What if there was no Reichstag Fire in 1933?

Probably the last critical event in bringing Adolf Hitler to absolute power, was the Reichstag Fire of 1933. It was almost certainly the work of a lone, Dutch, lapsed communist agitator -- Marinus van der Lubbe. It was attributed to the Nazis themselves by the Left, and most of the world, and to an organized attempt at overthrowing the government by the German communists, backed by the Soviet Union, in the Nazi controlled media. In any case, the Nazis took full advantage of this incident to cement their power, and to fully install a total Nazi dictatorship under the absolute power of Adolf Hitler, by a series of brilliant political maneuvers over the next year or so. Actually, the Nazis had been having rather a difficult time of actually taking over Germany, up until this point. The Beer Hall Putsch, in 1923, had been a disastrous failure, despite the horrific hyperinflation in Germany, at the time. Although it might well have led to the takeover of Bavaria, in any case, there had been virtually no possibility of a successful takeover of Germany as a whole, and a mere Nazi dictatorship in Bavaria alone would likely have been a dead end for Hitler, and would have led to the breakup of Germany. Following the failed Beer Hall Putsch, some clever financial manipulations by the German government in Berlin effectively ended hyperinflation, and led to years of prosperity in Germany as a whole. As a result, the Nazis had no leverage, and only attracted moderate levels of support. it was only with the Great Depression that the Nazis finally obtained enough support to look credible as a governing party, because of massive unemployment and public destitution, particularly with the election of July 1932: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_1932_German_federal_election However, neither the population as a whole, nor President Hindenburg, particularly trusted the Nazis to run the government. Quite rightly, they saw Hitler as an unpredictable, and a potentially very dangerous man. Really, Hitler's long term agenda had always been something of a throwback to the Mongols, Tamerlane the Great, the Roman Republic, and the Greek City States -- pillage your neighbors to acquire wealth, through military conquest. This particular agenda still is rather attractive to American "conservatives" on the far right, and many of them still credit Adolf Hitler with having "saved" the world from "socialism" by initiating World War II. They see chronic warfare as preferable to centralized social control. Arguably, on an overpopulated planet, we may only have the choice between one, or the other, I suppose. Of course, we always have the option of simply reducing population by adequate birth control, but, that's just me, I suppose. So, despite the Nazis' increased popularity, it was impossible for them, or anyone else, to form a government. In the resulting election of November 1932, the Nazis actually lost some support, and some seats in the Reichstag: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1932_German_federal_election However, by this time, it was clear that it would be necessary to accommodate Hitler's ambitions to achieve some level of political stability. It was assumed that as Chancellor of a coalition, fully dependent on non-Nazi party members to run the government, and with the limitations imposed by the Weimar Republic constitution, which could only be overthrown by a 2/3 vote in the Reichstag, Hitler would be forced to be "reasonable". All this changed with the Reichstag Fire, just four weeks after Hitler became Chancellor. Hitler used his oratory and his army of Brownshirts to intimidate and control and electorate, the media, and the wealthy, on the basis of the presumed "communist revolution". He acquired great wealth to invest in the coming election from the rich, he achieved restrictions on media access to the other political parties, he terrorized the opposition, and he replaced opposition supporters at all levels of government with Nazis. As a result, the Nazis did do quite well in the elections of March 1933: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1933_German_federal_election However, they still didn't have an absolute majority in the Reichstag, so they still had to work with a limited coalition. However, by intimidation and manipulation, they were now able to terrorize a sufficient number of opposition members of the Reichstag to vote for the abolition of the Weimar Constitution, the 2/3 majority was achieved, and Germany became a dictatorship under Adolf Hitler. So, what happens if their is no Reichstag Fire? I would say that Hitler is forced to try to muddle along in a coalition government and work effectively with socialists and communists. And, despite all his oratory and all his Brownshirts, he really won't be able to do it. If Hitler himself tries to arrange an incident like the Reichstag fire, the German police will call him on it, and he will be removed from power, and imprisoned. If he doesn't, his government will fail, and his entire Nazi movement will become a laughingstock. Germany will use social democratic means to stabilize the economy, as was currently the case in Britain, France and the U.S., and there probably won't be any World War II, at all. In other words, it took a very unusual incident from a lone agitator, to ever bring a madman like Hitler to power, in the first place.

