The Second World War, which took place between 1939 and 1945 and pitted the Allies (United Kingdom, France, Soviet Union and USA) against the Axis (Germany, Italy and Japan), was the greatest confrontation the world has ever seen. It was the bloodiest war in history – around 50 million deaths! The outcome of real life, we all know: Nazi Germany was defeated and the dictator Adolf Hitler killed himself in a bunker in Berlin not to be captured.
But what if the story was different? Below, we reinvent the facts and narrate what the war would have been like if Hitler had won. Stay tuned: the texts with normal font tell the invented story, while the texts with the caption “In Real Life…” and in italics narrate what really happened.
1) FORCE NEUTRALITY
At the beginning of the war, Nazi Germany would have gone without mercy on top of England. In addition to avoiding the retreat from Dunkirk, which could give the British Army a chance to survive, the Germans would still have started an operation to invade the British Isles. Pressured, the British would have no other way out: they would accept a political agreement and would be obliged to remain neutral until the end of the war.
IN REAL LIFE… Hitler admired England. According to military historian Liddel Hart, the dictator compared England to the Catholic Church, saying that both helped to stabilize the world. This admiration made Hitler hesitate on important occasions against the British.
2) MAXIMUM SPEED
In May 1940, Hitler would take the first big step towards winning the war by accepting General Heinz Guderian’s suggestion. He suggested advancing at full speed on the Allied forces that were in France. English soldiers would be surrounded at Dunkirk and would not have time to flee. With the Army detonated, England would accept a ceasefire with Germany
IN REAL LIFE… In 1940, Germany was easily invading France when Hitler ordered his tanks to stop, fearing a counterattack. This gave time for the English, allies of France, to send their army back to England, retreating from Dunkirk.
3) ONE ENEMY LESS
Without breaking the pact with Japan and Italy, Germany would choose to keep to itself when the Japanese pulled the US into the fray with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Americans would go to war against Japan, but not against Germany. Without US support, the British and French would not be able to retake the invaded Europe, and Hitler would concentrate his forces against the Soviets.
IN REAL LIFE… Italy, Germany and Japan made a pact: they would declare war on any country that attacked one of them. Since it was Japan that attacked the US in 1941, Germany was not obliged to go to war with the Americans. But Hitler declared war on the US days later
4) SURVEYS PUMPING
During World War II, Germany would have one of the greatest minds in science: Werner Heisenberg. With him at the head of the project, the Nazis would focus all technological efforts on the quest to obtain the atomic bomb. By getting the bomb before the US, Hitler would have no doubts: he would raze Moscow and force the immediate surrender of the Soviet Union.
IN REAL LIFE… The US united efforts to create the atomic bomb. The Germans, on the other hand, had rival teams, one military and one civilian, working on separate projects. In 1942, Germany still preferred to focus research on nuclear reactors to generate energy, not bombs.
5) FRIEND-PROBLEM
At the beginning of the war, Hitler would have tried to control the steps of his ally Mussolini. Even so, the Italian dictator would bank on the invasion of Greece and get away with it. Hitler would not think twice: he would refuse Italy’s request for immediate help and go full force towards the Soviet Union. Without wasting time on the Greeks, the Germans would not face the harsh Russian winter and defeat Stalin
IN REAL LIFE… Italian dictator, Mussolini was an ally of Hitler, but he was always in trouble. In 1940, he invaded Greece, but was met with a counterattack by the Greeks. Hitler decided to come to Mussolini’s rescue and delayed a decisive attack on the Soviet Union by almost a month.
6) TIME TO RETREAT
Hitler could not resist the temptation: to take Stalingrad, the city that bore the name of one of his great rivals, the Soviet leader Stalin. But when he saw the German army almost surrounded and realized that this could be one of the bloodiest battles in history, he would order the withdrawal of the city. In this way, the retreat would not affect the morale of the German troops so much and would still avoid the loss of an army.
IN REAL LIFE… In 1942, Hitler tried to take over the oil-rich southern part of the Soviet Union. But he took a “short detour” to take the city of Stalingrad – today Volgograd. After six months of hard fighting, the Germans suffered their first major defeat of the war.
