Could the Nazis have risen to power without Hitler?

We know about how the Nazis and Adolf Hitler took power. But could they have done it without Hitler? Would they have still taken power? Who would be the Hitler of this TL? Say you know he's shot in WW1 and doesn't make it to a field camp.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
A fascist party rising to power without Hitler ?
Yes, well possible
(my best bet : Gregor Strasser joining some other "völkisch" group(s) after the war and later taking them over with his organisatorical skills. maybe with Ludendorff as a figure head in the beginning, thrown out of the boat in the mid to late 20ies, when he started to get really weird, maybe then replaced by another war hero as figure head : the last leader of the Richthofen squadrom, Goering ... a Strasser/Göring TL, anyone interested to this challange ? :biggrin:).

Howerer, it would be NOzis, as ITTL Nazis would lack the insane, industrial murderous antisemitism of Adolf Hitler.

They would still be antisemitics, ... as a big fraction of the elites world-wide were in the interwar period, but I doubtif it would even reach the level of the Nuremberg laws. ... some "aryanisation" of companies, some mild "Law to protect the cicil service" as of 1933 IOTL, but that would be it.
 
A fascist party rising to power without Hitler ?
Yes, well possible
(my best bet : Gregor Strasser joining some other "völkisch" group(s) after the war and later taking them over with his organisatorical skills. maybe with Ludendorff as a figure head in the beginning, thrown out of the boat in the mid to late 20ies, when he started to get really weird, maybe then replaced by another war hero as figure head : the last leader of the Richthofen squadrom, Goering ... a Strasser/Göring TL, anyone interested to this challange ? :biggrin:).

Howerer, it would be NOzis, as ITTL Nazis would lack the insane, industrial murderous antisemitism of Adolf Hitler.

They would still be antisemitics, ... as a big fraction of the elites world-wide were in the interwar period, but I doubtif it would even reach the level of the Nuremberg laws. ... some "aryanisation" of companies, some mild "Law to protect the cicil service" as of 1933 IOTL, but that would be it.
They would, however, take the "Socialist" part more seriously. There'll be economic reforms against the Aristocracy and a rapprochement with the Soviet Union. You can bet that will plunge the west into a Panic, especially as the USSR starts helping Spain, China and any rebellious colony of the French and British they can find, now abetted by Germany's raw industrial power.
 
the Nazi rise to power came about because of:

1) a small, dopesville party having an almost ASB run of good luck,

2) the reasonable, moderate people tying themselves into procedural knots, while the fanatics certainly did not, and

3) Paul von Hindenburg throwing the fuck it switch when he really didn't need to.
 
Another thing that helped the Nazis were a good chunk of the conservatives/traditionalists who approved of the anticommunism, and the antisemitism (although not the thuggery) who provided cover and money for the Nazis thinking they could "control" Hitler and the Nazis would be pushed out by the traditional conservatives. They obviously had their heads up their asses.

Absent Hitler you can probably see a right wing/fascist party arise in Germany in the late 20s especially with the depression. However absent Hitler and how far he was willing to go on the way to power they may never control things. A German right wing/fascist non-Nazi government might look more like Hungary's government under Horthy. Anti-communist, antisemitic with "traditional" restrictions but no camps for death centers, camps for political opponents and so forth.
 

Perkeo

Banned
Sure. It wasn't like he was the ideology's founder or anything.
1) If “the ideology” means specifically Nazis, not just facism and/or antisemitism, I beg to disagree.
2) There’s a huge difference between existence of Nazis and the Nazis in power. Literally everyone except Hitler - and even Hitler with tiny changes in timing - would have failed to lure every non-left fraction into condoning his rise to power.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
the Nazi rise to power came about because of:

1) a small, dopesville party having an almost ASB run of good luck,
THIS ... Is a rather cheap excuse for not really looking into the time and events, that lead to the Nazi catastrophe.

If they would have been so "dopesville" they would never have been of any remarkable prominence at all.
Unfortunatly they were not. Instead they were one of best, most modern organised political movement in europe (i.e.: Soviet Union, Hungary, Italy), well comparable if not at least in parte even better than the communists, the italian fascists AND their great "role model" as well as great enemy the german SPD (... in terms of organization and "party subculture").

2) the reasonable, moderate people tying themselves into procedural knots, while the fanatics certainly did not, and
IF ... these "moderate people" had NOT tied themselve to "procedural knots" as you name it, which are in reality nothing more than the rules, regulations as well as meaning of the/a representative, parliamentary, democratic state model the "Republik of Weimar" and its written constitution actually was (though arguably "too" democratic for europe, germany and its time),
then
they would haven't been any better than what they opposed.