What if scientists weren't salesmen?

The "modern scientific method", as we understand it, consists in a combination of semi-controlled experimentation -- there is no such thing as perfect or total experimental control -- and publication and debate and criticism of the experimental results. As a result, by definition, public relations, salesmanship are essential elements of modern science. The twentieth century added the elements of "peer review" -- the suppression or publication of experimental results in scientific journals, on the basis of their approval or disapproval by already well established scientists in the field. The twentieth century also added the ultimate "certification" of scientific value, the Nobel Prizes. Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite, used his fortune to establish substantial cash awards in a number of fields of science to be awarded on an annual basis by the Swedish academy of sciences. Thus, the nation of Sweden acquired unusual influence in determining the direction of publicly approved scientific progress. Currently, the most high profile scientist-entrepreneur-engineer is Elon Musk. Elon spent exactly two days in Graduate School at Stanford's prestigious Physics program, when he was 24 years old. That was more than enough to convince him that the Nobel Prize winners there, in Physics, were little more than arrogant stuffed shirts. Why should he pay the slightest attention to them? They were just salesmen, after all, and not necessarily particularly good salesmen, at that! What did they have to teach him about anything? Nothing! We can see how Elon operates with his current high profile project, his "Starship". All it's ever done is blow up, most recently, doing sufficient damage that it's unlikely, for reasons of public safety, that he will ever be allowed to attempt to test it again. Nevertheless, Elon still insists that he's going to be able to establish permanent human colonies on Mars with his "Starship"! Our good friends, the scientists and engineers at NASA have taken up the challenge. The Starship was supposed to land on the Moon in a couple of years, but, since it can't even get off the ground, NASA has now given 3 billion dollars to Jeff Bezos to develop an alternate lunar lander over the next six years. That's 500 million dollars a year to land on the Moon. In 1965 alone, NASA's budget was 5 billion dollars. In 1965 dollars. So, in 1965, they were spending perhaps 150 times as much money, in real dollar terms, to get to the Moon, as they are now. That's why they landed on the Moon in 1969! They spent a bloody fortune, and got nothing whatsoever out of it, at all! So, now, they're trying to pretend that they can land on the Moon for nothing. And, nothing is exactly what we're going to get. All Jeff Bezos is going to do with his 3 billion dollars from NASA is invest it in bonds, for the interest. What does NASA get out of it? Salesmanship. The illusion that they're doing something, when they're doing nothing whatsoever. So, what if scientists weren't salesmen? What would the world be like now?

What if Hitler holds onto the ruling triumvirate of Bavaria, as hostages, during the Beer Hall Putsch?

