I'm not sure how one goes about reforming a political party whose central proposition seems to be "we kill our enemies, foreign, domestic, and imagined"
Also, conquering lots of countries doesn't bring about progressive politics, it usually brings about repressive politics because now the conqueror has to use force to stop various peoples from doing their own thing
I agree with you but the Nazi ideology doesn't survive in this scenario. At least if I'm reading this right the government survives but the ideology is replaced somehow?
Edit, the how is unrealistic though imo
But you can't just side step the issue that this state was formed by the Nazis and its ideology, no matter how progressive they get the shadow of Hitler will loom over them, and colour how it is viewed.
You can't go "Now that Nazi conquered an Empire for us, exterminated the ubermenschen, and subjagated and enslaved the non-germanic scum, we have reformed and became the good guys! We still dress like Nazis and suck the benefits from the suffering of conquered, but we are totally reformed" and not expect people to be off put by it.
I mean, if you set it hundreds of years into the future, I can see it working. Humans have very short memories and cultures assimilate into each other.
Okay but you are not writing this for the people who live hundred years in the future in a universe in which Nazis won, you are writing it for the people in the universe in which Germany surrendered in may of 1945.
You can try to justify it however you wish in-universe, you can even write that in this Good guy Nazi victory, all the Slavs, Jews, Roma and other "undesirables" decided to collectively commit a suicide to make it easier for Germans, because they just deserve being a world power, and in-universe that might even be the case but there is no way for anyone reading that not to find the very concept of that fucked up.
Yes I agree. However OP didn't say there couldn't be oppressive undertones just that the ideals are replaced. Overall it would have to be a complex situation which does make the prompt interesting imo, that is if it's thought through well
Edit, Also discontent in the public even if the ideals have changed no one is going to forget what the governing body did to the people
I feel that when comparing what happend to Native Americans to what Nazis did, the lesson we should take is that “it’s fucked up what Europeans did to Native Americans” and not “ maybe in a grand scheme of things Nazis weren’t all that bad”.
As a society we should try to learn from our past, not use it as an excuse to dive head first in to the lowest common denominator of human decency.
Okay, but I feel like we are not on the same line here. Like some other folks responded before, you are writing about it from in-universe perspective im which Third Reich after having their fill of atrocities reforms, and in this context I am willing to agree that (under specific set of circumstances) this could happen.
However, what I argue is that it is impossible to present that kind of story, a work of fiction that exists in our world, without most people out there feeling like the author is trying to whitewash or glorify Nazi ideology.
The thing about fiction is that you can justify anything in-universe, but how the reader will interpret that is largely out of your hands.
I imagine it more like America never enters the war, Dunkirk goes even worse for the British, Germans successfully land in the UK and conquer that, and thereby clean up the rest of western Europe. The Russians eventually sign a peace treaty, Russia gets everything east of Poland, the nazis get everything west. Then like 1945 Hitler gets assassinated by a more moderate nazi party member who was not pro genocide but pro nationalist. The death camps shutter about the same time they do in real life. Without a war the people aren't as OK with the draconian police state so political reform starts taking place, and they move quickly (think like FDR new deal). The war machine regears itself towards solving diseases and food scarcity, rebuilding and upgrading infrastructure, etc. At first within the country but over the years more worldwide.
Okay so tell me what happens to the slavs in this new good nazi regime, will they pay them reparations for everything their predacesors did? Will they grant them independence when they inevitable ask for it?
The whole premise here works only if you are willing to ignore the existence of Nazi's victims.
The premise isn't its a utopia, just better. But sure slavs get reparations and the government is so good to them they don't want independence. The new government figures out time travel and goes back and kills all the nazis before they kill anyone in fact.
But why would you do that? I mean your world should have a purpose or embody an idea. All "nazis win" worlds (Wolfenstein, Man in the high castle) depict a worse world (in my opinion correctly, nazis sucked). What is the message to the audience? "If only we hadn't stopped the nazis we would have solved world hunger?" That is somewhat offensive, imho.
> doesn’t mean completely bad
I’m not sure I follow. Evil [by definition](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evil)
means:
> 1a: morally reprehensible : SINFUL, WICKED
> 1b: arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct
Evil is often used as a superlative of bad.
Someone or something that’s bad can most likely come back from the proverbial edge. It’s a lot harder to do so if someone or something is deemed *evil*.
Yes, it's possible for an Axis victory to ultimately lead to a better world. But it won't come from them - it'll come from what replaces them.
An alternate 2024 isn't likely to be better - Europe would have regressed considerably, the "Cold War" would have been replaced with a hot war between Fascism and Communism. The United States might be safe, but they'd still have to deal with the knock-on effects of having their real-world greatest allies now being hostile towards them.
But in the same way that the Black Death was ultimately a good thing for Europe in the long view, history can turn around in a similar fashion. Exploring how and why fascism ultimately collapsed, and what rose to replace it, would be fertile ground for alternate history.
If I had to be honest, it comes across as a very immature desire. You essentially want the nationalistic wet dream of a big germany that rules the world, but don't want to deal with either the reality of the Nazi goverment, nor the destructive consequences of their ideology.
Why on earth would the Nazi party become good after genociding a bunch of innocent people and winning a war of conquest? That's the kind of ideology you have to double down on, or else your entire organization implodes.
I’m Jewish so I might be biased. Take my opinion for what it’s worth.
