"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?

Feels like a weird reunion of sorts. Imagine 2 high school friends meeting again after so many years, one is an accomplished businessman and the other a very rich drug dealer.
 
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I actually feel bad for Hitler a bit. He’s in a crowded room yet he is so alone. It’s sad to see another human being not really fit in with the rest.

I know once Hitler is Volksführer and war atrocities and public crackdowns begin I’ll lose that but it is a credit to your writing that you can make Hitler seem alone in a crowded room and someone who I do not agree with politically seem almost sympathetic.

That’s the danger of men like Hitler.
 
I actually feel bad for Hitler a bit. He’s in a crowded room yet he is so alone. It’s sad to see another human being not really fit in with the rest.

I know once Hitler is Volksführer and war atrocities and public crackdowns begin I’ll lose that but it is a credit to your writing that you can make Hitler seem alone in a crowded room and someone who I do not agree with politically seem almost sympathetic.

That’s the danger of men like Hitler.

That's why the movie Downfall is so...chilling.

Even knowing what Hitler has done, and I'm Jewish, Hitler's furious rant is how I've felt at certain periods in my life.

I take the view that Hitler was nothing special: all the great powers of the world indulged in racism and imperialism. Hitler's version of the two was just much, much more cold-blooded.
 
That's why the movie Downfall is so...chilling.

Even knowing what Hitler has done, and I'm Jewish, Hitler's furious rant is how I've felt at certain periods in my life.

I take the view that Hitler was nothing special: all the great powers of the world indulged in racism and imperialism. Hitler's version of the two was just much, much more cold-blooded.
For sure, that movie is so good because it portrays the Nazis as humans, flawed and terrible yes, but humans all the same which is both more terrifying and saddening.

His rise to power in OTL honestly sounds like a wacky alt-history with little plausibility: a penniless Austrian who was refused entry into art school then goes on to lead one of the largest far right parties in Germany, leads a coup that fails miserably then goes to prison only to become Chancellor and then a year later a total dictator. it almost sounds so crazy to have even really happened.

And Hitler’s charisma and anger were so great, he blinded people to his vision and made a country that had a very respectable and Germanized Jewish population become victims of terror.
 
For sure, that movie is so good because it portrays the Nazis as humans, flawed and terrible yes, but humans all the same which is both more terrifying and saddening.


Underneath the mad ravings of Adolf H., there are some blatant truths that drew Germans to his hypnotic rhetoric.

His rise to power in OTL honestly sounds like a wacky alt-history with little plausibility: a penniless Austrian who was refused entry into art school then goes on to lead one of the largest far right parties in Germany, leads a coup that fails miserably then goes to prison only to become Chancellor and then a year later a total dictator. it almost sounds so crazy to have even really happened.

A lot of history can seem that way.

Nobody in June 1914 imagined that the death of an archduke (who wasn't even well-liked by Austrians) would lead to the destruction of the old European order within 4-5 years.

The end of the Cold War (in certain parts) can seem like a happy musical. Literally, the people in the Baltics sang songs together.
 
Another great chapter! Ernst the weathercock indeed, and the DAR's flash-forwards indicate his treachery won't have a happy ending. Things in Bavaria seem to be cooking up too; I fear the referendum results' integrity will be, at the very least, questioned.
For a second I legitimately thought the "he was more taken aback" was leaning up to the pamphlet refreshing Pete's memories of his real first encounter with Hitler, that encounter with his father was way better. Waiting for the next update!

Thanks! I've been trying to work that in but Peter's got a bit of a journey to go. In the space of two years so far he's gone from having an interest in Communism to circumstance leading him to defect to a United Front containing Communists and now he's been disowned by his father for being a Communist. I don't know what effect it would have for him to find out that the reason his father hates Communists so much is also a prominent figure in the cause he defected to but I'm not cruel enough to try and find out. At least not yet.

I completely understand. I just finished going through that whole list on Wikipedia, and excluding the four people I originally listed, I could only find 10 people on that list that used to align with the left, and that was before I started narrowing down which ones would fit in more with TTL's Germany. The rest just consisted of a bunch of businessmen, industrialists, army or navy officers, far-right politicians and activists, and a surprising amount of monarchists.

I found the monarchism thing weird myself but I remember a lecturer explaining it to us at Uni showing two pictures, one of the opulence of the height of the Bourbons and another of Paris immediately after the fall of the commune and she then went on to explain that a lot of people had come to the conclusion that republicanism had led France to ruin and the Third Republic was the worst manifestation of that so far. I guess it's worth remembering that for people like Petain the second empire was still within living memory and people like de Gaulle inherited a lot of their beliefs from their parents.