Due to runaway inflation and communist uprisings, the semi-autonomous German state of Bavaria declared a state of emergency in September, 1923. The ruling triumvirate was composed of State Commissioner Gustav von Kahr, Police Chief Hans von Seisser, and Military Chief General Otto von Lossow. Adolf Hitler was, at the time, plotting a coup rather along the lines of Benito Mussolini's march on Rome, a year earlier. In Bavaria itself, Hitler actually possessed a significant manpower advantage over the police and military combined. His brownshirts outnumbered them, two to one. In any case, the Bavarian military and police, along with most of the people, were largely pro-Nazi. So, the notion of taking over Bavaria, if not all of Germany itself, had some merit, tactically speaking. On November 8, 1923, all three members of the ruling triumvirate were present for a rally at the BurgerbrauKeller, a huge beer hall in Munich. Hitler decided to march his brownshirts on the beer hall, capture the ruling leaders, and force them to cooperate with them in turning Bavaria, formally, into a Nazi state. From there, he hoped, eventually to be able to be able to march on North Germany, and Berlin. While the issue of conquering all of Germany was highly problematic, the notion that Hitler could conquer, and perhaps retain control of, an independent Bavaria for a time, is by no means inconceivable. After all, how likely was North Germany going to be to want to risk a prolonged civil war, to try to take it back from Hitler? Really, the only big mistake Hitler made here, was allowing WWI hero General Ludendorff to release the ruling triumvirate, after he himself had briefly left the building. Naturally, even with their manpower advantage, once the Bavarian leaders had control of their forces, their training and loyalty was too much for the disorganized brownshirts. But, let's suppose that Hitler keeps hold of the Bavarian leaders during the Beer Hall Putsch. They order their forces to side with Hitler, because they have no other choice. So, Hitler does make himself master of Bavaria, in 1923. What happens next? I think Hitler himself would have realized the impracticality of actually marching on Berlin, eventually, and rather shortly, given the leftist tendencies of North Germany, and the fact that they vastly outnumbered the population and resources of Bavaria. So, I would see a formal split of Germany, into North and South. Effectively, the dissolution of the German Empire. Hitler, of course, would hanker after much more than control of Bavaria. Perhaps, as in OTL, he would think that the Great Depression might give him an opportunity. However, given just Bavaria as a base of operations, I really don't think he'd have the power to get much farther. I suspect that Hitler will simply remain a kind of tinpot dictator of Bavaria, kind of a Mussolini wannabee, and rather little more than that.

In the future, what revolutionary new technologies will be developed from the concept of "nothingness"?

One of the unsung heroes of modern technology is, I think, Denis Papin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Papin Papin was the inventor of the first piston steam engine. And the piston is really the basis of both the steam engine, and the internal combustion engine and, hence, of the entire revolution in transportation technology and engineering in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is, of course well known that the Romans invented the steam engine in the second century A.D., and made a variety of simple steam toy mechanisms employing it. It is also well known that it took another 1500 years before the steam engine had any practical application. Quite specifically, it wasn't until Denis Papin invented the piston steam engine, that the steam engine really took off as a practical reality. While there a number of explanations as to why it took so long for human civilization to take advantage of the potential of steam power -- the lack high quality iron and steel, the lack of blast furnaces -- the Romans were extremely skilled engineers -- aqueducts, superb roads, the Pantheon and the arch -- and these conventional explanations don't seem to quite cover the case. However, the concept of the piston steam engine -- powering a mechanism using a perfect vacuum -- is rather a long conceptual stretch for a Roman engineer, I believe. And this long conceptual stretch, the fact that the Romans didn't even possess the concept of a perfect vacuum, which was systematically developed during the middle ages and the Renaissance, is likely the problem here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum Now, one could argue here, of course, that, given that Papin had the concept of a perfect vacuum by the late seventeenth century, the development of the piston steam engine was largely inevitable here. So, instead, we could simply consider, 'what if the concept of a vacuum had never been developed?', in terms of modern technology. In any case, I would argue that, without the concept of vacuum engines, and the piston, we're still back in the seventeenth century, or, pretty close to it. There is very little technological progress, or social progress in terms of life expectancy or standard of living, in the succeeding centuries. Shakespeare tells us, "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, than our philosophy hath dreamt of." Indeed, the past teaches us, that within a "vacuum", or nothingness itself, there may be contained the seeds of all future developments in science and technology. So, let your imaginations run wild. What new developments can we expect in the future, from the contents of a vacuum. Physicists speculate on "dark matter", and "quantum soup". What will the mastery, control and understanding of these new elements of "nothingness", give to humanity? Perhaps, for example, we might get a bit beyond the current black box concepts of a "space drive", to conquer interstellar space. Anything else? Any thoughts, at all?

What if Denis Papin hadn't invented the piston steam engine?

