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Reds! A Revolutionary Timeline

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Basically my understanding is that the authors of this story belong to the school of thought that the Second World War is not going to lead into a complete Axis victory IOTL in any way beyond Fatherland and Man in the High Castle levels of fiction and what happened in Reds! in AH and will be happening here in SV is that the Second World War is still going to end up with the same result as IOTL but at least here in Reds!, the Axis was made into a more prepared force that they can at least be perceived to be close to winning the war. Sort of. If "winning the war" means that the Nazis can force the USSR and the UASR to terms after capturing Moscow and Leningrad.

But for me, you are not going to make the USSR surrender just because of the theoretical notion that Nazi Germany will be able to capture Moscow and Leningrad, even if we get into that. This is not just a battle between nation-states, per se. The Axis is out there to do outright genocide and extermination of what they thought to be an inferior race. It's a different kind of battle and even the Nazis understood this.

Also, the Axis may have been more prepared in Reds! but so is the USSR ITTL, even if it was still caught off guard by it, since this is a USSR that did not have to go through the same Ukrainian famine as IOTL, the same scale of IOTL Great Purges (which saved people like Tukhachevsky) and population transfers and the fact that the USSR is supported by UASR's logistics, even if it did take time for everything to be organized.

Basically the Axis have very little time table to make itself victorious over the Comintern and it got exhausted very quickly with the failure to capture Moscow ITTL. And then it got downhill from there. It still took time but it's all downhill from there.

Essentially, it's the school of thought that this war has been already decided even before the first shots have been fired. Reds! just made the Axis enemy more competitive and this is already an Axis with tacit British and French resource support in the beginning, so it's even better. But it's just not enough to turn the tables around because it just cannot be done. It's not going to happen.
 
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Zimmerwald1915 said:
Considering the Morgenthau Plan wasn't formulated 'til 1944, it's certainly one hell of a magic trick for fear of it to have informed German policy in, say, 1940 or 1942.
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Fear of the specific plan, yeah. Fear that the Allies would enthusiastically do unto Germany what Germany had been doing unto Europe, because fascists always assume that anyone they can't bully is as much of a sadistic thug as they are, not so much.
 
dcd said:
Still depends.:)
See,here the Axis are better prepared for war and the Communist International is a bigger immediate threat.If this is parlayed into more forces being committed into Operation Barbarossa...
And Sealion might be feasible if their navy is better.
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See the thing is that no preparation the Germans can do will overcome the preparations the Allies in OTL or ITTL will make to counter them. And thats particularly true regarding the Navy.

If Hitler starts massively building up the Navy In 33 all that happens is that Britian backs France in the Rhineland Crisis.
 
Sulemain said:
See the thing is that no preparation the Germans can do will overcome the preparations the Allies in OTL or ITTL will make to counter them. And thats particularly true regarding the Navy.

If Hitler starts massively building up the Navy In 33 all that happens is that Britian backs France in the Rhineland Crisis.
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Also anything going to the Navy isn't going to the Army and considering their primary ambitions are mass genocide of anyone that isn't German east of the Elbe and north of the Carpathians Being a Bulwark against Bolshevism their obviously gonna prioritize that.
 
ArvisPresley said:
Also anything going to the Navy isn't going to the Army and considering their primary ambitions are mass genocide of anyone that isn't German east of the Elbe and north of the Carpathians Being a Bulwark against Bolshevism their obviously gonna prioritize that.
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There's only one reason Germany would construct a Navy as well-it was easy for parts of the British state to delude themselves that Nazi Germany was no threat to Britain and the Empire so long as Germany was a land power. Building a Navy is not only taking resources from the Nazis goals of empire and genocide but also makes Britain an immediate enemy.
 
Regarding Unternehmen Seelöwe and the Ostfront:

Germany may be better prepared to fight the Soviets this time, but the British aren't going to hand the Germans any technology that looks like it could easily be used to invade Britain (like say, naval transports). They might be stupidly blinded by the USSR/UASR alliance, but there are limits to what they'll give the Germans (I hope). Furthermore, I'm not sure if there'll even be a Dunkirk evacuation; IOTL, the Germans bamboozled both the BEF and French army with the big sickle through the Ardennes, threatening to cut off the British if they didn't haul ass home and dump any excess weight (like weapons and ammunition). Here, there's a French Civil War instead, and the British will probably have ample warning if they're going to be cut off. The British Army isn't going to end up in Britain with nothing but its dick in its hand. Even if, as others pointed out, Sealion wasn't completely and utterly hopeless and the Germans managed to land a division or two, the BEF will be waiting, and a lot better armed than it was IOTL.