3) Paul von Hindenburg throwing the fuck it switch when he really didn't need to.
What actual event you refer too ?

However : much too much "credit" for the ol' chap.
He more or less set or ... let the scenery already on the stage take a certain color, but he neither set the stage nor its "players".
He was rather a "pawn to be moved" by other players.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
They would, however, take the "Socialist" part more seriously. There'll be economic reforms against the Aristocracy and a rapprochement with the Soviet Union. You can bet that will plunge the west into a Panic, especially as the USSR starts helping Spain, China and any rebellious colony of the French and British they can find, now abetted by Germany's raw industrial power.
Somehow, I'm afraid here are Gregor and Otto Strasser mixed up once more.
I was talking aboput Gregor Strasser.

The "socialists" or as they were called later "Beefsteak Nazis"(brown on the face but boody red inside) around Otto Strasser and Walther Stennes (sry, no "english" wiki-entry about him, only his two "coups") were already marginalized in late 1931/beginning 1932.
Their "reappearance" in the Röhm-SA after the Hitleristic take-over of power is IMO more than debatable, sond much more like the justifications used by Hitler and Himmler etc. to later justify the "Night of the long knives".

However, the "socialistic" strand of the NSDAP was already before the 1930 election removed from power within the party with - especially Gregor Strasser - turning to maybe modern, nevertheless much more ... "pro-economists" views (like deficit-spending).



Therefore I often wonder, were these ... "proposals" of the "socialistic" behavior of a Gregor Strasser lead regime comes from ?
The commies were even or especially for Gregor Strasser ENEMY NO. 1, though pragmatist he was, he would have been much more "ready" to not only to reassure the German-Soviet "Berlin" treaty of 1926 but also to widen it to something resembling somethiong like the German-Soviet Credit Arrangement prior to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

In accordance with (most of) the german foreign office he would have for a damn long time at least stayed on a political - economy is a different song to be sung - rather pro-western course. ... at least in the dipülomatic back-room.
Si : No, IMO a (Gregor) Strasserist regime would not plunge the wallies into panic.

A Strasserist policy towards Spain would IMO be quite the same as IOTL, with a Germany, while supporting Franco (or similar) trying to play a game of "in-between" between the SU and the Entente-becoming-wallies-powers with political "overtures" to both sides.

China ... tbh : I don't know.

Gregor Strasser left (for an AH-ler uncomfortable) few notions about foreign and international politics.
 
IF ... these "moderate people" had NOT tied themselve to "procedural knots" as you name it, which are in reality nothing more than the rules, regulations as well as meaning of the/a representative, parliamentary, democratic state model the "Republik of Weimar" and its written constitution . . .
I have in mind things such as the filibuster rule in the U.S. Senate. Some people might view it as a bulwark for liberty. Ha, I say. It's a bulwark to minority rule. Not minority rights mind you, but minority rule. And a lot of people don't realize that the filibuster is not part of the Constitution, not even a law, rather it's just an internal Senate rule.

Okay, as far as per-Nazi Germany, from 1930 to '32 President Hindenburg and Chancellor Brüning ran the government under the emergency powers of Article 48. General von Schleicher of the Army persuaded Hindenburg to pressure


Brüning to resign, who did so in May '32. Von Papen became Chancellor even though his Center Party only had 68 supporters in the Reichstag.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/tch_wjec/germany19291947/1hitlerchancellor2.shtml

Wow, this is complicated, and opaque. And I think it misses the quality of a successful coalition in a well-functioning parliamentary system in which the leaders of the various parties have to then sell the resulting coalition to their members. And thus it becomes a more open process than just a few individuals making decisions out of desperation.

PS I'm a Yank, so I did not grow up with a parliamentary system. It's not my first language so to speak.
 
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NoMommsen

Donor
I have in mind things such as the filibuster rule in the U.S. Senate. Some people might view it as a bulwark for liberty. Ha, I say. It's a bulwark to minority rule. Not minority rights mind you, but minority rule. And a lot of people don't realize that the filibuster is not part of the Constitution, not even a law, rather it's just an internal Senate rule.
As far as the Reichstag of the Weimar Republik is concerned :
There were only very "limited" possibilities similar the mentioned "filibuster".
...
And these were even further reduced and replaced by more "workable" rules in 1930 - after the completly unexpected landslide-victory of the NSDAP in september this year.

Unfortunatly the "moderate people" were unable to buld upon this, their victory.
Out of protest the parliamentary group of the NSDAP left for loong times the Reichstag. But the reaining parties were unable to "use" this absence of almost a quarter of the parliamentary vote to push certain laws.

