On that note, any politicians who you see being prominent in the radicalized DNVP?
Watergate was skullduggery against political opposition, so nope.
8mm to the Left: If Hitler Died in 1923
- Thread starter KaiserKatze
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I'm hoping Lettow Vorbeck actually manages to fix the German Economy after the great depression, unlike what happened IOTL (which was, essentially one massive scheme that needed to keep growing to sustain itself, with even the Germans still worse off by the time of the war than they were 10 years earlier)
On another note, What's the old lion's policy towards his eastern neighbors?
On another note, What's the old lion's policy towards his eastern neighbors?
The DNVP will feature a few names you might know and I have a few lined up. Hans Frank, IRL head of the Generalgouverment in Poland, will be a prominent member. It won't just be "the leftover Nazis", though, because the Nazi party still exists, albeit not quite as you know.
Foreign policy is coming up in a few chapters in detail (once he is actually in power) but on the topic of Poland specifically: Von Lettow-Vorbeck believes strongly in the idea of defeat in WW1 being the result of subversive elements. One of those supposedly-subversive elements is Poland, who, in the minds of many, repaid German generosity (liberating them from Russia) with betrayal when they seized Posen and took West Prussia and Upper Silesia. So, on the one hand, von Lettow-Vorbeck believes very strongly that much, if not all of the German land ceded to Poland is under illegitimate ownership and that the solution must be rectified before further action can be taken.
On the other hand (and this is based on how I have chosen to portray him rather than any information I could find on his politics), von Lettow-Vorbeck is a big believer in Realpolitik, due to a combination of when he grew up and how he fought in East Africa. In other words, he has big dreams but doesn't let them override his pragmatism. He might WANT to retake the 1914 borders, but he won't endanger everything Germany has rebuilt for it, and he understands that there are longer and bigger goals than cities and regions. He, like Bismarck, wants to rig the game before he plays it.
(Not that he is above a bit of spontaneous action if the situation presents itself. No risk, no reward is not an entirely illogical concept.)
Let me guess the Nazi Party would be a more "revolutionary" organization ITTL, especially with the DNVP being radicalized and how Hitler died in the Beer Hall Putsch taking away the winds of those who want to emply the "let's suborn the conservative establishment" strategy?
I mean yes but more we didnt spy on the opposition and steal their records. Watergate also had office space where the 1968 Democratic Party held its offices.
I do hope he won't be like bismarck in terms of foreign policy... yeesh
It depends on what you mean by that. Von Lettow-Vorbeck is much better than Hitler, but don't make the mistake that he is a super moral nice man. He is still a 19th Century Colonial General who once brutally suppressed Namibia leading to the deaths of thousands of people.
It does if you remember that Nixon was pathologically paranoid and afraid he'd lose power. He only rose to the Senate on the Red Scare in San Francisco. Nixon was a paradox on the one hand he taped himself to make posterity have his records and forced everyone to publically expose their taxes when he was accused of having a slush fund(The Checkers speech is brilliant he basically plays himself as a common patriotic honest lawyer who doesnt hire his wife or practice law while in officee and turns his slush fund accusation into an attack ad) but he also undermined the vietnam peace talks and refused to release said tapes when the court asked for them and sued the times for libel over the panama papers and started the southern strategy and fired Cox for refusing to interfere in an investigation. He was paranoid and didnt want to risk losing power.
On that note, is my speculation that Nazism is a more "revolutionary" movement than OTL accurate or is that a spoiler?
Sure but when the alternative is OTL Holocaust and Eastern front, well i take the brutal and ruthless general any day of the week
Ah so you meant in regards to Catholics and Poles? On that note, no, he is no Bismarck. He is savvy enough to recognise that there is no point in antagonising loyal elements like that. Plus he will be far more reliant on preexisting Conservative elements than Hitler or Hindenburg ever were which doesn't lend itself well to pissing off Catholics.
Nope you hit it spot-on. Without Hitler and his aim of corrupting the democracy from the inside, they will oppose it more openly. The catch is that without the backing of other forces, they won't be able to cause the sort of mass intimidation and chaos of OTL.
I concur, he is definitely the better option and I can guarentee that even the worst of his government's excesses won't come close to Hitler. I just don't want people to think that this is shaping up to be a utopian Germany--for that I have to recommend this story, by @Hohensaufen, which focuses on preserving Weimar and a true democratic Hegemon in the shape of Germany. Their story was what actually motivated me to finally get off my butt and write this one out.
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Guess the main extremist movements ITTL would be the KPD, a radicalized DNVP, and a more revolutionary NSDAP, though the question is who leads TTL's Nazi Party towards a more "revolutionary" direction here, eschewing the political maneuvering to outwit and suborn the conservative establishment the Nazis used to seize power in favor of a "national revolution" by the bullet.
Hm, this is interesting so far. It'll be interesting to see just how WWII kicks off ITTL, if indeed it does. I'm guessing it has something to do with Stalin being the actual worst.
Or Imperial Japan still engaging in their OTL antics (and speaking of which, Germany actually had close ties to KMT China before eventually aligning with Japan).
It isn't completely eschewed but yes revolution is more of a focus. Hugenberg is popular among their group.
Have you been peeking at my notes!? You must be!
Kidding. You aren't wrong, though. Plus there is still some interest in the Mandates (the German Pacific Islands) given over to Japan after WW1, though of course they are far too unimportant to be worth war or anything like that over. Just a sort of remembrance.
Surely the entirety of the Chinese market with a friendly government is worth more than some island chains in the pacific.
Oh absolutely. But that doesn't mean the islands are forgotten. Same as how, despite most of their African colonies being pretty much worthless money-sucks, they would still take them back in a heartbeat. Plus the two aren't mutually-exclusive, since both options are in China's favour.