WI: No Hitler, who's Fuehrer?

Who's Fuerher instead of Hitler

  • Hermann Goehring

    Votes: 22 46.8%
  • Heinrich Himmler

    Votes: 7 14.9%
  • Ernst Rohm

    Votes: 14 29.8%
  • Richard Heydrich

    Votes: 4 8.5%
  • Alfred Rosenberg

    Votes: 3 6.4%
  • Joachim von Ribbentrop

    Votes: 1 2.1%
  • Joseph Goebbels

    Votes: 8 17.0%
  • Martin Borman

    Votes: 5 10.6%
  • Rudolf Hess

    Votes: 4 8.5%

  • Total voters
    47

Deleted member 1487

It's possible. I suppose the DNVP might pull Goering (a dashing veteran pilot with the Blue Max ... provided he goes on a diet) as the public face of their campaign. As an elitist group composed largely of nobles, they had quite the problem having the kind of wide appeal that the NSDAP managed to gather. Or possibly von Schleicher (if he still winds up in charge), trying to shore up his flagging support does the same.

Of course, neither of those would be quite Nazis. Fascists, certainly. Militaristic, monarchistic (to an extent, they were privately so, but monarchy was unpopular in Germany at the time). Smarter than the Nazis ... or, at least, not the kind of fanactical believers in their own propaganda. You might get a war still (probably would, in fact), but not WWII. A conflict with an isolated Poland or with Italy over Austria and the Balkans.

Goering didn't get really fat until after he got in power. I think he got really bad in the late 1930s and certainly in the early 1940s when he started emotional eating when he lost Hitler's favor.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Of course, the Fuhrer principle without Hitler might not come about. Hitler was able to unite all factions of the party through his charisma, the respect of the leadership as well as the rank and file, and his ability to form ties to the elites.

I think a Goebbels-Goring-Heydrich triumvirate might be more likely. Goebbels is the propaganda master, not a bad speaker, and is left wing enough to keep the left in the party; Heydrich is the right wing sadist who can appeal to that crowd as well as a young handsome face for people who needed one, and Goring brings the war credentials that the other two lacked that OTL Hitler had (albeit less so than Goring), as well as a link to the elites.

Now, how this party even starts up is beyond me, but the only way I see someone being able to match what Hitler brought to the table is through a combination of the three of these guys.
 
ASB to start with

There is a fairly plausible case to be made the Nazis were the MOST unlikely bunch to take over Germany.

Some even say it is only the extreme incompetence of everyone else plus a lot -- a lot -- of luck which enabled them to gain power.

Plus, the Nazi brass was a "Team of Rivals" that made Lincoln's look like a Quaker church meeting.

Only Adolf the Aryan (!) held them together.

Without H, none of the aforementioned would be heard of.

So -- what is the probable situation of a Germany without Hitler? Hmmm?
 
Does no one see Gregor Strasser as party leader and then perhaps national leader?

Say, Hitler dies just before he forced Strasser out of the party, and Strasser then accepts becoming a minister in the cabinet, and some time later rises to be the head of government.
 
Does no one see Gregor Strasser as party leader and then perhaps national leader?

Say, Hitler dies just before he forced Strasser out of the party, and Strasser then accepts becoming a minister in the cabinet, and some time later rises to be the head of government.

This was my first thought, came here to post this.
 

Deleted member 1487

Does no one see Gregor Strasser as party leader and then perhaps national leader?

Say, Hitler dies just before he forced Strasser out of the party, and Strasser then accepts becoming a minister in the cabinet, and some time later rises to be the head of government.
No, he was a follower in the Hitler camp and his brother was not well liked enough.
Plus he was a bit too radical to get the same level of access that Hitler had; like Röhm he was serious about the revolution, which is why he got purged.
 
Does no one see Gregor Strasser as party leader and then perhaps national leader?

Say, Hitler dies just before he forced Strasser out of the party, and Strasser then accepts becoming a minister in the cabinet, and some time later rises to be the head of government.
As Wiking said he's too radical. Strasser was a strong believer in the "Socialism" part of National Socialism. That would probably alienate the Nazi right (one of Hitler's feats was being able to thread the needle between the Left and the Right of the Nazi Party, and putting off the issue until after he got to power) and Hindenburg would never allow a socialist (even someone following Strasser's weird white power socialism) to become Chancellor.
 
If there isn't a Hitler at all, from the cradle as the OP supposes, there would be no Nazi Germany.

We could assume Goering, Hess, the Brothers Strasser, et cetera, still participate in post-1918 politics, but a Nazi-led or even Nazi-esque Reich as we might recognize it is stillborn with the death of the infant Hitler.
 
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