WI - Hitler became a communist?

A brief note: I tried searching the forums, but the search function gave me keywords spread throughout a posting (i.e., "Hitler becomes a communist" - with quotes around it - still searches for those words with any degree of spacing)

There is a rumor of that Hitler was once a member of a communist organization. WI he actually was, and, more importantly, never left?

So here was my idea: WI Hitler still takes control of Germany in 1933, but does so as a communist, having organized German leftist factions into eliminating the right by any means necessary, and then engages in his rearmament program, with a Leninist "one step backward" policy as need be, thus resulting in success as OTL?

I see two scenarios:
1. WAllies forego appeasement as communism is not to be tolerated. Germany is invaded and defeated upon Anschluss with Austria. USSR remains out of it, nowhere near ready to make a move.
2. Things progress effectively as they did OTL up to 1939, with the exception of a communist takeover after the Republicans win Spain's civil war. The WAllies declare war on Germany and USSR after the invasion of Poland. Spain's only role is to shut down Gibraltar and hold the Spanish border. This keeps Italy neutral while the rest of Europe is carved up by the communist alliance.
Stalin does not fear a war with the West, as Germany can bear the brunt of the Allied assault, and signs a nonagression treaty with Japan, effectively handing IJ all of Asia (he had no faith in Mao until postwar IOTL anyhow) in return for a secure eastern border. Soviet diplomats press IJ to focus on mainland Asia and keep the US out of the conflict, as the US's industrial base and manpower would be cause for concern. By 1941, as Britain continues to soldier on alone in Europe (and at increasing cost), the USSR and Germany plan to steamroll through Africa and the Middle East to link up with the Japanese around Calcutta.

Thoughts?
 

Soundgarden

Banned
A brief note: I tried searching the forums, but the search function gave me keywords spread throughout a posting (i.e., "Hitler becomes a communist" - with quotes around it - still searches for those words with any degree of spacing)

There is a rumor of that Hitler was once a member of a communist organization. WI he actually was, and, more importantly, never left?

So here was my idea: WI Hitler still takes control of Germany in 1933, but does so as a communist, having organized German leftist factions into eliminating the right by any means necessary, and then engages in his rearmament program, with a Leninist "one step backward" policy as need be, thus resulting in success as OTL?

I see two scenarios:
1. WAllies forego appeasement as communism is not to be tolerated. Germany is invaded and defeated upon Anschluss with Austria. USSR remains out of it, nowhere near ready to make a move.
2. Things progress effectively as they did OTL up to 1939, with the exception of a communist takeover after the Republicans win Spain's civil war. The WAllies declare war on Germany and USSR after the invasion of Poland. Spain's only role is to shut down Gibraltar and hold the Spanish border. This keeps Italy neutral while the rest of Europe is carved up by the communist alliance.
Stalin does not fear a war with the West, as Germany can bear the brunt of the Allied assault, and signs a nonagression treaty with Japan, effectively handing IJ all of Asia (he had no faith in Mao until postwar IOTL anyhow) in return for a secure eastern border. Soviet diplomats press IJ to focus on mainland Asia and keep the US out of the conflict, as the US's industrial base and manpower would be cause for concern. By 1941, as Britain continues to soldier on alone in Europe (and at increasing cost), the USSR and Germany plan to steamroll through Africa and the Middle East to link up with the Japanese around Calcutta.

Thoughts?

I honestly don't think he would be as successful as he was. His anti-communists and anti-jewish rants got him to where he wanted to be. If anything, he would just be another footnote in history.
 
I honestly don't think he would be as successful as he was. His anti-communists and anti-jewish rants got him to where he wanted to be. If anything, he would just be another footnote in history.

Just replace anti-communist with anti-imperialist and anti-jewish with anti-bourgeoisie. More than one path to hell ya know ;)
 
What happens if he became a communist but kept the antisemitism?

German "Doctors Plot"?

In all seriousness, many disaffected communists and socialist became Fascist when there first plans didn't work out. If we work back-words and change some of Hitlers background, like say him realizing in Vienna that the poverty is because of the rich and bourgeoisie, and being inspired by Lenin/Trotsky rather than Mussolini...we have ourselves a CommuHitler.
 
German "Doctors Plot"?

In all seriousness, many disaffected communists and socialist became Fascist when there first plans didn't work out. If we work back-words and change some of Hitlers background, like say him realizing in Vienna that the poverty is because of the rich and bourgeoisie, and being inspired by Lenin/Trotsky rather than Mussolini...we have ourselves a CommuHitler.

Maybe not even a Doctors Plot but I was thinking how easy it would be for a CommuHitler to combine Communist ideology which some of the classic antisemitic views by equating the rich/bourgeoisie with "Jewish merchants" or something similar. Considering the pogroms at the turn of the century under the Czars I'm surprised this didn't happen in Russia/USSR IOTL
 
You know it's funny. The argument I had in the last one of these threads directly lead to the creation of my timeline.

And let me reiterate. You would have to have a POD stretching back to Hitlers teen years, to turn the Hitler we all know, into a communist. The National Socialists did have a large socialist wing. Hitler was very against it. Strasser, Rohm, Goebbels, these are the kinds of guys who have a possibility of being communist. A stronger nationalist based Communist movement could have succeeded, but only if the German Revolution had ended in worse terms.
 
According to his only friend, Hitler used to watch and occasionally sympathise with the improvised people of Vienna who became active in Social Democracy (then the only popular form of Marxism in existence), but even though he was just as improvised as them he never identified with their struggles or had the slightest inclination to join in. He didn't do solidarity, as he was a typical aspiring Middle Class type who looked down on everyone around him for not being as classy as he was.
 
Would it really make that much differance? As far as I can tell, being on the far right is just the same as being on the far left. Become a cult, tell people what to do and have someone to hate.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_July_1932

The Social Democrats also had their own gangs of thugs running through the streets. They were a far cry from modern social democrats, and Germany very nearly fell to socialism.

Do you have a point or are you just showing off?

Would it really make that much differance? As far as I can tell, being on the far right is just the same as being on the far left. Become a cult, tell people what to do and have someone to hate.

Absolutely! On the far-left Hitler would have had to rub shoulders with Jews, pacifists and weird artists. He would have had to unlearn everything he'd picked up from the Right-Wing Vienna newspapers that shaped his worldview, and overcome the very basic fact that he didn't really like the working class or it's leaders.
 
I imagine that if a commie Hitler did find his way into power then the junker military would be most upset. As in coup d'etat upset. Every political movement in '30s Germany had its private army and I have no doubt that Hitler's communist would be any different. So if the coup kills Hitler then the army will take control and purge Germany of Communism with the tact approval of the western allies. Otherwise there will probably be a civil war a la Spain. The western allies backing the army and the Soviet Union backing the communists.
 
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