If Nazi's had not been defeated space timeline reasonable?
- Thread starter DarthTom
- Start date
Given the numerous factors that played into the defeat of the Nazi regime, even taking the continued existence of Nazi Germany for granted requires changing so much that basically anything could be considered "reasonable." You're jumping over so many assumptions that you could make up whatever.
I suppose you're right. Alternate history is interesting to me to ponder.
I will say that permanent bases on the Moon and regular expeditions to Mars in the 1970s are not really plausible. The Nazis didn't have a space program whatsoever. So, when did they defeat the Allies? When and how did they beat the Soviets? Short of a global Nazi empire, much of what was posted just makes no sense.
^That was the outset, Robert. It's a "What if the Nazis had won" scenario.
There have been numerous such scenarios but this is the first so far that deals with spacefare. Interesting, and I love the Hugin & Munin names (great idea =) ).
It's, however, very difficult to predict something that might have happened (because it might just as well not have happened).
During and immediately after the war our best scientists were... hmm... let's call it "exported" to the US where they were a major factor in the American rocket programme. That might at a first glance make a similar development in Germany plausible if Germany had ever had an interest in space travel.
And, I think, that's the point where the speculation deviates from reality: none of the prominent Nazis was interested in going into space. It's a luxury and you need time and money for that. First things first and in space there's nothing you can dominate or make money from (at least not in our immediate neighbourhood).
I think they'd first have restored the economy and infrastructure in their own country. Then in the subjugated states in order to create markets for their own economy. Only after that they'd have started to develop other interests but in my opinion they'd have stuck to more down-to-earth science (pardon the pun) like theoretical physics, mathematics and engineering. Building automats/robots, improving vehicles, that kind of stuff. There'd very likely also have been a major progress in sports, film making, radio, photography, theatre and music and to a lesser extent in painting and literature: a people that's kept busy and happy doesn't think of revolutions.
As a general rule dictatorships tend to be extremely conservative. Science and invention of any kind require a freedom of thinking that is dangerous because it doesn't remain restricted to the desired topics.
There have been numerous such scenarios but this is the first so far that deals with spacefare. Interesting, and I love the Hugin & Munin names (great idea =) ).
It's, however, very difficult to predict something that might have happened (because it might just as well not have happened).
During and immediately after the war our best scientists were... hmm... let's call it "exported" to the US where they were a major factor in the American rocket programme. That might at a first glance make a similar development in Germany plausible if Germany had ever had an interest in space travel.
And, I think, that's the point where the speculation deviates from reality: none of the prominent Nazis was interested in going into space. It's a luxury and you need time and money for that. First things first and in space there's nothing you can dominate or make money from (at least not in our immediate neighbourhood).
I think they'd first have restored the economy and infrastructure in their own country. Then in the subjugated states in order to create markets for their own economy. Only after that they'd have started to develop other interests but in my opinion they'd have stuck to more down-to-earth science (pardon the pun) like theoretical physics, mathematics and engineering. Building automats/robots, improving vehicles, that kind of stuff. There'd very likely also have been a major progress in sports, film making, radio, photography, theatre and music and to a lesser extent in painting and literature: a people that's kept busy and happy doesn't think of revolutions.
As a general rule dictatorships tend to be extremely conservative. Science and invention of any kind require a freedom of thinking that is dangerous because it doesn't remain restricted to the desired topics.
Unless the could have found a military reason for colonizing space and it provided a tactical advantage.
BTW, to Roberts point upthread about a scenario in which the Nazi's win or the war is a stalemate one possible secnario is:
*The Normandy invasion fails
*Over the ~ 73,000 allied troops landing over 50% are killed
*The appalling number of Americans killed in the offensive sends Eisenhower back to the US in shame and public opinion swings against the War in Europe forcing Roosevelt to withdrawl ground troops from the conflict and focus on a completion of the war with Japan
*Congress with the ensuing public pressure passes a resolution forcing Roosevlet's hand - the US exits the European conflict
*The UK unable to, "go it alone," retreats.
*Hitler focuses all of his efforts on the Eastern front and facing extremely heavy loses Stalin halts the ground offensive at the Polish border.
*A stalemate between the USSR and Germany ensues. As a result, what we know today as France, Poland, Austria, and Germany becomes the German Republic for many decades to come.
Where's the science behind this timeline? It's more like science fiction.
