4 alternate lives of Hitler

[Straha]

I have been toying arount with five ATL's based on variations in the
fate of Adolph Hitlier. Briefly, summarized, here they are. On all
of them, events proceed as on OTL until the departures noted in the
scenario. I label them according to the likely year of Hitler's
death.

Those who wish to discuss these individual ATL'S can do so by the
titles which differ according to Hitler's life span.

1. ADOLPH HITLER (1889-1965)

Hitler's mother remarries shortly after the death of her first
husband, young Adolph's father. The boy's new stepfather gives young
Adolph Hitler the encouragement and guidance he needs to pursue his
boyhood dream to become an artist. Hitler becomes a successful
cartoonist and eventually emigrates to the USA where he teams up with
Walt Disney. His interest in politics never develops beyond a
passionate German nationalism. His anti-Semitism remains on a level
which was generally respectable in both Austria and the USA in the
early 1900's.

2. ADOLPH HITLER (1889-1938)

Hitler is assassinated shortly after the annexation of Austria. The
Nazi party splits into competing factions led by the remaining leaders
vying for power. The infant Third Reich almost dies. A new German
nationalist party (Vaterland) emerges out of a merger between one of
these Nazi facitons with other nationalistic German and Austrian
movements.

3. ADOLPH HITLER (1889-1944)

Bomb plot agains Hitler is successful. The coup makes Rommel the
Second Fuehrer. This choice is dictated by the fact that Rommel is
the one potential leader they have who has credibility with the
Allies. Rommel bans the Nazi Party and imprisons the leaders. When
he learns the details about the Final Solution, he announces the
details and promises a trial of all those responsible, to be held by
the German military.

4. ADOLPH HITLER (1889-1946)

During the Battle for Berlin, a crack squadraon of Red Army commandos
penetrate deep into Berlin. They reach Hitler's bunker and capture
all occupants alive, including Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun. Hitler
stands trial at Nuremburg. Some of the women on this list might want
to play around with this one. If Eva Braun had not yet married
Hitler, she could have been made to testify against Hitler. But so
far as I know, she was never implicated in any war crimes. At the
same time, the Red Army was noted for its brutality against German
women during this phase of the war. Eva Braun could emerge as an
innocent victim.

 

[DominusNovus]

I like the first one. Reminds me of the Simpson's analogue to Disney.

 

[aktarian]

4. ADOLPH HITLER (1889-1946)

During the Battle for Berlin, a crack squadraon of Red Army commandos
penetrate deep into Berlin. They reach Hitler's bunker and capture
all occupants alive, including Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun. Hitler
stands trial at Nuremburg. Some of the women on this list might want
to play around with this one. If Eva Braun had not yet married
Hitler, she could have been made to testify against Hitler. But so
far as I know, she was never implicated in any war crimes. At the
same time, the Red Army was noted for its brutality against German
women during this phase of the war. Eva Braun could emerge as an
innocent victim.

Unlikelly. Look how long it took Sovs to capture it with arty, engineers, armor.... Best they could do (long shot) is get Hitler's body not cremated.

 

[Brilliantlight]

Here is a fifth Adolph Hitler (1889-1920)

Adolph dies impoverished when he catches a major illness while being a bum in Germany. Only a handful of people are at all interested in his death as he is a complete nobody.

Here is a sixth Adolph Hitler (1889-1916)
Adolph gets a posthumous Iron Cross as he manages to deliver a message before he dies. He was ambushed by 2 British soldiers on his way to the HQ and was shot 6 times before he killed both of them.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

Ever read "THE IRON DREAM" about a soldier decorated for valor in WWI named Adolf Hitler? How he moved to the US and became a successful science fiction author?

 

[NapoleonXIV]

With my apologies to Straha

1. ADOLPH HITLER (1889-1965)

"Hitler's mother remarries shortly after the death of her first
husband, young Adolph's father. The boy's new stepfather gives young
Adolph Hitler the encouragement and guidance he needs to pursue his
boyhood dream to become an artist. Hitler becomes a successful
cartoonist and eventually emigrates to the USA where he teams up with
Walt Disney."
.
In 1945, however, he breaks with Disney over his idea to turn Wagner's Ring Saga into a movie. Obtaining backing from several American/German interests as well as most of the Bayreuth community in Europe he produces and directs 3 epic features which employ most of the major stars of the time and define the state of the art in special effects and general production values for years to come. The movies, however, while critical successes, are commercially unremarkable. Hitler retreats into a relative obscurity, making mainly obscure art films until his death. The seminal influence of his work makes him a well known figure to most students of film. although he remains a general unknown. While in Germany to obtain backing, he meets and later marries Winifred Wagner after divorcing his first wife of several years, Geli Raubal.

" His interest in politics never develops beyond a
passionate German nationalism. His anti-Semitism remains on a level
which was generally respectable in both Austria and the USA in the
early 1900's."

 

[carlton_bach]

3. ADOLPH HITLER (1889-1944)

Bomb plot agains Hitler is successful. The coup makes Rommel the
Second Fuehrer. This choice is dictated by the fact that Rommel is
the one potential leader they have who has credibility with the
Allies. Rommel bans the Nazi Party and imprisons the leaders. When
he learns the details about the Final Solution, he announces the
details and promises a trial of all those responsible, to be held by
the German military.

