Does Goering survive, if he does, will he become a morphine addict? Was he competent team player before he become an addict or was he always just a bureaucratic empire builder?
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8mm to the Left: If Hitler Died in 1923
- Thread starter KaiserKatze
- Start date
... depends on if he got shot ITTL as well and where ITTL.
If these details remain ... then helikely would become the on-n-off morphinist he was IOTL.
My thought was that the bullet that hit AH was the one that hit Goering in the OTL.
This is actually what I had in mind originally when conceiving this story, but it could also have been that an unrelated shot which IRL missed completely struck him. He is definitely alive though. Once he shows up the question his morphine addiction (if indeed he has one) will be dealt with.
The Nazis are a somewhat tricky topic in this story. The NAZI party does exist but it is not the NSDAP exactly and its membership is different and, of course, smaller. While some of them are the sort of people you know, it is also true that there are would-be Nazis who, in this world, gravitate towards other parties or individuals.
@Garrison used a term which I quite like in reference to some of these characters, i.e. "political orphans". People who, in our world, gravitated to Hitler, but in this world without that kind of charistmatic leader for the Nazis will be scattered around other parties or simply seeking someone to lead them. They will be a varied but very important subgroup in this setting especially since von Lettow-Vorbeck does not have a tailor-made party to support him in everything he does like Hitler did with the Nazis.
You know I just had a mental image of someone asking to take in a baby with 20's Bormann's face... Does anybody have Brain Bleach?
@KaiserKatze May I ask why the "Right" - who's members esp. the depicted one never framed and would likely not name themself as "Rights" but if then 'only' as the patriotic "righteous" - at that point are alreayd searching for a replacement for Hindenburg?
In 1928 he still had 4 years to go and at that point of time no signs of threatening 'break down' or other medical reasons to assume his quick ... 'leave'. Much time to even wait and/or work for a change of mind of the old man.
The replacement of the SPD chnacellors - Brüning - actually managed the old man to let him govern with kinda emergency decrees.
In 1928 he still had 4 years to go and at that point of time no signs of threatening 'break down' or other medical reasons to assume his quick ... 'leave'. Much time to even wait and/or work for a change of mind of the old man.
The replacement of the SPD chnacellors - Brüning - actually managed the old man to let him govern with kinda emergency decrees.
Garrison
Donor
He was valuable to the Nazis in the early days because of his connections and he was able to raise a lot of money for the cause. And some of that Bureacratic empire was necessary. Remember he was often chosen as the figurehead for those economic organizations because it gave the people under him the clout to get things done.
Essentially what I am basing this early decision on is the fact that, IRL, he was not very interested in the Presidency and had not planned at all for reelection up until 31 or so when they realised that letting him retire would basically guarentee a Hitler victory and all but demanded his return. I doubt very much that they did not have plans for a replacement which were upstaged by the growth of the Nazis, but in this one they basically go in looking for another Hindenburg to help prevent the SPD from taking the position. The reason they go looking for another one is because 1) Hindenburg is very old, and 2) Hindenburg was kind of a disappointment. He valued his oath to the Republic too much to actually work on taking it down.
The more I read about the late 20s and early 30s, the more it seemed to me that a lot of these individuals felt that 1932 was a make-or-break moment wherein either the Republic would become solidifed or the anti-Republic powers (such as Hindenburg) would be extended for another few years during which MAYBE something could be done. Hitler was a breath of fresh air because he was an anti-Republic power that actually worked actively against the system instead of just slowing it down. Without that sort of unifying force, the plan is to keep a Conservative bullwark in the Presidency while the outer layers--like the Chancellorship and the Minister-Presidency of Prussia--are picked away at until eventually they have the power to actually take down the government, like they started to IRL when they stole the Minister-Presidency of Prussia amd kept Brüning in via Emergency Decrees.
As for why they use the term "Right", it honestly was just the most succinet way that I could use to describe the various allies and forces which opposed the Republic.
At least, that was my thought process going into this. Hope that makes sense to read.
