If the Axis won, who take Washington

[MrMalachiCrunch]

Well right you are but…… the allies did nothing to stop Germany from breaking the treaty of Versailles which limited them to capital ships not to exceed 10,000 tonnes.  The pocket battleships were slightly over this but then Germany started building battlecruisers and full sized battleships like the tirpitz and bismark.

Germany could not build U-boats but started to, they reoccupied the ruhr.  They were not supposed to have much of an airforce so Germany had the best ‘civilian’ airliners and fleet, trained their pilots in the spanish civil war.

By the time 1938 rolled around, the French were still traumitized by WW I and anybody warning of hitler was called a warmongerer ie churchill.  Basically the allies pussied out, could have crushed hitler in 36 when he first broke the treaty and reoccuppied the ruhr.

[losttribe04]

Ok so the Allies still had a bad taste in their mouth from WWI and was busy being positive not wanting to rock the boat.

That certainly would have given the Axis more time to prepare even after breaking the treaty.

[MrMalachiCrunch]

It is truly scarely to think of what could have occurred had Hitler been a bit more long sighted and a bit less of a gambler.  Had he waited for his genocide campaign and used some PR he might have been able to knock off the allies one by one without the others declaring war.

I think the US naval philosophy after WW I actually saw England as the #1 force the US atlantic fleet would fight and their entire doctrine of fleet buys and strategy revolved around crushing the Brit fleet….up until the late 1930s if I am not mistaken.

Had the Germans sold their long term plan to the Japs to have them ‘play nicer’ in their brutal campaign in China the US might not have embargoed (sp?) the Japs early in 41, they might have waited a few years for Pearl Harbour or might not have needed to once the european powers finally folded and the east indies fell into Jap hands by default.

With democracies still stung by WW I’s lost generation their might not have been enough public support to win the long war…  Yikes!

[Octospire]

@MrMalachiCrunch:

The Axis powers would NEVER cooperate with a communist anything.  Hitler HATED communists nearly as much as he hated jews.  I doubt Japan would have been down with a philosophy where everyone was equal peasant and samuri with was no room for the emperor.

Japan might have been able to invade Washington state if about 100 things were different.  But to trek across a few 1000 miles of territory with rather well armed and hostile natives to get to DC?  Or the other choice to launch an invasion fleet and have it sail 10,000 miles (or more?) around south america to come up on the east coast or invaded panama first to gain control of the canal to shorten the invasion fleet trip?

The allies prepared and built up for D-Day for 2 years.  They had an unsinkable aircraft carrier 25 miles from shore about the same size as Great Britain from which to launch the invasion from.  Only with sh@* luck and the incompetence of Hitler was D-day successful.

Japan had no technology to force a US surrender and for ‘old-school’ military…by 1943 the US was producing in a month as many machine guns as Japan produced in the entire war.

The ONLY way the US was going to lose is if Germany got nukes first and they were NOWHERE even close to deploying a nuclear bomb.
God I hate these text boxes, why is it that when I hit the bottom of the screen the text in the box jumps up and down when I type, friggin annoying to have to use a text editor to creat the post then copy and paste it in here…ugh!

I think the real question is, if Sea lion and Barbarossa were successful and the Nazi’s defeated both Britain and the Soviet Union. In addition to the Japanese defeating the Chinese and the European powers in South East Asia.

There would of been a reasonable chance of them turning their agression on the Americans sooner or later after they crushed the last of the guerilla resistance, this would of been especially successful if the Germans and Japanese were more friendly to the peasantry and civilians of both China, Russia and Ukraine. With the manpower on your side from both the ruins of the USSR and China you could outnumber the Americans in battle 3 to 1 at the very least.

Add to that the power of the IJN if they hadnt gone to war with the USA and only the European powers in South East Asia it would of been a match for the US Navy especially if the Americans thought they were safe from the Eurasian war and maintained their isalationist policies. Within a decade of the defeat of the British, USSR and Chinese, the Kreigsmarine and IJN could of launched a naval and aerial assault on the United States first taking Hawaii and the strategically important Carribean Islands. Then begin the Strategic bombing of US shipyards, Industrial centres and a blockade of US ports.

Also inspire an uprising amongst the long suffering Latin Americans who have been slaves to American interest since the end of the Spanish-American war of 1898 who would be more than willing to see there brothers in arms marching down Pennsylvania avenue. All the Axis would of had to of promised was Texas, New Mexico, Arizon and maybe a few other choice bits of real estate back to the Mexicans and they would of had allies as long as they had support from the German Armoured divisions and Luftwaffe as well as the Japanese airfoce they would of been able to overrun the border states quite quickly and the government in Washington may very well of sued for peace right then and there or fight to the bitter end.