As for the Ostfront, I think the OKW had the illusion somehow the USSR was like France; take the capital and the army collapses. Somehow. They learned the wrong lessons from Fall Gelb, where the French government was trying to spare itself the devastation inflicted on Poland and the Low Countries. Meanwhile, the USSR was taking the full brunt of the Commissar Order and Generalplan Ost; surrendering would mean annihilation, so why would they surrender? Better to fight to the death and bleed the Axis for every inch.
 
Jake said:
Fear of the specific plan, yeah. Fear that the Allies would enthusiastically do unto Germany what Germany had been doing unto Europe, because fascists always assume that anyone they can't bully is as much of a sadistic thug as they are, not so much.
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There's also the fact that the last time they played fair and surrendered when the game was up,they nearly got turned into a banana republic.Wouldn't you think that next time things would be even worse?
 
Saint_007 said:
As for the Ostfront, I think the OKW had the illusion somehow the USSR was like France; take the capital and the army collapses. Somehow. They learned the wrong lessons from Fall Gelb, where the French government was trying to spare itself the devastation inflicted on Poland and the Low Countries. Meanwhile, the USSR was taking the full brunt of the Commissar Order and Generalplan Ost; surrendering would mean annihilation, so why would they surrender? Better to fight to the death and bleed the Axis for every inch.
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There were Russian collaborators,however.The Germans didn't want to exterminate all the Slavs just yet.The Jews,on the other hand....
 
dcd said:
There were Russian collaborators,however.The Germans didn't want to exterminate all the Slavs just yet.The Jews,on the other hand....
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They were in fact Jewish collaborators. Does that mean the holocaust was fake too? This is a vacuous argument. There's always idiots who think they can be "the one good Jew/Slav".
 
Saint_007 said:
Regarding Unternehmen Seelöwe and the Ostfront:

Germany may be better prepared to fight the Soviets this time, but the British aren't going to hand the Germans any technology that looks like it could easily be used to invade Britain (like say, naval transports). They might be stupidly blinded by the USSR/UASR alliance, but there are limits to what they'll give the Germans (I hope). Furthermore, I'm not sure if there'll even be a Dunkirk evacuation; IOTL, the Germans bamboozled both the BEF and French army with the big sickle through the Ardennes, threatening to cut off the British if they didn't haul ass home and dump any excess weight (like weapons and ammunition). Here, there's a French Civil War instead, and the British will probably have ample warning if they're going to be cut off. The British Army isn't going to end up in Britain with nothing but its dick in its hand. Even if, as others pointed out, Sealion wasn't completely and utterly hopeless and the Germans managed to land a division or two, the BEF will be waiting, and a lot better armed than it was IOTL.

As for the Ostfront, I think the OKW had the illusion somehow the USSR was like France; take the capital and the army collapses. Somehow. They learned the wrong lessons from Fall Gelb, where the French government was trying to spare itself the devastation inflicted on Poland and the Low Countries. Meanwhile, the USSR was taking the full brunt of the Commissar Order and Generalplan Ost; surrendering would mean annihilation, so why would they surrender? Better to fight to the death and bleed the Axis for every inch.
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The example I always use when talking about Sealion and its utterly impossibility is the version depicted at the end of Decades of Darkness by Jared. In that timeline, Britain had suffered a bruising naval defeat a generation earlier that it had never quite recovered from (this defeat being so serious that the German Navy became the largest in the world and was able to maintain that lead), was abandoned by all its allies except those too distant to meaningfully help, was ground down by three years of warfare on the continent, and was suffering from serious internal instability by the time the Germans landed. (Oh and the PoD is a full century or more before the invasion begins as well.) Despite all these disadvantages, the British completely wreck the German Navy (I think it is mentioned that there are only a couple of German capital ships still in working order after the invasion) and merchant marine, and they resist for months afterward, inflicting yet more heavy casualties on Germany and its allies. In the end, the war only comes to an end when the British state implodes by itself. I know it isn't proof as such but it is the only version of Sealion that I consider to be remotely plausible in fiction. The only way Germany is invading Britain ITTL is if they get invited in by at least part of the Royal Navy, which seems implausible barring exceptional circumstances such as a military coup against a left/liberal government.

