WI - Hitler is born in Africa?

Let's say Hitler's parents had moved to German East Africa or Southwest Africa - how does this change Hitler from OTL? What effects could there be as a result of this?
 
He probably achieves little of note from all the way down there tbh. He'd just be completely different, the things that shaped his world view are fundamentally different. Maybe as a kid hes friends with some African kids and becomes racially blind, or he remains there as a ranting German nationalist waiting for the bug race war, either way his whole life is different from the ground up.
 

Jack1971

Banned
Let's say Hitler's parents had moved to German East Africa or Southwest Africa - how does this change Hitler from OTL? What effects could there be as a result of this?
Doesn't that make him a German, rather than Austrian citizen? That might give him a leg up, no?
 
How much do you think would change?

Literally everything. It's impossible to say. Hitler was born in 1889 - any and every event he was involved with starting at that point is going to be fundamentally different, which has a knock-on effect to everything else. Hitler himself, as stated above, might become a white nationalist, or become friends with black children, or move somewhere else at some point in his life. In this scenario whose to say there isn't a war between Germany and France in the 20th Century and Hitler winds up governor of the new German Gabon colony or something?

The effects historical figures like Hitler or Churchill or even Caesar had in history are a direct result of the time, place, and manner of their births, and the way they were raised, and the environmental factors around them as they grew up. Hitler wasn't predestined to become an orator or a leader or an artist. He wasn't born with a bug in his brain about Jews and pan-Germanism. These things evolved later, due to the unique experiences he had as he grew.

Picking up his pregnant mother and dropping her on an entirely different continent means, for starters, that he might not even be named Adolf. She might decide, oh hang on, Namibia is quite nice, let's name our son Leo after Leo von Caprivi who succeeded in gaining access for Sudwestafrika to the Zambezi River. Or maybe he is named after Theodor Leutwein, the governor at the time of Hitler's birth. Or maybe he is named Adolt - after Adolf Luderitz, who founded the colony. The possibilities are literally endless for that one factor alone.
 

Jack1971

Banned
Leg up to do what? His entire life would be completely and unrecognisably different if he was born in Salzburg instead of Braunau am Inn, let alone if he was born in Tanganyika or Namibia.
Why? What’s to stop him from moving to Germany when war is eminent and ending up being the postwar Hitler we know?
 
Hitler would still likely move to mainland Germany. Outside of that, if he was born in and stayed in Südwestafrika, then he could potentially become a Boer nationalist and be on Hertzog's cabinet, or a British White Nationalist if he moves to the British Isles. Hitler's thoughts on antisemitism were rather common at the time, and lots of people did wish that somebody would do what he did to the Jews until he actually did it. If he moves to mainland Germany, he will likely just be the same as he was in our timeline, although being in a different regiment.
 
Why? What’s to stop him from moving to Germany when war is eminent and ending up being the postwar Hitler we know?

Because that's how the butterfly effect works. That's the whole point of posing a "What If" scenario. Changing his place of birth on his Wikipedia infobox and leaving everything else the same does not count as alternate history.

If he moves to mainland Germany, he will likely just be the same as he was in our timeline, although being in a different regiment.

That's impossible. Even "being in a different regiment" means everything is changed. Do you seriously believe you would still be the same person you are today if you were born and raised in, say, Guyana?
 

Jack1971

Banned
Because that's how the butterfly effect works. That's the whole point of posing a "What If" scenario. Changing his place of birth on his Wikipedia infobox and leaving everything else the same does not count as alternate history.
That logic only works if there’s something inherent to his path about being born in Austria, as opposed to colonial Germany.
 
That logic only works if there’s something inherent to his path about being born in Austria, as opposed to colonial Germany.

I'm not understanding you. I'm guessing by "inherent" you mean "inevitable", but since we are starting at Hitler's birth there's no such thing as "inevitable" because straight away he's in an environment that is entirely different from the one he was born into in OTL.
 
He ends up becoming Germany's most beloved Science Fiction novelist, recipient of over two dozen awards for his books. The Hitler family will later take his body of work and turn the rights into a billion dollar movie franchise.

Or maybe he becomes a police officer, or a janitor in Berlin. It's impossible to tell.
 

Jack1971

Banned
I'm not understanding you. I'm guessing by "inherent" you mean "inevitable", but since we are starting at Hitler's birth there's no such thing as "inevitable" because straight away he's in an environment that is entirely different from the one he was born into in OTL.
Why does being born in German Africa instead of Austria butterfly away his joining the German army in WW1, serving on the western front, and then staying in Germany postwar to become Hitler IOTL? He certainly can’t go back to Africa after the war, since Germany’s colonies have been seized by the Wallies.

If Lord Beaverbrook was born in Britain instead of New Brunswick, Canada, does this impact war production?
 
Why does being born in German Africa instead of Austria butterfly away his joining the German army in WW1, serving on the western front, and then staying in Germany postwar to become Hitler IOTL?
What if Hitler had chosen to remain in Africa and fight for German forces there?
 
Why does being born in German Africa instead of Austria butterfly away his joining the German army in WW1, serving on the western front, and then staying in Germany postwar to become Hitler IOTL? He certainly can’t go back to Africa after the war, since Germany’s colonies have been seized by the Wallies.

You don't get it.

Yes, there is a possibility that Hitler decides to go to Germany and he decides to join the army and he fights on the western front. There's also a chance he doesn't. There's also a chance he does, but he fights on the eastern front. There's a chance he does, but he doesn't see action. There's a chance he goes to Austria and takes part in the occupation of Serbia. There's a chance he moves to god-damned Tsingtao for a bit of exotic flavour and winds up in a Japanese war prison.

There's a chance WWI doesn't even happen because of knock-on effects of this one event, but believe it or not I'm being conservative.

The point is, by having him born in Africa instead of Austria, you are creating limitless probabilities, so much so that the odds of things turning out the same are so miniscule they might as well not even be considered.
 
The point is, by having him born in Africa instead of Austria, you are creating limitless probabilities, so much so that the odds of things turning out the same are so miniscule they might as well not even be considered.

Got to agree with Emperor of New Zealand here.

Adolf Hitler, IOTL was a sickly child, so putting him in a country where malaria and other diseases are rife, leads to a low chance of surviving his early childhood, let alone getting him to 1914.

You haven't told us why they are in Africa. If it was as a deportation against Alios, then we might see this angry man, who regularly beat his family IOTL, get even worse, to the point of killing a child? Maybe.

There was a war front in Africa, so we might find Hitler fighting along side his African brothers in arms.

I highly doubt if an Austrian-African would be anti-Semitic about a government 7200 miles away in Europe.
might not butterfly everything away? if his life followed a path similar to Rudolf Hess? (born in Egypt)
Hess's family lived in a villa on the Egyptian coast near Alexandria, and visited Germany often from 1900, staying at their summer home in Reicholdsgrün in the Fichtel Mountains. I doubt that Alios will be able to afford regular trips back to Germany and even less so to a holiday home there.
Hess and Hitler came from two different back grounds and are only linked through the Nazi party.
 
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