"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?
- Thread starter The Red
- Start date
Ending guess:
Not wanting to give the Allies the satisfaction of capturing him alive, Hitler escapes to the one place that has not yet been corrupted by capitalism: DER WELTRAUM!
Actually Hitler was at first against mass producing the V-weapons, jet aircraft and the STG assault rifle (he was all for big tanks though), it took the convincing of scientist, military personal and high ranking Nazis like Albert Speer to Hitler to put almost all of Germany's secret weapons into mass production.
Some went into production too soon before all the bugs had been worked out and some went into production too late and some shouldn't have gone into production at all.
Still it would've been cool if they had built just one Ratte.
Some went into production too soon before all the bugs had been worked out and some went into production too late and some shouldn't have gone into production at all.
Still it would've been cool if they had built just one Ratte.
Chapter XVIII
'My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do.'
~ Ani Difranco
Although the Bavarian Soviet Republic’s revolution was of a far larger extent to the Spartacist’s revolt in Berlin, a combination of distraction, ignorance, and eventually over-caution on behalf of the Weimar government had stalled any meaningful response till the late spring.~ Ani Difranco
Though a communist insurgency taking over large parts of an entire region would have been enough to cause major panic in the governments of most nations, the provisional republic remained focused on the formation of its own institutions and how the new regime would face the victorious Allied powers who were already busily redrawing the map of Europe in the wake of the First World War.
The persistence of revolutionary Bavaria and the government’s distraction proved to be a boon for those who had survived the massacre of the Spartacists and their allies across Germany. Hitler would famously remark later on in his life that had Weimar chosen to fully crush the KPD in this moment of weakness it is unlikely that the party could have ever rebuilt itself.
Nonetheless, for a brief period it did seem as though the party might simply wither away. Given the sorry state of the KPD in the early months of 1919 is perhaps understandable why contemporary Weimar politicians saw no need to put more stress on the proclaimed liberalism of the new state by removing a newly formed parent. Regardless of its complicity in the Bavarian revolution, the KPD was given space to rebuild and reorganise. It is also possible that this apprehension by Weimar was strengthened by the party’s electoral irrelevance.
Amidst two revolutions and a lack of local organisation across much of the country, the KPD did not run in the 1919 elections. Officially they rejected the ballot as an endorsement of a bourgeois state though plans for future Reichstag elections were already underway even whilst the Bavarian revolutionaries were still executing “gendarmes and saboteurs” and preparing for the government’s inevitable response.
~ Andrea Clark, “The Revolutionary Hammer”: A History of the RFB
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The square was one of Berlin’s rowdiest, though Gerda was keen to keep her head down all the same. Despite the fact that the Spartacists had been defeated months beforehand, the agents of the republic remained paranoid about any potential resurgence. Though she hoped that the stories of comrades disappearing were exaggerated she did not wish to put the rumours to the test. It certainly wouldn’t be the worst thing she’d seen supporters of the republic do.
The Freikorps had been adamant that the Spartacists would never rise up again in the wake of their victory and that meant that taking prisoners was to be frowned upon. Even after the last elements of resistance had been declared crushed there had been days of gunshots in the city. It seemed that anyone who had fought for the ‘Socialist Republic’ was being executed on the spot if they had been captured. Gerda had jumped whenever she had heard even a faint gunshot, imagining that it could have been Christina, or Hilda, or perhaps herself. She couldn’t sleep for the anxiety, anything she ate would immediately come back up when another gunshot rang out. For a brief time, she was even afraid that her fear of death would lead to a form of self-destructive paranoia that would do her in anyway.
Gerda felt better now, but she continued to watch her back for recently that had been good for her health. The Freikorps were gone but their atrocities continued to hang over the city, and that was even if there weren’t any plain clothes agents lurking around her now. She heard they had even infiltrated the party, if that was true Gerda would have preferred them in their shabby uniforms from the war they had lost. At least that way she would know who was after her. Discharged soldiers continued to fill the streets but these men weren’t Freikorps, they were trying to rebuild their lives only to realise that their former comrades in arms had left their homes in ruins.