With regards to the Eastern Front, I think another factor is that while the Nazi regime might have some better production methods and more materials at its disposal (at least until 1942), it will be even more genocidally crazy due to the additional radicalisation caused by the American revolution. That even more securely welds shut the only doorway that Germany can walk to victory through - a Soviet internal collapse akin to 1917-18.


dcd said:
There were Russian collaborators,however.The Germans didn't want to exterminate all the Slavs just yet.The Jews,on the other hand....
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That isn't exactly a great pitch - 'join us! We're not going to murder you just yet!"

I jest, but only a little. In some ways, the last thing that the Nazis needed were collaborators. What they needed was for the Red Army to collapse in the same way that the Russian Army of WW1 had fallen apart and the Nazis brutality, both in OTL and TTL, actively works against that.
 
dcd said:
There's also the fact that the last time they played fair and surrendered when the game was up,they nearly got turned into a banana republic.Wouldn't you think that next time things would be even worse?
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Oh for God's sake. There was never an attempt to do that. Germany kept its independence with controls on the size of its military (but little else), loss of some land that was historically mostly other people's property, and the not uncommon punishment of reparations (which was the French doing turn about is fair play for 1870). There were no restrictions on the political system, monitoring of the treaty was a joke anyway and the "surrender" was set up by the military to ensure the left got the blame and the right could take over later. Arguably by not sitting on Germany harder the Entente opened the door to Hitler which is why we did crush them 25 years later and kept them down as long as possible to ensure lessons were learned. Ultimately we let them up because we needed them during the cold war but even ten years of occupation did put an end to 150+ years of militarism that ended in Herr Hitler.


dcd said:
There were Russian collaborators,however.The Germans didn't want to exterminate all the Slavs just yet.The Jews,on the other hand....
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Said Russians has endured ten plus years of Stalin and didn't have much knowledge of what the Germans actually were except the Bolsheviks hated them. As such the people Stalin had oppressed came out to greet the Germans in hope, got shot and then people collaborated to stay alive. Doesn't mean they weren't to be killed just that killing 11 million Jews gets done quicker than ending 100 million slav's. That's the only reason the Slav's didn't get killed in as high a percentage and as it is eastern Europe lost the better part of 30 million combined dead.

Hopefully ITTL it will be different.
 
dcd said:
There's also the fact that the last time they played fair and surrendered when the game was up,they nearly got turned into a banana republic.Wouldn't you think that next time things would be even worse?
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Played fair by demolishing (literally) large swathes of occupied Belgium and France and then post-war immediately started cheating on the peaceterms?
 
dcd said:
There's also the fact that the last time they played fair and surrendered when the game was up,they nearly got turned into a banana republic.Wouldn't you think that next time things would be even worse?
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The Republic was not imposed from outside, it was the product of the revolution and counterrevolution within Germany.
 
There's a great quote from Babylon Berlin where the main character goes to a veterans meeting and their's this refrain of "never defeated in the field" by these right-wing veterans.

But anyone who knows anything about WW1 knows that the German Army was defeated in the field-broken and running. Germany lost WW1 in every way-just because Mk.Vs and Whippets weren't advancing into the Rhineland doesn't mean the German Army could have stopped them because by the end it had really ceased to exist as a functional organisation.
 
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Sulemain said:
There's a great quote from Babylon Berlin where the main character goes to a veterans meeting and their's this refrain of "never defeated in the field" by these right-wing veterans.

But anyone who knows anything about WW1 knows that the German Army was defeated-broken and running. Germany lost WW1 in every way-just because Mk.Vs and Whippets weren't advancing into the Rhineland doesn't mean the German Army could have stopped them, because by the end it had really ceased to exist as a functional organisation.
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Meanwhile their country was starving to death behind them and the entente had the means and will to go into Germany if they had to. The only difference between 1918 and 1943 is the Germans knew they were beat and quit while they could still achieve a compromise that in the long run would give them a second chance (and time to do things like hide the general staff) and avoid a full occupation.