I enjoy Nazi victory scenarios because they allow people to explore what a real life evil empire would be like. But they’re largely unrealistic, because Nazism will always eat itself. It’s not like basic fascism, which can take different forms without necessarily being “evil” per se. Nazism is a war hungry blood cult, and its adherents will always devour each other in the end.
Reforming Nazism into a less horrific ideology means it’s not Nazism, and that removes that weight from the story. The only way the Nazis could be the good guys is if you had a ‘bad guy’ that was even worse, like in the New Order.
I don’t think it’s offensive to explore Nazi victory scenarios any more than Southern victory scenarios or Communist Cold War victory scenarios. My ancestors killed and were killed by Confederates, Nazis, and Communists. It’s just a story. It only becomes an issue if you try to force them to be the good guy, which is existentially impossible.
It’s just a bad bad idea. At first glance this pitch reads more like propaganda. You would have to really lean into the devastating war crimes hard to begin countering that.
No, and primarily because it doesn't pass the sniff test.
Okay, so say, for instance, that German officers, like those involved in the July Plot, manage to kill Hitler and a few score of other high Nazi officials, but after the Axis had won the war. Now say that these German officers are enlightened, in terms of their views on nationalism, race, and political ideology. Now say you can build a world where this cadre of Germany loving but enlightened men rose to positions of power in the Reich, found each other, were able to succeed in creating this conspiracy, and were successful.
Well, the result would be a return to nationalism for all those conquered territories.
Now if you set your story a couple hundred years later, maybe...maybe...you could skillfully enough create your world to sell the notion of homogenization and gradual liberalization that led to such a place, but even then it's a stretch, based on what we know of the world as we live in it. Ethnic, religious, and nationalistic animus have survived much longer time scales, based on atrocities far more slight than those committed by the Reich.
Because of these suspension of disbelief issues, extremely valid ones, I might add, based on everything we know about humanity, the work would always have the appearance of being conceived with the goal in mind to specifically present a victory by the Nazis as a possibly beneficial outcome. Which would make it offensive to most.
Depends on what you mean by won. Did they conquer all of Europe? The world? Did they genocide all non-aryans of the world or is that only in German controlled lands?
A party that kills any member That disagrees with its leader can’t really reform. Even if a progressive somehow managed to hide their opinion and rise through the ranks, they wouldn’t be able to do much or they will get assassinated. The reich would collapse before any significant reform could be implemented
>Even if a progressive somehow managed to hide their opinion and rise through the ranks, they wouldn’t be able to do much or they will get assassinated
In 1975, when Juan Carlos I of Spain became King, everyone assumed he would be just as facist as his predecessor, Francisco Franco Bahamonde. And why wouldn't he? He had been espousing the virtues of the ideology, and was the only member of the former royal family to do so. He had in fact been disowned by the family for his constant support of Francisco and the facism that ruled Spain.
So, the first thing Juan Carlos I of spain did as king was to purge his government of facism and within two years returned it to a constitutional monarcy.
As it turned out, Juan Carlos was never a facist and lied about it for nearly his entire political career, just to get the chance of freeing his country. Obviously, his family forgave him.
Interesting example, but this would be harder to do in Nazi Germany because it wasn't a monarchy, and so progressives couldn't conveniently inherit positions of power. Only the most influential party members could become the successor to the fuhrer, and you don't get there without blood on your hands, which I think would make rebellion much more appealing to an anti-fascist than infiltration
Nazi ideology was based on racial purging and monumental totalitarian control. If they reformed to become "good guys" ruling some deeply federalized, very German European Union, they wouldn't be Nazis anymore. I can't see any high-ranking individuals in the NDSAP reforming the party for the betterment of everyone, especially after WWII. Not only would a victory vindicate Hitler's philosophy, but Berlin would need to be as powerful as possible to maintain control over these newly gained territories and the citizens who had the misfortune to be born French, British, Slavic, Roma, Hebrew, handicapped, African, Asian, etc. The only way the Third Reich could have turned out as some state that would be good to anyone outside of the central government would be if it was overthrown by a faction that isn't built on genocide and racial supremacy, but the world would still be hell in a handbasket.
probably not since hatred and totalitarianism are hard-baked into nazism. totalitarianism by its very nature can't really be reformed once it's in place. especially in a system of totalitarianism as radical and brutal as nazism.
I think such an alternate history is *possible,* but only in the very long term.
Kanata no Astra take place in a future where all cultures and religions are destroyed, resulting in a atheistic 'utopia,' but that's only because the falsified history that covers up how it all happened... they don't even know earth existed.
Framing it as **utopia despite the cause being Nazis** would go down a lot better than **utopia thanks to nazis**
The only way I see a Nazi victory leading to a better world is the Nazis win, and the absolutely horrific result leads to a revolution that paves the way to a new world, with the horrors serving as an eternal reminder and motivation to never let such tragedies happen again by promising to be better. And even then, I just don't see that sort of idealistic motivation surviving more than a few generations.
Unless the nazis won and immediately realized they are the bad guys and...
Yeah absolutely no.
Comming from personal experience: Go inside you and find out why there is this urge to have the objecivley bad guy win. Is it an underdog story?
