Plausibility Check: An alternate World War II breaks out in the 1940s or 1950s?

[WolfBear]

Would this scenario have been plausible? :

Adolf Hitler gets killed in 1923. Thus, there is no Nazi rise to power in Germany during the Great Depression. However, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and the Soviet Union still have territorial grievances. Thus, once these countries are able to sufficiently rearm (and, from what I could tell, German rearmament was going to eventually happen with or without Hitler), they start a new World War (probably sometime in either the 1940s or 1950s--indeed, please keep in mind that the development of the atomic bomb will be delayed in this TL) in order to eliminate their territorial grievances.

Basically, I am thinking of a World War II with a non-Nazi Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and Hungary on one side and Britain, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia on the other side. Indeed, the former countries would be seeking to overturn the European status quo whereas the latter countries would try to uphold the European status quo.

Anyway, would such an alternate World War II have been realistic? Or would Britain and France prefer to make large-scale territorial concessions at their allies' expense in order to appease Germany, Italy, Hungary, and the Soviet Union and thus avert a new World War? (Basically, think of the conference which resulted in the Munich Agreement in our TL, but one which would discuss the fate of several countries rather than of only one country.)

Any thoughts on this?

[Ingo Siekmann]

Hallo,

Am 30.03.2018 um 03:47 schrieb WolfBear:
-snip

Post by WolfBear
Basically, I am thinking of a World War II with a non-Nazi Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and Hungary on one side and Britain, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia on the other side.

But what about Japan?

Some people thing that WW 2 started with the second Sino-Japanese War in
1937.

Post by WolfBear
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War

Another possibility would be some kind of communist vs. "free world"
war. With a Stalin who is under no pressure from Nazi Germany and had
build up a modern Red Army with a lot of tanks and an officers corps
that has recovered from the purges.

Bye
Ingo

[Insane Ranter]

Post by Ingo Siekmann
Hallo,
-snip

Post by WolfBear
Basically, I am thinking of a World War II with a non-Nazi Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and Hungary on one side and Britain, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia on the other side.

But what about Japan?
Some people thing that WW 2 started with the second Sino-Japanese War in
1937.

Post by WolfBear
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War

Another possibility would be some kind of communist vs. "free world"
war. With a Stalin who is under no pressure from Nazi Germany and had
build up a modern Red Army with a lot of tanks and an officers corps
that has recovered from the purges.
Bye
Ingo

There are some out there that say it started in 1914 too!!

Europe just ignores Asian Far-East in the above time line? Too busy with her own affairs?

[Alex Milman]

Post by Ingo Siekmann
Hallo,
-snip

Post by WolfBear
Basically, I am thinking of a World War II with a non-Nazi Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and Hungary on one side and Britain, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia on the other side.

But what about Japan?
Some people thing that WW 2 started with the second Sino-Japanese War in
1937.

Post by WolfBear
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War

Another possibility would be some kind of communist vs. "free world"
war.

In this ATL Germany is not "ideological" (Wiemar Republic was a democratic state), Italy is fascist and out of the rest only the SU is ruled by the communists but in the terms of the "front lines" it is not the main opponent by the reasons of geography.

Post by Ingo Siekmann
With a Stalin who is under no pressure from Nazi Germany and had
build up a modern Red Army with a lot of tanks and an officers corps
that has recovered from the purges.

But where this army is going to be deployed except Poland?

Of course, it can be assumed in this scenario that there is some direct Soviet military participation but as far as the "Western front" is involved it is not a decisive factor: the bulk of the forces are German. The Soviets would be important in the terms of natural resources and production.

In the worst/best case scenario they are deployed somewhere on the Balkan theater (depending upon the alliances) but this theater is clearly a secondary one (except for WC's ideas about "soft underbelly" which did not produce an excessive enthusiasm even among the British military).

[Ingo Siekmann]

Hallo,

Post by Alex Milman
But where this army is going to be deployed except Poland?

Well, there were large communist groups / parties all over Europe.
Surely Daddy Stalin would have helped them to tumble the oppressing
capitalist tyranns.

Bye
Ingo

[jerry kraus]

Post by WolfBear
Adolf Hitler gets killed in 1923. Thus, there is no Nazi rise to power in Germany during the Great Depression. However, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and the Soviet Union still have territorial grievances. Thus, once these countries are able to sufficiently rearm (and, from what I could tell, German rearmament was going to eventually happen with or without Hitler), they start a new World War (probably sometime in either the 1940s or 1950s--indeed, please keep in mind that the development of the atomic bomb will be delayed in this TL) in order to eliminate their territorial grievances.
Basically, I am thinking of a World War II with a non-Nazi Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and Hungary on one side and Britain, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia on the other side. Indeed, the former countries would be seeking to overturn the European status quo whereas the latter countries would try to uphold the European status quo.
Anyway, would such an alternate World War II have been realistic? Or would Britain and France prefer to make large-scale territorial concessions at their allies' expense in order to appease Germany, Italy, Hungary, and the Soviet Union and thus avert a new World War? (Basically, think of the conference which resulted in the Munich Agreement in our TL, but one which would discuss the fate of several countries rather than of only one country.)
Any thoughts on this?