One of the unsung heroes of modern technology is, I think, Denis Papin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Papin Papin was the inventor of the first piston steam engine. And the piston is really the basis of both the steam engine, and the internal combustion engine and, hence, of the entire revolution in transportation technology and engineering in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It is, of course well known that the Romans invented the steam engine in the second century A.D., and made a variety of simple steam toy mechanisms employing it. It is also well known that it took another 1500 years before the steam engine had any practical application. Quite specifically, it wasn't until Denis Papin invented the piston steam engine, that the steam engine really took off as a practical reality. While there a number of explanations as to why it took so long for human civilization to take advantage of the potential of steam power -- the lack high quality iron and steel, the lack of blast furnaces -- the Romans were extremely skilled engineers -- aqueducts, superb roads, the Pantheon and the arch -- and these conventional explanations don't seem to quite cover the case. However, the concept of the piston steam engine -- powering a mechanism using a perfect vacuum -- is rather a long conceptual stretch for a Roman engineer, I believe. And this long conceptual stretch, the fact that the Romans didn't even possess the concept of a perfect vacuum, which was systematically developed during the middle ages and the Renaissance, is likely the problem here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum Now, one could argue here, of course, that, given that Papin had the concept of a perfect vacuum by the late seventeenth century, the development of the piston steam engine was largely inevitable here. So, instead, we could simply consider, 'what if the concept of a vacuum had never been developed?', in terms of modern technology. In any case, I would argue that, without the concept of vacuum engines, and the piston, we're still back in the seventeenth century, or, pretty close to it. There is very little technological progress, or social progress in terms of life expectancy or standard of living, in the succeeding centuries. Thoughts?

Will Donald Trump and his family emigrate to Russia?

At the time of the French Revolution, that great "enlightened despot", Catherine the Great, of Russia, provided a haven and refuge to those Nobles who had been forced to emigrate from France. These French Nobles were threatened with prison, torture and death, for allegedly raping and pillaging the people and the nation of France. But, of course, one person's "rape", is another person's simple seduction, and one person's theft and pillage, is another person's constructive commercial exploitation. So, Catherine the Great took a broad view, and permitted these displaced, formerly wealthy Nobles, to be relocated to her Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, so long as they formally renounced the French Revolution, and all its violence and radicalism. Is history repeating itself, once again? Is not former American President, Donald Trump, and likely his entire family, being threatened with prison, torture and death, for allegedly raping and pillaging the people of the United States? Certainly, Donald Trump is being threatened with imprisonment, for financial fraud and rape, as current court proceedings clearly demonstrate. And, if he is imprisoned, he'll require, as a former President of the U.S., that his secret service agents accompany him, in his cell. Can anyone truly imagine what it would be like to be a secret service agent guarding Donald Trump indefinitely in his prison cell in New York State, twenty-four hours a day? Surely, it's inevitable that Mr. Trump would "hang himself while we slept." Or, perhaps, Mr. Trump would bash his brains in against the wall of the prison cell, "before we could stop him." And, surely, a similar fate is likely to be in store for Ivanka, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and all the rest, as the wild, Revolutionary mobs of Americans rush to tear them limb from limb. I suspect we might, eventually, be able to add Elon Musk to that list, too. In the light of these self-evident facts, can we not see that the entire Trump family is very likely indeed, to attempt to emigrate to Russia, in the very near future? Would not enlightened despot Vladimir Putin welcome them to the Winter Palace, in St. Petersburg, very much as Catherine the Great welcomed their French antecedents centuries ago? All they'd have to do is formerly and publicly condemn American violence in Ukraine, and they'd be set for life in Russia. Indeed, given the tit for tat nature of American politics, it seems very likely indeed, that we will see many American Presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, forced to flee the U.S. in the face of State charges against them, in future. Perhaps an entire wing of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg could be set aside as a refuge for American Presidents driven from their native land in the future, and finding refuge in Imperial Russia. And, one can see the smiling Sainted, Catherine the Great, of Russia, joyfully welcoming them from on high, in Heaven, surrounded by choruses of singing angels, and flanked by God, and Jesus Christ himself!

