Alternate History - How It Would Effect The Present

[niky]

Taking on America and Russia at once is like picking a fight with two Bull Elephants with a 9mm submachine gun. You can pour all the bullets you want into them, but without higher caliber rounds to pierce those thick hides, you're still going to end up a pancake.

 

[Keef]

I agree that the enormous eastern front should not have been pushed so far east by Germany, but I do think that without American military involvement and industrial support through Lend-Lease, England would definitely have fallen. Germany's industrial capacity outclassed England's and Russia's individually by wide margins. The main problem was that they were simply spread way too thin, especially in Russia. If they'd have kept their defensive lines there more concentrated they could have focused on England and moved westward more easily.

Ultimately, the amount of whoop-ass that the US dished out in WW2 is fantastic. Without that help in Europe, Germany definitely would have had a good chance of beating everybody, thought it still would have taken a long time.

 

[MeanElf]

Massive bump, I know, but having chanced upon this thread not long after I finished watching The Man in the High Castle TV series and then Godzilla two days later, it occurred to me that if the Axis forces had won WWII there would be no Godzilla film.

Maybe not world shattering, but I suppose it's smaller details can hit home just as hard as some of the big differences.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Massive bump, I know, but having chanced upon this thread not long after I finished watching The Man in the High Castle TV series and then Godzilla two days later, it occurred to me that if the Axis forces had won WWII there would be no Godzilla film.

Why on earth not?

And isn't MITHC terribly screen-written? I bought the book instead to avoid having to sit any longer through that awful dialogue.

 

[MeanElf]

Why on earth not?

And isn't MITHC terribly screen-written? I bought the book instead to avoid having to sit any longer through that awful dialogue.

It has been said that Godzilla and the other Tokyo wrecking films were made to express the Japanese people's fear concerning atomic war, not just the Cold War threat but also the two bombs that hit their soil in WWII. Making the assumption that Germany gets its own nukes off there would be no bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US so no event that caused the film.

I enjoyed the TV series, I also enjoyed the book, having read it twice so far - they are quite different stories from each other in their main focus, plus Rufus Sewell is brilliantly cast in this - at least I think so

 

[Com Fox]

What if Germany won WWI?

No Nazis, No WWII, No Hiroshima Bomb, No Darwin Bombings.

Though there are negatives (like Germany likely could have gone Marxist and Israel would be struggling bad).

 

[Keef]

Wow man, you're really taking it back. I can't say I know enough about WW1-era politics to say anything useful.

Probably the biggest possible effect I can think of is that the US might never have developed into the powerhouse that it is. That was a direct result of WW2. Or it could have under some other circumstances that are impossible to predict. If Germany won, the US may have begun to rival them 20+ years sooner than otherwise.

 

[Liquid]

I think people forget that at the time of World War One Germany was not the dominant central European power and nor was it even the dominant German speaking country. It's only because modern Austria has become neutral that Germany raced ahead and overtook it after 1955.

The Austro-Hungarian empire was a sovereign colossus; today's Austria, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercogovina, Serbia, Montenegro, FYR Macedonia, Kosovo as well as bits of Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Italy. Think of the cultural and linguistical differences in there.

Its dissolution and downfall was not only a direct result of World War One but it was a direct cause of it. With no WWI, Vienna would still be the dominant city it historically always was. Essentially, it would be the capital of Europe.

Any Cold War in said alternate history would have seen a third, genuine superpower right on Moscow's doorstep. A Cold War was an unavoidable certainty in the 20th century and if Germany, with Austro-Hungary as an ally, were the dominant powers with nuclear technology, a World War would only be a matter of time. The United States would have far less influence in Europe and the Cuban missile crisis might well have become the Kiev missile crisis instead.

 

[Johnnypenso]

What if Germany won WWI?

No Nazis, No WWII, No Hiroshima Bomb, No Darwin Bombings.

Though there are negatives (like Germany likely could have gone Marxist and Israel would be struggling bad).

I've read a bit of alternate history and recently read Fatherland by Robert Harris. It takes a look at Germany 20 years after winning WW2 through the eyes of a policeman investigating a murder on the eve of an historic visit by Kennedy (not JFK though) in 1964. An interesting read that makes for a fascinating "what if" scenario.

 

[BobK]

Wonder what would have happened if the US had entered WW I on Germany's side. There was a strong sentiment to do so in 1915.

 

[Exorcet]

While I find some history topics interesting, it's not something I look at in depth. One thing that comes to my mind seeing this thread though is wondering how alternate history would come about. Would splitting the time line at a certain point require changes that go much further back in time?

