Nazi Germany got its way about Poland

Besides anti-Communism and a right-wing authoritarian regime, one feature Nazi Germany and its Eastern European allies shared was a strongly hostile attitude towards their Jew and Rom minorities. Moreover, due to the territorial losses and population displacements Poland and Romania had suffered, its leaders were eager to ‘free up space’ in their states by getting rid of such unwanted minorities.

Most importantly, Nazi Germany was always on the lookout for an effective solution for what it regarded as its ‘Jew and Gypsy problem’ and ways to fulfill its ambition to Germanize its annexed territories. While forced population transfers to Poland had effectively settled the issue of the Polish minority in West Prussia, Upper Silesia, and Posen, annexation of Bohemia-Moravia had burdened Germany with a sizable Czech population. Nazi leaders deemed only half of them at most were racially and politically suitable for assimilation and sought for a way to get rid of the rest, much like the Jews and Roma. On the other hand, given peacetime conditions, they deemed systematic extermination of undesirable minorities too much of an economic and diplomatic burden and PR risk.

Thanks to ongoing good relations with the Soviets, they found a solution in a deal with Stalin. According to its terms Germany and its Eastern European allies would transfer their Jew, Rom, and Czech minorities to the USSR, and take the German, Pole, and Romanian people from Soviet territory. The Germans were happy with the deal since they planned to use repatriated ethnic Germans to settle their annexed territories, and made similar deals with the Italians and their Eastern European allies to transfer their German minorities. The Poles and the Romanians were reluctant since they feared the demographic changes would entrench Soviet annexation of their lost territories; however they changed their mind when the Nazi leaders told them in case of a victorious conflict with the USSR the Axis states could always reverse them with a new row of ethnic cleansing.

Stalin was strongly suspicious of ‘rootless cosmopolitan’ minorities such as the Jews and Roma, although he expected displaced Czech refugees cut off from their ancestral homeland might integrate with the other Slav nationalities of the USSR without excessive difficulty. In any case, he reasoned out, the Soviet command economy could always find use for a few millions more of exploitable manpower. At best, if they proved politically reliable, the Soviet state could use them to colonize Siberia and Central Asia; at worst, if they proved troublesome, it could feed them to the gulag system. So he accepted the deal.

The population exchange program between the Axis states and the USSR started in earnest, although the numbers involved and logistic difficulties were such it would take several years for completion. Germany and the Eastern European Axis states were fully engaged; Italy preferred to retain its Jew population, but joined the program as it concerned expulsion of the Roma.

By middle 1940, the leaders of the great powers assessed their countries’ situation and tried to plot out a course for the future. Most of them wavered between various possible alternatives.

The leaders of Britain and France greatly feared the alliance of convenience between the revisionist totalitarian powers (Germany, Russia, and Italy, quite possibly joined by Japan) might get entrenched and engage in a joint effort to dismantle and plunder their empires. The Entente powers reluctantly tried to prepare for such a contingency, although they realized they would be terribly hard-pressed to survive, much less win, this kind of fight. An intervention by America would considerably help to balance the scales, but the American public was still strongly isolationist, so the USA, although sympathetic to the Entente cause, shunned any commitment to military help in case of war.

So the British and the French tried to grasp for an alternative. A few were confident the alliance between fascists and communists was ideologically unnatural and geopolitically instable and would eventually collapse. They suggested the democratic powers should just stand back and encourage the totalitarian powers to fight each other to exhaustion. According to their advice the democratic powers should cling to true neutrality in such a clash, or at most only meddle to try and prevent any side from reaping a decisive success. Others instead advocated an active diplomatic effort to break up the totalitarian compact and make an alliance of convenience with either the fascists or the communists against the other side. Opinions differed on the most preferable option but in the end almost everyone that supported this course agreed either kind of alliance would be acceptable.