What if Adolf Hitler had been deemed unfit for military service by the Bavarian army in August 1914?

This seems by no means inconceivable, since Hitler was indeed deemed unfit for military service in the Austrian military earlier in 1914. He'd volunteered for the Austrian army several years earlier, in hopes of escaping his impoverished, transient lifestyle as an itinerant and not particularly successful artist. Having never heard from them, it being peacetime and there being no particular need for his services, he didn't leave them a forwarding address when he moved from Vienna to Munich, in 1913. So, it was with some surprise that he encountered a Munich police officer at his door in January 1914, telling him he was being arrested for evading military service in Austria. However, Hitler was already pretty socially skilled even in 1914, so he was able to talk the Bavarian officials out of formally holding him, and he was sent back to Salzburg, Austria by the Bavarian officials, where he failed his physical exam on February 5, for induction into the Austrian military. This is hardly surprising, given that Hitler had been pursuing a rather unhealthy lifestyle for many years already, with little physical exercise, and poor, and inadequate nutrition. He was weak, and he was sickly. Now, of course, the bar in peacetime for induction into military service is likely to be higher than in wartime. Still, Adolf Hitler -- a withdrawn, intellectual dreamer, used to spending his days sketching and painting in cheap rooming houses, or arguing politics with the other inmates -- would hardly have seemed an optimal military recruit, either from a physical or a psychological point of view. It seems perfectly possible that the recruiting officials would have told him that with his good education, wide reading and manipulative skills with people, the Fatherland could much better use him in wartime as a government clerk, particularly when they were being deluged with physically fit and more conventionally social conformist young men. Now, of course, Adolf Hitler turned out to be an excellent soldier. The only reason he ended up as a corporal, and not an officer, despite being repeatedly decorated for bravery, was that no rank beyond corporal could officially be used as "runners" or "messengers", and Hitler was deemed indispensable in this role, because of his bravery and capacity for evading enemy fire. But this, of course, was all in the future. So, let's suppose Hitler is constrained by his military rejection, and the lack of demand for art in wartime, to become what his father always dreamed for young Adolf -- a government official. Hitler was always quite skilled at adapting to circumstances, and conforming to them, eventually, anyway. So, Hitler would probably have become quite a competent government official, and would have become immersed in their culture. As such, given the progressively more anti-war stance of much of the German population, he likely would have opposed the war, as well. Indeed, he might well have become precisely what he most detested OTL -- a "red" and a "slacker". Indeed, Hitler showed no particular antisemitism until towards the end of WWI, OTL, and particularly after the Soviet inspired Spartacist uprising in 1919, largely led by communist Jews like Rosa Luxemburg, "Red Rosa". If Hitler sits out WWI as a government clerk, is it entirely inconceivable that with his charisma, public speaking skills and political leanings, he might not have ended up as Rosa Luxemburg's right hand man, helping to lead the communist Spartacist uprising, himself? I think not.

What if legendary film director Roman Polanski hadn't been a fugitive from American Justice since 1978?