Those who had selflessly taken her in during the chaos had reassured her that there was nothing to worry about. The Linges were refreshingly upbeat in that sense. The old couple were far from devout communists though they seemed to hate the Freikorps even more. Both of them had called out and waved her towards them as she had hid from the Freikorps advance and when the soldiers had arrived at the door they had fed them a made-up story about how there were no communists hiding in the flat but that they had seen some running down the lane. They explained to her later that day that they hated bullies but suspected the Spartacists would have been just as bad as the Freikorps given half the chance. Conversely, she had found her own belief in the ideology strengthened by them. Perhaps it was because she had been so much of a nervous wreck that they couldn’t really distinguish her by any other aspect of her personality but, nonetheless, she was ‘the Spartacist girl’ until the mood was considered calm enough in the city for her to leave their small flat.
The city had become demoralised, that was clear. It was hard for Gerda to think she had barely lived there for a couple of months as she walked down its streets, so much had changed since then. Though the bustle continued, it was hard to ignore evidence of the failed revolution and even in areas where there had been no fighting it seemed as if everyone was downtrodden.
Revolutions could sweep up many sceptics in the initial burst of enthusiasm and zeal, in the same way their defeats could depress even those who despised everything about their aims. It was hard to tell if the people truly were sad to see the defeat of the Spartacists or whether she was simply projecting her own sadness. She had to believe the former, or else she would be entirely lost.
Gerda had never felt particularly evangelical about communism, but she now realised that her actions had stuck her with the ideology. The worldview of class struggle had come true on the streets, those trying to kill her were trying to kill her for her beliefs, but more importantly they were trying to crush the strength of all workers. They were cogs in a machine, not to get ideas above their station.
She thought back to her rural life and its inevitable trajectory, her disappointment at being laid off and her initial excitement of going to Berlin, she was already set on staying but she realised that if she abandoned what she had fought for then ultimately the decision wouldn’t be her own, regardless of whether or not she kept her head down. Communism wasn’t just a nice idea, it was her salvation, it had to be.
For so long her life had felt directionless because she was never truly in control of it, she realised it couldn’t ever be that way again. Was this the “self-actualisation” she had heard people talk about at meetings? She wasn’t sure but she would soon, she would read everything she could, and help rebuild the party in the image of all those people who, like her, needed to take control of their lives.
This would be her direction in life from now, there was no going back.
Gerda was smiling to herself, making her stand out in the depressed city. She realised that in all of her reflection that she had actually forgotten where Christina’s flat was. She had stopped to get her bearings, though as she froze she saw a poster about Bavaria, freshly plastered. Bavaria, a land she wasn’t much aware of than it being pastoral, catholic and now apparently in the midst of a far more extensive revolution than anything the Spartacists had achieved. It would undoubtedly be torn down whenever a policeman spotted it, but for now it gave her hope.
Gerda couldn’t help herself in life with nothing to believe in, even if her principles were all that she had. She would continue to fight for a better life, or die trying.
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The photomontage is 'Made for a Party' by Hannah Hoch.
Lost Freeway
Banned
So we can blame Albert Speer for wehraboos?Actually Hitler was at first against mass producing the V-weapons, jet aircraft and the STG assault rifle (he was all for big tanks though), it took the convincing of scientist, military personal and high ranking Nazis like Albert Speer to Hitler to put almost all of Germany's secret weapons into mass production.
Some went into production too soon before all the bugs had been worked out and some went into production too late and some shouldn't have gone into production at all.
Still it would've been cool if they had built just one Ratte.
And Werner von Braun, Alexander Lippisch, Willy Messerschmidt, Rommel, Guderian and the Horton brothers.
Chapter XIX
"We will grind you revolutionists down under our heel, and we shall walk upon your faces. The world is ours, we are its lords, and ours it shall remain. As for the host of labor, it has been in the dirt since history began, and I read history aright. And in the dirt it shall remain so long as I and mine and those that come after us have the power. There is the word. It is the king of words—Power. Not God, not Mammon, but Power. Pour it over your tongue till it tingles with it. Power."
