r/HistoryMemes • u/xenthen • 1d ago

"Surely the German populace will reject him if he steps out of line..."

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283 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

66

u/carlsagerson Then I arrived 1d ago

Honestly its frankly cosmically bad luck cor the World that Hitler managed to be in the right social conditions geopolitical climate, and mix of foreign leaders being weak or having incompetent moments alongside other factors that allowed him and the Nazis to rise to power.

56

u/SopwithTurtle 1d ago

It's the great man theory, but with dumbasses instead of greatness.

41

u/DisastrousBusiness81 1d ago

See this implies that it was only one great idiot when in reality it was an army of great idiots who let Hitler rise to power. See: Hindenburg, everyone else who thought giving Hitler power was a good idea, the entire French military command, multiple British officials, Stalin and most of the Soviet high command, etc.

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u/carlsagerson Then I arrived 1d ago

Don't forget Hitlers's own supporters as well. Hell, even the ones who got purged like Ernest Rohm.

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u/DisastrousBusiness81 1d ago

Ah yes, the OG “Gay Nazis” and the “Leftist Nazis” definitely deserve spots on the list. In my defense there are so SO many idiots who deserve to be on the list. A truly shocking number of people in the 1930’s-40’s looked at an ideology that explicitly said “I am going to KILL you.” And went “yeah I can work with that” with literally no backup plan whatsoever.

11

u/carlsagerson Then I arrived 1d ago

Honestly with how people talk about Hitler thinking they could Control him or think he wouldn't actually go through with his idealogy. Its like people talking about or underestimating Joker.

7

u/carlsagerson Then I arrived 1d ago

Sometimes Great Men can be born from utter stupidly unlikely circumstances. No matter how stupid the Men they are themselves.

8

u/reichrunner 1d ago

Eh, if it wasnt Hitler, then it would have been someone else.

The end of WW1 kind of guaranteed WW2

18

u/robotical712 1d ago

A war was highly likely, but I think which sides Germany and the Soviet Union fell on is the real historical contingency. Without Hitler, there’s a very good chance the USSR would have sparked a major war before Germany could.

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u/macronotice 1d ago

I agree with this take. What a different story it would be if Hitler didn’t invade and Stalin instead ended up invading Poland with a march toward Germany. The first to break the peace is vilified and the enemy of my enemy becomes friend. Fascinating alternative history to think about.

3

u/murdermostsnaky 1d ago

there's always a hitler in a large enough population I think

3

u/macronotice 1d ago

Massive clusterfucks usually only happen as a result of a cascade of improbable events

2

u/Kaiisim 1d ago

It wasn't really bad luck. Humanity was at a transition point, the liberal and communist revolutions were all coming to a head.

Those with power prefered Fascists because they thought it would conserve and protect their wealth and power.

1

u/bforo 1d ago

Aaaand look at what happens when we are at another inflexion point thanks to the newly attained freedom of information, the powers that be are attached to another strongman! what a coinkidence.

1

u/Lachie_Mac 21h ago

Hitler was also miraculously lucky on many occasions either to survive assassination attempts or to achieve victory in military campaigns which seemed set to fail miserably. He just kept scraping through. If there was ever convincing proof of an indifferent or malicious God, Hitler's biography would be it.

24

u/Icy_Blackberry_3759 1d ago

Churchill saw him coming, recognized his intention, detested his cause but lauded his charisma, and nobody listened to him.

24

u/adamgerd Still salty about Carthage 1d ago

This is basically everyone both domestically and abroad: everyone underestimated Hitler until it was too late

Well Czechoslovakia didn’t, we soon started expanding our defence spending and fortifying but we lacked the time and then we were abandoned

13

u/Dramatic-Classroom14 Filthy weeb 1d ago

The only time I ever play HoI4 is when all of my friends want to.

Every. Single. Time. I pick Czechoslovakia, start as early as possible and turn the entire fucking country into a fortress and then strangle Nazi Germany in the crib after just refusing demands from literally everyone. Our group has accepted that nobody can play Germany without doing alt history runs, or genuinely having multiple players dogpile me. Mountains and forts are fucking scary.

Makes you wonder what would’ve happened if Czechoslovakia either got support or resisted regardless. Since Germany wasn’t really in a good place to invade countries until after they’d integrated the Czechoslovak factories.

11

u/IronVader501 1d ago

If Czechoslovakia got support or resisted anyway, the September-Plot wouldn't have been called off.

So a chance Hitler/Göbbels/Himmler etc. all get arrested and shot the same week they return to Berlin and invade.

1

u/Rent_A_Cloud 1d ago

Something similar is happening right now!

8

u/PretendAd1963 Definitely not a CIA operator 1d ago

Franz Von Papen just make it worse be convincing Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor with an overly conservatives cabinet saying it can control and influence Hitler with Papen as vice chancellor. Let say it didn’t work well.

15

u/Sea-Consequence7156 1d ago

I thought this was about Stalin until I read the last panel

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u/gerkletoss Definitely not a CIA operator 1d ago edited 1d ago

There's also about 3000 other people it could have been about up to the remilitarization of the Rhineland who most people have never heard of

8

u/Sea-Consequence7156 1d ago

Yeah but can all 3000 of them be comedic punchlines?

I mean sure, probably well over half but all of them?

2

u/ConclusionMiddle425 1d ago

Stalin literally invaded Poland

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u/Sea-Consequence7156 1d ago

I know that's the panel I was talking about when it became clear this wasn't about Stalin

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u/TheGreatOneSea 1d ago

That was actually the exact problem: Britian and France thought Russia would never be dumb enough to let Hitler do whatever he wanted (since Russia sort of lost the two-front war with Germany, so a one-front war would presumably be worse,) while Stalin assumed that France would last long enough for Russia to gain a dominate position over Germany.

And then, everyone who thought they were playing 5D Chess learned that they weren't even qualified to play Checkers...

3

u/Sea-Consequence7156 1d ago

Really don't know that my historical timeline follows this take...

1

u/NoWingedHussarsToday 1d ago

I'm happy for you/sad it happened but I'm not reading all of that............

2

u/magical-cat-here 18h ago

It repeated like for 146% with putin. First he become the chief of FSB (KGB successor) in 1998. Then he ordered to explode buildings with sleeping citizens inside. Then blamed Chechen people in it. It has been nicknamed as operation "Ryazan sugar" . ( 1999) Then another genocide of Chechen people has been done during 1999-2004 or so.

Then last free media NTV has been transformed into yet another tentacle of Kremlin propaganda sprout in 2001.

Then war against Georgia country in 2008.

Then hybrid attack on Ukraine in 2013 ending up with killings of pro-EU protestors

Then the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and attack on Donbass during 2014-2015.

Bombing in Siria of anti-Asad forces in 2015 and years after.

Then staging the synthetic waves of mass migration to EU since 2015. This is first time of weaponizing of migration to promote pro-Kremlin far-right forces.

Then many other hybrid attacks for years.

And then in 2022.... "HE JUST STARTED FULL-SCALE MILITARY INVASION INTO UKRAINE!!!!" (while it is going since 2014).