Hitler in a Central Victory Scenerio

What happens to Adolf Hitler if the Central Powers won the Great War?

Would he remain in the army?
Would he try again in Painting?
Would he go into Politics?
 
I always thought that if he never got into power Hitler would end up as a movie director. Maybe he can star in cheesy Great War movies that are biased towards Germans like how so many American movies like to think the USA was the main reason the Allies won WW2 in our timeline.
 
IOTL Hitler stayed in the 85,000 man Riechswehr, which illustrates what the Heer thought of him. This leads me to believe that in a CP victory Hitler would have stayed in the Heer for a while.

Assuming of course that the changes that cause the CP to win don't kill Hitler in the process.
 

Anchises

Banned
If he still radicalizes, he might be part of an Anti-Hapsburg terrorist organization, trying to form Grossdeutschland by all means

That is my (vague) idea for a CP victory TL.

In Germany Hitler is going to hit a glass-ceiling really quick. He is just a street-painter with a fairly average military track record, he simply lacks the social standing to achieve anything in German politics. All his voters IOTL would support the reactionary establishment ITTL, without revanchism and economic ruin he is just a paranoid demagogue.

In A-H on the other hand, there is huge potential for his rhetoric.

My idea:

Germany inevitably democratizes to a degree. The SocDems supported the war, they are undoubtedly loyal to the Kaiser and Germany, the elites are basically forced to end most repressive measures.

The SPD-USPD split still happens, because the SPD rapidly shifts away from Marxism and towards the center. Eventually the Kaiser nominates a right-wing SPD figure as Reichschancellor and the SPD rules in a coalition with the liberals (yeah the political system also changes).

Against the trope Germany doesn't become quasi-socialist, instead the SocDems make fairly centrist policy choices. This is still enough to cause a split in the right.

The right divides between conservatives, who accept the new status quo, and reactionaries who want to return to more authoritarian times.

Hitler naturally starts meddling with the Völkische wing of the reactionaries. He meets people like Röhm, Hugenberg etc. but is unable to make any serious inroads in the political sphere. People in the Empire simply wouldn't vote for a "Böhmischer Gefreiter".

The reactionaries, against official policy, are fairly hostile to the ailing A-H. Hitler eventually returns to Austria and quickly assumes a leadership position in the Nationalist sphere.

His rhetoric of: "I wasn't a coward, I just wasn't ready to fight for Judeo-Slavic interests. German blood belongs into a single country, the mongrelized Habsburgs are enslaving Germans for the benefit of slavic subhumans."

Hitler is able to get funding and weapons from his contacts in Germany. He quickly becomes a political force in A-H.
 
A lot depends on what kind of Central Powers victory are we talking about.

If it's a four year long, drawn-out conflict resulting in Russia withdrawing due to the October Revolution, the US staying neutral and France falling after the German 1918 spring offensive, like most CP victory scenarios present, then Germany, even a victorious one, is still going to be in the shitter, there is going to be revolutionary activity inspired by the October Revolution, an overall disappointment with the war and the destruction it caused, and quenched nationalism both in Germany and elsewhere as the country returns to normal, so if you fondle with the parameters a bit and give Hitler a little bit of luck, then I think you could realistically see Hitler enter politics even in a CP victory scenario.

Hitler could still be appointed into the Aufklärungskommando after the war (it's not like he had any other career prospects than the army) and thus get in contact with the DAP to take control of it and transform it into the NSDAP, nothing in this sequence of events is removed by Germany winning WW1.

I would imagine, though, that the NSDAP in the German Empire would be significantly different. For one, it would probably lean more in favor of the German monarchy, maybe be more moderate in some aspects, and instead of calling for revenge and destruction of Bolshevism, it would campaign for Germany maintaining an interventionist attitude in Europe, "keeping the defeated Entente down", stamping out the Soviet Union as a threat to Germanic supremacy over Europe, and obviously integrate the German-speaking territories of Austria-Hungary into the Empire.

As such, these "alt-Nazis" would probably be a lot more integrated into the German political sphere, they might not even be regarded as an anti-systemic party, just loud, extreme and slightly obnoxious anti-semitic nationalists, a manifestation of Volkisch ideology. Obviously they'd still be Nazis, but viewed by the public differently and espousing a different ideology.
 
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A lot depends on what kind of Central Powers victory are we talking about.

If it's a four year long, drawn-out conflict resulting in Russia withdrawing due to the October Revolution, the US staying neutral and France falling after the German 1918 spring offensive, like most CP victory scenarios present, then Germany, even a victorious one, is still going to be in the shitter, there is going to be revolutionary activity inspired by the October Revolution, an overall disappointment with the war and the destruction it caused, and quenched nationalism both in Germany and elsewhere as the country returns to normal, so if you fondle with the parameters a bit and give Hitler a little bit of luck, then I think you could realistically see Hitler enter politics even in a CP victory scenario.

Hitler could still be appointed into the Aufklärungskommando after the war (it's not like he had any other career prospects than the army) and thus get in contact with the DAP to take control of it and transform it into the NSDAP, nothing in this sequence of events is removed by Germany winning WW1.

