Hitler stays in England before WWI

BillyShears

M79 said:
I might see him opening up some sort of worker's organization dedicated to the disenchanted left and moderate right. Beyond that I doubt he does much if anything. If he fights in the war he becomes a traitor against his own country but might gain the prestige in England to do something notable. I doubt he becomes an MP (though it would be funny to think of him debating/ranting at a younger Churchill or Lady Astor).

Now if he opened a bar...
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Can we please make a septuagenarian Hitler the Beatles' first manager... :D
 

MattII

Fearless Leader said:
Fast-forward to WWI and Hitler would be a foreign German national living in England which means that like so many other Germans living in England he would be interned, probably on the Isle of Man, for the duration of the conflict. Hitler's time in internment would undoubtedly impact his life in a profound way. Conceivably you could have him pursue any number of paths as a result of his time in internment. Perhaps he is mentored by other artists in the Camp and becomes an artistic success? Perhaps he's swayed by communist sentiment in TTL and returns to Germany? Any number of possibilities are available to the creative mind.
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Including one where he decides that in any future war, defeating Britain is a must, and thus come the next war, he throws more resources into that, and less into the SU, or holds off invading the SU entirely until Britain is crushed.
 

Peter

Stolengood said:
I'm pretty sure it's been revealed, through careful lip-reading and subsequent dubbing of the recorded speech onto the silent footage from the Berghof, that Hitler did crack jokes and was indeed something of a self-deprecator: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEWTaKKmxLU&t=3m30s
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Yes, but most people, even on this site, lazily (including the person accusing Hitler of being lazy) prefers war-time caricature then actual historical study.

Yes, of course Hitler was a humourless, unintelligent, lazy, mad, un-charismatic, short, socially retarded, corrupt, ridiculous, cowardly, incestous eunuch that managed to revive a beaten country and conquer half a world by sheer luck. Makes complete sense.
 

M79

Would a German national who fought for the UK in World War I still be interned should a second world war arise if he could prove his war records, especially if he was decorated?

And someone could run a pub and lead a political movement using his office/apartment as a starting point potentially. Have him live above the pub and use his small apartment for the politics and the pub for income.
 

J.D.Ward

Donor
M79 said:
Would a German national who fought for the UK in World War I still be interned should a second world war arise if he could prove his war records, especially if he was decorated?
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Which British medal is the closest equivalent to his OTL Iron Cross First Class?
 
Fearless Leader

Fearless Leader

Donor
Enigmajones said:
By this time Hitler was already both a raging anti-semite, but a budding anti-leftist. Even in his early days, when the Nazi party HAD a left wing, a vibrant one at that I may add, he was always very clear that his concept of a revolution would be far and away different from the Red ones to the South and East of Germany.

Anyhow, just for fun, he would've made one hell of a Black and Tan.
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True, by this point, Hitler as a communist is a bit of a stretch. But not having fought in the Reichswehr is going to distinctly change his political philosophy depending on who he runs into in the camps.

MattII said:
Including one where he decides that in any future war, defeating Britain is a must, and thus come the next war, he throws more resources into that, and less into the SU, or holds off invading the SU entirely until Britain is crushed.
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Would a Hitler who hadn't served in the Reichswehr gain traction in Germany? I think that 4 years of internment means that his political career in Germany is going to be over before it begins.

Cook said:
He may have been a really good speaker if you were a German; for the English he’d be just another silly foreigner.

First requirement would be that he would need to learn English. This poses an immediate obstacle, because throughout his life Hitler was a markedly lazy individual who did not like applying himself to study and hated being told what to do or corrected at anything, even by people trying to teach him subjects that he actually had an interest in.

Assuming that he did learn to speak English, and it would have to be good English for public speaking, not just a workable knowledge of the language necessary to do whatever basic form of employment he managed to pick up (this is a man who never graduated from school remember), there is still the problem of his accent; Hitler had a very strong Austrian accent that even Berliners had a hard time with, let alone the English. Lloyd-George had difficulties with the English with his Welsh accent, and L-G wasn’t just a good speaker, he was a brilliant speaker! So the very first time Hitler stands up at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park and opens his mouth the crowd is going to start laughing.

Which brings us to his next problem: Hitler had no sense of humour, none at all. He particularly lacked any capacity for self depreciation or appreciate a laugh at his own expense; any embarrassment made him angry. For an English audience this would be wonderful, it would be like a free pantomime show; Hitler would start talking and they’d start giggling, he’d go red and talk louder and angrier and they’d start laughing, he’d go very red and start shouting and the crowd would be in hysterics.