Hitler had much to be satisfied about recent events: Germany had fulfilled all its immediate territorial claims, completely dismantled the Versailles settlement, and built an adequate alliance system and sphere of influence in Europe. However the Nazi leader saw this as but a stepping stone to fulfill even grander ambitions of continental dominion. One option he faced was to trust the apparent defensive passivity of the Entente powers as an established fact, leave them alone, and engage in his long-standing ambition of a grand anti-Bolshevik and racist crusade to destroy the USSR and conquer and colonize the Russian lands. Perhaps the weak democratic powers might even be persuaded to support Germany in such an endeavor. Alternatively he could let the alliance of convenience with the USSR last longer, and co-opt the Soviets in a joint effort with the Axis powers to conquer and loot the Anglo-French empires. This would allow Germany to eliminate the potential threat of Britain and France, control Western Europe, and recover the lost lands of the HRE for the Germanic Reich.

Much the same way, Stalin had reason to be satisfied from recent developments, since the USSR had considerably expanded its territory with little effort. Now he faced an alternative: he could trust the deal with Nazi Germany would stand and engage in an effort to crush Japan and expand Soviet power in East Asia, or he could remain wary of Hitler and prepare for a clash with the Axis powers. On the other hand, cooperation with the Axis had been quite rewarding so far, and the totalitarian powers faced a potential common enemy in the democratic powers. So as a possible third option quite possibly he might keep Germany friendly and busy by co-opting it in a combined expansionist drive at the expense of Britain and France. As an added benefit this course would allow Soviet Russia to expand southward with the support of powerful allies and fulfill its long-standing ambition of an access to the warm seas.

Mussolini was happy with his recent gains thanks to the alliance with Germany and persuaded to confirm it. He was willing join Hitler as an opportunist partner in any expansionist endeavor the Germans might pick, be it a glorious crusade against Bolshevism or a joint German-Italian-Soviet effort to tear apart Britain and France. The latter option looked even better for him since it would would allow Italy to fulfill its imperial ambitions in the Med with relatively little risk.

Due to ongoing war in China, the Western powers’ increasingly alienated attitude, and a looming strategic confrontation with the USSR, Japan faced a tough choice. One option was to trust the USSR and the democratic powers would remain or busy with affairs in Europe and stay focused on an all-out effort to reap total victory in China; however the Sino-Japanese war looked more and more like a quagmire and the democratic powers seemed increasingly willing to apply economic pressure on Japan about it. Alternatively the Japanese could exploit Chinese weakness to reap a favorable compromise peace and disengage to focus its resources on containment of the Soviet threat. If cooperation between Germany and the USSR broke down, Japan might even join the Axis powers in an anti-Communist front and reap considerable territorial gains in the Far East. Alternatively, if the totalitarian alliance of convenience stood, Japan could profit by joining it and exploit its power to conquer the European colonies in Southeast Asia.

America remained bound to isolationist neutrality and focused on its own strategic interests in the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific, although a growing number was looking at the growing power and aggressiveness of the totalitarian powers with anxiety and fear. Nonetheless, the fact Europe remained in an uneasy peace deprived President Roosevelt of a decent excuse to defy the established two-terms limit precedent. As a consequence, no momentum manifested in the Republican party to draft Wendell Willkie as a dark horse opponent to FDR.

In the Democratic party, Vice President John Nance Garner was too conservative to be deemed an acceptable choice for the nomination by New Deal supporters. A bid by Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace quickly collapsed as he was deemed too radical, especially after the press got leaks about his New Age spiritual beliefs. As a result, the leading candidates for nomination became Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Postmaster General James Farley. Both of them were acceptable choices to FDR, the New Dealers, and the party at large. In the GOP, the leading candidates for nomination were Thomas E. Dewey, who got the support of the moderate, internationalist wing of the party, and Robert A. Taft, an outspoken isolationist that drew the sympathies of the conservative, isolationist faction.

Very much true. A more patient, cautious, and calculating Hitler (C-Hitler for short) after Munich would change a lot of decisions and policies that critically affected the course and outcome of WWII, radically changing the fate of Germany, Europe, and the world. ITTL he already did so, by adjusting his tactics just the little necessary to turn Eastern Europe in an Axis playground w/o forcing reluctant Britain and France to a fight they preferred to avoid. Moreover, he avoided the albatross of large-scale genocide of Europeans. Unwanted minorities (Jews, Roma, West Slavs) are disposed of with the much more acceptable device for pre-WWII standards of forced population transfer to different parts of Eastern Europe or Russia. Their ultimate fate may vary: at worst they just change executioner as Stalin works them to death in the gulag system; at best, and probably more likely, they survive as subjects of the Nazi or Soviet empires until the totalitarian regimes reform or collapse.

