What if there was German government-in-exile during World War 2 that aided the allies? Say Hitler cracks down harder on the German royal houses than in OTL, and one of them flees the country. This happens in 1939-1940. A lot of Germans who fled in the interwar years join the Free German army, which would be used by the British and later the Americans, similar to exiled Greek, Czechoslovak, and Polish forces. Is this at all possible or plausible? How would Germany's post-war situation change?
AHC/WI: Free German government during WW2
- Thread starter Flavius Iulius Maiorianus
- Start date
Why would a deposed monarch have enough support to form a German government in exile? If it did exist it would likely be led by members of the SPD or even KPD both of which were outlawed by the Nazis.
Adalbert of Prussia, Wilhelm II's Naval officer, relatively normal, third son acting as Regent for a nephew?
I always found it slightly strange this wasn't considered as an option in November 1918. He had a respectable career, was a respectable guy by the standards of his time and class and had enough training to understand his political value as a stabilising force to ease Germany into something different but still recognisable whilst accepting constitutional limits akin to the Windsors whilst binning his Dad and brother to the Netherlands regardless to save the dynasty. He could have been a useful diplomatic tool for Germany to try to rebuild relations with their neighbours especially with the French and the Poles and get financial support for repatriating Volkdeutsche to Germany proper. This option is less traumatic and extreme and limits the 'stab in the back' myth's potency early on. Basically Ebert could have his cake and eat it.
I believe Adalbert's daughter married a random American and one his grandsons sold shoes in California. That's quite a felled dynasty. Adalbert is also one of Queen Victoria's MANY great-grandchildren, as is George VI. Using him either during the 1940s or in the Interwar period through his family relationship with George V/VI to exploit UK ambivalence about Versailles Interwar or concerns about post-war settlements during the war and look at other options would have been smart of someone like Stresemann or someone anti-Nazi mid-war too. Who knows, the Corporal might have been, should have been avoidable by using what was already there but not personally compromised to buy time until young Wilhelm (the one who died in the Army in 1940) came of age in 1928 trained for a different type of monarchy, sort of like Charles, Count of Flanders did in Belgium for King Baudouin after the Second World War.
Otto von Habsburg is probably the really obvious one, being inventive and broad in your definition of 'Germany'.
I always found it slightly strange this wasn't considered as an option in November 1918. He had a respectable career, was a respectable guy by the standards of his time and class and had enough training to understand his political value as a stabilising force to ease Germany into something different but still recognisable whilst accepting constitutional limits akin to the Windsors whilst binning his Dad and brother to the Netherlands regardless to save the dynasty. He could have been a useful diplomatic tool for Germany to try to rebuild relations with their neighbours especially with the French and the Poles and get financial support for repatriating Volkdeutsche to Germany proper. This option is less traumatic and extreme and limits the 'stab in the back' myth's potency early on. Basically Ebert could have his cake and eat it.
I believe Adalbert's daughter married a random American and one his grandsons sold shoes in California. That's quite a felled dynasty. Adalbert is also one of Queen Victoria's MANY great-grandchildren, as is George VI. Using him either during the 1940s or in the Interwar period through his family relationship with George V/VI to exploit UK ambivalence about Versailles Interwar or concerns about post-war settlements during the war and look at other options would have been smart of someone like Stresemann or someone anti-Nazi mid-war too. Who knows, the Corporal might have been, should have been avoidable by using what was already there but not personally compromised to buy time until young Wilhelm (the one who died in the Army in 1940) came of age in 1928 trained for a different type of monarchy, sort of like Charles, Count of Flanders did in Belgium for King Baudouin after the Second World War.
Otto von Habsburg is probably the really obvious one, being inventive and broad in your definition of 'Germany'.
It's not impossible that some disenfranchised royal, nobleman or banned political party attempts to establish a German Government in Exile but they will have an issue with legitimacy both abroad and in their Homeland. Most Governments in Exile were either elected or ascended to power in a whatever the established protocol is in that country and then were either forced to flee due to an invasion or coup at home. This was the case with France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia during World War II where the Governments or an element of it formed prior to the Nazi invasions were still recognized as the legitimate Government of those Nation States although forced to reform on foreign soil. Everyone hated the Nazi Government and what it was doing but just about every nation recognized it as having come to power in a legitimate election.
