https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryWhatIf/comments/1ijh0by/what_if_hitler_was_never_born/
created by ScorpionGold7 on 06/02/2025 at 23:37 UTC
37 upvotes, 34 top-level comments (showing 25)
Had Hitler never have been born, do you think a Second World War would’ve still been inevitable in the time period it took place in? Do you still think The Nazi Party would’ve been able to come to power under a different leader? Do you think it may have been a different party in Germany? Or do you think that maybe Germany might not’ve been the main aggressor at all?
Who would the allies have fought against if you still think a war was likely? A German Nazi Party with a different leader? Communist Germany? Mussolini’s Italy? Stalin’s USSR? Hirohito’s Japan?
Comment by FGSM219 at 06/02/2025 at 23:54 UTC
35 upvotes, 3 direct replies
WWI was responsible for "creating" Hitler, or more, specifically, for enabling the conditions that allowed him to become a political actor. WWI led directly to the Russian and German Revolutions, to Communism as a realistic political project and then Fascism as a reaction, to the fatal weakening of British power and the rise of both Chinese and Indian nationalism etc.
The rise of mass politics was bound to influence Germany. The problem with Germany was that aggressive, racial nationalism was the only thing that could achieve unity in the age of mass politics, because Germans were almost evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants. Furthermore, the German Empire had this weird semi-democratic and semi-authoritarian system that was a recipe for disaster.
Comment by gregmcph at 06/02/2025 at 23:49 UTC
14 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Adolf put order and energy into Drexler's Workers Party. Without Adolf, it might have just remained a bunch of angry ex soldiers venting grievances.
Comment by Fluid-Safety-1536 at 06/02/2025 at 23:45 UTC
22 upvotes, 2 direct replies
The more I learn about that Hitler fellow the more I don't care for him.
Comment by MadGobot at 07/02/2025 at 00:08 UTC*
7 upvotes, 1 direct replies
The second world war was inevitable before the ink dried on the treaty of Versailles. We often forget that Nazis weren't really all that unique, and their opponents such as the KDP were just as prone to use violence as they were. There were a number of smaller nationalist parties in other parts of Germany. Either the KDP or one of those would have eventually taken power and war would be the result. If it were the KDP it might have been Stalin in charge, with Germany as a junior partner, but still it would have erupted.
Now, the precise timing of the second world war, specifics such as whether the Soviets and Germans would have teamed up and whether Germany would have broken that agreement aren't certain, it could change the outcome. But that a war would occur, well Germany was probably not ready for democracy.
Comment by badhairdad1 at 06/02/2025 at 23:47 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The situation created the man. Any other Hitler would have sufficed
Comment by notcomplainingmuch at 07/02/2025 at 01:53 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Answer part 1:
Probably not. He was pretty unique in the way he mesmerized crowds, speaking from his heart. He really really really hated Jews and Communists, and it showed.
There weren't really any others like him within the Nazi ranks. Ludendorff was too detached and impopular, Göring and Himmler top followers but not leaders etc. Without a charismatic leader, the Nazi party would never have grown past its minuscule beginnings.
Comment by Deep_Belt8304 at 06/02/2025 at 23:57 UTC*
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The Hitler salute would instead mean "my heart goes out to you" and people would do it everyday
Comment by Randvek at 07/02/2025 at 01:11 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I think WW2 was inevitable and I think the rise of right wing extremism in Germany was inevitable, but it didn’t need to be the Nazis and it didn’t need to be genocidal. If not for Hitler, we probably would have seen Hugenburg take on a similar role, but with perhaps more pro-Prussia sentiment rather than anti-Jewish. This Germany starts WW2 looking to regain lost possessions, rather than conquest, imho.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/02/2025 at 23:39 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Professional_Elk_893 at 07/02/2025 at 00:08 UTC*
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Not easy to answer. You have the treaty of Versailles which lost Germany a significant amount of land which led a ton of ethnic Germans having to reside in neighboring countries such as Austria, Czechoslovakia, Baltic, Poland, etc, including Germany having to pay massive reparations which came at a great expense. They were also demilitarized to an extent. Then you have the Great Depression which followed after the booming 20s (which only boomed because of borrowed loans from the U.S. which gave people false hope), leading to impoverishment, starvation, unemployment, etc. people were famished and done. The Weimar Republic wasn’t cutting it, and if Hitler hadn’t been born, then literally anyone else would have taken his place given the aforesaid circumstances (perhaps not to such great extents because of hitlers oratory skills) because all in all, hitlers stance wasn’t totally unique at the time, especially not in Europe. If he hadn’t been born, then most likely the neighboring European counties wouldn’t have been annexed/invaded, and there wouldn’t have been a WW2, PROBABLY, unless the person that would’ve other wise replaced him so happened to be as patriotic as him.
Comment by SnooStories251 at 07/02/2025 at 00:42 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It would have changed history, but it does not change that the Germans was tired of the state of their nation.
