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SRegan β Weimar Forever - an Alternate History map
#alternatehistory #cartography #germany #map #weimar #treatyofversailles #weimarrepublic #karljarres
Published: 2016-06-26 08:43:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 40836; Favourites: 287; Downloads: 254
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Description
A map I've had floating around on my hard drive for a while - thought I should get around to finishing it. It's based on a larger scenario I want to do at some point centred around a surviving Weimar Republic. The idea was to figure out how far a democratic-populist Germany could push against Versailles and survive.My contention is that a skilled politician could have pulled off remilitarisation, Anschluss (via peaceful plebiscite; anything else likely means war with Italy and probably the Western allies) and Memelland. Anything more requires something different to happen - my conceit is that German Sudetens declare a secessionist entity years before Germany is in a position to help, 'spoiling' that angle of expansion but scoring international sympathy for the German diapora (the Sudeten crisis is historically seen as spillover from the breakup of Austria-Hungary and not German expansionism).
As a consequence there's no Anglo-Polish treaty, and when Danzig votes to rejoin Germany in 1939, Poland moves in its forces to occupy it and is seen as the aggressor. The German Republic's Wehrmacht is nowhere near as effective as OTL but is still able to push into Posen and re-establish a link to East Prussia. The war ends in 1940, with Germany returning Polish-majority territories in Posen in return for a land corridor to Danzig with guaranteed sea access for Poland.
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Comments: 66
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Nice map and definitely a much better timeline than OTL. (What the Weimar Republic could have been...)
In fact, this no-Hitler scenario actually helped to inspire me to make the timeline for my own map, with the USSR rather than Germany launching WW2.
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Huh, this looks really nice. And just like one of my maps, it's centered around Jarres... Why does everyone like him so much?
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Cheers! I think the fact that Jarres was by all accounts a pretty competent civic leader during WW1 and got quite close to the Presidency (albeit without a major change he was unlikely to win the second round). before stepping aside in favour of Hindenburg intrigues people. He also has a personal reason for remilitarising the Rhineland, which to me suggested a course trying to restore German prestige through diplomacy.
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Wait, he was unlikely to win the second round? Would you mind telling this poorly-educated gentleman why that was?
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He won 39% and was more or less at his ceiling; Wilhelm Marx was backed by Zentrum, the SPD and the DDP. Hindenburg was seen as having broader national appeal and did manage around a 5% swing from the centre/left parties. One way to get Jarres in would be to have the Zentrum deal with the DDP fall apart.
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I don't know about him being at the ceiling. The BVP would've voted for him for sure, and I think that there would be many people from the SPD and other parties who would be opposed to Marx since he was from a Catholic-only party (Zentrum). It's also important to note that the SPD and Zentrum were much more afraid of Hindenburg and would do much more to stop him, while if Jarres were to stay there'd even be a chance that Otto Braun would be able to stay in the race. The rules of this election, I might add, were very strange anyways, and those ~43% that Jarres had gotten may have been enough to earn a victory.
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Interesting - thanks for this!
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No problem, man. It's an interesting subject to research, Weimar Germany.
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Lose of corridor will destroy polish economy and polish power - western allies wouldn't allow it seeing germany expanding like that.
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Indeed - but without OTL's build-up, allowing Britain and France to re-arm, they aren't really in a position to declare war over a treaty imposed by Germany in a conflict in which the Poles are seen as the aggressors. The good will that IOTL was exhausted over the Sudeten Germans gets spent instead on the Danzig Germans, and with a German leader less prone to megalomaniacal ranting, there'll be more of a school of thought that German influence in Eastern Europe may be a necessary counterweight to the Soviets.
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Great map, but one small mistake: If Elsass-Lothringen is lost, and Eupen and Northern Schleswig an Posen and parts of Oberschlesien you also have to mention SΓΌdtirol.
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Good thought, although SΓΌdtirol was lost by A-H rather than by Germany per se. The Sudetenland wasn't claimed as such by the German Republic ITTL as the short-lived German Sudeten Republic collapsed before Germany felt itself sufficiently emboldened to annex it.
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Escuse me saying this, but to me your explanation is too short. SΓΌdtirol was very important for Austria because of its agriculture. There the Alps become mediteranian. The Reunion between Austria and the Reich would give the Austrians a much stronger weight against Italy. Hitler has made a deal with Italy about SΓΌdtirol. He wanted Italy's support for his plans against Czechoslowakia. Ans why should the Sudetenrepublic collapsed? It belonged to the richest part of the new Slavic state and it should have got support from the WR, like you can find the situation with Serbia and the Serbian part of Bosnia and Kosovo or Kosovo and Albania. Maybe you find time one day to explain your scenario more, because it's really a great political-historical map.
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I think it's because Sudtirol was lost by Austria and this map is about the territories won and lost by Germany only
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i was thinking the same thing on danzig
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Is Karl Jarres in this world a dictator or was he just re-elceted a lot?
