DBWI: What if Adolf Schicklgruber didn't write fantasy?

There is one of Schicklgruber's books I do have a sneaking liking for, I think the English title is "Downfall" - I forget the original German name - and it's one of my guilty pleasures.

The hero - or rather anti-hero, as he's quite an obnoxious character - is surrounded on all sides by enemies, within and without as he's under seige and dies under mysterious circumstances. For one of Adolf's books, it's very bleak. From what I gather, it was his last and written when he was dying from Parkinson's Disease. Wikipedia says he died during a tour of Argentina in the 1960s and there are hints that it may have been finished by his secretary and agent, Martin Bormann. However, we all know how reliable Wikipedia can be!
 
There is one of Schicklgruber's books I do have a sneaking liking for, I think the English title is "Downfall" - I forget the original German name - and it's one of my guilty pleasures.

The hero - or rather anti-hero, as he's quite an obnoxious character - is surrounded on all sides by enemies, within and without as he's under seige and dies under mysterious circumstances. For one of Adolf's books, it's very bleak. From what I gather, it was his last and written when he was dying from Parkinson's Disease. Wikipedia says he died during a tour of Argentina in the 1960s and there are hints that it may have been finished by his secretary and agent, Martin Bormann. However, we all know how reliable Wikipedia can be!

Oh, yeah, I remember Downfall. I think you could argue that it was the most artistically meaningful of his works, but it certainly wasn't the most entertaining, in my eyes. The whole thing suffers from darkness-induced audience apathy, and the idea that you're supposed to give a darn about the Knight and his completely repulsive self is absolutely insane. I was bored to death reading through it.
 
I believe Schicklgruber had a short attempt at a fine arts career. From the sketches and paintings we know he made, he was fairly uninspired and of mediocre skill, but maybe a focus on his art and training could've helped. However, can it really be a feasible alternative to his writing career despite potential improvements? It's pretty obvious that he was a better writer, which says a lot about the quality of his art...
 
Oh, yeah, I remember Downfall. I think you could argue that it was the most artistically meaningful of his works, but it certainly wasn't the most entertaining, in my eyes. The whole thing suffers from darkness-induced audience apathy, and the idea that you're supposed to give a darn about the Knight and his completely repulsive self is absolutely insane. I was bored to death reading through it.

I read it when I was going through a dystopian fiction kick and read it somewhere between Huxley's "Brave New World" (which I really disliked) and Jack London's "The Iron Heel", which despite being lauded by Trotsky, I simply couldn't get into.

Isn't there a rumour that it's going to be made as a film? Tom Cruise is apparently tipped for the lead role.
 
OOC: Are we going with Trotsky as a communist leader, Trotsky as a writer, or Trotsky as a literary critic?

Tom Cruise? Isn't he a Dianeticist? You have to be kidding me. Honestly, I think Adolf's writing probably is going to translate pretty well to popcorn action flicks...if they adapt anything but Downfall!
 
I honestly think it would be bad for the genre, as much as I dislike his work personally. You needed some garbage with a few qualities to pander to the base at the time and make them see the genre had value.
 
OOC: I started reading "The Iron Heel" a few years back and the foreword of the edition I have is indeed written by Leon Trotsky. I was simply playing with that.
 
How would his partnership with Mussolini be like? I remember reading many of Mussolini's detective stories during elementary school and I remember reading that Hitler and Mussolini were competing authors.
 
I'm going to be honest, I never really liked Mussolini's detective stories, per se. Sure, he could write fantasy just fine when he wanted to, in fact, I'd argue he was probably better than Adolf at it, but his detective stories always had far too much of his socialist ideology shoehorned in. His main characters liked to talk about it far too much, the villains were usually members of the bourgeoisie...as someone a bit tired of Marxism, it seemed like he only really was able to flourish as a writer when he didn't have Italy to write about.

That said, it's really a shame that he's considered to be derivative of Schicklgruber. Honestly, as much as we all grew up on the guy...Yeah, from a purely technical perspective even Mussolini's...incredibly unsubtle communist (or socialist, whatever) noir crap...actually was well plotted. In fact, I used to really enjoy it back when I was a socialist. I think it might qualify as agitprop.

I wonder why Schiklgruber didn't write much in the modern day. Honestly, I think he'd probably be better at it. It would give him more room for nuance. It's obvious the man suffered through some mental health issues, maybe he could have explored that? I think paranoid schizophrenia was one thing he dealt with, if he could get some help that might be good fodder for writing.

Also, do you guys think the KPD attempted coup might have succeeded had Adolf ended up as a radical, since it would force people to pick between the KPD and the completely unappealingly radical National Socialists?
 
I wonder why Schiklgruber didn't write much in the modern day. Honestly, I think he'd probably be better at it. It would give him more room for nuance. It's obvious the man suffered through some mental health issues, maybe he could have explored that? I think paranoid schizophrenia was one thing he dealt with, if he could get some help that might be good fodder for writing.

