If Hitler and the Nazis never come to power in Germany, does Poland keep its 1937 borders up to the present-day?

[Futurist]

Stresemann had to use peaceful methods as there was no military option for Germany in the 1920’s. I doubt that a Germany run by normal politicians would have risked war with Britain and France over the eastern border. I also doubt that Britain and France would have gone to war if a normal German state just seized Danzig which was a German city. Anything more than that may have caused the French to honour their alliance with Poland and the British would not have been prepared to see France defeated so would have joined in.

TBH, I'm unsure that a surviving and remilitarized Weimar Germany (or whatever right-wing but non-Nazi authoritarian regime replaces it in Germany) would have been content with just Danzig. Rather, they would have probably also wanted the Corridor and maybe Polish Upper Silesia as well (though they might have been more willing to compromise on that front). I wonder if some kind of deal could have been worked out where Poland gets to keep Gdynia (which it spent a lot of money on and was its main outlet to the sea) and its part of Upper Silesia while a surviving and remilitarized Weimar Germany gets Danzig and the rest of the Polish Corridor. In such a scenario, of course, there would be an extraterritorial road and/or railroad that would connect Gdynia to the rest of Poland.

On August 22 1939 Hitler had a meeting with military leaders at the Berghof about the attack on Poland. No notes were taken by those present but Hitler seemingly told them that there was a high probability that the west would not intervene. Because of the forthcoming pact with Russia a blockade of Germany as in WW1 would not work. The generals had been worried about a war in the west (they expected Poland to fall quickly) but what Hitler said apparently reassured them No one disagreed with Hitler and the mood was described as resigned since it was too late to do anything now. Hitler’s reaction when Britain declared war would indicate that he did not expect it.

Yeah, that makes sense.

[gebhk]

I also doubt that Britain and France would have gone to war if a normal German state just seized Danzig which was a German city

Hi Steve - however if Poland went to war with Germany over this (and that seems likely) would our conversation not circle back to German rearmament?

[Steve]

Hello, true a non Nazi Germany would have had to rearm and create a military more powerful than the Polish one before it could do anything. Assuming right wing governments in Germany throughout the 30s and into the 40s then eventually the Versailles Treaty would surely be dead and buried. German rearmament though not on the scale of the Nazi’s would have then taken place. Prior to the Nazis there was military cooperation with the Soviets which shows an ambition to recreate a modern German army.

[Futurist]

Hello, true a non Nazi Germany would have had to rearm and create a military more powerful than the Polish one before it could do anything. Assuming right wing governments in Germany throughout the 30s and into the 40s then eventually the Versailles Treaty would surely be dead and buried. German rearmament though not on the scale of the Nazi’s would have then taken place. Prior to the Nazis there was military cooperation with the Soviets which shows an ambition to recreate a modern German army.

Agreed. Also, Steve, do you think that had a non-Nazi Germany rearmed and eventually went to war against Poland in order to acquire Danzig and the Polish Corridor, the Soviet Union would have used this as an opportunity to make a move on the Kresy (eastern Poland)? If so, would Germany have actually allowed the Soviet Union to expand into the Kresy or would it have tried to improve its reputation in Poland (after its conquest of Danzig and the Polish Corridor) by guaranteeing the territorial integrity of the remainder of Poland's territory?

[Steve]

In all honesty I don’t have a clue. One thing we can be sure of is that a non Nazi Germany would have dominated east central Europe. Maybe a civilian government in Warsaw would have seen the light and in exchange for a trade deal and good relations have at least given up Danzig. Probably once Stalin felt strong enough Finland, Estonia, Latvia but not Lithuania would have ended up much the same as they did in 1940. Perhaps a German civilian government would have understood that it was in their interest to prevent a march west by Stalin. Could a democratic Germany have led an east European version of NATO against the USSR and thus prevented American dominance of Western Europe?