C-Hitler would also change other disastrous decisions, such as the Battle of Britain, letting the BEF escape, picking a fight with the USSR while at war with Britain, declaring war to the USA on his own initiative, or starting Barbarossa and then stiffening Soviet resistance by immediately starting to massacre the Soviet peoples. Even if his ultimate aims don't change, he may radically change the equation of war in the East by pretending to be the lesser evil alternative to Stalinism for the duration of the conflict, especially if the Western powers are neutral, Germany keeps normal access to world trade, and faces no tough decisions about which mouths to feed. It is also far from unconceivable a more practical Nazi leadership may relax its racist standards about suitability of conquered peoples for assimilation in the Volk, up to making political loyalty the deciding factor.

As TTL suggests, C-Hitler may practically guarantee Germany's victory by picking a fight with the USSR while the Western powers remain true (or perhaps even sympathetic) neutrals, or alternatively picking a fight with Britain and France and co-opting Stalin as an opportunist ally. In one case, you get a Cold War with the Axis bloc instead of the Soviet one and an Iron Curtain on the Rhine, or even the Atlantic coast if the French quite possibly decide fascism is the wave of the future and switch sides. In the other case, you get a multipolar Cold War between US-dominated Western Hemisphere (the White Dominions in all likelihood merge with the USA as the British Empire is dismantled and Britain crushed into an empty shell), Nazi Europe, Soviet Russia and Middle East, and Japanese East Asia. C-Hitler likely gives up Barbarossa as too risky and exhausting and instead redirects Nazism's grandiose colonization plans to Africa, which still turns out a huge humanitarian disaster, but one much less damaging for the world at large.

Unless Japanese militarists turn out even more stupid and reckless than OTL (and a more cautious German ally could restrain them in various ways), delaying WWII by a year or so with C-Hitler in charge effectively eliminates realistic chances of American intervention in the war. Without the war emergency, FDR would be effectively prevented from staying President after 1940; the New Deal had been controversial enough, if the tries to stay in power against entrenched precedent with no apparent emergency running, there would be widespread fear he was becoming a left-wing populist dictator, and he would be stopped or brought down one way or another, or at least get his hands tied by an hostile Congress. Without him, no other realistic candidate for President in 1940 would be so determined or effective in dragging an isolationist America kicking and screaming to a fight with Germany or Japan.

I picked the more complex PoD of changing Hitler's personality after Munich in order to keep the scenario open-ended about WWII occurring at all. I might have easily picked the much simpler PoD of Hitler's accidental death or assassination (such as Maurice Bavaud getting lucky), but any realistic successor in 1938-40 (such as Goering or a general) would have been much more reluctant to pick a fight with the Entente powers or the USSR, and in all likelihood be satisfied with the outcome described ITTL. Although it is far from unconceivable such a successor might decide for war if he may be reasonably confident of the outcome, such as fighting the USSR with the Western powers as friendly neutrals, or fighting Britain and France with Stalin as an ally.

Admittedly, other kinds of PoD besides a change in Germany's leadership might yield this scenario. Anything that would make Britain or France unable or unwilling to give a military guarantee to Poland, or make the Poles willing to compromise with the Germans (such as a more aggressive Soviet stance, or a leap of insight about their strategic situation being unsustainable) would work as well.

From my utilitarian PoV, it critically depends on whether the pragmatism in means the C-Nazi use to succeed ultimately becomes moderation in ruling and makes their victory a relatively non-destructive one. If despite the change their victory is bought at harsh a price as the OTL Allied one or worse, and they remain as crazy and bloodthirsty as usual, it is a huge, nightmarish net loss, more or less the same as a Stalinist conquest of Eurasia. On the other hand the change might mean they give up genocide in favor of forced cultural assimilation and population transfers to entrench their rule, such rule in the end becomes a stronger version of Fascist Italy or Francoist Spain that stands for a few decades then peacefully reforms or implodes like OTL Communism, and their success is bought by peaceful means or as quick and easy a victory as their OTL 1939-40 successes on a bigger scale. In such a case, I'd say it is not so terrible. Moderate right-wing authoritarianism, if it can contain the corruption problem within reasonable limits, is often not so destructive to its subjects, notably less so than Communism or religious fundamentalism.