2 - Enslavement or Death
8mm to the Left: A World Without Hitler
"The Weimar Republic was always a stepping-stone to something greater. After the fall of the Empire, Germany was a nation in flux, trying to find its feet. It did, eventually, but it was not an easy struggle, and it did not leave us unscarred." - Chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl (Fatherland Day Parade, Weimar, 1988)
Enslavement or Death
Men of Germany, Stand Up Against the Tyranny of the Young Plan!
Loyal men of Germany, hear the suffering of Volk and Fatherland! Our traitorous government, the same cowardly forces which in 1918 ensured our defeat with a vicious stab-in-the-back, have once again conspired to oppress and chain the people of the Reich!
The Young Plan is not the economic salvation that is promised! It is a trick, a deception by the Jews and Communists who seek to further restrain the might of our great nation! This plan will see your sons and grandsons shackled to debt, our mighty industry throttled, our very spirit enslaved!
There can be no compromise with the forces of France and Britain while Versailles remains! The combined might of the most powerful empires in the world could not defeat our mighty army, so instead they use trickery and deception to deny us our rightful place in the sun!
Refuse the Young Plan and deny Versailles! Join the DNVP and vote!
DNVP poster circa 1922
(https://www.marchivum.de/de/blog/stadtgeschichte-134)
“Have you seen this nonsense?” von Lettow-Vorbeck waved the pamphlet in the air. “This was pushed through my mailbox yesterday morning. Who does that fool Hugenberg think he is?”
Von Tirpitz nodded, tugging at his bushy beard. “I received one as well. Hugenberg fancies himself something of a national revolutionist, I think.”
Following the revelation of von Tirpitz’s recommendation, von Lettow-Vorbeck had made an effort to build ties with the older man, hoping to both better understand the reasoning for his actions as well as a simple curiousity about the admiral, given their rare interactions in the days of the old empire. To his pleasant surprise, von Lettow-Vorbeck had found that the two of them shared a great deal in common, both ideologically as well as practically, despite the twenty-year age gap. It was those shared interests which had brought them together for breakfast this fine morning. While both were full members of the DNVP, von Tirpitz even taking up various representative roles for the party in the Reichstag, both had become increasingly disillusioned with its leader, Alfred Hugenberg, who had taken control following the party’s abysmal performance in the 1928 elections. Hugenberg was brash, tactless, loud-mouthed, and had seemingly no respect for the traditions which he claimed to be so important. Most offensive of all was simply how foolish the man was. Even true monarchists like von Lettow-Vorbeck himself understood the realities of the German Reich. Never again would a lone Kaiser dictate the future of the entire nation, that was abundantly clear. But rather than offer compromise, a constitutional monarchy or something similar, Hugenberg had doubled-down, demanding the return of none other than Kaiser Wilhelm II and a reclamation of the lands from Alsace-Lorraine to Memel. Von Lettow-Vorbeck wished to say that he was surprised at the man’s audacity but that would be a lie.
“Do you believe he will succeed?” the Lion of Africa queried.
Von Tirpitz scoffed. “Certainly not. It is a pity that this plan was left to the hands of one so ill-suited for leadership. On paper it is not a terrible idea.”
The date was stamped onto the back of the page: 22 of December. A referendum to forcibly undo the Young Plan and set Germany on a path of direct opposition to Versailles. Not inherently a terrible idea, if one were to ask von Lettow-Vorbeck, but poorly-planned. Such flagrant action stood against the cornerstone of Bismarckian politics which had been drilled into his head while growing up, warning him to never rock the boat unless he had first made friends with the waves. Hugenberg would lose, and his loss might very well shatter the DNVP. A shameful loss, really.
“Will you stay with the party?”
“What other option is there? My Protestant forefathers would weep were I to join the Catholic Zentrum.”
“Perhaps von Hindenburg’s example is best. All this muck with parties has fractured the Right and let fools like Hugenberg grab more power than he should be capable of.” It was an idea which von Lettow-Vorbeck had been considering for a while. He had grown increasingly disillusioned with the DNVP and a clean break at this point would ensure his separation from the scandal which this ridiculous referendum would inevitably amount to. Of course, it was a bold assumption to plan for a Presidency when he had only spoken with his “sponsors” a handful of times, but even beyond that… he was tired. He had spoken with his wife about the possibility of leaving Germany if the candidacy fell through. Perhaps moving to Great Britain, or even returning to his old stomping grounds in East Africa. If he could convince his wife, that was.