THE WORLD AFTER
At the end of the world conflict, two powers would dominate the planet: Germany and the USA. In the next 40 years, European countries would face levels of African poverty, Brazil would go to war and the Soviet Union would disappear from the map!
nazi empire In addition to Austria and Poland, Germany would annex to its territory the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) and the European part of Russia
Axis Partners Hitler’s two allies in the war would also extend their domain: Italy would take North Africa and Albania, while Japan would control Southeast Asia, a chunk of India, China and eastern Russia.
Allied Dictators Countries like Spain, France, Portugal, Finland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria would have maintained independent dictatorships, but sympathizing with the Nazi empire
Puppets of the Empire Countries such as Greece, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Norway, Sweden, Ireland and Turkey would be administered by leaders chosen by the Germans
CURTAIN OF THE ATLANTIC
In the first decades after the Nazi victory in World War II, the world would be divided into two blocks. On the one hand, countries under the influence of the US, which would dominate almost all of Latin America. On the other, the countries aligned with Germany, which would maintain influence over all of Europe and most of Africa and Asia. Separating the two blocks, there was an imaginary line: the Iron Curtain of the Atlantic
LONDON, CITY OF SPIES
England, which would have made a non-aggression pact with the Nazis during the war, would struggle to maintain itself as a neutral territory in a world divided between Germany and the USA. Because of this, London would end up being chosen as the headquarters of the UN. During the Cold War, the city would become the spy capital of the world.
OPPRESSION AGAINST SLAVS
Hitler always considered the Slavs as an inferior people. Thus, after winning the war, he would condemn pockets of Slavic populations in Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia to utter misery. Its inhabitants would be used as workhorses for heavy work. They would end up becoming countries with a poor quality of life, which would struggle to rebuild after the decline of the Nazi Empire.
BRAZIL X ARGENTINA
The rivalry between the two countries would surpass (and much!) today’s levels. During the war, Argentina would have kind of “flirted” with the Nazis. With Hitler’s victory, the brothers would become Germany’s greatest ally in South America. The rivalry with Brazil, aligned with the US, would grow every day… The inevitable conflict between the two countries would break out in the 1950s. and Nazis, disguised as consultants, would join the fray to bolster their side. After a few years of border battles, a ceasefire would emerge, but a definitive peace between the two countries would never be signed. In this way, the Triple Frontier region (between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay) would become a demilitarized zone, covered in mines and barbed wire. It is a situation similar to that of the two Koreas in the post-war period of real life.
COLD WAR
Americans and Germans would not directly attack each other after World War II, but would become involved in the so-called Cold War. One of the characteristics of this indirect war would be the regional conflicts between allies of the two powers. US and Germany would fund several countries in regional fights to try to expand their influence. This dispute would not take long to reach South America, generating the conflict between Brazil and Argentina
PEOPLE WITHOUT COUNTRY
Exterminated during World War II, the Jews would disappear from Europe. Those who could would have taken refuge mainly in the USA. There, clandestine networks for the defense of the Jews would be created and some groups would start to commit bomb attacks in the territories dominated by the Nazis. The most radical would not mind targeting civilians in the struggle to create a Jewish state.
THE END OF THE EMPIRE
In the late 1980s, Nazi Germany would begin to crumble
It would not be the US that would end the Nazi Empire after 40 years of nightmare for the world. Germany would crumble from within. As long as Hitler was alive, his main right-hand men – Goebbels (Minister of Propaganda), Goering (leader of the Air Force) and Himmler (chief of the secret police) – would maintain an “armed peace”. However, after the natural death of the dictator, in the late 1970s, the stick would eat loose between the different factions interested in commanding the Nazi Empire. The struggle for power would gradually weaken Germany and spur oppressed peoples and countries to liberate themselves. All, of course, with behind-the-scenes US support. At the end of the 1980s, with the Nazi Empire dissolved, the Americans would pose as the great winners of the Cold War