AH Challenge: Pope Adolf

[Landshark]

I was going to do this one in the ASB cross time scooper thread but I'm not feeling that inventive tonight so I'll leave it up to you lot.

Make Adolf Hitler Pope: Extra points if you can make his papacy run from 1933 to 1945 and if you can make him revered for saving millions of Jews and other people from a Facistic dictatorship.

[Archangel Michael]

Hitler wanted to be a monk when he was little. Let's keep him on that track. When he's twenty (1909), he enrolls in an Austrian semminary. He is ordained as a priest when he's twenty-six (1915). He is a popular priest, and is very ambitious. He becomes a Austrian Army chaplin, and returns home in 1918. He rises quickly through the ranks of the catholic church, becoming an archbishop at the age of forty (1929) and a cardinal two years later. He becomes popular as a humanitarian, speaking out against the German Nationalist Party's (lead by Himmler) anti-semitism.

In 1933, Pope Pius XI dies (he did in 1939 in OTL, but let's say he died due to butterflies). Hitler seems certain to win, and many people accuse him of assasinating Pius XI. It was a tight vote against Hitler and Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Eugenio Pacelli. Hitler is elected pope in late 1933, becoming the first non-Italian pope in generations. He is coronated (is that the right word?) as Pope Greogory XVII. He increases the power of the papacy, and actually increases the size of the Papal States. In 1934, Himmler of Germany comes to power as the German Furher. He begins an agressive campaign against the Jewish people, and begins the Final Solution quickly. He takes in thousands of Jewish refuges, and Himmler orders Pope Gregory to stop this.

In 1940, the Second Great War begins as Germany invades Poland. Hearing stories about their German cousins, thousands of Poles, Slavs, and Jews arrive in the Papal State. In 1941, Himmler invades France and the Low Countries, and thousands of more Jews escape to the Papal States. Germany invades the Soviet Union in 1942, and sucedes. In 1944, the Allies (England and the United States) invade Italy. The Papal Army-made up of mostly Jews-seizes Rome from the Italian Army, and Mussolini is overthrown while the Allies are still slogging it in southern Italy. A year later, the Allies invade Germany via Italy, France, and the Balkans. In 1946, German cities erupt in nuclear hell fire. The whole of Europe is under western control, and Communism is routed out.

Pope Gregory XVII died at the age of sixty-two in the year 1951 of pnemonia. Gregory had been severly weakened by Alzemhiers dieasese, and finally died. He is best known as the Savior of the Jews for svaing four million Jews from the clutches of the Germans. Gregory became Saint Adolf in 1995, and is known as the Patron Saint of the Homeless and Refugees.

List of Popes since 1930
Pope Pius XI (Achille Ratti) 1922-1933
Pope Gregory XVII (Adolf Hitler) 1933-1951
Pope John XXIII (Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Eugenio Pacelli) 1951-1958
Poepe Gregory XVIII (Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli) 1958-1963
Pope Paul VI (Albino Luciani) 1963-1990
Pope John Paul I (Karol Józef Wojtyła) 1990-2003
Pope Leo XIV (Giulio Giovanni Francesco Ganganelli ) 2003-present

[Proctol]

Can one imagine the effect of a 44 year old Pope Adolf's sonorous, baritoned, cadenced, inflexioned, booming, modulated, Austrian-accented perfect Latin giving the benedictions over loudpeakers to the faithful in St Peter' Square?! Some would think he was Christ; others that he was the Antichrist....literally!

Is a pope allowed to retain his moustache or beard?

[Anthony Appleyard]

He would be so different from the OTL Hitler that he would be effectively a different man. As regards his voice, if ATL in WW1 he was an army chaplain, and not what he was OTL, would he have got the dose of chlorine gas affecting his voice?

I have read that Hitler OTL was affected mentally by syphilis. If he was a Catholic priest, he would have been much less likely to get into behavior that may risk him catching syphilis.

[Prunesquallor]

Hitler does bcome Pope in Frederick Mullally's novel, HITLER HAS WON.

[Proctol]

WI Pope Hitler retained his anti-semitemitism, & became even more anti-Jewish than Pope Paul IV? How much could he get away with?

[fred_smith]

What if he did assasinate the previous pope? Perhaps he could have exploited the Jewish and Slavic populations for his own gain under the pretense of helping them. That way, we could get an evil Hitler who is still widely praised.