Fourteen or fifteen years ago, Steve Jackson Games put out an open call for Who’s Who 2: More of Histories Most Intriguing Characters. The concept of the supplement was to provide background information for time-traveling campaigns, but what they were looking for with the open call were 200-400 word entries that could be dropped into the sidebar as “Who Might Have Been? A Who’s Who of Those Who Never Lived”. In other words, short bios of notable people from alternate histories.
My entries didn’t make the cut, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for ’em. So I present them here for what passes as posterity…
The year is 1932. Germany’s government is being crippled by debts incurred from the Versailles Treaty. The people, starving and unable to find food, turn desperately to a populist leader who can give them someone, anyone to blame. In a startling uprising at the polls they elect this leader, and his party, in an unprecedented landslide. Within a few short weeks this charismatic, influential man has solidified his grip on the center of German political power. The world pauses and catches its breath, waiting to see what course of action this man will take. His name is… Hans Adolpho.
Adolpho was born in 1899. He fought in the Great War and was sickened by the violence and death he saw all around him. After the war he travelled to Austria and then Italy, returning to Germany in 1925. There he joined the Einheit Party (German for Unity) and quickly rose through the ranks. His political message was simple: The German people should look to themselves for where the blame lay in their plight. Only by coming together in unity could they hope to save themselves. In 1932 he was elected Chancellor.
In 1935 he peacefully reunited Germany and Austria, forming the United Austro-German States. Using threat tactics in the Rhineland he succeeded in breaking the debt burdens imposed by the Versailles Treaty, then withdrew the troops and busied himself with rebuilding Germany. By 1941, when the Japanese attacked America at Pearl Harbor, Germany was a booming industrial economy who willingly assisted America in defeating Japan by early 1943. Adolpho’s last action before leaving office in 1952 (he was re-elected to the national office half a dozen times) was to form the Allied Force of the Springtime Invasion of Stalinist Russia, wiping Communism off the map by the end of the year.
Oh, to have lived in such a world…
Nice work. I love little alternate histories like this. Clever bite-sized nuggets of well-written prose that I can gobble up like candy. Nom nom nom. I wish that someone like that had existed in our world, that we might have been better off for it.
My only qualm is the slight implausibility of Hans’ political platform. Not to get into politics, but is it realistic to think that Germans in the 1930s were willing to accept blame for their situation? I think the rise of the Nazis in our world suggests strongly that they wanted a scapegoat so badly that they were willing to put up with an otherwise poor leadership. Hans would have to have been very charismatic to make his people swallow such a bitter pill.
It’s always the interesting question with alternate history: Did Adolf end up in power because the Germans wanted a genocidal megalomaniac? Or did Adolf end up in power because he had a strong message and was able to deliver it as one of the most effective political speakers in history at a time when the German people wanted surety?
The conceit I’m drawing on here is that what the German people really wanted was someone who would give a big middle-finger to the rest of Europe while making Germany feel proud of itself again. Painting the Jews as scapegoats was one way of doing that; but maybe saying “Germany would be great again if we put aside our feudal history of factionalism and united as a single people” might be another.
Is that plausible? I don’t know. Being able to look at it only in broad strokes certainly affords me the luxury of ignoring the actual political machinations necessary for anyone to form a legitimate government in Germany between 1930 and 1932. (A Gordian knot which Hitler solved by simply seizing power and abolishing democracy.)
It’s also another way of looking at the eternal AH question of, “What if Hitler had just, ya know, not invaded France?” And instead consolidated his gains. This inherently overlooks and simplifies the economic necessity that drove Hitler’s expansionist policies in 1939, but is an interesting question to ask in terms of what the balance of power in Europe would have looked like in the mid-20th century. (And the effect this would have had on the Cold War; assuming the Cold War happens at all under those circumstances.)
Speaking of which: I actually find the assertion of a ’52 invasion of Russia slightly more implausible, even if we assume that the lack of a world war delays the development of atomic weaponry. I almost cut that bit when I posted, but I think it’s generally healthier to allow my youthful voice to speak whatever it was speaking back then.
Maybe, maybe not. I’ve heard said a couple of times that the Manhattan Project was the greatest industrial project the United States have ever made. Jumping to wikipedia I find that it employed 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (24.4 billion 2012 dollars).
It might be that the US would not have been willing to make that investment, if it were not for WW2. And the soviets stole the research from the Americans. If the soviets weren’t threatened by the American’s bomb, and hadn’t ended up with an effective military due to WW2, they might not even have been interested in trying to develop it themselves. Even if they were tested a time or two on obscure American test sites.
Or maybe not. That’s the thing with alternate history.