AHC: Nice Guy Nazis

Well of course it's cherry-picking, I said so myself: I chose the best examples. Stalin is very nearly in the same league as Hitler. Being pro-slavery isn't really close but it's possibly the closest you can get if you stay in the USA.
But Jackson and Roosevelt? In Hitler's league, they wouldn't be allowed to serve as ball boys. You should be grateful I did not mention your bad examples, instead of trotting them out again.
Agreed, but IATL Hitler killed less than both due to political constraints. History does not judge the secret thoughts of people's minds.
 
Agreed, but IATL Hitler killed less than both due to political constraints. History does not judge the secret thoughts of people's minds.

First thing, these two Presidents had civilians killed in colonial wars. Colonial wars do that (kill civilians). The OP OTOH wants to preserve the image of Nazism by, among other thing, not sullying it with wars (pretty out of character for Nazism, and Fascism in general, but it's the OP who wants this). So the comparison would be unfair. The alternative is to offer this alt-Germany a colony (say the British are so pleased with it not running amok in Europe that they renegotiate those details and give them back Windhoek or some place in SE Asia), and then the natives there unreasonably demand freedom. Do you sincerely believe this colonial power, be it led by Hitler, Goering, another general, or what have you, wouldn't rack up at least the same amount as those two US Presidents together?

Secondly, you yourself suggested that T4 takes place as per OTL. That's 70,000 civilians murdered in cold blood, as opposed to some 10,000 dying of neglect along the trails of tears; and that's in OTL, where T4 was partially stopped, and anyway the Nazis did not remain in power beyond 1945.

Thirdly, you claim that this alt-Hitler killed less people due to "political constraints". What constraints? When exactly is the POD? Let's see, so that we can look for the number of political opponents killed up to that time.

Fourthly, and most importantly - how much will you water this regime down and still call it by its name? The Holocaust has gone, one guesses in all its forms. No war. I guess somebody will now suggest to do away with the euthanasia program too, given the numbers.
What remains, however, is the unavoidable stumbling block. If this is to remain at least a generic Fascist regime, it needs dictatorship. It needs kangaroo elections. It needs a political police. It needs paramilitaries in jackboots. It needs oppression and violence.

And all that that sort of stuff doesn't sit well with people in Western democracies. Leave your couch, go to your next neighbor's door, knock, and ask him: "What's worse, causing some unavoidable collateral-damage civilian deaths in a distant war, or giving up your right to elect our government?".
 
But you are confusing the situation.

Not at all.

I didnt say the western states would become dictatories. I said a lot of people in the west - looking at nazi Germany from afar will like what they see very much. I also said that holocaust, the world war have to be avoided.

See, it's you who are at least adding things up, if not confusing them. War, mass extermination - and dictatorship.

If you do away with the first two, Nazism's reputation improves, yes. I also agree that if there is no Holocaust, there will be a different perception concerning genocide, and in any case that will be mated with other regimes.

But you aren't doing away with the fact that Nazi Germany was a dictatorship. You know, no free elections. No checks and balances. A police state. Uniformed, jackbooted goons. State violence.

And the fact that the West hasn't become a sea of dictatorships only confirms that that factor alone - whose perception in the West hasn't changed in this OTL because of the lack of a Nazi-organized Holocaust or a Nazi-launched world war - makes the thing not-nice. The West prefers their democracies, at least for now - that tells you the people find dictatorships not nice.



In the west feminists will get rights and equality for women, blacks will fight and gain their rights as well. Homosexuality will start to be acceptable and completly accepted after a time. And I could continue. This are things that many people resented in the west OTL and will resent ITTL as well. To them nazi Germany - even if its dictatorial will seem like a good place from afar. The OP didnt ask for the west willingly turn to nazism just it to be accepted and liked by a sizeable amount of westerners.

Ah, OK, then you are on the same page as the OP who ended up proposing the opinions of white supremacists in Southern US states. His was a minuscule minority, yours is a small minority.

Note, in fact, that lots of conservative-minded people are irked by the developments you mention, but lots of them also cherish political freedom. There will be a fraction, however, that are narrow-minded, short-sighted enough to accept not to be free to choose their own government provided, that their pet peeve is catered to.
Fortunately that's a small minority, that does not equate with "the Western democracies".
 

Geon

Donor
How does this change his anti-Slavic views? Does the good experience with Jews give him a better appreciation of different people in general?

While admittedly it may not totally change his anti-Slavic views it may well moderate them. When Barbarossa does occur I could easily see Hitler being more open to recruiting anti-Communistic elements, both Jews and Slavs from the conquered population to fight against the Soviets. Many were more then willing to pick up a rifle and join the Nazis, especially in the Ukraine, before the Nazis in OTL showed their true colors. If the Nazis had instead offered them the chance to fight in exchange for independence ("independence" of course being according to the Nazi definition of the term) I suspect there would have been a good number who would have joined the fight. Many historians claim this was a missed opportunity for the Germans.
 
