Third Reich in the twenty first century

Of course it could! They won the war, didn't they?

Well, it's easy to say that they would have survived simply because they won the war, but one has to consider the steps they would take to govern their empire. Would Hitler be satisfied with the territory he controlled and try to consolidate it into a working government, or would his tendency towards expansionism ulitmately cost him what he controlled, despite the fact that he won the war?

These kinds of "what if" games can be a lot of fun. But, in all seriousness, there are too many variables to consider. Way too many. For one thing, what kind of peace terms could have been offered? What territory would the Reich want to annex as a result of the victory? England, almost certainly, as well as virtually all of continental Europe. But how about Russia? Or the United States? The German military machine couldn't possibly oversee that large a territory. There would be fierce resistance by the oppressed populations of those countries after the "victory." Russia, especially, would have been a hard nut to crack because Hitler considered all Slavic peoples to be untermenschen, i.e. on a par with the Jews and the Romanies (Gypsies). Nor can I see the Americans placidly accepting defeat and saying, with resignation, "OK, we're German citizens now." If Hitler had won World War II, it could only have been as a prelude to World War III.

And that's only one aspect -- one variable -- in the problem. I wouldn't venture to guess whether the Reich could have lasted into the 21st Century or not. Just examining the problems faced by the Nazis in such an eventuality gives me a headache.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever read the book Fatherland? It's very good, I would reccomend it, but it does describe a situation similar to what you said. The Reich has won the second world war, but there's still fierce guerilla fighting in Russia, and so, Hitler is hoping to get the United States on his side so they can turn their collective powers against the what's left of Soviet Union. That's another variable to consider. If Hitler had eliminated the Soviet Union, would United States have been more friendly towards him?

Let's just take into consideration the role of the US. It's my opinion that the easiest way for Hitler to have won the war would have been to keep the US islationist. That way he could knock off all of America's potential Allies in Europe until they came to a point where the US declaring war on Germany would have been a very unwise decision. At least in that sense, he could have been able to keep his most poweful potential enemy at bay.

Once that had happened, I think the US would be more likely to open negotiations with the Germany. I don't think Hitler would have attacked the occupied or even attacked the US, because as I said, if he had eliminated the Soviet Union, we probably would have been more warm to the likes of him. At least in that scenario, the United States could have become Germany's greatest potential ally.

I am afraid i agree with prometheus; given the (real) history of US support for authoritarian "anti-communist" regimes in Latin America, Iran, South Vietnam, etc, etc, Nazi Germany might have been a kind of super version of these.

Since we are in what-if land, we can easily imagine a kind of abbreviated "World War II" where the US remained isolated & Pearl Harbor never happened.

However, Hitler was crazy, and while it's OK for a leader to be a bit crazy, he was just too crazy. In "The Man In The High Castle" by Philip K Dick, my personal favourite "Future in which Allies Lost WWII" novel, this problem is avoided as Dick has Hitler ousted by Goering and Rommel...

Yes, I too am a great fan of "The Man In High Castle" althought I will say my favorite "allied losing WWII" novel is "Fatherland"

Though Merry Andrew was right about " there are too many viarables", I think the Third Reich still tended to fall down.

Just think about Roman Empire,Arabic Empire, Ghenghis Khan, Alenxander the Great......

Violation may have its power provisionally, but it will defintely fade after the chaos.

Right, JB. But the other empires you name had quite a life span before they "fell down." Hitler's Reich lasted only a little over 10 years. The question was, if the fortunes of war had been reversed, could it have lasted a lot longer? Hitler himself envisioned a "thousand -year Reich" (direct quote).

Qin Emperor dreamt of Qin the Hundredth, Qin the Thousand, Qin the Ten thousand...
But Actually after 83 days of Qin the Third, the regime came to its end.

I view the appearance of the Third Reich as tremendous eruption of strong emotion, mixed with nationalism, racism....

But these kinds of game are just interesting. Let me make some episodes

First, if Hitler succeeded, the world would have 3 great powers: The Third Reich, The Japaness Empire, The United States of America (not sure).

Someone follow?

I agree with you there JB about the three world powers. I'm actuually writing a story about that.

that might be a fiction

Well i am still not sure if Britain would "survive". I think Curchill and Royal family was likely to evacuate to Canade and remained in power and allied with US after the german full-scale invasion of Britain.

Soviet Union would be divided into two parts. Germany-dominated zone and Japan-dominated one.

My country....with the support of Germany...couldn't exist anymore. (But there might be a puppet government).

India would declare independence. (I think it was disputable)

The Mideast would be occupied by Nazis But i am sure that it would loose long-term control.

How about Australia? Would MCarthur protect the continent well? I doubt....

Bizarre, because that's exaclty what I'm writing, except australia is divided into two territories, one occupied by the Japanse, one autonomus. India I would say would probably eventually either be conquered by the Japanese, or at least be on friendly terms with them. Britain, like France, is divided into to regions, German occupied Britain in the south, and "Free Britain" in the north, which is a puppet government under Edward the VIII. I would think that the middle east would be under German control simply because they would want to take control of area formely occupied by the British. As for Africa, the northern countries such Libya, Egypt, etc, would probably be controlled by the Germans, (for resettlement purposes perhaps) but the I think for the most part, most of Africa would remain independant.

I think the Germans would also have wanted some parts of the Middle East because of oil.

This is mostly for the Austrilia part, i think would go entirely in to Japan, as Japan was the island, and Germany did not have a 'great' navy. Either way unless they conquered Russia and China fairly quickly Japan would've gotten to it first. Remember, Hitler's fortress Europe. Anyway the only reason Hitler commited suicide in my point of view is that he's a sore loser. I mean he wouldnt let the enemy get him, not to be disrespectful of anything but yada yada. If he won Hitler would eventually rebuild that V-10 and start bombarding North America, and with Europe at Nazi control I beleive America or "Europe Germany" would decline right about now.

Sorry, I don't understand what 'yada yada' means.

Oh yes, that twisted little Bastard Hitler. In answer to Faroni's statement about Hitler's suicide, I think he was more of the opinion that as he was above any other living human being, he would not surrender or fall to the Soviets, as did Goebbels (and his wife and kids!) The romantic in me thinks he escaped to Switzerland and hid out for a while before moving to South America. It would be nice to actually see him swing, but perhaps that's just one for Robert Harris' next novel. By the way Robert, i've just patented that! And what ever became of Bormann? Artur Axmann swears he saw him lying dead under a bridge with no signs of any wounds. Presumably he swallowed a poison capsual, but I don't think his body ever turned up. Can anybody expand on that?

If the Third Reich had triumphed, the Mideast would have no Israel in it. The Arab countries were more than helpful to Hitler, however, I agree he would have overrun them as well once the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem had been achieved.