alternatehistory.com

There are several small PODs before the major PODs:

Table of Contents:
*Road to the Second World War (Western Europe)
*Road to the Second World War (Far East)
*Road to the Second World War (North America)
*World War II (Europe)
*World War II (Far East)
*World War II (North America)
*Das Reich (Europe)
*The Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere (Far East)
*Khan of Rebellion (Central Asia)
*Every Man A King (North America)
*Fatherland (Europe)
*Land of the Rising Sun (Far East)
*E Pluribus Unum (North America)
*The van Rijn Family (Far East)
*The Akagi Family (Far East)
*The rise of Joachim von Manstein (Europe)
*Our Modern World (the dawn of the 21st century)

Road to the Second World War (Western Europe):

1837: Alois Shicklegruber born to Maria Anna Shicklegruber and Baron Salomon Mayer von Rothschild. Johann Georg Hiedler is declared the biological father.

1878: Alois Shicklegruber changes his name to Alois Hitler in order to hide that his real father is a Jew.

1900: Alois Hitler beats his son a bit less and occasionally offers up words of praise. Hitler does somewhat better in school, though he still harbors a strong desire to become a painter.

1907: Although rejected as a painter from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, young Adolf gains admittance into the architectural school. Adolf begin to develop his distinctive style of architecture, based on neoclassical and neo-baroque forms taken to ludicrous, surreal extremes. This style of architecture will feature prominently years later.

1911: Adolf Hitler graduates from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna with a BA in Architecture. His new form of "abstract neo-classicism" is embraced immediately by Vienna's arts community, including many wealthy Jewish merchants, who are his first big clients. He is given a book of Martin Luther's teachings by his friend August Kubizek, but never ends up reading it.

1913: Hitler sets up his own architectural practice in Munich, Germany. Here, he befriends artist Wassily Kandinsky.

1914: World War I breaks out. Although technically not a German citizen, he is conscripted into the German army anyway. Given his education and background, Hitler is given a commission as a 2nd Lt. in a combat engineering platoon.

1916: Captain Adolf Hitler is wounded by an artillery shell and sent to the rear to recuperate. During this time, he does editorial and propaganda cartoons for a German military newspaper. During his recuperation, he overhears something about some Judenzählung while at an officer's club meeting. A disproportionate number of German Jews had been decorated for bravery at the front.

1918: Major Adolf Hitler is gassed at the front. As he would later write, while unconscious, he saw a vision of the apocalypse, and that he was chosen to be the harbinger of it. He paints a picture of his vision, Die Endlösung and hides it with Max Israilovsky, a Vienna art dealer and one his earlier clients. Die Endlösung is later hailed as a masterpiece of surrealist art, although Hitler's later paintings do not have a surrealist theme at all.

1919: Major Adolf Hitler joins the Deustch Arbeitspartei. Immediately, the man's electrifying, almost demonic charisma consumes the party. However, there is a violent schism between the issues of the Dolchstosslegende and antisemitism. Everyone in the party agrees that the Versailles Treaty was unfair, the disagreement comes in who to blame. Given that many of the clients and investors at Hitler's architectural firm are Jewish, Hitler is strongly against antisemitism. Almost immediately, the Arbeitspartei splits in two, with Hitler's National Socialist party being the larger section. Hitler's views on the Dolchstosslegende leave him bitter and cynical as to the state of the German people. This doesn't actually stop him from using the "Deutsche Volk" in his rhetoric repeatedly.

1923: By this time, the Nazi Party has become a popular organization. Hitler sells his architectural firm to Walter Gropius of the Bauhaus school in order to focus on politics full time. Increasingly harassed by the Sturmabteilung of the Deutsch Arbeitspartei, Hitler assigns his young assistant Heinrich Himmler to form a bodyguard organization. This organization, the Schtuzstaffel, dresses in stylish black, in contrast to the brown shirted thugs of the of Sturmabteilung. They are also highly effective street fighters, able to drive off their rivals at political rallies.

1925: With the economic situation in the Weimar Republic becoming desperate, and because of the inept management of Walter Gropius, Hitler decides to buy back his firm from the Bauhaus School. This deals a severe blow to Bauhaus style architecture in Germany and increases the prominence of Hitler's Neoclassic Surrealism style. During this time, he pens a book, Mein Kampf, detailing his nationalistic beliefs and his philosophy. The book quickly becomes a favorite amongst surrealist circles. After reading Mein Kampf, many artists create new work that can be best described as "frightening" and "machine like". This will include Fritz Lang's film Metropolis, which will come two years after Mein Kampf. At this time, Hitler also begins a correspondence with famed French surrealist Andre Breton. In his diary, Hitler muses: "if the world was actually like I described it, or does humanity have some redeeming qualities?" Also, at this time Heinz Guderian begins publishing theoretical work on the conduct of mechanized war.

1928: Hitler returns to politics after selling his firm yet again, this time to young architect Albert Speer. In the meantime, Mein Kampf has become a best seller, making Hitler an enormously wealthy man, popular with both business interests and the military establishment. His success is due in no small part to Joseph Goebbels, his propaganda minister, whose fiery speeches rile up the German populace. In the same year, Hitler marries Elena "Gala" Diakonova, a Russian immigrant and surrealist artist. He immediately takes a liking to her young daughter Cecile and is by all accounts a good father.

1930: The year after the stock market crash, the Nazi Party has more than one million members. The street fights between Heinrich Himmler's Schutzstaffel and the Arbeitspartei's Sturmabteilung grow increasingly violent. Nazi party member Horst Wessel is shot dead by Sturmabteilung soldiers in front of his house. In return, Himmler orders that the Schutzstaffel carry out the executions of the Deustche Arbeitspartei leaders. Party leaders Ernst Rohm, Edmund Heines, and Karl Ernst are gunned down by Nazi party members Reinhardt Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann. This action puts an end to the Deutsche Arbeitspartei which fragments without its leaders. Using his connections in the military, Hitler begins using the Reichswehr to pressure Chancellor Paul von Hindenburg into giving him progressively more power. However, he has to be slow and careful, as Hindenburg is a revered figure in the German military.

1933: Due to Hindenburg's increasing senility, Adolf Hitler seizes power as President with barely a ripple being made. Immediately, Hitler orders that the Schutzstaffel arrest and execute the remaining members of the Deustche Arbeitspartei and the German Communist Party. This causes a violent rift in the Surrealist community, especially between the communist Andre Breton and Nazi Salvador Dali. Hitler stops corresponding with Breton and offers his patronage to Dali. Also, the newly formed Wehrmacht begins to immediately re-arm.
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