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Post by Max Sinister on May 4, 2024 13:31:50 GMT
That's all true stevep , but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the topic.
Sorry I drifted in responding to the points 575 raised. Not sure how Hitler would respond in the situation proposed.
Neither am I... this is true pioneer work. This is demanding some good scientific books, but not the kind we usually read.
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Post by Max Sinister on May 11, 2024 21:32:17 GMT
The question of psychology of people can be solved if you use people about whom next to nothing is known. (I think this is why Gregory Benford's The Berlin Project uses the real but almost unknown mathematician/chemist/Manhattan Project scientist Karl Cohen.)
As an example, Richard Pellengahr from my fictional Operation Gold Fox: His fellow generals are described a bit - Eduard Dietl is a typical Bavarian and dares to speak an open word even to the "führer". Schörner is a convinced nazi whose nickname is "bloodhound", 'nuff said. Let alone Siilasvuo who became famous. But Pellengahr is an empty sheet. So I can't prove that he would have done what he did in my ATL, but it can't be exactly disproven either.
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Post by Max Sinister on May 14, 2024 23:50:41 GMT
Now that I think about it, "The Anglo-American Nazi War" also has a psychology PoD. Sure, it starts with the Wehrmacht taking the last piece of Stalingrad, but Stalin going so mad about this that he has Zhukov and other good generals executed is an exaggeration. The "Führer" probably was at the end of his rope and wanted Stalingrad because it was symbolic, with the name and all that, but Stalin hadn't taken it that seriously IOTL.
That's not how one should do it.
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Post by Max Sinister on May 18, 2024 3:23:30 GMT
Historian/Churchill advisor Sebastian Haffner has pointed out something important: The worse the war went for him, Adolf Nazi acted more and more like the demagogic guy leading a fringe party after WW1. While he had been able to act almost like a statesman when things went well for him, esp. in 1938/39. As if he was regressing somehow...
Means: If you want to write a TL involving him (and many do), you have to consider this.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on May 18, 2024 8:50:30 GMT
Historian/Churchill advisor Sebastian Haffner has pointed out something important: The worse the war went for him, Adolf Nazi acted more and more like the demagogic guy leading a fringe party after WW1. While he had been able to act almost like a statesman when things went well for him, esp. in 1938/39. As if he was regressing somehow... Means: If you want to write a TL involving him (and many do), you have to consider this.
That could be a factor. I think traditionally its been thought that an issue was his great successes, politically in 1936-39 and militarily in 1939-40 [plus the apparent success in 1941] made him start believing his own propaganda about his own infallibility and then you got a vicious circle of each failure making his judgement worse.
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Post by Max Sinister on May 18, 2024 9:14:32 GMT
Historian/Churchill advisor Sebastian Haffner has pointed out something important: The worse the war went for him, Adolf Nazi acted more and more like the demagogic guy leading a fringe party after WW1. While he had been able to act almost like a statesman when things went well for him, esp. in 1938/39. As if he was regressing somehow... Means: If you want to write a TL involving him (and many do), you have to consider this.
That could be a factor. I think traditionally its been thought that an issue was his great successes, politically in 1936-39 and militarily in 1939-40 [plus the apparent success in 1941] made him start believing his own propaganda about his own infallibility and then you got a vicious circle of each failure making his judgement worse.
Of course, that begs the question whether a saner Hitler is possible at all. If successes make his judgement worse because they make him overestimate himself, but failures make his judgement worse because that makes him angry - what exactly could make his judgement better then?
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stevep
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Post by stevep on May 18, 2024 9:27:45 GMT
That could be a factor. I think traditionally its been thought that an issue was his great successes, politically in 1936-39 and militarily in 1939-40 [plus the apparent success in 1941] made him start believing his own propaganda about his own infallibility and then you got a vicious circle of each failure making his judgement worse.
Of course, that begs the question whether a saner Hitler is possible at all. If successes make his judgement worse because they make him overestimate himself, but failures make his judgement worse because that makes him angry - what exactly could make his judgement better then?
You mean other than a sudden case of death. Then at least he's incapable of any bad judgement. 
