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Friday 5 June 2015

[Redux] What if: The Axis won World War Two? (Part 2)

A fortnight ago I did the first half of if the Axis powers won World War Two (here for the link http://historyandgeekstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/redux-what-if-axis-won-world-war-two.html). After the defeat of the British army at Dunkirk the Nazis invade Britain, installs a puppet government just as President Roosevelt dies of polio. The US lifts its embargo on Japan resulting in no attack on Pearl Harbor as the Nazis invade the Soviet Union but by 1944 has to pressure its puppets into attacking the Soviets who crumble by 1946. In Asia meanwhile Japan carves out an empire at the expense of China and the crumbling European empires as Italy creates New Rome by conquering North Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans. However like in our timeline a Cold War will start with the US detonating the first nuclear bomb (ordered by President Henry Wallace at the behest of scientists like Einstein through fear of the Axis) in 1948...

The Cold War begins
Even though in their respective countries Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo would be regarded as heroes the threat of the nuclear bomb created by the US. In the Greater German Reich (the Nazi Empire stretching from Alsace in modern France to Siberia) Hitler would use this as an excuse to arrest and deport the remaining Jews and other people deemed to be 'enemies of the state' with the people who worked on the Manhattan Project or who inspired it (like Einstein) being Jews or left wing. Germany and Japan would be the best members of the Axis to try out their own version of the Manhattan Project although both would be set back. Japan's Ni-Go and F-Go Projects were never given lots of funding and similarly the Nazis nuclear weapons project was given mute response from Hitler. The German project was even further set back with the fact that Hitler's antisemitism caused most nuclear physicists to leave Germany while those who remained tried to discredit nuclear theory as it was made by Einstein who was Jewish. After seeing the effect of the US project (not kept secret as a deterrent against the Axis) Hitler orders the creation of a bomb for the Third Reich. Using schematics stolen from the Soviets and using Germany's adept rocket scientists in 1950 they finally detonate a nuclear weapon in Siberia. Two years later Japan detonates their own in Lop Nur in western China. In the meantime an alternate version of NATO would be formed in 1949 called the World Coalition Authority (WCO) formed by the US with other anti-Axis nations joining including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, United India, Ireland and Turkey. Antonio Salazar of Portugal who despite being fascist was anti-Nazi would also join this organization and the US would put pressure on Latin American nations who could lean towards the Nazis such as Juan Peron's Argentina would be coerced into joining or would otherwise face US intervention. In retaliation in Europe Hitler and Mussolini would form the European Economic and Military Council (EEMC) consisting of Germany and Italy as well as their puppets of Slovakia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland (the Nazis formed a puppet Polish government after their invasion in our timeline), Hungary, Finland, Norway, Denmark, France, Britain and the Low Countries. Spain under Francisco Franco would also be willing to join. In Asia Japan would continue with the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere consisting of the Empire and its puppets in China and South East Asia as a counterweight between the US led WCO and the EEMC with relations souring between Japan and Germany following border clashes after the war.

Domestic policies
In Germany Hitler would continue with his policies of making Germany and the Nazi Party one and the same. This would include making the party anthem 'Horst Wessel Lied' the national anthem. Unfortunately Jews, left wingers, homosexuals and others who Hitler hated would be sent to either the work camps (remaining an official tightly held state secret) or to 'villages' in Siberia and Madagascar where they would be left to slowly die. Similarly in the puppets of France under Pierre Laval and Philippe Petain and Britain under Oswald Mosley and King Edward VIII laws would be passed banning anyone of Jewish or minority heritage from working in the government, councils or as teachers and doctors. The US would face problems with protesters in the Philippines who want independence but are denied this thanks to fears that an independent Philippines would fall into the Japanese sphere of influence. In the conquered areas Japan would hold a firm grip and on the main islands militarism would be taught in schools and encouraged with many young children being taught to enter the army. Across the world instead of a Red Scare which happened in our timeline there would be 'Liberty Scares' in the Axis controlled areas and 'Swastika Scares' in the US. In Japan Japanese-Americans would be held under close scrutiny by the government while in Germany the Gestapo would regularly make arrests people who are deemed to have any sympathy for Jews or socialists. In the US the HUAC trials would blacklist any right wing politicians, actors, authors and directors ruining their careers and quite likely many people would have to prove that they were not pro-Nazi or pro-Japan. People of German, Italian and Japanese descent would be held under close scrutiny and discriminated against as the B-Movies of the 1950s have villains being caricatures of German and Japanese people instead of Russian and Chinese. In South Africa Apartheid would never come around. The architects of Apartheid, the National Party, had been arrested due to fascist sympathies and the fear of the Third Reich and the parties racism would make the South African people feel that they would be Nazi puppets. Hence they would not win the 1948 election and in turn non-racist parties would be elected in. Similarly civil rights in the US would improve. Racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan would crumble under the wave of hysteria allowing groups like the NAACP to easily win civil rights claims. In our timeline's Cold War the Soviet Union used racism in the US as propaganda as they claimed that the US could not be the world's savior if they oppressed African-Americans so the racism of the Nazis would allow civil rights to have a propaganda boost.

