I doubt individuals are that big a deal in history. If Hitler hadn’t done it probably somebody else would have done it.
Then again, the Norman Conquest of England was really just a succession crisis between three cousins mostly called Harold, but if it fell a slightly different way you don’t get French as the language of the English nobility and possibly no Hundred Years‘ War (though I like to think we’d have made any excuse to fight the French).
The bitter European state rivalry also lead to industrialization. The particular sequence of necessary things like a shortage of expensive labour, wet coal that needed constant pumping, an arms race with other European powers (Whitworth rifles, screw threads, standardization, his micrometer, boring breakthroughs. Uh, I mean boring as in hole boring) and then finally the Newcommen steam engine which was truly revolutionary but was also utter shit.
James Watt’s improvement of the Newcommen engine sparked the steam era. Also with heavy machinery we got the Bessemer process for mass steel making that was good enough. Puddling furnaces or crucible steel were something you did if you needed better control.
All of that shit was to spite the French. And the Spanish. And the Germans. And the Italians probably, maybe even the Greeks? Who knows. It was these interstate rivalries that created a tech arms race and now we are where we are.
If anything, Hitler cemented that fascist rule was a bad thing since he also carried around the baggage of intense racism.
Seems like fascism was reasonably well received by the world of interwar period (at least in the west). Its primarily because they Nazis did a genocide that we associate fascism with “the big bad” in modern times.
I don’t doubt that the Weimar Republic was headed to fascism, but if they’d had a more rational leader, it would probably have been a slower/steadier boil that didn’t kick off WWII for a few extra years + was more content to rest on its laurels (i.e. content with dividing Poland, taking the Sudetenland, etc) with significant breaks between claims.
I think this all culminates in a more sympathetic looking Germany post WWII (if it even becomes a World War), which then changes the dynamic of modern Neo-Nazi movements (probably less racist, less overlap with confederate sympathizer movements, more political reformation focused).
Ehhh, this reeks of “benevolent dictator,” sure it sounds legit, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and doesn’t have any historical precedent for a reason. Fascism, by definition, is reliant upon internalized violence against its own population to maintain in groups and out groups and to keep the in groups in control. Sure you can have out groups that aren’t defined by race, but you’re still, very deliberately, going to have large groups who are made to suffer needlessly in order to be a boogeyman and scapegoat whenever anything bad happens.
It was kinda hard to prosecute the holocaust because they couldn’t lean too hard on the fact it had been done to Jewish people because then the general public might actually support it.
I suppose the question then becomes how much can you change Nazi ideology before it essentially becomes something different. If an alteration to history can make the Nazi movement not racist and not so genocide focused isn’t it really just a different political movement now?
It’s the temporal ship of Theseus, how much can I change history before it ceases to be my history?
But also, fascism is inherently supremacist, and requires out groups to marginalize in order to thrive. It would have always ended up the way it did, it just might have taken a different route.
That’s what I mean really. Having one group of people be the enemy is what been a racist is all about. I’m not sure how you have one without the other.
Might be a contentious take, but in my mind, I see “Nazi-ism” as containing two core pieces: antisemitism and fascism. That is to say, its possible to be fascist and not antisemitic (though examples of this seem, at best, thin on the ground).
I really dont know what other major figures of the Nazi party believed. I assume its was largely fascist to the core, but its my understanding that Hitler injected his antisemitism into the party, so I’d be curious to see how history unfolds in history absence (I dont have hope it’d be better, but I doubt it’d be much worse).
go further back, kill alexander the great
no HRE, none of their bastard splinter empires, we all end up speaking mongolian cause the Khan faces far kess resistance invading europe
I doubt individuals are that big a deal in history. If Hitler hadn’t done it probably somebody else would have done it.
Then again, the Norman Conquest of England was really just a succession crisis between three cousins mostly called Harold, but if it fell a slightly different way you don’t get French as the language of the English nobility and possibly no Hundred Years‘ War (though I like to think we’d have made any excuse to fight the French).
The bitter European state rivalry also lead to industrialization. The particular sequence of necessary things like a shortage of expensive labour, wet coal that needed constant pumping, an arms race with other European powers (Whitworth rifles, screw threads, standardization, his micrometer, boring breakthroughs. Uh, I mean boring as in hole boring) and then finally the Newcommen steam engine which was truly revolutionary but was also utter shit.
James Watt’s improvement of the Newcommen engine sparked the steam era. Also with heavy machinery we got the Bessemer process for mass steel making that was good enough. Puddling furnaces or crucible steel were something you did if you needed better control.
All of that shit was to spite the French. And the Spanish. And the Germans. And the Italians probably, maybe even the Greeks? Who knows. It was these interstate rivalries that created a tech arms race and now we are where we are.
If anything, Hitler cemented that fascist rule was a bad thing since he also carried around the baggage of intense racism.
Seems like fascism was reasonably well received by the world of interwar period (at least in the west). Its primarily because they Nazis did a genocide that we associate fascism with “the big bad” in modern times.
I don’t doubt that the Weimar Republic was headed to fascism, but if they’d had a more rational leader, it would probably have been a slower/steadier boil that didn’t kick off WWII for a few extra years + was more content to rest on its laurels (i.e. content with dividing Poland, taking the Sudetenland, etc) with significant breaks between claims.
I think this all culminates in a more sympathetic looking Germany post WWII (if it even becomes a World War), which then changes the dynamic of modern Neo-Nazi movements (probably less racist, less overlap with confederate sympathizer movements, more political reformation focused).
Idk, its interesting to think about.
Ehhh, this reeks of “benevolent dictator,” sure it sounds legit, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and doesn’t have any historical precedent for a reason. Fascism, by definition, is reliant upon internalized violence against its own population to maintain in groups and out groups and to keep the in groups in control. Sure you can have out groups that aren’t defined by race, but you’re still, very deliberately, going to have large groups who are made to suffer needlessly in order to be a boogeyman and scapegoat whenever anything bad happens.
Society in general was pretty cool with racism.
It was kinda hard to prosecute the holocaust because they couldn’t lean too hard on the fact it had been done to Jewish people because then the general public might actually support it.
Really? That’s not my understanding of the whole ordeal. Dont suppose you have any resources in the pocket on that specific aspect of things?
I’d probably start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism
I suppose the question then becomes how much can you change Nazi ideology before it essentially becomes something different. If an alteration to history can make the Nazi movement not racist and not so genocide focused isn’t it really just a different political movement now?
It’s the temporal ship of Theseus, how much can I change history before it ceases to be my history?
But also, fascism is inherently supremacist, and requires out groups to marginalize in order to thrive. It would have always ended up the way it did, it just might have taken a different route.
That’s what I mean really. Having one group of people be the enemy is what been a racist is all about. I’m not sure how you have one without the other.
Completely agree.
Might be a contentious take, but in my mind, I see “Nazi-ism” as containing two core pieces: antisemitism and fascism. That is to say, its possible to be fascist and not antisemitic (though examples of this seem, at best, thin on the ground).
I really dont know what other major figures of the Nazi party believed. I assume its was largely fascist to the core, but its my understanding that Hitler injected his antisemitism into the party, so I’d be curious to see how history unfolds in history absence (I dont have hope it’d be better, but I doubt it’d be much worse).
go further back, kill alexander the great no HRE, none of their bastard splinter empires, we all end up speaking mongolian cause the Khan faces far kess resistance invading europe
At least, we would have have much less losers walking around that look up to Nazi losers.