What if Hitler Had Never Been Born?

By: M. Gilchrist

There is a famous story about Adolf Hitler as a child, which says a priest who once saw him drowning rescued him. Even though the story might not be true, it still poses a very relevant question for us.  That is, what if Hitler had not existed, would the holocaust still have occurred? 
 
This is not limited only to Hitler, but also to many other historical events in which people pose the “what if” question. However, when discussing Hitler’s case, there are many different opinions. Some believe that Hitler’s organised tactics were what led him to power, and that without his ideas and his charming manner to catch the attention of an audience, the Nazi Party would not have become so popular during the 1930s. 
 
Amidst these conversations, there is never an absolute answer - but it remains important to understand the mindset of the German people during the 30s; this shows that Hitler’s role was inevitable, and if it weren’t for him, someone else would have taken his place. 
 
After the Dawes Plan, a plan made by a wealthy banker in the United States that lent the German government money as they dealt with hyperinflation, the Great Depression led Germany’s economy into a large plummet once more. Despite the plan’s help in solving issues like the French invasion of the Ruhr, an important mining territory in Germany, hyperinflation, and attempts to overthrow the Weimar Government (a democratic government that controlled Germany at the time) through revolutions, it also made Germany extremely dependent on the USA. Consequently, after the Wall Street crash in 1929, all money that was lent to Germany was asked to be returned, and once more, unemployment spread through the country. What does this have to do with the Nazi Party’s success in the 1930s? Well, with everyone enraged with the Weimar Republic once more, authoritarian regimes and fascism spread due to an unhappy population within a country. The Nazi party had the perfect ‘solution’ to all of people’s problems, including the extermination of the Jewish community, the fall of the Weimar Republic, and breaking the clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, a treaty made after WW1 to resolve conflicts -  ultimately blaming Germany for starting The Great War. Desperate for an answer, the German people clung to the Nazi’s, leading us to believe that if instead of the Nazi’s some other fascist party had ‘come to the rescue,’ they also would have popularized. Or maybe, even the Nazi party itself - just without Hitler.
 
On the other hand, before the 1930s and Hitler’s arrest after the Munich Putsch (a revolution held by the Nazi party to try and overthrow the Weimar Government), the Nazis were struggling, to say the least. The Munich Putsch was a failure, and many argue that without Hitler’s change in strategy, the Nazi’s would have never come to power. The Putsch was a revolution which called for a march in Munich, Bavaria, which directly opposed the Weimar government. After Hitler saw that it had not worked, he shifted his way into power from trying to remove the Weimar Republic through its own laws and constitution, working his way up through the Reichstag (the German parliament), until he reached the position of chancellor. In this aspect, Hitler was very successful, as by 1933, he did indeed become chancellor; by 1934, he became Führer (the combined position of Chancellor and President) of Germany, initiating his rule until 1945. 
 
Overall, many people have their own perspective on whether or not Nazi Germany would have risen without Hitler. On one hand, some believed that someone else would have led the party into power. On the other hand, some believe that only Hitler's shift in tactics was what made the Party so successful, leading to, arguably, one of the world's largest conflicts: WW2.