DBWI: A NSDAP dominated Germany in the 1930s?

[Bhangbhangduc]

So, I've been thinking about doing a World War Two timeline, which I know is a bit derided here as unrealistic. Most published works (the Harry Turtledove books spring to mind) have the aggressors be Japan or Italy, you know, the fascists, but its generally agreed that they just weren't powerful enough to threaten the world powers. There's also Red Alert, which is one of the best researched timelines on the site, and I didn't want to step on any toes.

Anyway, I found out that the Nazis, yeah, the world's most milquetoast conservative party, actually started out as fanatical fascists and racists, and thought, what if they got into power before they moderated? Could they take over Germany and ignite the second world war, is is that aliens space bears?

 

[Indicus]

Lol no. Their name is fucked up (National Socialists? That's an oxymoron) and they would need to be an entirely different party to rise to power in place of the DNVP.

 

[Johnrankins]

So, I've been thinking about doing a World War Two timeline, which I know is a bit derided here as unrealistic. Most published works (the Harry Turtledove books spring to mind) have the aggressors be Japan or Italy, you know, the fascists, but its generally agreed that they just weren't powerful enough to threaten the world powers. There's also Red Alert, which is one of the best researched timelines on the site, and I didn't want to step on any toes.

Anyway, I found out that the Nazis, yeah, the world's most milquetoast conservative party, actually started out as fanatical fascists and racists, and thought, what if they got into power before they moderated? Could they take over Germany and ignite the second world war, is is that aliens space bears?

You mean when Hitler was in charge of it before it was taken from inside by more traditional conservatives as opposed to right wing revolutionaries? That is ASB IMO, Hitler wasn't capable of running a coffee shop not talking a major party. The Beer Hall Putsch was a complete debacle that totally decimated that wing of the Nazi Party was a direct result of his stupidity. Ludendorf played him for a sucker and sent him out to die while he took over the party afterwards. Of course he was pretty racist himself by modern standards but he wasn't the raving loon Hitler was.

 

[Bhangbhangduc]

You mean when Hitler was in charge of it before it was taken from inside by more traditional conservatives as opposed to right wing revolutionaries? That is ASB IMO, Hitler wasn't capable of running a coffee shop not talking a major party. The Beer Hall Putsch was a complete debacle that totally decimated that wing of the Nazi Party was a direct result of his stupidity. Ludendorf played him for a sucker and sent him out to die while he took over the party afterwards. Of course he was pretty racist himself by modern standards but he wasn't the raving loon Hitler was.

I dunno. Personally I feel that if Hitler had managed to not insult Paul von Hindenburg while he was in prison, he could have kept a certain degree of control over the party. A successful Beer Hall Putsch is Ursa Major ASB, though, I accept that.

 

[Johnrankins]

I dunno. Personally I feel that if Hitler had managed to not insult Paul von Hindenburg while he was in prison, he could have kept a certain degree of control over the party. A successful Beer Hall Putsch is Ursa Major ASB, though, I accept that.

I think he realized he was played for a sucker and sent out to die by his "allies". He survived, barely, but most of his fellow Nazi Party members didn't. He then ranted about Ludendorf , Hindenburg and everyone else who came to mind saying that they "sold him out to Jews" but what else would you expect from a raving lunatic?

 

[Bhangbhangduc]

I think he realized he was played for a sucker and sent out to die by his "allies". He survived, barely, but most of his fellow Nazi Party members didn't. He then ranted about Ludendorf , Hindenburg and everyone else who came to mind saying that they "sold him out to Jews" but what else would you expect from a raving lunatic?

Well, it doesn't have to be likely, I'm just looking for a scenario that isn't ASB and leaves Hitler in charge of Germany. Maybe he cuts that chapter from, iirc, Der Kampf and stays sort of respectable. Maybe Roem isn't outed as a homosexual as well, leaving him with some friends?

 

[Johnrankins]

I think you would have to get rid of the Beer Hall Putsch just for starters. Also isn't this a bit of anti-German bigotry? Why would a modern country like Germany follow such an obvious raving loon?

 

[Brundlefly]

Has anyone read "Mein Kampf"? To think someone who wrote that piece of incoherent gibberish would be capable of running a state verges on the ASB. I mean, certain passages suggest that he couldn't even speak the German language himself properly...

Maybe the NSDAP might have had a chance for a coup d'etat with Hermann Ehrhardt in charge.

 

[Johnrankins]

Has anyone read "Mein Kampf"? To think someone who wrote that piece of incoherent gibberish would be capable of running a state verges on the ASB. I mean, certain passages suggest that he couldn't even speak the German language himself properly...

Maybe the NSDAP might have had a chance for a coup d'etat with Hermann Ehrhardt in charge.

Agreed, Mein Kampf reads like the ravings of an insane 10 year old. Nothing in it was original or required great thought or even made a coherent argument. Like you said it was complete gibberish. The three chapter rant on the treachery of Ludendorf, Hindenburg and company didn't help. As an aside I would assume if he was insulting Hindenburg he would rant about it in his book.

 

[Analytical Engine]

If they get someone else to lead it, maybe. Otherwise, you may as well get one of the other (less crazy) near-fascist parties like the Steel Helmets take over.

 

[BeardedHoplite]

Maybe avoid the US financial sector seeing that the good times couldn't last forever and they don't take the measures to prepare for an eventual downturn in 1927. Fast forward a year or two and the world economy takes a giant crap. Have the depression (instead of OTL's bad recession) hit Germany hard enough and the party blaming the Jew's for, well, everything, might benefit.