Certainly one of the most bizarre characters in the second half of the twentieth century was, at times, brilliant director Roman Polanski. He's still going strong, of course, at nearly ninety years of age, directing films in Europe, and living the high life. This, despite the fact that he's been "on the run", in a sense, anyway, since 1978. Polanski is, of course, no stranger to being in danger. He's a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust against Jews, in which his mother was murdered, and in which his father survived years in a concentration camp. He lived on the run then, in much worse circumstances than currently, which may be one of reasons he's handled his circumstances so well. He endured life as a young man in Soviet dominated Poland, before developing his film talent to the point that he could emigrate to his native France. Film success led him to Hollywood, and the making of his classic Horror Film, "Rosemary's Baby". Unfortunately for Polanski, the immense success of the film, and its theme -- the pregnant Mia Farrow unknowingly bearing a child to be used by her neighbors in Satanic rituals, itself perhaps being the son of Satan -- gave cult leader Charles Manson some unfortunate ideas. So, Manson sent his "family" to stab Polanski's pregnant wife to death in his home, along with four of his friends. I'm not sure the connection between "Rosemary's Baby", and Manson murder spree, has been fully acknowledged, but, I believe it's there. In 1977, Polanski was charged with raping and drugging a 13 year old girl. An initial plea bargain with the district attorney would have limited his punishment to probation. In 1978, however, the judge decided that Polanski should get fifty years in prison, and the judge actually told a friend of Polanski's that 'Polanski would never get out of prison'. Now, why, exactly, under these circumstances, would Polanski have been left, at large? It does sound a bit, quite a bit, actually, like the American authorities simply wanted Polanski out of the country. So, Polanski left the country. And, Polanski has been out of the country, ever since. The judge was probably correct, in perceiving that Polanski had a profoundly sociopathic side to his personality. Numerous rape allegations have surfaced since this time against Polanski. If Polanski had simply been given probation, there's no reason to think he might not have accumulated numerous other victims in the US. On the other hand, given the extremely lax attitudes to rape in the US in the 1970's, it's unclear that a long prison sentence against Polanski would have been a practical outcome, whatever the judge's wishes. Bear in mind, at this time, the concepts of "marital rape", and "date rape" were almost oxymoronic. After all, sex was what marriage and dates were for, right? As for pedophilia, films like "Pretty Baby", with naked 13 year old Brooke Shields, and "Night Moves", with naked 15 year old Melanie Griffith, almost romanticized it. So, in this atmosphere, it seems unlikely that any judge could really have kept Polanski in prison, for long, on this kind of a charge. But, Polanski is still a fugitive from American justice, largely confined to his native France, to avoid forcible extradition to the US. Obviously, if the Americans really wanted Polanski badly enough, they could get him. They never have, obviously. But, as laws against sexuality tighten up more and more, who knows? The state of Florida has recently passed a law making child rape a capital offense. Wouldn't it be ironic if Roman Polanski, having escaped the gas chambers of the Nazis in wartime Poland, as a child, should succumb to a gas chamber in California, being legally executed for child rape? What a plot for a Polanski Horror film!

What if Plato had known of the Roman Republic?

The Roman Republic was probably in existence, in some form or other, at the time that Plato was writing his most important work, "The State", translated into Romance languages as The Republic. However, I don't believe there is any evidence that Plato himself had any awareness of the existence of the City of Rome, or its government, at the time he was writing, in 375 B.C. Certainly, Plato's writing had immense imfluence over the Romans, centuries later, in particular inspiring Cicero to write his own "The Republic", from which the Plato text has borrowed its name. But, let's suppose Plato had somehow become aware, in detail, of the operations of the Roman Republic, circa 375 B.C. Let's suppose a Roman Senator visited Athens, and became acquainted with Plato, and friends with him, for example. What influence, if any, would these Roman barbarians have had on his thinking, and writing?

What if Coriolanus hadn't decided to abandon his conquest of Rome?

Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus was, according to legend, a Roman General who was exiled from Rome following a position he took publicly against the Plebian Roman majority, and, to some extent against the Republic. Subsequently he joined with Rome's enemies, and took his armies to the walls of Rome itself, where he was met by his own mother, who persuaded him to abandon the siege. What if Coriolanus had simply brushed his mother aside, and conquered Rome? Would this have meant the end of the Roman Republic, and, if so, what would the consequences of this have been for the world as a whole? True, the Republic collapsed almost five centuries later anyway, when Rome became an Empire, but, what would the destruction of the Roman Republic at this early stage have meant for world history? A little more than a century later, the Gauls did indeed conquer and destroy Rome. However, the Gauls were an uncivilized tribe, and eventually were unable to survive in Rome, and simply withdrew, after the Romans paid them a ransom. So, Rome recovered, with the Republic intact. Coriolanus would likely have changed the structure of the Roman government, returning to a system of monarchy, and would have transplanted the Volscians, Rome's mortal enemies, into positions of power in Rome itself.