Feels like a weird reunion of sorts. Imagine 2 high school friends meeting again after so many years, one is an accomplished businessman and the other a very rich drug dealer.

I love that similie. Yeah it's pretty awkward.

I actually feel bad for Hitler a bit. He’s in a crowded room yet he is so alone. It’s sad to see another human being not really fit in with the rest.

I know once Hitler is Volksführer and war atrocities and public crackdowns begin I’ll lose that but it is a credit to your writing that you can make Hitler seem alone in a crowded room and someone who I do not agree with politically seem almost sympathetic.

That’s the danger of men like Hitler.

I guess he does cut a kinda pathetic figure, despite all he's accomplished he's still awkward outside of his comfort zone and the certainty of his beliefs get intermingled with the need to project a father figure onto an older friend who isn't able to reciprocate. As you say though, Franz is right to be wary of him.


Hitler's furious rant is how I've felt at certain periods in my life.

I think that was one of the things that made Bruno Ganz's performance so fantastic, a rant about betrayal leads to Hitler falling into utter despair and it is a moment which humanises him. But then the initial betrayal was Steiner refusing to use teenagers with no ammunition to launch a pointless counter-attack. The cabin fever atmosphere of the bunker helps but there is an element of the hypnotism at play there as well. You have the portrait of a man whose mental and physical faculties are in steep decline, veering in and out of reality whilst at the same time there are kids and elderly people dying to maintain this farce for as long as possible. The response from the highest ranking Nazi who's aware of the situation but nonetheless remains loyal to Hitler? "I don't care."
 
I guess he does cut a kinda pathetic figure, despite all he's accomplished he's still awkward outside of his comfort zone and the certainty of his beliefs get intermingled with the need to project a father figure onto an older friend who isn't able to reciprocate. As you say though, Franz is right to be wary of him.

George Orwell said that Hitler's "pathetic" nature was his strength. In his review of Mein Kampf, he said this:

But Hitler could not have succeeded against his many rivals if it had not been for the attraction of his own personality, which one can feel even in the clumsy writing of Mein Kampf, and which is no doubt overwhelming when one hears his speeches…The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs—and I recommend especially the photograph at the beginning of Hurst and Blackett’s edition, which shows Hitler in his early Brownshirt days. It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial, personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is here. He is the martyr, the victim, Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such theme.

In the really desperate situation that was Germany in the 1930s, that feeling of defeat appealed to so many.


I think that was one of the things that made Bruno Ganz's performance so fantastic, a rant about betrayal leads to Hitler falling into utter despair and it is a moment which humanises him. But then the initial betrayal was Steiner refusing to use teenagers with no ammunition to launch a pointless counter-attack. The cabin fever atmosphere of the bunker helps but there is an element of the hypnotism at play there as well. You have the portrait of a man whose mental and physical faculties are in steep decline, veering in and out of reality whilst at the same time there are kids and elderly people dying to maintain this farce for as long as possible. The response from the highest ranking Nazi who's aware of the situation but nonetheless remains loyal to Hitler? "I don't care."

That's the other strength of Downfall: while Hitler is shown to be a person, he is still someone with zero respect for the sanctity of life. Someone who, in the end, deserved a bullet in the head.
 
That's very nice of you to say although I must admit I remain surprised at the notion of some people finding ITTL Hitler sympathetic.
Thing is, this man don't have lot in common with OTL Hitler beside of name. He is battle harden revolutionary, who saw ww1 for what it was. Pointless slaughter for benefit of the rich. This man will not butcher 20 million people for fun. Ww2 will be war of classes, clash of ideologies.
Comintern should be nothing like Axis alliance, and with ww2 coming sooner, this man could probably save thousands in Soviet Union and stop Stalin purges. Ironical, but so far for me this timeline is full of hope for communism. All thanks to this Austrian painter. Hilarious to think that die hard communist will find Hitler sympathetic, but you did marvellous job so far.
 
Thing is, this man don't have lot in common with OTL Hitler beside of name. He is battle harden revolutionary, who saw ww1 for what it was. Pointless slaughter for benefit of the rich. This man will not butcher 20 million people for fun. Ww2 will be war of classes, clash of ideologies.
Comintern should be nothing like Axis alliance, and with ww2 coming sooner, this man could probably save thousands in Soviet Union and stop Stalin purges. Ironical, but so far for me this timeline is full of hope for communism. All thanks to this Austrian painter. Hilarious to think that die hard communist will find Hitler sympathetic, but you did marvellous job so far.
The notion that all people are fundamentally good might seem harmless, if naïve, yet in the first half of the twentieth century tens of millions saw that belief skewed to the extent that the bodies piled higher than ever during the revolutionary terror in France.
TTL Hitler is still a monster. Just not quite on the level of his OTL counterpart.
 