Let's say hypothetically foreign governments support the German Government in Exile and after the war they are placed in power in some fashion in Germany itself. Then the German public are going to see them as collaborators, conspiring with the enemy. Where were they during the bombings and battles? When people were starving to death and even a common cold could kill people because their immune systems were so compromised due to poor nutrition. Where were they during all the rapes that occurred especially in the East? They were in London dining with the King of England and having drinks with Churchill. They may even be asked to raise soldiers from the exiled German communities in Allied Nations and fight against the homeland. Why should a Muenster resident for the last 40 years take orders from a Puppet King and his army of Ersatz Germans from Philadelphia and Manchester? This is a nation that embraced the stabbed in the back narrative after World War I, this is just giving ammunition to some new far right or left wing resistance party after the war. This could mean a German Civil War with multiple competing ideologies, very similar to the Russian Civil War in 1917.
It makes more sense to me for this exiled Royal to head up a German resistance and work with intelligence agencies behind the scenes while in exile. When the war is over start feeding people and create a big humanitarian network, put individuals to work rebuilding homes. Use all the press to publicize yourself and make sure everyone knows your name and what you're doing. When elections resume the Royal could run for office and assume power that way. Just my two cents, and appreciate you asking the hypothetical.
Let's say hypothetically foreign governments support the German Government in Exile and after the war they are placed in power in some fashion in Germany itself. Then the German public are going to see them as collaborators, conspiring with the enemy. Where were they during the bombings and battles? When people were starving to death and even a common cold could kill people because their immune systems were so compromised due to poor nutrition. Where were they during all the rapes that occurred especially in the East? They were in London dining with the King of England and having drinks with Churchill. They may even be asked to raise soldiers from the exiled German communities in Allied Nations and fight against the homeland. Why should a Muenster resident for the last 40 years take orders from a Puppet King and his army of Ersatz Germans from Philadelphia and Manchester? This is a nation that embraced the stabbed in the back narrative after World War I, this is just giving ammunition to some new far right or left wing resistance party after the war. This could mean a German Civil War with multiple competing ideologies, very similar to the Russian Civil War in 1917.
It makes more sense to me for this exiled Royal to head up a German resistance and work with intelligence agencies behind the scenes while in exile. When the war is over start feeding people and create a big humanitarian network, put individuals to work rebuilding homes. Use all the press to publicize yourself and make sure everyone knows your name and what you're doing. When elections resume the Royal could run for office and assume power that way. Just my two cents, and appreciate you asking the hypothetical.
I think it would be an interesting legal question. The Nazi party was considered the legitimate government of Germany, any Free German government wouldn't have the legal rights to negotiate with the Allies. Vichy France for example was considered the legitimate government of France by many during WW2, until Case Anton and the South Zone of France was occupied, when De Gaulle and the Free French were recognised as the legitimate continuation of the Third French Republic.
I think there would be more support for a Free Austrian Government, especially if there was more discontent regarding the Anschluss, and a Council of Austrian government officials was created in 1938 or something along those lines.
I think there would be more support for a Free Austrian Government, especially if there was more discontent regarding the Anschluss, and a Council of Austrian government officials was created in 1938 or something along those lines.
stretching a bit here, an SPD- Crown prince Wilhelm coalition, with a coup leading to Hitler's rise to power. The crown prince would have to agree to democratise. Germany may even be able to keep east Prussia.
The Nazi government was I think universally regarded as the legitimate German government, just because we go to war with them and they kill millions of civilian won't really change that.
So there can't really be a German gov in exile because the German government as defined by both it's friends and enemies is sitting in Berlin.
So there can't really be a German gov in exile because the German government as defined by both it's friends and enemies is sitting in Berlin.
That's not just a stretch, it requires the Crown Prince to be an entirely different person. The Crown Prince was totally opposed to democracy, hated the SPD and the other so-called 'November criminals'. He strongly admired Mussolini, crediting him with the 'extermination of socialism, communism, democracy, and freemasonry' and praised his brutality and 'genius'. Crown Prince Wilhelm was overjoyed when Hitler became chancellor, and was happy to suck up to the Nazis since he deluded himself into thinking they'd put him on the throne.
He was also very much an anti-Semite, and defended the regime's crimes in the '30s, praising Hitler as a genius who'd saved Germany. After the war House Hohenzollern spread the myth that the Crown Prince had belonged to the conservative resistance, but there's zero evidence. Frankly, most members of the 'Schwarze Kapelle' didn't even like him, even those members who wanted to restore the monarchy and put House Hohenzollern back on the throne. And German Social Democrats and other supporters of the Weimar Republic who fled into exile had no love for the Crown Prince or the monarchy in general.
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Garrison
Donor
It doesn't make sense. Government's in exile were the product of the nations that had been occupied by Nazi Germany. Everyone had recognized Hitler's regime as the legitimate government of Germany prior to the war and some member of the monarchy that had long since been deposed would have zero standing to form a government and those Germans who fled hardly have any love for the German monarchy.