 

[Penny for The Guy]

Well, after the Germans had Adolf shipped back to Austria, he did get treatment at the Allgemeines Krankenhaus under Herr Doktor Freud, so it wasn't something... permanent. But his decision to go to America was probably for the best. Didn't he become a minor science-fiction writer?

 

[Johnrankins]

Well, after the Germans had Adolf shipped back to Austria, he did get treatment at the Allgemeines Krankenhaus under Herr Doktor Freud, so it wasn't something... permanent. But his decision to go to America was probably for the best. Didn't he become a minor science-fiction writer?

No , that was Alfred Hitler who was born in Trenton , NJ. Adolph moved to Milwaukee and sold cars for Ford Motor Company.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

The best POD for a second Great War is Trotsky emerging over Stalin as the head guy in the USSR, and then actually trying the worldwide revolution idea.

Second best would probably be a fascist takeover in France. I don't know why this isn't used more. POD could be the US and UK standing up more to the French in 1918-19, meaning the French feel betrayed and a fascist government results. They then invade Germany to try to detach the Rhineland, and the British side with the Germans, and then the whole thing spins out of control.

Given how well the 1919 Constitution held I don't think you can do anything with German domestic politics, but if you do the KPD came much closer to taking over than any of the minor parties on the right.

 

[Insider]

Well... NSDAP had a brief resurgence in the late twenties, after the crisis hit, but it was a minor force. The main trouble maker was Spartakus communist movement.

If you are looking for a good premise succesful communist revolution in 1933 or back in 1919 in Germany is far more plausible.

 

[SactoMan101]

Well, I think Adolf Hitler's role in leading the party collapsed when the Bear Hall Putsch in Munich ended with most of his followers massacred when 400 soldiers protecting the Bavarian Defence Ministry opened fire on the Nazi mob in a big way at Feldherrnhalle, not far from the Ministry building. Hitler was one of the few persons to be taken alive, if I remember correctly. Given that debacle, no wonder why the conservatives "eased" Hitler out of the Nazi Party and forced him to seek mental health treatment under Dr. Freud in Vienna. One thing I do remember was after Hitler left the Nazi Party, the Party decided to immediately drop the use of the swastika as its party symbol. I think a lot of people in India, China and Japan today are really glad the association of the swastika with the Nazi Party was dropped, because you see the original version quite commonly at Buddhist temples all over Asia.

 

[JJohnson]

Sounds kind of out there. Germany was pretty nice when I studied there. I was in Cologne, but saw Breslau, Berlin, Danzig, Stuttgart, Karlsbad, Königsberg, Memel, Lübeck, and even München there when I had some free weekends. Austria was pretty cool. Wieselberg, Vienna, Ödenburg, Bolzen, Marburg, and Troppau were pretty awesome with their history and all. I never got to Teschen in Austria though. My rail pass for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland was expensive enough as it was, hahaha.

That party, the NSDAP, kind of fizzled out by the forties I think, when the National German party came about from some of them, and a few members of other parties from the thirties. I remember Herr Professor Weihl talking about it in our German culture class. The CDU and SDP were big too back in the day, but now the DDP, FKP, and NLP usually take most seats in the Reichstag.

I agree, the best chance for a second Great War is getting France to start it. There were two smaller European wars in the forties, but I get them both confused. I don't think those could've blown up into a continent-wide war though.

 

[Bhangbhangduc]

Sounds kind of out there. Germany was pretty nice when I studied there. I was in Cologne, but saw Breslau, Berlin, Danzig, Stuttgart, Karlsbad, Königsberg, Memel, Lübeck, and even München there when I had some free weekends. Austria was pretty cool. Wieselberg, Vienna, Ödenburg, Bolzen, Marburg, and Troppau were pretty awesome with their history and all. I never got to Teschen in Austria though. My rail pass for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland was expensive enough as it was, hahaha.

Gotta make it up there someday...

That party, the NSDAP, kind of fizzled out by the forties I think, when the National German party came about from some of them, and a few members of other parties from the thirties. I remember Herr Professor Weihl talking about it in our German culture class. The CDU and SDP were big too back in the day, but now the DDP, FKP, and NLP usually take most seats in the Reichstag.

I agree, the best chance for a second Great War is getting France to start it. There were two smaller European wars in the forties, but I get them both confused. I don't think those could've blown up into a continent-wide war though.

The Nazis are still around, though - I think they have a couple of guys in the Reichstag. After ditching the antisemitism over Mein Kampf they kinda seemed to lose purpose. It's pretty funny, actually, they used to be this super anti-Semitic party and now their party leader, Hermann Oberst is Jewish.

Anyway, I did think about France, but by the forties, Germany was just too powerful militarily and economically to be seriously threatened by France.

I mean, look at the Soviet-Polish War of 1942. The Red Army rolls in and starts stomping Poland-Lithuania, but then the Reichswehr shows up and basically ends everything. If France really thought they could beat the Soviets, they would have intervened. That would be another good point of divergence for a wwii scenario, but in 1942, too much of Europe was backing Germany to make it anything but a hilariously one-sided fight.

 

[SactoMan101]

By the way, we now know that while under Dr. Freud's care, the doctors that assisted him discovered Hitler was suffering from the effects of syphilis. Hitler was subsequently sent to the USA, where he was treated with Compound 606 and Compound 914 at the world-famous Cleveland Clinic, the most common advanced treatments for the disease at the time. Hitler responded well to the treatment, and by 1935 was pretty much free of the disease.

 

[Yuelang]

And somehow dr Freud hypothesised that Hitler actually get the Syphilis from a Jewish prostitute that looks like his mother. After his disease cured by then prototye Antibiotic, he also cured from his racism and megalomania.