Adolf Hitler, for whatever bizarre reason, emigrates to the United States after World War 1 and never pursues any political career or goes back to Europe ever again.
Who becomes the driving force in postwar German politics in his absence?
>>1190347
Bismarck
>>1190347
Social Democracy would have taken over.
Germany would have become the Western most region of the Soviet Union by the early to mid thirties.
>>1190396
Stop this reductionist nonsense. NSDAP existed before him and its leadership picked him to face it
>>1190347
a famous officer from ww1 would take his place, someone much more competent who would stretch ww2 out over decades, well into the atomic era
the world would be a patchwork of post-apocalyptic warlords with no qualms about using chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons and dirty bombs as well as shock collars and scientific torture to control the civilian population
>>1190347
Probably Strasser or whoever was running the KPD
>>1190347
NSDAP would exert a moderate political force, and the Versailles agreement would be revisited and Germany would have significant war debts renegotiated. Significant conflict between Europe, Russia (yeah I know it's in Europe), and Japan, but nothing on the scale of WWII..
US continues isolationism. Euro nations continue to colonize.
>>1190347
The likes of Ludendorff I guess.
>le great man theory
Hitler was a product of his time, not its maker.
>>1190347
Hello, comrades!
>>1190347
>Who becomes the driving force in postwar German politics in his absence?
>ctrl+f fudendorff
>only 1 response
Erich Ludendorff was an even more extreme version of Adolf Hitler, and he would've probably gotten support from the same crowd, to end in a similar result.
>>1190386
Bismarck was dead before the war even started, you dumbass.
>>1190658
The problem with Ludendorff was that he didn't even have a quarter of charisma Hitler had and that he was so crazy that he was alienated in Nazi Party because of "his beliefs in crazy conspiracy theories" or something in these lines.
>>1190662
Ludendorff was a lesser politician, and thus Hitler won.
If Hitler hadn't existed, Ludendorff would've been much, much more successful.
He was "good enough", as is, just not good enough to beat Hitler.
>>1190347
Any other charismatic person with Krupp funding his cause.
>>1190347
Some other right wing leader. Ludendorff was too much of a memelord and could have never left the shadow of Hindenburg. Also heute would always be associated with loosing WW1. Strasser actually is a likely candidate. His germany would have been pretty friendly with the SU and the Wehrmacht never would have been as strong as it was historically. Or a Reichswehr take over and a paternalistic military dictatorship.
>>1190409
NSDAP was an irrelevant party with no resources and no personnel. It was literally Hitler's baby that he nourished from the ground up. He was the one that negotiated with business magnates for funds, he was the one who assigned positions, and he was the one who knew how to draw a crowd to gain exposure in the first place. Hell, when he went to prison, the entire party almost collapsed without his guiding hand, which shouldn't have happened technically since they had funding and were organized at that point. He was an actual leader, not a figurehead in any way.
Fascism was rising all around Europe. Hitler was able to win out in the end because of popular charisma and ruthless pragatism over his rivals. Strasserite or Revolutionary Conservative wings of fascism may have taken his place
>>1192120
>Strasserite or Revolutionary Conservative wings of fascism may have taken his place
Except it wouldn't have, because no other far-right movement had the organizational and oratorical skills Hitler had, nor his political cunning and strategic foresight. A far-right movement taking over Germany wasn't in any way plausible, let alone certain, prior to Hitler. The closest possible alternative would have been a military coup de'tat.
>>1190549
He was a great decision maker and united the nation. People will argue against the decision making part, but you wouldn't even know his name unless he was. How many people know about Poland or France's governments during WWII? Not many, because they were incompetent and failed miserably. He is known precisely because he was great and did things completely unexpected.
>>1192143
Pure rubbish, Hitler did not single handedly institute fascism. He was merely one German who was able to tap into a stream of massive Nationalist disenchantment
Hitler becomes president of America and starts WW2 anyways but wins this time since he has American excellence on his side.
>>1192192
>He was merely one German who was able to tap into a stream of massive Nationalist disenchantment
Yeah, that is greatly overstated. He built his party around discontent veterans, but most people were sick of the war when it ended. People were starving and Britain had blockaded their supplies. There was no chance of an anti-Semitic party coming into power before Hitler. The right-wing movements that were taking place were more or less just anti-communist outbursts, and had very little in the way of organization or long-term plans.
You have to remember, he actually got in during an economic crisis. He changed his rhetoric a bit once he left prison and aimed it at voters. Prior to that they were trying to bully their way into office—and he still had to execute some SA leadership because of their belligerence to get in.
>>1192226
He's not a natural born citizen
>>1192143
Strasser actually was a great organizer and shaped the NSDAP to a great extent. The only problem i see with him ist the reluctance of the business magnates to support him.
I think it was fairly certain that a right wing movement would have great success in germany simply because thje conervative elites were willing to ally with them while the left were deeply fractionized. For a stabilization of weimar it would have needed a alliance between SPD and the various factions of the left. It is way more likely that hindenburgs camarilla would have tried to incorporate the successfull extreme right wing movement of this TTL. The question is if that movement would have had the same success of establishing a totalitarian dictatorship.