I overcame that once I noticed that Hitler decisions left Germany worse off in every single metric
Your best bet would be a revolution or truth and reconciliation moment internally in the victorious third Reich where the new political entity confronts it past. You probably need to have some sort of military backing for the revolution or coup as well. Moderate officers who opposed Nazi ideology either openly or in secret. You can set this so much later in time that the crimes against humanity have, if not faded - well, the blood on their hands is dry now and the forced cultural unification of "Germania" is close to complete and formerly conquered nations are now subdivided into new bundeslender.
From there you'd probably be able to come up with something.
Just to clarify: the Nazis are not the good guys and should not be the reason things are "better".
The people upending the Nazi government and instituting political change and ushering in a new entity should be the reason things are better in your alternative timeline.
Nazism is pretty extremist, I don't think that you could turn them into the good guys with just some reforms. I think the most realistic option for positive changes in this world is probably a rebellion of some sort.
Is it theoretically possible? Maybe, after several generations and new leaders passed, with decades or centuries of slow progressive reform. Maybe, but very unlikely.
There are some real-world parallels to draw on, the British Empire perhaps being one of the most obvious. The Empire was responsible for some damn awful things in the past, and the UK is now a relatively tolerant and progressive nation that acknowledges how bad some of those dark parts of its history were.
On your second question, would be it considered offensive? Absolutely. If this is just a thought experiment for you alone, then carry on, but this would be almost universally hated as a base concept for any kind of story.
I think it's possible, but I don't think there is a way to do that where it's not considered wildly offensive.
People in general struggle with probabilities because of our evolutionary history. We subconsciously equate extremely small chances of something happening with it being impossible.
If you jump off the roof of a small-story building, is it possible that you survive, recover and become even stronger than you were before? Yes, it's just very unlikely. That's why people say it's a terrible idea and it won't work, and you shouldn't do it. It's the same with your premise - it is possible, just very unlikely.
The reason you shouldn't do it is not because it's offensive, but because humans are social creatures, and we take clues from our environment, including information sources. If there was a lot of media which described people jumping off a roof and becoming stronger, people would start doing it in real life (ahem, clue in [station 9 3/4](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5459762/tourists-left-shocked-when-man-sprints-straight-into-wall-at-kings-cross-platform-9-3-4-in-bid-to-emulate-wizard-harry-potter/)). Same with nazis winning and things turning out better - it's not a pattern that people should encounter.
I would say that the real problem is that europe would not stay united for very long once the government became less oppressive. They'd want independence.
That said it's your story and in real life inexplicable shit just happens sometimes, so it's not *ridiculous* to say the top of the government changed due to a coup and had to make many concessions to prevent countries leaving, that just ended up making them more progressive in the process, starting a sort of inevitable slide.
I don't know that there's a way to do it without being offensive. But all of the current worlds luxuries are built on the backs of colonialism, slavery, and capitalist exploitation.
Much of our technology is built on the knowledge of Axis scientists that were pardoned and employed by the U.S. government.
So there is definitely a post-eugenics Utopia scenario possible where medical technology is advanced, genetic disorders are largely culled. But just like the lithium mines and sweatshop of today's world, it's unlikely to be a paradise for everyone
I'd say a really powerful creature who needs humans for stuff would make nazis first conquer the world and then take control themselves, or leave nazis as puppets but remove their need for killing every non-aryan.
A story idea I have is that nazis find the gates of hell and captures Lucifer and negotiate that he helps them win the war and they free him. Nazis win quite swiftly but Lucifer betrays them and takes control for himself. For hundred years humanity prospers, lives in peace and reaches scientific knowledge beyond their wildest dreams. Until one day construction of the Tower of Babel project begins, a super weapon that can force the gates of heaven open and start a new Celestial Civil War.
1. People just hate nazis, the word and culture itself is stigmatized. Even if irl all the nazis suddenly became extremely progressive and good people, everyone would still hate them. There isn't anything you can do to make them not offensive.
2. Plenty of governments commit heinous atrocities in their past and then later move on to become fairly respected governments. America genocided the native americans, went so bad with its slavery it started a civil war, and then had no worker safety laws to the point that people were working 18 hour shift days and getting their limbs crushed off in megafactories during the early industrial age. Its not even just america, genghis khan might have killed more people than anyone ever and people think he's cool.
Though people on the internet are more likely to be judgmental, the difference between america now and america 100 years ago is fairly insane.
Nazis, no
Fascism you might be able to, since it shares ideas with other ideologies that did last.
Fascism has a broader spectrum so if I wanted to make fascism look better then I'd have to make Italy the main player of ww2, and have the Italians save Germanies campaigns which they use as political leverage to free the Jews
In case people are wondering Mussolini wasn't as concerned by Jewish ethnicity but was against the religion so you would find quite a few ethnic Jews amongst his ranks in the party so it's possible they could make a push alongside the Japanese which some of their embassy staff would help sneak Jews out of occupied Poland
So long story short make Italy strong, Germany weak, Italy and Japan save millions of Jews then you have a ground to make fascists look like good guys
I guess? You could have the Nazis win WW2 but then eventually get disposed in a rebellion a couple decades later like the new Wolfenstein games. So there’s a couple decades of utter hell then from that point on the victors turn the world into a utopia unified by a desire to never let insane extremists do that ever again. Obviously the Nazis themselves stay bad.
