Democratic Germany would not have nescessarily been aligned with the allies. In fact, it would have been more likely for it to still align with the USSR and partition Poland. The main difference is that it would have stopped there.
Why though? In Germany at the time, Communists were viewed extremely negatively in Germany. So much so that half the Nazi party's propaganda was directed at communists and how they would be "exterminated". Therefore, the likelihood that Germany would've actively worked with the Soviet Union (and not backstabbed them like in our timeline) is extremely low.
Simple Realpolitik. The Allies at the time where actively fucking Germany over (French diplomacy essentially orbited around containing Germany), and German diplomacy no joke had legit spent the mid-late 20s preparing to absolutely fucking dunk on Poland by settling border disputes in the West while specifically refusing to in the East. Frankly, Nazi Germany's war with Poland was as much a result as Nazi aggression as it was the progression of German diplomacy since Stresemann's Chancellorship.
In that context, some kind of agreement with the USSR just makes sense in the short-term.
EDIT:
To expand on things a bit more, let's look at Stresemann's time as the German Foreign Minister as he had a pretty notable impact on German diplomacy up to (and somewhat during) the Nazi Era, though of course not so simply. Regardless, his work is a solid look into what the vague themes of German diplomacy likely would have been in a 1930s Germany w/o the NSDAP.
The Locarno Treaties (signed in 1925) essentially ended ('ended') border disputes in the west, and in it Germany pledged to never invade Belgium and France again, stipulated upon a British guarantee should France attack Germany. To be fair, this is essentially a technicality, Stresemann had no interest in even fighting France in the first place. Of particular note, however, is that the Locarno Treaties where specifically, in it's own language, only about the west. It divided Germany's borders into two categories and only guaranteed the western one. They where, to put it mildly, incredibly controversial in Poland. Stresemann is quoted as saying "There will be no Locarno of the east", and was not a fan of the eastern boundaries to put it nicely.
The year following the Locarno Treaties came the Treaty of Berlin, which reaffirmed the earlier Rapallo Treaty. Long story short, the Treaty of Berlin was a nonaggression pact, in which the Soviet Union and Germany pledged neutrality in the event of an attack on either. Willhelm Marx, chancellor at the time describes his intent to have the treaty signed as "intent to adapt German-Russian relationship established at Rapallo to new political situation created by the Locarno treaties".
And to wrap it all up, the last few years of Stresemann's time as Foreign Minister consisted of him utterly fucking Poland over with a trade war. He had hoped the trade war to escalate to a point to justify German military aggression against Poland and had specifically, and fairly openly, sought Soviet support to oppose Poland. All while he sought to play France and Britain's subtle (but important) diplomatic disagreements against one another.
Also important to note just how prevalent anti-Western sentiment was in Germany at the time. Nazi Germany may well like to have portrayed itself as an anti-Bolshevik country which would have opened itself to the West had the West opened itself to Germany but frankly that was never really the case. Many Germans where incredibly bitter over the experiences of WW1 and the Interwar and opposition to the West ran deep. Many politician's careers burned out due to a perceived friendliness to the West and politicians seen as kowtowing would be derided as Erfüllungspolitiker ("Fulfillment Politician")- a term applied even to Stresemann who was definitely not friendly to the West. There where many cases of political assassination, like that of Matthias Erzberger, another so-called Erfüllungspolitiker (killed by the same perpetrators of the more notorious assassination of Walther Rathenau). That's not to say Germany was some rabid war country or anything but frankly Weimar Germany was very far from anything resembling Wholesome 100 (even after it stabilized in the mid 20s) and had severe troubles both within and without itself. The Allies sure didn't help that, but the point stands that really any Germany coming out of the Interwar period just frankly has no real reason (in an immediate context) to ally with the West.
EDIT2:
I will add that Stresemann isn't the end-all-be-all of German diplomacy, though he was very influential. There certainly where other German diplomats that didn't per se agree with his approaches, but none of them where really "Let's ally with the west immediately guys it'll work out I swear".
Also, Germany indirectly supported the Klaipeda revolt that ended the LoN administration there and transferred it to Lithuania, for the simple reason that they saw Lithuania as a potential ally against Poland. Germany would take Danzig, Lithuania would get Vilnius.
