What do you think would have happened if the Axis Powers won World War II?

[Gopi Passiflora]

Disclaimer: I understand that this is yet another political topic - but after watching a movie recently I was inspired to post this and am curious to see what the Second Life community thinks of this situation. If need be, mods can close this.

 

I think if the Axis Powers won World War II, there would be a power struggle between the victors, just as what happened in our reality. I think the difference would be that Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan would be fighting a more "active" war than the Cold War that happened between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. There would be more direct fighting between the two as they try to conquer the world.

Also, territory would be more tightly controlled by the two world powers. The world would have been polarized much more than if the Allies were the victors.

I think Japan would slowly progress to a quasi-constitutional monarchy in the Prussian sense - the Emperor would still retain a lot of power but the Imperial Diet and the Prime Minister would serve as an effective legislature too. Voting rights would only be limited to Japanese Males over 18 or something. Their territory would make up most of Asia and the Americas.

I think Germany would be a totalitarian empire with no human rights whatsoever (except for certain "Aryan" people.) The Fuhrer Adolf Hitler would be the supreme leader, as well as his descendants or appointed successors. Their territory would be all of Europe, Africa, and some of Asia and the Americas.

There may still be some rebel groups in far reaches of the world who would want to restore freedoms before World War II...but they would have to work covertly.

[Syo Emerald]

[Gopi Passiflora]

2 minutes ago, Syo Emerald said:

What's wrong?

[Syo Emerald]

Just now, Gopi Passiflora said:

What's wrong?

You acknowledge, that you are about to post yet another political thread and how those usually end up and you acknowledge, that in addition the thread isn't even connected to SL... and yet, here we are. Sure, there are more offtopic threads on the general forum, but most could at least be seen as harmless games between forum members. But this one...? Eh, maybe I'm not enough of an alternative history nerd.

But in order to not derail this thread (in case most others are totally up for it):

I think your alternate history scenario would also need to include why the Axis Power won, because that would have a great influence on what happens afterwards.

[Gopi Passiflora]

2 minutes ago, Syo Emerald said:

You acknowledge, that you are about to post yet another political thread and how those usually end up and you acknowledge, that in addition the thread isn't even connected to SL... and yet, here we are. Sure, there are more offtopic threads on the general forum, but most could at least be seen as harmless games between forum members. But this one...? Eh, maybe I'm not enough of an alternative history nerd.

But in order to not derail this thread (in case most others are totally up for it):

I think your alternate history scenario would also need to include why the Axis Power won, because that would have a great influence on what happens afterwards.

Ah, good points. I just find these kinda topics (morbidly?) intriguing and I want to know how members of the board think about this.

As for why the Axis Powers won? Maybe the allies didn't get to develop the nuclear bomb or the computers or whatever technology they needed to defeat Germany, Italy, and Japan. Maybe the allied leaders were not as effective in their commitment to victory. I dunno, who knows? I'll let someone more imaginative come up with the hypothetical Axis Victory strategy.

[Pamela Galli]

Phillip Roth wrote a novel about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plot_Against_America  Is pretty good.

and of course the Phillip K. Dick one, Man in the High Castle, is a current series streaming on Amazon. 

[Ted McGregor]

ETA : Been there ; done that.

Edited January 11, 2020 by TDD123

[Selene Gregoire]

I would never have existed. My people would have been wiped out (genocide) and I would never have been born. So, there you go.

 

[BelindaN]

The industrial strength of the USA really made WW2 one sided. 

Germany was ahead on aviation and technology, but failed to capitalise.

Their navy was never a match for the allies, which is why they focused on U boats.

Once Japan lost naval supremacy at Midway, it just took time.

The only thing which could have made a difference was the bomb.

I read a lot....

[Bree Giffen]

After taking over the US, Japan would recede back to the east leaving only a cultural influence on Americans with anime and manga. The Germans would create a union of all captured countries but Britain would eventually find a way to exit. 

[Lyssa Greymoon]

It would have turned into a Cold War between the United States and the victorious Axis powers. They would have probably ended up with their own endless military quagmires in Russia and China. Even if the Axis could have beaten Britain and Russia, there is no way they could have successfully invaded the United States. I mean, in reality they couldn’t even get across the English Channel. They wouldn’t have even tried North America. 

[ArgontheDevil Ormega]

I would be a bar of soap somewhere.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

SecondLife would be called ThirdReichLief

[Ted McGregor]

Just now, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

SecondLife would be called ThirdReichLiefLeben

 

Edited January 11, 2020 by TDD123

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

Ah, but "Leben" is "living", there's a small but subtle difference, the "Leibstandarte" were the SS life-guards division

I do admit however that I got my F and B mixed up in my previous post, rather misleading, I know.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Profaitchikenz Haiku

[Pussycat Catnap]

Trump would have been President 70 years earlier. Or rather his father most likely (not as likely his grandfather since his grandfather ran an illegal brothel and sold hardcore illegal drugs, this making him a fugitive that the family's home country of Austria refused to take back when he tried to self-deport himself)...

