WI: Hitler dies in WWI and the German Empire is restored with Papen as Prime Minister

[NotDavidSoslan]

If Hitler died from his chemical attack and the German far-right turned towards the DNVP and right wing of the Zentrum instead of fascist parties, this could very well have happened, especially after the stock market crash.

Papen would either become leader of the Centre Party or found his own Catholic reactionary party, and become chancellor by 1935, whereupon he held a referendum on the restoration of the monarchy that ended with either Wilhelm II returning to Germany and the throne or one of his children rising to it. Thus, the German Empire would be restored under a national conservative chancellor.

Papen loved international adventures, so how would his foreign policy go and differ from Hitler's? What economic policy would his cabinet follow, and how would the rights of minorities be affected?

 

[Wendell]

Would the state monarchies have been restored too?

 

[NotDavidSoslan]

Would the state monarchies have been restored too?

Interesting question, and that could very well have happened.

 

[Wendell]

Interesting question, and that could very well have happened.

Might have been more difficult in some cases more than others given state mergers and the like.

 

[NotDavidSoslan]

Might have been more difficult in some cases more than others given state mergers and the like.

My doubt was over the rise in authoritarianism across the world during the 1920s and 1930s, but this is a great point.

 

[Wendell]

My doubt was over the rise in authoritarianism across the world during the 1920s and 1930s, but this is a great point.

One doubts, for example, that Thuringia is going to redivide just to accommodate potentates with (or newly deprived of) foreign titles anyway. German monarchism was not coming back, at least not in any form that would have been recognizable in 1914.