Current Events > What if Hitler and Nazi Germany succeeded in WWII?

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As in, all of the worlds population of Jews was eradicated and the world was taken over by Nazi Germany.

What would be different?

Japan would rule the west side of America

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https://youtu.be/zzayf9GpXCI

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Shockingly no one has said you would still be alone.

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The resulting government would have fallen long ago due to the inherent incompetence of Nazism, but humanity would be far more wounded.

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The fabric of reality itself would be different, because Nazi Germany would never have been able to "take over the world", never tried, and never showed any serious interest in doing so.

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They would of gone to war with Japan.

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Harry Turtledove, an author who has made a career out of writing various alternate history novels, did a book called "In The Presence Of Mine Enemies" that explores this very question. Book takes place in 2010 (it was written before 2010 though, so at the time it was a future story) in a timeline in which the Axis was victorious in ww2. However the story is told from the point of view of a Jewish family living in Berlin.

The world thinks Jews are all gone. Some managed to conceal their heritage and remain hiding in plain sight

It's a very good book. I recommend to anyone who likes alternate history stories. It's one of the best ones I ever read

Zikten posted...

Harry Turtledove, an author who has made a career out of writing various alternate history novels, did a book called "In The Presence Of Mine Enemies" that explores this very question. Book takes place in 2010 (it was written before 2010 though, so at the time it was a future story) in a timeline in which the Axis was victorious in ww2. However the story is told from the point of view of a Jewish family living in Berlin.

The world thinks Jews are all gone. Some managed to conceal their heritage and remain hiding in plain sight

It's a very good book. I recommend to anyone who likes alternate history stories. It's one of the best ones I ever read

That was a great book, listened to it on Audible.

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Criminalt posted...

The fabric of reality itself would be different, because Nazi Germany would never have been able to "take over the world", never tried, and never showed any serious interest in doing so.

They just turned on allies and occupied foreign land for fun. /sarcasm

If they somehow managed to rule the world, the world would've been fucked beyond belief. There's no way they'd have the infrastructure or manpower at the time. Taking over a good chunk of Europe and having solid alliances probably would have been their limit in the WW2 campaign. But they'd face constant upheaval and war even if they managed to settle for a while.

ButteryMales posted...

They just turned on allies and occupied foreign land for fun. /sarcasm

Yeah, I've heard that if you want to literally conquer the entire planet, the first step is always to invade Poland. Or is it Kuwait? /sarcasm.

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Zikten posted...

Harry Turtledove, an author who has made a career out of writing various alternate history novels, did a book called "In The Presence Of Mine Enemies" that explores this very question. Book takes place in 2010 (it was written before 2010 though, so at the time it was a future story) in a timeline in which the Axis was victorious in ww2. However the story is told from the point of view of a Jewish family living in Berlin.

The world thinks Jews are all gone. Some managed to conceal their heritage and remain hiding in plain sight

It's a very good book. I recommend to anyone who likes alternate history stories. It's one of the best ones I ever read

Interesting. I've read a ton of his series but I mostly avoid solo books. I'll have to check that one out.

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Criminalt posted...

Yeah, I've heard that if you want to literally conquer the entire planet, the first step is always to invade Poland. Or is it Kuwait? /sarcasm.

A bad strategy doesn't mean they never had the original goal.

Nazi Germany was on the brink of collapse even before the start of the war due to massive overspending on the military and civilian infrastructure projects. If they had won, at best they would have delayed the economic collapse by a few years, but it still would have happened because the rate of spending on the military would just keep on accelerating.

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Criminalt posted...

Yeah, I've heard that if you want to literally conquer the entire planet, the first step is always to invade Poland. Or is it Kuwait? /sarcasm.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

ButteryMales posted...

A bad strategy doesn't mean they never had the original goal.

No documentation exists to prop up fanciful speculation that the Nazis ever seriously contemplated the conquest of the world. Even Rosenberg, and other Nazi planning agencies for the post-war occupied territories, did not envisage German rule in the former USSR extending eastward beyond a certain line.

Hitler's goals were regional and Eurocentric. While Germany surely wanted to project the kind of soft power overseas that the British Empire did outside of its own sphere of influence, it didn't mean that panzers were going to be rolling through Milwaukee.

