Hitler's Sucessor

It is safe to take that with a very large pinch of salt.

Why? What else would there be for him to do? Europe was made safe from Bolshevism and the Jews; he's obviously not going to sit at a desk and fiddle around with boring bullshit when he couldn't be bothered doing that before he started his war.
 

Cook

Banned
There’s always something else for a tyrant to do, some minor crisis to micromanage, some change to the design of Germania to be organised, some long winded poorly structured speech to make to the adoring masses.

And if you hand over to a successor you just know he’s going to screw things up, after all, you’ve been chosen by providence, it’d just be wrong to retire.
 
There’s always something else for a tyrant to do, some minor crisis to micromanage, some change to the design of Germania to be organised, some long winded poorly structured speech to make to the adoring masses.

And if you hand over to a successor you just know he’s going to screw things up, after all, you’ve been chosen by providence, it’d just be wrong to retire.

Now that sounds about like something that Hitler would say/think...

Besides, whats the point of being a dictator if your going to retire? That's giving all the fun to someone else.
 
Now that sounds about like something that Hitler would say/think...

Besides, whats the point of being a dictator if your going to retire? That's giving all the fun to someone else.

Lucius Cornellius Sulla is probably the one you'd want to direct your query to.
 

Cook

Banned
And the fact that this was the only response you could come up with doesn't lend much credibility to yours.

Oh, sorry.

Okay, I’ll see your Sulla and raise you a Gaius Julius Caesar, and Octavian, an Oliver Cromwell, a Bonaparte, Stalin, Franco, Marcos…
 
On Hitler retiring...

As far as I know, Hitler daydreamt about retiring to Linz one day - but of course, we may never know. Hitler giving away power sounds odd to me.

BUT, on the other hand, IF the term Führer is only to linked with Hitler, the saviour of Germany and Europe, personally, then he may still have enormous influence (what do I say? as long as he lives, nothing would happen which is directly against his will!) despite someone else being Reichskanzler and/or Reichspräsident.

Also, Hitler's personal working habits were rather lazy (the term I remember was "Bohemian") most times (unless he is losing a war he feels only his genius can safe!). Being in a position to just tell everybody general directions without being bothered by the smaller bits would be ideal to him. Of course, he would be a pain to anybody really trying to govern the "Großdeutsche Reich".

It would be, IMHO, a smart move to make his succession clear with his own influence while still alive. This is especially the case if he wants to clear the path for someone who might not make it on his own - Speer!

I can see him retiring once he feels his physical powers fade.
I don't say it would have happened, but I would not rule it out completely.
 
While losing a war is highly stressful, I think it's silly to assume that in victory, Hitler's cabinet will somehow be saved from their own deep character flaws. Goring will still become a blubbering heroin junkie, and that lot will feed his habit rather than clean him up (NO ONE wants a sober, clear-thinking Goring on the loose). Himmler is insane, grasping, and has the temerity to have been a farmer in a society that was still very class conscious; I expect him to outlive Hitler by mere months if not days, and that's assuming one of his subordinates doesn't kill him while Hitler is still alive. If Heydrich has survived the '42 assassination, Heydrich; if not, Kaltenbrunner.

Speer will be leaving government the day war ends, although he'll no doubt get a lot of government contracts in his architectural practice.

In victory, Hitler has no reason to change his will to anyone but Goring, even if the latter is too strung out to remember his own name. Not that Hitler's will would have mattered in victory any more than it did OTL.

I'm going to assume a German army will be relatively content and professional in victory, and thus not stage a coup. That brings it to a contest between Martin Bormann, who's basically running the civilian government, and whoever's running the SS (probably Kaltenbrunner). My money's on the SS man. Goebbels is too spineless to wield executive power, and I don't think the SS man will feel the need for a figurehead (and Bormann isn't smart enough to realize he needs one).
 
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