Comments on: What things would we not have today had we lost World War 1 or 2?

Question: What things would we not have today had we lost World War 1 or 2?

ndaguiar — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:03:26 -0800

What things would we not have today had we lost World War 1 or 2?

I am a teacher in a high school in the UK and am leading a whole school assembly for Remembrance Day.

I have been given the usual suggestions by other staff about remembering the sacrifices made for us to protect our freedoms. This got me thinking, what tangible things might we not have if we (the allies) had lost either of the World Wars.

For example, we probably would not have experienced any films made by Steven Spielberg due to his religious background.

Are there any other films, music, foods, customs that people might suggest?

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:13:52 -0800

Jews, banana breakfast.

By: paulsc

paulsc — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:14:34 -0800

Once you start unraveling causality, there's no stopping. If we'd lost WWII, Styron wouldn't have written Sophie's Choice, but there wouldn't have been a Hiroshima, and no Cold War, either.

By: thirteenkiller

thirteenkiller — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:18:30 -0800

If we had lost WWI, we wouldn't have had WWII.

By: DrSkrud

DrSkrud — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:19:31 -0800

There wouldn't be any Godzilla movies.

By: jozxyqk

jozxyqk — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:19:35 -0800

No nuking Japan means no Godzilla, or any of the messed-up anime that's just a big metaphor for nuclear war.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:20:24 -0800

Modern digital computers, modern cryptography, information theory, Jews, banana breakfast.

By: different

different — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:24:19 -0800

Sorry to derail, but what on earth is banana breakfast and what has it got to do with the outcome of WWII? I really have no idea.

By: Faint of Butt

Faint of Butt — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:26:18 -0800

If the Allies had lost WWII, there would be no speculative fiction wondering what would have happened if the Allies had lost WWII.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:31:00 -0800

Banana breakfast is the culinary masterpiece described at the start of Gravity's Rainbow, arguably one of the most important novels of the second half of the 20th century, and certainly one of the best to take WWII as a backdrop.

By: thirteenkiller

thirteenkiller — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:32:46 -0800

If we hadn't won WWII, the US wouldn't have gotten rich off Europe's weakened post-war economy. Without this "world trade," there wouldn't have been a World Trade Center. Also there would be no Israel. No World Trade Center + no Israel = no 9/11. Without 9/11, we wouldn't have been spurred into action against evildoers, so evildoers would probably rule the world right now.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:52:26 -0800

different writes "Sorry to derail, but what on earth is banana breakfast and what has it got to do with the outcome of WWII?"

It's a great scene early on Gravity's Rainbow. Bananas are scarce in London during the war (in part because many banana plantations are occupied by the Japanese, and because shipping has been allocated to war materiel), but some pilots contrive to get a lot of bananas and put off mortality with a blow-out breakfast. Pynchon describes them making dozens of different dishes utilizing bananas.

By: eleongonzales

eleongonzales — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 06:54:49 -0800

No cold war? No US? United Cuban States or someting...

If we had lost, it wouldn't be hard to consider we would have lost territory as well... so who knows what the composition of North America would have been.

It's pretty hard to speculate... roaring 20s, great depression, civil rights...

Man when I read the question, first thought that came into my mind was Jews... which is a terrible thing to say... glad someone else has a sense of humor not completely unlike myself... cause really it's not funny - but it's like that ol' joke about what kind of car jesus would have driven. People can speculate, but no one's really sure. On the other hand we have a pretty good idea what the Romans would have driven... nails.

/offensiveness.

By: ROU_Xenophobe

ROU_Xenophobe — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:00:10 -0800

What would Britain have lost if it had lost WW1: Colonies. The brown-people inhabitants of various parts of the world would have been oppressed by Germans instead of the British and French. And Britain wouldn't have the world-straddling empire that it does today.

You'd still have crappy Spielberg movies. It's not like Germany had any serious plans to actually invade and occupy the US and exterminate Jewry here.

By: genghis

genghis — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:07:33 -0800

Fair chance that China wouldn't have had a revolution in 1949 if Britain and France had collapsed.

Of course, you probably don't have a China at all if Imperial Japan's still in control of most of East Asia.

By: ninebelow

ninebelow — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:17:49 -0800

This is a huge question and one that has been very popular with writers. Uchronia lists hundreds of alternative histories by point of divergence. The world wars start here. These texts should give you some good ideas.