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ButteryMales posted...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

Please stop waving around Nazi plans for eastern and central Europe as if they were somehow evidence of a plot to conquer the United States and the rest of the planet. We know the outline of the Nazis' goals, and that doesn't mean you're at liberty to assume their only limits are your imagination.

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These people were genocidal German supremacists. I really don't see someone who has a nefarious phrase for their ambition to stop at Europe. They couldn't even wait to attack allies and wake sleeping giants because they were so ambitious.

I think we've strayed into that swamp where assumption, opinion and speculation are treated as acceptable substitutes for proof, facts and knowledge. "If I can imagine it, that makes it true!"

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Criminalt posted...

I think we've strayed into that swamp where assumption, opinion and speculation are treated as acceptable substitutes for proof, facts and knowledge. "If I can imagine it, that makes it true!"

This topic has been a "What if?" from the beginning. I don't see how you think this is something new.

ButteryMales posted...

This topic has been a "What if?" from the beginning. I don't see how you think this is something new.

Point taken, but the thing about most alternate-universe fantasies is that they're usually asking, "If things had been completely different, would they still be the same?" What would need to be different in this case is Hitler actually having a plan to conquer the world. All I've done is to point out that as far as we know, he didn't.

You can also spoilsport the fantasy by pointing out how implausible it is. As Xavier_On_High said, Germany's economy on the eve of the war was already creaking and groaning under the strain. In fact Nazi economic policies, particularly in the occupied East, were deeply flawed because Nazi ideology was in constant conflict with economic realism and Nazi ideology kept winning. German policy in the East was a sorry record of bungling, waste and failure that proved that Nazi administrators made piss-poor macroeconomic managers. There were practical limitations on any German aspirations for global conquest ... even had the Nazis failed to grasp that fact until too late.

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Germany taking over the world is insane even for a whatif scenario.

They could have taken the UK.

And Russia if Russia monumentally fucked up.

But the idea that the Germans could have taken the US or China is beyond reasonable alternate history IMO

And once they had the UK and Russia, holding them would be a nightmare

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Criminalt posted...

Point taken, but the thing about most alternate-universe fantasies is that they're usually asking, "If things had been completely different, would they still be the same?" What would need to be different in this case is Hitler actually having a plan to conquer the world. All I've done is to point out that as far as we know, he didn't.

I pointed out he had a plan to take over Europe, was a genocidal German supremacist, and did many overly ambitious things that he probably wouldn't stop doing if successful.

UnfairRepresent posted...

They could have taken the UK.

Dude, they didn't have a snowball's chance. Britain was never in any real danger after curbstomping the Luftwaffe in 1940 and figuring out how to hamstring the u-boat wolf packs. The Nazi's were far too occupied with dying on the Eastern Front by 1942.

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ButteryMales posted...

I pointed out he had a plan to take over Europe, was a genocidal German supremacist, and did many overly ambitious things that he probably wouldn't stop doing if successful.

All right, your position is that he might have planned world domination if the dominoes had just somehow kept on falling all around him. My position is that I'm sticking to the historical limits of what we actually know about Nazi plans formulated during the victory years.

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Xavier_On_High posted...

Dude, they didn't have a snowball's chance. Britain was never in any real danger after curbstomping the Luftwaffe in 1940 and figuring out how to hamstring the u-boat wolf packs. The Nazi's were far too occupied with dying on the Eastern Front by 1942.

This is a warped view of history.

The UK was on the brink of losing the Battle of Britain. They were desperate and losing the war of attrition.

The RAF never "Curbstomped" anyone.

Germany lost that fight because

1. As you mentioned they were focused on the other front
2. Their intelligence was terrible (something see throughout the entire war)
3. They were bombing civilian targets to break the morale of the population. Which never ever ever ever worked, it just made brits fight harder.

If the Battle of Britain had continued or had been fought by competent generals, the UK would have broken and the Germans would have conquered them.

It's one of the easiest and most acceptable "what ifs" in alternative history discussion.