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Banned
I wonder if the Exile States in Africa will transition to viewing themselves as Angola or Algeria or whatever
 
TTL Hitler is still a monster. Just not quite on the level of his OTL counterpart.
If OTL Hitler and Stalin were a 10/10 in monstrosity, this Hitler will probably be a 7/10. I don’t see him wiping people out due to ethnic or religious views, but he’ll definitely imprison ideological enemies and will be a totalitarian state that has “re-education camps” where I’m sure hundreds of thousands will die either from neglect, hard labor or occasional execution. I can’t see gas chambers coming into play at all under the DAR, or human experimentation like Mengele. Maybe euthanization of the elderly or disabled but that’s about it.

On another note, Romania will have the USSR and the DAR plus their client states all around so Romania might actually go far right, more so than OTL, with the Iron Guard coming to power . Romania could be the ethno-nationalist state that eliminates minorities within its own borders via mass executions, ghettoes and gas chambers. Hmm. Corneliu Codreanu could be the racist mass genocidal demagogue of this timeline.
 
If OTL Hitler and Stalin were a 10/10 in monstrosity, this Hitler will probably be a 7/10. I don’t see him wiping people out due to ethnic or religious views,
Ehhhhhh, I'll withhold judgement on that. In OTL there have been genocidal acts in communist countries too. Let's wait and see what happens to the "Rhineland bastards" and "rootless cosmopolitans" (remember the scene with Hitler and the French Senegalese bloke? and Marxism-Leninism-Hitlerism's idea of the International Financier Plot?) before we make any assumptions about whether ATL Hitler is less genocidal than the OTL one.
 
Ehhhhhh, I'll withhold judgement on that. In OTL there have been genocidal acts in communist countries too. Let's wait and see what happens to the "Rhineland bastards" and "rootless cosmopolitans" (remember the scene with Hitler and the French Senegalese bloke? and Marxism-Leninism-Hitlerism's idea of the International Financier Plot?) before we make any assumptions about whether ATL Hitler is less genocidal than the OTL one.
Yeah, very true...we'll just have to wait and see...

however, my prediction goes more in line with Tanner: He'll be a genocidal maniac, sure, he'll just be slightly less of one...Political "enemies of the state" (so anyone who dares speak out against the Volksführer), will most certainly be imprisoned and potentially sent to above mentioned "re-education camps"...depending on what happens next, there's a chance he'll start prosecuting religion as a whole, but Jews a little bit more because they are generally rich, and part of the "elite"

so yeah, hundreds of thousands are going to die, but I doubt it'll be the kind of mechanised, industrialised slaughter that the holocaust was
 
Yeah, very true...we'll just have to wait and see...

however, my prediction goes more in line with Tanner: He'll be a genocidal maniac, sure, he'll just be slightly less of one...Political "enemies of the state" (so anyone who dares speak out against the Volksführer), will most certainly be imprisoned and potentially sent to above mentioned "re-education camps"...depending on what happens next, there's a chance he'll start prosecuting religion as a whole, but Jews a little bit more because they are generally rich, and part of the "elite"

so yeah, hundreds of thousands are going to die, but I doubt it'll be the kind of mechanised, industrialised slaughter that the holocaust was
I agree it'll be harder to turn re-education camps into death-camps ITTL (unless Stalin turns a blind eye) and Hitler doesn't have a Siberia to send enemies of the state to.
Question: would Stalin allow Hitler to send his enemies to Siberian re-education camps?
 
Ironical, but so far for me this timeline is full of hope for communism. All thanks to this Austrian painter.

Well the victory in the civil war was largely down to the German worker and the People's Guard, Hitler helped to facilitate things a bit but he's also due to reap the rewards far more than anyone else.

Hilarious to think that die hard communist will find Hitler sympathetic, but you did marvellous job so far.

Thanks!

TTL Hitler is still a monster. Just not quite on the level of his OTL counterpart.

Yeah, he's had a different life to his OTL self but he still remembers the cell in Bavaria. It's a matter of personal and practical restraint.

I wonder if the Exile States in Africa will transition to viewing themselves as Angola or Algeria or whatever

Exile States?

