The no Holocaust argument is quite solid: the extermination system was expensive, militarily counter-productive, and could only have happened given a leader lacking checks and balance and with an idée fixe that overrode everything else (general European antisemitism allowed the Holocaust, but didn’t cause it)
Jews would probably still get interned at labour camps. When Germany would begins to lose the war, which seems probable and food shortages kick in, guess which camps are last in line for distribution? Also lots of people shot and dumped in mass graves probably also still happens. I would estimate a Jewish death toll from about 2 to 4 million.
Nuremberg Trials (by another name perhaps) also obviously still happen, since the interests of most of the major powers involved (if WW2 happens mostly as it did here) are also exactly the same. It would stand to reason that the trials mostly keep the same character.
No Hitler, yet undoubtedly we still have a (different) Shoah. And I bet Europe and America would probably develop pretty much the same symbolism around it as they did here..
And it was the height of stupidity to have gone to war, for a half of Poland, with simultaneously the world’s greatest empire and what appeared to be the overwhelmingly strong French army. Yes Gamelin, the French commander in chief, did behave like a concussed duckling, and the German army outfought the French—but no-one could have predicted this, and no-one sensible would have counted on it, and hence they wouldn’t have risked the war. Hitler wan’t sensible, and lucked out.
If our history is to be believed the war aim was far more than half of Poland. Pretty much eastern Europe as well as the elimination of Bolshevism (an ideological plank of anything that could be called the Nazi party, Hitler or no). Also a plausible argument can be made that the German leadership at the time considered the war pre-emptive.
Besides the obvious point that Stalin may actually have planned to invade eventually, going of of the trends apparent at the time, the Soviet Union was rapidly industrializing and had just endured massive purges to both its military and civil personnel. It had just demonstrated its weakness by being defeated by freaking Finland. It was weaker in the early 1940s than it would be for the foreseeable future. Germany was a developed country for which it wasn’t really reasonable to expect massive enough economic and population growth to preserve its position relative to the Soviet Union.
The longer Germany was not fighting the Soviet Union the better positioned, if a war did occur, the latter would be.
Jews would probably still get interned at labour camps. When Germany would begins to lose the war, which seems probable and food shortages kick in, guess which camps are last in line for distribution? Also lots of people shot and dumped in mass graves probably also still happens. I would estimate a Jewish death toll from about 2 to 4 million.
Nuremberg Trials (by another name perhaps) also obviously still happen, since the interests of most of the major powers involved (if WW2 happens mostly as it did here) are also exactly the same. It would stand to reason that the trials mostly keep the same character.
No Hitler, yet undoubtedly we still have a (different) Shoah. And I bet Europe and America would probably develop pretty much the same symbolism around it as they did here..
If our history is to be believed the war aim was far more than half of Poland. Pretty much eastern Europe as well as the elimination of Bolshevism (an ideological plank of anything that could be called the Nazi party, Hitler or no). Also a plausible argument can be made that the German leadership at the time considered the war pre-emptive.
Besides the obvious point that Stalin may actually have planned to invade eventually, going of of the trends apparent at the time, the Soviet Union was rapidly industrializing and had just endured massive purges to both its military and civil personnel. It had just demonstrated its weakness by being defeated by freaking Finland. It was weaker in the early 1940s than it would be for the foreseeable future. Germany was a developed country for which it wasn’t really reasonable to expect massive enough economic and population growth to preserve its position relative to the Soviet Union.
The longer Germany was not fighting the Soviet Union the better positioned, if a war did occur, the latter would be.