Post by steffen on Jun 20, 2018 15:51:13 GMT
Steffen
Your not listening. I said that there will be tension and possibly some relatively short term fighting but unless Russia goes massively militaristic there won't be a major war and Poland will have to accept the loss of something like 30% of its people [again!] At least this time its not a case of deliberate mass murder and its likely that Poland will get a lot of support economically from the west, especially assuming the Soviet empire still collapses so that isn't an issue and you get a democratic Poland as OTL. There's definitely no possibility of the western powers forcing a removal of German population from Russian and POlish 1990 lands they now occupy. Their likely to strongly oppose any such military action by others although if Russia was really determined to press for the restoration of the Kaliningrad enclave they might not be willing to go up against a nuclear super-power.
However the Poles, along with a lot of other neighbours are going to be very mistrustful of whatever Germany emerges from this mess, both because of its size and of the background of so many people from 1930's Prussia. The fact they haven't killed many people yet is less important than the determination they not be allowed to do so again. This will be doubly so if a legal solution to the issue isn't found. Both because you have so many historical killers about and because there has been no noticeable attempt to do anything about it. This is just going to be a question of human nature. As you say a legal way of bringing charges again at least the most prominent people in the historical war crimes may not be found but
Arbitrary killing of a small number of the main people won't really change that. It does also create a worrying precedent for the future, especially as its partly the sort of behaviour that helped the Nazis to power in the 1st case and making martyrs out of some of the leading Nazis could make them look even more attractive to millions of down-timers, who will be greatly concerned anyway at the very alien world they find themselves in. The question, given the number of down-timers, as well as attempting to absorb the remaining East Germans from 1990 and the tension between Germany and it neighbours means the question is what sort of Germany emerges.
I doubt, even under the best of circumstances, that Germany will be the sort of powerhouse that you suggest by 2018. Its likely, provided there are no serious problems to be recovering and being a major economic power in Europe again but then Europe is likely to be vastly different. The EEC/EU, if it still exists is likely to be vastly different from OTL and could very likely be working around the basic principle of preventing economic domination of Europe by a future Germany. Its going to have to change drastically anyway as its going to have far less resources as I said in a previous post.
If no practical legal solution is found to the question of those who OTL became major war criminals then you are likely to see people like Einstein leaving Prussia, both for security reasons and possibly as a disgust response. After all, by your own argument about not blaming people for what they haven't done yet and also given the population superiority of Prussia what is the basis for the FRG to impose its laws on Prussia? Would they even have a basis for banning the Nazi party, a perfectly legal party [albeit disliked by many] in 1930 Prussia, or other steps like banning Nazi symbols.
sorry - i misread your comment.
I agree - i cannot see the polish (poor fraggers - suffering twice in one century in these - even worse dimensions!) get the chance of invading germany.
But yes - the "known" war criminals of WW2 will have no light life in the modern world, you have
Israel, Poland, propably also other countries (say former Yugoslavia, Italy and many others) would look for "their" major criminals and because you cannot get a charge against em, "remove" em the more, direct way - with little protests by the most modern and propably many old germans (because these people have destroyed "german honor" - i think this aspect would make lots of old germans very angry about that behaviour of these OTL-war-criminals. If you live next to a man who burns children alive you would be carefully, if you have own children, eh?)
Modern germany will have no interest in them running wild, doing speeches and try to establish a "new right wing" (or in the Thälmann-case left-wing) movement that get into power.
Then you have the womans rights - often overlooked. Modern woman will not accept any "old style man knows the way"-thinking, something that would spread very quickly into "old-30er-weimar" woman.
The "old-30ers" also would think very seriously to remove the worst war criminals, esp. with the consequences - think about the ruhr-area, completly devasted, or the 11 million people who learn that their "leader" caused them the loss of their home later on.
Add in that even in 1939 nobody in germany wanted a war - as the SS and the Gestapo reported to their leaders and you could see some/many of these nazis die quickly by angry mobs of 30ers...
I disagree with you about recovery in 30 years. Why? Because germany of 1930 had a BIG economy, even completly outdated. the workers had quite some knowledge, the overall education system was good.
You have to remove a lot things, you have to modernize many more things (houses, infrastructure), but this is all a HUGE economic employment thing... modern communications (of 1990-2018) helps and latest the cheapish trips to Mallorca or into italy mean that a lot old-germans would learn many things about the neighbours, and viceversa.
The prussian-weimar-construct will face ugly situations, Hindenburg no longer is a ruler - but i think that the politicans in weimar will look for their chances in the modern world. With the southern states supporting them these things could be settled in the same quick way as OTL with the former GDR.
What could help further - many people would be frightened as hell about what happened. Could UK get removed? Could denmark be thrown into the year 1617? If such things happened once - who knows if it not happened again? This alone would create a different situation at all.
For germany - economic powerhouse again - yes. Because it is not the whole of 1930-germany but "only" the prussian areas. So the southern 3 and Hamburg are modern, that alone is enough to reignite the economy, even if they suffer for many years in "numbers". But no unemployment for 20 years could do wonders.
Einstein was a very smart person. For sure he would be royal pissed about the nazis, he would be angry that his neighbours had been so mad to elect that shithead hitler. But - with modern germany fundamentally different i belive he - and many other jews - would try to establish the "modern germany" in prussia. Supported massivly by israel (just to make sure that no holocaust could happen) and germany. For the modern germans it would be also a massiv schock, Höss and co kicking and alive is difficulty (writing this i would like to get him, some nice death torturing ideas summing through my mind).
The 30er germans would want to recover from their worst economic crisis, that would happen.
For sure would they be "ultra nationalistic" - even the more leftist ones - compared to modern germans, basically they would be "sane" compared to modern germans - they lack the "we are guilty"-complex of modern germany, so maybe some developments could cause problems.
I could see "many" nazis move into argentina (wasn´t that 1990 still a die-hard military dictatorship) or other south american countries, hopefully the Mossad care for them
The illegal-swastika-thing - i think that the nazis would vanish quickly in the public in weimar, with all the commited crimes (don´t forget, many germans were killed by the regime too ... germans with influence and power in their timeline!) they loose their base.
And - don´t forget - Hindenburg and co face this:
either they join the FRG, with FRG-laws or they will sit in the dark, surrounded by VERY suspectful neighbours who would not help em.
Also the people will run into the south, because there is "german civilisation" and jobs. it would be 1989 on steroids - millions of "weimar-germans" would move into the south