Even getting past this, as already mentioned, Hitler hadn’t even graduated from school. So no school tie, no university and no connections. No connections means no influence.

Besides which, the British are not going to listen to young nobody, and a foreign nobody at that, trying to talk them into a foreign policy that was simply not in the best interests of the empire.

So no, as far as a career in public speaking and politics goes, it would not happen in England. If he was lucky he could be a painter – interior walls, maybe park benches.
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I agree completely. If anything assuming Hitler maintains his political bent, I think he's going to try and return to the continent. It would be kind of interesting to see Hitler return to Austria and advocate for Anschluss...
 
Stolengood

Stolengood

Banned
It seems people are taking the claim about Hitler's "lack of humor" completely for granted; I think the link I posted already disproved that...
 

MattII

Fearless Leader said:
Would a Hitler who hadn't served in the Reichswehr gain traction in Germany? I think that 4 years of internment means that his political career in Germany is going to be over before it begins.
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He wasn't elected for his military experience, he was elected for his supposed ability to restore the economy, though more correctly for his having great oratory.
 
Basileus444

Basileus444

Peter said:
Yes, but most people, even on this site, lazily (including the person accusing Hitler of being lazy) prefers war-time caricature then actual historical study.

Yes, of course Hitler was a humourless, unintelligent, lazy, mad, un-charismatic, short, socially retarded, corrupt, ridiculous, cowardly, incestous eunuch that managed to revive a beaten country and conquer half a world by sheer luck. Makes complete sense.
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Well, there does seem to be an attitude around here (the forum) that 'evil automatically means stupid' that I've witnessed.
 

Deleted member 43582

Adolf's Humpen Chapter One: Einbildung ist auch eine Bildung

Vienna, 20th april 1912

BUM-BUM-BUM

Adolf Hitler the greatest artistic genius since Michelangelo was woken up by loud knocking on his door.
"Adolf? You awake? Rise and shine my friend!"

"Yes I'm coming give me sometime to wash myself" he screamed through the door. Whelp, that didn't sound good. I had noticed that if he was really angry his screams became like those of a mad man. Not really fitting to an intellectual like him.
"See you in half an hour at breakfast!"
But did Loeffner wake him up already? Yesterday he spend seven hours painting those aquarelles so that today he could have some free time. But what was so special about today again. He looked around his small room until he found yesterdays "Deutsches Volksblatt". He picked it up and looked at the title page: "The need for a greater German empire was never greater!" Ah, yes it was a great article about how the Slavs from the Balkans prevented Austria from becoming part of Germany and how the Habsburg Empire was close to collaps. The only thing that bothered Adolf was the way the author spoke about the jews. Not that he particularly liked jews or anything, he would be glad if he didn't have to spend so much time with them, but most of his business partners were jews and they weren't so bad. Loeffner, Altenberg, Morgenstern all of them where very friendly and hardworking people. But anyway why did he even pick up this paper.
Oh yes, he wanted to check the date. 23rd April 1912 so toady was the 24th.... his birthday. 23. weird. He didn't feel any different. Well he felt hungry, the next payment of his inheritance was overdue, but other wise he didn't feel any different. But it was no use to ponder about things like that Loeffner wanted something.
He stood up, gathered up his things (Why did he even need to clean out his room if he would come back anyway in the evening? Stupid rules.) and went outside. He walked down the hall and climbed down the stairs heading towards the baths. The floorboards crunched beneath his feet.
In front of the shower there was quite a queue of four men, all already disrobed bar their breeches. Adolf immidiatly felt uncomfortable. One of them turned around and greeted Adolf "He Addi!" "Moin Haeusler." "I told you to call me Rudolf!" "Well if you insist Haeusler." "Be careful, I might just slap all your creativity out of you and how would you paint without that?" "Oh I have so much creativity that a simpleton like you hardly could slap it all out." They laughed. They always bantered like this. For a time they even had thought about moving to Germany together, but nether had had money so they quickly forgot about it.
When Adolf got out of the shower Rudolf was busy shaving himself. His full beard was slowly diminished to a little moustache just below the nose. "Huh, what do you think Adolf?" "It makes you look rather silly." "Get the hell out of here you jew lover." "Naturally, Muselmann."