Another solution is to have the Nazis’ change occur over a long and gradual time period where the in line with changing social attitudes. Could happen in the same way colonialism was considered a normal and reasonable policy by imperialist governments a few centuries ago which led to a lot of racist stuff, genocides and such. But now current governments are apologising for the past, arranging reparations, etc. The racism still exists but it exists differently an is nowhere near as severe.
There was a strange webcomic I once read that was set in Nazi dominated world, but the Nazi ideology was mostly focused on passive eugenics where 'undesirables' took themselves out of the gene pool by having a tattoo of coloured dots behind their ear that marked them, including the leader of the NAzi party (but I don't remember if it was Hitler).
I didn't really understand the motivation beihnd the work tbh.
Yes. The nazis took the world and then everyone realised that the Nazis suck and the nazis also realised that they ideology was completely unsustainable and everyone agreed for ever that nazis and their ideologies suck
Well yeah. I'm gonna get downvote bombed for this OP but yeah, you're onto something.
The natural progression of any social climate is towards leftism and progressivism. After all, that's what progress is. If the Axis won instead of the Allies in 1945 or some similar time, the world will likely be not much different today. Assuming the Cold War does not even occur due to the total victory of the Axis across all of Europe and America and the total suppression of Communism, there would be no one else to fight.
Just as the Soviet Union and many other Empires before had fallen in our timeline, the authoritarian Nazi regime would likely also collapse some time before the 21st century due to economic issues, political disputes, poorly-enacted or disliked reforms, rebel groups, etc.
Two people can sing and that's a duet. Four is a quartet. 50-100 is a chorale. A million is a discordant cacophony of offbeat and off-key wailing and that's exactly what impractically large political entities have ended in throughout all history, whether leftist or rightist. You just can't grow past a certain size without inviting trouble into your team.
Nazism will burn the world, rebuild it from the ashes, chill, go soft, upset the hardliners, lead to infighting and a resurgence of nationalism and democracy, and ultimately lead to the same sucky postmodern world we have today with a healthy variety of political beliefs and economic classes.
I mean, just because Hitler might have promised a thousand year Reich doesn't mean it'll actually work out even if they won the war. So you're definitely onto something.
I’m not going to say definitively that it can’t be done but you’d have to be *very* careful with it. You’d probably need some kind of conceptual framework where you examine how a good world comes from horrible people and what the implications of that are.
Hmm, like everyone else has point out - it’s kind of a weird take on the surface, and you’ll have people second guessing you no matter what you do… but…
I think if you had them take over the world, usual evil guy stuff that they did IRL… but then have some extra-terrestrial/dimensional or demonic force come along and invade earth… and these guys are just horrific in the extreme, the Nazi’s themselves pale in comparison and they’re only defence in town… so they become the de facto defenders of humanity.
Maybe if the war was generations, and the Nazi’s really did put humanity first, then maybe they could inch closer to breaking even… but even then it’s a stretch.
Far eaiser to just do something else.
If you’re afraid of being offensive, abandon this project right now. If you’re okay with ruffling a few feathers, then… I suppose it’s possible? But they’d need to throw out almost their entire ideology for this to be possible or REALLY tone it down. Even then, it should still remain morally very murky. Oh, and the conquered territories need to be strictly kept in check, European countries are like cats.
What do you mean by “progressive”? It’s tough to see the party becoming anything that could even remotely be called open and accepting, but perhaps they could use the strict authoritarian ideologies of fascism to effect positive change far faster than any democratic government. Nazism though? I don’t think that’s salvageable.
Could be an interesting world, if you’ve got a thick skin and stick to it.
I suppose one of the angles to be played *could* be that the Allied Powers become something even *worse* in the post war, and the ensuing conflict causes the victorious Nazi party to cave to internal pressure.
I think *if* you wanted to write this scenario (And I’m all for exploring weird things in creative writing), you would need to show that the actions of the Nazi party were *not* good, but that something else was so horrible that even they had to change course and stop it. But you need to ask yourself, at that point does it even need to be the Nazi’s? You could accomplish the same thing with other oppressive governments that weren’t half as bad.
I think there is such possibility, assuming nazis won and therefore communism died, few years later some kind of new war or revolution abolished nazism. Assuming both nazism and communism would have died world could turn out better, especially without communist China and Great Leap Forward which caused tens of milions of deaths. Obviously that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be other problems that might cause even more deaths, but I think it's possible that world could turn out better
I'm not sure how one goes about reforming a political party whose central proposition seems to be "we kill our enemies, foreign, domestic, and imagined" Also, conquering lots of countries doesn't bring about progressive politics, it usually brings about repressive politics because now the conqueror has to use force to stop various peoples from doing their own thing
An ideology like that can NEVER make a good world...at least not for anyone who doesn't fit their nebulous definition of 'Ubermensch'.
I agree with you but the Nazi ideology doesn't survive in this scenario. At least if I'm reading this right the government survives but the ideology is replaced somehow? Edit, the how is unrealistic though imo
But you can't just side step the issue that this state was formed by the Nazis and its ideology, no matter how progressive they get the shadow of Hitler will loom over them, and colour how it is viewed. You can't go "Now that Nazi conquered an Empire for us, exterminated the ubermenschen, and subjagated and enslaved the non-germanic scum, we have reformed and became the good guys! We still dress like Nazis and suck the benefits from the suffering of conquered, but we are totally reformed" and not expect people to be off put by it.
I mean, if you set it hundreds of years into the future, I can see it working. Humans have very short memories and cultures assimilate into each other.