Rhubarbodendron makes several good points. In particular, the "conservatism" and limits of exchange on information. However Hitler did encourage, and allow for, radical ideas implimenting his vision. For example: the concentration camps. On the other side of that very same coin, however, Hitler was completely uninterested in the pursuit of the Atom Bomb and the Nazi Party never pursued it. The problem with saying "what if the Nazi's hadn't been defeated," is that, as Germany practiced it, anyway ... it was, very much, a product of its time. Specifically, of Hitler's time. He's what Naziism meant.
Hitler was also more interested in the advice of his Astrologers than that of his Generals. He had absolute power, in the party, but he seldom used it. Rather, his approval of radical ideas suggested to him by those around him was the way everything was kept in play. The Party Leaders and the Generals were, more or less, kept continually gratified in this manner. Once Hitler died, whether by assassination, or old age, that system would've failed, in short order, because his approval and favour was the end goal. All Hitler really cared about was the security of Germany, his seat in power and culling the population of those he despised. That's where he wanted all resources directed towards - including the sciences. He was a bully and proud to be - and so were those he surrounded himself with.
Hitler was also more interested in the advice of his Astrologers than that of his Generals. He had absolute power, in the party, but he seldom used it. Rather, his approval of radical ideas suggested to him by those around him was the way everything was kept in play. The Party Leaders and the Generals were, more or less, kept continually gratified in this manner. Once Hitler died, whether by assassination, or old age, that system would've failed, in short order, because his approval and favour was the end goal. All Hitler really cared about was the security of Germany, his seat in power and culling the population of those he despised. That's where he wanted all resources directed towards - including the sciences. He was a bully and proud to be - and so were those he surrounded himself with.
I think you need to add a condition to your timeline, which is "What if the Nazi's won and Hermann Goring blew Hitler's brains out and took over in 1943 (or so)". Competent leadership might have done things as you lay out, whereas Hitler was mad enough to think that invading Russia with everything else he had going on was a good idea.
Then again, I see very little reason to believe that a victorious post-war Germany would end up being any more competent than the American post-war government (excluding Eisenhower and maybe Kennedy). RUSSIA would probably be the dominant space power, and they might be a tiny bit ahead of where they are in our timeline due to competing with a civilization that is more intolerant than ours. Assuming that another madman didn't come to power in the German Empire that would've decided nuking the USSR was an acceptable risk....
Then again, I see very little reason to believe that a victorious post-war Germany would end up being any more competent than the American post-war government (excluding Eisenhower and maybe Kennedy). RUSSIA would probably be the dominant space power, and they might be a tiny bit ahead of where they are in our timeline due to competing with a civilization that is more intolerant than ours. Assuming that another madman didn't come to power in the German Empire that would've decided nuking the USSR was an acceptable risk....
LOL
Does "scorched Earth" ring a bell? Towards the end of the war, Hitler believed that Germany deserved no other fate than to go under with him, because Germans had proven their inferiority as a race. For him, there were only two possible outcomes: Either he wins the war or Germany is completely destroyed, and rightfully so.
That's why surrender was never an option for him. To him, a complete dectruction of Germany was preferable to leaving it in a weakened state comparable to the one it was in before he took power.
Hitler was a extreme Darwinist, moreso than most other Nazis. For most Nazis the genetic superiority of the Germans was already established as a fact. Not so for Hitler. For him, Germany had to prove its worthiness to survive... by meeting other peoples and races in battle.
I am not so sure he thought like that, Ensign Redshirt. You forget that in spite of being German Chancellor, he actually was Austrian by birth and to my knowledge never became a naturalized German. Hence his obsession with bringing Austria into the Empire.
His use of "Germany" was rather meant in the same sense as "German" in the "Holy Roman Empire of German Nation" as founded by Charlemagne in 800, which ended around 1800. This 100 year old empire was in fact the model for what Hitler called out to be the new 1000 year lasting Empire. In both instances "German" wouldn't refer to a state in the modern sense but to a people or group of peoples.
His intentions to restore an empire lasting 1000 years again shows, imho, that he was in fact planning ahead - or at least pretending to be.
It is, however, very difficult to make a successful guess at what a clearly delusional person thought or dreamt of. Personally, I think once it was clear to him that all was lost, he didn't care much about the rest of the world. The fact that he had no chance left, though, dawned to him only extremely late: while for his generals it was clear as early as 1943 that there was no hope (which triggered several attempts by the military to assassinate him, Stauffenberg's desastrous attemt having been only the most public one), Hitler himself despaired only about 3 days before his suicide. Up to that point he still had plans to rescue himself and his closest followers and if possible restart from somewhere else (presumably from South America where many leading Nazis had fled to).