There is also tons of discussion of this on newsgroups like alt.history.what-if and soc.history.what-if.

By: 543DoublePlay

543DoublePlay — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:23:30 -0800

What things would we not have today if we had lost World War II?

One word:

Freedom.

By: BobbyDigital

BobbyDigital — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:26:49 -0800

I think that had Germany been able to win or at least have enough leverage at the end of WWI (say they had captured Paris) to get a non punitive armistice then it is very likely that WWII would never have happened. No overwhelmed and resentful German populous, no need for a scapegoat to blame WWI on = no widespread antisemitism, or anti communism which would probably obliviate the factors which gave rise to the Nazis. That being said it is possible that the soviets would have started WWII, as it is likely that they would have still come into existence regardless of Germany's status, one can hope that the Kerensky government would have managed to survive, but that is unlikely.
So who knows? Maybe a red Europe which endures to this day? That is the thing with historical speculation, it is a circle jerk, and people can come up with reasons to justify everything.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:29:11 -0800

No Monty Python.
No great Hitler jokes.
The Holocaust would have been covered up and unknown.
No cold war, meaning no space race, meaning nobody on the moon.
We'ld all be speaking german.
I imagine most of the world would be in constant revolution.
No nuclear power.

By: anadem

anadem — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:32:23 -0800

I would not have my wife, who is my life.

By: nebulawindphone

nebulawindphone — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 08:01:33 -0800

Big exciting post-imperial messes in Europe and East Asia to go with the current exciting post-imperial messes in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America.

By: hazyjane

hazyjane — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 08:02:33 -0800

It's not like Germany had any serious plans to actually invade and occupy the US and exterminate Jewry here. - ROU_Xenophobe

We wouldn't have Philip Roth, or his book The Plot Against America which is an alternative history about what might have happened had Charles Lindbergh won the presidency instead of FDR. According to some sources, Lindbergh was a Nazi sympathizer. So it may not have been a plot originating from Germany, but joining up with the Nazi's could conceivably have been an inside job.

By: plokent

plokent — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 08:11:55 -0800

Len Deighton wrote a novel exploring a Nazi occupied Britain called SS-GB. There are some ideas on this wiki as well as the other links.

By: theora55

theora55 — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 08:28:02 -0800

About 18-20 years ago, there was a BBC drama series that explored the consequences of the Germans winning WWII. I can't, of course, remeber the title.

By: jason's_planet

jason's_planet — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 09:09:54 -0800

If the Allies had lost WWII:

The Nazis would have succeeded in wiping out Europe's Jewish population. A similar genocide, aimed at the indigenous Sephardim, might have taken place in the Middle East as well, depending on how much influence the Axis had won in that region.

Nazi conquest and colonization of Eastern Europe, perhaps resulting in a similar slaughter of the native peoples. Hitler really hated Slavs. Imagine a cluster of colonial-settler fiefdoms ruled by "Aryan" minorities where the map now shows Poland, Czechoslovakia, Russia, etc. That's what Eastern Europe would look like today.

Finlandization of England.

The military conflict would have eventually ended and transmuted into something like the cold war.

By: different

different — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 09:19:31 -0800

theora55: If Britain Had Fallen?

By: edgeways

edgeways — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 09:33:01 -0800

Germany's model was not terribly sustainable, and I think if we had lost WWII Nazi Germany would not have been viable for too long. I question a few things here, how do you define lost? All of Europe lost? All of Asia lost? N America?

It's a near impossible question to answer with any certainty.
If the war had dragged out much longer I doubt we would have been to the moon by now, Israel would most likely not exist, nor Iraq. But I think Nazi Germany could not have won in the long haul. Once they started attacking everyone their loss was inevitable, and just a matter of how bloody it became...

By: b1tr0t

b1tr0t — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 09:52:06 -0800

I think that had Germany been able to win or at least have enough leverage at the end of WWI (say they had captured Paris) to get a non punitive armistice then it is very likely that WWII would never have happened.

Why do we assume Germany wouldn't demand a punative armistice from France? Hitler and the Nazis could then happen just as easily in France. Sartre would only be read by extreme right-wing white supremicists.

