"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?
- Thread starter The Red
- Start date
1) Hitler was never blinded by Chemical Weapons ITTL, correct?
2) Jewish scientific community in Germany isn't forced to flee ITTL, correct?
wew lad
There's more than one way to murder millions of people...
On the other hand, Red Hitler would likely purge the General Staff and most, if not all of the former Imperial and Weimar generals, so there's one advantage out the window from the start.
Put the Kaiser against the wall? Go all Robespierre on the nobility?
Man, this guy isn't gonna be well-liked by the Junkers...
a) Factionalism is part and parcel of Communist politics
b) There's the Poles, for one, and Hitler can easily spin a drive there as "liberating German workers (in the inevitable lost territories) from the clutches of clerical kulak reactionaries and social fascists". With the Czechs, same thing, except add "bourgeois nationalist capitalists." There's a whole lot of space between Stettin and Minsk.
On number 2, we can't be sure of that. A lot of the scientific community, Jew or Gentile, was by definition bourgeois. A lot of them would flee, before they get tarred as bourgeois capitalist collaborators.
Chapter XI
“These people can ingest the soup they’ve brewed up for us”
~ Erich Ludendorff, 26 October 1918
‘Ludendorff had bemoaned his lack of confidence in any future success in the wake of Germany’s catastrophic defeats, going as far as to blame the German soldiers at the front for failing him.~ Erich Ludendorff, 26 October 1918
Though he had promised he could win the war in the spring of 1918, before the summer was over he was privately declaring that peace must be sought as quickly as possible. He quickly regained his nerve.
The general still had no illusions to the emergency of the situation but he now began to construct a narrative that would aim to exonerate himself and the army as a whole from any blame.
It does not take long to deconstruct the ‘Stab In The Back’ myth, Ludendorff’s private statements months beforehand indicate that he himself knew that the writing was on the wall, but he had bluster, and prestige. He could count on people listening when he spoke.
Despite having increasingly lost influence in German society during the conflict, the left-wing and liberal elements soon found themselves being blamed for everything, first by Ludendorff and soon by many of his adherents on the right. It was their fault that morale had collapsed at the front, it was their fault that the economy had overheated, it was their fault that there were so few new conscripts. These accusations were in full swing even prior to the mutiny at Kiel.’
~ James Beatty, The Kaiser’s Last Gambit
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‘In the decades following the war there have been several theories put forward in the historiography of those last stages of the First World War as to the motivations of the Imperial German Navy in planning to stage a confrontation with the British Grand Fleet in the final weeks of the conflict.
Some have incorrectly argued that those in command of the navy were simply delusional, that they had not been party to the true extent of the defeat on the ground and as such believed that they could force the war to be fought on to a victorious end by unilaterally bringing an end to the armistice negotiations. This myth has largely been put to rest, though it continues to linger in popular retellings of the war. In reality, despite exhibiting a chilly relationship with their colleagues in the Army, it was clear that the war was already lost. They were well aware that whilst the fighting continued, the front was collapsing abroad and that the old Imperial state was quickly falling apart at home.
Apologists for the navy’s motivations have argued that they saw the planned battle as their role in the armistice negotiations. The argument broadly goes that although the army had failed Germany that the navy, its surface fleet largely intact having seen little action since the battle at Jutland, might be able to force a more favourable bargaining position for Germany by inflicting a decisive defeat against the Royal Navy. This argument states that the Navy’s thinking was dominated by the Dutch raid on the Medway in 1667, where the seemingly defeated republic had achieved a better settlement than they might have hoped to achieve in the wake of one final decisive victory against the English. This is also incorrect, the German surface fleet was still formidable in 1918 though it would have been no match for the British Grand Fleet, a fact that the high command were well aware of.
A cynical line puts forward the case that the Navy were resigned to German defeat and feared its implications given their fears that the fleet was either to be given away to the victorious powers as a form of reparation or simply scuttled. Allegedly the logic was it was better that the Germans take at least some British ships with them even if there was no hope of victory or on having a greater impact on any future peace.
There is some truth to this latter argument, for naval historians have reached a consensus that such a battle could only have ended in disaster for the German fleet. Nonetheless, the motivations behind going ahead with the battle were even more dastardly. The true behind the ordering of German sailors to stoke the boilers and head out to sea came from a warped sense of honour on behalf of those in command. It was viewed as more honourable to see the fleet destroyed in a heroic last stand than to wait for the end in port. In the words of Captain Von Levetzow, the intention was to ensure ‘immortal fame at the bottom of the ocean’. It may not be surprising that the sailors chose to have no part in this suicidal quest for glory. It certainly shouldn’t have been for their commanders.
