Let’s assume that the Axis winning the war means they keep all territory they’ve had at the height of their expansion in our timeline but don’t expand much more, at least not immediately.
The EU does not exist but as most of Europe is either occupied by Germany or allied with it, there might be a similar organization with a way stronger Germany at its center.
If a NATO-like alliance forms, it excludes most of Europe, mainly consisting of the USA, Canada and UK, maybe Spain and Portugal
The Soviet Union is way weaker than in our timeline with most of Eastern Europe being under German control. They still have control over Central Asia, probably more than in our timeline.
The Allies still control Gibraltar and are able to intercept ships passing through the English Channel, making the west of France the only safe access to the Atlantic for the Axis.
Wernher von Braun and other rocket scientists stay in Germany, giving the USA and Soviet Union a massive disadvantage in the development of ICBMs. The USA may have nuclear bombs but their only way to threaten Germany with them would be UK-based bombers which are way slower and easier to defend against. On the other hand, a failure of the Manhattan Project might be the whole reason why the Axis wins the war. Everyone will figure it out eventually but as we see from real life, it might take decades.
No proper cold war as there are no two super powers exercising mutually assured destruction with ICBMs but probably ongoing tensions along the German-Soviet border. The USA probably stays out of it to avoid becoming a target for either side.
Italian East Africa (Somalia) becomes the most important rocket launch site in the world, as it is the only Axis-controlled territory that is close to the equator and has open ocean to the east. Some smaller rockets may launch from Japan. French Guiana might be under Axis control but shipping rockets over the Atlantic is dangerous when they could get intercepted by foreign ships. Without competition, manned spaceflight develops a lot slower, maybe not at all.
Without manned spaceflight and the threat of a nuclear war, there is less incentive to develop computers and the internet.
Great answer, do you see any internal tensions within the Axis that could foreseeably have caused collapse comparable to say Soviet communism’s collapse in the real world? How dependant were they on Hitler and Mussolini as individuals?
Not OP, but Germany was likely going to experience a deep recession after the war. However, it is likely that the Nazis would push the cost of the economy shrinking to its enslaved peoples. There would likely be French deindustrialization, a Polish genocide, and building of cruel colonial networks around Germany. The Nazi Party could probably survive Hitler; I suspect the political functioning would be similar to China’s Politboro but with a more independent military.
Italy could possibly see the fascist government fall. Mussolini wasn’t in control of Italy the same way that Hitler was of Germany. I could see a political crisis occur in Italy where the Italian government falls apart, Germany stabilizes Italian possessions, then Germany keeps the Italian possessions after the new government doesn’t adequately swear fealty to Germany.
Hard to say. I’m not a historian, so I can only speculate. I would assume that Hitler would eventually select a successor and there is no way of telling how good that person would be at keeping the Reich in order.
comparable to say Soviet communism’s collapse in the real world
As far as I understand it, the fall of the Soviet Union was preceded by at least a decade of economic struggle that was caused by a multitude of factors. Basically the only thing they had to export was oil and weapons and the only nations they could trade with were relatively poor. When their oil production cost kept rising, they just couldn’t keep their exports high enough to import enough food and luxury goods to keep their population happy. This was a prime driver for unrest in regions that bordered the west, especially East Germany who of course got news of what life in West Germany was like. The Soviets were eventually forced to open the Berlin Wall and from there, there was nothing they could do to keep people from just leaving and fully collapsing the economy in the process. To this day, 35 years after the reunion, former East Germany is way behind the rest of the country even though on paper they have the same chances as everyone else, just because there has been a massive brain drain.
So overall, the collapse of the Soviet Union was less a failure of communism itself and more a failure to counteract their economic weaknesses as well as a result of their isolationism. The USA didn’t win the Cold War because of the inherent superiority of capitalism but because the world drinks Coca Cola, wears jeans, watches Hollywood movies and works with IBM-compatible PCs. If the Soviet Union had pivoted their economy to those kinds of goods and had managed to export them to the west, they might have become what China is today.
So it all comes down to the question if alternate-history Germany manages to do that. With technology advancing slower overall and therefore becoming less of a factor in global markets, and at the same time keeping a lot of top scientists who in the real world left for the other superpowers, they could probably do it.
Thanks for another great answer. I realise now that the comparison with Soviet wasn’t very thoughtful of me. I just wanted to imagine something that would have broken up the Nazi German hegemony from the inside.
Another thought is that American products and culture probably are popular partly because they were winners in World War 2.
American culture was a major export during the Great Depression, so it is likely that American culture would continue to be an export unless the USA ceased to exist.
I would just expect Nazi Germany to censor and control some of America’s cultural exports. Hitler liked Disney movies, for instance. However, jazz was banned.
Another thought is that American products and culture probably are popular partly because they were winners in World War 2.
Absolutely. American soldiers being stationed all over the world was fantastic PR. Being stationed long term, they brought along much of what they were used to in the USA. Those luxuries were traded with the locals and of course, if the locals wanted to be seen as fashionable, they just had to have those things.
Thanks for the nice words. My approach was to avoid speculating too much about what might happen based on someone’s ideology and instead see which real life events can’t happen and extrapolate from there. This makes my answers equally plausible, no matter if the Axis powers stay fascist dictatorships or if they become more democratic over time, as long as overall alliances stay roughly the same.