Its difficult to say but I think its one of the key problems of autocratic states, especially those that qualify as totalitarian as in those there are no checks and balances on the leadership. Especially over time, with a "shot the messenger" policy generally in place no one tells the great leader anything other than what he/she wants to hear and hence they both have false information and their ego continues to get inflated. Then when something goes wrong not only does the leader tend to lash out, generally at people who try and tell him the truth - that he's the problem - which further reduces the quality of the information but his followers are desperately seeking scrape-goats to avoid being blamed - or failing to find the 'guilty' and hence losing influence themselves. Hence bitter infighting as assorted lackeys seek to avoid disaster for themselves and the leader gets less and less capable of understanding his short-comings.
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575
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Post by 575 on May 18, 2024 14:57:33 GMT
Historian/Churchill advisor Sebastian Haffner has pointed out something important: The worse the war went for him, Adolf Nazi acted more and more like the demagogic guy leading a fringe party after WW1. While he had been able to act almost like a statesman when things went well for him, esp. in 1938/39. As if he was regressing somehow... Means: If you want to write a TL involving him (and many do), you have to consider this. Well I did. |
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Post by Max Sinister on May 18, 2024 21:14:41 GMT
Historian/Churchill advisor Sebastian Haffner has pointed out something important: The worse the war went for him, Adolf Nazi acted more and more like the demagogic guy leading a fringe party after WW1. While he had been able to act almost like a statesman when things went well for him, esp. in 1938/39. As if he was regressing somehow... Means: If you want to write a TL involving him (and many do), you have to consider this. Well I did. And "Hitler sticks to his original intent" is certainly a question of psychology. (I guess you meant that thread.)
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575
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Post by 575 on May 19, 2024 7:35:25 GMT
And "Hitler sticks to his original intent" is certainly a question of psychology. (I guess you meant that thread.)
I did and I actually pondered doing so quite some time deciding that a stalemate in the West for more than a year might trigger him. |
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Post by Max Sinister on Jun 5, 2024 22:06:30 GMT
As I've hinted, I'm pondering this topic because I need a Nazi-Soviet peace in late 1941 and am still not sure how to solve it. After all, even the great historians can't agree what was going on in the head of Adolf Nazi. We'd need someone with a good knowledge of headology to answer this. Yeah, a Pratchettian witch, optimally Granny Weatherwax herself.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jun 6, 2024 8:38:24 GMT
As I've hinted, I'm pondering this topic because I need a Nazi-Soviet peace in late 1941 and am still not sure how to solve it. After all, even the great historians can't agree what was going on in the head of Adolf Nazi. We'd need someone with a good knowledge of headology to answer this. Yeah, a Pratchettian witch, optimally Granny Weatherwax herself.
I suspect it she was given that task she would quickly decide to arrange an 'unfortunate' accident as the easiest way of resolving the matter. - That is of dealing with him not of getting him to make peace with Stalin. 
Possibly some quack can persuade him its 'correct' for the Nazis to make such a peace and lure the weakened Soviets into an 'alliance' to distract them while they absorb their current gains in the east with the aim of finishing the USSR off later. Even then that seems a big issue selling it to war at all costs Adolph.
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Post by Max Sinister on Jun 8, 2024 12:05:55 GMT
As I've hinted, I'm pondering this topic because I need a Nazi-Soviet peace in late 1941 and am still not sure how to solve it. After all, even the great historians can't agree what was going on in the head of Adolf Nazi. We'd need someone with a good knowledge of headology to answer this. Yeah, a Pratchettian witch, optimally Granny Weatherwax herself.
I suspect it she was given that task she would quickly decide to arrange an 'unfortunate' accident as the easiest way of resolving the matter. - That is of dealing with him not of getting him to make peace with Stalin. I wouldn't mind! Still, I'd like to gain this knowledge. |
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Post by Max Sinister on Jun 12, 2024 13:40:41 GMT
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Post by Max Sinister on Jun 15, 2024 9:44:02 GMT
Sebastian Haffner writes in "Germany: Jekyll & Hyde" about Adolf Nazi ("Hitler" chapter, p. 29/30):
"His aims, pursued in the following sequence and only as far as each does not endanger its predecessor, are: 1) Maintenance and extension of his personal power. 2) Revenge on all groups of persons and institutions against whom he feels resentment, and they are many. 3) The staging of scenes out of Wagner's operas and the posing of pictures after Makart with Adolf Hitler as the chief protagonist. All else is pretence and tactic."
Something very useful to know, not just TTL. Feel free to disagree if you have a good reason, but I don't see where to contradict Haffner.
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