~ Jack London, The Iron Heel
It was no surprise that Hitler’s criticisms of the Bavarian Soviet Republic in Our Struggle are in their most comprehensive and livid form when dealing with the Republic’s demise. It is always easy to talk about incompetence in the wake of defeats, though Hitler’s experience of Levine’s bureaucracy and its failings gained an ear not only because of his “fly on the wall” knowledge of events but also in the visceral nature of the retelling. Having barely survived the bloody battle for Munich, Hitler was adamant that he would never again have to take such risks because of bad planning. ~ Jack London, The Iron Heel
Though it was not the greatest stir Hitler’s revolutionary programme would cause, the future leader’s defamation of so many “revolutionary martyrs” caused many dissenting voices despite his earnest efforts to analyse the situation based on Lenin’s own advice to the Bavarian Soviet and make comparisons whenever he could to situations where the Soviet Red Army had been victorious but where the KPD’s revolutionaries had been soundly defeated.
Naturally it was easy for Hitler to scold his former comrades, almost all of whom had died in the Spring of 1919, with the benefit of hindsight. These men and women were in no position to defend themselves, and those who had survived largely went along with Hitler’s analysis of events. Some sources argue that this was an exercise in ego, laying the blame on those who had already been slain whilst agreeing with the military man that more could have been done. To the east the Soviet Union had risen out of the ashes of the Russian Empire, the White Armies crushed and the Western Powers falling over themselves to open up relations. It is likely there was more than a hint of jealousy amongst those who had squandered their opportunity to join Lenin in his glorious victory on the basis of the KPD’s contemporary hope that military conflict could be avoided.
~ Geoffrey Corbett, Hitler’s First Revolution
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The dry ground and paved roads of Bavaria had been far more accommodating than it had been in the Winter, the warm Spring weather had made the march a burden all the same. Reinhard liked to consider himself in good condition but even he was glad for the rest as the army halted outside the city they were preparing to besiege.
Though the Freikorps numbers would have been an insignificant fraction of the old Heer, the ongoing dismantling of the army had left the Freikorps as one of the most powerful military forces in the country, and Germany’s defenders. Now the two forces were marching in unison, the Heer ordered to crush the revolutionaries, and those who had sworn to protect Germany either out of duty or desperation.
For Reinhard and his fellow soldiers it was a self-proclaimed mission, though it was one that the new government had been quick to make official in the face of the revolutionary chaos spreading throughout the country. Reinhard had been one of the many who had been abandoned by the old army after his train home from the front had crossed the Rhine. He was penniless and the sight of the hunger around him made it clear that it would hard to turn that around any time soon. All he had was his rifle, his experiences of the last four years, and the nightmares that came with them. When the offer had come to put those prior qualities to use, he had had to bury thoughts of the darkness that lingered in his idle moments.
He had hated the war by the end, he hated the regime for losing it all the same, it was anger that had grown even stronger when he was discarded by those in charge with little more than an empty speech of thanks in a town hundreds of miles away from anyone he knew. He realised now that that had been the sort of delusional anger that drove drunk men to shout at the moon. He wanted to lash out at anything, without realising the true source of his ire. Germany had lost the war from within, it hadn’t been the fault of himself or anyone at the front. The military had been quick to make it clear it wasn’t themselves either. Many within his new group of comrades talked of the enemy within and as he dwelled on the idea, he realised there was something to it.
Whilst Reinhard had been fighting for Germany the communists had avoided the call to defend their nation, preferring to sow discontent and harm the war effort. Their hope was that a German defeat would progress their fantasies of a Communist revolution which would put themselves and their Bolshevik allies in charge. Reinhardt had been informed by one of his soldiers that the outbreaks of violence at Kiel and subsequently across the Baltic Coast had been in response to Germany being within sight of victory. It had been rather odd to think they had been winning when they had been on the retreat in the last weeks of the war but the violence at Kiel was clearly communist inspired and who knew how long it might have gone for prior to German reversal on the front?