2takesfrakes, I agree completely that one has to take the Zeitgeist into consideration and that Hitler was a bully and so were his main followers. But I come to different conclusions: if he had died of old age or somehow else gotten out of the way, the leading Nazis would have fought among themselves and one or an alliance of several would have taken over where he had left (i.e. in the position of leading bully).
I don't quite agree to your theory that their main concern was to please him. While I'll admit that not pleasing him was potentially lethal, I am convinced that they also simply enjoyed having power and being hardly limited in (ab-)using it.
His use of "Germany" was rather meant in the same sense as "German" in the "Holy Roman Empire of German Nation" as founded by Charlemagne in 800, which ended around 1800. This 100 year old empire was in fact the model for what Hitler called out to be the new 1000 year lasting Empire. In both instances "German" wouldn't refer to a state in the modern sense but to a people or group of peoples.
His intentions to restore an empire lasting 1000 years again shows, imho, that he was in fact planning ahead - or at least pretending to be.
It is, however, very difficult to make a successful guess at what a clearly delusional person thought or dreamt of. Personally, I think once it was clear to him that all was lost, he didn't care much about the rest of the world. The fact that he had no chance left, though, dawned to him only extremely late: while for his generals it was clear as early as 1943 that there was no hope (which triggered several attempts by the military to assassinate him, Stauffenberg's desastrous attemt having been only the most public one), Hitler himself despaired only about 3 days before his suicide. Up to that point he still had plans to rescue himself and his closest followers and if possible restart from somewhere else (presumably from South America where many leading Nazis had fled to).
2takesfrakes, I agree completely that one has to take the Zeitgeist into consideration and that Hitler was a bully and so were his main followers. But I come to different conclusions: if he had died of old age or somehow else gotten out of the way, the leading Nazis would have fought among themselves and one or an alliance of several would have taken over where he had left (i.e. in the position of leading bully).
I don't quite agree to your theory that their main concern was to please him. While I'll admit that not pleasing him was potentially lethal, I am convinced that they also simply enjoyed having power and being hardly limited in (ab-)using it.
The Nazi's had ZERO interest in sending people into space. In fact, Von Braun was arrested at one point because he was overheard talking about the rocket program really being for space exploration if/when the war ended. I seriously doubt that winning the war or negotiating some kind of peace that let Nazi Germany remain intact would have ever led to anything other than a ballistic weapons program.
That said, Iron Sky was a really great movie!
That said, Iron Sky was a really great movie!
The so-called Third Reiche was unstable. Hitler was - rightfully - suspicious of those in his ranks. He would often freak out and act the fool, to keep them offguard, so they wouldn't know what to do with him, or how to read him. The Nazi Party was the product of its time, as I've said. Not only because it revolved around Hitler, but because books, newspapers and word of mouth were the only way information was kept and passed around. And the Nazi's made damn sure to burn or ban books containing ideas they were frightened by, or suspicious of, or just didn't like. The other side of that was the false propaganda, the official spin on their own wrongs and failings, and the outright lies that were necessary to keep a situation contained. And one of several reasons for their starting wars was, quite simply, to keep themselves in profit and power. The worst about this "Undefeated Nazi Timeline" is that it reveals just how ignorant its creators are about World War II.
I strongly disagree with you on the last point. We are talking about a completely imaginary "what if" scenario here. Any assumption is as good as any other for the simple fact that it's a question of imagination. Ignorance or knowledge about WW2 have nothing whatsoever to do with it.
If I, being a native German, can accept the topic and discuss it without calling people ignorant for no other reason than them disagreeing with me, why can't you?
I do agree with you that the 3rd Reich was certainly instable and that Hitler distrusted his fellows. I do, however, disagree on your theory of him deliberately playing the fool. In my opinion (based on many speeches, books, laws, etc. he made) he was really pretty unhinged from the start and it got more obvious every year.
The only positive things I could say about him is that he really loved his dogs and that he was a dangerousely gifted speaker. Initially, it must have been hard for people to resist his lure. When it became clear that he was loosing his grip on reality, it was already too late. Not so much because of the consequences people had to fear but to a far bigger extent due to the proverbial "Nibelungentreue", a typical German character trait. We stick to our friends/leaders/whatever, no matter what. It's a matter of honour and honour is more important than survival.
