6 Inches To The Right

Not sure if this idea has been posted before, I'm going with it anyway. We've seen numerous posts about Adolf Hitler being killed in World War II, but in World War I when he was serving in the German Army, a friend of his was killed by a sniper's bullet while sitting (or standing) right next to him. Hitler often said that if that bullet had hit six inches to the right, he would have been killed.

What if it had hit him? How would the events of post-war Europe have played out without him? Would the Nazi party have still risen to power or would Germany have gone Communist? Would the Weimar Republic have survived? Would another World War have occured without Hitler? Tell me your thoughts.
 
70% possibility that an unpleasant right wing dictatorship which is not genocidal or determined to attack neighbours will take over.

20% chance that a dictatorial far left movement will take power

5% chance of something very like the Nazis

5% chance of some kind of democracy surviving (if that)
 
Well, it might have some consequences for the Nazi's. They will probably 'catch on' in Germany, but without Hitler's charisma I don't see anything resembling The Third Reich comming into being. Strong fascist movements are, of course, not limited to Germany. Musolini pobably would have been a bit more sedate in his Mediteranian adventure.

We'll probably have a more East/West type war going on, somewhere down the road. A Soviet Invasion of Poland?
 

CalBear

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70% possibility that an unpleasant right wing dictatorship which is not genocidal or determined to attack neighbours will take over.

20% chance that a dictatorial far left movement will take power

5% chance of something very like the Nazis

5% chance of some kind of democracy surviving (if that)

VERY like the Nazi's?:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Industrialized genocide? Even Stalin and Mao didn't go that far.
 
Another scenario has Hitler killed by an Artylieery shell hitting the place he is haveing in. (He's makeing some evil crap at the time.)
 
This isn't totally in line with your POD, but someone on this site made up a scenario in which Hitler gets shot in the head, but survives. He ends up becoming colorblind, tries to become an artist anyway, and gets acclaimed for his "interesting use of color". He ends up moving to America, getting married, and having kids.

It had a photoshopped fake Wikipedia entry with it, too.

I tried to do a search for it, but I couldn't find it.
 
Norman Spinrad's "The Iron Dream"

This 1972 SF novel is a "book within a book" - it purports to be a reprint of an ATL's Adolph Hitler's seminal novel "Lord of the Swastika", written some time before the author's death in 1959. Apparently, after "dabbling in radical politics", Hitler emmigrated to the U.S. in 1919, worked as an artist for the growing pulp magazine market until his English was good enough to write the stuff, then embarked upon his career writing Gernsbackian science fiction stories and novels for the pulp market. (If you've read an of Hugo Gernsback's original "scientifiction", you see that A.H.'s English didn't need to be that good, really...)

The Iron Dream won the Hugo Award for 1972, and remains a strange pastiche of commentary on both history and science fiction.
 

ninebucks

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70% possibility that an unpleasant right wing dictatorship which is not genocidal or determined to attack neighbours will take over.

20% chance that a dictatorial far left movement will take power

5% chance of something very like the Nazis

5% chance of some kind of democracy surviving (if that)

Hmm, I'd think a Left Wing dictatorship would actually be a lot more likely. Germany had very many Socialists wandering around, and indeed, it could be suggested that one of the primarily reasons why the Nazis managed to win so much support was by courting the Left. The German Right didn't so much fear Communism, as it feared the Soviets - if a German Leftist can convince the nationalists that he, ("or she", said Ninebucks, subtly hinting at a Rosa Luxemburg Fuhrerdom), wouldn't hand over Germany to the Kremlin, then they may win some significant successes.
 
I'm fairly sure that something very similar to OTL would happen without Hitler. But I don't believe in the "great man" theory of history.

However, WWII may be avoided if a more rational (read: more rational in terms of not making insane decisions, not more rational in terms of avoiding genocide and things like that). Or at least, I think it would be a smaller conflict.
 
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