My usual two cents: Hitler wasted so much money on armaments, Germany was practically broke in 1938/39 (the money they got from Austria, Czechia and the German Jews - one billion marks in 1938!) and HAD to make war.

If Stalin made the decision to attack Poland first for some reason, and the nazis/fascists and western democracies ganged up against him, and the Jews deliberately emigrated to Palestine/America/a new state carved out from Soviet territory, then maybe... but that's not a decision Stalin would do, I think.

Maybe Stalin gets a heart attack before he purged Tukhachevsky and the Red Army, and the new ruler (who?) decides to make an attack?
 
My usual two cents: Hitler wasted so much money on armaments, Germany was practically broke in 1938/39 (the money they got from Austria, Czechia and the German Jews - one billion marks in 1938!) and HAD to make war.

If Stalin made the decision to attack Poland first for some reason, and the nazis/fascists and western democracies ganged up against him, and the Jews deliberately emigrated to Palestine/America/a new state carved out from Soviet territory, then maybe... but that's not a decision Stalin would do, I think.

Maybe Stalin gets a heart attack before he purged Tukhachevsky and the Red Army, and the new ruler (who?) decides to make an attack?

Well, alternatively we could be told when the POD is. If Hitler dies in 1935, say, he's still having a claim to fame as the strongman, but his successor would have the time to scale back rearmament before the economy overheats.

So, as a matter of fact, I don't believe war is totally unavoidable, after a change in leadership.

Naturally, Nazism will then go down on the record as just another dictatorship that stole political freedom from its people in order to ease economic hardships for a while through black-magic economics and straight deficit spending, only to see things go back to normal penury after a while. Difficult to see how they'd be considered "nice guys" by "the Western democracies".

Imagine that Salazar dies in 1955. His heir, whoever he is, might be remembered as the man who curbed restrictions to freedom and launched modernization and economic development. Salazar himself would be remembered as the man who gave Portugal poverty and lack of freedom.

That is, that's how he'd be remembered in Portugal and in history-loving circles abroad. Everyone else, in the other Western democracies, would say: "Sala-... who?".
 
No ideas on Hitler adopting the Khazar theory to justify hating on Eastern European Jews but protecting German ones who might otherwise be inclined to support his program?
 
Not at all.



See, it's you who are at least adding things up, if not confusing them. War, mass extermination - and dictatorship.

If you do away with the first two, Nazism's reputation improves, yes. I also agree that if there is no Holocaust, there will be a different perception concerning genocide, and in any case that will be mated with other regimes.

But you aren't doing away with the fact that Nazi Germany was a dictatorship. You know, no free elections. No checks and balances. A police state. Uniformed, jackbooted goons. State violence.

And the fact that the West hasn't become a sea of dictatorships only confirms that that factor alone - whose perception in the West hasn't changed in this OTL because of the lack of a Nazi-organized Holocaust or a Nazi-launched world war - makes the thing not-nice. The West prefers their democracies, at least for now - that tells you the people find dictatorships not nice.





Ah, OK, then you are on the same page as the OP who ended up proposing the opinions of white supremacists in Southern US states. His was a minuscule minority, yours is a small minority.

Note, in fact, that lots of conservative-minded people are irked by the developments you mention, but lots of them also cherish political freedom. There will be a fraction, however, that are narrow-minded, short-sighted enough to accept not to be free to choose their own government provided, that their pet peeve is catered to.
Fortunately that's a small minority, that does not equate with "the Western democracies".
I'll have to agree with Michele that a dictatorship that does less evil than OTL is not enough.
People (many) have to be skeptical of democracy AND adminiring the ATL notzis.
But the depression continuing in France, UK and the non-genocidal dictatorship saving us from Stalin could get some appreciation. Its just not that Nazi.
Keeping the evil the example is more like Dracul the impaler, and his reputation is still pretty Shake, despite saving Europe from the Turkish invasion.
Of course there are these nowadays;
Cast+Vampire+Academy+Meet+Fans+San+Francisco+xK8PT1MigXwl.jpg
 
Secondly, you yourself suggested that T4 takes place as per OTL. That's 70,000 civilians murdered in cold blood, as opposed to some 10,000 dying of neglect along the trails of tears; and that's in OTL, where T4 was partially stopped, and anyway the Nazis did not remain in power beyond 1945.

I did not suggest that, however, so if you are so dead-set against my opinion, please actually confront it do not impute to me something I did not say. I posit Hitler starts quicker and it ends quicker. It's still horrible, but the list of immoral actions from FDR's internment, the 3,000-10,000 Germans POWs who died under western allied occupation, the 65,000 people sterilized for racial reasons in the US, the Tuskagee experiments, etcetera. Again, all of these things pale in comparison to OTL Nazis. The OP asks for "nice Nazis." So, I posit not that they are nicer, but toothless, so that their evil merely manifested itself on levels which are relatively low-grade considering the times. Being that FDR interned Japanese in a mass scale and is seen as a hero, I darkly suggest that our standards for men at that error are so low that ATL "nice nazis" may squeak by.
 
