"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?
- Thread starter The Red
- Start date
Of course them paying leads to Hitler and eleven years of war... with hindsight being 20/20 I'm almost inclined to think making them pay was worse. Of course I'm sure The Red would find someway to make this world darker than where he was already taking it in the ATL where the SPD got off scot-free, so I guess there is just no winning.
Anywho, another good update.
Deleted member 92121
So things get tenser and tenser in the german political scene. With the SPD suffering for it's moderation in the previous years. As Germany grows apart, conflict is the only possible outcome. I believe Hitler could prove to be a refreshing figure for the left. A figure from the Volk, instead of the intelectual communists seem as detached from the actual fighting as they had before.
For all the "eleven years of war" terror you all seem to be in, I have a hard time believing any army following the Geneva Convention could kill a quarter as many people in eleven years as the Nazis did in their five and a half. Consider that the Nazis killed something like 13 million Soviet civilians and 6 million Polish civilians. Unless the Commies are deliberately killing as many people as they can, this Hitler will have a hard time killing nearly as many people, even with twice the time. Just the area occupied by Comintern forces will be at most as many people as the area occupied by the Axis, and more likely less than half as many people. Japan will probably be Allied and the RoC Comintern, so that probably puts Japan in an OTL USSR position among the Allies as the country that conducted awful ethnic cleansing, but even worse as they just massacred Chinese civilians.
I can't imagine POW's will be treated well by the Comintern. I could see Katyn repeated on a larger scale across Europe, especially in France. Possibly Hitler could launch his own 'Great Purge' on a European scale to root out the bourgeois collaborators.
Hell, the fact that he's not some dissatisifed college kid will do wonders for their image.
Depends, treating POWs well requires resources, which he might not have. I can't see him doing a Great Purge during a war, that risks people rising up against him en masse behind the lines.
Bookmark1995
Banned
I want to say that I find Red Hitler to be very, very scary. Because he potentially could be a more badass and intelligent than OTL Hitler.
Here's why:
My simple view of OTL Hitler is that he had his hand held by the German political establishment. The uncomfortable truth is that many Germans were fond of his political beliefs, even moderate ones. Apparently, Hitler's early advocates included the old Junker class, who supported his protectionist viewpoints.
ITTL, Hitler is a direct enemy of the German establishment. So if he were to gain power while holding a hammer and a sickle, it would require ruthlessness, skill, and intelligence. This could potentially make him a more competent person, but it also could make him even more driven than he was. If he wants to get power, he needs competent, capable military fighters. Potentially, he won't be as dismissive of his generals as he was OTL.
I can imagine him being very, very ruthless to the French even as he builds a so-called workers' state. But I think it is too predictable for Hitler to just become the German Stalin. Whatever policies Red Hitler produces will be born from his own Germanic worldview, not from the worldview of the Georgian guy who dreams of being a Russian tsar.
Here's why:
My simple view of OTL Hitler is that he had his hand held by the German political establishment. The uncomfortable truth is that many Germans were fond of his political beliefs, even moderate ones. Apparently, Hitler's early advocates included the old Junker class, who supported his protectionist viewpoints.
ITTL, Hitler is a direct enemy of the German establishment. So if he were to gain power while holding a hammer and a sickle, it would require ruthlessness, skill, and intelligence. This could potentially make him a more competent person, but it also could make him even more driven than he was. If he wants to get power, he needs competent, capable military fighters. Potentially, he won't be as dismissive of his generals as he was OTL.
I can imagine him being very, very ruthless to the French even as he builds a so-called workers' state. But I think it is too predictable for Hitler to just become the German Stalin. Whatever policies Red Hitler produces will be born from his own Germanic worldview, not from the worldview of the Georgian guy who dreams of being a Russian tsar.
Obergruppenführer Smith
Banned
I would be interested in what sort of education Adolf will be getting in this world. Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life showed what kind of crackpot smoke he had been inhaling before coming to power. If Red Adolf manages to devour as many books of a higher intellectual level, then we aren't just looking at an Adolf who is just red, we're facing an Adolf who might be as tongue-twisting logical as Trotsky. Combine that with his hypnotizing ice blue eyes and speech methods......
We're quite ruined.
We're quite ruined.
Here's my extremely early prediction of how this TL will turn out:
Hitler and Stalin will initially be allies in alt-WWII. However it will be a rocky relationship, with both trying to be the top dog of the Communist movement. Eventually Stalin, hoping both to end the incredibly costly war and take down his rival, will make a separate peace with the Allies (who, also being tired of the war, will accept). Hitler will then fall in a red Gotterdammerung and Europe will be in a state of cold war between the Allies and the Soviets.
Hitler and Stalin will initially be allies in alt-WWII. However it will be a rocky relationship, with both trying to be the top dog of the Communist movement. Eventually Stalin, hoping both to end the incredibly costly war and take down his rival, will make a separate peace with the Allies (who, also being tired of the war, will accept). Hitler will then fall in a red Gotterdammerung and Europe will be in a state of cold war between the Allies and the Soviets.
A prediction made so far ahead that I can't actually confirm or deny anything.
Interesting stuff though.
Well, as you may possibly have noticed, I've finally powered through this and, well, I'm sort of a little bit in love.
The idea of a Hitler who is a much more experienced and hardened figure than IOTL is a genuinely interesting one. You don't see many (or indeed, any) PODs to do with Hitler's personal life that aren't the obvious but impossibly tired one of him getting into the Academy, so you genuinely putting him through the grinder to a much greater degree than IOTL would be welcome in and of itself just because of its originality even if the overall concept weren't so fascinating.
The art history tidbits are also very nice, again that's not something you see in many TLs. I can't help but notice this seems to be a way of combining as many of your interests as possible.
Very much looking forward to more, I'm curious how a communist revolution can take place in a country that, as you point out, was basically more predisposed to fascism if anything but I'm sure you will surprise me. And of course I wouldn't be on-brand if I didn't say I was looking forward to seeing what Red Hitler eventually gets up to in Poland.
The idea of a Hitler who is a much more experienced and hardened figure than IOTL is a genuinely interesting one. You don't see many (or indeed, any) PODs to do with Hitler's personal life that aren't the obvious but impossibly tired one of him getting into the Academy, so you genuinely putting him through the grinder to a much greater degree than IOTL would be welcome in and of itself just because of its originality even if the overall concept weren't so fascinating.
The art history tidbits are also very nice, again that's not something you see in many TLs. I can't help but notice this seems to be a way of combining as many of your interests as possible.
Very much looking forward to more, I'm curious how a communist revolution can take place in a country that, as you point out, was basically more predisposed to fascism if anything but I'm sure you will surprise me. And of course I wouldn't be on-brand if I didn't say I was looking forward to seeing what Red Hitler eventually gets up to in Poland.
