Could Nazi Germany, Surviving WWII, Survive the Cold War?

Question

In our theoretical alternate universe Nazi Germany--thanks to its scientists that in real history were split and used by the US and USSR--managed to reach the level of nuclear warheads and ICBM technology that the US accomplished in the early/mid 1950s, producing systems comparable to the Atlas and Titan ICBM projects (range of 5,000 - 10,000 miles).

Scraping up funding, they produce 12 such ICBMs, complete with nuclear warheads, and had them online as of late November 1944, about six months before the actual invasion of Berlin by the Allied Forces in real history. Two of the ICBMs were used, one as an example on the Eastern front, and one as an example on the Western front (the exact targets are unspecified, answers may select locations if they feel targets are material to the question). After these examples, the Allies decided to sign a ceasefire and hostilities on both sides were stopped. Part of the ceasefire allowed Nazi Germany to continue to occupy all of the land it currently possessed.

The Pacific Theater continued along a path roughly characteristic to our own history, ending with America dropping the two nuclear bombs on Japan; Nazi Germany does not act to interfere with this theater per the terms of the ceasefire. The Empire of Japan signs unconditional surrender.

The question becomes: Given both the internal factors within Nazi Germany and the external pressures from the growing Cold War (in whatever the cold war might take in this alternate universe) is Nazi Germany stable enough to probabilistically survive to modern day?

If it would not survive to modern day (due to either internal politics/structure or external forces) what would enable it to do so?

Answer 1

Better than survive, they'd thrive.

The key here is that they are in the position of power. They have missile technology more than a decade more advanced than anyone else on the planet - as you said, they're comparable to what the US had in 1955, but that was with ten years of Nazi scientists helping them. So without their help, say that they're 15 years advanced.

Neither the US or the USSR get Nazi scientists. So the resulting nuclear proliferation is much slower than it was in our universe. As a result, the Germans are able to subtly control things - Europe is small enough that they would basically be able to strong-arm anyone else into better trade deals, etc.

The timing also plays in Germany's favor. November of 1944 is just a few months before the USSR captured Auschwitz. If the Allies don't capture Auschwitz, there won't be the same level of understanding of how awful the Holocaust was, meaning that worldwide opinion of the Nazi party won't be as bad as it became in our universe.

The primary disadvantage that Germany has is that it doesn't have much land. The US and the USSR have a lot of open ground, which is good for having ICBM launch sites - you don't want your launch sites to be right next to your major cities, and the more land you have the more missiles you can have. Germany would not be able to keep up with the number of launch sites that the US and USSR could maintain (once their technology caught up, of course).

However, the technology lead to start with, coupled with being able to (unofficially) strong-arm the poor post-war economies of Europe and an improved public opinion over what we'd expect from our universe, they're in a very good position to lead the Cold War and emerge very strong for WWIII, whenever that happens.

Answer 2

Nazi Germany perishes anyways.

The Soviets and Americans remain allies; the Soviets have a dangerous lunatic on their doorstep, and the Americans see the Soviets as a buffer to keep the Nazis from expansionism. Hitler, Goebbels, and a few of the other fanatics are still in power in Germany and, emboldened by their super-weapon, take the opportunity to regroup and continue their plan to dominate Europe. Rather than dividing European territory up between victorious allies to rebuild, the treaty freezes the battlefronts where they are, and most every European nation now has it's own version of the Iron Curtain, complete with troop buildups. This is NOT a stable situation. WWIII begins soon thereafter.

Whether or not nuclear weapons are exchanged, Nazi Germany will likely not fare well in this scenario. It has almost no diplomatic capital, and American infrastructure was never greatly affected by the war. It's only option is a first-strike capability but it is unlikely to be able to completely wipe out all of its enemies in the initial salvo.

Answer 3

No. In November 1944 the western allies were already in Germany (Operation Queen) and the Russians were close to crossing into Germany. Neither side would have stopped just because of at most a dozen nukes (which would have been fission bombs in the Hiroshima class, i.e. 20KT, not hydrogen bombs in the 20MT range). But most of Germany would have been destroyed even more than actually happened.

Answer 4

With quite a lot of differences. Assuming one of the various attempts at getting rid of the lunatics in power worked, it would probably have ended up as one of your 'classic' authoritarian military states - Franco survived ww2, and was in power literally until his death, and the only reason that Spain went into a full democracy was the king didn't want to be an absolute monarch.

"Only an idiot fights a war on two fronts. Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots would fight a war on twelve fronts." And that's literally what Germany did.And that wasn't helped by the Japanese either. And for the record, Germany probably had the tech to hit both fronts with missiles - these would be IRBMs.

So this is what I imagine happening. You need to take Hitler out of the equation - he and Goebbels are replaced by someone a little more realistic. I'd like to think they'd realise all the frothing about Jews was just populist politics, and something like the Madagascar plan happens. In return for that, Germany doesn't end up losing key scientists who left. That puts them ahead in terms of development.

Since the concentration camps are abandoned and blamed on Hitler, working with the germans would be more tasteful, with the worst excesses conveniently blamed on hitler. I'm sure some folks within their new allies wouldn't care but I suspect for most, at least on the short term, would be essential

Much like Franco, the new government is instead purely virulently anti communist and instead of wasting resources on wonder weapons (other than nukes and rockets) focuses on consolidation, defence and cultural exchanges. They take advantage of the cold war to position themselves as a bulwark against communism. While the rump French state is still making noises and they and the Vichy French are involved in occasional scuffles, much like our cold war, the Americans and British have bases in the much enlarged Germany, with Poland and the rest of occupied eastern Europe being the equivalent of Berlin.

