"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?
- Thread starter The Red
- Start date
It has been too long, unfortunately I've been neglecting this work due to various factors but it's still my central focus and I've managed to get a lot more done in the last few weeks. I've set myself a goal of getting updates out as well as writing Red Fuhrer Part 2 and fingers crossed there'll be less radio silence from my end going forward.
Thanks! I hope you enjoy it. Be sure to let me know what you think.
Happy to see this come back. So the election draws near. After all the violence and battles taking place makes me uncertain if that helped or hurt the Red Front’s chances, especially with Thalmann having splintered off.
I don’t think the Reds will win the election but the loss will drive them towards eventual victory. Maybe an overthrow or the government that forms is so despised that new elections are called swiftly.
I don’t think the Reds will win the election but the loss will drive them towards eventual victory. Maybe an overthrow or the government that forms is so despised that new elections are called swiftly.
Last edited:
I have that portrait, or at least a copy of it. Odd coincidences, huh?Without you,
there’s many
have got out of hand,
all the sparring
and squabbling
does one in.
There’s scum
in plenty
hounding our land,
outside the borders
and also
within.
~ Conversation with Comrade Lenin, Vladimir Mayakovsky
Johann felt a pain in his stomach reading the morning paper.
His surroundings, the small kitchen within his modest flat, the autumn sun spilling through the window, the smell of cheap coffee and black bread, all felt off. The construction of barricades and the boarding up of windows could be viewed from outside, but even this had become commonplace as the clashes between the Red Front and the police had escalated. Not even the woman lying asleep in his bed was enough to make him feel as something was particularly amiss. The situation was too normal for the headline of Die Rote Fahne.
NOW IS OUR TIME - VOTE KPD LIST 3
A certain degree of bombast could be expected on the day of the federal elections, but Johann had never felt particularly keen on the notion of taking part in such state organised activities. Still, Hitler demanded the strategy be retained, and even emphasised above the violent overthrow of the bourgeois state and he had made it clear that if you didn't see eye to eye with him then you could join Thalmann and his increasingly farcical Moscow party. 1930 would be their year of triumph, the boss had predicted, although Johann wasn't sure if that meant anything beyond elections in a republic that didn't deserve to exist.
"Find anything interesting in there?"
Johann was shaken from his doubts as he turned towards Eva, grinning.
"Nothing much, I haven't got to the football scores yet."
"Try page 8," she frowned.
Johann leafed through the pages until he found a collection of photos with a handful of descriptions on the sides, above it was printed the headline, 'Berlin: The monarcho-fascist coup nears!'.
The photos did just that, showing Berlin police walking alongside Volkisch Bund blackshirts in seemingly structured way, the two groups consorting with one another and in the largest, unsurprisingly emphasied, photograph there was what looked like a police officer in his antiquated uniform giving a talk to the monarchist paramilitaries. The police coordinating with far-right groups in suppressing worker's demonstrations hadn't been uncommon in the past but taken on the day before the election, with the Red Front officially banned, there was something off about it. It was enough to lend a degree of legitimacy to the urgency of the headline.
"That is new." he responded reservedly.
"And did you see who took them?" Eva responded eagerly.
At the bottom of the page in a smaller font there was a credit, 'Photos by Cmde Eva Braun.' This was more startling than Volkisch Bund collusion with the police, and momentarily Johann was left speechless.
"They don't notice you when you're dressed like a good German girl who knows her place, they likely just thought I was a bumpkin on holiday in the big city." Johann saw Eva grinning as she sat there in her modest but slightly ruffled skirt and blazer, all beige and red, a leer of dark red lipstick amongst sharp white teeth on a pale white face. Johann tried to smile back but could only laugh increduously as looked between her and the paper.
"They used your real name?!"
"I'm an aspiring photo-journalist who's been printed in a national newspaper, of course I'm going to use my real name." Eva's grin had been replaced with a scowl but it was no less savage. This was supposed to be her moment of triumph and he was detracting from that. Johann wondered for a moment if he was going to end up with a stilleto in his thigh like that fascist at the stadtpark.
"You've put the bastards in their place, in a much better way than I could have" he stated with an objective manner, hoping to reassure her, "but then again I'm too wary of exposing myself to that sort of vulnerability."
Eva rolling her eyes at this and joined him at the table, peering over her work.
"There must be at least a thousand Eva Brauns in this city, and I looked so pedestrian there's no way they'll remember me, I'll remove my party pin until after the election and then, when we've taken control of the Reichstag, we can just abolish the police and the fascists."
"I wish I had your faith in elections." Johann sighed.