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He's a populist right-winger (asΒ he was IOTL) but elected fairly - he wins two German Presidential elections (1925 and 1932) then serves two more years as interim President following the outbreak of the German-Poland war, resigning in 1941. Worth noting under the Weimar constitution the President serves for seven years.
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Okay, that makes a lot more sense. I do have another question though. Would it be alright if I use this idea of Germany in a alternate history I'm working on?
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Thanks - by all means please do.
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I'll let you know when its done.
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Here you go good sir.
theplainsman.deviantart.com/arβ¦
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Well that would be a non harsh total war alright
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I wasn't sure if you meant the Germany-Poland war or the subsequent war between the pseudo-Intermarium and the Soviets? In the latter case I envisaged the Western powers' intervention as being more similar to their intervention in the Russian civil war, sending arms, supplies, and volunteer forces to the Poles, rather than all-out war.
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What do you suppose the eastern borders of Poland would look like?
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Hmm. I envisaged a limited war over Eastern Europe, with the Soviets facing off against the Baltic nations and Poland, and the Soviets losing out after intervention from Britain, France, and Germany. Poland could be compensated for its loss of Danzig/Gdansk with a 1921-ish border line; though the Belarussians might seek independence later (something I've not actually seen in AH - a large surviving Poland struggling with secessionist movements).
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How'd they get Memelland?
Oh, and can I use this (and maybe some of your other works) as reference for a possible submission of mine? I'd give credit.
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Hmm, I remembered writing something about Luxemburgist revolutionaries taking over Lithuania and Germany intervening to restore a democratic government, but annexing Memelland in the process.
By all means please use anything I've posted as a reference.
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Well, it wouldn't be 'Weimar Forever' if it didn't last to the present day 
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Would have been a much better outcome for Germany. What would the world be today like without WW2? Weapons such as the atom bomb would have been developed much later, so a cold war between the the West and the Soviets would have began much later. I think a separate war would've eventually occurred between the Japanese and the Western powers likely including the US.
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A Japanese-American war is likely; as is conflict in Eastern Europe with the Soviets. Likely fascism doesn't spread much further than OTL and dies away by the '60s - Mussolini doesn't strike me as competent or charismatic enough to act as a figurehead for the movement - however racialist and authoritarian ideas probably continue to float around in Western cultures, including the USA, as there has never been a compelling refutation of them; the combination of the defeat of Nazi Germany and the discovery of its industrialised genocide IOTL (that is, fascism was shown up as incompetent as well as evil) effectively created the liberal democratic consensus in the West. Certainly the European powers try harder and longer to hang onto their empires (that said, without OTL German and Japanese overtures to colonised nations, especially in the Middle East, organised independence movements would likely take longer to form and be more influenced by India).
Technology is a toss-up; on the one hand, World War II saw rapid development of numerous technologies and, to my mind more crucially, the expectation that this could continue, giving rise to the science fiction of the OTL '60s and '70s. On the other hand, millions of people (including those who died OTL that would have gone on to become inventors, entrepreneurs and scientists) and vast amounts of resources are unspent.
The danger with 'no WW2' scenarios comes when someone obtains the Bomb and decides that they have to use it first against the capitalist parasites/commie brutes; I tend to feel the emergence of atomic weaponry IOTL comes very close to an 'eye of the needle' situation:
Β - At the moment when the weapon was created and thus had to be used, all the great powers of the world were essentially allied in a war against powerful but compact rogue states. The Soviets got a glimpse at the weapon of the future and enough time to obtain it for themselves.
Β - Atomic weaponry was discovered by the United States, a nation whose history and domestic political situation made it impossible to parley this unbeatable military advantage into an endgame 'Join the Reich/Soviet Union now or your country will literally be destroyed' ultimatum.
Β - The fact that Imperial Japanese ideology was invested, not in a collection of doctrines but a person, the Japanese Emperor, made it possible for Japan to immediately surrender; simultaneously strengthening the image of the mushroom cloud as both the ultimate weapon and the end of war between powers. Had Japan fought on, more bombs would have been used and the taboo against their use would never have formed; as a consequence the balance of terror would be less powerful.
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Awesome scenario and map style, so the corridor is no corridor here,
that couldΒ΄ve avoided a lot of tensions, but not all of course, as Germany
demanded all of West Prussia back sooner or later I guess.
Too bad the Sudetenrepublic failed.
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Thanks - the shading on Posen represents territory lost since 1918, rather than territory they later claim. My notion was that they were more concerned by a Soviet invasion of Poland should the conflict continue, and accordingly settled for a peace deal that restored a land connection to East Prussia and the annexation of Danzig.
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And the democracy will never be abolished? Would be interesting
how a war with Russia would look like, as I think Stalin would attack
anyway.
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Thanks - it's meant to be how far the Weimar Republic could go without triggering WW3 so South Tyrol is probably out. I mean, rolling all sixes you could have Mussolini unilaterally invade Greece for the lols, get into a limited war with Britain and France, then have Germany seize South Tyrol as its price for helping out in the Alps.
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Dir fΓ€llt auch nix Neues ein XD
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