That's the way people used to think back then and my generation of Western Germans still does. It's different with people from the former GDR -they were very strongly influenced by the Sovjet occupation and developed a different moral codex while after the "denazification" we pretty much carried on where we left in 45.
And - to return to the topic - we stayed on course also as far as space travels are concerned. We think a space programme of our owns would be too expensive while we need the money for more important things (schools, hospitals, bribing politicians). We joined the European space programme and we offer mainly intellectual support. We still have good mathematicians and physicists, build excellent optical instruments and have rather good IT specialists. We have a handfull of astronauts but mostly we stick with sending experimental kits to the ISS rather than humans. And we are quite content with things as they are.
And since we are the grandchildren of the Nazis (and of the resistance, of course), I think we can fairly assume that our other selves in the different timeline wouldn't be all that different from us as our families and our ways of thinking would still be very much the same, only some moral values (but not all) would be different.
As for the use of false information in order to lure people into a war, may I respectfully remind you of certain "proof" about Iraq possessing biological weapons which was used as an excuse to start a war on them? Only, I might add, to find out later that said "proof" was utterly and completely faked by the Bush administration.
Please, get me right: I'm not accusing you. I am merely trying to point out that you are on the verge of applying different standards to the use of the same method because one party is someone you don't know and the other party is your own people. It's only natural and very human to feel so loyal but in a discussion one must attempt to put loyalties aside and remain fair and open-minded.
If I, being a native German, can accept the topic and discuss it without calling people ignorant for no other reason than them disagreeing with me, why can't you?
I do agree with you that the 3rd Reich was certainly instable and that Hitler distrusted his fellows. I do, however, disagree on your theory of him deliberately playing the fool. In my opinion (based on many speeches, books, laws, etc. he made) he was really pretty unhinged from the start and it got more obvious every year.
The only positive things I could say about him is that he really loved his dogs and that he was a dangerousely gifted speaker. Initially, it must have been hard for people to resist his lure. When it became clear that he was loosing his grip on reality, it was already too late. Not so much because of the consequences people had to fear but to a far bigger extent due to the proverbial "Nibelungentreue", a typical German character trait. We stick to our friends/leaders/whatever, no matter what. It's a matter of honour and honour is more important than survival.
That's the way people used to think back then and my generation of Western Germans still does. It's different with people from the former GDR -they were very strongly influenced by the Sovjet occupation and developed a different moral codex while after the "denazification" we pretty much carried on where we left in 45.
And - to return to the topic - we stayed on course also as far as space travels are concerned. We think a space programme of our owns would be too expensive while we need the money for more important things (schools, hospitals, bribing politicians). We joined the European space programme and we offer mainly intellectual support. We still have good mathematicians and physicists, build excellent optical instruments and have rather good IT specialists. We have a handfull of astronauts but mostly we stick with sending experimental kits to the ISS rather than humans. And we are quite content with things as they are.
And since we are the grandchildren of the Nazis (and of the resistance, of course), I think we can fairly assume that our other selves in the different timeline wouldn't be all that different from us as our families and our ways of thinking would still be very much the same, only some moral values (but not all) would be different.
As for the use of false information in order to lure people into a war, may I respectfully remind you of certain "proof" about Iraq possessing biological weapons which was used as an excuse to start a war on them? Only, I might add, to find out later that said "proof" was utterly and completely faked by the Bush administration.
Please, get me right: I'm not accusing you. I am merely trying to point out that you are on the verge of applying different standards to the use of the same method because one party is someone you don't know and the other party is your own people. It's only natural and very human to feel so loyal but in a discussion one must attempt to put loyalties aside and remain fair and open-minded.
Again, I ask: If that's what this topic is really all about, then what is it doing in the Science and Technology forum? Why is it not in Misc.?
valid point.
Yet I think it fits here allright as it deals with how Germany might possibly have developed in the scientific and technological sector.
Also, due to it mentioning Nazis, I think it'd be too controversial a topic for MISC. While here in the Science forum people can be trusted to discuss things in a way that's not too emotional, over there the thread would very likely derail and get dangerousely close to a flamewar.
You might now reasonably point out that it might in this case be better moved to TNZ. But in that case the flame war would almost be pre-programmed since by the very act of posting the thread there, the general focus would be shifted to the political aspects rather than the scientific ones.