"You think Hitler's overconfident?" She muttered as she looked scornfully at the empty coffee jug.
"I just don't know what it's going to affect if we suddenly become the major player in the Reichstag, the elites have more than enough power to ignore us and proceed with business as usual. He's promised that this is going to be the beginning of the end of capitalism but I can't help but feel, and this is off the record, that we're just throwing money we can't spend into a borgeois electoral campaign we can't gain anything from.
"Maybe he's just trying to show the Social Democrats that he's serious about working in government?"
"That's pointless, they'll only side with the police and the fascists when it comes down to it."
Eva looked at him neutrally for a moment, as if bored of his moaning.
"I'll even dye my hair blonde if it makes you feel safer."
Johann laughed at that and got up, searching for his stahlrute in preparation for the day ahead.
"Seriously, some men would love that, having a blonde to spend the morning with."
"I'm not that sort of man, Genosse Braun."
The two shared a kiss, before Johann opened the door to his flat as he indicated the time had come for them to depart. From the close of his flat the noise from the construction of the barricades joined a roar of other vibrant senses as Berlin prepared for election day, and whatever was to follow. In these slums, the fresh air was stinging and blinding. It was a sensation of victory that forced him to remove all doubt from his mind.
The endsieg lay ahead, electorally or otherwise.
---
The portrait is Flapper Girl by Rolf Armstrong.
It’s a small world. There was a collection of Weimar prints on at one of the Glasgow galleries recently so I’ve got a decent collection in reserve but sometimes a painting just seems to fit with what you’re writing, like the one above.
Yeah, I can imagine. So, what are your plans for the story, if you would humor us.
Well next you’re going to have the reaction of some of the other parties to the election, and of course the result itself. Shouldn’t be too long in coming.
I hope we get to see what's going on in the US. Since TTL's WW2 will be radically different from OTL's WW2, I'm interested in seeing how this will affect American politics. Especially the effect it will have on a certain Secretary of Agriculture and later VP of a certain President from OTL.
There's also his incarnations in For All Time and How Silent Fall the Cherry Blossoms. He's way better in the latter timeline.
Found some excellent stuff from another thread on this issue:
@Greg Grant is a better authority on Goering than I am and I can’t really disagree with any of this, I portrayed him as a bit of a bruiser in his speech ITTL so hopefully that came across.
I found this story a while back and I absolutely love it! I'm quite new to the site, but this is one of the best TLs I found so far
Chapter LXIV
'Legislative reform and revolution are not different methods of historic development that can be picked out at the pleasure from the counter of history, just as one chooses hot or cold sausages. Legislative reform and revolution are different factors in the development of class society. They condition and complement each other, and are at the same time reciprocally exclusive, as are the north and south poles, the bourgeoisie and proletariat.'
~ Rosa Luxemburg
~ Rosa Luxemburg
Voting.
The little cross made inside a little box in a secluded booth; an achievement of over a century of reform and protest and pain. Despite it being the greatest political act most Germans would achieve in their lifetimes, Ernst couldn't help but reflect that most wouldn't need to vote for themselves.
His name wasn't actually on the ballot of course, for federal elections in the republic the ballots bore the name of the party leadership irregardless of who was actually standing in what constituency. All the same, he believed voting for himself to be a peculiar feeling, any sense of detachment from the political process he might have had would fade away, a sense of personal pride would take hold, a merging of political power and political action, as an agent of the process he had also now become a direct part of it. This wasn't his first time voting for himself, Ernst only hoped it would not be his last.
Even for the most seasoned candidate the last day of a campaign can be a nightmare, the final pleading with the electorate, ensuring the visibility of the party faithful on the streets, getting out the right votes. In Berlin the Social Democrats were used to a good showing, having dominated elections in Berlin for a generation. Even in the times when the junkers conspired to keep the party out of government at a national level, in Berlin the task often fell to simply getting out the vote. In modern Germany this could still be a stressful period but one that carried an implicit assurance of victory. The last few weeks had been something different altogether.
The bizarre decision by the Chancellor to embark on an election, seemingly in the hope that his authority alone would be enough to sway the German people, had backfired monstrously. The parties that had taken a role in the various governments since the crises of the early years, whether left, right, or centre, had all embraced the American loans that were keeping the German economy viable and prosperous, providing them with enough money to pay off Anglo-French demands for reparations at the same time as reasserting Germany as the leader of Europe in societal advancement and economic strength. Whether through gritted teeth or warm embrace it had been accepted that the underlying order that connected the United States and Germany at the hip was the basis for prosperity, if not the republic's continued existence.
