President Adolf Hitler

In 1932, President Paul von Hindenburg was a sickly eighty-four years old. However, the prospect of Adolf Hitler being elected President of the Weimar Republic persuaded the reluctant incumbent to seek a second term.

In the 1925 election, Hindenburg had been the candidate of Germany's right wing, and had been strenuously opposed by much of the moderate left and political center. However, in 1932, this part of the political spectrum decided to unite with the moderate right in supporting Hindenburg to prevent Hitler's election. The support of the moderate Weimar coalition was also encouraged by the fact that, contrary to fears expressed at the time of his election in 1925, Hindenburg had not used his office to subvert the constitution, as Hitler now aimed to do.

Hitler was nominated Chancellor of Germany two years later, and the rest, as they say, is World War II. But what if he won the 1932 election? Would anything be altered from OTL? Would the Second World War come early? Or would Hitler, for whatever short amount of time, have to pander to the centrist moderates that teamed up against him, perhaps making a more reasonable figure Chancellor of Germany? I realize his goal was to subvert the Weimar constitution and establish a dictatorship anyways, but would it have gone differently?
 
Presidential powers, as they had been concentrated by Hindenburg durin 1930-32 would have enabled Hitler to establish the Nazi system even more swiftly and directly than from the position of Reichskanzler after January 1933.

Präsident Hitler could instantly have selected a Nazi as Reichskanzler (Göring probably), disbanding the Reichstag (Parliament) would have been possible again and again (also something Hindenburg did in '32), he could, like Hindenburg did in order to support his Chancellors which lacked Parliamentary support, rule by emergency decrees. Those decrees could even overrule Constitutional articles!
And as President, he was also Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.

Let's not forget that general elections would make the NSDAP at that point of time strongest party (37% in July 1932). A little manipulation, banning the KPD afterwards plus sucking in a few conservatives could bring them across the 50% threshold easily!

So, within days, resp. a few weeks, Hitler would have virtually all German positions of power at hand.

His regime would be more thoroughly "Nazi" as there would probably not be a coalition government as in 1933.

Probability of a civil war or even greater unrest in 1932, despite preparations, are dim IMHO.
 
The structure of this Nazi state may be a little different from OTL, though, considering that the OTL events that gave Hitler such as absolute power - I have the Night of Long Knives in mind - will now be butterflied away, especially since a key motivator for that incident was to gain the support of the military. How would Roehm and the Brownshirts fare? I imagine that Hitler would need to take some kind of immediate action against them or face some kind of authority issue.
 
The nazis being in charge one year earlier also means that the memory of WW1 is one year younger. Would that mean that the Allies would be more suspicious of Germany? Who was in charge at Paris in 1932?
 
The nazis being in charge one year earlier also means that the memory of WW1 is one year younger. Would that mean that the Allies would be more suspicious of Germany? Who was in charge at Paris in 1932?

Not in charge but the diplomat Louis Barthou spent the last years of his life running around Europe trying to organise a cordon sanitaire around Nazi Germany. He ended up caught in the crossfire during the assassination of Alexander of Yugoslavia.

Now even he loses his life in a similar situation (or not, he was no spring chicken), another year focused against Hitler might see stronger ties with Italy, and perhaps crucially, the Soviet Union. Barthou organised the Mutual Assistance Pact but following his death, Laval went to Moscow to sign it and helped water it down to the point of it being practically worthless. Barthou intended it to be a full-blooded anti-German defence pact.

Have something like that signed ITTL's 1934 and it could have some interesting effects. However its debatable if it would stop German aggression or even Stalin betraying the French to grab eastern Poland.
 

Cook

Banned
The nazis being in charge one year earlier also means that the memory of WW1 is one year younger. Would that mean that the Allies would be more suspicious of Germany? Who was in charge at Paris in 1932?
At the time of the German Presidential elections the French Prime Minister was Andre Tardieu, who prior to becoming P.M. had been Defence Minister. The French really could not have been more paranoid of the Germans so I don’t see this as making any difference. In London the P.M. was the pacifist Ramsay MacDonald, leading a National Coalition government, a bankrupt country and a nation more sympathetic to German claims of injustice with the Treaty of Versailles than with French fears of a resurgent Germany.

Honestly, I would say that coming to power a year earlier would probably have, if anything, improved Hitler’s position internationally because he would have been elected outright, not subsuming the authority of the President following the death of Hindenburg. One wonders how much the commencement of German rearmament a year earlier would have changed events.
 
Interesting Point: the Nazis would have to Cut a deal at Lausanne concerning the end of reparations. I am at a Loss if this Works out As in OTL or if they manage to economically isolate Germany outright?
 
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