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Poland and Germany fighting side by side against the Soviet Union, the United States in a space
race with...
Japan?
If World War 2 had never happened, history may have looked a lot weirder.
There are simply too many reasons World War II may not have happened, so we'll instead
focus on the most realistic changes that could have prevented the conflict we remember as
the second world war.
The first of these changes is a shift in global attitudes towards fascism and communism.
After World War I, the Soviet Union had adopted a policy of 'revolution abroad', believing
that its only hope of survival against the capitalist imperial powers of the day was
to undermine them by encouraging communist revolutions within their own borders.
Lenin, the father of the Soviet Union, saw a world who's human and natural resources
had been partitioned by the greatest imperialist powers, and was appalled to see workers being
recruited or volunteering to fight in World War I- a conflict from which they gained nothing,
while their imperial masters gained ever more power, prestige, and riches.
Even before the Soviet revolution that toppled the Russian czar, communist grumblings were
spreading around the world.
Away from the front on leave during World War I, Hitler famously observed- at least
in his own mind- that the glorious German empire was being undermined by amongst others,
communist traitors.
This wasn't entirely untrue, as after the formation of the USSR, the strategy of revolution
abroad was seen as vital for survival of the soviet state, and the nation sent resources
and intelligence agents to support communist movements around the world.
In our fantasy scenario where World War II never happens, Hitler's fears of communist
sabotage are more true than they ever were in real history.
Revolutionary movements gain traction across the west, reaching even to the United States.
While in America the communist push is part of a robust national dialogue on politics,
the communist zeal spreading across workers in France, Britain, Germany, and others threaten
the very foundations of a long-standing imperial state.
It simply can't be tolerated.
France and Britain find themselves having more in common with Hitler and his fascist
Nazis than with Stalin and his communists- a fact that was true even in our timeline.
As fears of revolution grow, Germany prepares its rebuilt armies for war- but its forces
are heading east, not west.
Germany makes an offer to Poland- in exchange for the Polish corridor and the reunification
of East Prussia, Germany will assist it in rebuilding a Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth
to the east.
The Polish corridor had originally been the cause of World War II, and was an item of
great contention after World War I when the Treaty of Versailles split Eat Prussia off
from the German homeland by granting the Polish control of a strip of land between the two.
Poland had already fought a war with Lithuania in the year after World War I, but had been
forced to a settlement by the international community and the pressure of an even larger
Polish-Soviet war.
The absorption of most of Lithuania into Poland would give the nation badly needed access
to the sea, and in the eyes of the Polish people Hitler's offer is a good deal.
Hitler however is getting the far better end of the deal, because the reformation of a
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would create a massive buffer between Germany and the USSR,
and Hitler is already planning on invading the Soviet Union.
Hitler's ambition to take on the USSR is two-fold.
First, he needs to end what he sees as a critical political threat to his leadership- the subversion
of the German people by communist infiltrators.
His second ambition however is to take the resource-rich lands of the southern USSR to
fuel Germany's growing military and industrial base.
If Germany is going to compete with Britain and France, it needs to conquer new lands-
the loss of its colonial holdings in Africa after World War I was a devastating blow to
the German economy.
With Germany's eyes turned eastward, Britain and France are satisfied that Hitler is not
an immediate enemy.
In fact, he may be a potential ally.
Soon, German troops have reunified East Prussia, and march into Poland- but this time by invitation.
Together, German and Polish troops seize most of Lithuania by force, officially re-establishing
the Polish-LIthuanian Commonwealth after nearly 150 years.
The Soviets however know that German aid to Poland is a cover for the German army to establish
itself for an invasion of the Soviet Union.
The nation has gone into a war economy and is rapidly arming itself- but as war inevitably
breaks out between Germany and the Soviet Union, two key factors severely hamper the
Soviet's ability to fight back a German onslaught.
The first is the direct support of British and French naval and air forces to the German
offensive.