The multiverse idea mentioned on the last page deals with atomic scale probability as far as I know and may not be directly relevant in the thread.

 

[MeanElf]

While I find some history topics interesting, it's not something I look at in depth. One thing that comes to my mind seeing this thread though is wondering how alternate history would come about. Would splitting the time line at a certain point require changes that go much further back in time?

The multiverse idea mentioned on the last page deals with atomic scale probability as far as I know and may not be directly relevant in the thread.

Generally the genre of alternate history relies on a single or grouped and related changes at certain points in history and then explores the outcome.

Nor is it a province of fiction alone. I have read a book that looked at a change mid-way through WWII that had Hitler in a coma after a plane crash in '42 and what the outcome likely would have been.

 

[Danoff]

Oswald misses Kennedy, discuss.

 

[playnthru]

Camelot would become came-a-lot..

 

[BobK]

Mary Jo would still be alive.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Oswald misses Kennedy, discuss.

Kennedy takes the proper blame for Vietnam, no "Hey hey LBJ" chants.

 

[Imari]

My favourite alternate history novel is "The Years of Rice and Salt", by Kim Stanley Robinson.

Basically, in this history the Black Plague wiped out 99% of Europe instead of about a third. As a result, Christianity basically dies off, and Islam and Buddhism become the dominant world powers.

It's an interesting read in it's own right, being essentially a series of short stories illustrating key societal points over a period of ~500 years, but it's also quite an interesting alternate history. What if something wiped out Christianity? A lot of major world history has had Christian powers on at least one side.

 

[Danoff]

Kennedy takes the proper blame for Vietnam, no "Hey hey LBJ" chants.

Certainly it would have affected Vietnam profoundly. Not only that, do you think Nixon takes office following a 2nd term Kennedy? It has the potential to ripple through the cold war, vietnam, and everything between. Carter's presidency either doesn't happen or looks significantly different. Without the vietnam black eye, maybe the US gets more involved in other external conflicts, or directly confronts the USSR.

Speaking of the cold war, what if Reagan had died in his assassination attempt? There's no "tear down this wall" speech if he doesn't make it.

 

[Liquid]

Speaking of the cold war, what if Reagan had died in his assassination attempt? There's no "tear down this wall" speech if he doesn't make it.

1981?

I'm not so sure if, on some fronts, things would have been that different. For the other communist bloc countries, the Solidarity movement was already underway in Poland and many communist countries such as Czechoslovakia and Hungary were seeing some light at the end of the tunnel by this stage. Yugoslavia would still be non-aligned and still on the way to implosion following Tito's death. In the USSR Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko would all have still dropped dead in quick succession. Brandenburg Gate specifically, Kohl was well on the way to securing the future of West Germany.

But on other fronts things most certainly would be different. Would we have ever found out about Iran-Contra under a different President? Or would it have escalated to that extent at all? The Iran-Iraq war could have had a very different outcome with some major repercussions.

And while Gorbachev's three predecessors would all have dropped dead as in actuality, if I remember there was an arms race in the 1980s and someone other than Reagan might not have had the gall to do such a thing. That would have made Afghanistan an interesting battle zone. Using the overly simplistic perceived wisdoms, if the US wasn't backing the Muhajadeen, even though the USSR might have stayed in Afghanistan longer, Al-Qaeda might not have existed or might have targeted the (former?) USSR instead of the USA. 9/11 might not have happened. But that's a massive, massive stretch.

 

[Danoff]

if I remember there was an arms race in the 1980s and someone other than Reagan might not have had the gall to do such a thing.

I wonder if the USSR might have survived.

 

[DK]

Could you imagine al-Qaeda carrying out terrorist attacks on Soviet soil?

Actually, now that I think of it, I can't imagine it being easy for them to sneak across the Soviet-Afghan border.

 

[TenEightyOne]

I wonder if the USSR might have survived.

I think the breakdown of the union would have come much earlier. The Berlin Wall could have come down sooner and maybe, just maybe, Hasselhof might not have been available to sing that day.

Re- Kennedy, the experts from the time are split on how his policy for Vietnam might have formed... I think he would have gone to war in Vietnam although I think he might have withdrawn sooner.

 

[Danoff]

I think the breakdown of the union would have come much earlier. The Berlin Wall could have come down sooner and maybe, just maybe, Hasselhof might not have been available to sing that day.

So you're thinking that the USSR economy was being assisted by massive spending to counter the US...

 

[TenEightyOne]

So you're thinking that the USSR economy was being assisted by massive spending to counter the US...

Not necessarily, I think that Kennedy's detente would have led to a much quicker easing of the tensions across the whole of Europe both in NATO and WARPAC states.