Why would he when his stories that were set in the Middle Ages sold so well?
 

Insider

Banned
Well HP Lovecraft would have no competitors for the worst political views trophy. Seriously, the two of them were nutcases. People back then thought they were racists. In the 1930s.
Did you ever bothered to read through biographies of popular writers? Aside a few, you would soon find it veer of to weird, if not "nutcase". With greater talent comes greater insanity.
 
The guy had major emotional issues and spent a year in a mental institution. That's where he wrote his first fantasy works , as therapy. He also had a serious drug problem later in life. Any nation ruled by him would have been a disaster,if by some miracle he ever managed to get into power.
The only possible POD would have been if his cab hadn't broken down and he was on time for the political meeting where Ernst Röhn shot Joeseph Goobles, if Hitler was there he might have stopped it and the National Socilist whatever party wouldn't have fallen apart.But we're getting into big time ASB territory here.
 
The guy had major emotional issues and spent a year in a mental institution. That's where he wrote his first fantasy works , as therapy. He also had a serious drug problem later in life. Any nation ruled by him would have been a disaster,if by some miracle he ever managed to get into power.
The only possible POD would have been if his cab hadn't broken down and he was on time for the political meeting where Ernst Röhn shot Joeseph Goobles, if Hitler was there he might have stopped it and the National Socilist whatever party wouldn't have fallen apart.But we're getting into big time ASB territory here.

Yeah, and what if the Race came down to stop the cab from breaking down? I mean, come on. Give us something better than that, that's ASB out the butt.
 
I wonder (almost shudder) what might have happened had Schicklgruber and Robert Heinlein ever met--or somehow collaborated. In case anyone forgot, Heinlein was a mid-20th century science fiction / science fantasy author who maintained, among other things, that no criminal punishment was effective unless it was cruel and unusual. That collaboration might have made for some interesting dystopian literature.
 
If I remember correctly, Schickgruber was a regular guest of Heinrich Himmler, whose family eventually ran a pretty big farm near Munich (Himmler's descendants still run the farm). I know Himmler was involved in the National Socialist movement in Bavaria in the early 1920's, but after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, he went back to his other love--agriculture. (Himmler remembers his days with the National Socialists from his autobiography as "days of misspent youth and early adulthood.") Himmler wrote several important works on growing herbs and developed several strains of hops that are used today by some of the most prominent beer breweries in Munich.

We know that Schickgruber and Himmler talked a lot about the the politics of race, but both knew after the failure of the Putsch (Schickgruber spent ten years in prison for leading the uprising) that implementing their ideas was out of the question.
 
If I remember correctly, Schickgruber was a regular guest of Heinrich Himmler, whose family eventually ran a pretty big farm near Munich (Himmler's descendants still run the farm). I know Himmler was involved in the National Socialist movement in Bavaria in the early 1920's, but after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, he went back to his other love--agriculture. (Himmler remembers his days with the National Socialists from his autobiography as "days of misspent youth and early adulthood.") Himmler wrote several important works on growing herbs and developed several strains of hops that are used today by some of the most prominent beer breweries in Munich.

We know that Schickgruber and Himmler talked a lot about the the politics of race, but both knew after the failure of the Putsch (Schickgruber spent ten years in prison for leading the uprising) that implementing their ideas was out of the question.

OOC: I just want to support this post and so many others like it for taking an absolutely ridiculous idea "Hitler as a fantasy writer" and giving it a PoD, some logic, and making it feel pretty legitimate. It's really amazing.

Look, I haven't heard of Himmler. Maybe I just don't drink a lot of beer, but I'm surprised that Schicklgruber would be so focused on agriculture. I guess even a bitter jerk like him can have friends. I would say it's heartwarming, but...yeah, as great of a writer as he could be...He was kind of a repulsive person. Ew. If the National Socialists won, would the KPD still have their reputation?
 
He may have been a dog lover and devoted husband, but he always had...some outdated beliefs, and anyone who's read his little-known manifesto from his political years, "My Struggle", should know that he believed some truly reprehensible things.

It's better to think of that story as a bad parody.
 

Loghain

Banned
I wonder (almost shudder) what might have happened had Schicklgruber and Robert Heinlein ever met--or somehow collaborated. In case anyone forgot, Heinlein was a mid-20th century science fiction / science fantasy author who maintained, among other things, that no criminal punishment was effective unless it was cruel and unusual. That collaboration might have made for some interesting dystopian literature.

They actually did but just once.
The Blood,toil,tears and sweat Is underappreciated and virtually unknown masterpiece.
 
They actually did but just once.
The Blood,toil,tears and sweat Is underappreciated and virtually unknown masterpiece.
Is it as dystopic as one might guess? Or did they manage to keep something of a sense of perspective (Heinlein was capable of writing some fairly easy-going stuff, if I recall correctly, when it suited him).
 
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