Comment by TSBDGaming69S_420 at 07/02/2025 at 00:52 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If Hitler was never born, we wouldn’t have ever learned from the mistakes of WWII, at least in Europe. The US, where I’m from, nah, we don’t learn for shit. Largely wouldn’t affect the US either way in that regard unfortunately
Comment by notcomplainingmuch at 07/02/2025 at 01:54 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Answer part 2:
What would have happened (short version):
There would have been a communist uprising in Germany in the 1920s or early 1930s, with a nationalist front united against them. Very much like Spain. There could have been a civil war, but the Communists would eventually lose. Britain, France and Italy would support the nationalist movement in some way, to avoid a communist takeover. Germany would get back the Rheinland as a token of support. An authoritarian government would lead Germany in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Spain would remain divided between the strictly nationalist south and the socialist north. The civil war would remain undecided as Stalin and Mussolini would increase their help to both sides. Eventually, the Spanish population would be exhausted by war and decide to end it with pacifist support and guarantees from Britain, France and the US. Increasingly hard-line Communists in the north would isolate the region from neighbouring countries, forming a Stalinist puppet regime.
WW2 would start as Stalin would seek to establish similar puppets in neighbouring countries, having failed in Germany but succeeded in Spain. The Soviet Union threatening and attacking Finland would start the war in 1939, with subsequent attacks into Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Fighting would also erupt on the Polish border.
With other countries supporting and joining in, it would be fought by Britain, France, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, the Baltic states, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania etc against the Soviet Union. After initial gains, the "surprise" attack by the Soviet army would be halted and turned in Finland, Poland and Romania / Ukraine. French, British and Italian troops would also land in Crimea, capturing Sevastopol after a lengthy siege. The Baltic states would be occupied for a time, but eventually freed in a counter-invasion by British, French and Italian troops supported by German volunteers and mercenaries. Belarus would be captured by Polish troops, and Ukraine would declare independence, fighting against Soviet troops.
Comment by notcomplainingmuch at 07/02/2025 at 01:56 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Answer part 3:
Social Democrats would distance themselves from Bolshevism. Oswald Mosley and other fascist leaders would gain popularity, but remain outside government positions, unlike Mussolini. The movement would not grow, as their main objective of fighting communism would be fulfilled by the government anyway.
Japan would join in, attacking a weakened Siberia in 1941.
The Soviet Union would eventually lose after their attacks on neighbouring countries were exhausted and very determined enemies would fight tenaciously. Finland, with ample supplies and weapons from Western powers ( Italian and British airplanes, French tanks, lots of ammunition and artillery) would break through in the north and capture Murmansk and Archangelsk. Japan would capture the Soviet Far East up to Lake Baikal.
The war being a costly failure, and with hundreds of thousands of soldiers dead, desperate uprisings against an increasingly genocidal Stalin would eventually turn the entire population against him, leading to him being deposed and killed in a ditch by his own soldiers.
A decimated Russian state would lose control over the Soviet Union, which would split along ethnic lines.
The US would never get involved, and would gain much economical but not so much political power from supplying Western European powers.
A massive influx of Communists fleeing former Soviet republics into China would set off a civil war there. Japan, seeing an opportunity (and rejoining the League of Nations), would make a truce with Chinese nationalists and jointly fight the Communists, seen as a much bigger threat by all parties.
Resources would not be an issue for Japan as the US, Dutch and British colonies would supply all the oil they needed in the fight.
Eventually, the victorious alliance would agree to a truce with the new, nationalist provisional government of a much smaller, but still quite large Russia.
Comment by notcomplainingmuch at 07/02/2025 at 01:57 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Answe part 4:
The big winners would be:
1. the Greater Empire of Japan, encompassing areas east of the Irkutsk/Yakutsk line, Manchuria, Korea and Poland, with de facto control of northern China from Jingzhou to Mongolia as well as the eastern Chinese Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui and Shandong prefectures, as part of their agreement with China's nationalist government. The Japanese navy, larger and more modern than the US and British navies would be unbeaten in any battle and aggressively protective of the new mainland coastline. The army, having lost a lot of manpower, but ultimately victorious, would rival the navy in controlling the authoritarian government of the Glorious Eternal Emperor, Hirohito.
2.Poland, having taken over the entirety of Belarus and controlling nortwestern Ukraine would see the greatest Polish nation since the middle ages. Generals of Polish tank divisions would write books after the war on their successful wojna błyskawiczna tactics, or "lightning war", which completely outmanoeuvred much bigger Soviet troop concentrations. A nationalist "polification" process would begin in the newly acquired regions, combined with the joint "De-bolshevification" of all former Soviet areas.
