What would happen if the Nazi party didn't rise in Germany.

Well, assuming the 1923 POD, within the Nazi party at first I'd suggest that the Strasser wing (the "left-wing") of the Nazi party could have taken control of the party and taken it in the different direction...

...well, by 1933 it would have been a very different Nazi Party — in fact, by then the Nazis and the Communists could have been working together.

In a way, it reminds me of one of Harry Turtledove's timelines — the one where World War II started after Munich, instead of in 1939. Quite a different war would have resulted, if it had got to war.

edited 6th Sep '11 2:35:42 PM by Greenmantle

@pagad:

Early '30s? Early '30s? By 1924, the Social Democrats had a paramilitary force. By 1925, the President was a wildly popular conservative war hero, ruling Germany under the "25/48/53 formula". If you want liberals to save the Republic from a more popular party turning it into a one-party state by combination of ballots and bullets (again, by 1924 every significant party had a paramilitary force), your window of opportunity is from August 13, 1923 (Stresemann becomes Chancellor) to April 26, 1925 (Hindenburg wins second round of the presidential election). The SPD was at its most deeply discredited at this point, since it was Stresemann, not their leaders, who rescued the country in '23.

@USAF: It's a myth that all the Soviets had to face the Germans with were endless waves of men and machines being pushed in front of German guns. In the First Period of the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army had frittered away an enormous numerical advantage because it lacked the skill to deploy and maneuver its forces. The two significant keys to the Soviet victory on the Eastern Front was the Red Army General Staff's mechanism to collect, study and use its war experiences and the Soviet leadership forcing the war to be fought at the operational level where the Germans had little depth and focus in.

Though, without hard experiences of war, the Soviets would have indeed stayed a Stumbling Bear and not be able to fight its way out of a paper bag, even against token opposition.

edited 6th Sep '11 3:10:44 PM by Breakerchase

Btw, what would have happened to Imperial Japan with no Germany to ally with?

Not much, I suspect.

They would have carried on somewhere near the current timeline, since even during the height of World War II their relations were not exactly close — nowhere near that of the Allies.

Although, their invasions might have been a bit slower if there wasn't a war in Europe — The British Empire would have moved some more modern kit to face them, instead of some of the kit we had to use.

In that case, I defer to you because I know less about the SDP (or, indeed, German political parties of the 30s that weren't the Nazis or the KPD) that I would like. I wasn't advocating the SDP as a particularly ideal obstacle to the Nazi rise to power, by the way. Centre-left or centre-right, anything's better than the Nazis.

The Soviets only really got their shit together from 1942 onwards, and it's only in 1943 when their operational art really shines. Before that you have an all-too-traditional military school of thought.

I'd say not much. German-Japanese co-operation was pretty minimal beyond sharing technical information (and that could have been a lot better than it was), all things considered. It does mean that perhaps the United States is free to concentrate its entire military and economic might on Japan, in which case they're even more utterly fucked that they were historically.

edited 6th Sep '11 3:33:50 PM by pagad

I'm pretty nsure if the nazi's hadnt risen, germany would either have eventually had someone else similar rise, or be a 3rd world pisshole.

Indeed, but the Tukhachevky/Triandafillov/Varfolomeyev/Isserson "annihilation" school of military thought did held sway despite the fact that Stalin, Timoshenko and Zhukov lost the bulk of the Red Army in the initial period of war, in the vain hope of launching an immediate and decisive counter-offensive against Germany.

On another note, I do recall Nazi Germany giving military aid and training to the Republic of China. I wonder if the Japanese would have achieved greater successes without the (relatively minor) Chinese military boost by the Germans.

edited 6th Sep '11 3:33:24 PM by Breakerchase

Actually, the US ended up with more man power then the Soviets by the end of the war. The US/UK/France/Italy/Japan would defeat Commie Germany and USSR.

Now, the US Sr alone pre nuclear is quite defeatable.

Defeatable when? In 1945? Not by the Western Allies, it isn't. The US had almost 100 divisions, the Soviets nearly 500. But this is off topic.

The USSR had 12.5 million regulars mobilized (not counting militia and such) while the US had 16.3 million total troops.

It's not off topic, WW 2 era US could have defeated the USSR weakened by a war in Europe.

It's funny, WWII era US could have defeated every other army in the world combined before WWI.

edited 6th Sep '11 3:57:20 PM by Erock

How is this anything but a losing preposition◊?

The thing is, the USA's manpower is a lot more scattered, whereas the bulk of the Red Army is concentrated in Europe.

(It's off-topic insomuch as this seems more relevant to a confrontation after Nazi Germany has been defeated rather than a timeline in which the Nazis don't rise in the first place, in which case the variables get all butterflyery.)

edited 6th Sep '11 4:06:26 PM by pagad

American: If it weren't for us Americans, you French would be speaking German right now!

Frenchman: Well if it weren't for us French, you Americans would be speaking English right now!

I was just gonna say Godwin's Law would refer to Stalin or Mao instead, but a page and a half of intense debate about long-dead political parties is good too.

-popcorn-

I like this thread. For us to really decide what would have happened if the Nazis didn't rise in Germany, we need to look at exactly the effect that World War II had on world history since. Would we have seen the development of the nuclear bomb, or the Cold War. Possibly, since Stalin's plan to transform the Soviet Union into an industrial superpower would still be underway; the question becomes whether or not, without World War II to kickstart the American economy, would the US have been able to contain the spread of communism to the same extent that it did afterward? The collapse of the old European imperial system, on the other hand, would likely not have happened for years to come; it was already in slow decline, but the fact that Britain and France were so exhausted after World War II accelerated its breakdown. World War II was a catalyst for change, however, it was not necessarily the only cause for it.

In short, if the Nazi party hadn't risen in Germany, the world would look quite a bit different.

edited 6th Sep '11 9:51:10 PM by tropetown

I actually considered this scenario for a novel idea I have floating around. Here are the basic premise of what would've happened not if Hitler did not exist, but if he came into power three years later. These events are as of early 1960s.

1. Europe and Soviet Union are locked into an official, but fairly cold, war, mostly at a level of constant low-level skirmishes as the Soviet offensive petered out in 1942 due to ineffective combat doctrines. Europe is lead by a bipartisan, yet very balanced coalition of Germany and England, combining Hitler's charisma and inspiration to the free world with Churchill's rhetoric and bravado. France is dissolved as an independent country. The two essentially become dictators.

2. United States dissolves into a civil war in middle of 1950s due to its isolationist policy and staunch refusal to conduct trade with either the expansionistic USSR or the Old World Imperialistic Free World Coalition (Free Coal). USSR immediately annexes the west coast of North America down to Northern California with naval support from its closest ally, Japan, who was given China and a part of Manchuria by the Soviet Union as a part of Crimson Alliance treaty after its failed Spring European Offensive of 1942. Khrushchev is in power.

3. Mexico and Cuba, with Soviet support, annex the majority of United States' east coast in 1961.

4. As of 1971, Nuclear weapons have not yet been discovered.

5. With Crimson Alliance's and Free Coal's support, Africa is essentially divided into West and South; both regions prosper, but enter a massive proxy world war in 1965.

6. India cuts off relations to the rest of the world and fortifies its borders, capturing the majority of Tibet even as it loses its coast regions to Free Coal and Crimson Alliance.

7. The remainder of USA joins with the remainder of Canada to resist the Crimson invasion.

8. South America isolates itself and becomes a third superpower.

9. Aliens invade and vapourize us with the statement, "we've had enough of your silly alternate history shenanigans!"