Lost Freeway
Banned
He's too busy in Europe right now. You'll have to find your own Glorious Leader.
"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?
- Thread starter The Red
- Start date
He's too busy in Europe right now. You'll have to find your own Glorious Leader.
One has no rules
Is not precise
One rarely acts
The same way twice
One spurns no device
Practicing the art of the possible...
ADOLF: Are you a real Communist?
[KURT stares, shocked]
ROSA: Well, uh, technically... nah.
ADOLF: Have you ever hanged a capitalist? Like, a real fat bourgeois?
[KARL shakes head]
ROSA: Nah...
ADOLF: Have you ever fought in the Western front?
[KARL shakes head]
ROSA: Nah, nah...
ADOLF: Alright. I see, that I will have to teach you how to be Communists!
Is this canon, @The Red?[KURT stares, shocked]
ROSA: Well, uh, technically... nah.
ADOLF: Have you ever hanged a capitalist? Like, a real fat bourgeois?
[KARL shakes head]
ROSA: Nah...
ADOLF: Have you ever fought in the Western front?
[KARL shakes head]
ROSA: Nah, nah...
ADOLF: Alright. I see, that I will have to teach you how to be Communists!
Chapter XVI
"...We try to have things both ways. We’ve always refused to live by the book and the rule; but then why start worrying because the world doesn’t treat us by rule?”
― Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
― Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
Eisner’s assassin was an Austrian man named Anton Arco-Valley, like Hitler he had moved to a Germany which he believed to be his true fatherland, only to see his ideas crumble in the wake of German defeat in the First World War. Whilst Hitler was disillusioned with his old beliefs about the German nation, Arco-Valley believed that the German people had betrayed said beliefs rather than the other way around and that Eisner was one of the most prominent culprits. Despite his own Jewish heritage on his mother’s side, Arco-Valley also made it clear that Eisner’s Jewishness made it impossible for him to be German and, in the young fanatic’s warped mind, unfit to live.
Eisner would become a martyr. Prior to the death of Bavaria’s temporary leader the communists and other radical elements had been preparing for a far more definitive solution to Bavaria’s problems than those proposed by what they had seen as the fairly tepid governance from the USPD and the decrees from Weimar, the latter of which they were actively hostile to. Eisner’s government had protected private property and many of the trappings of the capitalist system, but in the wake of his death his memory would be used for far more radical reforms. The communists, led primarily in Bavaria by Eugene Levine, realised that they may not get another opportunity.
The communists in Munich and across southern Germany had been caught off guard by the three events that had shaken German society that January, the death of the former Kaiser, the establishment of the new republic, and the Spartacists failed revolution in Berlin. The first of these held largely symbolic value but was significant all the same. The face of the old establishment was gone and would not be returning, the grave being far more distant than the central Netherlands. The establishment of the Republic and the failure of the Spartacists to supplant were more alarming pieces of news, leaving the KPD to consider whether it could fare any better than their fallen comrades in Berlin. Levine had actually taken charge as a calming influence, distancing the Bavarian members of the KPD from the more radical anarchists who wished for an immediate and violent revolution.
Despite a period of some hesitancy, Eisner’s death created the motivation required to attempt to finish the revolution begun by Liebknecht and Luxemburg. The news from Eastern Europe served as further inspiration as Hungary collapsed under the revolutionary wave engulfing Russia. It seemed, temporarily, as if the KPD had gotten its second wind. By early April almost all of Bavaria was under communist control.
Though Rosa Luxemburg and many of her adherents had partially distanced themselves from Lenin in the weeks leading up to the Spartacist revolt, Levine saw the man only as a hero and an example for all revolutionaries everywhere. Lenin sent instruction on how the newly christened Bavarian Soviet Republic should proceed and the new government was eager to follow his advice to the letter.
Lenin’s instructions contained ambitious programs for the socialisation of industry, the commandeering of all motor transport, the implementation of a wealth tax, and the appropriation of housing for the homeless. In regards to this final point, the young Hitler found his role in socialist Bavaria.
~ Geoffrey Corbett, Hitler’s First Revolution
---
The river seemed to glisten as the bright sun of spring shone down upon it. The flow and motion of the river was far older than the bridge George was standing on, not to mention those who joined him, whether to cross or to simply admire the beauty of the scene. Families and couples rested on the sands of each bank as if everything was entirely normal, the river was as much part of their lives as it had been for the Red Army soldiers now in possession of it. They were representatives of a philosophy that claimed to have its roots in a history even older than the river, but unlike the calm erosion of a river bed, George had found himself fighting for a cause that aimed to destroy the old order in one fell swoop.
George wasn’t sure how to feel at the moment, everything seemed to have gone so fast. It hadn’t seemed too long ago that he had despised the communists and now he was doing their dirty work for them. It was hard to get his head around it, though he knew he could ascribe much of that to the fact that everything seemed to be in flux at the moment, regardless of whether you were a part of something or not.
