WI: Hitler is killed in WWI

Anton Drexler will still create the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, that may remain a little group. So, you may end up having a small pack of Nazis under another name, but nothing as big as Hitler.
 
This is essentially one of the bigger questions in History - do actions result from the activities of "Great People" or are they the response to wider forces. I think that wider forces shape the world, but different people would use them in a different way, creating differences to the world.

In this case one could see four major elements - ethnic-racist nationalism; demands for territorial revisionism; acute class conflict (especially with the success of the Bolshevik Revolution); and a protracted crisis of capitalism. These were present throughout Europe, but found their greatest expression in Germany thanks in many ways to the shock of loosing the First World War and the results of the Treaty of Versailles. These forces pushed numerous people into the Nazi camp, giving them the chance to force their way into government, and this may well also have happened with another leader. Whether such a leader would play so much on the first of these forces and so drive a genocidal campaign may be unlikely - but maybe they would focus more on the class element, driving a war against the workers states, or territory driving war to recapture the lands once owned.
 
This is essentially one of the bigger questions in History - do actions result from the activities of "Great People" or are they the response to wider forces. I think that wider forces shape the world, but different people would use them in a different way, creating differences to the world.

In this case one could see four major elements - ethnic-racist nationalism; demands for territorial revisionism; acute class conflict (especially with the success of the Bolshevik Revolution); and a protracted crisis of capitalism. These were present throughout Europe, but found their greatest expression in Germany thanks in many ways to the shock of loosing the First World War and the results of the Treaty of Versailles. These forces pushed numerous people into the Nazi camp, giving them the chance to force their way into government, and this may well also have happened with another leader. Whether such a leader would play so much on the first of these forces and so drive a genocidal campaign may be unlikely - but maybe they would focus more on the class element, driving a war against the workers states, or territory driving war to recapture the lands once owned.

Indeed. Hitler set the tone of German far right, but he did not create it. Germany was not on a Sonderweg towards nazism specifically, but there were clear indicators in the chaotic situation right after the war that a new radical far right would play an important part in post war Germany. How similar or dissimilar this movement would be to OTL Nazism is hard to gauche, but its existence is very likely. It could be less popular, or more popular, and might not reach a place of power.

While the holocaust is shocking and extreme, one has to remember that it had a support broader than just Hitler's inner circle, otherwise it couldn't function. Nor was it history's sole example of genocidal actions. A similar movement might very well come into existence.
 
Germany was a mess after WWI and then things got even worse after the Great Depression. With massive unemployment and inflation. That type of environment makes it easy for an extreme faction to come to power. However even if the Nazis with a different leader or another similar group comes to power I don't know if WWII would play out the same. Hitler took a lot of very big gambles which kept actually working out for him until 1942. A different leader might have been more cautious.
 
Well, Hitler or no Hitler, the Fascists will still rise in Italy and just as in OTL they will inspire many similar movements and copycats across Europe. And all the underlying political problems are still there. Nazism as we know it is stillborn without Hitler, but something that looks a lot like the Nazis (revanchism, anti-Semitism, Slavophobia, 'national socialism'...) could still rise and take power in Germany.
 
Top