I thought of this when I answered a question asked by Slythe about the pros and cons of isolationism. What would the world be like if Imperial Germany had won the first world war? There would be a hell of alot more people for one thing. Communism and fascism would not have risen so there would have been to slave camps and extermination programs. Anything else?

<font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#00FF00">Possibly the world would have been unified under one leader, and peace on earth minus the few rebels still trying to fight back. Much less freedom however and you would have to be very careful what you said about yore leader so the peace and unification part is not as rosey as it sounds. Crime would possibly be very low has well. Than again maybe the Germans would have gotton tired of their leader and assisinated him leading to a better world overall, it woud not have been the first time German officers tried to get rid of him. It is hard to say as a timeline could branch in many directions with many different possibilities when you talk about what ifs.</font>

[ 05-11-2004, 10:46 AM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

It may not have stopped Communism, but it would have brought us far closer to a Unified Europe ;)
They probably would have kept the ground they took from the Russians, when they surrendered. As well as France and Belgium. Making their empire quite vast.

And we would all have well made cars!! ;)

Then Ironworks wouldn't exist. Instead we'd be posting in a forum called "Sauerkraut", and the topics would be about bradwurst and beer. :D

http://www.sauerkrautforums.com

Sounds fun... [img]smile.gif[/img]

By the way if the germans had won WW1 I doubt a good portion of IW members really existed... at least those from europe... me included since I am 1/4th german... [img]smile.gif[/img]

well, dreamer, russia didnt actually surrender, they offered peace at very good conditions for the germans. But you dont know what would have happened if the russians had fought on. The closer the germans would have gotten to Moscow, the tougher the fighting probably would have become and the german supply lines would have been stretched very thin.

And still, its not sure wheter Lenin needed the war to come to power. Russians were already desiring a change from the tsarist regime.

Second, the authoritarian German Emperor would have found its nemesis in the communists I think, for the same reasons the communists opposed the tsar in Russia. Proof of that is the upsurge of communist sentiment during the later stages of the war, that shows that in germany there where at that time many supporters of the communist revolution. That it turned into a democratic revolution was more a result of the Versailles Treaty. So it might well have become possible that after an initial victory for the empire, internal turmoil would have made germany a communist state. (The agrarian eastern and southern parts of the country being still in some sort of feudal system at the beginning of the century)

For the rise of fascism you might be right, but dont forget the first fascist state was Italy and Hitler derived many of his ideas from Mussolini. So if germany would have won WW1 that doesnt mean Italy wouldnt become fascist. Same goes for the fascist regimes of Franco and Salazar in Spain and Portugal

Something else hit me... Would the WW2 have happened?
Probably not and therefore I doubt some of the most used technologies today would exsist (at not in the same form), spacetravel (most of US rocketexperts were defected nazi scientists), computers, the internet...

This would be a very diffrent world...

Hey guys, that was 80+ years ago. What certifies that the Germans would have kept everything they won in WWI without an attack attempt of the Allies. The Germans lost WWI and still started WWII, so why wouldn't have the Allies started WWII andwho would have won it. "What if" always is a nice question, but "What would be now" is all too far fetched to give a proper answer.

We know... no one is saying he is giving a proper answer... just fun to think about it... [img]smile.gif[/img]