3. Finland, now controlling double its former area, resembling a fat Moomin in shape, and receiving reparations for the unlawful initial Soviet attack on the peace-loving Finnish people, would quickly move in to industrialise and develop the backward Eastern Carelia and Kuola peninsula. Massive deposits of nickel and uranium would make Finland a leading exporter of strategic minerals. Taking control of the Arctic seaports and Mannerheim Island (former Novaja Zemlja) and the far north Jooseppi (Franz Josef Land) archipelago, Finland becomes the leading nation in Arctic fisheries and mining. As a token of gratitude to the support from Sweden during the war, and the volunteer Swedish army, the Åland archipelago is given to Sweden as an perpetually autonomous area. Two years later, Sweden dissolves the local government and incorporates the area fully into the kingdom. The League of Nations is outraged, and a resistance movement starts in the islands, continuing a terror campaign until today.
4. Italy, UK and France retain their colonial empires, expanded somewhat by the remaining independent countries like Ethiopia, Persia, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and Thailand, respectively. The League of Nations stays quiet. Conservative, authoritarian and fascist governments stay in power, ensuring that the communist threat is eradicated, and local independence movements are brutally suppressed. Great prosperity flows to the colonial powers. Tensions increase with Japan and the US.
5. Ukraine and other former Soviet republics would quickly turn nationalist, anti-communist and authoritarian.
6. Without support from the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Valencia and Aragon (commonly known as North Spain) becomes completely isolated and extreme in its interpretation of the locally grown "Meu cami" philosophy, enslaving the entire population to serve the Great Leader and the defence of the nation. Poverty and starvation become commonplace, but the strict control makes it difficult to escape to France or its main enemy, Spain, commonly referred to as South Spain.
Eventually, after decades of mismanagement and dictatorship, the regime just collapses. Forces from the much richer south and French troops from the north cross the heavily mined border and join up, meeting no resistance. The final communist regime in the world has ceased to be. The Great Leader is found dead in his palace, his body untouched and wearing a silk pyjamas, having choked on an olive.
Comment by recoveringleft at 07/02/2025 at 01:59 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Read the book making history. In this story Hitler was not born but was instead replaced by a man named Rudolf Gloder who is more cunning and patient and unlike Hitler actually succeeded in winning ww2. While Gloder is fictional, I'd imagine some unknown person who is lost to history who would take Hitler's place
Comment by GustavoistSoldier at 07/02/2025 at 02:13 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Franz von Papen would become dictator of Germany instead
Comment by boulevardofdef at 07/02/2025 at 02:13 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
A lot of people think the rise of a right-wing dictatorship in Germany looking to avenge the losses of World War I was inevitable, but it probably wouldn't have been the Nazis specifically. They rose to power purely on Hitler's charisma. Hitler quit the party early on and the leaders agreed not only to put him in charge but to give him absolute power in exchange for coming back, because they knew they had no chance to achieve anything without him.
Comment by Silver_Most_916 at 07/02/2025 at 02:03 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
A good question. One of the biggest questions in history is the interplay between individuals and the contexts of the times. Who knows? It's fun to ponder the questions.
Comment by InspectionPale8561 at 07/02/2025 at 02:08 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Everything after World War One would have been different. There would have been no holocaust. I believe no Second World War either.
No Nazi party either. The lunatics who made up the Nazi Party would not have risen to power and would have either ended up in prison, asylums, or would have died with the world having never heard of them.
Comment by Inside-External-8649 at 07/02/2025 at 02:12 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
We’d still see the rise of fascism, although I don’t think it would’ve been genocidal. However, Hitler was obvious some emotional irrational man, so it’s hard to tell if this alternate leader would’ve been smarter and won WW2.
Comment by EquivalentArticle264 at 07/02/2025 at 03:46 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
To cut it short, nothing, ww1 created hitler along with his upbringing and there's no shortage of mistreated youth especially back then so they'd be another hitler with some differences likely, but if ww2 never happened to also cut that short we'd probably be a few decades behind on technology and the world would be more divided
Comment by 106street at 07/02/2025 at 03:56 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Better so if he never changed his name from Schickelgruber, no one would have followed him
Comment by reenactment at 07/02/2025 at 04:32 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
There’s a few things that are often overlooked because of the results of ww2 and America/russia becoming the new big combatants. WW2 was inevitable. Europe had a 500/1000 year problemz too many borders, too much jealousy, jockeying for power in the region. That didn’t stop until the US ended its isolationism and created the nuke and all of its naval dominance. People can hate on the USA all they want. But ww2 was happening whether it’s the 1930s-40s like it did, or it would eventually in the 50s. Stalin would have pushed it as well. The only thing that has stopped global war has been the realization that imperialism isn’t the proper method. But Europe did not prescient that back then. So if Hitler was never born, yes WW2 would have happened, but would have happened under different circumstances.
Let’s also not forget that Japan was at war with china 2 years before Germany/russia invade Poland. The ball was rolling.
Comment by Oddbeme4u at 07/02/2025 at 04:36 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
the german people were a domestic abuse victim having gone thru a defeat, communist coups, and a great depression.
and they were still partial to a monarchy. some hitler would have emerged.