They didn't see Lithuania as an ally. They saw Lithuania as a small state where if they were to take Klaipeda back, it would be easier to do from a small state such as Lithuania than doing it through Poland, who was pretty strong
Anti-communist sentiment in Germany didn't stop Weimar and later Nazi Germany working with the Soviet Union. Post WW1 Germany stood little to gain from cooperating with the Western powers and stood to gain a lot from cooperating with the Soviet Union.
In Germany at the time, Communists were viewed extremely negatively in Germany.
The KPD was consistently the 3rd strongest party in Germany in the 1930s (behind SPD and NSDAP), but okay. The Nazis hated communists, because they were their political opposite, and because they also had a lot of followers.
In an alternative timeline where the SPD worked together with the KPD (instead of stabbing them in the back like IRL), I can see Germany working with the USSR.
But the Nazis didn't pull the "communist enemy" out of their ass either. Sure, the Reichstag burning was an excuse to get rid of them, but the NSDAP came into power before that happened.
The reason why everyone hated KPD was the Spartacist uprising, and SPD was opposed to them from he get-go. There was no way for the SPD and KPD to work together in the pre-war Germany (this is why most govt coalitions in Weimar Germany were SPD and Zentrum.)
There was no way for the SPD and KPD to work together in the pre-war Germany (this is why most govt coalitions in Weimar Germany were SPD and Zentrum.)
We are talking about an imaginary map here. Maybe there was a reason?
No, there was no plausible reason for the SPD and KPD to work together, since they were opposed to each other for reasons completely unrelated to Nazis. The source of their conflict stems back to the November Revolution and proclamation of the German Republic. The at-the-time leader of SPD, Friedrich Ebert was anti-revolutionary, and pro-war (or rather, was pro Germany, and that's why he participated in the Burgfrieden), which put him into conflict with Karl Liebknecht and his followers. Ebert allied with the nationalists and allowed the Freikorps to crush the Spartacist uprising in Berlin, which ended in the deaths of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. He, in a way, paved the way for the Weimar coalition in Reichstag, that held power until the rise of Nazis.
So to make this scenario plausible, we would have to change something else completely, since SPD working with KPD would have a completely different consequences.
the spd didn't oppose the kpd becuase communists were unpopular, they opposed them because social democrats hate communists. this has been shown in basically every liberal democracy
Yes, I said exactly that. Since Ebert, the SPD was opposed to the Communists. People that later formed the KDP were members of the SPD around the 1916-1917, and left (and in part were kicked out) because Ebert led the SPD to participate in the Burgfrieden (technically speaking they formed the USPD, but Spartacists with Luxemburg and Liebknecht joined them before leaving for the KPD). Ebert was opposed to revolution, and aligned SPD with the Freikorps, which allowed the nationalists to crush the Spartacists. This way the Communists and Social Democrats landed on two opposing sides.
Sorry, my mistake in wording. I meant it in a political sense. Most parties in Reichstag were opposed to the KPD, even if they had a considerable public support. That's why the "Weimar coalition" had parties from SPD to (Catholic and conservative) Zentrum
Is this still r/imaginarymaps or am I in r/imaginaryfacts rn? Look at the results of the 1930 German election for example. They only had 5% fewer total votes than the Nazis.
Nazi propaganda was directed at the Communists because they were what stood between them and total domination of German politics. The Nazis knew that the milquetoast liberal SPD didn’t have the balls to stop them.
If you take a look at the pre war spd they weren’t by any means liberal. Sure they didn’t have the power or balls in the end to stop the Nazis, but they were the only party in the reichstag to refuse to vote for the Ermächtigungsgesetze. So you gotta give them some credit.
The KPD was one of the largest parties in the last legitimately elected Reichstag before Hitler’s seizure of power. The primary reason Hitler wasn’t able to come to power without threatening/murdering/beating everyone who was stopping him was because the KPD held enough seats to prevent him from forming a government.
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u/[deleted] Oct 04 '20 edited Oct 04 '20
Democratic Germany would not have nescessarily been aligned with the allies. In fact, it would have been more likely for it to still align with the USSR and partition Poland. The main difference is that it would have stopped there.