Goering dies in WWI

Deleted member 96212

Self-explanatory title. What would the early rise of Nazism and the government of the Third Reich look like with Herman Goering having died long before it's ever formed?
 
Of all the Nazis, Goering was the most colorful character. He was a great vote-getter in the elections and very capable in his role of the leadership in the Nazi party in the Reichstag in the campaign, whether he would change the result, I am not sure but he certainly was a major asset. That is why he was number two. I think if we are going to argue that his removal from history would make the most effect it is here.

After taking power, there are two views on him, the first was that he was extremely capable but due to his nature and lack of authority could do little, and the other that he was useless. I have seen both sides argued.

He does appear to have been realist, he opposed the extension of the war, did what he thought Hitler wanted to hear - many of the mistakes that people blame Goering, I think are Hitler's mistakes where Goering just said what Hitler wanted to hear and he did live his life with great gusto.

Overall we can say he was the heir apparent, who never had the chance to do much.
 
Ah, so as the fella who wrote a novel and a novella tackling "Hitler without Goering" concept, I think I can take a stab at it. (Though in my works I did not kill Goering in WWI, and instead had him go off to Hollywood after WWI)

My take: without Goering, Hitler does not come to power in Germany.

Goering was vitally important to the continued economic viability of the Party by being the only early member of the inner circle who had connections to the rich and the powerful and who could ensure they would open their minds and wallets to the Nazi cause. He was the only one who could organize dinner-tables which eased Hitler into polite society by drawing on his extensive familial connections, war-time acquaintances (it pays to be the leader of the most famous flying squadron in the war, going back to HQ and meeting princes and their rich cronies at many occasions) and charisma. Goering and his wife provided the nucleus of these false-normal gatherings. No one else could have and no one else would have. Hitler at meal times came with three settings: mute, monologue and rant. Goering and his first wife could work around it and get Hitler to be seen and well received. It is very hard for me to picture Alfred Rosenberg pausing mid-stream in his "Vatican-Masonic defrauding the Protestant kingdoms" theories to inquire about the state of the veal of his princely dinner companion. Can anyone see Roehm doing well in these settings? Or Hess acting with any semblance of a human being? Jumping ahead, would have Himmler or Goebbels been able to arrange such things? Hitler's menagerie of awful creatures contained only one person capable of getting the rich and the powerful to appear at the dinner table - Goering.

Hitler gives Goering too much credit in organizing SA, largely to take the piss out of Roehm, but Goering did organize it and it was Goering who was entrusted with leading the foot soldiers of the revolution during the Beer Hall Putsch, no one else. Hitler understood Goering and knew he was seeing a walk-behinder. Goering could be counted out to organize and lead, on behalf of another, without eyeing the throne. Others were either too ambitious or too incompetent. Goering was the perfect mix of being competent enough, but so competent as to draw the ire of his master. Something Ludendorff did not grasp.

Goering was a cunning sociopath. Had he been born fifty years later, he would have been a Fortune 500 CEO or a serial killer, or both. He understood how to present himself to the public in ways only Hitler truly grasped. Even Goebbels for his brilliant and hateful oratory never got the masses. You can see it in the little doctor's speeches. As he whips the crowd into the ecstatic orgy of violence against the enemies of state, the runt takes a step back from the lectern, plants a fist on his hip and crooks an elbow, as if to mutter "sheeple." He was at once disgusted by the mob and entranced by his ability to feed its madness. Not Goering. Goering would spit hot fire and be carried with it, pounding the lectern and giving a show of exaggerated machismo which felt real and never once broke character. When Goebbels talked of waging Total War, people knew he wasn't going to be in the frontlines of it or fighting with them in the last ditch. When Himmler talked of being vigilant and punishing all miscreants it came with all the heat and sizzle of a man reading from a phone book. When Goering said every bullet fired from every gun would be his responsibility - the crowd roared. He gave them simplicity because he could fake simplicity and go along with it. Hitler's speeches were messianic, and distant. Goering's were immediate.

Time and time again, foreign diplomats upon being posted to Berlin would come back with a message of how Goering was the most normal of the bunch of the Nazi leadership. No one would have said it of Himmler, Goebbles, Roehm, Hitler or Hess. Or Ludendorff for that matter. Goering knew how to charm. Not many other Nazis bothered to learn it, and those which did not were not in the inner sanctum. Some were charming to fellow Nazis, which meant they could preach to the Inquisition, but Goering could speak to non-Nazis and be all things to all people. You can see it in his interviews at Nuremberg, which are a masterclass of disassembling and pitting one side against the other. To the British he said the Americans were nothing without their leadership and he knew the war was doomed because he knew he could not win the Battle of Britain. To the Americans he would say to not let the British steal your thunder, it was the Americans who won and he knew the war was finished as soon as they entered the war and he begged Hitler on his knees to not declare war on the Americans after Pearl Harbor. He even flattered the French. About the only ones he could not charm were the Stalinist Russians, because some things even the most cunning could not achieve. All this, with a noose soon to be over his neck. Contrast that with the interviews of the other broken creatures held in the same block. Goering understood how to manipulate people and his powers were much called up on before the Nazi grip on power was absolute.