In the end it's a matter of interpretation and individual preferences. (And of course the thread starter's and Moderators' decision.)
Personally, I have to admit that while I usually feel highly uncomfortable with Nazi-ish topics (for danger of being misinterpreted and consequently flamed), I find myself unexpectedly enjoying talking this topic over with scientific-minded intelligent people.
Yet I think it fits here allright as it deals with how Germany might possibly have developed in the scientific and technological sector.
Also, due to it mentioning Nazis, I think it'd be too controversial a topic for MISC. While here in the Science forum people can be trusted to discuss things in a way that's not too emotional, over there the thread would very likely derail and get dangerousely close to a flamewar.
You might now reasonably point out that it might in this case be better moved to TNZ. But in that case the flame war would almost be pre-programmed since by the very act of posting the thread there, the general focus would be shifted to the political aspects rather than the scientific ones.
In the end it's a matter of interpretation and individual preferences. (And of course the thread starter's and Moderators' decision.)
Personally, I have to admit that while I usually feel highly uncomfortable with Nazi-ish topics (for danger of being misinterpreted and consequently flamed), I find myself unexpectedly enjoying talking this topic over with scientific-minded intelligent people.
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Nothing's wrong with hypothesizing or speculation. We can learn a lot about the real world by doing that. For example, we might wonder what the consequences might have been, if, in 1940, a nationally prominent social worker in the US, who had gotten her start in a New York soup kitchen and who had once narrowly escaped being run over by a car, urged the President not to send the Pacific Fleet to Pearl Harbor, under the premise that it would be interpreted by the Japanese as a hostile act.
However, the OP has provided no link to the source of the timeline given in the OP post and no discussion of the methodology upon which it was based. He's tossed out some hypotheticals, but he didn't connect anything up with the timeline given in the OP. DarthTom is apparently in contact with the person who created the timeline given in the OP. By my first question, I was implicitly hoping that he could disclose some of the methodology upon which it was based, or at least spell out the major assumptions, by consulting with the person who came up with it in the first place.
Since that hasn't happened, I'm not even sure what's being discussed. Is the discussion in relation to the OP timeline, or is this more a general discussion now of various what-if scenarios?
In my second post, I was primarily objecting to the idea that "Any assumption is as good as any other", because in science that is not so. In science, plausibility matters, and if an assumption is implausible it really must be identified as such. You seemed to concede that that was a valid point, which is the main thing I was looking for there. If it's not the case that any idea is as good as any other, then I believe that this discussion can fit in the context of science.
However, I would like to know what the purpose of the OP was. Are we helping someone write a science fiction novel, or what? If we are, then I think that that really needs to be disclosed.
However, the OP has provided no link to the source of the timeline given in the OP post and no discussion of the methodology upon which it was based. He's tossed out some hypotheticals, but he didn't connect anything up with the timeline given in the OP. DarthTom is apparently in contact with the person who created the timeline given in the OP. By my first question, I was implicitly hoping that he could disclose some of the methodology upon which it was based, or at least spell out the major assumptions, by consulting with the person who came up with it in the first place.
Since that hasn't happened, I'm not even sure what's being discussed. Is the discussion in relation to the OP timeline, or is this more a general discussion now of various what-if scenarios?
In my second post, I was primarily objecting to the idea that "Any assumption is as good as any other", because in science that is not so. In science, plausibility matters, and if an assumption is implausible it really must be identified as such. You seemed to concede that that was a valid point, which is the main thing I was looking for there. If it's not the case that any idea is as good as any other, then I believe that this discussion can fit in the context of science.
However, I would like to know what the purpose of the OP was. Are we helping someone write a science fiction novel, or what? If we are, then I think that that really needs to be disclosed.
ah, now I get what you meant! I totally second that. It'd be interesting to know on which basis this educated guess was made.
I find the time frame a bit cramped. We Germans pride ourselves to be good inventors but I don't think we could have developed space ships that quickly, even under optimal conditions (intact industry, lots of money, no shortage of materials). We have an unfoortunate tendency to second-guess each and everything, including ourselves. That costs a lot of time (but also saves a lot of "If only we had"). I'm curious to see why in this model the development was assumed to be so fast.
I can see what you disliked about my "one guess is as good as any other". I should perhaps have elaborated a bit more clearly.
In my experience, the very same facts can often be interpreted very differently, depending on many factors (education, cultural background, frame of mind, even a bad hair day might influence our way of looking at things). Therefore it's very likely for quite different theories being made from the same vantage-point.