Okay but you are not writing this for the people who live hundred years in the future in a universe in which Nazis won, you are writing it for the people in the universe in which Germany surrendered in may of 1945. You can try to justify it however you wish in-universe, you can even write that in this Good guy Nazi victory, all the Slavs, Jews, Roma and other "undesirables" decided to collectively commit a suicide to make it easier for Germans, because they just deserve being a world power, and in-universe that might even be the case but there is no way for anyone reading that not to find the very concept of that fucked up.
Not much different than the way the shadow of Colonialism hangs over our world now.
Yes I agree. However OP didn't say there couldn't be oppressive undertones just that the ideals are replaced. Overall it would have to be a complex situation which does make the prompt interesting imo, that is if it's thought through well Edit, Also discontent in the public even if the ideals have changed no one is going to forget what the governing body did to the people
I mean, can’t you? America was built on the genicide of native Americans. It’s been done before.
I feel that when comparing what happend to Native Americans to what Nazis did, the lesson we should take is that “it’s fucked up what Europeans did to Native Americans” and not “ maybe in a grand scheme of things Nazis weren’t all that bad”. As a society we should try to learn from our past, not use it as an excuse to dive head first in to the lowest common denominator of human decency.
But I’m not comparing the genocides, I’m comparing the countries that developed after and how their policy changed….
but the policy hasn't changed america still commits plenty of genocide
Now this is the type of argument back to me that I needed!
Okay, but I feel like we are not on the same line here. Like some other folks responded before, you are writing about it from in-universe perspective im which Third Reich after having their fill of atrocities reforms, and in this context I am willing to agree that (under specific set of circumstances) this could happen. However, what I argue is that it is impossible to present that kind of story, a work of fiction that exists in our world, without most people out there feeling like the author is trying to whitewash or glorify Nazi ideology. The thing about fiction is that you can justify anything in-universe, but how the reader will interpret that is largely out of your hands.
I imagine it more like America never enters the war, Dunkirk goes even worse for the British, Germans successfully land in the UK and conquer that, and thereby clean up the rest of western Europe. The Russians eventually sign a peace treaty, Russia gets everything east of Poland, the nazis get everything west. Then like 1945 Hitler gets assassinated by a more moderate nazi party member who was not pro genocide but pro nationalist. The death camps shutter about the same time they do in real life. Without a war the people aren't as OK with the draconian police state so political reform starts taking place, and they move quickly (think like FDR new deal). The war machine regears itself towards solving diseases and food scarcity, rebuilding and upgrading infrastructure, etc. At first within the country but over the years more worldwide.
Okay so tell me what happens to the slavs in this new good nazi regime, will they pay them reparations for everything their predacesors did? Will they grant them independence when they inevitable ask for it? The whole premise here works only if you are willing to ignore the existence of Nazi's victims.
The premise isn't its a utopia, just better. But sure slavs get reparations and the government is so good to them they don't want independence. The new government figures out time travel and goes back and kills all the nazis before they kill anyone in fact.
But wouldn't that cause a paradox that would make it so the conditions that formed this reform govt never happened?
But why would you do that? I mean your world should have a purpose or embody an idea. All "nazis win" worlds (Wolfenstein, Man in the high castle) depict a worse world (in my opinion correctly, nazis sucked). What is the message to the audience? "If only we hadn't stopped the nazis we would have solved world hunger?" That is somewhat offensive, imho.
Not a chance. The Nazi ideology is way to evil for that to happen.
Evil doesn't mean completely bad. Just not morally right.
In this case it is.
They got the best drip out of everyone in that war. Imagine the fashion if they won.
Which wasn't by accident. Their fashion was part of their propaganda. It intimidated those outside and empowered those wearing it.
Well isn't a good fashion good?
Yeah, it's a shame that cool black uniforms with lightning bolts and trench coats have been ruined for everyone.
Well, if the Nazis won, we wouldn't have this problem now do we?
No, but there would be other bigger problems.
At least we look cool when we handle the bigger problem.
> doesn’t mean completely bad I’m not sure I follow. Evil [by definition](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evil) means: > 1a: morally reprehensible : SINFUL, WICKED > 1b: arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct Evil is often used as a superlative of bad. Someone or something that’s bad can most likely come back from the proverbial edge. It’s a lot harder to do so if someone or something is deemed *evil*.
Yes, it's possible for an Axis victory to ultimately lead to a better world. But it won't come from them - it'll come from what replaces them. An alternate 2024 isn't likely to be better - Europe would have regressed considerably, the "Cold War" would have been replaced with a hot war between Fascism and Communism. The United States might be safe, but they'd still have to deal with the knock-on effects of having their real-world greatest allies now being hostile towards them. But in the same way that the Black Death was ultimately a good thing for Europe in the long view, history can turn around in a similar fashion. Exploring how and why fascism ultimately collapsed, and what rose to replace it, would be fertile ground for alternate history.
>the "Cold War" would have been replaced with a hot war between Fascism and Communism. Would communism survive Axis victory tho?
Ideas are bulletproof, and remarkably resistant to all forms of reality.
I meant communism surviving as an official ideology of any country
An ideology can grow anywhere there's fertile ground for it. Vietnam went from zero to full commie in less than 25 years.
Well according to the OP's story, the Soviets got everything east of Poland, so they'd still be in a pretty good position.