I did not suggest that, however, so if you are so dead-set against my opinion, please actually confront it do not impute to me something I did not say.

You did. Post #20. Your exact words were:

"When he becomes chancellor he goes full-retard right off the bat killing those in mental instituions."
 
Stalin being an even bigger dick or Stalin not hiding the fact that he's a dick along with a more expansion of Soviet Union.Say Stalin manages to have a pro Soviet coup take power in Poland and Hitler and other assorted douchebags are killed by a non Jewish communist assissan.That would alarm Europe and more "moderate" factions could take power in Germany with Western support and use the Nazis as a figurehead.
 
Stalin being an even bigger dick or Stalin not hiding the fact that he's a dick along with a more expansion of Soviet Union.Say Stalin manages to have a pro Soviet coup take power in Poland and Hitler and other assorted douchebags are killed by a non Jewish communist assissan.That would alarm Europe and more "moderate" factions could take power in Germany with Western support and use the Nazis as a figurehead.

Again, the most you get out of that is "they are SOBs, but they are our SOBs", not exactly a shining endorsement. Compare Somoza, Batista, Franco, that sort of people. Are they considered nice guys by the Western democracies?
 
The Nazis are removed in some sort of counter coup during the mid 30s and the ensuing government proves to be politically weak.

The butterflies from this flap in a way which causes a more aggressively expansionist and/or military powerful Stalin/USSR which is able to dominate Eastern and central Europe during the late 30s and early 40s. A cold war forms with the Iron Curtain falling much further West than OTL.

The USSR and the alt Warsaw Pact collapses in a messy way a few decades later and because Hitler was removed before the most awful aspects of Nazism were enacted it is remembered as something a bit weird and eccentric but that could have been a useful bulwark against the Red Menace if correctly manipulated.
 
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and i gavr a number, 3000 not 70000

Yeah, later, as this proposal kept being downsized and modified since it obviously wouldn't fly. OK, let's take your 3,000.
And yet:

1. Still a dictatorship. You know, a jackbooted party militia, a secret political police, dissenters disappearing in the night, political murders, no free elections. No proposal has changed that yet - with good reason, because the worst aspects (the Holocaust, the world war) were removed first, but if you turn the Nazis into sincere democrats, what's left to be called "Nazi"? But people in Western democracies still dislike dictators, you see.

2. Dead toll in context. OK, so on the one hand you have Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt killing more civilians than 3,000 - as collateral damage in war (and colonial wars, to boot). Therefore, your best comparison for Hitler aren't them. It's Stalin or Pol-Pot - dictators who killed their own countrymen in peacetime due to deranged political ideas. So the final judgement for Hitler wouldn't be "nearly as good as Jackson and T. Roosevelt", it would be: "as bad as Stalin and Pol-Pot, but not as powerful". Not exactly a shining endorsement.

3. Butterflies. Some poster mentioned that the very notion of Holocaust is influenced today by what happened in Nazi Germany. That's right. Likewise, the impact on collective memory of those 70,000 disabled people murdered is affected by the millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals and others likewise killed by the same regime.
Now, imagine the Nazis do not, indeed, kill millions in the camps, and don't wage a murderous world war. What's the effect on this unprecedented (in modern Western history) policy of mass murdering defenseless, harmless citizens because they suffer from disabilities? That it gets magnified. Oops. Throw in a few hundreds political opposers who also got murdered by the Nazis.

4. Appropriate comparison. You are now comparing murder with sterilization and unethical medical experiments that endangered the subjects' health. Why don't you look up the average sentencing, in your own jurisdiction, for first-degree murder, and for medical malpractice? That should tell you what's the chasm in the average person's assessment of the former and of the latter. What's next, you'll compare rape with embezzlement?

5. Name recognition. You know, this watering down Nazism for the purpose of making it more acceptable also has a side effect I only now notice. If what remains of Nazism is "a dictatorship that killed political dissenters, remained in power for a while, muddled through with the economy, and finally got done over with and replaced by democracy" - well, what's worth remembering it for, for the average citizen of a Western democracy today? If you ask your next door neighbor about his opinion about Stroessner, won't his reply be "Stroessner who?". To be remembered as a nice guy, you first have to be remembered at all.
Naturally, in your scenario, Hitler would have that one distinction over Stroessner or Franco or Antonescu or Somoza: the mass murder of disabled persons. You do know that 18% of the current population of the USA have some form of disability, including the mildest ones? Add their relatives. What do you think that means when it comes to assessing a regime that had that distinctive feature?
 
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