Now the American economy had crashed and it was dragging the world with it, but Germany especially. The Americans had turned their back on global trade to try and shore up their own economy, the British and the French had responded in kind, but Germany had no empire; formal or informal, in which to retreat to. The resulting tariff wars were shrinking the German economy and depleting its limited foreign currency reserves at a time when German businesses were demanding to be bailed out in the face of the international downturn. The number of unemployed people in Germanym already far too high before the crash, had doubled after only a few months of the effects of the crash, it now stood at 4 million and was expected to increase further still.
Campaigning in such an environment was often impossibly hostile, for though the Social Democrats had viciously opposed the attempted cuts to welfare and worker's wages to alleviate Germany's near bankrupt state, they had had to admit that they had stood by the consensus that created the mess in the first place. The Communists had no such burden, and the unemployed flocked to them in droves. Ernst hadn't been worried about this at first, the KPD tended to be most popular amongst the unemployed, it was one of the things that made it hard for them to gain too much influence in trade unions. However, increasing numbers of regular workers, from old to young, skilled or unskilled, seemed to be receptive to what Hitler had to say.
Whether it was Hitler's patriotic break from Moscow, the increasingly aggressive crackdowns of workers in Berlin and other cities by the state or by fascist gangs, or perhaps just the knowledge that they too might soon be unemployed, the "New Society" that Hitler's propagandists had begun to crow about appeared to be resonating with those who would previously have dismissed it as fantasy.
The KPD's newspaper declared that it was "their time" on the frontpage that morning and Ernst couldn't help but feel they might be right, at least in regard to how many deputies the KPD might win In Berlin. The Kapelle areas of the capital were already effectively vacated of the police following a general focus on a surge of officers into Berlin's central quarters. Ernst had heard rumours of barricades being erected and mass vote tampering in those parts of the city the KPD now held sway. As in Hamburg and in the Ruhr, the red flag flew once again. Germany appared to be on the brink and it had seemed that the expected revolution would forgo the election entirely.
Yet here he was, holding his ballot paper all the same.
For most Germans, it was a matter of when rather than if it seemed, but Ernst could merely fill out his ballot and deposit it amongst millions of others. Just another person doing their best to try and indicate where the country should go, how could anyone possibly think this could be improved upon? The act of voting itself always gave him a reprieve from his muddled thoughts, whether it was a glow from taking part in a democracy or the realisation that the election campaign was now effectively over, Ernst felt liberated from his misgivings all at once. They would return, he was sure, but for the moment he found a spring in his step as he deposited his ballot into the dark box at the centre of the Lutheran church hall.
He exited the polling place and couldn't help but smile at the sun-filled day cooled only by a welcome breeze. He nodded at the man with a sandwich board bearing three arrows and the walking poster winked back, prompting Ersnt to whistle the old workers songs his father had sang as he strolled leisurely through Zehlendorf's leafy suburbs, the release that came from voting having lightened his mood.
Seeing an old friend at the tram stop, he felt his luck was improving. Robert Oaks eyes widened as he saw Ernst wave to him before striding forward to shake his friends hand.
"It's been too long, Mr Mehr!"
"I agree Mr Oaks but when you devote your life to politics, elections leave cruelly little time for friendships."
As the tram pulled in the two men shuffled inside along with many other Berliner's, the warmth and ease of the day that Ernst had embraced wasn't universal it seemed. Robert and he were crammed together, and thus began to converse in English rather than their usual French.
"Would you ever consider a political life yourself Mr Oaks?" The American rolled his eyes, it wasn't the first time Ernst had broached this topic with him, but it seemed that the fever of the election season had affected his stoicism.
"Well Mr Mehr as a diplomat I am required to state that I am an American and that I serve my country without party interest but I am also a Virginian, where folks are born registered Democrats."
Ernst smirked, despite his odd accent Robert's candour shone through.
"And do your political parties all have armed gangs in the United States?"
"Of course, but they don't wear uniforms. That's the benefit of a two-party system."
---
---
The photomontage is John Heartfield picturing himself as the rather inept barber of the chief of the Berlin police following the events of Bloody May.
Special thanks to @Utgard96 for the wikibox!
Hitler needs the SPD and centre at a minimum if he's to form a government.
I wonder what Red!Hitler's path to the chancellorship will be, since the German establishment won't exactly be eager to appoint the man.
What is Rosa Luxembourg's point about moderate, democratic reform? Is she calling it a futile distraction from "real" revolution?
What is Rosa Luxembourg's point about moderate, democratic reform? Is she calling it a futile distraction from "real" revolution?