What if Hitler was clean-shaven?

Hendryk

Banned
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WHAT HAS SCIENCE DONE? :3
He looks like Hardy. Maybe Baldwin could be his Laurel?
 
He kinda looks more, well respectable i feel. Mustasches would be way more popular in post-war germany if old adolf was clean shaven i would guess
 
Never heard that....

It's just a theory I read in passing a while back. Apparently Hitler was hoping the resemblence to the biggest comedy star of the time would boost his popularity while rendering him more family-friendly. Or something like that. I suspect it's a fiction, but it's a very good one.

A certain online encyclopaedia of famed reliability suggests he trimmed his moustache in WWI to fit in the gas masks. The Hitler-with-Kaiser-Bill-whiskers could have easily come to pass
 
It's just a theory I read in passing a while back. Apparently Hitler was hoping the resemblence to the biggest comedy star of the time would boost his popularity while rendering him more family-friendly. Or something like that. I suspect it's a fiction, but it's a very good one.

well, without the moustache he does seem more professional and less comedic.
 
I don't believe Hitler got his mustache to resemble Chaplin. Hitler hated Chaplin. Chaplin repeated blasted fascism and Nazism and Hitler also mistakenly believed Chaplin was a Jew -which he wasn't; his brother was, though- so he hated him for that (and produced propaganda saying that)
 
I don't believe Hitler got his mustache to resemble Chaplin. Hitler hated Chaplin. Chaplin repeated blasted fascism and Nazism and Hitler also mistakenly believed Chaplin was a Jew -which he wasn't; his brother was, though- so he hated him for that (and produced propaganda saying that)

Yes, but was this all before or after he grew his mustache?

The mustache, like Abraham Lincoln's beard, was something I think Hitler picked up on to make him a notable, iconic, remembered figure. Even if he didn't achieve his goals, he could at least go down as "that mustached guy."
 
Hitler was still a rabid anti-Semite both before and after he joined Nazism and thought Chaplin was a Jew. And that mustache was already a fashion in Germany (BTW, for those that don't know, Chaplin was not the Tramp. That mustache was not real).
 
If Hitler didn't have a moustache, then I wouldn't think J. Jonah Jameson from the Spiderman series of comics, movies, cartoons, etc. looked like an evil dictator

(P.S. Looks like this thread has become "What if notable figures in history with facial hair didn't have any? It is quite amazing that if you clean shaved a notable figure, then you wouldn't recognize them a single bit. It also looks like Stalin is going to lose his moustache too. You are next, Robert E. Lee!)
 
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No, not really. There are far better reasons why Hitler chose that mustache than to resemble some American comedian.

British comedian, actually. Well, British expat comedian in America (but left permanently when McCarthyism kicked in).

Here's a Chaplin-Hitler toothbrush mustache timeline:

-1914 : Chaplin sports a fake toothbrush mustache as "The Tramp." The mustache is used to either "age" the young Chaplin (4 days older than Hitler) and/or to make sure facial expressions (in the silent era) are easily understood.

-Between 1916 and 1923 : Hitler shortens his longer mustache (I've seen one picture of that) into a toothbrush mustache. This is either because of WWI gas-mask restrictions, or for stylistic purposes (it may have been a little popular in Europe at the time), or even, as one poster suggested, to resemble "The Tramp" in some kind of a joking, family friendly way. This only makes sense if it occurred around 1920-1921 when Hitler was beginning his "career" as a Party orator (although his speeches weren't particularly family friendly).

-Early 1930s : Hitler gains notoriety around the world. As does his mustache.

- 1936 : The film "Modern Times" is released, and Chaplin publicly retires his Tramp character and image.

- 1939 : World War II arguably begins.

- 1940 : Chaplin's first movie after retiring "The Tramp" features a Tramp-like character in "The Great Dictator." The film is made, supposedly, because of Hitler's and "The Tramp's" similar look, although the character does not appear. Chaplin, an agnostic who does not refute the erroneous comments that he might be Jewish, parodies Hitler and makes fun of his antisemitism, etc.

-1941 : Germany declares war on America
 
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