AH Challenge: Chancellor Einstein

Have Alber Einstein Chancellor of Germany, bonus points if both Hitler and Einstein Chancellor at certain points. POD can be before 1900 I guess.

Also, I don't want to hear "Einstein wasn't political." Anyone can be made political with a proper POD. IOTL Einstein made some pretty political statements, as it were.
 
Well, suppose Germany stays democratic w/no Nazis, and there is a world war in the 1930s where Germany is allied to the US and the UK, perhaps against Russia and Japan. (Don't ask how or why.) Einstein invents the atom bomb with the help of German and American scientists, and as a result the war is won quickly. Einstein is a bit of a celebrity for pushing Germany to superpower status and he still lives in the Fatherland.

That should get him enough fame and prestige to put him on track to becoming chancellor.
 
You're going to need a pretty big PoD for this, one very early in Einstein's life (one which means he isn't really Einstein anymore). As a child, he detested German militarism. By 1894 (aged only 15) he had renounced his German citizenship and was already seeking an academic life.

Frankly, while you can make Einstein a politician, it's near impossible to make him a German one.

And Einstein didn't actually invent the Bomb (indeed, he called for it to be banned) merely demonstrated that there was a lot of energy within the nucleus of an atom
 
Quick victory for the Kaiserreich in the Great War leaves the absolutists and militarists with inflated egos, but also it can perhaps prevent the war from dragging on long enough for the Social Democrats to support it - thus keeping the party from splitting and from the elements that would otherwise have become the Spartakists from being around in a strong-monarchy Germany to be made into examples and squashed in order to discourage future reformists.

With a strong SDP, strong ultra-monarchists, and perhaps no communists or center-rightists of note between (after all, if the Kaiser and the Prussian establishment was so successful, that would pretty much force pro-parliament power conservative parties to break up and either join the Kaiserine establishment or join the established opposition - the SDP) you are set for a showdown that will create a radically different set of social and cultural problems than the ones we associate with a long dragged out World War One (regardless of who loses and who wins).

That is, rather than the disgruntled veterans you get in both the victor and loser countries from the OTL Great War, a quick victory is going to cause the mainstream politics of Europe to be revived with new life, I think.

Instead of communists gaining power and veterans forming fascist groups, you'll have opposition parties that can blame ruling parties for the defeat and not look soiled by it themselves due to the shortness of the war and you'll have ruling parties that are emboldened by the victory and thus push more and more people into mainstream reformist opposition movements rather than the extremist fringe movements that bloomed successfully in the wake of a long and demoralizing war.

Anyway, in the political struggle or civil war between the Reformists and the Absolutists if the Reformists win or if the Absolutist side wins but ends up getting a monarch who likes to reform from above, you can end up with Einstein returning to his country and becoming a famed scientist at a national institute. This could lead to political ambitions.

Einstein as a SDP backbencher who is thrust by circumstances into the Chancellery is interesting, so is Einstein as the man selected by a Maximilian Hapsburg type pro-reform absolutist monarch.
 
I agree with Mr. Goldstein's analysis of Kaiserreich politics but I believe that a Chancellor Einstein is a real stretch in any circumstances because of his academic, non-confrontentional personality. A much better, and equally ironic, choice would be a Chancellor Haber. Nobel prize winner, German nationalist, Frontsoldat (leading his own special gas unit) academic administrator, patron of Einstein, Heisenberg and others. Now that is a Chancellor.

AH
 
*Is tempted to start a "Prime Minister Stephen Hawking" thread*

On topic, it seems unlikely for reasons outlined already. I think that even if he enters politics he'd end up being a career back bench type who is popular but not likely to get beyond that.
 
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