[Futurist]

In all honesty I don’t have a clue. One thing we can be sure of is that a non Nazi Germany would have dominated east central Europe. Maybe a civilian government in Warsaw would have seen the light and in exchange for a trade deal and good relations have at least given up Danzig.

Would a non-Nazi Germany be content with just Danzig, though? After all, AFAIK, Weimar Germany demanded both Danzig and the Polish Corridor even though Hitler's proposal of Danzig and an extraterritorial road would have been a more reasonable German offer to the Poles. This raises the question as to why Weimar Germany demanded more than was reasonable. Heck, even giving Germany a strip of land around the Vistula while letting Poland keep its narrow coastline would have been a more reasonable Weimar German offer in comparison to what they actually offered Poland in real life:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nati ... f_1910.jpg

Probably once Stalin felt strong enough Finland, Estonia, Latvia but not Lithuania would have ended up much the same as they did in 1940.

What about the Kresy (eastern Poland), though? Would Stalin also want that? After all, didn't the Soviet Union want to unify all Ukrainians and Belarusians into one (Soviet) state?

Also, as a side note, going for all of Latvia would result in an exposed Soviet salient in the Courland area.

Perhaps a German civilian government would have understood that it was in their interest to prevent a march west by Stalin. Could a democratic Germany have led an east European version of NATO against the USSR and thus prevented American dominance of Western Europe?

Yes, certainly! After all, after WWI, the US exhibited no desire to continue upholding European security in real life. This would create a great void for Germany to fill if other countries are actually going to trust it. After all, France is relatively far away from Eastern Europe but Germany is right next door.

I do wonder if Stalin (and/or his successor(s) as leader of the Soviet Union) would have demanded that Germany agree to a Soviet reconquest of the Kresy in exchange for the Soviet Union supporting German territorial designs against Danzig and the Polish Corridor, though.

[Futurist]

I have a question: Is the fact that Weimar Germany signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact means that it was uninterested in ever actually using force to solve its territorial dispute with Poland? After all, a German war against Poland in order to recover the Polish Corridor would be a blatant violation of the Kellogg-Briand Pact, no? Granted, Weimar Germany didn't actually survive, but I'm merely truly to speculate about what it would have done had it did, in fact, survive or at least been replaced by a non-Nazi right-wing authoritarian but non-totalitarian regime.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Futurist,

Quite possibly not.

Quite apart from Germany; Poland had territorial disputes with almost all its neighbours (the Czechs, Slovakia, the USSR and Lithuania. One or more of these disputes was likely to blow up sooner or later with unpredictable consequences.

The USSR was not averse to using force and Poland itself used military threats against Lithuania, the Czechs and Slovaks in 1938-39.

Cheers,

Sid

[Futurist]

Hi Futurist,

Quite possibly not.

Quite apart from Germany; Poland had territorial disputes with almost all its neighbours (the Czechs, Slovakia, the USSR and Lithuania. One or more of these disputes was likely to blow up sooner or later with unpredictable consequences.

The USSR was not averse to using force and Poland itself used military threats against Lithuania, the Czechs and Slovaks in 1938-39.

Cheers,

Sid

Why sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact if you weren't actually going to take it seriously, though? For good publicity?

[Sid Guttridge]

Indeed!

However, governments change and the Pact could be withdrawn from.

Furthermore, more extreme actors like Hitler, and quite possibly Trump today, don't appear to feel bound by anything signed by their predecessors anyway.

In theory, international agreements are between enduring countries, but often, in practice, they turn out to be between short lived regimes.

Cheers,

Sid

[Futurist]

Yes, I certainly get that governments and regimes aren't eternal. That said, though, I don't think that anyone was actually expecting Weimar Germany to be replaced by a totalitarian dictatorship when the Kellogg-Briand Pact was signed in the 1920s! This was before the Great Depression, after all! Back then, even German right-wingers (with the exception of the fringe) reluctantly supported the Weimar Republic.