How could all of Germany have gone communist? And how would this red Germany look like? The more different the ways to do it are, the better. Any POD is allowed.
 
Hitler thinks better of declaring war on the US and the US isn’t talked into joining in Europe. So the British get the shit beaten out of them and the Soviets win the peace, taking all of Germany.

Granted a simple lack of declaration of war may not be enough, but whatever keeps the US out of the European theater probably would.
 
If you prefer the least invasive POD possible, just have Corporal Hitler be killed in WW1. The National Socialist Party of the German Workers was a far left party before he took it over, just find a plausible way for TTL's version of it to get new financial backers after funding from the Thule Society dries up. In OTL Hitler pretty much bankrolled the Nazi Party with royalty money from the Mein Kampf sells until he managed to take over Germany.
 
I also thought about D-Day failing, or the soviets doing better on the eastern front. With this, the soviet might even be able to liberate (parts of) France.

Or the soviets win the cold war. How about this?
 
PoD is during the Kornilov Affair in Russia, Kornilov marches on Petrograd and dissolves the Soviets. Soviet leaders flee, some to Germany. German Revolution begins in 1918, with several high-ranking Bolsheviks and the SDP supporting the revolution (butterflies) in 1918/19, the German Empire is dissolved and the Volksreich (People's Reich) is instead proclaimed.

The Volksreich sues a similar peace with the Entente as IOTL. During the 20s and 30s, revolutionaries take over across formed Austria-Hungary and Poland, who with Germany form a Volkseuropa bloc. As the commies had no crazy racism, they won't attack Russia for Lebensraum, so this bloc might survive indedinetely.
 

Marc

Donor
For what it is worth, as I'm sure many of you know, Marx and Engels thought Germany was far more likely to have a revolution of the proletariat than less industrially developed countries, i.e. Imperial Russia. Given how potent the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands was in the 1920's, it's easy to see a more bitter post war 1 Germany becoming revolutionary (but successfully, not too likely - let's not forget that the French and the British would almost certainly weigh in against the German revolutionaries.)
 
These are the most likely POD scenarios that I see:
  1. The revolutions in 1848 are more successful, and goes full communist. (This is the year the manifesto was published BTW.)
  2. Something goes wrong during the German unification. For example: Lost war or too oppressive government.
  3. As others have said, the most likely one is that the communists take over after WWI.
  4. Communists manages to be more successful than the nazis after the Great Depression, and come to power instead of Hitler.
  5. Allies screw up D-Day, and Soviets take over mainland Europe.
There are of course a lot of possible PODs during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era that could lead to "communism", but it's a bit pointless to discuss that.
As for after 1945, the only way that would happen would be communist cockroaches after WWIII.
 
Easiest: Have the SPD leadership lean more to the left and retain Räte / soviet power through 1918 / 1919.
Most closely resembling OTL's communism: WW2 without the US or otherwise leading to a Nazi defeat at the hands of the Soviets almost alone.
Earliest (proto-)communist "Germany": Müntzer's radical revolution and the peasant wars of 1524/25 go a lot better and a radically egalitarian theocracy is established in central Europe, which probably holds a decade or so at most.
 
If you prefer the least invasive POD possible, just have Corporal Hitler be killed in WW1. The National Socialist Party of the German Workers was a far left party before he took it over, just find a plausible way for TTL's version of it to get new financial backers after funding from the Thule Society dries up. In OTL Hitler pretty much bankrolled the Nazi Party with royalty money from the Mein Kampf sells until he managed to take over Germany.

First, it was just "German Workers' Party" before Hitler joined. Second, which rich fool would fund an extreme leftist party, for what purpose?
 

BlondieBC

Banned
How could all of Germany have gone communist? And how would this red Germany look like? The more different the ways to do it are, the better. Any POD is allowed.

Hungary came close to communism after WW1. With the right POD, so could Germany. You just need different people to rise to power in the 1919-1939 period.

It would not be hard to write an ATL with say a fascist China and communist Germany.
 
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