The post war Germany has many of the strengths it's always had - extreme technical competence, and they'd have resources from the occupied nations. That said, they'd have to evolve. Germans would be outnumbered by other nations and while it would be a one party state, as time went on, and the party integrated the occupied nations, the cultural and national identity of the state would no longer be "German nationalist". As time went on, in order to survive, the state would embrace a pan European identity, though with Germany considered a first amongst equals.

Answer 5

The first problem is Hitler's succession. By 1944 he was alredy quite sick. That would only get worse and he probably wouldn't live much longer. His death would create a power vacuum as the death of empire builders tend to, for example the death of Timur, Alexander or Shi Huangdi. In the best case (for the nazi regime) some kind of military junta would take the power. In the worse a civil war would erupt.

In the case of a nazi military junta in the fifties nazi germany economy would be permanently crippled because of the war damages. Pillaging Europe would only go so far because Europe itself was quite ruined. The permanently big military budget would drain the few resources the State would have. By the seventies the economic strain would be too great and nazi germany wouldn't be able to keep the pace with the US and the USSR in the arms race and in the eighties the regime would go bankrupt and the german empire desintegrate. Expect Yugoslavia-level civil wars in all Europe during this desintegration as the opressed peoples rise up in rebellion and kill all germans and the germans kill them back. By 2000 the germans will be lucky if some kind of german reich exists at all, like the serbs in our timeline having a much diminished Serbia after the civil war.

In the case of a nazi civil war both the soviets and the americans will invade and it will be a rush toward the german core. Both the US and the USSR will use nukes on the german launch sites and nuclear facilites and, since Germany is a dense country, that means lot of incinerated cities.

The only way for the nazis to survive is to find allies outside Europe. That means courting Latin American countries, that were alredy quite fond of Nazi Germany (ex.: Argentina and Brazil), to finance rebellions in Africa and help natural allies (South Africa due to the apartheid and Egypt due to jewish question in Palestine comes to my mind) and, above all, India. A nazi-allied independent India, receiving nazi tech and sending supplies would give the nazis some longevity, maybe avoiding the bankrupcy in the eighties that I mentioned above, at the cost of feeding a tiger that would one day bite back.

Answer 6

Given the above scenario, the Cold War would have been an entirely different proposition. the Western and Eastern blocks would have had a third party (ie Germany) jammed in between them, to which neither would be well disposed.

Much of the general tension that came to be called the Cold War would instead have been focussed on Germany.

The unfortunate Germans would be in a position where they survived the war but their nation and economy is in ruins and they have no friends.

In the real world, the German economy was helped back on its feet by the victorious Allies. We may have made them pay reparations and split the country in two, but we also happily bought lots of Volkswagens. In your scenario, having forced the Allies into a corner, I would expect that Germany would be universally hated and all but isolated. Another major war would be virtually inevitable.

Answer 7

I'd argue that in this set up, there is no cold war. Once the US proves they can drop the bomb via planes, they've proved they're actually inferior to Nazi capabilities. At this point, the Nazis know it's only a matter of time before the US catches up. To prevent that, I'd argue they'd send up the Luftwaffe to intercept and shoot down any US planes on or near Nazi territory (thus blocking US retaliation) whilst sending an ICBM to New York (thus devastating America, but keeping intact the mechanism for them to surrender). If they had about a dozen of these missiles in '44, its likely they have plenty more than that by '45, causing US surrender.

If the US suddenly becomes Nazi America, then I think it's fairly game over. Russia won't be able to develop the bomb before the Nazis are capable of making the American War machine work for them. I think the world slowly crumbles to Nazi rule as they take over each power most likely to develop the bomb the next, until all that remains is the Reich.

Answer 8

Not from 1944 onwards, the war pretty much lost by then.

... however, if you allowed for a Soviet collapse in 1942 or early 1943: Then Nazi Germany would advance to the line Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan, and make some sort of peace with the remaining Soviet Union. The Nazis wouldn't have the manpower to conquer the whole USSR; nor would they have had the time, there was still a war going on in the west, and the strategic bombing campaign was starting to hurt.

With many divisons freed up, and moving west; a cold-hot war would develop between Nazi Germany and the western Allies. Allow for a peace, and you're in for a Cold War between the Nazis and the US, with a reduced USSR in the mix.

Answer 9

I'm pretty certain that the lunatic in power would not allow Nazi Germany to survive very long. My guess is that Nukes would be used ineffectively because by 1944 many of those in power under Hitler were nearly as crazy as he was. With the pressure from Japan off of their flank, the Russians were already pushing into German territory and they were taking it PERSONALLY. I do mean the all caps here. Look into how eastern Germany fared as the Russians invaded. It was not pretty.

Now, if one of the coup attempts succeeded, could be a very different story. Several of the German Generals were pretty smart, and they knew Hitler was nuts. They might well have fought effectively for survival. The problem is that they would have been cut off from resources. The ability to project power outside of the realm of Nukes would get severely eroded. Sanctions and such would probably work to bring the German stat to it's knees. It would take a lot of time though.

Answer 10

The question becomes: Given both the internal factors within Nazi Germany and the external pressures from the growing Cold War (in whatever the cold war might take in this alternate universe) is Nazi Germany stable enough to probabilistically survive to modern day?

I am not sure the nuclear option is best it just justifies finishing them off before they use the weapon again. What about a military coup in Germany leads to new leaders. Who

1. Fascist but less extremist.
2. Settle the war with most of Germany intact.
3. Economy is messed up, and Germany is like every other European fascist client state of the USA (Spain, Greece)

4. Germany runs the risk of democratic revolt at any point going forward. It may also be subject to pro-communist revolt.

   If it would not survive to modern day (due to either internal politics/structure or external forces) what would enable it to do so?

5. All Fascist relics collapsed by the 1990's their aging leaders offering nothing to progress the nation. The cold war threats is gone, so they can't raise the communist fears to justify holding back democracy.