A Historian Reacts | What if Germany Had Been Split Differently After WWII? | Alternate History Hub

hey youtube i'm mr terry a high school history teacher welcome back to another historian reacts video all right it's been a while since we did some alternate history so i put up some topics up into this past week's patrons pick poll and this is what won and it is what if germany had been split differently after world war ii that's a great uh question to ask because you know the whole splitting of things becomes a key part of cold war competition right after world war ii so i'm interested to see what alternate history hub has to say about this i'm gonna make sure to let you know what i think about it too all right the original video link is down below make sure you're supporting alternate history hub they're kind of the pinnacle of alternate history type videos and they do a great job of it so definitely give it a view like subscribe if you like what's going on here love to have you as a sub as well all right let's go ahead and get to it [Music] [Music] after two world wars everyone was done with germany yeah and even pretty much wait does he does germany have a youtube play button on it because you can't put the you know what logo you know you can get trouble for that on youtube done with germany and even as world war ii was ongoing there were plans of what to do with germany once the fighting had ended now as we know germany was divided between the four victors and the tensions of the cold war eventually split it into two states it makes sense why germany was split in the way that it was considering the soviets held that territory and so we never yeah i mean the western allies did not trust a a soviet-run europe afterwards they'd already taken over a ton of territory on the way to you know germany and the western allies didn't trust stalin even though stalin said that you know those countries would be able to hold free elections and all this stuff that stuff of course doesn't happen that's another story in itself though um but yeah they also didn't want germany just to be left on their own like basically what happens in world war one it's like they know they are going to oversee the building the rebuilding of germany because they don't want another thing like what happened in world war one which is like conquer it slap on the build to germany and then kind of trust them to rebuild in a way that the rest of the world would like because of course that didn't happen never really think of it going different how else could anyone have imagined it being divided turns out a few had their own ideas on how to split the germans each making their own lines on a map about what a post-war germany should look like there were multiple plans so i and another alternate history channel what if altist decided to pick a different plan i don't know each of us would pick one plan and then theorize how that specific map would turn out in history fdr had a plan to just entirely dissolve germany reorganizing it into smaller states not quite as small as in the holy roman empire but that's impossible what if althis theorizes about how such a plan might pan out in his own video so go check that out there was also a plan by good old churchill to split germany north to south with the south being a horrific abomination oh god yes churchill drank a bit too much and felt sentimental about the days gone by yeah we don't even austria hungry again which is exactly what's happening hungary still existed yet there was one plan that even though it hadn't been implemented it did have real world consequences and it was considered a plan from the us secretary of the treasury of all people henry morgenthau morgenthau wanted to divide germany alongside the north and south lines as well but with one major difference the industrial heartland of germany in the west the source of its economic and militaristic strength would be entirely removed from its borders a deliberate plan to fundamentally alter german society not that is that is that like taking away the rhineland which like after world war one which was a huge economic importance and was a problem because you know the germans had to pay incredible war reparations you know after the war but then you also take away their ability to pay by taking industrial lands of course they're overseas colonies as well so that could be a problem that's that's one of those things if you it seems like if you take that away that fuels the anti-allied fire just like what happened in world war one then you truly feel like you're being screwed over and have incentive to retaliate so i think taking away that chunk does exactly what i just said there only in denotification but to remove its capability to ever be a modern nation again what if in an alternate timeline somehow this plan was agreed upon oh plan it's an alternate 1945. i already told you what i think would happen it would give incredible incentive to hate the post-war peace process and be something that again could look a lot like world war one which leads to world war ii all right let's see where they go with this the war is over yippee i would imagine that in this timeline the plan for what would happen to germany is entirely unknown to the public the morgethal plan is not leaked to the press mostly because if it still is it faces the same scrutiny that it did in our timeline this is a scenario where the western powers are much harsher to germany and fully commit to absolute revenge it was hard to simply let many aspects of happen in world war one continue on after so much destruction had occurred there was no real urge to follow through with the morgenthau plan for reasons i'm going to get into and this was stemmed from fears of the plan failing so badly that it would only backfire in the face of the west undoing all of the gains that they made during the war not only out of a worry that nazism would resurface sure but also that the german public would turn to the soviets in communism in response in such a timeline let's imagine these considerations are just not thought about over the course of the next few years the americans british and french would begin the deconstruction and demolition of any factory or manufacturing plant in the region wait wait wait okay i'm sure they'll explain it but what are they saying happens this land that it still belongs to germany but they destroy it like all the the factories or it gets taken away completely and then who does it belong to who who administrates it a region that germany relied on for not simply wartime production but production of everyday basic goods you know the the factories that we need for a modern society the people who relied on these factories for jobs or production would protest these actions of course