“Following in the steps of Bismarck,” von Tirpitz said with a laugh. “One wonders what Germany will look like once all us old Prussians are gone.”
“There will be Prussians as long as there are Germans. There is no Germany without Prussia.”
Von Tirpitz leaned forward. “Promise me one thing?”
“It depends on what it is.”
“Don’t let the SPD touch my navy.”
They both laughed.
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck was no politician, but he was a tactician, and, at least in his personal opinion, the latter was a far more useful skill than the former. Even more valuably, he understood how people worked, their dreams and ambitions, far better than many of the men who sat in the Reichstag and made the grand decisions. He might not have been of working-class background, but he was no out-of-touch noble, either, and he already knew that topics such as the Polish Corridor and the reconquest of the African colonies were as irrelevant as conquest of the Moon if the German people did not have jobs and full bellies.
Though he made no intentional changes to his life in the weeks and months following the conversation with Oskar von Hindenburg and new openness to political involvement, aware that it was merely an expression of interest and not a promise, von Lettow-Vorbeck nevertheless became more aware of the political atmosphere of the Reich and found himself reading political papers which only the year before would have been passed over without a thought. He found himself learning more about the topics up for debate and could confidently say that he knew more about the status of farmers in north-west Germany than he ever had before. Not that that was saying much.
It was through this greater political awareness that he first heard of a series of talks taking place in mid-1929 on the status of the reparations demanded of Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. Back in 1924 the Dawes Plan had reduced the size of German reparations and extended their payment to allow the German economy to recover and begin producing enough viable currency to actually pay. Now, led by an American named Owen Young, a plan was being drawn up for further reconstruction of the debt, reducing and extending the payment to allow greater breathing room for the German economy. It was being hailed as the salvation of the German economy, albeit still a bitter bill given its proof that the Weimar system had been failing to correct its own problems.
Well, by some. Quite a few, especially those within the Right, were wholly opposed to the so-called “Young Plan”, seeing it as an affirmation of German guilt in the Great War and a millstone to punish sons and grandsons decades after. To men like Hugenberg, cooperation with the likes of France and Britain would only be possible following a complete abandonment of the reparations, the return of Alsace-Lorraine and their colonies, and an assumption of guilt by the victorious Entente powers, regardless of how ludicrously unrealistic such an expectation was.
This was just at the most extreme end of the spectrum, of course. For the majority it seemed that this deal was the salvation of Germany. Everyone from rural farmers to mega-industrialists supported a freer economy in which to sell their goods, and despite two generations of bad blood with the French, greater cooperation and larger markets didn’t sound half-bad.
Von Lettow-Vorbeck personally had no great care for the subject one way or another. He had no love for the French, but also knew that Germany did not exist in a vacuum, and that, while she might one day regain her status as a premier world power, it would take many years and a great deal of concessions to her former foes before Berlin once more guided the fate of Europe. No, the Young Plan was, at worst, a stumbling block, and not a particularly large one at that.
And yet…
Von Lettow-Vorbeck put down his copy of the Berliner Börsenzeitung and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his jaw with one hand. The Young Plan was scheduled to be signed in roughly four months, at the start of 1930. Hugenberg and the DNVP had already made it abundantly clear that they would be opposing the signing of the document at every step of the way, and the protests and general unlawfulness had only increased as the conference drew to a close. Von Lettow-Vorbeck had yet to end his party status and still received Hugenberg’s bulletins in the mail, and the stirrings of his plan were already there. By hook or by crook, he and his posse were going to try and kill the Young Plan before it could even begin. They would fail, of course, but this failure could be an opportunity.
“Martha,” he spoke aloud, drawing the attention of his wife, currently observing their three young children through the large window of the sitting room. Their youngest, Ursula, was taking a nap upstairs, and her elder siblings had been sent outside to play for being too rowdy and nearly waking their sister. “Have you by any chance heard anything from your friends in regards to this economic treaty that is going to be signed soon?”
