He probably wouldn't enlist in the army as an infantryman. In arts, he was applying for architecture, so if he joins the army, it's most probably as a NCO, and NCO's tended not to get gassed.
Would Hitler going to art school change anything?
- Thread starter Etruscan-enthusiast35
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Deleted member 94680
He wasn’t applying for architecture, they suggested he tried for architecture but he rejected that as he wanted to be a painter. You can’t join as an NCO, that comes after you’ve joined and gained promotion. Gas was an indiscriminate weapon, effecting everyone in the area it was deployed. Do you have a source that states the opposite? I’ve never heard anything saying NCOs got gassed less. The numbers will be smaller as there are less NCOs obviously, but if they’re there with the privates, they’re getting gassed as well. That and OTL Hitler was an NCO (gefreiter) by the time he was gassed.
Right, I had forgotten about him being a gefreiter, though yes the point I was trying to make is that yes NCOs generally got gassed less than the normal archetypical soldier.
Though why would he even enlist in the army? He doesn't need to go to Bavaria due to getting the entry into the academy and due to the high medical standards of the Austrian army he isnt going to be accepted for the conscription. He probably remains in Vienna perhaps pursuing higher education in the art school? That was what most graduates did back then after all.
My grandfather was born in the same year as Hitler and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 1907 to 1911. He then went to Munich, where he refined his painting techniques by copying several masterpieces in the Alte Pinakothek art gallery, then in 1912 to Paris, where he did the same at the Louvre, and finally to Algeria, where he took part in the conservation and restauration of frescos in early Christian churches, which had been white washed over, when said churches were transformed into mosques after the Arab conquest. After my grandmother lost her first child on the ship from Marseilles to Algiers, she forced my grandfather to give up his bohemian artist's lifestyle, return home and find a job to support a family, so in 1913 my grandfather became an arts teacher at a secondary school in a provincial town north-west of Prague.
When he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army in the Great War, he was immediately awarded an officer's rank, since he had an academic degree, regardless what kind of degree it was. I'm not certain whether it would've been the same in the Bavarian or any other German army, but I can imagine it would. So if Hitler had finished his studies at the Vienna Art Academy, he would also have become an officer in the Great War. Now, what kind of painter would Hitler have become? Taking into account his personal dislike for post-impressionist modern art, a notion he shared with my grandfather (unsophisticated finger painting - not Hitler's words, but my grandfather's) it's pretty safe to assume, that he would've adhered to traditional academic painting styles, which might have made him moderately successful economically in the interwar period, but wouldn't likely have earned him a place in any art museum later on.
Regarding politics, the fact, that Hitler came into contact with Anton Drexler's DAP, by being sent there to infiltrate it by the intelligence department of the Reichswehr, would near certainly be butterflied away ITTL. That's not to say that Hitler wouldn't still harbor pan-german and anti-semtic sentiments ITTL, but he might be content to share them only with his nationalist parlour revolutionary friends. He might of course still become active in one of the many völkisch parties or political movements, but the perfect storm that made him head of government IOTL is extremely unlikely to repeat itself here.
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Deleted member 94680
Pure number wise, less NCOs will have been gassed, yes. Percentage wise I imagine it’s broadly the same for NCOs as it was for line soldiers. If you’re in the area getting gassed, you have as much chance as succumbing as the private next to you, regardless of rank.
I don’t imagine he’ll voluntarily enlist (he didn’t OTL as a failed artist, after all) but come July 1914 I doubt he’ll have much choice.
Deleted member 94680
Looking at wiki Maximilian Liebenwein who was also a graduate of the Institute, but 20 years older than Hitler, served as an officer in WWI. So it may be possible to have a Leutnant Hitler in WWI.
A POD where everything ends up staying more or less the same is a bit boring...
In 1908 Adolf Hitler passes the entrance exams to the Vienna Academy of Fine Art on his second attempt. He is a poor student but completes his studies, and makes a modest living primarily painting urban scenes of Vienna. His work is most notable for the high quality of the architectural elements and dispassionate approach to human subjects. He joins the Austro-Hungarian army in 1914 at the outbreak of the Great War, and due to his academic qualifications is trained as a Second Lieutenant.
