UKC

Lets put suspension of disbelief into over drive and assume that Germany and Japan actually came first in WWII, what whould the world be like to day, especially for our little Island?

At the moment in the real world the losers, Germany and Japan, are majore power houses of technical industry with Japan producing all the electronic gagitery we could ever dream of and Germany holding all of Europe's money in its banks. We on the othe hand have some Banks and a Service Industry pandering to quite a lot of CHAVS.

But what would have happened if time was rewritten so that the Allies actually lost the war?


Please excuse spelling mistakes. I'm at work and there aint any spell checkers to help me out.

In reply to The Lemming:
An interesting speculation that has been the subject of more than one novel/story I suspect. In the short term it would have been bad news for the Jews and quite a few other ethnic minorities and I doubt that the years after the war would have been much fun for anyone. Long term is harder to say. Certainly German and Japan's current high economic status was helped by not having to spend a huge part of their budget and arms after the war (for a long time both were banned from having armed forces)so I wonder if they would be in that position today (empires can be costly things to sustain as we found out)

In reply to The Lemming:

Without the war, would Japan have benefited from the work and ideas of Deming: -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

In reply to The Lemming:

Nuclear war with the USSR and global annihilation, so probably would've been a bit rubbish, to be fair.

In reply to The Lemming: No chicken tikka masala!!

In reply to The Lemming:

"The man in the high castle"

In reply to The Lemming:

Japan would be nothing like it is nowadays, which is all down to American money after WW2.

Largely undecided on Germany. Not sure they could have governed an empire that size (assuming all of Europe and most of Asia had been taken - and I'm not even considering the Americas)

In reply to The Lemming:
I think it really depends on what change you make to history to make it happen. Once Russian got involved its not like it was a close thing for Germany so how ever history is changed to get round that is basically the biggest factor in how things would be for them. Same with Japan really, they never really had a chance of total victory over America.

In reply to The Lemming:

Dunno about germany, but japan planned to do similar to what russia did and subjugate its neighbours into a vast military dictatorship under some twisted rightwing pseudo buddhist rule.

China may have totally collapsed in the process, into semi-states again.
The pacific may have been a bizarre waterworld of skirmishing islands with a less developed america.
Australia may have become a distant resource colony like brazil in the early 20th C.
They would have eventually faced off with the nazis over russia. Possibly dividing the country into euro and asian halves.

Probably not a great scenario.

In reply to The Lemming:

I'd be speaking and thinking in German instead of English. It would feel normal to me, same as English does now.

Or more likely I wouldn't exist.

In reply to The Lemming:

Whatever happened to Russia and the US in this is going to decide the alternative future.

In reply to The Lemming:

I suspect the world would be full of underground movements working against the Nazis. At least I like to think so. Sadly, I think most would stand by during the eradication of various minorities.
(I don't begrudge such people, it is likely most wouldn't know what was happening. If most of the population doesn't know about or believe atrocities are happening, of course they're not going to take action to stop it. Keep that in mind when you're considering the merit of censorship...)

I think it's worth thinking about just how different it would be living in the UK compared to the US, due to the differing attitudes and laws regarding self defense and weapons. Dunno about you guys, but I'd rather be in the US.

In reply to needvert:

(Just finished a book written by a 'work' camp survivor. Aside from routine beatings, often to death, they'd walk through the dorms - if you were too sick to be worth keeping they'd inject you with kerosene and a few minutes later you'd die.)

In reply to needvert:


Could you let me have the title of said book please?

In reply to Removed User:

Memoirs of a Holocaust Survivor: Icek Kuperberg

Got it on Kindle, but there's a hard copy available. Only 86 pages. I liked it's brevity and simpleness. Recommend everyone read it, since it doesn't take long to read but it's important.

In reply to needvert:

Thank you.

In reply to The Lemming: read a cracking book a few yrs ago that asked exactly this sort of question but got heavyweight scholars to answer it; will try & dig it out.

In reply to The Lemming: Virtual History by Niall Ferguson

In reply to needvert:

On a somewhat lighter note Stephen Fry's novel 'Making History' is a wonderful yarn on precisely this subject.

In reply to The Lemming:
Interesting points.
Since the war Japan is not allowed to have traditional military force, its part of its constitution. This goes some way to explan why it is such a powerhouse for technological development in industry and consumerism. In other countries the resources for technology development usually go to military appications first.

In reply to Kelcat: The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K Dick might be it? Fantastic book by an amazing author, I think there's talk of this being adapted to film like so many of his other books.

In reply to StuLade: I thought Japan had been in recession for 20 years?

In reply to The Lemming: We would be great at penalties and would have won a few more World Cups.