Okay, as far as per-Nazi Germany, from 1930 to '32 President Hindenburg and Chancellor Brüning ran the government under the emergency powers of Article 48. General von Schleicher of the Army persuaded Hindenburg to pressure


Brüning to resign, who did so in May '32. Von Papen became Chancellor even though his Center Party only had 68 supporters in the Reichstag.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/tch_wjec/germany19291947/1hitlerchancellor2.shtml


Wow, this is complicated, and opaque. And I think it misses the quality of a successful coalition in a well-functioning parliamentary system in which the leaders of the various parties have to then sell the resulting coalition to their members. And thus it becomes a more open process than just a few individuals making decisions out of desperation.
It was Brüning - more or less alone - who "run" the goverment, using/abusing (as it may taste to you) Hindenburg and with him the article 48.

Actually Brüning discussed all of his "emergency decrees", "laws" and "regulations" his goverment issued with representatives of every other party - beside the KPD and the NSDAP. He would have been happy, if at the one or other time the SPD or DNVP would have lend him their support. And not few of these party leaders, esp. within the SPD, would have been happy to do so.
But ...
for party-political rfeasons they did not.

Von Papen ... was anything but a party man. Though before his nomination as Chancellor he was member of the Center-party, he put his membership down in may 1932 BEFORE the party could expell him.

Von Schleicher ... managed "backstage" the fall of Brüning as well as of von Papen. When he didn't saw any way out preserving the constitution at least at face (for th international politics) he wanted to try a military coup.
But actually it was Hindenburg, who refused to take such a step "against any law".
This also shows, how much - or few - "support" Schleicher actually had within the military. Not enough to stage a coup without the old mans approval, even if wished for by many militaries.

PS I'm a Yank, so I did not grow up with a parliamentary system. It's not my first language so to speak.
Sry, but ... I have no idea what that means.:(
 
A YANK is an American, raised in a system where the chief executive executive (president) is elected independently from legislators (congress).
 
In America, the people elect (using a state-by-state system that does not always correspond to popular vote), the president, as well as senators and members of congress in independent elections. The president appoints court justices and judges, subject to the approval of the senate. That's what we call three branches of government, with separation of powers and "checks and balances" among the three. What GeographyDude was saying, he doesn't identify with a parliamentary systems where the legislative parliament chooses a prime minister who acts as chief executive.
 
. . . It was Brüning - more or less alone - who "run" the goverment, using/abusing (as it may taste to you) Hindenburg and with him the article 48.

Actually Brüning discussed all of his "emergency decrees", "laws" and "regulations" his goverment issued with representatives of every other party . . .
A system where a president appoints a 'chancellor' seems clumsy and clunky to me, as well as centralized.

During the Great Depression, Brüning pursued a policy of deflation, which is poison and like bleeding a patient already sick and dehydrated. And from this site, Brüning earned the name "the hunger Chancellor" from his fellow citizens, and that's serious stuff indeed.
http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=3838
 
In America, the people elect (using a state-by-state system that does not always correspond to popular vote), the president, as well as senators and members of congress in independent elections. The president appoints court justices and judges, subject to the approval of the senate. That's what we call three branches of government, with separation of powers and "checks and balances" among the three. What GeographyDude was saying, he doesn't identify with a parliamentary systems where the legislative parliament chooses a prime minister who acts as chief executive.
This is what I was taught in 5th grade (age 11), 9th grade (age 15), and 12th grade (age 18), as well as at various other times, plus in Boy Scouts.

As I get older, I realize it's more the exception than the rule.

The system works fairly well for corporations.

We didn't have checks and balances for mass incarceration , including for people flatly innocent of even drug charges.

The system doesn't seem able to address police misconduct, not the use of excessive gives by many municipalities to raise funds, so much so that one judge from a southern state called the system a debtors prison.

At the time of the 2008 financial institution crisis, we bailed out the big boy banks, as I think we should have. But we didn't follow this up breaking them up in an orderly way, nor did we bail out individual persons. On the personal level, we seemed scared to death of socialism and sloth, but not so on the institutional level.

And we've lost net middle-class jobs since 2008.
 
the Nazi rise to power came about because of:

1) a small, dopesville party having an almost ASB run of good luck,

2) the reasonable, moderate people tying themselves into procedural knots, while the fanatics certainly did not, and

3) Paul von Hindenburg throwing the fuck it switch when he really didn't need to.
Well, Hindenburg was largely being stage managed by Oskar at this point, and Schleicher had pissed off Little Oskar.

Also, as far as Papen (or the other Centre chancellors) they didn't need a one party majority to govern, even without Article 48. All German governments from 9 November to the Second Hitler Ministry were coalition governments. Even Hitler started with a coalition with the DVNP (and Papen, who at this point had been kicked out of Center), to the point where initially Nazis were a minority of his cabinet.
 
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