Martha von Lettow-Vorbeck was fourteen years younger than her husband but many years his superior in shrewdity, as he often said. She had taken to being the wife of a prominent military figure like a fish to water, and in the years since had built herself a healthy network of prestigious friends. The fact that she had maintained this network even while spending much of the year in a city like Bremen said all that was needed about her social skills. “The Young Plan?” she clarified, crossing to the couch opposite him. “I’d wager that many-a-husband is spending his night on the couch because of it.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Fights like you wouldn’t imagine,” Martha explained as she began working her hair out of the long braid she wore for sleeping. “Franz von Richter broke Uwe zu Eltz’s nose just for calling the plan a good idea. According to my sister in Stettin, some towns in Pomerania are so pro-DNVP that they have banned all newspapers which call it anything other than a heinous betrayal.” She grabbed a brush from the short table and began brushing out the knots in her hair. “According to several sources, the Krupps had to take a sudden trip to Westerland when one of their factories was burned down by Hugenberg stooges.”
Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s eyebrows shot up. “I didn’t read about that in the paper,” he said, surprised. The Krupps were one of, if not the richest and most powerful industrialists in all of Germany.
His wife shot him a teasing grin. “You never asked.”
“How long have you been waiting for me to bring this up with you?” he queried with a sigh.
“Oh, a week or two. I knew you’d get there in the end, darling, you always do.” He couldn’t see her face because of the angle of her brushing but he knew she was grinning at his expense.
He rolled his eyes but he was smiling. “I’m sure you have an opinion on the matter.”
“Oh, that would be positively unladylike of me,” Martha declared, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Women know nothing about these matters, don’t you know? For example, there is no way that a woman could deduce that the Krupps supporting the Young Plan means that all the other major industrialists will as well, even if just to keep them happy. Nor could a woman possibly understand the mind of a hard-working citizen who sees this as a chance to begin selling his goods once more, albeit to the French."
Von Lettow-Vorbeck bowed to his wife in agreement. "Indeed, such a thing would be impossible from a woman." He didn’t bother to hide the twist of his lips at the joke. “And surely a woman would have nothing to say on the best way to approach such a matter, no?”
“Obviously not.” An exaggerated sniff. “Clearly only a man could think of something as obvious as publicly supporting the current regime, knowing that, when this attempt inevitably fails, he would appear all-the-more trustworthy.”
He pushed himself to his feet and gave a theatrical bow. “Then I salute your womanhood, Your Ladyship.”
His wife nodded primly. “As you should.” She held a prim expression for roughly five more seconds before her expression cracked and a grin leapt to her features. “I’ll make a politician of you yet, husband of mine.”
Von Lettow-Vorbeck let out the laughter he’d been holding in during the display, pulling Martha to her feet to embrace her closely. “If there was any justice in the world, it would be you who becomes President.”
“Alas, the world, or at least Germany, is not yet ready for a woman’s rule,” she declared sarcastically. “Victoria conquered half the world and she was only part-German; imagine what I could do with it.”
He laughed and spun her off her feet, digging a hand into her freshly-brushed her and kissing her deeply.
The smack he got for mussing her hair was entirely worth it.
Paul and Martha von Lettow-Vorbeck
(https://wkgeschichte.weser-kurier.de/zum-tee-beim-general/)
As predicted by dozens of politicians, the 1929 referendum on dissolving the Young Plan (referred to officially as the Freedom Act) was an unmitigated disaster for the DNVP. While they earned overwhelming popularity with the voters which showed up, those voters were a scant 11% of the eligible population, nowhere near the threshold required to force such a law through.
As with many such debates, the role of von Lettow-Vorbeck in stifling this referendum is exaggerated by historians affiliated with his actions post-1929. The simple truth is that the Young Plan, a restructuring of Germany's Great War reparations to alleviate the stress of the economy, was popular with the common folk. It promised greater foreign aid, a lessening of the debt chokehold, and greater economic freedom for the nation as a whole. In classic human fashion it somewhat ignored the effect on future generations, though it is also up for debate whether the continuation of the lessened reparations until 1988 (as the Plan called for) was ever believed to be realistic or enforceable. It was mainly just the extremists and landed nobility in the East who supported Hugenberg’s ploy, and far from all; for many, the chance to reignite their export market and rebuild their assets in the Rhineland was worth a bit of reshuffling.