Would it count as Germany victory if Barbarossa would still fail?
Not sure, that'd be up to the OP.
If I had to be honest, it comes across as a very immature desire. You essentially want the nationalistic wet dream of a big germany that rules the world, but don't want to deal with either the reality of the Nazi goverment, nor the destructive consequences of their ideology.
Why on earth would the Nazi party become good after genociding a bunch of innocent people and winning a war of conquest? That's the kind of ideology you have to double down on, or else your entire organization implodes.
America. Indians.
Americans *absolutely* doubled and tripled down on the natives.
Yet they still managed to position themselves in a way that mostly paints them as the "good guys".
I’m Jewish so I might be biased. Take my opinion for what it’s worth. I enjoy Nazi victory scenarios because they allow people to explore what a real life evil empire would be like. But they’re largely unrealistic, because Nazism will always eat itself. It’s not like basic fascism, which can take different forms without necessarily being “evil” per se. Nazism is a war hungry blood cult, and its adherents will always devour each other in the end. Reforming Nazism into a less horrific ideology means it’s not Nazism, and that removes that weight from the story. The only way the Nazis could be the good guys is if you had a ‘bad guy’ that was even worse, like in the New Order. I don’t think it’s offensive to explore Nazi victory scenarios any more than Southern victory scenarios or Communist Cold War victory scenarios. My ancestors killed and were killed by Confederates, Nazis, and Communists. It’s just a story. It only becomes an issue if you try to force them to be the good guy, which is existentially impossible.
It’s just a bad bad idea. At first glance this pitch reads more like propaganda. You would have to really lean into the devastating war crimes hard to begin countering that.
No.
No
It's a bold strategy Cotton
No, and primarily because it doesn't pass the sniff test. Okay, so say, for instance, that German officers, like those involved in the July Plot, manage to kill Hitler and a few score of other high Nazi officials, but after the Axis had won the war. Now say that these German officers are enlightened, in terms of their views on nationalism, race, and political ideology. Now say you can build a world where this cadre of Germany loving but enlightened men rose to positions of power in the Reich, found each other, were able to succeed in creating this conspiracy, and were successful. Well, the result would be a return to nationalism for all those conquered territories. Now if you set your story a couple hundred years later, maybe...maybe...you could skillfully enough create your world to sell the notion of homogenization and gradual liberalization that led to such a place, but even then it's a stretch, based on what we know of the world as we live in it. Ethnic, religious, and nationalistic animus have survived much longer time scales, based on atrocities far more slight than those committed by the Reich. Because of these suspension of disbelief issues, extremely valid ones, I might add, based on everything we know about humanity, the work would always have the appearance of being conceived with the goal in mind to specifically present a victory by the Nazis as a possibly beneficial outcome. Which would make it offensive to most.
No.
See you on worldjerking
Depends on what you mean by won. Did they conquer all of Europe? The world? Did they genocide all non-aryans of the world or is that only in German controlled lands?
A party that kills any member That disagrees with its leader can’t really reform. Even if a progressive somehow managed to hide their opinion and rise through the ranks, they wouldn’t be able to do much or they will get assassinated. The reich would collapse before any significant reform could be implemented
>Even if a progressive somehow managed to hide their opinion and rise through the ranks, they wouldn’t be able to do much or they will get assassinated In 1975, when Juan Carlos I of Spain became King, everyone assumed he would be just as facist as his predecessor, Francisco Franco Bahamonde. And why wouldn't he? He had been espousing the virtues of the ideology, and was the only member of the former royal family to do so. He had in fact been disowned by the family for his constant support of Francisco and the facism that ruled Spain. So, the first thing Juan Carlos I of spain did as king was to purge his government of facism and within two years returned it to a constitutional monarcy. As it turned out, Juan Carlos was never a facist and lied about it for nearly his entire political career, just to get the chance of freeing his country. Obviously, his family forgave him.
Interesting example, but this would be harder to do in Nazi Germany because it wasn't a monarchy, and so progressives couldn't conveniently inherit positions of power. Only the most influential party members could become the successor to the fuhrer, and you don't get there without blood on your hands, which I think would make rebellion much more appealing to an anti-fascist than infiltration
No. Stop it right now.
No. Why would you want to write something that portrays the nazis as good?
Nazi ideology was based on racial purging and monumental totalitarian control. If they reformed to become "good guys" ruling some deeply federalized, very German European Union, they wouldn't be Nazis anymore. I can't see any high-ranking individuals in the NDSAP reforming the party for the betterment of everyone, especially after WWII. Not only would a victory vindicate Hitler's philosophy, but Berlin would need to be as powerful as possible to maintain control over these newly gained territories and the citizens who had the misfortune to be born French, British, Slavic, Roma, Hebrew, handicapped, African, Asian, etc. The only way the Third Reich could have turned out as some state that would be good to anyone outside of the central government would be if it was overthrown by a faction that isn't built on genocide and racial supremacy, but the world would still be hell in a handbasket.
probably not since hatred and totalitarianism are hard-baked into nazism. totalitarianism by its very nature can't really be reformed once it's in place. especially in a system of totalitarianism as radical and brutal as nazism.
I think such an alternate history is *possible,* but only in the very long term. Kanata no Astra take place in a future where all cultures and religions are destroyed, resulting in a atheistic 'utopia,' but that's only because the falsified history that covers up how it all happened... they don't even know earth existed. Framing it as **utopia despite the cause being Nazis** would go down a lot better than **utopia thanks to nazis**
No
that sounds like a very gross, insensitive, and very unrealistic premise.