perhaps leading to riots and open rebellion only to be brutally taken down by occupation forces the allied forces and that's just that's the grounds for fascism and look at what happened after world war one the insane amount of unemployment that was going on into the lead-up of the nazi party and their their real gun gained into power um was larger in response to to the incredible amount of unemployment unemployment is one of those things that seeds revolutions um and whatever they may come about whether it's uh fascism communism whatever it is it's it it provides the seeds for revolution proceed to tell people living in this international zone and this was the plan by the way i'm not making those up that the german people would never again be allowed to have manufacturing or industry at all those that relied on the factories for jobs should move elsewhere instead in effect this plan was to remember the capabilities those countries aren't going to want immigrants they're not going to want immigrants for millions of working men to provide for their families no factories of any kind would be allowed to exist and what was once the industrial heart of germany and the thing was this was an action that morgenthau fully anticipated as what he essentially earlier bringing an industrial state back into an agricultural society as for the rest of germany it would be split between north and south the idea was to differentiate between the heavily catholic south and the prussian protestant north somehow prussia still exists in this timeline prussia 2.0 take some and you leave some i would imagine this north german state would be smaller than originally planned just by how much advancement the soviet troops made and it's likely it may have been split into even three states and such a confusing mess between the three wouldn't really be a concern as germany being a functioning state isn't in the question germany is no longer meant to be a state this perpetual occupation was what turned many off of the idea of the morgenthal plan in the first place and churchill even commented that he didn't want the british tied to what was essentially a dead corpse as what happens when you remove good way to think about it now in actual you know reality you know bill the western allies building up the infrastructure of western germany and their industry was to have a trading partner right this was the era of of that and you know wanting more and more trade partners people to deal sell buy and sell goods with and the united states you know especially was interested in that so like demolishing the that the industrial part of germany economically would hurt the united states um for that fact because you wouldn't have again the products and the international trade relationship that you would have but in this in this scenario it's like they don't care they don't care they're more concerned about punishing germany than like you know an economic future and and this became a huge part of the cold war as it became like capitalism versus you know communism and the wealth being generated out of western germany was something that you know like the united states and the west propped up as evidence that the capitalistic system is the one that should be favored in the world move the industry from a society you remove the ability for anybody to feed themselves or make a living and you essentially created a humanitarian crisis yet sticking with the morgenthau plan there is no room for foreign aid to the germans the people were now a part of an agrarian state and should use that to their advantage however there's an issue poor harvest and the lack of production of fertilizer in the post-war years resulted in food frankly not being existent germany even in our own timeline didn't have the capability to feed its own people yet there is no american aid in this alternate world instead the plan continues on so here's the thing it could be it'd be open to anybody then anybody gonna do the aid and if it's the soviet union coming in to do that obviously the germans would then side with soviet policies it's been estimated that if the morgenthau plan continued on as it was planned an estimated 25 million people would have starved to death five times occupation than in the war itself so at this point it's pretty clear that had the actual morgenthal plan gone through and it was apparent that so many people were going to starve to death the allies would have backed off such a harsh plan they weren't going to just let millions starve to death in the middle of europe but let's say that they did anyway it's not like the germans could you know fight back first off imagine eventually exactly it would appear following the war when the victorious allied powers in this case the western powers occupy germany and simply stand by and watch as millions die under their control it would be an atrocity even greater than the holodomor actually by many many more millions in fact it'd mean that the western powers would have killed just as many innocents as the nazis in russia or the japanese in china so by doing this by committing to this the western powers in many ways immediately lose their validity after the war so the journey i would say now they become this these monsters in the eyes of uh the rest of the world as creating a genocide worse than the war itself people they were brainwashed by the nazi regime and told that if the war was lost german society would die along with everyone they knew and loved yet post-war the german people instead saw the american occupation with planes flying in food when they were hungry a plan to rebuild their society and a removal of an ideology that only brought them pain now instead in this alternate timeline the americans tear down the factories internationalize a large chunk of their country split germany in two and then their troops openly parade in the streets and sit by while a quarter of the population openly and slowly starves to death so had this plan actually continued the victorious allies would have committed equal atrocities or the nazis or at least enough atrocities to muddle the waters in the most black and white good versus evil war ever the end of world war ii would not be the end of nazism or fascism within germany in fact it would only openly solidify nazi propaganda against the americans for the germans the war would have been seen as one of self-defense against a ruthless cabal that the nazis were talking about and now the americans were going to kill everyone god this video is going to get demonetized and in fact the ending of world war ii for germany would very much be like the end of world war one a nation once again defeated but the ideology continues on there is no scenario where it's split in two and then reunited and becomes the