What if Neo-Nazis took over East Germany in 1953?
- Thread starter Bullmoose713
- Start date
Yep. So worried in fact that when a Nazi clique composed of Werner Naumann (former state secretary in the propaganda ministry) and Werner Best (Heydrich's former 2IC and then chief administrator in Nazi-occupied France and Hitler's proconsul in Denmark) and various other former Nazi civil servants and Party/SS functionaries tried to infiltrate the Free Democrats Party in West Germany in 1953, they were quickly arrested by the British army.
That was just a few months before the uprising in East Germany. Suffice to say no one's going to look kindly on a Nazi resurgence. And the German masses wouldn't suddenly raise the swastika again because a would-be Führer says so. Not because they've suddenly all turned into committed anti-Nazi (in the early fifties, many Germans still thought the Nazi ideology had been a good idea in principle, but 'incorrectly applied'), but because Nazism means war and more destruction and the priority of the average German is to rebuild his life and the country, move on...and not look too deeply into the nastiness of the past decade.
Frankly, a Nazi uprising is the last thing all those Nazi functionaries who are trying to quietly slip back into normal life (and in the case of many former Nazi policemen, doctors, Wehrmacht officers, civil servants and judges, resume their old jobs) and avoid prosecution for their crimes want...because all of a sudden the allies and the German authorities will have ample political reason to be a lot less lenient.
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The chances are better than even that the average German citizen would do the opposite of flock to the new Fuhrer. As bad as the Soviet occupation might have been (and it was BAD) it beat the hell out of 1,000 plane raids.
There is actually in intriguing possibility that is lurking in this scenario. It is after Stalin had gone to his " just rewards" and after Beria was liquidated. There exists a small chance that a combined effort to thrash a new Reich could lead to an East/West rapprochement. Ike and Nikita were rather practical and pragmatic in their world view.
Would it be possible for the west to have backed a not too openly Nazi, but openly anti-Communist insurgency?
The SRP was declared illegal in 1952, in 1956 it was the KPD. An interesting fact is that the SRP received financial support from the NKVD, whether to discredit West Germany as a den of Nazism or because the party had been campeigning against an integration of West Germany into NATO and for a non-aligned, neutral Germany as suggested by Stalin in his March Note is unclear.
If it had even a whiff of Nazism it was DOA.
Ike SAW the Camps with his own eyes.
It's not just Ike or the Soviets who would object to any whiff of Nazism, either.
Winston Churchill is in the middle of his second run as Prime Minister of the UK. I don't think I need to mention what was happening during his first run.
The current President of France in 1953, Vincent Auriol, was put under house arrest by the Vichy French regime, was broken out by the French Resistance, fought with them for a year before escaping to the UK, then joined the Free French government-in-exile.
King Haakon VII of Norway and Queen Juliana of the Netherlands both spent most of World War II in exile after their respective countries were invaded by Nazi Germany.
The Communist Prime Minister of Poland, Bolesław Bierut, was sent into Nazi-occupied Poland by the Soviets to organize the Polish Worker's Party.
Even Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany is unlikely to view positively the ideology whose previous leaders had him dismissed from his mayorship, froze his bank accounts, and arrested him more than once.
Winston Churchill is in the middle of his second run as Prime Minister of the UK. I don't think I need to mention what was happening during his first run.
The current President of France in 1953, Vincent Auriol, was put under house arrest by the Vichy French regime, was broken out by the French Resistance, fought with them for a year before escaping to the UK, then joined the Free French government-in-exile.
King Haakon VII of Norway and Queen Juliana of the Netherlands both spent most of World War II in exile after their respective countries were invaded by Nazi Germany.
The Communist Prime Minister of Poland, Bolesław Bierut, was sent into Nazi-occupied Poland by the Soviets to organize the Polish Worker's Party.
Even Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany is unlikely to view positively the ideology whose previous leaders had him dismissed from his mayorship, froze his bank accounts, and arrested him more than once.
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Such an attempt would also allow to flush out many of the more radical Nazi remnants. After being curbstomped the second time in not even a decade, the ideology probably would be very, very dead for a long time (in a literal sense.)
I'm mystified as how people think this could've happened or lead to any sort of rapprochement.
By the 1950s everyone knew how to best play to the audiences that matter, that being the United States and the Soviet Union. Any east german insurrection, whether lead by former Nazis or not, would "play it by ear" and emphasize their anti communist leanings and their support for an American style government or reunification with West Germany. If the East German situation grew dire, you'd see proclamations of support from America and especially from West Germany as nationalist feelings and more generally national sympathies would place public opinion squarely in the interests of East German freedom fighters.
And even in 1953 OTL where there were Nazi elements that operated within the uprising, it was tangential to the greater point of being against a brutal unrepresentative government was was stealing from Peter to pay Paul. Naturally, given the atmosphere, it makes sense why anti-Soviet sentiment would make itself known. It's not like Eisenhower declared unwavering support for the soviet union as their tanks were greased with the blood of striking worker's blood in East Germany in OTL.
From: "
By the 1950s everyone knew how to best play to the audiences that matter, that being the United States and the Soviet Union. Any east german insurrection, whether lead by former Nazis or not, would "play it by ear" and emphasize their anti communist leanings and their support for an American style government or reunification with West Germany. If the East German situation grew dire, you'd see proclamations of support from America and especially from West Germany as nationalist feelings and more generally national sympathies would place public opinion squarely in the interests of East German freedom fighters.
And even in 1953 OTL where there were Nazi elements that operated within the uprising, it was tangential to the greater point of being against a brutal unrepresentative government was was stealing from Peter to pay Paul. Naturally, given the atmosphere, it makes sense why anti-Soviet sentiment would make itself known. It's not like Eisenhower declared unwavering support for the soviet union as their tanks were greased with the blood of striking worker's blood in East Germany in OTL.
From: "
"Keeping the Pot Simmering": The United States and the East German Uprising of 1953
"
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Well Thatcher was certainly worried about a German resurgence in 1989, to the point of doing everything she personally could in stopping it, and not having realized that the only people who's opinions mattered on the subject by that point were German, American, and Russian in origin.
Best case scenario the Soviets quickly and brutally take out the new Nazi Government and rally their German allies against any further fascist movement. Worst case scenario the new Nazi movement gains popular support and though quickly shorn of power retain a military of some size and there is hand to hand and house to house fighting in Berlin and other large German Cities, which are quickly bombed to rubble. The Soviets allow their allies in Poland and the Czech Republic to enter the short war and annex territory. The West just quietly congratulates the nations on their swift victory and their acquisitions, scooping up any Nazi's who manage to flee West and dropping them off in East Berlin in front of a DDR courthourse. During reunification in the 90's Saxony, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are all a bit smaller than in our time line.
Such an operation would attract elements like Otto Skorzeny for sure.
Yes, but Philby would know about it and alert the Soviets. Or other spies in Britain.
Just means the suppression of the revolt will be even more brutal. And the role of the UK and US revealed.
Believe it or not, it was possible for people to dislike both the SED regime *and* the NSDAP which had gotten Germany into the war with the USSR in the first place and thus made the SED regime possible.
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The real Nazi fanatics were dead by this time. What you had left weren't willing to die for it, why would they now all of a sudden.