The German surface fleet is generally concluded to have had the better of the day in the Jutland battle though the high command was uncomfortably aware that they had narrowly escaped a catastrophic defeat. Shortly after, the ships had largely been retired for the rest of the war, having been written-off as a ‘risk fleet’. The risk did not just refer to the Royal Navy. Morale was notoriously poor amongst the German sailors, they lived a life of confinement and strict discipline that at times resembled a vast prison rather than a military force. Leave was limited and the food was wretched.
That autumn the sailors had huddled together as the chill of the Baltic blew in, listening to their officers enjoy far better prepared and larger rations in warmer cabins. It was a demoralising existence, increasingly so as the grim news from the front continued to pour in. Having been informed of the high command’s plans for their destruction, they mutinied at Kiel on the 29th of October.
There was a great deal of support for the sailors amongst the soldiers garrisoned within the port, alongside many of the local workers. Large numbers of both joined their rebellion and soon the events at Kiel were repeated at Lubeck and Wilhelmshaven. Military units still loyal to the Kaiser were sent in to Kiel to suppress the mutineers and violent clashes quickly broke out. Germans fired on Germans with at least seven deaths and several dozen casualties.
The government now attempted to defuse the situation, sending a delegation to Kiel under the leadership of the Social Democratic Party leader Gustav Noske. It was hoped that improvements to the sailor’s conditions could restore order though it quickly became clear that the incident had taken on a far more political tone. By the end of the first week of November Kiel was in the hands of the sailors, soldiers, and workers now openly calling for the abdication of the Kaiser and an immediate end to the war. This revolutionary wave soon spread to Cologne, Munich, and eventually Berlin.’
~ Geoffrey Corbett, Hitler’s First Revolution
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The war was still ongoing, a war Ernst had managed to avoid participating in directly due to his secretarial work for the Social Democratic Party. Ironically it was a role that had given Ernst a keener insight into the ins and outs of the conflict than most soldiers on the front could expect to have. Thanks to this, he knew that the war would have be brought to an end as quickly as possible, though if the latest reports from the front were anything to go by that should have been apparent to most German troops as well .
Thankfully there was now a general consensus around ending the war, though German society was rapidly falling apart in the wake of apparent defeat. There were stories that the revolution that had sparked at the Baltic coast was now spreading across the country at an alarming rate. Rumour had it had that large groups of men and women with dubious motivations were marching on Berlin and despite his insider knowledge Ernst was as much in the dark as anyone else in regards to this. He only hoped that the declaration from the Reichstag balcony he had just witnessed would help bring Germany back together before calamity struck.
The Kaiser had abdicated and Ernst’s colleague Philip Scheidemann had been the one who proclaimed the new republic that would follow. There was no doubt he was present at the making of history, though the future seemed more in doubt than ever before. Some within the party were muttering that Schiedemann was an opportunist but Ernst felt that was rather blind in the face of the unravelling situation. Friedrich Ebert, their fellow social democrat, had been handed the Chancellorship hours beforehand and Ernst feared that being the inheritors of a nation in chaos and a peace that was likely to be harsh was a dubious gift. Many felt that the army and their friends in the old establishment were passing on these unpopular tasks not out of any belief in the competence of the SPD but to absolve themselves of any blame when things inevitably went wrong.
Despite the common German belief in themselves being an inherently harmonious and level headed people there were forces emerging on both left and right that threatened to plunge the nation into chaos. The military had prosecuted the war with the SPD’s tentative support but now that they had lost there were already rumours of Ludendroff and his supporters stirring up a new narrative that the public had failed the army via some fault in the German character caused by foreign peoples and foreign ideals. Germany, a country which contributed so much to liberalism and then socialism had apparently been spoiled by these very ideas. There were certain socialists who now seemed determined to prove them right.
Ernst had some sympathy for the communist’s beliefs, he too wanted to see a Germany built upon equality and fairness just as much as they did but their methods were another matter entirely. Rather than make the case for the German worker in the Reichstag, many of them appeared hell-bent on emulating Lenin in Petrograd and tearing down the entire system because there were parts of it they didn’t like. The thought made Ernst shiver, the war had already plunger Germany into a hunger and depravity, did they honestly think that the German working class wouldn’t be the most likely to lose out from a prolonged period of chaos.
