Was WW2 Inevitable ?, " the question of 1,000,000 points"

If Germans would not have attacked first, who would have ?

Very interesting! I don't believe that the war would have become a major European war. Probably some border disputes in Central Europe to regain lost territories (you probably know more than me on the subject in Romania!).

In my opinion, the biggest foreign intervention would have been in Finland, to help them from the Soviet invasion. Maybe a little like the Spanish Civil War. With right-wing states helping the Finns.

The same for the Pacific. Without the German success of the first years of war, maybe the Japanese would have stayed only in China.

The possibilities are very numerous, this will become a successfull thread!

And can be a succesfull subject for a verry nice alternative - history novell. Of course, depends who will be the writer. Maybe the famous Harry Turtledove? Or a romanian one?

Iama

the Soviet Union would attack. Look at their aggressive policies in the 1930a - those left wing movements in Europe, the Spanish civil war, the invasion of Finland... fighting Germany was only part of Bolshevism's greater war against the West and Christianity.

K

So.... Hitler was the leader of a crusade?

Iama

I think WWII could be avoided. Like WWI, WWII was not wanted by many of the beligerants. I think strict control over Germany war machine and political pressure would avoid the war for at least a decade but I'm not sure it could be avoided completely. I believe that WWII started by chance,neither France or UK ever thought the conflict will evolve that path. If they (as the big winners of WWI) would assume the responsibilities they had to ,well... being a winner in a war is nice,but after the war is over you have a lot of responsibilities. And after all, the world came after a big economic crash. To be honest,I'm happy the crash happened many years ago, at least hmans learnt something from it.
Answer in short, yes, I believe that WWII could have been avoided.

This post has been edited by Zayets on September 01, 2006 11:50 am

here is a related article. Could prove insight and rationale on this subject.

Iamandi, no, I'm not saying anythign about a crusade. However if it wasn't for the Wehrmacht and it's European allies fighting so hard against the Bolsheviks on the Eastern front, the Red Army would sweep into Europe, using it as a springboard for global conquest.

K

The Spanish Civil War was not part of a left wing or Soviet conspiracy. Instead, it was the fruit of a Right Wing Spanish conspiracy to throw the Spanish left out of power, before they could initiate reforms that would threaten the power of the church, big land owners etc. Later, Stalin, Hitler etc. got sucked in, quite reluctantly.

Once the civil war began it was characterised by a major and savage onslaught against the Spanish poor, who the more extreme fascists killed in huge numbers.
The fascist massacres far outweighed the 'red terror' of the early days of the Civil War, and continued into the late 40s.

The war in Finland was a misunderstanding on the part of the Finns and the Russians, the Russians only ever wanted small bits of territory on the Finnish border.

Nazi Germany was at least as big a threat to Western Civilisation and Christitanity as Bolshevism. Hitler wanted to wipe Christianity and all it stood for out.

Which is not to say that Communism wasn't a danger, only that Nazi Germany wanting to attack the West as well as the USSR seriously weakned most Nations resistance to Communism.

Helmuth,

Great article! Thanks for posting it.

Saudades - In my opinion, you are minimizing the evils of Stalinism and communism in general.

Whether Stalin was planning an all-out communist offensive in 1941 or 1942 is debatable, but what's certain is that it was only a matter of time. By 1940, it had already expanded westward across all of Europe, be it through war or politics (I am referring to Bessarabia, N. Bukovina, parts of Poland, the Baltic regions, etc).

Stalin's next move was only logical and had to be expected in the near future (even leaving aside historical proofs, such as his buildup in offensive military weapons and direct references in some of his speeches).

Finally, with regards to the church, Stalin had an incomparably more aggressive policy against it. By 1941, most churches on Soviet territory had been demolished or converted into lay buildings. Religious services were all but forbidden. At the same time, in Germany, churches continued to play their role in society.

But how will Japan act, if no one start the European war?

Iama

Hi Der Maresal,

Hitler didn't actually want a world war. He wanted one or more consecutive, small, winnable wars against smaller states to the east.

Hitler felt cheated of one such war at Munich in 1938 because the Anglo-French conceded on almost evey point and the Czechs did not fight. (Read his 1945 political testament on this subject). He hoped then to get a small, containable war against Poland. His working assumption was that the Anglo-French would not support Poland in the same way that they had not supported the Czechs the year before, but that the Poles would fight, thereby giving him the victorious war he wanted. He read te Poles right, but the Anglo-French wrong.

Hitler's actions provoked a world war, but he didn't actually want one.

The other point is that WWII was only a world war because Japan joined. Before that it was essentially a European War with a North African extension.