Given my understanding of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan I don't think they would have conflicted. They would have most likely ignored each other's sphere's of influence.

 

I think Germany would have fizzled out after a few decades and gone back to the Wiemar system, but the Nazi regime would have relocated to North America where it was always a better fit (and where it originated - look at the correspondence between Henry Ford and Adolf Hitler). In fact the most likely path to winning WWII that Hitler could have had would have been to be writing US officials in secret for about a decade before launching his war... setting the stage for the Americans to come in on his side, where; had it not been for Hitler attacking England, they had a more common ideology.

As a nation, Germany's identity was not that old... in WWII there were likely old people left alive who still remembered being under pre-unified kingdoms. Having no external threat after the war and no one occupying them... there would be nothing left to blame when the empire proved too complex to hold together...

Germany had only been united at that point for about 60 years or so... it might have even fragmented under the flaws of the system and then been carved up by European powers that, lacking a strong foreign military (The US and USSR) or unified but purposefully ineffective government (EU and UN - bogging people down in paperwork and bureaucracy is the perfect way to avoid war), on their shores, would have returned to the same killing of each other than they had been up to without pause since the first humans migrated there 40,000 years ago...

 

 

Japan on the other hand had a highly efficient system that was merely lacking resources. It would have built up an empire in the Pacific resembling the British Empire that it... historically most closely resembled. Unlike the Europeans that wanted the whole world, the Japanese were specific in wanting Asia - their empire began for the same reason as Mao's revolution, Pol Pot's, and the Vietnam War... get the 'foreigners' out - by which they meant the Europeans / USA and return Asia to Asian control.

It would not be the friendly Japan we have today, but it would be about as abusive as European colonial powers were... the atrocities we now hear of Japan having committed were horrid, but they were small compared to the conquests of the Americas and Africa... By this point in time, Japan would be long past fearing 'outsider invaders' and would likely have begun reforms giving rights to Asian subjects... but things might be less pleasant for those on the west coast of North America.

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[Hans Modan]

If the Axis won WW2, then the only logical reason for that outcome is that the Axis, meaning Germany, won the race to develop an atomic weapon. Germany may have beaten the Soviet Union but it would have had little chance of invading the UK and stood no chance whatsoever of invading the USA.

Only an atomic weapon would have changed the balance of power to the extent that the USA would have forced to sue for peace.

And even then, Germany would have never been able to physically occupy the US. 
 

As for the consequences......that’s impossible to consider. Too many unknown variables and controversial aspects.....for example, the Nazis never treated black people and Asians and Muslims etc etc in the same way they treated the Jews and Slavs and other “undesirables”. Hitler was dying, even in 1945, so he wouldn’t have lasted long anyway.

 

Britain and her Empire stopped the Nazis from winning, the Soviets ground down the Nazi war machine and the US won the war in the east and west. Anything else is conjecture, thank goodness

[Tolya Ugajin]

8 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

I think if the Axis Powers won World War II, there would be a power struggle between the victors, just as what happened in our reality. I think the difference would be that Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan would be fighting a more "active" war than the Cold War that happened between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. There would be more direct fighting between the two as they try to conquer the world.

Also, territory would be more tightly controlled by the two world powers. The world would have been polarized much more than if the Allies were the victors.

I think Japan would slowly progress to a quasi-constitutional monarchy in the Prussian sense - the Emperor would still retain a lot of power but the Imperial Diet and the Prime Minister would serve as an effective legislature too. Voting rights would only be limited to Japanese Males over 18 or something. Their territory would make up most of Asia and the Americas.

I think Germany would be a totalitarian empire with no human rights whatsoever (except for certain "Aryan" people.) The Fuhrer Adolf Hitler would be the supreme leader, as well as his descendants or appointed successors. Their territory would be all of Europe, Africa, and some of Asia and the Americas.

There may still be some rebel groups in far reaches of the world who would want to restore freedoms before World War II...but they would have to work covertly.

You went straight from the Axis winning to them trying to conquer the world, and that winning the war would mean conquering everyone else.  Both are exceedingly unlikely.  Neither Japan nor Germany had the manpower to hold significant territory beyond their maximum gains during the war.  Witness the partisan activity throughout the Balkans and Russia, and then add on Russia to the Urals and it would have been a very thin veneer of Germans trying to hold continental Europe.  Even the unarmed Jews in Warsaw rose up in the face of annihilation; similar uprisings across Europe would have been inevitable.  Remember, they didn't even want to hold all of France, setting up the puppet Vichy, not did they make a serious effort to conquer England.  As for Japan, most of their conquests focused on acquiring resources, securing shipping lanes, and removing serious military threats.  They never went into China beyond resource-rich Manchurrria along with a thin coastal strip.  They simply would not have had the manpower to go further, let alone seriously attempt to conquer India.