The way the economy in the soviet union was micromanaged in super centralised way was key to its collapse, especially the final 10-15 years. Soviet Union did have great innovation spurs in IT, rocketry, etc but it was impossible to diversify said innovations further, impossible to mass market it, impossible to mass export it. The centralised economic system lagged enormously and was incredibly inefficient, 1 town having 500000 jackets but no shoes, other town having 100000 chandeliers but no food etc. On top there was really really high levels of corruption. The economic model was essential in the demise of the Soviet Union, once they let go of some regulations a tiny bit, it all fell apart fast. China paid attention, they keep trying to waggle between statecontrolled and free market… They are well aware similar risks still exist in their state-owned companies to this day.
Let’s assume that the Axis winning the war means they keep all territory they’ve had at the height of their expansion in our timeline but don’t expand much more, at least not immediately.
Great answer, do you see any internal tensions within the Axis that could foreseeably have caused collapse comparable to say Soviet communism’s collapse in the real world? How dependant were they on Hitler and Mussolini as individuals?
Not OP, but Germany was likely going to experience a deep recession after the war. However, it is likely that the Nazis would push the cost of the economy shrinking to its enslaved peoples. There would likely be French deindustrialization, a Polish genocide, and building of cruel colonial networks around Germany. The Nazi Party could probably survive Hitler; I suspect the political functioning would be similar to China’s Politboro but with a more independent military.
Italy could possibly see the fascist government fall. Mussolini wasn’t in control of Italy the same way that Hitler was of Germany. I could see a political crisis occur in Italy where the Italian government falls apart, Germany stabilizes Italian possessions, then Germany keeps the Italian possessions after the new government doesn’t adequately swear fealty to Germany.
Thank you, those are some interesting perspectives!
Hard to say. I’m not a historian, so I can only speculate. I would assume that Hitler would eventually select a successor and there is no way of telling how good that person would be at keeping the Reich in order.
As far as I understand it, the fall of the Soviet Union was preceded by at least a decade of economic struggle that was caused by a multitude of factors. Basically the only thing they had to export was oil and weapons and the only nations they could trade with were relatively poor. When their oil production cost kept rising, they just couldn’t keep their exports high enough to import enough food and luxury goods to keep their population happy. This was a prime driver for unrest in regions that bordered the west, especially East Germany who of course got news of what life in West Germany was like. The Soviets were eventually forced to open the Berlin Wall and from there, there was nothing they could do to keep people from just leaving and fully collapsing the economy in the process. To this day, 35 years after the reunion, former East Germany is way behind the rest of the country even though on paper they have the same chances as everyone else, just because there has been a massive brain drain.
So overall, the collapse of the Soviet Union was less a failure of communism itself and more a failure to counteract their economic weaknesses as well as a result of their isolationism. The USA didn’t win the Cold War because of the inherent superiority of capitalism but because the world drinks Coca Cola, wears jeans, watches Hollywood movies and works with IBM-compatible PCs. If the Soviet Union had pivoted their economy to those kinds of goods and had managed to export them to the west, they might have become what China is today.
So it all comes down to the question if alternate-history Germany manages to do that. With technology advancing slower overall and therefore becoming less of a factor in global markets, and at the same time keeping a lot of top scientists who in the real world left for the other superpowers, they could probably do it.
Thanks for another great answer. I realise now that the comparison with Soviet wasn’t very thoughtful of me. I just wanted to imagine something that would have broken up the Nazi German hegemony from the inside.
Another thought is that American products and culture probably are popular partly because they were winners in World War 2.
American culture was a major export during the Great Depression, so it is likely that American culture would continue to be an export unless the USA ceased to exist.
I would just expect Nazi Germany to censor and control some of America’s cultural exports. Hitler liked Disney movies, for instance. However, jazz was banned.
Absolutely. American soldiers being stationed all over the world was fantastic PR. Being stationed long term, they brought along much of what they were used to in the USA. Those luxuries were traded with the locals and of course, if the locals wanted to be seen as fashionable, they just had to have those things.
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Thanks for the nice words. My approach was to avoid speculating too much about what might happen based on someone’s ideology and instead see which real life events can’t happen and extrapolate from there. This makes my answers equally plausible, no matter if the Axis powers stay fascist dictatorships or if they become more democratic over time, as long as overall alliances stay roughly the same.
The way the economy in the soviet union was micromanaged in super centralised way was key to its collapse, especially the final 10-15 years. Soviet Union did have great innovation spurs in IT, rocketry, etc but it was impossible to diversify said innovations further, impossible to mass market it, impossible to mass export it. The centralised economic system lagged enormously and was incredibly inefficient, 1 town having 500000 jackets but no shoes, other town having 100000 chandeliers but no food etc. On top there was really really high levels of corruption. The economic model was essential in the demise of the Soviet Union, once they let go of some regulations a tiny bit, it all fell apart fast. China paid attention, they keep trying to waggle between statecontrolled and free market… They are well aware similar risks still exist in their state-owned companies to this day.
Thanks, that’s exactly the point I wanted to get across. You found way better words than I ever could.