Unmaking history: What would have happened if Hitler won WW2?

Our world today would have been pretty different if Adolf Hitler and the Axis Forces had won World War 2. Throughout the years, many have wondered what would have happened if Nazi Germany had defeated the Allies.

For starters, Europe would be pretty much unrecognizable if Hitler's iron grip had manage to defeat the Allies and conquer the entire continent.

Territorially, that Greater Germany would have been constituted with annexed areas surrounded by states whose governments would be faithful subjects of Nazism.

'Lebernsraum' is a political concept used by Nazism that roughly translated to 'living space'. In practice, it was an excuse to justify Germany's expansion into territories with Germanic population outside its borders, but also to take any other new territory.

'Fatherland', a 1992 alternative history novel by Robert Harris, posits this map of an imaginary Europe circa 1964, where Germany has conquered Europe, including Russia, and maintains a Cold War with an isolationist United States.

Image: By D. Nahaissi / https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1288489

As for the United States, what would have happened if this superpower had fallen to the Germans and the Japanese in the 1940s?

Image: Unplash/Boston Public Library

There are probably as many science fiction stories playing with this idea as there are alternative universes, but probably one of the most famous is 'The Man in the High Castle' by Philip K. Dick.

The United States of 'The Man in the High Castle' has been divided in two: the East Coast for Germany, the West Coast for Japan, and a strip of neutral territory in the middle.

Image: De Rama - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45158537

The idea that the United States might have lost the war sounds like a delusional fantasy, particularly given the advantages the United States had when it came to population, resources, and having entire oceans between America and its enemies.

Image: Unsplash / Boston Public Library

We are talking about a country that has never been invaded and that has remained immune to external attacks, with the noteworthy exception of September 11th, 2001.

Other places worldwide could also have been the object of the Reich's iron grip. See this map, based on a 1941 speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who speculated how South America could be converted into a Nazi colony.

Image: From Author unknown, it's a forgery - FDR Library, President's Safe File (Box 3), Safe: Germany, Map “Luftverkehrsnetz der Vereinigten Staaten Sud-Americkas Hauptlinien.” Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

In many stories about the possible victory of the Axis over the Allied forces, Japan is usually pictured as taking over large areas of Asia, such as the occupied territories in China during the Second World War.

A Tokyo victory could have meant a Greater Japanese Empire that could have stretched from New Guinea to India, from Manchuria in China to the Philippines, taking possession of Borneo, Thailand, Singapore, and many others.

In the image: The areas of Japanese influence (in blue) during World War II.

Image: By Original Author: User:San JoseDerivative Author: Dead Mary - This file was derived from: Second world war asia 1937-1942 map de.png, Wikimedia Commons

Speculative fiction focused on an Axis victory tends to ignore what would have happened to Africa in such a scenario. Germany already had colonies in today's countries: Chad, the Central African Republic, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, the Republic of the Congo and Uganda.

Image: Unsplash / James Wiseman

The consequences of an Axis victory would have been terrible for humanity. Racial and ideological persecution would have reached unthinkable levels. Instead of taking his own life in a bunker, Hitler would probably have grown old and died peacefully in his bed.

The so-called 'Pax germanica' would have been established in this hypothetical scenario. Peace under the imperial heel of Nazi Germany, crushing all the freedoms.

A whole galaxy of novels, TV shows, movies, and comic books have given their spin to the idea of Nazi Germany winning World War 2, from 'Doctor Who' to 'Star Trek'. However, we can't forget that Nazis were (and still are) a real threat.

Pictured here: Members of the American Nazi Party with their founder, George Lincoln Powell.

Whatever, people might imagine, we can't forget that in our reality Hitler lost, and the world is much better because of it.

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