Again, Hitler isn't that important, he was far from the only significant Nazi. The Nazis would have risen to power anyway, following the lead of Mussolini in Italy. The fact that Hitler has been scapegoated by the Germans doesn't mean he wasn't simply representing precisely what most Germans wanted anyway, and other Nazi leaders wouldn't have risen to take his place.

Now, that said, they might not have been exactly the same kind of Nazis. Depending on who the leader was. Hitler was bipolar, not all the Nazis were. So, we might have had Nazis more or less like Mussolini -- tough, mean, but not totally insane. And, we might not have had a WWII at all, under these circumstances.

But, Fascists and Communists are natural enemies, so they could never have been stable allies. Opposite ends of the political spectrum, far right versus far left. So, Fascist Germany and Fascist Italy can never have a stable, long term alliance fighting on the side of the Soviet Union.

So, while Hitler may have been the cause of WWII, he was NOT the cause of the Nazis rise to power in Germany.

[Alex Milman]

Post by WolfBear
Adolf Hitler gets killed in 1923. Thus, there is no Nazi rise to power in Germany during the Great Depression. However, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and the Soviet Union still have territorial grievances. Thus, once these countries are able to sufficiently rearm (and, from what I could tell, German rearmament was going to eventually happen with or without Hitler), they start a new World War (probably sometime in either the 1940s or 1950s--indeed, please keep in mind that the development of the atomic bomb will be delayed in this TL) in order to eliminate their territorial grievances.

In OTL Soviet-German military cooperation stopped when Hitler came to power so it is reasonable to assume that in your ATL cooperation between two countries continues in more than one area of a mutual interest.

OTOH, the 1st Polish peace pact with Germany had been made AFTER Hitler came to power, which means that German-Polish relations remain cooler than in OTL.

Post by WolfBear
Basically, I am thinking of a World War II with a non-Nazi Germany, Italy, the Soviet Union, and Hungary on one side and Britain, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia on the other side.

I'm not sure about Czechoslovakia (unless non-Hitler Germany is conducting completely Hitleresque policies which more or less kills initial premise). How about considering it neutral (and happily selling its military and non-military production to Germany and the SU).

For Romania such an alignment would be a little bit too suicidal (by the purely geographic reasons it would be squashed before anybody can help it) and in OTL Hungary and Romania managed to be on the same side in WWII (Hungary got 40% of Transilvania). What about Bulgaria and Greece?

Post by WolfBear
Indeed, the former countries would be seeking to overturn the European status quo whereas the latter countries would try to uphold the European status quo.

The main problem for the "latter countries" would be almost complete impossibility to win such a war. Even if France manages to achieve a military stalemate (optimistically, near the border), combination of the economic, natural and human resources on the opposite side would make OTL scenario very unlikely except for its naval party. I assume that in your ATL the "opposition" has enough resources (and time) to eliminate OTL enemy's air supremacy so what would be the winning formula even if the US enter the war (why would it)? Especially if development of the nuclear weapons is delayed.

Post by WolfBear
Anyway, would such an alternate World War II have been realistic?

OTL came quite close to your scenario: at some point the Brits had been considering bombing of the Russian oil rigs in Baku but, fortunately, the cooler heads prevailed.

Post by WolfBear
Or would Britain and France prefer to make large-scale territorial concessions at their allies' expense in order to appease Germany, Italy, Hungary,

There would be no need of the French & British meddling in resolving the Transylvanian issue.

Post by WolfBear
and the Soviet Union and thus avert a new World War?

(Basically, think of the conference which resulted in the Munich Agreement in our TL, but one which would discuss the fate of several countries rather than of only one country.)

The obvious question is: would ATL Germany as aggressively expansionist as Nazi Germany? If the answer is negative (no nationalism as a driving ideology means an absence of some of the claims and moves) then the German territorial demands are much more modest or perhaps even non-existent. Issue of the buffer states belongs to the same category: in OTL the SU did not move against the relatively easy targets like Estonia or Latvia until 1939 when aggressive Germany became a factor.

Poland is a separate issue: Germany, SU and Lithuania had territorial claims there. The main problem for Poland in this ATL (and in OTL) was that it did not have any friends in the region; even with Czechoslovakia it had a conflict over Teschen (sp?) region. So the question is: would France and Britain, in an absence of the earlier Munich capitulation and overly aggressive Germany in general, go into a major war just for the sake of Poland? Especially if the opposite side requires just territorial adjustments that are more or less fitting into Curzon Line idea (which Poland quite obviously violated)?

Post by WolfBear
Any thoughts on this?