Even British propagandists would be "Okay turn it down a little mate" to your post

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meralonne posted...

https://youtu.be/zzayf9GpXCI

came here to say this

some places Hitler couldn't have taken over because of geography, places like the us for an example. how can they get their ass across the ocean? not an easy thing to do

someone correct me on this if I'm wrong, but pretty sure the UK got hit hard by Germany, and would have fallen if Germany decided not to focus on Russia.

also, I don't think Germany's goal was to take over the world. They wanted poland, they wanted the Soviet Union, they wanted Czechoslovakia but they didn't want France
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UnfairRepresent posted...

3. They were bombing civilian targets to break the morale of the population. Which never ever ever ever worked, it just made brits fight harder.
If the Battle of Britain had continued or had been fought by competent generals, the UK would have broken and the Germans would have conquered them.

Germany did have brilliant generals and field marshals. That's what made the Germans so dangerous.

You can't equate Goering with the whole German command. :/

UnfairRepresent posted...

This is a warped view of history.

The UK was on the brink of losing the Battle of Britain. They were desperate and losing the war of attrition.

The RAF never "Curbstomped" anyone.

Germany lost that fight because

1. As you mentioned they were focused on the other front
2. Their intelligence was terrible (something see throughout the entire war)
3. They were bombing civilian targets to break the morale of the population. Which never ever ever ever worked, it just made brits fight harder.
If the Battle of Britain had continued or had been fought by competent generals, the UK would have broken and the Germans would have conquered them.

It's one of the easiest and most acceptable "what ifs" in alternative history discussion.

Even British propagandists would be "Okay turn it down a little mate" to your post

Britain was losing the war of attrition with regards to defending its allies and overseas territories, but mainland Britain was never in any serious danger after 1941. The Nazis were simply spread too thin on too many fronts and, like you said, had incompetent leadership. Even without Operation Overlord, all Britain needed to do was wait for the German economy to inevitably collapse.

As for the Battle of Britain, I don't see how it could be more of a curbstomp. Britain ended the battle with around 40% more aircraft than it started with, due to ramping up production.

I know you're probably hearing all of this in Jeremy Clarkson's voice, but I say this as someone who generally has a pretty negative view of Britain.

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StarDestroyer posted...

Germany did have brilliant generals and field marshals. That's what made the Germans so dangerous.

You can't equate Goering with the whole German command. :/

Maybe on a hyperliteral scale if you just add up every decision ever made and count how many were good vs how many were dumb

But over and over and over again in WW2 you see examples of Germany having immese incompotency in their leadership, often at absolutelty vitol and cruical points in the war.

The Germans were actually mad when Japan did well because they thought it undermined their philosphy..... They were mad when their allies did well....

And we haven't even talked about Russia. The general's obsession with Moscow because "Taking Paris worked in France" was just fucking embarrasing.

They were literally delusional.

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Xavier_On_High posted...

Britain was losing the war of attrition with regards to defending its allies and overseas territories, but mainland Britain was never in any serious danger

This is just not true,

all Britain needed to do was wait for the German economy to inevitably collapse.

If the Battle of Britain had continued, the UK would have fallen years before Germany's economy collasped.

As for the Battle of Britain, I don't see how it could be more of a curbstomp. Britain ended the battle with around 40% more aircraft than it started with, due to ramping up production.

I know you're probably hearing all of this in Jeremy Clarkson's voice, but I say this as someone who generally has a pretty negative view of Britain.

Your view of Britain is irrelevant, your view of history is wrong.

It ramped up production because aircraft was needed to save the nation. Their plane reproduction was still slower than Germany's and their supplies to build planes was desperate, the planes were building were of lesser and lesser quality.

They ONLY succeeded because of the combination of Germany's piss poor intelligence, terrible leadership and 2 front war. The UK was not only losing the battle of attrition, it was on the verge of losing completely

That's not praise or condemation of the UK or Germany. It's just what happened. The idea that the "UK curbstomped Germany and would have been fine fighting for years until Germany collasped!" is just pure nonsense fiction

Go to the RAF museum. Talk to historians and experts. Your view of history is utterly warped. The UK was desperate

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UnfairRepresent posted...

This is a warped view of history.

The UK was on the brink of losing the Battle of Britain. They were desperate and losing the war of attrition.