I have to say I think it's very unlikely Rommel (or any of the opther conspirators) did not know of the Final Solution, at least in general terms. He is something of a martyr these days due to his being forced into suicide after being implicated in the bomb plot, but before that timer he was widely considered 'Hitler's pet general'. Thuis, IO don't think he makes a very credible leader for the coup government, either, though I could see him used as a popular 'face'. The legend the propaganda ministry built around him had already assumed near-superhuman proportions. Stauffenberg - a highly respected general and administrator with ties to the old upper class - makes a somewhat more likely candidate for the real head.

That could give rise to a 'good aristocrats - bad nazis' legend in postwar Germany akin to the 'good Wehrmacht - bad SS' one we had in OTL. The aristocracy in positions of power, with the legitimacy of being 'clean' and the possibility of branding any unduly ambitious lower-class person as 'just like the Nazis'. Scary

 

[tom]

GR:
Yup. It was supposedly written by him, in a timeline where Communism is about to envelope the world. It is a post-holocaust where a Nazi like party pulls the world out of the darkness and into a glorified version of the Third Reich.

 

[Tom_B]

Another Option

6. ADOLPH CARDINAL HITLER (1889-1967)

After the death of his father, Hitler's mother becomes intensely Catholic--eventually she joins a nunnery. Hitler enters the priesthood and is ordained before the Great War, during which he serves as a chaplain.

After the war he becomes something of a political priest and becomes good friends with the American (Canadian born) priest Charles Coughlin and together they publish Social Justice which combines sympathy for the working class with contempt for the manipulative Jews. They both become controversial in the Catholic Church but Hilter is better at manipulating Church politics and makes bishop. Under Pope Pius XII he rises rapidly becoming a Cardinal then Sectreary of State. In the Conclave of 1958 he was considered the leading candidate to become Pope but his reputation as being Pius XII's executioner had made him too many enemies and the conclave eventually chooses Spellman as the Pope who became Pope Pius XIII.

Hitler and the new Pope had a complicated relationship. In 2002 Andrew Sullivan published a controversial book in which he tries to prove they were lovers at one time. There is some evidence that Cardinal Hitler was in favor of permitting artificial contraception which Pius XIII continued to condemn.
Andrew Greely and Garry Wills have written books arguing Hitler would have been a more progressive Pope and spared the Church from the decline it was suffered in recent years.

 

[Max Sinister]

I somewhere read that the men of July 20 had planned whom they wanted to have which position after their coup succeeded. Stauffenberg, Beck and Goerdeler had important positions, and they planned to include the Social Democrat Leber somewhen, too. But I can't remember that they included Rommel. He might win in the first free election, though.

Oh, BTW, just nitpicking: In German, it's Adolf, not Adolph.

 

[Tyr]

I remember seeing something on TV a few years back where they were interviewing a old man who had the chance to shoot Hitler though chose to spare him during WW1.
I doubt Hitler would become succesful in anything in ATLs.

 

[tom]

Like that guy who could have shot Washington?

 

[Tyr]

I thought Washington was shot.
I've forgotten what happened exactly but it was something about him taking Hitler prisoner rather then shooting him (I think)

 

[tom]

Patrick Ferguson was a leading developer of breech loading firearms. The Ferguson Rifle was considered at the time to be one of the most deadly weapons in the British inventory. Fergusen's second claim to fame was the "Shot Never Taken." As a Major, Ferguson found himself in position to make a shot on an unidentified Continental officer near Germantown Pennsylvania. When the man turned away at approximately 125 yards, the good major chose not to shoot him in the back. That man turned out to be none other than General George Washington. Had Ferguson taken the shot one can assume that the entire history of what is today the United States would have been affected. Recall it was Washington who turned down the offer to be King of the Colonies after the successful resolution of the War for Independence. Had he not been in charge of the Colonial forces, not only would the outcome of the war have been in question, but so would the very nature of the Republic which rose from that conflict. Ironically, Patrick Ferguson was later killed on 7 October of 1780 when a member of Morgan's Kentucky Riflemen shot him at approximately 450 yards. As a result, Ferguson's unit surrendered which forced Gen. Cornwallis to abandon his invasion of North Carolina. The loss was doubly hurtful to the British cause, since they had lost one of their premier weapons designers.

 

[MerryPrankster]

According to The New Dealer's War, Rommel would have been the "public figurehead" of the post-Hitler gov't (which means I assume he is the Fuhrer). However, I imagine it'd be sort of a "rule by committee" sort of thing.

 

[Tyr]

Ack I was thinking of that other famous president- Lincoln was shot wasn't he?

 

[Nonny]

Hitler was conceived on the Jewish National Day of Mourning, the 9th of Av 1888, and at the hour of his birth on 20 April 1889, it is recorded that the Shiniver Rabbi in Poland swooned in the midst of his prayers, exclaiming: "Gavalt! I can sense that a man who will be more evil than Haman has just been born! Pray that he dies an untimely death!"