The front had been hell, death and misery everywhere, though at least there was some sort of consistency to the endless offence and defence he and his comrades had been put through. Back then he knew what he was fighting for, now he wasn’t sure whether he would be strung up as a traitor tomorrow or even whether he’d deserve it. George had feared that Germany would have changed when he returned but he didn’t expect to be a part of that change. He had come back home full of hate for the revolutionaries that he suspected had been responsible for them losing the war. Though he hadn’t been blind to the setbacks on the front but they had still been on foreign soil when the war was over and as such it was hard to believe that Germany needed to throw herself at the mercy of her former enemies.
On this basis George had been ready to fight the communist who had knocked on the barrack door to ask them all to join a cause he believed was responsible for Germany’s current plight and though he had eventually gone along with the rest of his fellow soldiers it hadn’t been without argument, especially against one loud mouthed private with bad breath and crazed eyes. He had secretly wanted the whole effort to fail and looked for a way to disappear before the Freikorps inevitably arrived but he had been unable to deny the good they were doing as a unit.
Rather than killing Frenchmen they were now forcing the fat cats to hand over food they had stockpiled for themselves to the hungry Germans who were going without. Even better, they were informing tenants would no longer be paying their extortionate rents, in front of the landlord. Telling workers that they now owned their factories was a task that was especially pleasing. It was a fever dream, but he had never smiled so much in his life. Not in the last four years at least.
The war had scarred him, he supposed it had scarred most people who had fought in it. So many had come back to Germany feeling angry and confused as to how their sacrifice had been for nothing. George felt that he was still confused but at least he was active.
At least he would be until the Freikorps came for him.
He was not a member of the KPD but he attended meetings all the same, as Bavaria’s constitutional position had been flown into flux, national papers were hard to get hold of and it seemed that the local press had become increasingly escapist and parochial. The news that could be gleaned from the communists talked of the success of the revolution in Bavaria yet inevitable reactions panic from the new German government.
George had hated the social democrats and the communists in equal measure as he had returned home but now he couldn’t deny that the latter were at least attempting to get things done. It seemed that the new republic’s leadership were more content to sit back and let the Freikorps do their dirty work for them, as they had done in Berlin. The martyrdom of the Spartacists seemed to be one of the few things that all KPD members could agree on.
Even as he wondered if he would have to return to fighting once more, there was a buzz in the air. A sound he hadn’t heard since the panicked retreat from the entente advance. He had never taken much notice of the war in the air, there had been enough on the ground to worry about. The entente had changed that in the final days of the war when they had used more planes than ever before to create a sort of hovering artillery barrage. It had been terrible, and though these planes were unmistakably of German design he wasn’t sure whether the government would now be using aircraft against him and comrades.
No bombs fell, only pieces of paper that fluttered down to earth in their thousands. Many were hypnotised by the sight, the pieces fluttering down like large snow-drops in spite of the beautiful clear sky. As they fell to the ground people ran to pick one up and
George joined them, all novelty was lost as he read what the planes had dispersed.
“BOLSHEVISM WILL LEAD US ALL TO RUIN.”
The rest of the pamphlet followed very much the same themes, George and his comrades were all murderers apparently, agents of chaos who had set out to destroy Germany. George wouldn’t have been surprised if they were being proclaimed as demons sent by the devil himself in some quarters, he was no more shocked that these claims were coming from the provisional republic, made up of those who had sold Germany down the river in the first place.
In much the same thread, he scrunched up the propaganda and threw it in the Isar.
If the weaklings wanted an agent of chaos, then he was only too happy to oblige.
---
A Merry Christmas to you all!
I think this is an important point. Without alternative (and trustworthy) sources of information, it's much easier for various groups in various places to control the narrative. People may not believe whatever it is that the local revolutionaries or whoever are telling them, but they still won't know what's going on beyond their locality.
That was a heck of a Christmas present to start the day out with. I do wonder how long this gift of a Red Bavaria will last though. Anywho, a good update, and Merry Christmas.
Deleted member 92121
Ok, seriously.....waiting for new posts of this TL is painful. This timeline is REALLY interesting. I truly want to see more of this revolution and how hitler rises in power. I wonder if this George is going to be someone of importance, pehaps a liutenant of hitler. I await with antecipation for the next post glorious leader.
We could always spend that time making and fangirling over a TV Tropes page.
Normally I don't read TLs that aren't very far along (I like to wait so I can read it at my own pace), but I've been following this TL quite closely. Well done @The Red.
I'm afraid I'm not much of a troper but if anyone wanted to make one I'd be flattered.
I always imagine that the creator of the material in question making a TV Tropes page is a dickish and attention-whoring move, that's why The Silver Knight doesn't have a page yet.I'm afraid I'm not much of a troper but if anyone wanted to make one I'd be flattered.
Of course, the other reason being that it's not a character-based timeline
Though this clause doesn't apply here...