Hitler is sent to the eastern front, and his previously fierce nationalism dies a slow death in the horrors of the war. Hitler is promoted to full Lieutenant in early 1915, and later that year receives a brevet promotion to the rank of Captain which is confirmed in 1916. He receives crippling injuries fighting on the Romanian Front in October 1916, and is invalidated back to Vienna. He will walk with a cane for the rest of his life.
Whilst recuperating from his injuries Captain Hitler resumes painting, but his work now focuses on the suffering of the soldiers on the front with a unique and haunting style. His subjects are faceless “shadow men” who have been dehumanised by the horrors of industrial warfare. Hitler’s work is initially censored by the Austro-Hungarian government as defeatist, but after 1918 he becomes a celebrated war artist.
Hitler lived primarily in Vienna until 1934, when he left for Paris after a right-populist military coup. Hitler would remain in Paris from this point, and continued working as painter and anti-war activist of some international fame until Parkinson's Disease overcame him in 1953. Hitler died in 1961, and today his work is displayed in major galleries in Vienna, Paris, Berlin, London and New York. He is the most prominent of the Austrian War Artists, with a similar status as that enjoyed by Wilfred Owen in the UK.
In 1908 Adolf Hitler passes the entrance exams to the Vienna Academy of Fine Art on his second attempt. He is a poor student but completes his studies, and makes a modest living primarily painting urban scenes of Vienna. His work is most notable for the high quality of the architectural elements and dispassionate approach to human subjects. He joins the Austro-Hungarian army in 1914 at the outbreak of the Great War, and due to his academic qualifications is trained as a Second Lieutenant.
Hitler is sent to the eastern front, and his previously fierce nationalism dies a slow death in the horrors of the war. Hitler is promoted to full Lieutenant in early 1915, and later that year receives a brevet promotion to the rank of Captain which is confirmed in 1916. He receives crippling injuries fighting on the Romanian Front in October 1916, and is invalidated back to Vienna. He will walk with a cane for the rest of his life.
Whilst recuperating from his injuries Captain Hitler resumes painting, but his work now focuses on the suffering of the soldiers on the front with a unique and haunting style. His subjects are faceless “shadow men” who have been dehumanised by the horrors of industrial warfare. Hitler’s work is initially censored by the Austro-Hungarian government as defeatist, but after 1918 he becomes a celebrated war artist.
Hitler lived primarily in Vienna until 1934, when he left for Paris after a right-populist military coup. Hitler would remain in Paris from this point, and continued working as painter and anti-war activist of some international fame until Parkinson's Disease overcame him in 1953. Hitler died in 1961, and today his work is displayed in major galleries in Vienna, Paris, Berlin, London and New York. He is the most prominent of the Austrian War Artists, with a similar status as that enjoyed by Wilfred Owen in the UK.
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I preferred the d'Orsay to the Louvre - stupidly only gave it an afternoon
As for Hitlers work being there - he would have to be a very good painter - OTL he was garbage
The bigger challenge is his ideology, not his artistic style. If he's a moderate to poorly successful artist who's still deeply enmeshed in pan-German, volkish thought and WWI occurs as it did OTL...
I proposed in one of Gudestein's threads that giving him a mentor very early on, to instill hard work ethic and get him to actually improve as an artist, would do wonders for averting what was to come. It'd also help him deal with the trauma of Edmund and Klara's deaths.
I proposed in one of Gudestein's threads that giving him a mentor very early on, to instill hard work ethic and get him to actually improve as an artist, would do wonders for averting what was to come. It'd also help him deal with the trauma of Edmund and Klara's deaths.
Economically he only moved to Bavaria due to the poverty run he had in Austria. In ITTL with a good source of income would he really he even go to Bavaria? He would be pretty stable in Austria and economically wise to stay in Vienna for all intents and purposes.
Or, he makes the right connections in art school and ends up in Paris or some place further afield.
Given the way he portrayed people in his work, perhaps he takes an interest in early U.S. art and finds himself in New York.
If my ex-wife is anything to go by (she attended art school), he'd be even MORE insufferable.
BlackDragon98
Banned
He couldn't drawn people for shit's sake.
On the other hand, his landscapes and architectural paintings were alright.