After Hitler
Hitler had a series of problems ranging from syphilis to Parkinson's disease but he also had a serious heart condition which would mean that he would have been lucky to live past 1950. In this scenario he would die in 1950 with his deputy Rudolf Hess taking over the joint position of German Chancellor and President. After the war for a few years there would have been economic prosperity in Germany but the chaotic nature of the Nazi bureaucracy and an economy entirely dependent on warfare would cause dramatic inflation. Following Hitler's death the price of food would skyrocket forcing Hess to give more power over the economy to Albert Speer however doing this would leave him open to attack by other members of the Nazi high command wanting power like Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Hess would try and make foreign policy headway such as having the Prime Minister of Iran overthrown in 1953 giving the Iranian Shah full control over Iran and sending aid to guerrilla warriors in western China to ensure that Germany could get favorable priority over resources if the area managed to break free. This would cause Japan to officially break from the Axis creating a three way Cold War. In 1953 aged 69 Mussolini would die allowing his son-in-law and foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano to succeed him. However Italy would face issues of rising nationalism in their African, Balkan and Middle Eastern empire which Presidents Henry Wallace, Richard Nixon and Adlai Stevenson would eagerly fund to weaken the Axis in Europe. Stevenson would give the Philippines its independence but ensure that a conservative/liberal government would remain in power while the Co-Prosperity Sphere still exists. In Asia Japan would face problems with growing nationalism from Vietnam, Myanmar and China which they send troops in to keep in check. Meanwhile Japan and the US would dramatically fall behind in the Space Race.
It cannot be denied how advanced the Nazis rockets were so they would quickly send a rocket, animal and man into space first as well as putting a man on the moon by 1960. However the race would continue and by 1970 through an alliance with India and Canada's space missions the US places the first man on Mars. Things would fall apart for the Nazis though during the 1950s. Spy planes from the US and Japan would capture images of the death camps which causes international condemnation and influences the more free Italy to start the funding for a Jewish state in connotation with the US. At the same time the US places nuclear missiles in Turkey and funds Fidel Castro in overthrowing the Batista regime in Cuba. As the 1960s come around though to reclaim what little credibility he has Hess gives aid to the right wing regime of Francois Duvalier in Haiti with a few missiles...

Haitian Missile Crisis and beyond
President Kennedy would soon learn about the missiles in Haiti and would blockade the island as in our time. Without a UN tensions would escalate quicker but with the same results. Like what happened to Khrushchev Hess would be forced out to be replaced by Goebbels. With better support for civil rights Kennedy would see the last civil rights bill passed but he would unlikely to be assassinated as in our timeline following this. Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Kennedy (to avoid confusion I'm staying with Oswald assassinating Kennedy) because of his actions against Castro so from here JFK would still live. With the liberal air of the 1960s in the US, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and Australia the civil rights for women, unions and other groups would improve massively. Through funding from the Kennedy administration and from India Ho Chi Minh would declare Vietnam to be a free, Marxist state after Japan pulls out in 1963. What follows would be Goebbels sending troops to put down the new Marxist state resulting in a ten year war which Germany would lose as well as Laos and Cambodia becoming communist as well. In the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans the Italian Empire would collapse through nationalistic revolts and over-extension of the Italian forces. First to go would be Ethiopia, Albania and Greece until the entire Italian empire collapses. The proposed Jewish state of Israel would consist of the West Bank with more cooperation between Palestinians and Jews wanting a common ally between each other against Axis tyranny. In the rest of Europe the Nazis would send troops to put down pro-democracy and liberal students in the occupied countries with the streets of London, Paris and Amsterdam running red as the protests are brutally put down. In Berlin, Munich, Nuremberg and other major German cities students wanting reform, democracy, an end to the Vietnam War, an end to discrimination against Jews and economic reform (unemployment and inflation rising again) would erupt in 1967 following the death of Goebbels. Widespread unrest would follow when an aging Himmler orders the SS and Gestapo to publicly execute the ringleaders. With the ascension of Albert Speer to leadership the protests would ebb out but the beginning of the end of Nazism is at hand.

Collapse
Following the turbulent years of the 1970s where economic recession racks the US, Japan, and Germany Jesse Jackson becomes President in 1981 as Nelson Mandela becomes South African President. As this new wave of reformers come to power in the pro-democracy nations the old fascists die in Europe with Speer in 1980 and Oswald Mosley the same year. Following the passing of his father Prince Akihito becomes Emperor of Japan and installs a series of reforms which progresses Japan from authoritarianism to a fully fledged democracy and works with nationalists in China, Thailand and the rest of the empire to peacefully give them independence. Japanese democracy is also changed with it becoming more representative and less dominated by militaristic parties, quickly militarism becomes a thing of the past in Japan. Italy would also make the transition to democracy with it building ties with the Balkan countries again and following the same path that Spain took in the 1970s. With economic collapse imminent and detente happening with the US and Japan Germany starts to disarm its nuclear weapons. The long standing personality cult of Hitler becomes discredited as the government comes out and acknowledges the atrocities of the Holocaust. Newspapers would eagerly print stories after the media becomes free of censor about Hitler's secret mistress Eva Braun (who he never married in this timeline), his strange infatuation over his niece Geli Raubal and his series of illnesses and mental conditions. In 1988 the Gestapo try and lead a coup to reinstall Nazi hardliners but it quickly loses steam. Across Europe nations quickly dismantle their far-right governments with John Major leading the democracy campaign in Britain and Jacques Chirac in France. Like in our timeline it would be mostly peaceful except in the nations where control was strongest (likely Poland in this timeline). Soon states declare themselves independent from Germany including Austria, the Czech Republic and Novorossiya (an amalgamation of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus ran by former exiled Russians). The old German flag would be returned, the old anthem restored and a constitution based on the old Weimar Republic (but made stronger to avoid a new Nazi Party rising) to create a democracy. However what this 1990s and 2000s would be like is hard to envisage but it would be drastically different.

Thanks for reading and please leave any comments or Google + it if you like. On Saturdays now I'm doing an extra post. It's about my story about how hard it would be to look after extinct animals and will be called 'Senshijidaino Saturday!". Tomorrow will be looking at the first dinosaurs if they were in captivity so I hope to see you there.  

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