Goering was crucial to organizing the SA, bringing connections to the Party, getting funding and staying loyal to Hitler in such a way as to get Hitler to regard him as loyal and keep him in place. Something no one else managed to achieve, before the Nazis came to power or had the electoral steamrolling momentum. Heydrich and Himmler showed up in position of power when the Party already held the whip hand. Goebbels was a schismatic and a late convert. Roehm was too enamored with the notion of the "socialist" aspect of the National Socialism and the idea of a revolution sweeping way "reactionary" elements. Rosenberg nearly wrecked the Party when left to his own devices when Hitler was in jail. And Hess was... Hess.

Hitler needed Goering.
 
Göring was strange case
on one side he was important in NSDAP, had right connections to rich and powerful in Germany and was consider as the "normal" guy under those maniacs
on other side he had extravagant tastes and garish clothing, was a sociopath, drug addict and to slump as leader of Reichsluftfahrtministererium, special in later part of his life.

But Without Göring there is no rise of NSDAP to power, he was curial in early years of that maniacs organization...
 
Without Goring the Nazi party probably never rises to prominence, and in all likelihood, Hitler dies in relative obscurity as some guy who lead a coup attempt.
 

Deleted member 96212

Goering was vitally important to the continued economic viability of the Party by being the only early member of the inner circle who had connections to the rich and the powerful and who could ensure they would open their minds and wallets to the Nazi cause.

Göring was strange case
on one side he was important in NSDAP, had right connections to rich and powerful in Germany and was consider as the "normal" guy under those maniacs
on other side he had extravagant tastes and garish clothing, was a sociopath, drug addict and to slump as leader of Reichsluftfahrtministererium, special in later part of his life.

But Without Göring there is no rise of NSDAP to power, he was curial in early years of that maniacs organization...

As someone who doesn't know enough about the early rise of Nazism, may I enquire as to why, say, Ludendorff couldn't introduce Hitler to some major financial backers?
 
As someone who doesn't know enough about the early rise of Nazism, may I enquire as to why, say, Ludendorff couldn't introduce Hitler to some major financial backers?

ahh yeah General Ludendorff
he was introduce to Hitler in 1920, Ludendorff consider the former Gefreiter as far to low for his social status as Former General !
That change to better because Hitler consider Ludendorff as Leader of Right forces in Germany, that's until the 1923 Hitler Putsch in Munich.
Ludendorff end in prison because of this debacle, but get released and discharge do his effort during WW1.
After that degradation both were political enemies...
 
As someone who doesn't know enough about the early rise of Nazism, may I enquire as to why, say, Ludendorff couldn't introduce Hitler to some major financial backers?
He could have, but he was not very good at playing house and host. Ludendorff absolutely could have been an entry point for Hitler to meet the wealthy and the powerful, but Ludendorff considered the Nazis themselves as an entry point to a fascist counter-revolution to take back the Germany of his fevered dreams. In the early 1920s, there were three dozen fascist lunatic fringe political organizations in Germany, of which the Nazi Party was merely the most striking and the most easily known because they had an easily recognizable symbol (swastika) which made it easy to slap on a poster by Social Democrats, Socialists and Communists. Ludendorff thought Hitler was his entry point into the kind of mass-politics he could not fully grasp. He wasn't in the mood to let Hitler use him, though Hitler did to some extent.

The other factor is that a dinner party with Ludendorff as its host would not have been affair you would want to attend unless you were a devotee of second hand cringe. Ludendorff was an asshole on a good day, and on a bad day he was a very mean asshole. And during this crucial time, his wife was seeking treatment at various mental health clinics, which did not improve his outlook on life, and actually made things even weirder because he subsequently married the woman in charge of his wife's treatment, and said woman turned out to be an even bigger fascist lunatic than Ludendorff and was actually kookier than Rosenberg to the point Hitler disassociated himself from Ludendorff in the late 1920s because of it.

Goering's first wife was an utter fascist nutjob as well, but she was better in polite society and Hitler liked her and she made Hitler feel as if he was a member of a stable home unit. Ludendorff might have been able to do some of the things Goering did, but he had the wrong personality for it, and that relationship was a disaster waiting to happen, which did end in disaster.
 
As someone who doesn't know enough about the early rise of Nazism, may I enquire as to why, say, Ludendorff couldn't introduce Hitler to some major financial backers?

He could have, but he was not very good at playing house and host. Ludendorff absolutely could have been an entry point for Hitler to meet the wealthy and the powerful, but Ludendorff considered the Nazis themselves as an entry point to a fascist counter-revolution to take back the Germany of his fevered dreams.

A financial backer is one thing but getting them is not just what Goering was about.

Goering as a NAZI leader had a lot of assets for the Nazi party, a good host to potential people, prestige as both he and his wife (Swedish aristocrat) were from an aristocratic background, a major war hero, an effective organiser, extremely loyal, charismatic, etc where does a minor fledging party like the NAZI party get someone like that to join them even with an introduction?
 
Sounds like a textbook example of "You either die a hero, or see yourself live long enough to become the villain."

22 kills and a Blue Max get you a footnote in history but in more positive light.
 
Sounds like a textbook example of "You either die a hero, or see yourself live long enough to become the villain."

22 kills and a Blue Max get you a footnote in history but in more positive light.

If say Goering had died say in early 1939, we would probably here writing how his death led to ww2 due to lack of his restraint on Hitler.
 
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