Consistent with my running theme, it’s yet another cover for The Man in the High Castle, in this case the Penguin Modern Classics edition (fair use)
But wait – there’s more!
I ranked my Top 10 WW2 combatants by their alternate history scenarios, in terms of historical plausibility, or even more so, in terms of fantasy and SF – because alternate history scenarios for WW2 itself are more prolific or thematic in fantasy or SF than in historical plausibility.
Wait – WW2 alternate history is all German victory scenarios?
Always has been.
Well not quite but Germany took the top spot or god tier, because WW2 alternate history is almost all German victory scenarios, with the other combatants as footnotes – albeit with Britain and the US in top tier, if only because that’s where most WW2 alternate history fiction is written (and set).
So yes – I ranked all the major WW2 combatants, even including France, Italy and China, as well as Poland and Australia thrown in to round out the top ten.
But as I said, there’s more – enough for my usual twenty special mentions per top ten. There’s more WW2 combatants – although to be honest most individual minor WW2 combatants don’t rank highly enough in alternate history for separate special mention, hence this list might be regarded more as WW2 participants.
So there’s combatants but also neutral nations and collective continental or regional entries – as well as my usual weirder and wilder special mentions towards the end, although to be honest all these entries would rank in my wild tier.
(1) VATICAN CITY
“The Pope! How many divisions has he got?”
Quite a few it seems, at least in alternate, counterfactual or speculative history.
Yes, I’m as surprised as you are that the Vatican should rank as highly as my top special mention but there you have it. I was tempted to put it in god-tier because, you know, it’s the Vatican, but I’m afraid I can’t rank it in Germany’s god-tier for WW2 alternate history.
The answer to Stalin’s rhetorical question, if he said it, is of course none, as is intended by the rhetorical question, but the Vatican had the metaphorical divisions of its moral authority which is the focus of alternate, counterfactual or speculative history.
The Vatican was of course neutral in WW2, but its role has been the subject of historical debate – from virtual accusations of alignment with the Axis, through inaction or silence, to aiding the Allied cause or at least opposing the Axis. Alternate or counterfactual history tends to lean into that last one.
Alternate or speculative history kicks into overload with the German occupation of Italy in 1943, with contemporary rumors of a German plot to kidnap the pope. John Grigg approached 1943 from the other side in his book 1943: The Victory That Never Was. Grigg’s thesis is that the Allies should have substituted an invasion of France in 1943 for the one in Italy but also has other criticisms of the latter – including not using Vatican City as a neutral venue to negotiate the Italian surrender.
But the Vatican isn’t winning the war in any alternate history…or is it?
Despite the title of Frederic Mullally’s alternate history H!tler Has Won, it’s the Vatican that wins in the end. Well, to be accurate, it’s more what is in effect a rogue Vatican agent playing his own psyops – which the Vatican officially disowns but secretly applauds.
And that psyops is essentially driving H!tler crazy – feeding his megalomania, already high on the victory of the title from Operation Barbarossa launched early, all the way to heaven with the ultimate hubris of crowning himself pope. His nemesis follows shortly after that – with civil war in Germany and a recovery of Allied fortune. It’s not too plausible but it is a ripping yarn and an absolute hoot to boot.
(2) CANADA
Canada plays a similar role in alternate or counterfactual history as it did in Britain’s contingency plans for the event of German invasion or occupation in actual history – the potential seat of the British government or royalty in exile, aligned with the United States.
Canada is also worth mentioning as a planned front for War Plan Red, one of the US color-coded war plans in the interwar period – in this case for a hypothetical war against the British Empire.
(3) INDIA
India’s position in any alternate or counterfactual history where Germany defeats Britain is more precarious than that of Canada. India was potentially within reach for invasion and occupation, most plausibly by Japan, but potentially Germany in less plausible scenarios – or even the Soviet Union, which is where Germany sought to divert Soviet attention away from Europe during their pact.
A German occupation of India was used by Harry Turtledove in “The Last Article”, essentially as a pretext for the alternate history of how Gandhi’s non-violent resistance would have fared against the Naz!s instead of Britain. Spoiler alert – not well.
(4) FINLAND
While Finland doesn’t pop up often in WW2 alternate history fiction, I still rank it as special mention here.
Firstly, because I’d like to see an alternate history scenario in which Finland somehow emerges as the supreme victor of the war.
Secondly, because Finland meets my usual criteria for alternate history rankings – that the actual outcome seems more unlikely than the alternatives. Not so much Finland being defeated, but Finland being defeated and avoiding Soviet occupation – twice.
Thirdly, Finland was the subject of an alternate history scenario during the war itself – the Anglo-French plans for intervention in the Winter War, via the transit of forces through Norway and Sweden, with the latter often seeming the bigger goal than actually helping Finland. Fortunately but not surprisingly, those plans came to nothing, as Britain and France would have found themselves fighting Germany and the Soviet Union at the same time.