The RAF never "Curbstomped" anyone.

Germany lost that fight because

1. As you mentioned they were focused on the other front
2. Their intelligence was terrible (something see throughout the entire war)
3. They were bombing civilian targets to break the morale of the population. Which never ever ever ever worked, it just made brits fight harder.
If the Battle of Britain had continued or had been fought by competent generals, the UK would have broken and the Germans would have conquered them.

It's one of the easiest and most acceptable "what ifs" in alternative history discussion.

Even British propagandists would be "Okay turn it down a little mate" to your post

and what navy did Germany have to sail across the channel and invade? The war was over from the start Jesus Christ....oh I have you labeled as alt right makes sense lol

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JBaLLEN66 posted...

.oh I have you labeled as alt right

lol wut

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UnfairRepresent posted...

This is just not true,

If the Battle of Britain had continued, the UK would have fallen years before Germany's economy collasped.

Your view of Britain is irrelevant, your view of history is wrong.

It ramped up production because aircraft was needed to save the nation. Their plane reproduction was still slower than Germany's and their supplies to build planes was desperate, the planes were building were of lesser and lesser quality.

They ONLY succeeded because of the combination of Germany's piss poor intelligence, terrible leadership and 2 front war. The UK was not only losing the battle of attrition, it was on the verge of losing completely

That's not praise or condemation of the UK or Germany. It's just what happened. The idea that the "UK curbstomped Germany and would have been fine fighting for years until Germany collasped!" is just pure nonsense fiction

Go to the RAF museum. Talk to historians and experts. Your view of history is utterly warped. The UK was desperate

I know you're a contrarian by nature, but you're just entirely wrong. I don't know if you get all your info from The World At War, but the modern consensus is that Britain, though not in a comfortable position, was never even close to defeat after 1941.

As for visiting a museum, I was born and raised in Portsmouth, I've literally been surrounded by military history my entire life and I've been on multiple trips to the RAF museum in London, which frankly doesn't support your claims.

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Xavier_On_High posted...

I know you're a contrarian by nature, but you're just entirely wrong. I don't know if you get all your info from The World At War, but the modern consensus is that Britain, though not in a comfortable position, was never even close to defeat after 1941.

It's almost like 1941 was a year after the Battle of Britain or something.

Yes after Germany lost the Battle of Britian and then flopped around in Russia the UK was no in real danger but that's not where the UK would have been conquered in an alternate history example.
Xavier_On_High posted...

As for visiting a museum, I was born and raised in Portsmouth, I've literally been surrounded by military history my entire life and I've been on multiple trips to the RAF museum in London, which frankly doesn't support your claims.

Except it does.

You're lying out of your skin and don't even know when the Battle of Britain took place.

There is absolutey no fucking way that you were "surrounded by military history" That told you the Battle of Britain was the RAF curbstomping Germany in post 1941. You're full of it.

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They pretty much did succeed then they attacked Russia.

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For most of the 1930s Britain built up the raf and developed radar and used it properly.

The numbers for the battle of Britain were approx 1500 lost German planes and 1000 British. When the German planes were lost they lost the more important pilots. A lot of British pilots who were shot down were back in the air a few days later.

The germans never really planned to invade Britain. When they were planning an invasion they quickly realised that they needed complete air and naval superiority, which they accepted they were not going to get. Due to the weather in the channel they could only try and cross by Sept 1940. They had a decent attempt at winning the air battle in August but realised that they were not dominant enough.

The main plan for Britain was to get Britain to accept a peace deal that would let Germany keep the land they had by July 1940.

Hitlers aim was to take the land given away by the treaty of versailles and eliminate the communists (Russia). He never planned to invade Britain.

mitchteaser1 posted...

The germans never really planned to invade Britain. When they were planning an invasion they quickly realised that they needed complete air and naval superiority, which they accepted they were not going to get. Due to the weather in the channel they could only try and cross by Sept 1940. They had a decent attempt at winning the air battle in August but realised that they were not dominant enough.

This is a half truth

They didn't fail because "they realized they were not dominant" they failed because they stopped tageting RAF targets and started targets civilians because they thought "Hurting morale" did more than blowing up military targets.