Not lifting the blockade did help the stab in the back case but that was an entente foul up, the actual myth and its result was a calculated act by the German military itself.

They probably didn't expect a Hitler per say but they almost certainly expected to be back in charge and reversing matters in a decade or so. Its just they backed the wrong patsy after the crash gave them the expected opportunity. If Von Papen or Schleicher had gotten an enabling act earlier Hitler would be a footnote and we'd maybe be talking about a limited war with Poland over the corridor followed by a three way cold war.

Hitler may have exploited the situation but its clear from the Army's actions they expected to be back on top someday no matter what. They just under estimated what a snake they'd helped create.
 
Hakazin said:
You know, it's always deeply frustrating when people take Nazi propaganda about the failures of Wiemar as self-evidently correct.
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By 1918, Germany was going to end up a republic of one sort or another that's for sure. Maybe the regional monarchies could have survived, maybe not, but the German Imperial apparatus was wholly discredited. The new republic had roots in German history-the liberal nationalists, republicans and radical democrats of 1848. And well, if it had survived as a social-democratic liberal republic it would have been pretty great.
 
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Sulemain said:
By 1918, Germany was going to end up a republic of one sort or another that's for sure. Maybe the regional monarchies could have survived, maybe not, but the German Imperial apparatus was wholly discredited. The new republic had roots in German history-the liberal nationalists, republicans and radical democrats of 1848. And well, if it had survived as a social-democratic liberal republic it would have been pretty great.
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Especially since lots of people had a vested interest in finding a scapegoat. Wilhelm could take the blame for starting it all and then the socialists could be blamed for the ending. The conservative elite and the military? "Nothing to see here, they were heroes betrayed from above and below. Now go vote for this Austrian ex-corporal we helped parachute into a radical volkist party. He'll fund new guns, get us our revenge and who cares if a few deviants, Jew's and Slav's die in the process..."

Their mistake was failing to see Hitler (an Austrian) was more likely to take out his racism on the Czech's first which ruined any chance of seizing the corridor without a general war. They also failed to realise Hitler neither liked or trusted the elite and in the long run would have created an SS state in their place. Hence "We've hired him." The whole world knows the rest.
 
JamesHunter said:
11 million Jews
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Six million Jews, actually.

The other five million victims were homosexuals, romani, political dissenters such as communists and trade unioniss, afro-germans, poles, Jehova Witness and Soviet POWs. Though the Shoa only includes Jewish victims and a lot of historiography excludes all other victims as part of separate genocide.
 
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The Holocaust as a whole claimed about seventeen million or so lives when you factor in POWs deliberately worked and starved to death.

Hitler's antics overall sent forty six million or so people to an early grave in Europe and North Africa. Plus an untold number more who would die after the war from deprivation and homelessness.
 
Mental Omega said:
The Holocaust as a whole claimed about seventeen million or so lives when you factor in POWs deliberately worked and starved to death.

Hitler's antics overall sent forty six million or so people to an early grave in Europe and North Africa. Plus an untold number more who would die after the war from deprivation and homelessness.
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Its important to remember North Afirca because what happened there really dispels any notion that Romnel was a good man in anyway. And ultimately dispells the notion he was a good general considering how Monty kicked his Nazi arse.
 
WildCan said:
Six million Jews, actually.

The other five million victims were homosexuals, romani, political dissenters such as communists and trade unioniss, afro-germans, poles, Jehova Witness and Soviet POWs. Though the Shoa only includes Jewish victims and a lot of historiography excludes all other victims as part of separate genocide.
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I meant planned to kill 11 million, and then about 100 million Slav's. Should have made that clearer.
 
Sulemain said:
Its important to remember North Afirca because what happened there really dispels any notion that Romnel was a good man in anyway. And ultimately dispells the notion he was a good general considering how Monty kicked his Nazi arse.
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What exactly did happen in North Africa? My knowledge is a bit spotty there
 
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