One of the biggest variables in all of this would of been would the Manhattan project of gone ahead without American involvement in WW2? If it hadnt and the Axis had of won I would not want to be an American facing down a Tiger Tank fresh of the boat in New Orleans with a Tommy gun and Colt .45 or worrying about a Stuka dive bombing the factory where you work. The Industrial giant that was 1940’s America could of been toppled but only with the manpower and industrial power of the Soviet Union at Axis disposal.

[KurtGodel7]

Neither Germany nor Japan had a realistic chance of invading the U.S. As has been pointed out, the D-Day invasion required almost complete local naval supremacy, a massive buildup, and a relatively narrow English Channel to cross. For either Germany or Japan to ship a large-scale invasion force across the Atlantic or the Pacific does not seem feasible to me. The best possibility that I can see along these lines would be for Japan to use an island hopping campaign to gradually capture the Aleutian islands, one by one, and so to eventually reach Alaska. But there would have been a number of inherent problems with that plan; most notably including the comparative weakness of the Japanese Army relative to the American Army, the fact that Japan’s army was tied down elsewhere (especially in China), the adverse weather conditions that the Japanese Army and Navy would encounter during the Aleutian island hopping campaign and on the Alaskan mainland, etc.

It is also worth noting that neither Germany nor Japan had any plans to conquer the U.S. (The idea that Germany wanted world domination represented part of FDR’s pre-war and wartime propaganda effort, and bears no relation to reality.) Nazism was in large part a response to WWI and the Versailles Treaty. During WWI, Britain and France had imposed a food blockade against Germany; resulting in the starvation of about 750,000 people. After the war was over, Britain continued the food blockade into 1919 to force Germany to sign the Versailles Treaty. After that treaty was signed, a large portion of German foreign currency was used on reparations payments to Britain and France; which during hard economic times meant there was not enough foreign currency left over to buy imported food with which to feed the German people. As a result of this widespread hunger within Germany both during and after the war, Hitler wanted to conquer enough lebensraum to ensure that Germany could adequately feed its people out of its own resources.

More generally, Hitler wanted to ensure Germany was too strong to ever again experience a Versailles Treaty. The long-range goal of Nazi foreign policy was the conquest of the Soviet Union; or at least that portion of the Soviet Union west of the Ural mountains. That conquest would secure Germany against any future Allied food blockades, would prevent it from being defeated in any European land war (as it had been in WWI), and would give it the industrial capacity and access to raw materials necessary to hold its own in an air war against Britain or any other belligerent. It would also wipe out communism, at least assuming (as Hitler evidently hoped) that the communist government of the Soviet Union collapsed after losing everything west of the Urals.

[MrMalachiCrunch]

Kurt hit it right on.  I would add Hitler hated slavs in general but actually was rather fond of the Brits.  Hitler had hoped to commit genocide on the slavs in the USSR and resettle the land with brits and french whom were aryan enough for his likes.  He didn’t want to crush the brits, merely have them lay down their arms.

I am no bleeding heart liberal by any stretch, but nazi germany was a right wing capitalist utopia but treated german labour much better than the brits and americans and others treated their own respective labour force.  The nazi regime would have no problem living with an uber-right wing capitalist US and facist puppet governments in occupied aryanish europe.

Communism was supposed to take hold in Germany NOT russia.  russia was pretty much for the most part a backwards peasant economy in 1917.  Hardly a target for a workers paradise as was industrial germany.

[KurtGodel7]

@MrMalachiCrunch:

Kurt hit it right on.  I would add Hitler hated slavs in general but actually was rather fond of the Brits.  Hitler had hoped to commit genocide on the slavs in the USSR and resettle the land with brits and french whom were aryan enough for his likes.  He didn’t want to crush the brits, merely have them lay down their arms.

I am no bleeding heart liberal by any stretch, but nazi germany was a right wing capitalist utopia but treated german labour much better than the brits and americans and others treated their own respective labour force.  The nazi regime would have no problem living with an uber-right wing capitalist US and facist puppet governments in occupied aryanish europe.

Communism was supposed to take hold in Germany NOT russia.  russia was pretty much for the most part a backwards peasant economy in 1917.  Hardly a target for a workers paradise as was industrial germany.

This was a nice post; and I agree with over 90% of it. I’d like to expand on the point you raised about how German labor was treated. Hitler’s emergence into power was associated with an economic boom for Germany due to several factors; one of which was that Hitler’s regime managed to solve the foreign currency crisis inherited from the previous regime. In the '20s, Germany had borrowed large sums from the United States in order to make reparations payments to Britain and France. That borrowing reduced the short-term economic pressure on Germany, and there were times in the '20s when Germany was able to perform a passable job of feeding its own people. But Germany’s debt to the U.S. kept piling up due to all the reparations payments it had to make. Then nations such as Britain, France, and the United States closed themselves to German exports. The closing of those markets deprived Germany of the foreign currency it needed to make its debt payments, as well as to purchase imported food and raw materials for its factories. That foreign currency crisis caused economic collapse in Germany, thereby paving the way for Hitler to gain power. Upon assuming power, Hitler decided that Germany would repay its debt to nations which accepted German imports, while defaulting on debt to nations which refused German imports. In particular, he defaulted on Germany’s massive debt to the United States.