On another note, Romania will have the USSR and the DAR plus their client states all around so Romania might actually go far right, more so than OTL, with the Iron Guard coming to power . Romania could be the ethno-nationalist state that eliminates minorities within its own borders via mass executions, ghettoes and gas chambers. Hmm. Corneliu Codreanu could be the racist mass genocidal demagogue of this timeline.

It's possible Romania might go to the far-right earlier than OTL although I'm not sure putting the "murder all Hungarians" party in charge would help resolve issues with the balance of power in Eastern Europe in Romania's favour. There's also the fact that Germany was Romania's largest trading partner and, unlike the USSR, has no real designs on Romanian territory despite also being the one power the Soviets might actually listen to in regards to Romanian affairs. It might be worth having the DAR on-side if possible.

there's a chance he'll start prosecuting religion as a whole, but Jews a little bit more because they are generally rich, and part of the "elite"

I'm sure you were talking about perceptions here rather than realities but just for the sake of clarity, Jewish people weren't generally richer than average in the Weimar Republic. Although Germany was a better place to live than much of Europe, antisemitism was all too common amongst the real elites.

Question: would Stalin allow Hitler to send his enemies to Siberian re-education camps?

I feel like prestige would come into it, not to mention the legal and logistical issues. It's worth noting that German Ideology does kinda see the Soviets as backward in their development. They're fellow workers but they're not quite what Marx envisioned either. Why send dissidents to Soviet gulags, or make your own, when you can try and improve upon the whole concept of re-education?
 
I feel like prestige would come into it, not to mention the legal and logistical issues. It's worth noting that German Ideology does kinda see the Soviets as backward in their development. They're fellow workers but they're not quite what Marx envisioned either. Why send dissidents to Soviet gulags, or make your own, when you can try and improve upon the whole concept of re-education?
You mean more "efficient"? :eek:
 
I'm sure you were talking about perceptions here rather than realities but just for the sake of clarity, Jewish people weren't generally richer than average in the Weimar Republic. Although Germany was a better place to live than much of Europe, antisemitism was all too common amongst the real elites.
yeah, I was indeed refering to the perception rather than reality...obviously there is no way Jews actually controlled the economy and all the money...that's rediculous, and was a complete lie made up by the Nazis to make themselves and their anti-semitism more popular and acceptable
 
Chapter CVI
It has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to inquire into the connection of German philosophy with German reality, the relation of their criticism to their own material surroundings.

~ Karl Marx, The German Ideology




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Schleswig Holstein Land Administration Office, Kaltenkirchen; April 1932





Gerda Muller grunted sleepily as she pulled up the shutters from her office windows to reveal the bright day outside. The dark nights were in retreat but recently the sunrise wasn’t a sight she was prone to welcoming. It was a Monday after all.


She had spent much of the previous night helping her daughter with her homework. Gerda had been happy that Rosa had wanted to join the Young Communist League but she was keen that her daughter wouldn’t miss out on any more schooling than already lost during the civil war because of party activities. Even if that meant having to accommodate both.


There were times where Gerda feared her own life was becoming all too fixed to routine but she was often too tired to really pause and consider such questions. It was satisfying to be able to implement change after a life of fighting for such policies but the implementation wasn’t always as exciting as the conspiracy and subterfuge had been and the limitations of legislation could be soul destroying.


The initial redistribution of land from Third Reich collaborators to the farmers who worked their lands had largely concluded, the protests of the Rural People’s Movement having burned themselves out. Gerda would have found that to be a relief, even if it effectively meant playing haves against have-nots, however larger tasks now lay ahead alongside more tedious chores. Efforts to entice the newly enabled small holders to form agricultural cooperatives were stagnating, some had been set up successfully but others had broken up over disputes and old rivalries.


Other smallholders hadn’t been interested in merging their plots at all and had set out on their own, some succeeding to make a profit and others failing to do so. Some of the latter were now selling their plots to the more successful and Gerda dreaded to think that within a few years estates might reappear where they had once been. It was a scenario she was determined to avoid but the problems behind it were complex and multifaceted, to the extent one seemed to pop up anew just as another was solved. Then there was the issue of appeals and petitions from workers on estates which hadn’t been tied to the Third Reich. It was a set of circumstances that made her no longer look forward to her work even if she still believed in its importance.


There was a knock on the doorframe and she saw Dieter’s grinning face with the party newspaper in hand. She had wondered why he wasn’t at his desk yet.


“Have you seen the news?”


“Haven’t had a chance.” Gerda responded with a yawn.


