Hitler keeps his "Prussian" moustache

"His moustache is the most instantly recognisable - and sinister - in history.

Yet, according to new research into Adolf Hitler's early life, the distinctive, toothbrush shape that adorned his scowling face was not his first preference.

A previously unpublished essay by a writer who served alongside Hitler in the First World War trenches reveals that the future Führer was only obeying orders when he shaped his moustache into its tightly-clipped style. He was instructed to do so in order that it would fit under the respirator masks, introduced in response to British mustard gas attacks.

Had that order never been issued, the tyrant who brought most of Europe to its knees would be remembered as a man with a large Prussian moustache..."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1550768/Hitler-was-ordered-to-trim-his-moustache.html

Effects? Chaplin's *The Great Dictator* is still possible, of course, but without the similarities in their moustaches it loses an obvious hook for the audience...
 

Zek Sora

Donor
Let's all be honest, the toothbrush mustache was ugly as hell anyway. All this does is keep it "acceptable."

Then again, that Prussian one was pretty ugly too.
 
Cracked once joked that hipsters would sport the Chaplin. I agree, because it's such a bad looking mustache that it would appeal to them.

I suspect the Prussian wouldn't be associated with Hitler, or at worst it would be associated with him in the way big, bushy mustaches are associated with Stalin (something that might get commented on as a joke, particularly if the person has other features that resemble the dictator, but not shock and outrage). It was much more common and not as distinctive as the toothbrush mustache.
 
Hitler wears the unregulation facial hair until the next gas attack. The poor seal on his mask lets in enough gas and he dies just another German KIA.
 

cpip

Gone Fishin'
Even if he'd kept it during the war, one wonders why he didn't grow it back out afterwards. Certainly other men returned to a more traditional Prussian mustache, at least for a while.
 
Hitler wears the unregulation facial hair until the next gas attack. The poor seal on his mask lets in enough gas and he dies just another German KIA.

Wasn't there a TL like this? Hitler dies...and the butterflies from this let the Red Baron survive, and he ends up running Germany as a pseudo-dictator.
 
"Movember" would probably take on an unintended meaning, butterflying its existence into oblivion.

(I say this because I've grown the mo at the moment for charity)
 
People would just compare him to Stalin or the Kaiser a lot. Mustaches as a whole would be looked down upon. And Japanese and African figures with toothbrush mustaches wouldn't be demonized as much. And people would stop drawling a toothbrush mustache on whoever they didn't like.
 
Even if he'd kept it during the war, one wonders why he didn't grow it back out afterwards. Certainly other men returned to a more traditional Prussian mustache, at least for a while.

Maybe others had the experience of having had to pare down their moustaches during the War, and Hitler kept the "toothbrush" as part of his "common soldier" image. Incidentally, the "toothbrush" seems to have been introduced into Germany in the late nineteenth century by American tourists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toothbrush_moustache (which notes there is some dispute as to when Hitler first adopted it).
 
Incidentally, it seems on further reading that while the "toothbrush moustache" style was reasonably popular, Hitler's was *not* a "classic" toothbrush moustache:

"His whiskers were bushier and more narrow and, at best, could only be referred to as a “variant of the toothbrush style.” Even at the height of his power, many Germans thought Hitler’s facial hair terribly unfashionable.

Bavarians of Hitler’s era referred to his style of mustache as a Rotzbremse, or “snot brake.” Other nicknames include Fliege (fly), Zweifinger (two-finger), or_Chaplinbart. Prior to Hitler’s rise, the small mustache was primarily associated with Charlie Chaplin, both in the United States and Europe. One company sold Chaplin outfits that relied almost entirely on the mustache to create the resemblance. According to a 1915 issue of Motion Picture Magazine, there was a brief moment of popularity for the Chaplin mustache in America. By most accounts, however, the mustache was never much more than a novelty item or a joke, a fact demonstrated by the style’s other famous wearer: Oliver Hardy.

Some have suggested that Hitler borrowed his grooming style from Charlie Chaplin, but there’s no evidence for the claim. Wherever he got the idea, though, even the Führer knew his mustache wasn’t exactly au courant in Germany. When Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, one of Hitler’s close friends, urged him to abandon the “ugly” mustache, Hitler responded, “If it is not the fashion now, it will be later because I wear it.”" http://www.slate.com/articles/life/..._ever_a_fashionable_style_of_facial_hair.html
 
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