And then there is the issue of trying to conquer the US.  The US, once it ramped up, was able to take on Japan almost single handedly, while also helping to supply the Soviets and Brits, while also fighting in Europe and North Africa.  Meanwhile, back home, there were literally millions of men (and plenty of women) who grew up shooting for sport or hunting - the "rifle behind every blade of grass" from the disputed quote of Yamamoto.  Neither of the Axis powers would have needed the resources of the US at that point, and certainly wouldn't have had the manpower to continue into North America.  Real war isn't like some video game.  Dead soldiers take a generation to truly replace, so you're not going to waste them on an invasion you can't win, for land you can't hold, and resources you don't really need.

Far more likely than conquest would have been fighting the US to a standstill and driving the Soviets beyond the Urals and establishing a peace with them, leaving the Brits to make their own grudging armistice.  What then?  Hitler was a drug addicted, Parkison's riddled 56 with no children.  He would have been dead surely in a decade, unable to function as Fuhrer sooner.  There would have been no "little Adolph".  His inner circle was a collection of misfits and nutcases who didn't exactly love each other and would almost surely have fought over succession.  History is pretty clear that regimes like that soon fracture and collapse, and that's setting aside partisans, uprising, rebellions and the like.  Victory would have been short for Germany,  I'm not sure about Japan, but given how the Vietnamese handled the French and US, it seems unlikely the Japanese would have had an easy time holding everything...especially with the remainder of the Soviets, the Brits, and the Americans inevitably backing insurgencies.

Absent a huge disparity in technology and rapid die-off of the native population (such as the Americas 1500's-1800's), stable empires are not made from rapid conquest.  They're created through gradual accumulation coupled with assimilation and co-optation of the prior ruling class.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Tolya Ugajin
Cleam up some grammatical errors.

[Paul Hexem]

They'd be beaten later. There's no situation in which they rule the world. History would turn out roughly the same, it just might take a little longer.

 

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by Gadget Portal

[Ted McGregor]

5 hours ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Ah, but "Leben" is "living", there's a small but subtle difference, the "Leibstandarte" were the SS life-guards division

I do admit however that I got my F and B mixed up in my previous post, rather misleading, I know.

As a noun Leben in German means Life. Leibstandarte is etymogically consisting of 2 words : ein Leib ( a body ) and eine Standarte ( a unit ) ..

Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler was the Führer' personal SS-unit.

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by TDD123

[Ted McGregor]

7 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

I think the difference would be that Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan would be fighting a more "active" war than the Cold War that happened between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. There would be more direct fighting between the two as they try to conquer the world.

Their territory would be all of Europe, Africa, and some of Asia and the Americas.

As pointed out already, Germany would have to have conquered several aspects outside the war itself : massproduction and capacity. Eventhough Germany was a highly high-quality producing nation at the time, based on sheer numbers alone, Germany was incapable of prolonging this war alone after the Americans joined the war and the invasion of Russia awoke a second industrial power to it's full strength even when pushed back over the Wolga.

By 1942 ( battle of El Alamein ) the war was basically already lost. It triggered Churchill' famous quote. " Not the beginning. Not the end. But the beginnging of the end ." regarding the German empire. After the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk the war was over for Germany.

The rest is a long tiresome defeat costing huge amounts of resources and life (on all sides). It's very hard to fictionally vision how a miracle victory ever could happen. Guess that's a very good reason the main antagonist of said age, being mad, desillusioned and demented,  pulled the trigger on himself in the end  after delaying the inevitable.

Edited January 12, 2020 by TDD123

[Drayke Newall]

8 hours ago, BelindaN said:

The industrial strength of the USA really made WW2 one sided. 

Germany was ahead on aviation and technology, but failed to capitalise.

Their navy was never a match for the allies, which is why they focused on U boats.

Once Japan lost naval supremacy at Midway, it just took time.

The only thing which could have made a difference was the bomb.

I read a lot....

Sorry but this isn't correct at all as far as USA vs Germany goes. Germany was ahead in EVERY field be it science, aviation, technology, machinery, medical and industrial and they certainly did capitalise on it. They conquered Europe and then some. You also must remember that (Nazi) Germans were the first to split the atom, first to build a missile and rocket, first to discover things medical, the list goes on. Even the man that was mainly responsible for building the rocket that put a USA man on the moon was a Nazi scientist.