By: emptyinside

emptyinside — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 10:03:03 -0800

congrats, you made me drop $5 to answer your question...

we would not have a music industry period.

early (1940's - 50's) tv and music production was dependent on reel-to-reel tape recorders as a way of archiving material. everything prior, as i'm sure you are aware, was live, from Orson Wells to the Big Band Hour. archiving was (and is) a big deal.

as per the pediarticle, Jack Mullin, stole the technology for reel-to-reel (using plastic tape) from German radio stations working as an operative during WWII. With help from Bing Crosby, he commercially marketed it.

as a historical footnote, these machines once used magnetized piano wire as it's medium. tightly stretched across two giant spools, it would broadcast speeches and propaganda without wearing out any vocal chords (it always seems they were shouting).

woe be told about the sound engineer who was near one of these monsters when the wire breaks....

By: GaelFC

GaelFC — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 10:04:23 -0800

I personally probably wouldn't be here, since my dad was a Marine on Okinawa expecting to invade the home islands of Japan, and that would have been a damn bloody battle had the bombs not fallen.

By: dgeiser13

dgeiser13 — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 10:07:49 -0800

If we had lost WWI or WWII this thread wouldn't exist. :-)

Seriously we probably wouldn't have...

AIDS
Blockbuster Movies
Cable Television
CDs and DVDs
The Cell Phone
The Civil Rights Movement
Environmentalism
Football, American Style
High Definition TVs
The Internet
The Personal Computer
Reality Television
Rush Limbaugh
TV Sitcoms
Tang
Velcro
Video Games
A War on Terror

...to name but a few.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 10:33:16 -0800

dgeiser13 writes "Seriously we probably wouldn't have...

"AIDS"

Uh, how do you figure? Were the Nazis less prone to viral biology?

By: dagnyscott

dagnyscott — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 14:08:54 -0800

You'd still have crappy Spielberg movies. It's not like Germany had any serious plans to actually invade and occupy the US and exterminate Jewry here.

On the other hand, if Germany had won WWI their filmmakers might have stayed there rather than coming to America when the Nazis started coming to power.

So you'd still have crappy movies, but more of them would be in German.

By: Merlyn

Merlyn — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 14:35:21 -0800

The Indiana Jones franchise would sure be different

By: trevyn

trevyn — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 15:37:41 -0800

I find it odd to see technology-related items in this thread. Sure, inventions would have evolved in a different manner and at a different pace, but it's not like Germans are inherently anti-technologists. Far from it.

I see things like modern computers, cell phones, etc. as inevitabilities under all but the most Luddite regimes.

By: EndsOfInvention

EndsOfInvention — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 15:54:53 -0800

I agree with trevyn - the Allies and Germans invented many of the same important new technologies (jet engines, radar, nuclear weapons) almost simultaneously. In fact, the Germans were even miles ahead in some respects (rockets). So there's no reason that technological progress would have been slowed at all had the Germans won.

By: jasper411

jasper411 — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 16:58:06 -0800

According to The City on the Edge of Forever (Star Trek, TOS), if the Nazis had won WWII, the United Federation of Planets would not exist.

oh, wait...

By: dgeiser13

dgeiser13 — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 20:09:36 -0800

> Uh, how do you figure? Were the Nazis less prone to viral biology?

Well, I know Wikipedia isn't an authoritative source but I've always understood that the experts believe that HIV originated from monkeys in Africa. I think a shakeup in the European political landscape would definitely have affected Africa and whatever led to HIV being transmitted to humans has a decent chance of not occuring.

That's the great thing about causality. No one knows what would've happened in another timeline.

By: billtron

billtron — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 08:48:09 -0800

Talking sea otters.

By: saturnine

saturnine — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 14:06:04 -0800

The Holocaust would have been covered up and unknown.

I disagree! It was being reported well before the end of the war, and word of mouth is always stronger than attempted cover ups. There were thousands of Germans that knew the Jews were being taken away by the government, and you can't erase people's memories, only stifle their voices. The least that would have happened, in my opinion, is that it would have diluted into a myth, told down the generations as something that might possibly have happened, like the Crucified Soldier.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 07:00:48 -0800

dgeiser--Fair enough as a theory, although probably incorrect, since HIV was most likely transmitted to humans through the butchering of monkeys for food, and there really isn't much reason to think that hunting would have been substantially different simply because geopolitics was. Keep in mind, too, that the earliest HIV samples isolated from human blood are sometime in the late 50s or early 60s, so the species hopping event probably occurred pretty close to WWII.