Exit the Haze: Hitler – The Master strategist who resurrected Germany as a global power
- Thread starter Gudestein
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Oh, c'mon. I don't think any of us have issues with the Nazis being mean. It's the word choice. I personally wouldn't have had an issue if it was written with quotes ("humane") but... Madagascar is NOT humane. It just isn't.
Garrison
Donor
But AANW, explores that darkness, here its passed off with a single paragraph and the author tries to pretend he isn't writing Adolf Hitler's wishlist by offering up the 'Madagascar plan' as if it were somehow less vile than what was done historically.
SsgtC
Banned
And AANW never tried to pass off the horrors of Nazi rule as anything but evil. This TL is literally saying genocide is a good thing and is actually humane.
This. CalBear makes very clear what a horrific charnel house the Nazis turned Europe into - and then how it was broken beyond repair by the fall of the Reich. Here, it's simply brushed aside as the Nazis being "humane."
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Madagascar or wherever in Africa is just genocide the Ottoman way. From the Nazi perspective this is probably a more human way than gassing. But please dont act like Gudstein is a in the closet Nazi because he didnt particular made it clear that the Nazis are evil. That goes without saying! For christ sake! What I see here is nothing but virtue signaling like: *points finger!* Look at him! He writes a Nazi Victory timeline without showing how evil the Nazis are!
If you hadnt noticed Gudsteins wirtes pretty much solely from a military perspective. You dont see much infos about society as a whole. Be it allied or German. I guess this is just his style. What I dont see are reasons to act like Justin Timberlake:
I dont know why & I cant explain this really to myself, but this movie scene just sprang into my head when I opened this thread and saw this discussion.
Hang on, I'm not saying anything about his political beliefs. I'm ONLY SAYING the word choice was an issue. That's a different issue.
Not... really?
I don't see anyone here complaining about how Gudestein is actually a Nazi, or virtue shaming. The issue is the word choice, on top of the other issues in the TL, like unrealistic logistics. I have no problem with a victorious Nazi timeline - I've read Fatherland, played the rebooted Wolfenstein, etc - but I think the timeline ignores just how hand in hand genocide is with the regime. Now, could it have gone differently if the Germans achieved some of their goals? Sure. But Madagascar was proposed BEFORE Barbarossa, and at the high point of Hitler's control over Europe (and before the drugs really came into play for that matter). That suggests how far the regime was willing to go, and would go, as more territory falls in their hands.
Garrison
Donor
I'm sorry but what is the point of writing a 'Nazi's victorious' TL if not to explore the consequences of such a victory? Which pretty much inevitably means dealing with the horrors of such a victory. Instead the author spent more paragraphs going over the specs of next gen Luftwaffe fighters than he did on the fate of the Jews and the whole of Eastern Europe.
Simple. Notzis. But that aside, it is a tad worrying that yeah as you said, more stuff said about planes etc and then its
"The jews were moved. Germans happy. There is no war in bae-sae-sing!"
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Here I'm going to differ from you slightly. I think a person could do a TL exploring the evolution of the Luftwaffe in a surviving/doing better Third Reich without discussing the Holocaust - but only if it were framed as specifically looking at those planes and how they operated (and by extension not describing the slave labor and abuse in the armaments industry, and the hypothermia experiments). But this TL is claiming to look at the rise of Germany as a global power - therefore, the impact this would have on the untermensch is inescapable.
True enough bit I think the war ending with Britain and Germany becoming an ally of the US could and would cause some butterflies concerning the Holocaust.
How? The cornerstone of Nazi ideology was the annihilation of the Jewish race as well as the sub-human bolsheviks. Hitler 'getting better' in the early 40's is not gonna change any of that because he's already got all sorted for that. Krastalnacht etc has already happened, the race laws, the purity laws, etc etc. Suddenly going "And then Hitler in his wonderful benevolence offered to ship all the Jews to the USA and the Americans gladly accepted this." would be whitewashing and denying history on a horrid scale.
And lets not forget that by this point the Germans are already putting people in camps, the disabled, the 'abnormal', homosexuals, Roma's etc etc etc. Has anything been said about that or has it been skipped over in favour of the DB-300314141 tank?
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Hmm. Well, Hitler did have this rather bizarre idea of using the Jews as hostages to keep America out of the war OTL, and when he declared war in his logic it meant they were no longer to be viewed as such. I still have a hard time believing things get much better for them; I could see some kind of genocidal action against them happening even with an American alliance.
Reading the last page again I perhaps overreacted a little bit. Certainly on the virtue signaling argument. I agree that the horror which entails a Nazi Victory isnt much explored here. Which I fing a little bit sad since the nazi vision is fascinating in all its barbaric cruelty. But hey, thats Gudsteins choice. If he want to write about tanks, planes & logistics than its his choice.
Garrison
Donor
Exactly. I think though that it is notable that the best known Nazi victory fiction, Man in the High Castle, SS:GB, the boards own AANW, heck the latest gen of Wolfenstein games, take such a victory as jumping off point for telling a story, they don't make it the point of the story.
Cool, thanks for being candid like that. But, I'd say that is a bit of a flaw of the timeline - especially with its purported aim of showing Germany being a world leader. The political, cultural and social elements are kind of unavoidable.
Especially with the Nazi's racial and genetic views, acts and deeds thus far. Hitler may have 'gotten better' (and it was't just the drugs) but what about Hess? Himmrer, Gobbels etc? What about other members of the party who were rabidily anti-semitic? Are they taking the good drugs now too?
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