Additionally (despite the negative aspects and ideologies of Nazi Germany), Germany's conquest of Europe as far as speed and tactic goes is one of the greatest military achievements in history. They conquered half of Europe in 8 months.. EIGHT. Pushing the allies' (inc. England and France) entire military to a small beach and then in another 2 years had conquered the ENTIRTY of Europe and even then went on to push back the Russian border to Moscow. It took Rome one of the greatest empires and military strength of Europe at its prime centuries of fighting to not even conquer one third the territory Germany did.

What you have failed to calculate or realise is that when the USA entered the war Germany had already been fighting for 3 years and much of their industrial strength had been depleted.

As far as navy goes, why would Germany need a big navy? They were conquering land and used missiles that were capable of hitting England from France. It was also never the naval assets that won the war against Germany. Japan maybe, but not Germany. Also keep in mind the USA didn't win the war even though many Americans think they did. Sure they helped and were a huge reason why the war was won but it was the rash decision of Hitler attacking Russia and breaking the neutrality alliance he had with them that lost the war. Nazi Germany would have won easily if they were defending one front, but they were defending 2 and lost due to this. To put it another way, it took the sheer manpower of millions of troops from both Russia and America to win a war against a small country like Germany. That in itself should say a lot.

As much as we all (including me) despise Hitler, Nazism, their ideologies, their crime and believe they were evil monsters, don't belittle Germany's (as the country), dare I say it, magnificent achievements due to the ideals and crimes of a few men.

As to the OP's question,

Who knows though I would suspect it to be similar to how England and Northern Ireland were with regards to the resistance and terrorism.

That said, I am more interested in the theory of what would have happened if Japan never bombed America.

EDIT:

AS an aside I want to make it clear I in no way support Nazism, Hitler what he did, how he did it or his and his cronies ideologies. However, people seem to forget that Germany and many of its population didn't believe in what Hitler did or what he was doing, however had no choice but to do it.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Drayke Newall

[Ted McGregor]

49 minutes ago, Drayke Newall said:

As far as navy goes, why would Germany need a big navy?

BelindaN mentioned it, because that is actually a huge impact. Unlike the UK ( being supported with shipments from the U.S.) , the Germans could not succesfully exploit their force on the water. There was an armed balance between the British and German fleet. That was settled in favour of the British after the Bismarck was sunk.  It also meant that Germany was incapable of collecting valuable resources from others parts of their conquered territory back to the harbour of Hamburg.
 

Unlike the UK , Germany was too isolated to be supplied by sea, so all their naval effort went into fighting the British supply convoys hard enough to almost tip the scale. Had they had a big enough or powerful enough navy including the dreadnoughts, the war would have been less hopeless to them.

I doubt though that would have been enough to win the war for them.

Edited January 12, 2020 by TDD123

[Arduenn Schwartzman]

10 hours ago, Gopi Passiflora said:

but after watching a movie recently I was inspired to post this

Yeah, that was a funny movie.

[Drayke Newall]

27 minutes ago, TDD123 said:

BelindaN mentioned it, because that is actually a huge impact. Unlike the UK ( being supported with shipments from the U.S.) , the Germans could not succesfully exploit their force on the water. There was an armed balance between the British and German fleet. That was settled in favour of the British after the Bismarck was sunk.  It also meant that Germany was incapable of collecting valuable resources from others parts of their conquered territory back to the harbour of Hamburg.
 

Unlike the UK , Germany was too isolated to be supplied by sea, so all their naval effort went into fighting the British supply convoys hard enough to almost tip the scale. Had they had a big enough or powerful enough navy including the dreadnoughts, the war would have been less hopeless to them.

I doubt though that would have been enough to win the war for them.

But once again it is not just that simple. Germany did have a large navy however it was decimated in the invasion of Norway in April 1940 whereby they lost half of their fleet meaning 20 destroyers and 3 cruisers. The fleet at the time achieved its mission, however at the destruction of the German navy. It was at this time that it was decided to redivert their funds to stealth naval warfare hence their reliance on U-boats and turn their tactic to stopping British supply lines. The Bismarck was launched after their fleet had been already severely reduced in size. Originally there were also plans to build air-craft carriers and more destroyers/battleships etc, however with no protection from the reduced fleet this meant that it would have been impossible for Germany to protect its bigger naval assets.

Given the amount of controlled land Germany had, they had the resources to produce really anything without naval means of supply, however the time it would have taken to rebuild their fleet after Norway would have taken to long for it to be worthwhile.

I do agree however that once USA entered the war with its manpower as well as supply line protection from Germany as well as Russia from the west Germany could never win.

EDIT: Whether however they could have won against USA only without having to split their force on two fronts, was a possibility however we will never know.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Drayke Newall