Usually, reality will sooner or later prove one of these theories to be correct or at least more likely.
However, as we are talking about a completely imaginary scenario, we are deprived of this practical proof. And a purely analytical proof would again be based on our different interpretations and thus lead us back in a circle. Everyone would be convinced that he or she was right, because everyone instinctively tends to rate one's owns ideas higher than those of others.
Because neither theory could impartially be proved to be the correct one, I concluded that each theory would be of as much worth as any other.
I find the time frame a bit cramped. We Germans pride ourselves to be good inventors but I don't think we could have developed space ships that quickly, even under optimal conditions (intact industry, lots of money, no shortage of materials). We have an unfoortunate tendency to second-guess each and everything, including ourselves. That costs a lot of time (but also saves a lot of "If only we had"). I'm curious to see why in this model the development was assumed to be so fast.
I can see what you disliked about my "one guess is as good as any other". I should perhaps have elaborated a bit more clearly.
In my experience, the very same facts can often be interpreted very differently, depending on many factors (education, cultural background, frame of mind, even a bad hair day might influence our way of looking at things). Therefore it's very likely for quite different theories being made from the same vantage-point.
Usually, reality will sooner or later prove one of these theories to be correct or at least more likely.
However, as we are talking about a completely imaginary scenario, we are deprived of this practical proof. And a purely analytical proof would again be based on our different interpretations and thus lead us back in a circle. Everyone would be convinced that he or she was right, because everyone instinctively tends to rate one's owns ideas higher than those of others.
Because neither theory could impartially be proved to be the correct one, I concluded that each theory would be of as much worth as any other.
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I put forward that the person who invented this what-if timeline was/is ignorant of World War II. Specifically, I meant ignorant of what Nazi's were. I'm not implying anything further, or trying to insult this person.
The Nazi government poured enormous resources into engineering technology to improve their military might and some of what they came up with remains quite impressive. Particularly in the area of rocketry. And I can well-imagine someone imagining about those impressive technical implications and what those machines would've been able to evolve into, from an engineering point of view.
However, this treatment of Naziism as a viable mechanism for governing a nation is where this person's imagine is in error. Nazi Germany was also pouring enormous resources into its death camps: the transportation of huge masses of people and the desposal of enormous quantities of corpses. This was a willfull, deliberate drain on the German economy, which was not robust, to begin with. There was a lot of "Creative Marketing" going on, just to maintain the illusion that it was.
Nobody else's opinions mattered to the Nazi Party, except for their own. And whomever was not of them was going to get humiliated, tortured and murdered, including (but not limited to) Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, the mentally challenged, the physically impaired, the weak, any and all dissidents (proven to be, or otherwise) and anyone they arbitrarily didn't like the looks of. That was their ambition and even if they'd won the war, the financial, logistical and physical drains on the german government would've simply forced The Fatherland to collapse into destitution and chaos.
The Nazi Party was not The Cardisassians, or the Klingons, or some work of fiction that had a future that could be played out according to an imagination without a rule book. If you're going to use this "what if" scenario on an actual party group, in this case, the Nazi's ... then you are going to have to play it by their rules. Especially, if the intentions for this exercise are trying to be sincere, at all.
I agree with this and with much of 2takes' other commentary on the structural flaws of Nazism, and the Reich's ultimate basic unsuitability for becoming a viable space power.
The really basic problem is working out just how much has to be changed to produce a "victorious" Nazi Germany at all and figure out what that country looks like. The leadership's obsession with astrology and occultism and suspicious, inconsistent and chancy embrace of rationalism wasn't a feature of just Hitler's personality; it was a fundamental feature of fascism, a built-in part of the whole exercise of building a party and state around a cult of sub-rational ultra-nationalism and the semi-magical collective "will" of a people as embodied in its leader. Was there a way to make this project into any kind of long-term viable modern state at all? It's really very hard to say, but I lean toward agreeing with 2takes that the answer is probably "no"... at least not without the result being Nazi in name only, a route which robs a lot of resonance from the idea of a Third Reich space programme.
Some of the Nazis' most famous technical achievements as it is just barely survived being snuffed out by intra-party rivalries. This includes the V-2 rocket program -- which at an rate ultimately delivered little practical benefit to the war effort, the benefits were reaped mainly by the Americans after the war -- as recounted in The Rocket and The Reich by Michael Neufeld.