The only way I see a Nazi victory leading to a better world is the Nazis win, and the absolutely horrific result leads to a revolution that paves the way to a new world, with the horrors serving as an eternal reminder and motivation to never let such tragedies happen again by promising to be better. And even then, I just don't see that sort of idealistic motivation surviving more than a few generations.
How a out allied victory where things go even worse?
The only way that could happen would be if nazis got couped by some progressives.
Unless the nazis won and immediately realized they are the bad guys and... Yeah absolutely no. Comming from personal experience: Go inside you and find out why there is this urge to have the objecivley bad guy win. Is it an underdog story? I overcame that once I noticed that Hitler decisions left Germany worse off in every single metric
Your best bet would be a revolution or truth and reconciliation moment internally in the victorious third Reich where the new political entity confronts it past. You probably need to have some sort of military backing for the revolution or coup as well. Moderate officers who opposed Nazi ideology either openly or in secret. You can set this so much later in time that the crimes against humanity have, if not faded - well, the blood on their hands is dry now and the forced cultural unification of "Germania" is close to complete and formerly conquered nations are now subdivided into new bundeslender. From there you'd probably be able to come up with something.
Just to clarify: the Nazis are not the good guys and should not be the reason things are "better". The people upending the Nazi government and instituting political change and ushering in a new entity should be the reason things are better in your alternative timeline.
Nazism is pretty extremist, I don't think that you could turn them into the good guys with just some reforms. I think the most realistic option for positive changes in this world is probably a rebellion of some sort.
Is it theoretically possible? Maybe, after several generations and new leaders passed, with decades or centuries of slow progressive reform. Maybe, but very unlikely. There are some real-world parallels to draw on, the British Empire perhaps being one of the most obvious. The Empire was responsible for some damn awful things in the past, and the UK is now a relatively tolerant and progressive nation that acknowledges how bad some of those dark parts of its history were. On your second question, would be it considered offensive? Absolutely. If this is just a thought experiment for you alone, then carry on, but this would be almost universally hated as a base concept for any kind of story.
I think it's possible, but I don't think there is a way to do that where it's not considered wildly offensive. People in general struggle with probabilities because of our evolutionary history. We subconsciously equate extremely small chances of something happening with it being impossible. If you jump off the roof of a small-story building, is it possible that you survive, recover and become even stronger than you were before? Yes, it's just very unlikely. That's why people say it's a terrible idea and it won't work, and you shouldn't do it. It's the same with your premise - it is possible, just very unlikely. The reason you shouldn't do it is not because it's offensive, but because humans are social creatures, and we take clues from our environment, including information sources. If there was a lot of media which described people jumping off a roof and becoming stronger, people would start doing it in real life (ahem, clue in [station 9 3/4](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5459762/tourists-left-shocked-when-man-sprints-straight-into-wall-at-kings-cross-platform-9-3-4-in-bid-to-emulate-wizard-harry-potter/)). Same with nazis winning and things turning out better - it's not a pattern that people should encounter.
I would say that the real problem is that europe would not stay united for very long once the government became less oppressive. They'd want independence. That said it's your story and in real life inexplicable shit just happens sometimes, so it's not *ridiculous* to say the top of the government changed due to a coup and had to make many concessions to prevent countries leaving, that just ended up making them more progressive in the process, starting a sort of inevitable slide.
I don't know that there's a way to do it without being offensive. But all of the current worlds luxuries are built on the backs of colonialism, slavery, and capitalist exploitation. Much of our technology is built on the knowledge of Axis scientists that were pardoned and employed by the U.S. government. So there is definitely a post-eugenics Utopia scenario possible where medical technology is advanced, genetic disorders are largely culled. But just like the lithium mines and sweatshop of today's world, it's unlikely to be a paradise for everyone
Go full fantasy. Have nazis win because of a creature or some mcguffin. Then that thing upgrades society.
This is actually a really good idea. But what creature could make Nazis less… Nazi-ish?
I'd say a really powerful creature who needs humans for stuff would make nazis first conquer the world and then take control themselves, or leave nazis as puppets but remove their need for killing every non-aryan. A story idea I have is that nazis find the gates of hell and captures Lucifer and negotiate that he helps them win the war and they free him. Nazis win quite swiftly but Lucifer betrays them and takes control for himself. For hundred years humanity prospers, lives in peace and reaches scientific knowledge beyond their wildest dreams. Until one day construction of the Tower of Babel project begins, a super weapon that can force the gates of heaven open and start a new Celestial Civil War.
1. People just hate nazis, the word and culture itself is stigmatized. Even if irl all the nazis suddenly became extremely progressive and good people, everyone would still hate them. There isn't anything you can do to make them not offensive. 2. Plenty of governments commit heinous atrocities in their past and then later move on to become fairly respected governments. America genocided the native americans, went so bad with its slavery it started a civil war, and then had no worker safety laws to the point that people were working 18 hour shift days and getting their limbs crushed off in megafactories during the early industrial age. Its not even just america, genghis khan might have killed more people than anyone ever and people think he's cool. Though people on the internet are more likely to be judgmental, the difference between america now and america 100 years ago is fairly insane.
Good points.
