DBWI: Nazi takeover of Germany
- Thread starter Whiteshore
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- dbwi kaiserreich nazis weimar
Wolf of Badenoch
Donor
The Nazzis (spelling?) could never have come to power in Germany because the major industrialists and bankers and the Junker-controlled army would never have supported low class thugs.
That's why I'm of the opinion the only way the Nazis could have taken over Germany was if Ludendorff or Goering as opposed to Hitler was their leader as Goering and Ludendorff could attract the support of said elites due to the fact Goering was an air ace from the First Great War and Ludendorff was one of the heads of the German military in the First Great War.
My opinion after some research is the opposite.
I think that these National Socialists could have only come into power if they found common ground with communists on the socialist part of their name.
There was actually a National Socialist named Stresser (or something like that) that advocated finding common ground with the communists.
He didn't end up leading the party, but if he did, he's the best bet for leading them to victory.
The National Sociliasts certainly aren't going to get any support from the elite so to win they have to unite the working class.
On another note, what would that world's analogue to the Second Great War look like if the Nazis took over Germany?
Unfortunately, Robert Turtledove(best known for his award winning Interwar Europe books) and a large number of other expert historians have revealed otherwise, particularly in recent years. Many of the Junkers, in fact, were very sympathetic to fascism in the 1930s. Yes, it is true that the industrialists were more divided and the bankers actually did lean somewhat pro-democratic, FWIW, but it might not have mattered much anyway had things just gone a little differently.
Honestly, the German people were very fortunate that one of the more liberal Hohenzollerns ended up being chosen, because not a few of the others, sadly, along with a good number of the members of the other German royal families, were at least somewhat sympathetic to fascism by that time(it was even confirmed that at least two German princes separately donated money to the wife of Adolf Hitler following his death in 1942, one of whom owned a copy of My Struggle.). And had one of the reactionaries come to power instead, they would almost certainly-with little doubt-have instead allied themselves with the Italians and the Croixist usurpers in France(yes, that's basically what they were-they took over in a military coup in 1940. They even tried to have De Gaulle assassinated, the bastards!).
Probably a lot more bloodshed, for one. You might want to check out J.M. Stirling's Timeline 192 series from the '80s, particularly the Nazis! sub-trilogy. (yeah, yeah, I know, not quite the most plausible TL out there- for one, same-sex marriage wasn't yet legal in any state even in 1999, when the series ended chronologically, whereas by that time IOTL, several states already had done so, and don't get me started on Stalin or Pol Pot, etc.)
Planet of Hats
Donor
Completely ASB. No way this piddling nobody could ever rise to power. Germany's institutions would've prevented it. Plus he'd never have gotten enough seats to enact his agenda, and even if he won the most seats by some fluke, none of the other parties in the Reichstag would ever work with him.
It could never happen.
It could never happen.
Would they? Germany was in fairly bad shape in the early 1930s IOTL, and as I pointed out earlier, even the Hohenzollern Restoration gamble could have ended badly for the German people.
Agreed on the USSR, TBH-as many problems as they had until their dissolution in 1992 I never could quite believe the levels to which Stirling took Stalin's regime in TL-192.
Wolf of Badenoch
Donor
Caliboy: Sorry, this was intended to be ironic in the same spirit as earlier posts...and, thanks, I've read all of Turtledove's books and SM Stirling's.
So, the consensus seems to be that if the NSDAP had somehow taken power, it would probably have been led by Hermann Goering or Erich Ludendorff, who were part of the NSDAP until they joined the DNVP in 1930?
Eh, Strasser could have led the Natzies (Spelling?). That being said, it would most likely have been a Goering reich.
What if Hitler somehow came to power anyway, and stayed? Do you think the Sutden negotiations and the Danzig plebescites would have happened differently?
The Danzig plebiscite has always been a funny name for what essentially amounted to a Polish German border war
By the way, when I mentioned Reinhard Heydrich (1904-2000) earlier, he will be remembered for creating the modern national police force as we know it today. Many countries emulated what Heydrich did when he modernized Germany's police force from 1945 to 1955.
(A little aside about Sergey Kirov, another name I mentioned earlier: his name is HIGHLY revered in modern Russia today, especially since Kirov did much to preserve the many historical structures that still exist in modern-day Petrograd (Kirov always wanted to revert the name of Leningrad back to Petrograd when the time was right--he felt using the Saint Petersburg name had too much deference to the Czars). As such, the Mariinsky State Academic Theater's recently-opened second stage complex in Petrograd--which looks from the outside like an enlarged version of the original historic Mariinsky Theater building--is officially called the Sergei Mironovich Kirov Theater, and the world-famous ballet troupe based there has the official name of Kirov Ballet of the Mariinsky State Academic Theater. I can't wait for heavily-revised, new production of the Raymonda ballet by this troupe coming in September 2018 under the guidance of current Artistic Director of Ballet Ulyana Lopatkina, who retired in 2016 from perhaps the most distinguished prima ballerina career with the Kirov to take up the Director role.)
But getting back on topic, what caused the collapse of the Nazi Party was the over-ambitious aims of Ernst Roehm, the leader of the Sturmabteilung (SA). MANY industrialists and descendants of the Junkers noble families hated Roehm, especially when Roehm's homosexual relationship with Deputy SA commander Edmund Heines became a bit of an open secret by early 1932. And that's on top of many complaints the SA was causing too much rabble-rousing against anyone that opposed the Nazi Party. The attempted assassination of President Hindenburg was the last straw, and the result was a really fast crackdown on the Nazi Party (that's how Hermann Goering ended up living the rest of his life exiled to Sweden).
(A little aside about Sergey Kirov, another name I mentioned earlier: his name is HIGHLY revered in modern Russia today, especially since Kirov did much to preserve the many historical structures that still exist in modern-day Petrograd (Kirov always wanted to revert the name of Leningrad back to Petrograd when the time was right--he felt using the Saint Petersburg name had too much deference to the Czars). As such, the Mariinsky State Academic Theater's recently-opened second stage complex in Petrograd--which looks from the outside like an enlarged version of the original historic Mariinsky Theater building--is officially called the Sergei Mironovich Kirov Theater, and the world-famous ballet troupe based there has the official name of Kirov Ballet of the Mariinsky State Academic Theater. I can't wait for heavily-revised, new production of the Raymonda ballet by this troupe coming in September 2018 under the guidance of current Artistic Director of Ballet Ulyana Lopatkina, who retired in 2016 from perhaps the most distinguished prima ballerina career with the Kirov to take up the Director role.)
But getting back on topic, what caused the collapse of the Nazi Party was the over-ambitious aims of Ernst Roehm, the leader of the Sturmabteilung (SA). MANY industrialists and descendants of the Junkers noble families hated Roehm, especially when Roehm's homosexual relationship with Deputy SA commander Edmund Heines became a bit of an open secret by early 1932. And that's on top of many complaints the SA was causing too much rabble-rousing against anyone that opposed the Nazi Party. The attempted assassination of President Hindenburg was the last straw, and the result was a really fast crackdown on the Nazi Party (that's how Hermann Goering ended up living the rest of his life exiled to Sweden).