I would imagine, though, that the NSDAP in the German Empire would be significantly different. For one, it would probably lean more in favor of the German monarchy, maybe be more moderate in some aspects, and instead of calling for revenge and destruction of Bolshevism, it would campaign for Germany maintaining an interventionist attitude in Europe, "keeping the defeated Entente down", stamping out the Soviet Union as a threat to Germanic supremacy over Europe, and obviously integrate the German-speaking territories of Austria-Hungary into the Empire.

As such, these "alt-Nazis" would probably be a lot more integrated into the German political sphere, they might not even be regarded as an anti-systemic party, just loud, extreme and slightly obnoxious anti-semitic nationalists, a manifestation of Volkisch ideology. Obviously they'd still be Nazis, but viewed by the public differently and espousing a different ideology.

Maybe Hitler would blame the "treason" more on communists than on Jews. like: "My people betryed Germany and suddenly supported Bolsheviks/communists in France!" etc.
 
If he still radicalizes, he might be part of an Anti-Hapsburg terrorist organization, trying to form Grossdeutschland by all means
I don't think that such an organization would be too popular if the empire had held together, especially given that the whole war was sparked by "an anti-Habsburg terrorist organization".
 
That is my (vague) idea for a CP victory TL.

In Germany Hitler is going to hit a glass-ceiling really quick. He is just a street-painter with a fairly average military track record, he simply lacks the social standing to achieve anything in German politics. All his voters IOTL would support the reactionary establishment ITTL, without revanchism and economic ruin he is just a paranoid demagogue.

In A-H on the other hand, there is huge potential for his rhetoric.

My idea:

Germany inevitably democratizes to a degree. The SocDems supported the war, they are undoubtedly loyal to the Kaiser and Germany, the elites are basically forced to end most repressive measures.

The SPD-USPD split still happens, because the SPD rapidly shifts away from Marxism and towards the center. Eventually the Kaiser nominates a right-wing SPD figure as Reichschancellor and the SPD rules in a coalition with the liberals (yeah the political system also changes).

Against the trope Germany doesn't become quasi-socialist, instead the SocDems make fairly centrist policy choices. This is still enough to cause a split in the right.

The right divides between conservatives, who accept the new status quo, and reactionaries who want to return to more authoritarian times.

Hitler naturally starts meddling with the Völkische wing of the reactionaries. He meets people like Röhm, Hugenberg etc. but is unable to make any serious inroads in the political sphere. People in the Empire simply wouldn't vote for a "Böhmischer Gefreiter".

The reactionaries, against official policy, are fairly hostile to the ailing A-H. Hitler eventually returns to Austria and quickly assumes a leadership position in the Nationalist sphere.

His rhetoric of: "I wasn't a coward, I just wasn't ready to fight for Judeo-Slavic interests. German blood belongs into a single country, the mongrelized Habsburgs are enslaving Germans for the benefit of slavic subhumans."

Hitler is able to get funding and weapons from his contacts in Germany. He quickly becomes a political force in A-H.

Perhaps make a TL out of this, call it...

"A.H. in A-H: an AH."
 
I don't think that such an organization would be too popular if the empire had held together, especially given that the whole war was sparked by "an anti-Habsburg terrorist organization".

It depends on the survival of Austria Hungary in one state : if it becomes a collection of Hapsburg led states instead of one state, then some of the German Austrians might be tempted to be pro-Grossdeutschland, which means Anti-Hapsburg
 
IOTL Hitler stayed in the 85,000 man Riechswehr, which illustrates what the Heer thought of him. This leads me to believe that in a CP victory Hitler would have stayed in the Heer for a while.

Assuming of course that the changes that cause the CP to win don't kill Hitler in the process.

He is actually demobbed and later recruited as a police spy by the army.

TTL more likely demobbed and deported to AH where he is imprisoned for draft dodging and after release works a series of menial jobs before ding admitted to clinic for treatment by Dr Mengele
 

NoMommsen

Donor
IOTL Hitler stayed in the 85,000 man Riechswehr, which illustrates what the Heer thought of him. This leads me to believe that in a CP victory Hitler would have stayed in the Heer for a while.

Assuming of course that the changes that cause the CP to win don't kill Hitler in the process.
Well, as long as Hitler was part of the supposed to demobilize army and serving the armys internal spy-system it was still well above 1 million men large in early to late 1919.
Only in 1920 the considerable reduction took place, still far from ended in 1921.

However, it should also not be forgotten, that Hitler in beginning 1919 was part of the socialist bavarain revolution 0o0 ! He even attended Kurt Eisners funeral. But afterwards something happened, making him betraying his former socialist/communist comrades.

Despite Hitlers own boasting, that he decided to become a politician during his hospital-time, this happened most likely after the revolution ... had failed.

Without revolution no political 'remarkable' Hitler IMHO,

... neither in Germany, where he might stay perhaps due to 'honorably' citizenship (you know : Iron Cross) and not freely return to Austria.
Most likely he would 'fade' into the background, maybe a police-footnote after being found starved and frozen some years later, as he still woudn't be able to do regular work for a living.
 
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