(5) ICELAND
While officially neutral and using the opportunity of the war to declare its independence from Denmark, Iceland was occupied first by British forces and then by American forces. However, Iceland was another subject of an alternate history scenario during the war itself – Operation Ikarus, the planned German invasion of Iceland after the British occupied it in the wake of the German occupation of Denmark. Not surprisingly, they wrote it off as having little prospect of success.
As H.P. Willmott opines, the better option might have been for Germany to plan it at the same time as invading Denmark and Norway. Willmott ranks Germany as having good prospects for taking it, but not so much holding on to it.
(6) IRELAND
Ireland was effectively buffered by Britain as long as the latter held out, so leant towards helping the Allies on the sly while remaining neutral.
Hence Ireland doesn’t pop up too often of itself in alternate history but is obviously in a precarious position in any scenario where Germany defeats Britain, unless perhaps it somehow allied with Germany while avoiding British pre-emptive or retaliatory action prior to Britain’s defeat.
As it was, Ireland was the subject of both German and British planned invasions.
In fairness, the German plans – aptly called Operation Green – was essentially hypothetical, even more so than Operation Sea Lion for the invasion of Britain, such that it is usually thought to have been deception to mislead the British.
The British planned more thoroughly for their Plan W as a response to any German invasion of Ireland and in cooperation with the Irish government rather than an invasion as such – although one wonders if the British would have gone in anyway with or without Irish cooperation.
In fairness to the British, they did propose another alternate history scenario to Ireland, albeit probably something of a poisoned chalice for the Irish government – ending the partition of Ireland and hence a united Ireland if Ireland abandoned its neutrality and joined Britain in the war against Germany and Italy.
(7) SPAIN
The neutral nation of WW2 that arguably had the biggest and most concrete alternate history scenario during the actual war – a key role in the proposed German “Mediterranean Strategy” against Britain, obviously in the western Mediterranean.
It doesn’t get much bigger than H!tler himself meeting with Franco at Hendaye (on the French side of the Spanish-French border) on 23 October 1940 to enlist Spain on Germany’s side – particularly for Germany’s planned Operation Felix to capture Gibraltar, sealing off the western Mediterranean from the British as an “Axis lake”.
While Franco was obviously supportive of the Axis that had effectively won his civil war for him, Spain was still exhausted from that same civil war and lacked the ability to, you know, actually fight in the world war (but for the volunteer “Blue” Division it provided for Barbarossa).
Franco was so obstructive, making such extortionate demands for Spanish participation, that H!tler complained afterwards he’d rather have teeth pulled than speak to Franco again.
(8) MALTA
Independent from 1964 onwards, Malta was a British Crown Colony in WW2. Although it was and remains small, both in area and population – yet curiously exporting a disproportionate number of hot girls to my acquaintance – it punches well above its weight for WW2 alternate history thanks to yet another planned scenario during the actual war.
And that is of course Operation Herkules – the German (and Italian) plans to capture Malta, both to deprive Britain of one of its most significant bases in the Mediterranean and to improve the supply lines to their own forces in north Africa (as those supply lines were diminished by British forces operating from Malta).
(9) TURKEY
From Spain at the western end of the Mediterranean, we go to the other significant neutral nation in the Mediterranean at its eastern end – Turkey. Despite Turkey being an ally of Germany in WW1, it didn’t have the same alternate history scenarios during the actual war as Spain.
It was courted as an ally by both sides, but they and Turkey itself ultimately preferred Turkish neutrality (until Turkey finally declared war on Germany in February 1945). Ironically, Britain’s Churchill was the most enthusiastic in courting Turkey as an ally – which one might infer as a recurring fixation with the Balkans as the road to victory in both world wars, going all the way back to his ill-fated Gallipoli campaign in WW1.
There was also Germany’s planned Operation Gertrude for an invasion of Turkey in 1942 – probably pie in the sky but abandoned in any event
(10) SWITZERLAND
Yeah, Switzerland is not looking too safe in any alternate history German victory scenario, despite its proverbial neutrality. A neighboring nation with German speakers? Germany’s having none of that!
In the actual war, Germany had Operation Tannenbaum, the planned invasion of Switzerland (also with Italy?!) – apparently from France’s surrender onwards, albeit repeatedly putting it on the backburner until it was abandoned altogether.
Interestingly, Switzerland was the neutral nation to escape German occupation in Europe in Robert Harris’ alternate history novel Fatherland – because when the time came round, it was more convenient for Germany and the US in their cold war with each other to exploit Switzerland’s neutrality.
(11) PHILIPPINES
“We’re the battling bastards of Bataan,
No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam,
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces,
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces,
And nobody gives a damn.”