As I see it, OTL outcome of WWII was fairly dystopic, a victory over fascism bought at the price of tens of millions dead, a devastated continent, and decades of Stalinist rule over half of it. Paying this price to prevent Generalplan Ost and Himmlerite madness (the Holocaust happened anyway) was one thing. I'm not so persuaded it would have been worth it if the only gain is 30-40 extra years of liberal democracy for the areas the Anglo-Americans conquered, esp. if I consider how OTL Iberia turned out. Also because from my practical cosmopolitan PoV, ethnic-linguistic national identities and sovereignty are ultimately meaningless and often harmful, and forced population transfers not really different from immigration caused by wars, natural disasters, economic hardship, or political oppression. It also depends a lot on whether their rule taints the cause of European unity and becomes a source of its failure and further strife when it ends (as it happened with pre-WWI and Communist multi-ethnic states) or becomes a groundwork to entrench it even after reform or regime change (like premodern nation-building).

I wrote the scenario to keep its outcome open-ended about the occurence and character of WWII for the sake of making it more interesting, although it is inevitably biased in favor of an Axis success. I may state that TTL 1939-40 events helps build a precedent that makes the most dystopian outcomes less likely, since the C-Nazis are getting accustomed to be more practical than OTL in their policies and use different means than genocide to entrench the facts on the ground they like. With a little luck, the Holocaust may be already prevented for good and the Slavs are going to experience no worse a fate than learning German at gunpoint. If one wants to make the less dystopic outcome even less likely, simply shift the PoD from 'Post-Munich Hitler gets a practical personality change' to 'Hitler dies after Munich'. Pretty much all realistic successors in 1938-40 were going to be more moderate w/o Hitler's influence than a realistic less radical version of Hitler. Notably, their racism was less extreme, they would be satisfied with the gains achieved ITTL, they would have no real urge to pick a fight with the Western powers or the USSR for further gains, and they would rule more or less the same way as Mussolini or Franco. I kept him around with a little brain transplant to leave the possibility of WWII open since he was more or less the only 1930s German leader with a realistic chance of getting supreme command that would wish to go further after completely dismantling Versailles in Germany's favor.      

More or less, yes. ITTL it already happened, only instead of Madagascar, practical circumstances dictate the Jews, Roma, and those West Slavs deemed unsuitable for assimilation or vassallage got sent to the USSR (or Axis Poland in the Poles' case). I happen to subscribe to the functionalist historical school about the origins of the Holocaust, according to which the original Nazi plan to dispose of their unwanted minorities was mass deportation, it took a gradual radicalization process driven by wartime circumstances for them to escalate to systematic genocide. ITTL external circumstances and C-Hitler leadership are favorable to them sticking to the original plan (the Madagscar solution was but one potential deportation scheme among several). All historical evidence points to the fact if pre-WWII Hitler had found a country willing and able to take his Jews w/o making him pay through the nose, he would have signed the immigration deal in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, the harsh realities of the Great Depression and global anti-Semitism meant there was none until too late. Although a few cases came close, such as a couple minor Latin American countries and ironically Japanese Manchukuo. ITTL the Jews are not yet wholly safe (things might still go bad if their arrival makes Stalin paranoid enough to involve them in his mass purges, or Barbarossa still occurs and circumstances make the Nazis relapse in their OTL patterns instead of using deportation again) but chances are they are going to live.  

I'm no WWII armchair general, so I can only offer you a few generalities (no pun intended) and ideas. Almost surely, his pragmatic personality change means he's going to avoid at least a few of his most egregious weapons planning mistakes, much as he does in the diplomatic and strategic field, as long as they occurred after the late 1938 PoD. As a rule, he's going to expect and plan for fighting either Soviet Russia with the Western powers eating popcorn or the British Empire with the USSR as an opportunist ally, never both at once.