And even then when they gave up, the UK was on the brink. You keep bringing up numbers as if it was a zero sum game. The UK's situation was desperate, Germany didn't realize this. If they had kept the battle going or fought correctly, The UK would have broken and fallen.

Although your point about pilots is true. Lots of UK pilots survived being shot down and flew again. Germans even if they survived landed in hostile territory

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Bad news for the Three Stooges.

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Counter-factuals are always hard: this one is basically: "What if Hitler and his Nazi buddies weren't morons ideologically predisposed towards underestimating the obstacles in front of them who could actually run a country for a decade without it collapsing due to their gross incompetence?"

What it would take for them to avoid their historical fate is for Stalin to screw up even harder. Maybe he has Zhukov put to death for calling him a moron Zhukov literally did call him a moron, apparently, proving that he had balls the size of the planet. Maybe Hitler tells Mussolini to stuff it and invades Russia a few months earlier, so they actually get Moscow, and...whoops! Napoleon totally conquered Moscow and it didn't f***ing matter!
Yeah...that's the thing. It's hard to imagine a scenario where the Nazis prevail in the East, because Russia is so ginormous and had so many dudes and it's difficult to theory-craft them just giving up on their core territories, because it's completely unprecedented. Maybe the Soviets collapse and the Nazis manage to convince Hitler turning Moscow into a lake is a terrible idea and they dredge up some old ass White Russian to be their patsy dictator they probably wouldn't use a Romanov? If there's civil war beyond the Urals, maybe the Nazis get away with it, but there would still be loads of partisans, because the Nazis were inveterate psychopathic monsters who managed to convince the goddamned Ukranians that maybe the Soviets were just the second-worst rulers on Earth.

There's still the problem of the Japanese going to war with the Americans and Hitler being hell-bent on honoring the alliance even though he would never actually be able to meaningfully help unless the Americans invaded. Mussolini was useless and his lunch probably still gets eaten. Best-case for Nazi Germany is probably the Allies decide landing in France is pointless with the Eastern front gone, and you get the Germans as suzerains of Europe lording over some puppets, but with the Brits in control of North Africa and possibly a partitioned Italy or a unified, allied-aligned Italy. Japan is a bit more stubborn without the threat of Soviet invasion but is still doomed regardless. The Nazis manage to genocide even more people before inevitably collapsing under the weight of their own stupefying incompetence.

UnfairRepresent posted...

They didn't fail because "they realized they were not dominant" they failed because they stopped tageting RAF targets and started targets civilians because they thought "Hurting morale" did more than blowing up military targets.

A mistake that, incidentally, RAF Bomber Command itself later perpetuated, with Harris's prioritization of bombing German population centres at the expense of attacks against industrial and military targets.

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There is no way that Germany would have allowed Japan to rule any amount of mainland America for long. It would have been a long grindy war for North America within a decade of Soviet Union being defeated.

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It's been a very long time since I read that novel I mentioned but I remember they have the US as a vessel state. US has in theory its own independent leadership but they have to stay out of Germany's business and they have to pay a tribute to them once a year I think

LRodC posted...

As in, all of the worlds population of Jews was eradicated and the world was taken over by Nazi Germany.

What would be different?

Watch The Man in the High Castle.

Criminalt posted...

A mistake that, incidentally, RAF Bomber Command itself later perpetuated, with Harris's prioritization of bombing German population centres at the expense of attacks against industrial and military targets.

Yup

Lots of foolishness to go around from the leadership in both world wars. Especially WW1

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Jesus, people need to differentiate war porn from reality. Germany had no way of invading Britain let alone the damn USA....But wait something like this has happened before??? Napoleon and guess what happened to Napoleon, he still lost.

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What would have happened by 2020, who knows. Maybe we would have had more wars more quickly, and by this time might actually be over a lot more shit (that we are going through now instead). But who knows, pain seems unavoidable either way

JimmyFraska posted...

What would have happened by 2020, who knows. Maybe we would have had more wars more quickly, and by this time might actually be over a lot more shit (that we are going through now instead). But who knows, pain seems unavoidable either way

Aliens would have had to help Germany win WW2 so there's a hint.

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