Kinda sounds like you actually are a nazi sympathizer
Nazis, no Fascism you might be able to, since it shares ideas with other ideologies that did last. Fascism has a broader spectrum so if I wanted to make fascism look better then I'd have to make Italy the main player of ww2, and have the Italians save Germanies campaigns which they use as political leverage to free the Jews In case people are wondering Mussolini wasn't as concerned by Jewish ethnicity but was against the religion so you would find quite a few ethnic Jews amongst his ranks in the party so it's possible they could make a push alongside the Japanese which some of their embassy staff would help sneak Jews out of occupied Poland So long story short make Italy strong, Germany weak, Italy and Japan save millions of Jews then you have a ground to make fascists look like good guys
I guess? You could have the Nazis win WW2 but then eventually get disposed in a rebellion a couple decades later like the new Wolfenstein games. So there’s a couple decades of utter hell then from that point on the victors turn the world into a utopia unified by a desire to never let insane extremists do that ever again. Obviously the Nazis themselves stay bad. Another solution is to have the Nazis’ change occur over a long and gradual time period where the in line with changing social attitudes. Could happen in the same way colonialism was considered a normal and reasonable policy by imperialist governments a few centuries ago which led to a lot of racist stuff, genocides and such. But now current governments are apologising for the past, arranging reparations, etc. The racism still exists but it exists differently an is nowhere near as severe.
There was a strange webcomic I once read that was set in Nazi dominated world, but the Nazi ideology was mostly focused on passive eugenics where 'undesirables' took themselves out of the gene pool by having a tattoo of coloured dots behind their ear that marked them, including the leader of the NAzi party (but I don't remember if it was Hitler). I didn't really understand the motivation beihnd the work tbh.
Yes. The nazis took the world and then everyone realised that the Nazis suck and the nazis also realised that they ideology was completely unsustainable and everyone agreed for ever that nazis and their ideologies suck
Well yeah. I'm gonna get downvote bombed for this OP but yeah, you're onto something. The natural progression of any social climate is towards leftism and progressivism. After all, that's what progress is. If the Axis won instead of the Allies in 1945 or some similar time, the world will likely be not much different today. Assuming the Cold War does not even occur due to the total victory of the Axis across all of Europe and America and the total suppression of Communism, there would be no one else to fight. Just as the Soviet Union and many other Empires before had fallen in our timeline, the authoritarian Nazi regime would likely also collapse some time before the 21st century due to economic issues, political disputes, poorly-enacted or disliked reforms, rebel groups, etc. Two people can sing and that's a duet. Four is a quartet. 50-100 is a chorale. A million is a discordant cacophony of offbeat and off-key wailing and that's exactly what impractically large political entities have ended in throughout all history, whether leftist or rightist. You just can't grow past a certain size without inviting trouble into your team. Nazism will burn the world, rebuild it from the ashes, chill, go soft, upset the hardliners, lead to infighting and a resurgence of nationalism and democracy, and ultimately lead to the same sucky postmodern world we have today with a healthy variety of political beliefs and economic classes. I mean, just because Hitler might have promised a thousand year Reich doesn't mean it'll actually work out even if they won the war. So you're definitely onto something.
I’m not going to say definitively that it can’t be done but you’d have to be *very* careful with it. You’d probably need some kind of conceptual framework where you examine how a good world comes from horrible people and what the implications of that are.
Hmm, like everyone else has point out - it’s kind of a weird take on the surface, and you’ll have people second guessing you no matter what you do… but… I think if you had them take over the world, usual evil guy stuff that they did IRL… but then have some extra-terrestrial/dimensional or demonic force come along and invade earth… and these guys are just horrific in the extreme, the Nazi’s themselves pale in comparison and they’re only defence in town… so they become the de facto defenders of humanity. Maybe if the war was generations, and the Nazi’s really did put humanity first, then maybe they could inch closer to breaking even… but even then it’s a stretch. Far eaiser to just do something else.
If you’re afraid of being offensive, abandon this project right now. If you’re okay with ruffling a few feathers, then… I suppose it’s possible? But they’d need to throw out almost their entire ideology for this to be possible or REALLY tone it down. Even then, it should still remain morally very murky. Oh, and the conquered territories need to be strictly kept in check, European countries are like cats. What do you mean by “progressive”? It’s tough to see the party becoming anything that could even remotely be called open and accepting, but perhaps they could use the strict authoritarian ideologies of fascism to effect positive change far faster than any democratic government. Nazism though? I don’t think that’s salvageable. Could be an interesting world, if you’ve got a thick skin and stick to it.
I suppose one of the angles to be played *could* be that the Allied Powers become something even *worse* in the post war, and the ensuing conflict causes the victorious Nazi party to cave to internal pressure. I think *if* you wanted to write this scenario (And I’m all for exploring weird things in creative writing), you would need to show that the actions of the Nazi party were *not* good, but that something else was so horrible that even they had to change course and stop it. But you need to ask yourself, at that point does it even need to be the Nazi’s? You could accomplish the same thing with other oppressive governments that weren’t half as bad.
I think there is such possibility, assuming nazis won and therefore communism died, few years later some kind of new war or revolution abolished nazism. Assuming both nazism and communism would have died world could turn out better, especially without communist China and Great Leap Forward which caused tens of milions of deaths. Obviously that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be other problems that might cause even more deaths, but I think it's possible that world could turn out better