While neither side is willing to directly contribute ground troops, they are happy to
provide Germany with naval and air support.
The German Luftwaffe is supplemented by hundreds of British and French aircraft, and the Soviet
air force is decimated in days.
The Soviet Union's second problem in this new timeline is the complete lack of American
aid.
In the real timeline, the United States supplied the Soviets with nearly everything it needed
to fight the Germans.
Totaling a staggering $180 billion in today's money, US aid included 400,000 jeeps and trucks-
to the point that nearly every non-armored vehicle in operation with the Red Army was
American made, 14,000 aircraft, 8,000 tractors, 13,000 tanks, 1.5 million blankets, 15 million
pairs of army boots, 107,000 tons of cotton, 2.7 million tons of gasoline and other oil
products, and 4.5 million tons of food.
Without US aid, the Soviet Army may have had the manpower to fight against the Germans,
but it could not clothe them, feed them, arm them, or even transport them to the front
lines.
In our new timeline, the US would have had no reason to assist the Soviets, as during
World War II the goal of American assistance was to defeat the Germans, who were threatening
Britain and had already seized France for themselves.
In fact, Soviet communism was seen as a greater threat to the American way of life than European
imperialism or even Fascism.
Hitler may have been evil, but at least he was being evil in his own land for all Americans
could care.
Within months the Red Army completely collapses under the German onslaught, and Stalin flees
far to the eastern territories of the Soviet Union.
Hitler is satisfied with the conquest of Moscow, and sees no reason to expend more resources
and soldiers to strike further east.
With his seizure of the grain, oil, and mineral rich southern USSR, Hitler has the economic
might to offset the loss of Germany's overseas colonies.
A detente of sort settles over Europe.
Hitler's famous final solution goes into effect in seized territories, but the scope of the
massacre is severely limited by international pressure.
Unlike in our real timeline, in this new timeline Hitler needs time to build the strength of
the Third Reich, and can't afford to ignore the opinions of nations he simply militarily
overshadowed, or occupied in the real timeline.
Rather than massive concentration camps, undesirable minorities are instead forced to live in cordoned
off ghettos and work camps.
The international press decries the treatment of Jews, Slavs, and other minorities by the
Nazis, but no nation wants to take on a rejuvenated German army to correct the issue.
An arms race begins in Europe as the alliance of convenience quickly falls apart.
Meanwhile in Asia, the Soviet Union's fortunes suffer even further.
In our real timeline Japan and the Soviet Union fought a series of skirmishes as Japanese
troops pushed ever further into China.
Now, with most of the Asian Red Army forces diverted to fight the Nazis where they suffer
a crushing defeat, the Japanese complete a humiliation of the Russian military that began
with the Russo-Japanese war of 1904.
Japan's western front is secured, allowing the nation to concentrate on its continued
conquest of China and the nation's biggest roadblock to its imperial ambitions in the
Pacific- the United States of America.
With Japanese expansionism threatening American and European interests in the Pacific, the
United States had already attempted to punish the Japanese with an embargo on oil and other
resources needed by the Japanese military.
The oil embargo was particularly crippling, as Japan had gotten much of its oil from the
US, and if the oil tap wasn't turned back on Japan could not hope to continue its conquest
of SouthEast Asia and beyond.
In the United States, the Great Depression has become a recession, and while the economy
is slowly on the upturn, it isn't anywhere near where it was before the big crash of
the 1920s.
In our real timeline the buildup to World War II was an economic shot in the arm for
the United States, but even today economists aren't completely sure just how much impact
this had on the US's economic recovery- and most doubt that it was wholly responsible
for ending the Great Depression.
In our new timeline, the economic boon of supplying the Europeans with the weapons they
needed to fight the Nazis never happens, and the US economic recovery takes even longer
than normal.
However, that's about to change.
The Japanese need to knock the United States out of the Pacific for good if they are going
to seize oil-rich Indonesia and beyond.