However, it is also undeniable that Lettow-Vorbeck did play a role in the events surrounding it. His history with the DNVP was one of the points inspiring reluctance in his candidacy from Oskar von Hindenburg and his conspirators, and breaking from the party was always a prerequisite, so, a week before the referendum was held, von Lettow-Vorbeck decided to turn the oncoming failure into a personal boon.
Alfred Hugenberg was one of the most significant media tycoons of the 1920’s and it was this backing which had kept the increasingly-underfunded DNVP in the black. He furiously pushed his monarchist, pan-Germanist, authoritarian view via newspapers and magazines and relied heavily on the participation of important names from the Great War to paint himself as the curator of the legacy of the German Right. He had approached von Lettow-Vorbeck once or twice already in the interest of greater reader interest, to no avail, but it had left its mark on the veteran and a growing understanding of this new world created by the medium of “Mass Media” and how that medium was becoming a driving force in politics. To that end he reached out to one of Hugenberg’s largest competitors, the Frankfurter Zeitung out of Frankfurt, and offered an interview. The newspaper was decidedly liberal for his tastes, but von Lettow-Vorbeck also knew that it was well-read by moderates from both sides of the aisle. It wasn’t difficult for the war hero to arrange a meeting.
The ensuing interview was titled “Hero of the Great War Defends Republic”, a telling sign of the article’s contents. It wasn’t technically anti-Hugenberg, which is how the publisher avoided a libel lawsuit, but it was no secret as to what it referred, with phrases such as “radicals subverting the German state” and “a betrayal of the men who died in the Great War”. In another subversion of modern perception, the interview was far from a world-shaking exposition akin to the Savoy Affair which toppled the British government in the 1970’s.
Modern loyalists of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s policies claim that this interview single-handedly stopped the rise of Hugenberg and the transformation of Germany into a Fascist state, despite evidence to the contrary being abundant. It was well-read, certainly, but with a readership skewing towards the intellectual and liberal, the words of a colonial general did not hold the weight which they would’ve in a Conservative paper. (Of course, publication in a Conservative paper would have been impossible regardless given Hugenberg’s stranglehold on media in the Weimar Republic, hence the choice to publish in a Frankfurt newspaper at all.) Interviews with readers conducted years later reveal that many readers had either skimmed the article without retaining its contents or had seen through the words to the politicking brewing underneath and had dismissed it on principle.
None of that is to say that the fallout of the article was not dramatic. The article was released two days before the vote and would become Hugenberg’s obsession in the years after, pinning the entirety of the vote’s failure on the betrayal of a party member. Von Lettow-Vorbeck, for his part, defended this act with his official departure from the DNVP submitted the day before the article publishing, thereby, at least on paper, absolving him from the rules forbidding party members from giving interviews to media not connected to the party. It was a grey area which would be debated by publishing lawyers for several years, but which is not relevant to the events which followed.
This betrayal, real or imagined, would create a rift between Hugenberg and von Lettow-Vorbeck which would persist until the end of Hugenberg’s life, and which would have a profound impact on the DNVP and Far-Rightism in Germany as a whole.
The DNVP had always been dominated by two factions-–the Junkers and the Far-Right. Though there was some overlap, these two sides generally had different goals and methods. The Junker faction (named for the Junkers, the landed nobility in Prussia and the East) was composed of the super-rich, the nobility, and the East-Elbian landowners whose political ideology favoured greater Capitalism and anti-Communism, restoration of the Kaiser and other nobility, lower government oversight, and of course greater political power ceded to landowners relative to the workers. The Far-Right were not necessarily monarchists; rather, they favoured a system akin to that in Italy, wherein a powerful and forceful leader led a society based around cultural and national superiority with a focus on industrial development and territorial expansionism. A monarch was acceptable as a symbol of culture and history, but true power was to be reserved in the hands of one who would wield it effectively. Both of these groups agreed with the necessity of the Republic falling, but disagreed on the system which would follow it.
