in order to better fight the Japanese. In a surprise move, Liebknecht, who utterly despises Stalin as a traitor to the revolution, turns the war machine against Russia. 12 nuclear bombs are used before there is no Soviet government left.

Missing Hitler yet?

I don't think that the Reds win out so easily. The Nazis had been in power for about three years and the SA and SS were still formidable and the military would have stepped in and probably taken control until the Reds were beaten and then turned the government over to the Conservatives remaining the power behind the throne as it were. Germany would have probably returned to the unofficial alliance with the USSR that was in existence until Hitler came to power; but maybe not given the role the military had in suppressing the Reds and the freedom they had to develop military weapons given the de facto loosening of the Versailles Treaty pioneered by Brittan. The Spanish Civil War would not have happened as it was German intervention that allowed Franco to get his forces from Africa to Spain and start the fighting. The USSR would probably had tried to force the Eastern European countries to become satellites and buffer states. If any resisted, probably Poland and Czechoslovakia as primary but others following their lead perhaps, then WW II starts in Eastern Europe between the USSR and the Western Democracies and Germany.

America would not have gotten involved in Europe but concentrated on Japan. The war there, depending upon who was elected President in 1940, would have started later by a couple of years and lasted longer by several years depending on if America kept to the Rainbow 5 plan or not. If America kept to that plan the war would have lasted probably an extra two years and cost a lot more lives.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by tantric

Let's see...without Hitler, the Reds win out over the Fascists, giving rise to the German People's Republic with Karl Liebknecht as the GenSec. The communist have no problem with Jews or intellectuals, and thus most of the Manhattan project scientists remain on the continent. The GPR props up the Syndicalists in the Spanish Civil War, causing the British to support the Nationalists. There is also conflict with the USSR, which supports the state communist faction. Easy victory in Spain leads to an invasion of France, which leads to war with the UK. The Battle of Britain ends with the detonation of a nuclear device in Manchester. The US, which had been supporting England with materials, sues for peace in order to better fight the Japanese. In a surprise move, Liebknecht, who utterly despises Stalin as a traitor to the revolution, turns the war machine against Russia. 12 nuclear bombs are used before there is no Soviet government left.

Missing Hitler yet?

I have severe problems with this scenario. The divergence point has been stated as Hitler dies in 1936. Five seconds of looking up Karl Liebknecht shows me that he died in 1919. I fail to see how he gets to power about 17 years after he died.

[acrosome]

This is probably the wrong forum in which to discuss this scenario. Not that the people here aren't bright as hell, but the right forum would be alternatehistory.com, though I will admit that those guys can be vicious when someone brings up something they think is silly. (For the love of God don't mention Sea Lion.) I very confident that there are already innumerable discussions on "what if Hitler died in the late interwar period" already in existence there.

[Kilmore]

Maybe the Imperials are back in power in Germany? There was still a lot of love for the Imperial family in Germany, and I think many considered the erratic Kaiser Wilhelm II to be an aberration. He (pretty sensibly considering...) wanted to stay out of Hitler's way and had some hope that the Nazis would replace the Monarchy, but he turned away from Hitler when he saw that wasn't going to happen. He may get along better with England, and even France, and possibly enable fisticuffs with Russia without a second front happening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm...n_Crown_Prince

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Kilmore

Maybe the Imperials are back in power in Germany?

The senior Army leadership would like that idea. A lot of the population would not. Imperial Germany had been a very stratified society (basically, an absolute monarchy with very limited social mobility and a parliament whose only powers were financial. Those powers were significant, but under-used because one of the major parties was set up on the basis of "Do whatever the Kaiser wants.")

The Nazis had done something that deeply subverted the traditions of Imperial Germany. They issued uniforms to anyone who signed up with them, and the importance of uniform was huge. Most civil service posts, senior police posts, and lots of other patronage was completely reserved for ex-soldiers and real authority was reserved for ex-officers. Suddenly the Nazis were creating a rival hierarchy of uniform and officership that wasn't reserved for the traditional upper class. If you had any brains, and not too many scruples, you could get places that were absolutely impossible under the old system for anyone who wasn't upper-class. They didn't get votes only by violence and prejudice.