WI: Hitler was a Monarchist ?

Would Hitler have the same success he had IOTL ?

  • Yes, his speeches would still win the day !

    Votes: 29 33.0%
  • Maybe ?

    Votes: 31 35.2%
  • No, it is too elitist

    Votes: 28 31.8%

  • Total voters
    88
I know these "What if Hitler was "x" Ideology" questions are cliché. But I would like to know: What if Hitler was a Hohenzollern supporter that saw the abdication of the Kaiser as the reason for the defeat in the "Great War "? What if he saw the Social-Democrats, communists, Jews, Bankers, and Liberals as responsible for the Kaiserreich's downfall ?
 
I think it would limited his effectiveness once in power but not his ability to get into power.

I agree with this. Will be difficult as Chancellor to get the Wehrmacht on board with the regime if there’s a restored Kaiser to contend with.

If Hitler gets into and loses a power struggle against the Kaiser, he’ll be remembered as the Hohenzollern’s free ride back to the throne.
 

ASUKIRIK

Banned
If Hitler gets into and loses a power struggle against the Kaiser, he’ll be remembered as the Hohenzollern’s free ride back to the throne.
Not if this was like, Hitler is a secret monarchist.

Everything goes as OTL until Munich Agreement, but then Hitler, knowing that he already spent all the trust others had in him, decides to step down and use his last decree to bring Kaiser back with full Wehrmacht support.
 
Hitler views the abdication as a reason for the defeat of Germany and is a secret monarchist? The Kaiser abandons his post and lets his people down and Hitler secretly admires the monarchy in spite of it?

So...we're getting a more batshit Hitler than we got OTL?

P.S. My answer to your poll is: No, not because it's elitist, but because the last Kaiser abandoned the country and his post and supporting that sort of behavior won't go over well.
 

BP Booker

Banned
Wilhelm II and Prince Wilhelm were... agreable to Hitler and the Nazis one day and ambivalent (at best) the other, but this is more because the Nazis were clearly uninterested in restoring the monarchy rather than personal distaste for fascism so who knows what their relations would have been if Hitler has actually been inclined to restore the Hohenzollerns for real. Prince August Wilhelm was a true believer however and the Nazis pretty shamelessly used him as a human face for the Party. So maybe if Hitler had truely felt that restoring the monarchy would be good for Germany and/or him he could have moved to restore August Wilhem as a toothless rubber stamp King with Hitler as "the man behind the throne" (althou this is a far more cynical interpretation of the question). And no, I dont know when exactly between the Enabling Act and the invasion of Poland the momentum was good enough to restore the crown. Probably late 1933
 
In the OTL, Kaiser Wilhelm II died in 1941 while living in exile in the German-occupied Netherlands.

So, assuming that Hitler was a fan of the Imperial monarchy and decided to restore Wilhelm back to his throne, who's going to replace him as the Kaiser if he (likely) still dies in 1941? Also, would the German monarchy be abolished yet again after the Allies defeat them in 1945?
 
For the reasons mentioned above, I also think a Hohenzollern restoration by Hitler to be unlikely. Furthermore, it would create another focal (regardless of it either being feigned or imagined) point of loyalty for the Wehrmacht which would be detrimental to the authority of the GroFaZ.
 
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I think it would complicate Nazi control. Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (Wilhelm Friedrich Franz Joseph Christian Olaf; 4 July 1906 – 26 May 1940) was the eldest child of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany and Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. At his birth, he was second in line to the German throne and was expected to succeed to the throne after the deaths of his grandfather and father, both of whom, however, outlived him.

In May 1940, Wilhelm took part in the invasion of France. He was wounded during the fighting in Valenciennes and died in a field hospital in Nivelles on 26 May 1940. His funeral service was held at the Church of Peace, and he was buried in the Hohenzollern family mausoleum in the Antique Temple in Sanssouci Park. The service drew over 50,000 mourners, by far the largest unofficial public turnout during Nazi rule in Germany.

His death and the ensuing sympathy of the German public revealed that despite years of Nazi ideologic indoctrination large parts of the German society still were affectionately bound to the former German royal houses. Shortly after Wilhelm's death, a decree known as the Prinzenerlaß, or Prince's Decree, was issued, barring all members of the former German royal houses from service in the Wehrmacht.
 
It's a contradiction to have Hitler believe the abdication led to Germany's defeat in 1918 and still be a 'secret monarchist' - that's what I'm talking about. If he believed that, he'd be FURIOUS at the monarchy and might find an excuse to put all the remaining males on the Soviet front line.

OTL: As for all the people at the would-have-been-king's funeral, it's okay to let people mourn a dead guy. I think the decree was PR & to keep it from happening again - it probably pissed Hitler off that so many lined up for the funeral.
 
IOTL he supposedly said that he liked the fact that the Social Democrats had toppled the monarchy, even paid some of their ministers their pensions, because he didn't want to be the number two behind some monarch, like Mussolini.
 

Crystal

Banned
People did not care what Hitler suggested, they only cared about the message he was sending. That Germany would be alright in the end.
If Hitler was a monarchist, it would not change anything.
 
You can always get the Roman route: the Kaiser is reinstated. The Kaiser adopts Hitler. He then has an accident. Hitler is now Kaiser
 
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