alternatehistory.com

I hope this is an acceptable discussion to have - if not, please let me know and I will pull it.

My thoughts are these. Suppose that, following the October 1918 mustard gas attack in which he was hurt, Hitler had been treated in a British hospital, married a British nurse, and been somewhat influenced by the UK Labour movement?

I am presuming that Versailles and the calamitous history of the Weimar Republic proceeds as per OTL, but that Hitler does not fall into antisemitism or Aryanism, but instead founds National Socialism as a blend of defiant Nationalism as per OTL and socially-liberal democratic socialism - so upon his victory in 1933, Versailles gets renegotiated or reneged upon, the economy is rebuilt with a new currency, a massive focus on exporting German technology and on progressive taxation; the grand building programme of factories, ships, roads, railways, aeroplanes and armed forces goes ahead under Albert Speer, but the pogroms against the Jews etc are butterflied, and instead a multicultural German society emerges and attempts to form a pro-Western anti-Stalin alliance. He will probably still want to have Danzig and the Sudetenland, possibly Alsace, and the demilitarisation of the Rhine will end, but Lebensraum does not become policy. Instead, Hitler seeks to build a new European alliance - be it a revival of the League of Nations or a proto-EU. Where does all this end up? How does Hitler avoid a European war against a France and Britain determined to enforce Versailles?
Top