If Hitler didn't provoke a wider war, the next likely candidate would probably be Stalin. However, Hitler got in first, so provoking a world war is one of the few crimes Stalin cannot be reasonably accused of. History is what happened, not what may have happened under other circumstances.

Cheers,

Sid.

hi saudadesdefrancesinhas,

true spoken of the official Soviet versions of history. Just read about Vlasov and how the Russians welcomed Hitler as a liberator until he started to mess it up with war crimes in his stupid racial ideology. And not mentioning the aggressions of the Soviet Union taking advantage of the Ribbentrop Molotov pact? Bolshevism was a world threat and you know it. Hitler in 1939 was darn near harmles compared with Stalin, who by then killed tens of millions of his people in famines and gulags. Up unti lthen Hitler did not start the final solution. The Wehrmacht at the time was a pinpick compared to the Red Army. So, if Britain and France didn't waste time, and left Hitler to waste gimself out, what would have happened? By then of course, with advices of the newly expelled Fritz Tyseen, Germany's recovered economy had potential cracks, and would collapse. Some Stauffenberg or Beck would have taken over.

and Sid. Ignoring me again, eh? Anyways, I'm not surprised that you ignore some good points, as in the past.... and this thread is about 'speculative history", as you may call it.

Here is another related article, I have highlited the important points.

Adn desptie all the evidence some people still deny that the Soviet Union was a threat, and the peace loving commies who fought against the "big bad nazis"? Utter nonsense.

K

Adn desptie all the evidence some people still deny that the Soviet Union was a threat, and the peace loving commies who fought against the "big bad nazis"? Utter nonsense.

K

Hi Von Moltke,

Hitler DID mess things up really badly with the Slavs and with everyone else the Nazis invaded or conquered, which is the important thing: he could have liberated these peoples and then easily defeated the Soviet Union, but that was not really his goal.

Till 1939 Hitler did seem, and was harmless compared with Soviet Russia, but then as soon as he conquered places he made himself as bad, and proved as big a threat to everyone as Communism.

Even if the Wehrmacht was small in 1939 compared to the Red Army, it was massively more effective. The Red Army supposedly had 20,000 tanks etc. but these and most of it's power was gone within months of the invasion in 1941, because it was a paper tiger in many ways that Stalin himself had made weak by killing all the competent officers.

In 1940, France and Britain were prepared to go to war with the USSR over Finland, and Stalin was apparently mainly scared of Britain, not Nazi Germany. If France, Britain and any other countries had combined with Germany, they could easily have had enough troops to destroy the USSR and overthrow the Communists. But, essential to Hitler, as far as I know, was overturning the 1918 defeat and destroying France and the UK, as well as expanding eastwards.

Adn desptie all the evidence some people still deny that the Soviet Union was a threat, and the peace loving commies who fought against the "big bad nazis"? Utter nonsense.

K

Where are you getting these articles from?

This sounds like revisionist stuff, given how it passes over in silence the crimes of Nazism, and the fact that much of what happened to the Germans they contrived to bring on themselves:

viz:
Poland was much more fiercely devastated and laid waste to under the 5 or 6 years of German rule than it was under the Soviets. That is when the majority of Poles who died in WW2 were killed, by the Germans.

Hitler wanted a war both against Bolshevism and against Democracy, and the Western Powers.

It is easy to see why many Nations wanted to expell the Germans, when they had played such a role in bringing those same Nations down, and bringing upon them both Nazi and then Soviet rule.

One country was as devastated, if not more devastated than Germany in 1945: Russia. The possibly Poland, and the Nazis had brought about the war not to protect the world from Communism, but to enslave it to the Germans.

Britain and France went to war to prevent the Germans dominating Europe again as much as anything; Poland was the direct cause because it was the first step on the way. The Nazis had no business being in Poland, or invading it in the first place.

No one claims that Communism was not a threat, just that it never got the chance to be, because Hitler beat Stalin to it and started the wars everywhere. It ended up not being the Communists but the Nazis that put Western Civilisation at risk, strenghtened Communism and brought it into Europe.

yawn...

usual Politically correct stuff. When you can't argue against a reasonable article although it is far away from David Irving or Enrst Zundel, you label it as revisionist. It's not denying German invasions or anything. But to you all articles and everything must mention German war crimes, or that the atrocities commited against Germans were justifiued. Why don't you travel back in time to Nemmesdorf in 1944? You saying 'Germans brought it upon themselves' is just like Hitler saying that the Jews brought the terrible crimes done to them on themselves.

And do you happen to consider Kriegsmarine evacuation of refugees in 1945 a threat to Europe? Being sarcastic there.

K

[edited by admin]

This post has been edited by Victor on September 05, 2006 01:01 pm