Envision today had Germany won World War II

Comments on two areas of German science in the 30's:
The first is physics. Unfortunately, I can't cite the book but it was a detailed history of modern physics I read about a year ago (I'll see if I can find the title again). Anyway, it clearly demonstrated that prior to Hitler's rise to power Germany published somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of all theoretical physics papers yearly. Once Hitler took power this fell within a period of a few years to zero. The Nazi's also adopted a Socialist version of physics proposed by two ardent Nazi scientists. The ideas they proposed were rejected by scientists world wide outside Germany in short order so the Nazi leadership forced scholarly journals in Germany that had prestige prior to 1933 into publishing their work further discrediting these journals. The damage lasted years after WW II.
The second is electronics. In electronics, the German program in sonar and radar development was initially the work of a single scientist (I can post the name later tonight being at work). Most of the important tubes necessary to make Seetakt, Freya and, Würtzburg working systems were based on Dutch Phillips company tubes as the German electronics industry had not developed similar ones developing sufficent power for radar applications. The German electronics industry remained a relatively small sector of the economy plagued by lack of capacity and lack of engineers for development. While the initial developments in radar (listed above) were on par with US and UK developments in 1939 /40 they quickly fell behind from that point. In sonar, the initial developments were as far as these systems went. Only a crystal oscillator was attempted. Neither Fessenden type nor Roachell (sp) salts type oscillators were developed as alternatives as in the US and UK. Until the 1944 development of the Gruppenhöchgerät (GHG) for the Type XXI sonar development stagnated.
The Germans made no notice of the Japanese concurrent development of the cavity magnetron in late 1940. By the beginning of 1944 the Japanese had developed a centimetric radar in advance of the Germans. The Germans would not have developed such a radar without capture of British H2S apprataus (Rotterdam) for shot down bombers even though their 'ally' had this technology available.

 

Uuuuhm Friedrich.... Newton was not Jewish, and I have never heard the nazis stated he was. Any evidence?

 

In such a scenario, the mutually victorious Japanese and German empires would have shared an extremely long land border in areas which hold significant oil, natural gas and mineral resources. If Iran fell to German forces moving south from the Caucasus and east from Suez while India (including today's Pakistan and Afghanistan) fell to Japanese forces advancing west from Burma, that volatile border might run from the Persian Gulf to the Pacific. And an isolationist America might well be doing brisk business with both empires.

 

Knightmove, you're right, Newton was not Jewish. Where did I get the idea from? I don't know... But after extensive research I couln't find anything, except for the fact he was very interested in ancient Hebrew writings. But that's not the point. Between 1905 and 1930 there were 10 Nobel science prices awarded to German Jews. The nazi régime threw all them away.

Crapgame, it is very good to have you back!

 

Poor silly Freddy was probably thinking of Einstein. Guys, I have to say that there is one huge flaw in your argument about education, you are missing the purpose of education itself. Whilst the German education system may have been marvellous, it did not encourage students to think and surley half the point of a decent education system is to produce sufficient thinking individuals to allow the nation to advance. Thus the German education system may have been the finest in the world, but it was also one of the most anti-intellectual systems and for my money was worth very little because of that simple fact.

As for the world under the Nazis, well the way I see it Germany could not have won after late 1941 so lets assume the USA has not entered the war and somehow the Germans took Moscow, Stalin is dead and Germany was victorious in the hard fought battles that would have followed. The net result would be Europe under Hitler, Britain being defeated (even if Germany didn't invade we may still have wound up as a pathetic rock floating off the coast of France, perhapse even sueing for peace). No Pearl Harbour, no USA in the war, the US peacefully coexists with the Greater Germany (what was it Jules Verne said about there being two great nations, the USA and the USE). In Europe the way I see it either Hitler would have been replaced by someone more capable or Germany would have torn itself apart, I really am not sure where things could go from here, civil war? Rebellion?

I hate counterfactual history...

 

Thank you Friedrich!

 

Science fiction writer Harry Turtledove has just come out with a book along these lines. In his In the Presence of Mine Enemies, a handful of Jews whose families have been posing as Aryans for three generations try to survive in the midst of a 21st Century Nazi empire which uses computers, modern genetics and "Reich Mercy Centers" to purge the Reich of 'life unworthy of life.'

[ 03. November 2003, 11:55 PM: Message edited by: Crapgame ]