undisputed leader of europe there is no eu any chance that it may in a way be integrated into the west snuffed out after such a failed occupation and so this is a part of a lesson the peace after a war is often more important than any battle or conflict especially in a war of ideologies to win a conflict you can't simply and especially in a war where like you know world war one and world war ii are seen as these wars where it gets pinned on the narrative of the war that the aggressors are the ones that lost so it puts the hand it puts the fate of the aggressor the original aggressor into the hands of ones that were being they felt oppressed or whatever right happened world war one happened on world war ii so there's that animosity that gets added into the peace process where it becomes about revenge rather than if the aggressive state is the one that wins out you know you don't necessarily you may not necessarily have that and that's what is happening here out produce your enemy or beat them on the battlefield and not only did fascism need to collapse under its own weight and for its former supporters to see it for the sham that it was there also needed to be a replacement ideology to step in and fundamentally better the society berlin airlift this was in many ways why the west went with the marshall plan instead by rebuilding germany and showing them how the americans and british were not the corrupt monsters makes you look like the good guys trade them to be it allowed for the transition into a democratic state to be easier more homegrown and one example to show the benefits of democracy was by bringing in truckloads of food to a starving population yes you can argue this was to prevent the germans from turning to the soviets but it was also to deal more than anything it became remember germany becomes the battleground for the ideological battle of the cold war between the united states and soviet union but it was like a win-win situation in the eyes of the americans where it's like their whole way of life gets promoted and whatever moral stance they're taking there but then also to create a valuable economic partner legitimize the fear-mongering the fascists had brainwashed the population with for years this was a crucial junction point for germany and if the worst case scenario of world war ii was the nazis winning the second worst case scenario would be if people thought the nazis by accident were proven correct and to a terrifying degree many would be but i mean that wasn't necessarily the nazi platform about what these allies are doing there their platform is directed towards other issues but it wouldn't necessarily prove them right but may gain some support and maybe the whole nazi platform ends up expanding begin to think germany was better off under the nazis because at least they had food the democratic institutions put in place are not really supported by the people and if they are they're only increasingly right wing or left no hearts and minds are won the german republics are seen simply as puppets and as what happens with any puppet once the hand is taken out it goes limp while this video is about world war ii this more importantly is a video about institutions and ideologies institutions only have credibility if people have faith in them if the morgenthau plan had gone through it would have given the germans their first view of democracy one as a punishment a distinct negative in their lives and they had a they already had a distinct view of democracy under the weimar republic right so which already you know collapsed their faith in it so it's like democracy fails twice in uh germany cause a hatred that only undermines the very governments set up as replacements for the nazis if a government is only held up by foreign force then it's simply a puppet and it will collapse easily once the occupational force leaves every single time right this is cody of alternate history hub all right let's talk about this and let me know what you think down below one all right so yeah a lot to chew on i didn't know really about this plan more thou is that what they call that plan or whatever um i've got that back three two one all right a lot to think about with this plan because i hadn't really heard of that before but it does seem like a bad idea in about every way that you can spin it the only thing you would think of it as a good idea was to punish the german public i guess um but and that's that that's about all you get out of it you get nothing beneficial for anyone really involved there so yeah but i think most of the stuff they brought up about how it would lead to of course like famine and again the idea of the plan is that whole green part the whole top part green green part of the map that they were talking about was an industrial hub and then just obliterating that would ruin germany right it would go to this agrarian state but then even then if they go to as an agrarian state they wouldn't be able to survive because they wouldn't be able to produce chemicals you know for farming infrastructure would be broken and that would lead to starvation and then that would also lead to you know in some direction or another probably uh political ideology shifts or maybe push towards extremism whether it's you know sweeping into kind of the arms of the soviet union under their ideologies or doubling down maybe on uh nazism you know so i definitely agree that those parts would uh definitely happen there um so there's a lot of things i think we would agree upon that seem like the pretty obvious things that would happen in the wake of if this plan had in fact happened but there were a lot of different ways that germany could have been split they talked about them earlier but going with this one of destroying their economy that way definitely seems like all of the things after would be you know very much a reality as always with these alternate history ideas let me know what you think down below um what do you think about this plan is it something that you think could be good in any other way am i not thinking about it in the right way that it could have been beneficial in some way and what do you think about other plans also do you think that the plan that ends up actually happening the four-way split and all that do you think that was a good way to go about things you know you can hypothesize um and that's always kind of fun to talk about and be sure to discuss others and get some good conversations going alright and with that i think we'll go ahead and call it here and we'll see you next time bye [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 24,089

Keywords: react, history, germany, world war 2, cold war

Id: Oq6OcXPR8z0

Length: 21min 33sec (1293 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 28 2021