Re: The Who Mailing List Digest V3 #319

Bernd wrote:

> Careful, careful.  Things ain't quite that simple.  If Germany had won WW I, it
> would have remained Second Reich, consisting of a bunch of local monarchies.
> Maybe the influence of the parliaments would have increased, but we wouldn't
> have seen a democratic monarchy like in Britain very soon.

> Communism in Germany was neither very aggressive nor very important before and
> during the war.  So a communist revolution from inside of Germany would have
> been rather unlikely.  On the other hand, Stalin wouldn't have been militarily
> able to overrun Germany before the nuclear age.  Therefore I somehow doubt your
> conclusion.

Interesting. Of course, I was making some big assumptions, one being that in the 
20-30 year period after the conclusion of WW1, a victorious Germany would have 
developed politically pretty much along the same lines as France and the UK, 
therefore not keeping a large standing army or being particularly belligerent. 
Maybe Stalin would have failed if he'd invaded Germany. It would perhaps have 
required unpreparedness on the part of the European powers for him to have 
succeeded, but with no WW2 and a divided America, who's to say Stalin wouldn't 
have been the first to have the nuclear bomb? If he had, London may well have been 
high on his list of targets. The possibilities here are infinite, since everything 
in history tends to affect everything else.

Cheers,
Mark T.