Reinhard had joined the Freikorps for a meal ticket but he had had to admit that he enjoyed the camaraderie all the same. Most of his fellow fighters had the same story as he had, veterans who had picked up a cause, though many seemed more than happy to sort out the reds. Reinhard was regaled with stories from ex-soldiers who had been spat at in the streets by communists and in one case even beaten up. He hadn’t experienced this himself, though as they had marched towards Berlin he had begun to notice the distaste on the faces of many who watched them march by. He had wondered how many of them might secretly have been working against Germany whilst he had been fighting to defend his homeland.
The communists they had encountered so far had been easy enough to spot for the most part, all banners and barricades announcing their revolution to the world as if they weren’t expecting a response from the people they had betrayed. By the time they had been dealt with Reinhard was almost glad they had stayed idle during the war. They were a passionate lot, even in captivity, but militarily useless.
A call rang out for food and a line quickly formed, as the aroma of fat and salt from the pot worked its way into the nostrils of the armed camp he could see Munich behind it. With any luck the communists there would be just as incompetent. The rumours were that they were starving as well, that always softened up an enemy. He wasn’t much of a historian but he reckoned that had probably always been the case, he could hear many in the line joking about seeing if the communists would surrender for a plate of stew. A nice thought but the wrong one, they had to be taught a lesson and if possible wiped out completely. There was no way of negotiating with an infection.
To share the stew would have been a crime in any case, Reinhard had been constantly hungry for the best part of his military career but he would have sworn it would have tasted good under any circumstances. No bits of sawdust sausage and underdone turnip floating about today, this was proper goulash. The cook was very proud of himself, boasting about how even the bread was fresh. This was no coincidence but Reinhard enjoyed it all the same.
As had been the case before many battles a fatty meal had been given out to raise morale and ensure greater stamina before their final advance, the figure now standing where the stew pots had been blocked out much of the view of Munich indicated that that time was shortly before them. Their commander always enjoyed a speech before a battle.
Captain Drumpf was not in overall command of the Lutzow Freikorps though the men treated him as if he were their friend and leader at the same time. Despite his monobrow, his sulky features and the almost comedic parting on his balding head many drew inspiration from him. Reinhard would have included himself in that number, Drumpf was always able to get them riled up and ready to fight, a friend and a leader who actively revelled in his appearance as if it were some sort of affront to the communists they were destined to rid Germany of. He raised his hand in the air as a sign of his intention to speak, the man quietened but he remained silent before he began to roar.
“This certainly is a hellish place to be stuck with all you grim bastards!” The crowd began to feign jeering, “I’m just glad I’m your side!”
There was a genuine roar of approval.
“The traitors who occupy Munich are not so lucky, they will die at your hands! The Americans, the English, the French, the Italians, they all sit round and cheer on the enablers of their victory. The foreign enemy honours the communists, for they were the ones who sold us out. Today they are going to pay for their crimes, today we shall cleanse Germany of their filth!”
“You grim bastards, you are the men who fought to defend Germany from foreign evil and on your return stepped forward to eradicate those who betrayed their nation. A hundred years ago the Lutzow Freikorps freed Bavaria from the French, today we embark on a new mission, to free Germany from all of her detractors who would sneer at German greatness."
“Today, we take back control!”
It was not a particularly eloquent speech but Reinhard didn’t need one, none of the men did. They were all on the same side and the time had come to kill.
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The woodcutting is from God's Man by Lynd Ward
And for our American comrades:
So,is the titular Our Struggle a more coherent document instead of our nonsensical Mein Kampf? Will it be Red Germany's "Little Red Book"?
On the risk of speculating too much... Basically replace "the Jews" with "The Junkers" or "The Bourgeoisie" and the "German Volk" with the "German Proletariat" and you got Unser Kampf.
Also sounding less like the whining of a privileged white boy and more like the agonic howl of a jaded and traumatized man, screaming for vengeance.
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Funny because Red Hitler is equally filled with hatred. But this time to the RIGHT people, so to speak.
Deleted member 92121
Yes but here we have the "good old fashioned type", the army was betrayed and so forth. With perhaps a little extra to the communists.