>>1192410
Strasser rode in on the movement Hitler started, anyhow. There would have been no NSDAP for Strasser to take over if not for Hitler. There really isn't any way around the fact that the NSDAP was entirely dependent on Hitler. It wouldn't have had any members, any funding, or a propaganda arm if it wasn't for Hitler. Like I said, an "extreme right-wing movement" wasn't anything close to inevitable; Hitler just made it seem that way in retrospect.
>>1192297
#AmendForAdolph
>>1192483
I want to see Adolf's birth certificate
>>1190658
What kind of cake is that?
Looks savory
>>1192462
You overestimate hitler. What >>1192192
said is a much more modern look to analyze the situation in weimar. The weimar justice system was extremly lenient toward right wing extremists and right wing conspiracies were present all the time. Given the extreme fractionalisation and moscows influence on certain elements of the left they were in no position to counter the rising of the right wing after the spd lost the government. On the other hand the conservative establishment was willing to cooperate with the extreme right. So at some point some right wing takeover was bound to happen. Maybe it wouldn´t have been as successfull/totalitarian/antisemitic/whatever as the nsdap but the right wing was bound to end the weimar republic in some form or another, given that the democratic forces make the same decision they did in OTL.
>>1192094
wait so was it literally or figuratively his baby? I can't tell
>>1192599
Yeah but the social democrats would have needed other elements of the left to further stabilize and gain the presidency again. The right on the other hand had way more potential allies AND the officials, army, police etc. where symphatetic to them to a large degree. I am not trying to downplay hitlers political instincts but there where other prominent and capable figures on the right. Given the beneficial climate in weimar surely one of them would have bloomed instead of hitler.
>>1192492
Red velvet cake
It's extremely sweet
>>1192639
I disagree. It was Hitler's oratory that won him power, not his politics per se. He was much less interchangeable than many of the other great leaders of history, such as Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, who largely were born into their positions and given the right tools to accomplish what they did.
Hitler went from being a bum, to being a highly decorated soldier, to bringing a political party to national prominence on his own back, to conquering Europe, to getting the shit kicked out of him and gangbanged. You can't say it isn't one hell of a story, and you can't say your average person is capable of doing that, either. Germany certainly wasn't destined to take over Europe following WWI.
>Germany certainly wasn't destined to take over Europe following WWI.
But surely in a most respectable position than of post-WWII
>>1192693
While I agree about Caesar I really doubt the Achamanid Empire was fated to collapse as catastrophically as it did under Alexau.
>>1190347
The communists.
I can't believe this hasn't been said already
It would have been the Bolsheviks. Pick up a fucking book people. Isn't this supposed to be the history board?
>>1193170
Yeah right. There's a reason they failed in real life and it wasn't because of Hitler's sheer force of will.
>>1193170
German communists were not Bolsheviks. Rosa Luxemburg for example had serious beef with Lenin and the Bolsheviks and the nascent "Communism in One Country" (i.e. Moscow controls all communists everywhere) doctrine (although that wasn't formal policy until Stalin came in). She was more of a classic grassroots autonomous worker's councils de-centralized sorta commie.
It's actually a shame she was killed, along with all the other moderate early commies, as she could've been a force of moderation in the wider movement. Might have prevented Stalin's ilk from becoming so strong. Guess we'll never know.
I'm not a communist sympathizer in any way, just saying.
>>1193325
>as she could've been a force of moderation in the wider movement.
If she survived, being part of a violent (but abortive) coup would kind of put a kibosh on that.
>>1193372
I'm not a Rosa Luxemburg fanboy, but... she was against the Spartacist uprising. Also... it was basically a civil war (if very brief), EVERY side was pretty fucking violent m8. She was shot in cold blood by Freikorps (an even more violent militia) and dumped in a canal.
My main point is that saying she was a Bolshevik is utter ignorance. Lenin would have had her shot, too.
>>1190396
>social democracy = soviet communism
The Wiemar Republic more or less falls apart. Rightwing nationalists may attempt to take control, maybe even form an alliance with Mussolini, but the German people see the corruption through it and it falls, much like people expected the Nazis to fail before the Night of Long Knives. Parties come and go, the whole thing slowly manages to turn around. Things stabilize. The economy gradually works its way out of Depression and given Germany's strengths, soon become a world super power to rival the U.S. Politically things are nice and quite. No coups, no wars of aggression.
![Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-U0618-0500,_Paul_v._Hindenburg[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/DloF9MV.jpg "Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-U0618-0500,_Paul_v._Hindenburg[1].jpg")
Hindenburg
but he doesn't violate the treaty. So Germany is poorly armed when Stalin invades Finland, the Balts, Poland, etc.
He will have to ask France, UK, and the USA for permission to rearm while eastern Prussia is being overrun by Soviets. Lucky though is that with out Hitler's Greater German Reich antics, France and England have no alliance with the Soviets. So they might actually do the right thing this time and go to war against the Soviet Union.
i think that the Weimar Republic collapses to pressure from the socialist factions. those guys were very influential then, if they played their cards right they win.
>>1190549
Reminder that great man theory is objectively correct