Short-term measures such as that one were the first step toward Germany’s climb out of the economic misery of the late '20s and early '30s. Initially, the lion’s share of those gains went to the German working class. Hitler also implemented improved workplace safety measures, and improved clean air and clean water standards. Several years into Germany’s economic program, the German working class had reached what would widely be considered a reasonable standard of living. At this point, Hitler diverted a very large share of additional German economic growth into corporate profits. He then placed stringent restrictions on the amount of those profits that could be paid out in the form of dividends. Because German companies didn’t have anything else to do with all that money coming in, they invested it in upgrading their manufacturing facilities. That effort created a long-term increase in German manufacturing capacity–an increase which reached its zenith in 1944.

As far as Hitler’s foreign policy–after Poland fell, he offered a peace treaty to Britain and France. Both nations turned him down. After France fell, he explored a peace treaty with Britain. The British refused. The British imposed a food blockade on Germany in WWII; just as they had in WWI. Hitler responded to Germany’s food crisis by choosing to provide an adequate diet for the Germans, and by starving the Jews outright. The fate of the people in most occupied territories was between these two extremes; with local populations having to hope for good harvests to avoid starvation. These problems were created by the fact that Germany itself was a food deficit nation, as were France, Poland, and most conquered Soviet territories (except the Ukraine). However, the Ukraine’s food surplus was not nearly enough to offset the food deficit of the other territories Hitler controlled.

During the war, German bureaucrats were in the process of making plans to relocate between 30 - 50 million Polish people eastward; with the vacated areas resettled by Germans. If Germany as as whole was still in a state of food crisis, then the death of a portion of these people along the way would have been seen as an acceptable way to have fewer mouths to feed. Conversely, if the food blockade had been ended, there is not (so far as I know) any indication that these resettled people would have been starved to death. Nor am I aware of any plans to impose genocide against the people of the Soviet Union in the postwar era.

While Hitler’s attitudes about ethnicity clearly played a role in how he allocated starvation, it is important to remember that the source of the starvation was the Anglo-American food blockade imposed on Germany. Stalin’s scorched earth policy contributed to the problem by causing the removal or destruction of local food stores, farming equipment, and other implements necessary for the creation and distribution of food.

[MrMalachiCrunch]

I would add that it was Bismark I believe started the labour reforms in Germany.  German workers had it pretty good and that was probably a main reason communism didn’t take hold.  Now compare that to how the baron robbers of industrial north american treated their workers.  No wonder they feared communism, it looked pretty darn good compared to their current life.

[allboxcars]

If the Axis won??  
OK first off that would’ve required a number of different outcomes such as American neutrality until the Germans pulled off Sealion. So we have to change some things right from the get go before answering the question….

Anyway, if the Axis had won, the Nazis would’ve taken Washington.
The American Nazi party that is.

IMTO once Hitler’s Eurasian empire was secure a peace treaty would’ve been signed without the Axis stepping foot in North America.

At that stage, the biggest threat to any surviving democracies in the West would be their own people wanting to emulate the victors and swallowing Dr. Goebbels’ propaganda hook, line and sinker. After all wasn’t whatever communism was left in the world the real threat??

It would’ve taken a generation or so…but hey, a stable power in Europe that was (once upon a time) voted into office, willing to trade and strong enough to emerge from the depression as a great power… yeah, memories would be short enough.

#533

[GrizzlyMan]

I don’t think it’s really plausible that any of the three major Axis powers would have been able to launch an invasion of mainland America large enough to actuallyhewould not have gained ground against the Americans fighting on their own turf. While the German army may have matched that of the United States, their navy was in no way ready to launch any amphibious invasion, especially one of the scale requited to attack the US. Italy… let’s just say I couldn’t see Mussolini walking into the white house.

Most likely, if the Axis were able to overhwelm all of the other allies, a cold war would develop between the US and Germany/Japan (and maybe even between the axis themselves) and all sides would race to develop defenses and nuclear weapons.

If any axis takeover of washington was to take place, it would be a result of either a revolution within the US or (less likely) an invasion by Mexico and other Central/South American countries supported by the Axis. Germany would likely send another Zimmerman letter, but this time would provide actual support. Although by this point, with the US in possession of nuclear weapons, i doubt and invasion would take place.