But could things have turned out differently for Bataan or the rest of the Philippines? That’s essentially the whole reason for this special mention, as I’ve always felt for the American and Filippino defenders, dogged and doomed as they were.
And yeah – probably not too much. They could certainly have done better for a more prolonged defence but that’s about it. War Plan Orange, the American plan for war against Japan (which became part of the larger Rainbow Five Plan as the basis for American strategy in WW2) always anticipated the defenders in the Philippines as a holding force – one likely to fall before the American navy slowly mobilized and fought its way across the Pacific to relieve them (or more likely liberate them), even without the attack on Pearl Harbor.
(12) VIETNAM
This alternate history special mention for Vietnam is not so much for WW2 – where it is difficult to see things going any other way for Vietnam as part of French Indochina taken over by Japan – but for avoiding the Vietnam War afterwards, particularly for the Americans.
What if the Americans had opposed the restoration of French colonialism or supported Vietnamese independence a la OSS officer Archimedes Patti?
What if the United States followed through on FDR offering French Indochina as a territory to Chiang Kai-Shek? It probably would have ended up with China fighting against the Vietnamese – and possibly accelerating the Nationalist defeat in the civil war against the communists – which is why Chiang Kai-Shek declined it. As it was, Chinese forces occupied the northern Vietnam above the 16th parallel (while British forces occupied the southern part below the parallel) as agreed by the Allies.
(13) NORWAY & BALKANS
Look, there’s probably a few WW2 alternate history scenarios for Norway and the Balkans, but this special mention is entirely for them in the actual war as possible substitutes proposed for the Allied landings in France.
Of course, those proposals mostly came from Churchill, while everyone else ignored them or adapted them to deception in Operation Bodyguard for virtually every part of the European coastline except Normandy to mask the true target of Allied landings.
No, seriously, as part of Operation Bodyguard you had Operation Fortitude with the deception of Allied landings in Norway and the Pas-de-Calais, Operation Ironside with the deception of Allied landings in the Bay of Biscay (particularly near Bordeaux), Operation Graffham not really doing much to pretend to target Sweden, Operation Royal Flush pretending to target Spain and Turkey, and Operation Zeppelin doing the same for Greece and southern France.
However, the deception for Allied landings in Norway reflected various genuine proposals by Churchill, of which the most concrete was Operation Jupiter, but consistently rejected by military leaders as a hiding to nothing – with Alan Brooke commenting that they never found out why Churchill “wanted to go back (to Norway) and what he was going to do there”.
Famously, Churchill also proposed allied landings in the Balkans instead of Normandy, again sensibly rejected by everyone else as only marginally more realistic than Norway and likely to be a slog as bad as or worse than in Italy – even if more politically astute to the problems posed by Soviet occupation in eastern Europe.
(14) AFRICA – MADAGASCAR
Special WW2 alternate history mention for Africa in general and Madagascar in particular.
Firstly, Africa.
Africa was of course a battlefield in the actual war – famously in north Africa but also in east Africa which everyone forgets. Africans were also combatants within British forces and perhaps even more so the Free French, with France’s African colonies providing the first rallying point for and nucleus of Free French forces.
Africa’s prospects are usually dire in alternate history scenarios of German victory, typically with Germany (and Italy) taking over European colonies to radically reshape Africa with a vengeance, including the same policies of population extermination as they did in Europe. Again, The Man in the High Castle is the classic example.
Secondly, the Vichy French colony of Madagascar – as it was the subject of two hypothetical plans or scenarios in the actual war.
The most famous is the Madagascar Plan by Germany to relocate the European Jewish population to Madagascar – a plan so obviously ludicrous, even in terms of its own logistics (let alone continued British opposition to Germany) that it is difficult to see it as anything other than a flimsy pretext for the plan they ultimately pursued.
The other was the scenario that prompted Britain to capture Madagascar from Vichy France in 1942 – the Japanese capture of Madagascar or its ports to turn the Indian Ocean into a “Japanese lake”, a scenario that one can’t help but feel was a missed opportunity for Japan.
(15) LATIN AMERICA – PANAMA & URUGUAY
Yeah…Latin America tends to turn out not too differently in WW2 alternate history, except perhaps with more regimes aligned or trading with Germany, but I thought I’d better give it special mention since I’ve mentioned virtually everywhere else.
This reflects that Latin America was on the periphery of the war (except for one naval battle between Britain and Germany fought off the coast of Uruguay), or indeed the interests of any combatant in the war except the United States.
Sure, the nations of Latin America aligned with the United States to declare war against the Axis – with Argentina and Chile coming in last in March and April 1945 – but the only one that actually did anything of substance was Brazil, sending an expeditionary force that fought in Italy (and Mexico sending an air squadron that fought in the Philippines).