“The results of the referendums are in.”


“Already?”


“Already! The Austrians voted for union, almost two to one!”


That woke Gerda up, the result was considered by many to be a foregone conclusion but such a mandate was a victory few had anticipated.


“What about Bavaria?”


“They’re staying with us as well, although they weren’t as enthusiastic about it as the Austrians. Apparently their Crown Prince is making a stink about the result, royals and democracy eh?”


“Maybe he’ll join his cousin in Italy.” Gerda commented off-hand. Her mind was racing all the same.


This was historic but she could already see the problems springing up, her time in the land administration office had made that inevitable. Would Austrian farmers on estates who had supported the Heimwehr be given the same deal German farmers were? Would a new Reichstag election be needed to properly incorporate Austria? How would that affect the balance in the Reichstag?


“They say Zeigner’s going to make a speech, some people are talking about taking the day off.” Dieter’s mind didn’t seem hung up on thoughts as to what would come next. A Stalinist now under the thrall of the United Front. She supposed she had come to accept a similar situation in her own way.


“I’m not sure how our farmer-comrades would feel about us taking the day off to pat ourselves in the back.”


“But this isn’t just about the United Front, this is historic. It’s a day for all Germans, old and new.”


“It is,” Gerda smiled, “but I still don’t see the red flag flying outside, do you?”


Dieter seemed like he might try to argue the point for a moment before sitting down at his desk. Gerda admired the day outside before sitting down at hers. Today was a triumph for Germany but not necessarily one for its workers, that remained to be achieved.



That was the real work.



---



A wave of elation swept throughout much of Germany in the wake of the Spring referendums of 1932. For the first time since the Civil War, and perhaps even the World War, Germans could unite under one cause in such a way that the matter of class conflict fell by the wayside. Or so it seemed.



The union of Austria and Germany had been a dream for over a century amongst the people and though previously held back by those in power whose own interests had prevented such a union, they had now brought it about by themselves. Although some went as far as to say that the unification was a final culmination of the revolutions of 1848, it was in fact a victory of proletarian ideals rather than those of the bourgeoisie. Indeed, the most organic and pronounced form of bourgeois or aristocratic nationalism to be found in those heady days was isolated to some parts of rural Austria and Bavaria.


That fact that some 45% of Bavarians had voted for independence largely wasn’t dwelled upon by the workers of Munich, let alone in Berlin or Vienna. There was a general relief that the issue seemed resolved and whilst resentments continued to linger amongst many Bavarian nationalists the Bavarian people as a whole were not immune to the new sense of German identity that pervaded with the Austrian vote. The majority of Bavarians had voted in favour of remaining with Germany, after all and many did so on the basis of what the United Front had already achieved and with the expectation of what it would do in the future.


Although it was not immediately apparent, for formerly bourgeois Germans this can be seen as perhaps the completion of their proletarianisation. The millions who had undergone the process of lowered living standards due to the depression, then desperation following the economic collapse wrought by the civil war, and the final return to dignity and work delivered by the National Reconstruction Council had found themselves in a new, stronger proletarian class of people. It was a class whose patriotism was tied closely to a perception of having control of the state and was emboldened by the success of unification.


It was this ideal of ‘one nation, of its class’ which now became stronger within the Communist Party itself. Hitler’s arguments for German exceptionalism had been present even prior to his wrestling control of the party structures prior to the civil war but it was now that the notion of a ‘German Ideology’ became more frequently discussed.





~ Annett Gerhadt, Kriegsphilosophie: Totalitarismus und Demokratie in der Deutschen Arbeiterrepublik


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The picture is part of the mural Building the Republic by Max Lingner
 
New chapter! Nice combination, that of a personal perspective with a historical account.

Although I’ve got the feeling, the solution isn’t going to be so clear cut. That’s the problem with referendums: if you don’t like the results, you can always insist in another one. And another one. And another and another and another…

Germany: “Well, the matter is clear to me! Bavaria voted to stay, so that settles it. Problem solved!”

Bavaria: “No, it is not solved. Not by a long shot. Who are you trying to deceive, with that purported 55%? Even if that was true, what happens with the other 45%? They are not going to stop existing, just because-”

Germany: “PROBLEM. SOLVED!
 
Other smallholders hadn’t been interested in merging their plots at all and had set out on their own, some succeeding to make a profit and others failing to do so. Some of the latter were now selling their plots to the more successful and Gerda dreaded to think that within a few years estates might reappear where they had once been.
Damn kulaks. I'm sure that the Soviets can help in finding a solution to this.
 
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