What would happen to Germany if Hitler wasn't elected, would there still be WW2?
Hitler was just a puppet. If he weren't there, they would have found another.
<"At this time Hitler was ready to throw in his lot with anyone who would show him kindness. He never had that 'Death or Germany' martyr spirit which later was so much used as a propaganda slogan to boost him. He would have worked for a Jewish or a French employer just as readily as for an Aryan. When I first met him he was like a tired stray dog looking for a master. However fancifully writers describe him now, at that time he was totally unconcerned about the German people and their destinies.
<[***]
<The Reichswehr was not exactly an army in the usual sense of the word, but rather a police force to protect citizens from terror groups. To forestall a surprise attack from its adversaries, the Reichswehr created an intelligence service. I was at the time an infantry captain and detailed to organize and supervise what was called the instruction department. I picked a handful of non-commissioned officers with exemplary war records; among them was Hitler.
<The duties of these men were to organize patriotic lectures in the barracks and to attend labor meetings in civilian clothes, mingling with the workers and listening to their talk.
<Inside the barracks Hitler had no friends. He was shy and self-conscious. The reason for this was probably the deformity (described in his medical report) that made him unlike other men. In my opinion it was this affliction that made Hitler a lone wolf and outsider. He felt keenly that he was different. That was also the reason why he was rated as permanently unfit for military service on his reporting, in 1911, as an Austrian conscript.
<This pariah was wild with joy when, after the outbreak of the war in 1914, the Germans disregarded his deformity and found him eligible to serve in the German Imperial Army. But I doubt if his army life was a happy one. A soldier has not the privacy that his deformity made him seek, and so he was continually chaffed by his comrades.
<[***]
<Ludendorff and his friends, former high officers and capitalists, met once a week in the 'little conference room' at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten in Munich. [*] But without the support of the workers they were helpless; a few thousand fanatics could not begin another war. The workers had to become war-minded again, but how? [*] One general recalled the theory of Joan of Arc as the illiterate French shepherdess whose outbursts of exaltation were used to convince the common people and the soldiery that a goddess was leading them forward to battle. [***] The ruse worked once; why might it not work again?
<[***]
<That is where Hitler came in. In discharging his duties he had visited a meeting of the newly founded German Workers Party. [***] A day or two after I had received a report on this patriotic organization, Ludendorff came into my office to get details. At that time he and his friends were like Hollywood scouts looking for talent, in this case 'loyal' workers, and they, too, almost at the same time as Hitler came across these extraordinary patriots of the German Workers Party.
<Members of the Reichswehr were not allowed to join political parties, but to please Ludendorff, whose wishes were still respected in the Reichswehr, I ordered Hitler to join the Workers Party, and help foster its growth.
<His meetings were announced in working-class saloons; there was free beer, and cigars if the funds allowed, also sausages and pretzels free. [*] Ludendorff and many others, who kept carefully behind the scenes at first, now began to associate openly with the Workers Party, or Nazis, as they came to be called. [*] The program was carefully concocted to fit in with the wishful thinking of the majority. [*] The Nazi salesmen offered anything and everything to make people war-minded. [*] Hitler was looked upon as a good salesman for the Nazi ideology, who would be paid off when no longer needed."
(C) Karl Mayr
>In September of the same year, Mayr wrote to Kapp, now living in exile in Sweden, about the NSDAP: 'The National Workers' Party must provide the source for the strong shock troops we were hoping for. The program is definitely a bit awkward and perhaps also sketchy. We will complete it. The only certainty is that we have already gained quite a few followers under this banner. Since July of last year I am already looking to. . . strengthen the movement. . . I have got very capable young people on their feet. For example, a Mr. Hitler has become a motivating force, a popular speaker of the first order. We have more than 2,000 members in the Munich branch, while in the summer of 1919 there were not even a 100.'66 One can say with some justification that Roehm and Eckart 'created' Hitler67; but one should name Captain Mayr, as well. These three were actually the midwives of Hitler's political career.
>>837595 (me)
These spoilers were accidental.
You wouldn't vote for even Thalmann, /leftypol/?
Unknowable hypothetical, but its worth saying that the German invasion of the USSR had zero opposition within the military circles. I don't mean that as an exaggeration, there was zero. Remember, Hitler only started replacing military figures with his own guys after the Battle for Moscow, these military guys were the same as under the Weimar years, and descended from officers going back generations, and they were generally euphoric at the command to invade Poland.
Also, Lebensraum was not a fringe Nazi concept, in fact its originator, Friedrich Ratzel, was a liberal. The need to expand Eastward was a very, very common idea once Britain took their african colonies. Volk ohne Raum was already a national bestseller way before Nazis were relevant.