That also reflects the lack of any German plans in Latin America beyond intelligence – with the exceptions of its cancelled Operation Pelikan to bomb the Panama Canal and a weird foiled invasion plan to colonize Uruguay before the war.
(16) H0L0CAUST
Yes, we’re no longer looking at combatants as such, but let’s face it – this is the elephant in the room for any WW2 alternate history German victory scenario.
Essentially, such scenarios tend to involve it extending beyond the limits, such as they were, imposed by German defeat in actual history – typically to the extent of German invasion or occupation, potentially even to a global extent. That includes the United States as occupied by Germany in The Man in the High Castle.
In Fatherland, it is largely to the same geographic extent in Europe as it was in actual history, except that they were able to complete it – with the plot revolving around it as a secret hidden afterwards so it doesn’t jeopardize détente in the cold war between Germany and the United States.
It also plays its part in counterfactual alternate history. Probably the biggest question in alternate history is whether it had any impact on the war’s outcome, particularly whether Germany would have won without it. While it is tempting to think that it cost Germany logistics and resources that might been committed elsewhere – as indeed has been argued in books such as H0l0caust vs Wehrmacht by Yaron Pasher – it sadly does not seem clear whether it made a substantial difference. On the other hand, the next biggest question is whether the Allies could have done anything for any substantial difference or impact on its outcome, apart of course from defeating Germany quicker.
(17) ATOMIC BOMB
The mushroom cloud in the room of WW2 alternate history. Typically, any WW2 alternate history German victory scenario involves Germany getting it, if only as a cold war standoff against the United States.
Not as typically but often enough in WW2 alternate history, the nukes start flying. The Big One by Stuart Slade is perhaps the classic example, but Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar series also sees the nukes start flying, just not as much (or as literally). And it’s perhaps an exaggeration to say that the nukes start flying in John Birmingham’s Axis of Time trilogy, but they certainly pop up – as they do in other alternate history.
(18) COLD WAR
The other elephant in the room of WW2 alternate history. Typically, WW2 alternate history substitutes a different cold war involving a victorious Germany – such as the cold war between Germany and Japan in The Man in the High Castle, or the cold war between Germany and the US in Fatherland.
It’s a recurring question in counterfactual alternate history whether the western Allies could have done anything to diminish Soviet occupation in Europe (or Asia) and hence diminish the Cold War – with perhaps the most extreme being planned by the British Chiefs of Staff under Churchill as Operation Unthinkable for war against the Soviets in 1945.
(19) FOURTH REICH
And now we get weird, with the wilder WW2 alternate history German victory scenarios – except not Germany but its successor state in exile or underground (sometimes literally), the proverbial Fourth Reich.
Bonus points if it involves Adolf H!tler somehow escaping Berlin at the end of the war – or cloned (or resurrected, but that’s getting to the next entry as my wildest entry of all).
It has some basis in actual history, in plans for ongoing German resistance, or even more, members of the regime escaping from Germany, most notoriously to South America. Hence South America is a common venue for the Fourth Reich.
Then we get the more exotic venues. Antarctica is commonly proposed and surprisingly mundane compared to others, such as the Hollow Earth or some other subterranean location (often accessed through Antarctica). Perhaps the most amusing are those off Earth entirely, involving Naz! UFOs – such as the far side of the moon in the Iron Sky film.
(20) ALIEN SPACE BATS & TIME TRAVELLERS
The alien space bats always win!
“Alien space bats” (or “ASB”) is the term coined “for plot devices in alternate history to mean an implausible point of divergence” (from our own history)
Not literally alien space bats – well, not usually anyway – but similarly implausible SF or fantasy plot devices. And yes, needless to say, if they’re powerful enough to change history, they usually win.
Not always, however, contrary to my opening quip – sometimes we manage to pull a fast one on them, even when they intend to use us as pawns.
As they pop up surprisingly often in alternate history in general, they also pop up surprisingly often in WW2 alternate history. Indeed, the term was originally coined (by Usenet user Alison Brooks in 1998) as a joke about the implausibility of Germany pulling off Operation Sea Lion, its planned cross-channel invasion of Britain – that Germany could have done it “only if they had the help of alien space bats”.
Time travellers also recur surprisingly often as the alien space bats in alternate WW2 history, albeit not as often as they recur to assassinate or target H!tler.
But hang on, I hear you say, don’t I normally reserve my twentieth and final special mention for whatever kinky entry I can squeeze out of a subject? Even with alien space bats, this doesn’t seem too kinky an entry.
Or is it?
Well, no – but perhaps it might have been with some Naz!sploitation, a short-lived subgenre of exploitation films, of which the most influential and famous was Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS, a 1974 film about the titular depraved female camp commandant. Of course, such films were usually set against the backdrop of history rather than changing it – I don’t see Ilsa winning the war, as amusing as that might be as an alternate history scenario. Perhaps if she led a whole army of depraved she-wolves…?