Von Lettow-Vorbeck’s opposition to the DNVP would lead Hugenberg to skew deeper into the Far-Right and broaden the rift between the two sides of the party, eventually culminating in the 1930 splitting-off of the new KCVP, or Konservative Christliche Volkspartei (Conservative Christian People’s Party), taking with it the majority of the Junker-class as well as many of those who simply disapproved of the Zentrum for one reason or another. The KCVP would continue many of the pre-Hugenberg policies of the DNVP and would coalesce around the figures of von Hindenburg and later von Lettow-Vorbeck as protectors of “classical Conservatism”. Though the party would be largely side-lined by the major parties for the next few years, the KCVP would eventually find its niche, in large part due to its continuous support for von Lettow-Vorbeck.
In the short-term, von Lettow-Vorbeck had earned an enemy, and the long following years would see the DNVP evolve into an ever-more-extreme opponent of von Hindenburg and later von Lettow-Vorbeck himself. Following Hugenberg’s resignation in 1936, his successor would officially drop support for monarchism and begin advocating for a dictatorship along Italian lines.
In the long-term, 1930 would become the year when von Lettow-Vorbeck would enter the public consciousness as a potential replacement for the ageing von Hindenburg. It also backed President von Hindenburg’s Kamarilla (a Spanish term for the small group of advisors surrounding a ruler, in this case referring to the group of men surrounding President von Hindenburg), in particular Oskar von Hindenburg and Kurt von Schleicher, the initial advocates of von Lettow-Vorbeck, into somewhat of a corner. Up until this point, the group had sought to keep their options open, and in fact were in the process of tapping either the Zentrum member Franz von Papen or even one of their own for the role. It is strongly assumed by most that, had the publication not occurred, the Kamarilla would have put forth one of their own as von Hidenburg’s successor. It is likewise assumed with near-unanimity that such an attempt would have doomed their ploy for power before it had even begun.
With the benefit of hindsight, Germans the world over would build a mythos which redefined every turn of von Lettow-Vorbeck’s road into a grand conquest towards a future goal, but it was the little events, the surprises and spontaneous decisions, which decided his path. In another lifetime he could have settled for general, world traveller, or gifted polyglot. Instead, he would settle for nothing less than Saviour of the German People.
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shut up and take my like, damnit!
Also, savoy crisis? methinks France is not going to have a good time in this timeline...
Savoy Affair - from the name, i don't get the feeling it's some kind of territorial dispute (some kind of British Watergate, maybe?) and in any case, it's way out in the future.
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There was actually depressingly little information to find on Maria von Lettow-Vorbeck aside from her age and how many kids she had, so I decided to take the chance to 1) Make it a relationship of love, and 2) Make her a savvy networker underestimated for her gender. After all, why the hell not?
You see right through me. It is a throwaway for something that may or may not be relevant in the story (I had planned for this to continue, at max, until 1980) and which isn't any kind of grand event.
Hint: The Savoy is a very famous 5-Star hotel in London. You aren't far off with your Watergate comparison.
How much of a role would the KPD be playing in future events here? I imagine that outside of a radicalized DNVP, the KPD would be the biggest threat to von Lettow-Vorbeck going forward.
Oh definitely, they will oppose him from every angle. The big issue that the KPD has is that they oppose EVERYONE, even the SPD. The rhetoric being pushed by Stalin (and the KPD was fiercely Stalinist) was to oppose Social Democracy as "Social Fascism".
The SPD is still the dominant force in the Reichstag, followed by the KPD and Zentrum.
One thing which IS solidified by this new loathing coming from DNVP is that von Lettow-Vorbeck can no longer rely on the extreme Right like Hitler did. I felt that the splitting of that group into the Junkers and the pseudo-Fascists was important to weaken the latter. Von Lettow-Vorbeck is absolutely no fan of liberalism, but he also finds the idea of ripping up society to create a New World Order fully abhorrent.
ah, the old "I did not have sexual relations with that woman?" killer?