Churchill attempted something like that with Wilhelm II in 1940 but he refused to be evacuated to Britain. Make him hate Hitler so much that he would rather see the British or French march through Berlin than one more day having Hitler and the Nazi party at the helm.
National Committee for a Free Germany - Wikipedia
This is about as close as it got OTL.
So ironically, it was the Soviets who did the most to facilitate an organized front of conservative German Nazi-replacers during the war, I guess just to keep it as one of several types of 'screw-driver heads', handy in their toolbox?National Committee for a Free Germany - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
This is about as close as it got OTL.
Take your pick, there were various groups but none seemed to gain much traction with the Allies.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
I also remember reading somewhere that there was a group of Sudetenland Germans in exile who attempted to work with the Czech government in London but found themselves sidelined.
Sopade - Wikipedia
Union of German Socialist Organisations in Great Britain - Wikipedia
Free-Germany Movement - Wikipedia
I also remember reading somewhere that there was a group of Sudetenland Germans in exile who attempted to work with the Czech government in London but found themselves sidelined.
I mean yeah they only got a third of the vote but this was running on three different parties going ahead to head and the first largest of three is ultimately the winner even if it's only a third.
I think a free German government would have to establish itself earlier maybe in 1933, when it became very clear that there wouldn’t be new elections. It would also have to not be communist. It would also be best if it wasn’t only Social Democratic, so maybe Ludwig Kaas decides that Germany need a exile government and make a deal with SPD in exile, and they establish a exile government in Paris and later move it to London.
It is very hard to claim some legitimacy.
Erwin Bumke could have, in 1934 after the death of von Hindenburg, since he would have legally gained the powers of the president, untill a new one could be elected.
But he wasn't like that.
Or there could have been a Prussian government in exile lead by Otto Braun, resisting the Preußenschlag.
Maybe for other states, too, after the Gleichschaltung.
Erwin Bumke could have, in 1934 after the death of von Hindenburg, since he would have legally gained the powers of the president, untill a new one could be elected.
But he wasn't like that.
Or there could have been a Prussian government in exile lead by Otto Braun, resisting the Preußenschlag.
Maybe for other states, too, after the Gleichschaltung.
FOM had something like this.
Also if you want anti Nazi German royals you can go with Louis Ferdinand Hohenzollern and/or Crown Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria
Also if you want anti Nazi German royals you can go with Louis Ferdinand Hohenzollern and/or Crown Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria
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While a lot of folks in Germany didn’t like the Nazi Party, and it can be argued that Hitler gained control in less than 100% legitimate means. And we know at least part of various elections were rigged.
So if you really wanted to stretch it you could argue that the Nazi government wasn’t legitimate, Much the Way it was sometimes argued that the French government after the surrender to Germany was not legitimate. It was a stretch but it was a useful ‘fiction “
The problem is A) finding any sort of government you can “claim” is legitimate and B) finding any USE for said government in exile.
I mean what are they going yo do for you that justifies the cost?
In the case of France you had several things going on. You had the Various colonies and the parts of the Military that was outside of France proper and you had resistance movements in France itself. plus you got the propaganda of “The True French Government still fights on”
You don’t have any of that in Germany. You don’t have a resistance you just have folks that are unhappy but keep their mouths shut. And there are not any colonies or military assets that the Allie’s hope to at least keep out of the fight.
So what is the reason the Wallies would even support a government in exile if you could find one?
That being said I suppose you could do more with other countries. Either use them more if they have one or set one up for a country that Germany invaded. (Not sure what countries had government in exile).
So if you really wanted to stretch it you could argue that the Nazi government wasn’t legitimate, Much the Way it was sometimes argued that the French government after the surrender to Germany was not legitimate. It was a stretch but it was a useful ‘fiction “
The problem is A) finding any sort of government you can “claim” is legitimate and B) finding any USE for said government in exile.
I mean what are they going yo do for you that justifies the cost?
In the case of France you had several things going on. You had the Various colonies and the parts of the Military that was outside of France proper and you had resistance movements in France itself. plus you got the propaganda of “The True French Government still fights on”
You don’t have any of that in Germany. You don’t have a resistance you just have folks that are unhappy but keep their mouths shut. And there are not any colonies or military assets that the Allie’s hope to at least keep out of the fight.
So what is the reason the Wallies would even support a government in exile if you could find one?
That being said I suppose you could do more with other countries. Either use them more if they have one or set one up for a country that Germany invaded. (Not sure what countries had government in exile).