If the former, it may mean limiting naval buildup to keep the British at ease, trying to optimize army and air force for war in the East, making good use of unrestricted access to world markets, trying to raise allies' armies to the German quality standard (ITTL Germany effectively swaps Sovietized Finland for Axis Poland, a second Romania), trying to persuade the Japanese to pick a Northern strategy, binding the Wehrmacht to WWI best behavior in the East, and recruiting the Soviet nationalities unhappy with Stalinist rule as willing auxiliaries. The closer C-Nazi Germany comes to regard assimilation or vassallage in decent conditions for collaborationists the standard deal for all subject peoples, the better.

The standard you are competing with is the Holodomor, it's not that difficult to do better. Keep the racist loonies busy devising new creative reasons why all your allies and collaborationists have blood ties to Germans or something, and being a partisan or saboteur is the only reliable standard to spot an 'untermensch'. Gather all available evidence of Stalinist atrocities and feed it to your propaganda machine for the world to see, use it to justify your claim your alliance is on a crusade for European civilization.

If the latter, it may mean keeping just enough military power in the East to keep Stalin from getting funny ideas, and optimizing the rest of the Wehrmacht for a Mediterranean strategy. Close strategic cooperation with the Italians in the Med, and as much as feasible with the Soviets in the Middle East, is the rule of the day. Co-opt Spain and Vichy France as willing allies by giving them a decent place in the new order. If and only if defeats in Europe, the Med, and the Middle East and the hopelessness of total war against a German-Soviet-Italian-Spanish-Vichy French coalition are not enough to crush British will to fight, try harness the industrial power of Europe and the resources of Russia to build enough air-naval power to overwhelm Britain with a bombing and blockade campaign.

In any case, go out of your way to avoid any diplomatic provocation or naval incident whatsoever with the USA, and be mindful of 1917. Tell the Japanese in no uncertain terms they are welcome to grab the Russian Far East or the European colonies in Southeast Asia as the case may be, but the Americans are isolationist unless provoked, politically cannot backstab Japan on their own initiative, and if Japan even looks funny to US ships or territory, the other Axis powers are gonna hang it to dry.

If it comes to Japan doing a Pearl Harbor, almost surely. But ITTL there are good reasons why the Pacific War may never happen. In Scenario A, the Axis-Soviet war with the Western powers eating popcorn, the Japanese occupation of French Indochina and the resulting American embargo are not going to happen, and the whole event chain that led to Pearl Harbor is averted. American-Japanese relations stay frozen to 1937-39 standards, quite tense because of the Sino-Japanese war but not escalating to economic warfare. At most the Japanese may join the Euro-Axis in its action against the USSR, but the Americans are not going to be concerned about it, or may even be slightly relieved if intervention in alt-Barbarossa leads Japan to lessen pressure against China. Their attitude is going to be true neutrals eating popcorn and wishing a pox on both houses, or even regarding the Euro-Axis as the lesser evil if its propagenda machine does a good job of publicizing Stalinist crimes. In scenario B, Axis-Soviet team-up against the British Empire, Hitler and Stalin can neutralize the effects of US economic warfare against Japan, and pressure the Japanese in not doing anything against the USA, by trading Japanese access to Soviet resources on favorable terms for a defensive attitude in the Pacific. For that matter TTL Axis can probably use DEI resources as well, since ITTL it is likely the Dutch go Vichy out of the overwhelming power of the Axis and the hopelessness of the British cause. Last but not least, FDR is not in the White House after 1940, any other realistic option for President (Wallace has no chance) is going to be less implacably driven to pick a fight with the Axis and a pro-Soviet 'useful idiot' than him.  

Pretty much. In Scenario A, they are going to keep their pre-WWII stance. In Scenario B, totalitarian conquest of the Old World is inevitable going to rouse America to a Cold War stance, but I'm skeptical in absence of any Pearl Harbor provocation the Americans are going to pick a terribly uphill fight with the Axis-Soviet colosso to try and save the hide of the British Empire. Much like 1984's three-way endless war, it's a conflict neither side can reap a decisive victory in, the super-Axis cannot invade North America and the USA cannot invade Europe, any attempt to pull a Torch or an Overlord would become another Gallipoli. America could only win by nuking Europe and Russia at large, but such a possibility is unknown to the American electorate. It is much more likely the USA reacts to totalitarian triumph in Eurasia by absorbing the White Dominions once Britain goes down in flames, forming a NATO equivalent with Latin America, and gearing up to fight a Cold War against Commie-Nazi Eurasia.