He hoped they would see sense and so far it seemed that they might. He had met Rosa Luxemburg a few times and although they didn’t see eye to eye she had a reassuring air that gave Ernst the confidence that she truly wished to progress her ideals in a democratic context. Then there was Karl Liebknecht, a man recently released from prison that spoke and acted like an arsonist who had stolen a decent suit. Ernst had feared that Liebknecht’s followers would prove just as dangerous as anything the right had to offer in given the chance though now he felt somewhat more confident. It seemed as if the communists had missed the bus, the republic had now been proclaimed and despite the uncertainty of the future there was at least the chance of a stable balance going forward.
Ernst continued to idly watch the crowd from the balcony as he noticed the people beginning to thin out, they too had been a part of history but the demands of daily life would always take precedence. Those afraid of what was to come had been reassured that they now had a government which would move forward in their interests, a good first step. Now the real work would have to begin.
From behind Scheidemann said something Ernst couldn’t quite make out, something about going home?
He turned to his colleague with a smile, “You deserve to have a rest, it’s a great thing you’ve done today. I was just thinking to myself that the real work begins tomorrow.
Scheidemann looked at him with a curious frustration, “What? I said I might need to lie low. We need somewhere adjacent from the city to make sure things stay intact. Can you think of anywhere where we might-“
“You can’t leave. You’re the face of the republic, at least for the moment, surely whatever business we have outside of Berlin can be settled here? We might be seen as running away!”
A look of realisation appeared upon Scheidemann’s face, man that had seemed so confident a moment ago had had the wind taken out of him. All of a sudden Ernst realised there was something he didn’t know. He turned again to look out to the balcony and realised that the crowd wasn’t thinning out, it was moving. Marching in the direction of the Royal Palace.
A huge roar broke out though Ernst couldn’t make out where from exactly. Nonetheless, he suddenly felt he could emphasise with Scheidemann’s look of alarm.
Something was going wrong.
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The painting is Explosion by George Grosz
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Thanks for all the kind words guys, sorry for the radio-static in the last few days. I've been following the discussion very closely and I've got to say it's really inspiring to see so many people have put so much thought into this work already. I'd interact more personally but I'm afraid too much is spoiler sensitive at the moment! 
Hear that? It's the sound of butterflies!
I really want to know what's next.
It sounds more like the Kapp Putsch to me.
I really want to know what's next.
It sounds more like the Kapp Putsch to me.
It's
Banned
Re-label "race" with "class" in your rants, and replace your relatively efficient capitalist command war economy with a lumbering socialist command war economy and you're basically there. Apart from how the means of production is controlled, most of the difference is in the labels, not the substance I.e. Big government dictatorship, but always "for the people".'But the civilised human spirit, whether one calls it bourgeois or merely leaves it at civilised, cannot get rid of a feeling of the uncanny.'
~ Dr Faustus, Thomas Mann
‘The world is one of an ever present struggle, our struggle.
The German nation stands at a precipice, the working class stare down towards the pit, and as always the bourgeois industrialists threaten us with hell if we do not comply to their ever increasing demands. When we rise, they use the state organs of violence, their thugs in the police and the army, to crush our protests. It is a regime of oppression that continues to stumble between crises with seemingly no end in sight, exploiting each one to increase their dominance over the proletariat.
It is in this spirit that I write this work on the war being waged against the German worker, and how we must all fight back.The workers have grown in strength for over a century and the time is coming when they shall exercise their power.
The German proletariat cries out for power to be wrenched from the timid and feckless bourgeoisie, as is their right. Such is the role of the Communist Party. There are forces designed to impede the triumphant advance of the German worker that has been built on the popular uprisings at the end of the great imperialist slaughter. If we do not identify and eliminate these class enemies, they will bring our chariot of fate to a standstill just as it seems ready to reach its goal.
It is evident that our movement can gain the public significance and support which are necessary pre-requisites in this struggle of the classes, though only with a sacrosanct conviction in the hearts of its followers. There is no alternative in bringing about the great awakening of the German proletariat. This is not a case of introducing a new electoral slogan into the political field, our views are consistent, our justification immortal.
We must succeed, and we will.
The future demands it.’
~ Preamble to Our Struggle, Adolf Hitler
Lots of goose stepping and hand gestures.