American bases in the Philippines give them a strategic staging point to counter Japanese
ambitions, and these must be eliminated.
European colonial powers still hold many territories in the region which Japan also plans on conquering,
but their militaries are simply staged too far away to pose much of a threat.
Without US support in the region, even the mighty British Royal Navy will find itself
hard-pressed to resist the full might of the Imperial Japanese Navy- specially when the
British are caught up in an escalating arms race versus a greatly empowered Nazi Germany.
Japan launches a devastating surprise attack against Pearl Harbor, causing massive damage
to the American pacific fleet.
The rest of the IJN begins an immediate conquest of European colonial holdings in the region,
clearing the path for the seizure of the vast oil deposits that Japan needs to fuel itself.
European powers turn to Germany and propose a joint effort against Japanese aggression
in the Pacific.
However, Hitler knows that the loss of colonies in Asia will have a dramatic economic impact
on his rivals, while Germany has already gained much in Russia and stands to gain much less
from war with Japan.
He refuses, and rather than weaken their defenses against possible Nazi aggression, one by one
the European powers relinquish their colonies to Japan.
The fall of the American Philippines to invading Japanese forces seals the deal- it's simply
not worth fighting in the Pacific and potentially losing the home front to a surprise German
attack.
The declaration of war by Japan immediately sets the United States into a wartime footing,
revitalizing the American economy.
With no need to fight German u-boats in the Atlantic, or support European operations,
much of the American Atlantic fleet is immediately transferred to the Pacific.
Within a year, the United States has already begun an offensive against Imperial Japanese
forces, with a military strengthened by millions of troops, thousands of planes and tanks,
and hundreds of large and small ships not needed to fight in Europe.
The Imperial Japanese Navy suffers a slow but inevitable defeat, followed by a total
blockade of Japan.
The nation is slowly starved into submission, as US commanders refuse to expend the half
a million American lives it'll take to invade the island physically.
Without the pooling of US and European resources, the American atomic bomb doesn't happen- at
least not for some time.
Instead, the British are first to the bomb, though it comes many years later than in our
timeline.
Nazi Germany and the United States are quick to follow- Germany slowed down in its progress
because of Hitler's paranoia and his insistence that different teams work on the same project
at the same time without contact with each other.
This way he believes he can safeguard the German atomic project from sabotage by spies,
but all it really does is hamstring the research efforts.
The world is not in ruins as it is at the end of World War 2 in our timeline.
European colonies across Africa also remain, as the US's insistence that Europe end colonialism
was never made part of its demands for entry into war against Germany.
Colonialism enters a new, darker age, as global powers seek to quickly build their militaries
for a conflict all know is coming, and even the US installs puppet governments in territories
seized from Japan across the Pacific, needing to strengthen itself in the face of a nuclear
armed Britain and Germany both.
The Soviet Union has become a backwater state, while Germany and the US have both become
superpowers.
Germany's full ambitions however can't be achieved as long as the Royal Navy continues
to control the seas off the German coast, and Hitler's dream of a Third Reich that lasts
a thousand years are now threatened by the growing military collaboration between France
and Britain.
As Hitler prepares his war plans against the two allied nations, he sends representatives
to speak with the American president, Harry S. Truman.
Truman grants Hitler assurances that Americans are sick of war after their tough won battles
in the Pacific, and have no plans to interfere if Germany attacks France.
Besides, with Britain and France both having nuclear weapons now, it's in America's best
interests if the number of nuclear powers in the world is reduced dramatically and quickly,
and if those existing weapons are turned against Germany rather than the US.
But if Germany proves successful, it will be the strongest nuclear power in the world,
in full control of Europe.
As the German attack against France through Belgium is launched, under the cover of a
rain of nuclear bombs, Truman is true to his word and the US maintains its isolationist
policies- however, he also orders the largest military buildup of US forces in history,
and the expansion of America's ever-growing nuclear arsenal.
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Now go check out What If World War 1 Never Happened, or click this other video instead!