Third Reich as standard ASB

What kind of a TL would make Nazis as well known evil fruitcakes, BUT no one would believe that they could actually have taken over a country for twelve years, much less conquering 90% of Europe at one point?
 
Sigh, the Nazi conquests *weren't* ASB. Their army was woefully unprepared for the challenges of modern, mechanized warfare but at first those of their enemies were even less well-prepared. Hitler's armies could and did wreak major destruction on armies which made less effective use of their weaponry and had no means to bounce back from initial shock. Hitler's victories in all these occasions had all the flaws graphically and ultimately fatally exposed when he got what he'd always wanted and triggered a no-holds barred war with the Soviet Union.
 
Sigh, the Nazi conquests *weren't* ASB. Their army was woefully unprepared for the challenges of modern, mechanized warfare but at first those of their enemies were even less well-prepared. Hitler's armies could and did wreak major destruction on armies which made less effective use of their weaponry and had no means to bounce back from initial shock. Hitler's victories in all these occasions had all the flaws graphically and ultimately fatally exposed when he got what he'd always wanted and triggered a no-holds barred war with the Soviet Union.

It depends on your initial perspective and the question. If you had somehow plopped down in 1910 and told people that in 1940:

An impoverished Austrian artist would be the absolute ruler of Germany
That under this ruler Germany would come to conquer most of Europe
That Germany, one of the most modern and civilized nations in Europe, would murder at least 6 million people in death camps

You'd be considered certifiably insane with your brain cells infected by alien space bacteria.
 
It depends on your initial perspective and the question. If you had somehow plopped down in 1910 and told people that in 1940:

An impoverished Austrian artist would be the absolute ruler of Germany
That under this ruler Germany would come to conquer most of Europe
That Germany, one of the most modern and civilized nations in Europe, would murder at least 6 million people in death camps

You'd be considered certifiably insane with your brain cells infected by alien space bacteria.

Likewise if you'd mentioned the following:

That in 1940 Tsar Nicholas II's son would not be ruling Russia, but a Georgian Bank Robber would be instead.
That under this ruler Russia would have the largest total numbers of the new use of air power and H.G. Wells-style land leviathans.
That this state, run on a manner indistinguishable from Nazi Germany, would be progressively extending its borders west and allied with a state whose ultimate purpose is its own destruction, and theoretically able to actually use the Russian steamroller for the first time the way it was feared it might be in 1910.
 
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