A Thought Experiment

[Karl_fallout4]

The Philadelphia Trials

It was over. America lost the Second World War.
The sun struck twice at New York and Chicago. It was a horrifying sight, as Me 264s crossed into American airspace to drop bombs of terrifying capacity. Capable of leveling entire city blocks.
Vice President Truman was under charges of treason, having tried to assume office when President Roosevelt was still alive. Still, there was no refuge that he could take. Seeing that the walls were closing in, President Roosevelt shot himself, joining his wife Eleanor. But before his suicide, he handed over the duties of the Presidency to Gen. Chester Nimitz. America signed a declaration of unconditional surrender, as did Britain. The Swastika flew over the Capitol.

The propaganda machine of Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo had worked tirelessly to frame the former U.S. government as the true villains of the war.

The trials, held under the Permanent Court of International Justice (Now under Axis control) had begun months earlier in London, where British officers and politicians had been tried for "atrocities" against both Germans and their own subjects in British colonies. The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had been captured and resuscitated after his suicide attempt by the SS soldiers sent to arrest him. He was sentenced to death for War Crimes, waging wars of aggression; war in violation of international law; unprovoked or aggressive war against various nations; and ordering, authorizing, and permitting inhumane treatment of prisoners of war.

Now, it was America’s turn to face judgement. De-democratization had already begun. The Democratic Party was declared a criminal organisation and dissolved. American civilians were herded into dark rooms where recordings of mass graves and emaciated bodies (which were in actuality a result of the nuclear bombings). Some things were outright fabricated, such as shrunken Native American heads or bars of soap made from the fat of dead Italian-Americans. Completely fake, of course, but highly effective as propaganda. This genocide, they said, was called the "Brandopfer".
The city of Philadelphia, once the cradle of American democracy, was now a stage for its humiliation.
Among the accused sat men who, before the war, had been symbols of American strength—high-ranking officers of the National Guard, former OSS operatives, generals, and Democratic Party leaders who had survived the fiery collapse of Washington. Their uniforms had been stripped, their dignity shattered. Many bore the scars of interrogation hidden under their clothes, their eyes sunken from weeks of torture in various military checkpoints set up across the United States. Roland Freisler served as the Chief German Prosecutor. Germany, Italy, Japan and Vichy France each provided one judge and one alternate.

The charges were as sweeping as they were absurd. The United States was accused of genocide—not just for the internment of Japanese Americans but for an elaborate, fabricated campaign of mass murder against Native Americans, German Americans, Italian Americans, and Japanese Americans. The prosecution presented doctored reports and coerced testimony, painting a picture of a nation whose leaders had systematically exterminated millions.

The proceedings were more spectacle than trial. Any defendant who tried to protest was gagged. When General George S. Patton, one of the few who had survived Axis captivity, attempted to shout that the trials were a sham, he was silenced. He had to express his displeasure through other ways - laughing, crying. It didn't matter.

The evidence was a parade of forgeries, edited and context-removed documents, and tortured confessions. A photograph of a National Guard unit standing near a group of Japanese American detainees was presented as proof of mass executions. A speech by President Roosevelt, edited and spliced, was played to the court, making it seem as if he had ordered the extermination of Axis-aligned ethnic groups.

An OSS officer detailed horrifying crimes. He stood, trembling, as he muttered, “I— I was following orders. I didn’t know…” His voice cracked, but he had no more tears left to shed.

The administrator of the Tule Lake Concentration Camp had stated that they had the capacity to carry out 3000 exterminations per minute, that 3 million were killed in his camp alone. In total, the estimate was 6 million dead.

The new American press hailed the trials as the final reckoning of a barbaric regime. Propaganda posters depicted the United States as a bloodthirsty, genocidal empire, while newsreels broadcast the confessions of the accused. The message was clear: America had been a nation of murderers, and its leaders deserved their fate.

After weeks of staged deliberation, the verdicts were announced. Almost every defendant was found guilty. The only exception was Admiral Chester Nimitz, whose charges of engaging in unrestricted submarine warfare was overturned thanks to his attorney, who pointed out that Germany's Karl Dönitz had done the same thing.

The lucky ones received life imprisonment. The rest, Death by hanging.

The executions took place in Independence Hall, another calculated insult. One by one, the former generals and officials were led to the gallows. Truman had already taken his own life via cyanide, preferring death on his own terms. The executioners were cruel. They used a short drop so that they would suffocate slowly. Byrnes, Marshall, Hoover, Eisenhower, Bradley, Ickes, Paley, McNutt, MacArthur, and Clark met their end this way.

Their corpses were then incinerated so that they would be deprived of a burial. Their ashes were thrown into Delaware.

[Nazgul]

[Archie]

Philip K. Dick was also what came to my mind. And Philip Roth.

There are a few different scenarios to consider.

1) Britain & France never declare war to begin with: I think there probably would have been a war between Germany the the USSR at some point and without lend-lease or having another front I think Germany might well have won it. I suppose this might have meant "fascism" instead of communism in eastern Europe. Hard to say how this would have played out, maybe a bit like it did in Franco's Spain.

2) Some sort of peace deal during the phony war period: Probably would have worked out about the same as #1, but not likely with Churchill in power. Note that in this case it would have likely just been a negotiated peace, not a complete victory for either side.

3) Total German victory: I don't think an outright conquest of Britain and America was ever realistic. But if it did happen we could only guess how it might have been run. Maybe they would have put Henry Ford or Charles Lindbergh in charge?

As far as war crimes trials, it's hard to say if the Germans would have bothered with this. The Soviets of course had their practice of show trials. America had no tradition of this prior to Nuremberg (look at the Civil War for example). I do think Nuremberg was largely guided and shaped by Jewish influence and involvement. I don't think the Germans would have come up with anything as elaborate and sanctimonious as Nuremberg.

Another interesting counterfactual would be how history might have played out without Nuremberg and the other war crimes trials. Even fairly late in the war it was not clear how it was going to play out. There had been mentions of such trials during the war but this was more for propaganda purposes rather reflecting any definite plans. One of the main results of the trials has been that Germans who might have wished to dispute the Allied narrative had an incentive to lay low and keep quiet about things. Had there been a general amnesty or even a reasonable statute of limitations then we would have heard more contrary narratives from the German perspective.

[Karl_fallout4]

I don't think an outright conquest of Britain and America was ever realistic.
...
As far as war crimes trials, it's hard to say if the Germans would have bothered with this.

I wasn't exactly aiming for strict realism here, but many people can easily imagine the Axis Powers doing something like this, it's blatant enough to be recognised as a parallel to the Holocaust and the Nuremberg trials.
The goal is to show that victor's justice doesn't necessarily translate to actual justice, and that it is possible to fabricate a genocide to discredit the vanquished side.

[HansHill]

I don't think an outright conquest of Britain and America was ever realistic.
...
As far as war crimes trials, it's hard to say if the Germans would have bothered with this.

I wasn't exactly aiming for strict realism here, but many people can easily imagine the Axis Powers doing something like this, it's blatant enough to be recognised as a parallel to the Holocaust and the Nuremberg trials.
The goal is to show that victor's justice doesn't necessarily translate to actual justice, and that it is possible to fabricate a genocide to discredit the vanquished side.

Hard to say, and of course we'll never know. It's very fun to speculate though, such as - perhaps there could have been localised trials for very specific incidents, for example Katyn, the firebombing of Dresden etc. I would generally agree with Archie that it would be hard to see something as sweeping as Axis-Nuremberg though.

[Stubble]

Doing what if's, I'm more keen on what if the western allies had brokered peace with Germany and united with them to fight bolshevism instead of giving Stalin half of Europe...