Adolf went down to the dining hall when he entered the first thing he noticed was that there were even more Bosniacs tan yesterday. He sighed. Well the administration wouldn’t listen when he told them that they should kick all the slavs out, so what was he supposed to do? He had to look around for a while until he found Loeffner. He sat down besides him. Loeffner had apparently cooked some beans or something that looked close enough to beans with eggs. “Take what ever you want, except the apple that one is mine.” The apple was so wrinkled that Adolf would not have been able to tell what fruit it had been if Loeffner hadn’t told him. “Yeaaah thanks, but I think I’ll pass.” “What? You telling me that now you are not only celibate but also on a fast?” “No I’m just not hungry.” “Ok anyways, what I wanted to talk to you about: ME and some other guys here wanted to start something bigger. We thought about forming a theater troup and going out onto the plazas and so on and so forth and stage some plays. You know to counter point all that borgouise none sense (and earn some money). Anyways we wanted to ask you if you could paint some scenery.” “Like what? Wagnerian symbols? Valkyries? Sigurd? That sort of thing.” “No. Nononononon. God no. Sorry Addi, but we are gonna do this for simple people from the street, so no pretentious opera shit.” Adolf was starting to get angry. “Well I happen to like that “pretentious opera shit””. “Yes and who doesn’t, but that won’t sell unfortunately. So why don’t you paint some woodland or something.” “You want me to paint woodland?” “If you ont want to I can always ask Leidenroth.” That stung. Leidenroth the other painter. Adolf hated that guy. “I have to go to the bank. I’ll tell you this evening.” Adolf tried to control his legs, so it wasn’t to obvious that he was fleeing the hall. Outside he took a deep breath, well the idea wasn’t to bad, hell if he had some money he could probably even buy enough material to make two sceneries. Loeffners stupid woodland and one that was worthy of the royal opera. Walking along the road Hitler started to paint the scenery in his imagination: Valkyries riding in the backround, Fafnir floating above all, Hagen killing Sigurd in the center, Hildebrand killing Kriemhild in the lower right corner. HE only awoke from his daydreams when he ran into a short man. “Stupid lowlife, can’t you watch where you are walking? It is bad enough that we allow people like you into our lands and now you even begin to OHHELLOMRALTENBERGISNTITAWONDERFULDAY?” “The old jew looked at Adolf for a very long moment than sighed. “Yes Adolf, it I a rather fine day. And I am sorry for interrupting your daydream and therefore will forgive your disrespectful behavior. It is not to be repeat, do you understand?” “YesofcourseMrAltenbergwhateveryousayMrAltenberg.” “Good. And tell me what where you thinking about.” “Aww, only about how much it would cost to paint a scenery for the royal opera.” “Oh, well that would be around 20.000 kronen. But it is a very wonderful dream you have their son. Stick to it. I would be happy to see it come true someday. And if you came that far please don’t forget about your old friends down here in the street will ya?” He chuckled a bit and then went on his way. Adolf looked after him and than went on towards the bank.

They did have his inheritance payment. Finally. Adolf opened the envelope and looked at the number. 500 Kronen. Well that was a quick death for his dream. Slowly Adolf made his way back to the . Suddenly it hit him like a lighting. He didn’t need to paint all of it at once he could begin with one part and than buy new material when he was done with it. It was brilliant! No, HE was brilliant. Of course, could there be any doubt? But still 500 Kronen wasn’t enough he needed at least 2000. But from where should he take that kind of money? He passed the post office and had an idea. The letter he sent was short and to the point:
“Dear brother,
I have unfortunately hid hard times. But do not worry about me. I have a cunning business plan that could not possibly fail. The only thing I require is a credit of about 1500 Kronen.
Greetings,
Adolf”

He received his answer about a month later, when the idea of the theater had already died three weeks ago.

“Dear Adolf,
it saddens me to hear, that Vienna is not treating you good. Unfortunately I don’t have that kind of money to lend you. What I can lend you is the money to come to Brtain. You will ilke it here. Bridget always wanted to meet my family and this seemed like a good opportunity. And William should see his uncle to once in his life. So waddya say? The train ticket to Liverpool is enclosed. If you don’t wanna come just sell it to somebody.
Greetings,
Alois Liverpool, 1st of may 1912

Adolf looked around. Loeffner and HAeusler were talking about some girl Loeffner had something going on with. Two Bosniacs started a fight over in the corner. A cat chased after a rat. None here would ever escape this hell. No one. He smiled.

One day later he was already in Strassburg.
 
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