1929
Lev Trotsky lost his power struggle with Iosif Stalin and went into exile,
Erich Maria Remarque’s antiwar masterpiece All Quiet on the Western Front hit the shelves,
and on Thursday, October 24—
“This can’t be happening!”
“W-what is this!”
“This is fraud! A goddamn scam! Fuuuuuck!!!”
—stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange crashed.
What would later be called “Black Thursday” fired the starting gun for the Great Depression that upended the world.
The Depression that began in America soon swept the globe.
Germany’s economy, which had finally gotten back on track, went straight to hell, and the streets filled with the unemployed.
People who couldn’t bear the hardship took their own lives one after another.
Strikes and demonstrations followed, and the Communist Party—whose popularity had waned—started growing its influence again.
But they couldn’t match us—our National Socialist German Workers’ Party.
Once the Depression I’d described in Mein Kampf actually detonated, I was elevated to a world-class prophet.
Up until the crash I got called a crackpot specialist, a revolution-monger, an honorary Chinese—pick your slur. Not anymore.
Now that the Depression was real, no one dared laugh at me. They couldn’t.
Mein Kampf sold like wildfire, dwarfing its earlier numbers; my standing rose, and so did the party’s.
In the Weimar general election on September 14, 1930, the Nazi Party won 302 seats and stood tall as the largest party in the Reichstag.
No longer a no-name Bavarian outfit—we were Germany’s largest party.
A year later, on September 18, 1931, Japan attacked China and seized Manchuria.
The Mukden Incident.
Unfortunate for the Chinese and for Chiang Kai-shek, but a considerable windfall for me.
“Hitler, what on earth is this man...”
“Is he really from the future? How does he keep nailing it?”
My recognition had already climbed after the Depression prophecy came true; when Japan grabbed Manchuria, I got treated like Nostradamus 2.0.
Is this what Eugene Kim felt like? He’s fictional, sure, but I can guess the vibe.
And then the day came.
***
May 30, 1932
“I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped. I hope you understand.”
By order of President Hindenburg, Heinrich Brüning was dismissed as chancellor.
“If that’s truly Your Excellency’s will... I understand.”
Brüning objected to Hindenburg’s decision, but kept it inside.
He only accepted his reality with humble despair.
Hindenburg and Brüning didn’t have a bad relationship.
Quite the opposite—Brüning respected Hindenburg; Hindenburg often dined with him and discussed important matters one-on-one.
But Brüning’s economic policies angered the German public, and his land-tax stance caused a major clash with the Junkers.
Before he was president, Hindenburg was a Junker himself; he couldn’t keep Brüning as chancellor.
And so Brüning stepped down.
“I hope you won’t resent me too much. I’d prefer to keep you by my side, but that would lead to something worse. You understand?”
“Of course, Your Excellency.”
He’d lopped off the man’s head with his own hand, but Hindenburg—fond of Brüning after all the years—held him a send-off.
As the orchestra played, Hindenburg raised a glass of wine high.
“Let us toast the hard work of our chancellor.”
Brüning raised his glass as well. The wine was top-shelf, but to him it tasted like poison.
That day Brüning went home thoroughly drunk.
Brüning out; his successor as chancellor was the prophet of the century, Adolf Hitler.
***
“It’s been a long time.”
“An honor to see you again, Your Excellency!”
Hindenburg hadn’t forgotten that day years ago in a small hospital, when he’d met Hitler as a corporal.
Brave, and clever enough to please his superiors.
And now a man the whole world watched—a man who foretold the future.
Hindenburg had liked him even more after hearing that, a few months back, Hitler had declined to run in the presidential election.
They say his circle urged him to run, but he refused to challenge a former superior officer.
All of this made Hindenburg trust Hitler more than anyone.
“Just between us... I had no intention of becoming president.”
“What? Why is that?”
“I’d already done a term, and I’m not young—I wanted to rest. But people insisted that if I quit, Germany would fall. That we couldn’t let the Reds take over.
Funny thing is, the ones pushing me were Reds themselves. When I think about it, it still embarrasses me. Ah, damn.”
The Social Democrats’ support had contributed to Hindenburg’s victory, but to Hindenburg—who saw the SPD as Communist knockoffs—their backing felt like a stain on his life.
“Your Excellency, you may see it that way, but I see it a little differently.”
“How so?”
“To achieve one’s aims, you sometimes take the hand of the enemy in front of you. If you hadn’t run, wouldn’t that only have pleased the Reds?”
“Hah. And if I hadn’t run, you would have, no?”
“I won’t deny it—but with Your Excellency here, who in his right mind would covet the presidency?”
“I picked the right man.”
Hindenburg laughed heartily, pleased with his own judgment.
***
“Congratulations!”
“Congratulations, Chief—no, Chancellor!”
The day after the appointment ceremony, I hosted a celebration at my house with the party leadership.
“My thinking was shortsighted, Your Excellency. How did you plan that far ahead...”
Goebbels spoke. He had pushed me hard to run for president; I turned him down.
In real history, Hitler took Goebbels’s advice and ran.
He lost, but with a strong second-place showing that left a deep impression on the public.
Here, there was no need.
If I ran, I’d lose to Hindenburg anyway, and as for name recognition—there aren’t many who don’t know me.
Why go out of my way to sour my relationship with Hindenburg?
My math checked out: after dismissing Brüning, Hindenburg appointed me chancellor.
“Now that Your Excellency is chancellor, this country will change.”
Göring, already tipsy, said. I just smiled and nodded.
Göring’s a talker on a normal day—pour in alcohol and he doubles it.
Still, compared to the original history, he was a different man.
In the original timeline, Göring took a bullet to a testicle during the Beer Hall Putsch, turned to morphine to forget the pain, and ended up an addict.
The addiction worsened and so did his judgment; he did his part in helping Germany lose the war.
To prevent all that, I sent him to the rear on purpose.
Result: no injury, no morphine.
I even ordered him to take care of his health—put him on a diet—and he transformed into the kind of handsome middle-aged man women swoon over.
No more “Fatty Göring” jokes.
As the party hit its stride, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, approached.
“Your Excellency? I have something to report. Do you have a moment?”
“Mm, go on.”
We stepped to a corner out of sight; Himmler got to the point.
“It’s about Röhm, sir.”
Of course. Called it.
“I know what you’re about to say. The army’s not fond of them, is it?”
“So you’ve heard. From sources we placed in the military—the talk is open now. They say Röhm and the SA need to be dealt with.”
“Huh... Plenty of mountains left to cross.”
Paradoxically, Röhm—though he wore our anti-Communist party colors—pushed a socialist line and preached a “second revolution.”
By that he meant nationalize industry, confiscate capitalists’ property, and distribute it to the workers.
On top of that, he wanted to absorb the army into his SA and create a “People’s Army.”
Naturally, the army—run by the most conservative of conservatives, the Junkers—wasn’t about to approve this nonsense.
“I’ve been thinking myself that we need to do something about Röhm. Leave him alone and he’ll make a disaster.”
“Most wise, Your Excellency. If you need it, call on me anytime. Wherever, whenever—give the word and—”
“Yeah, yeah. Go finish your meal.”
Christ, this guy—always laying it on thick. I don’t need it, man.