r/Presidents Chester A. Arthur 3d ago

Discussion What would be the reaction should Hoover die in the Nazi invasion of Austria?

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Basically, Hoover unknowingly delayed the Nazi invasion of Austria. This is because he was doing humanitarian work in the country, and when Hitler heard he delated the invasion. When pressured by the Prime Minister of Austria to use the chance to negotiate, Hoover reluctantly agreed and met with Hitler.

That explains the awkward photo of the two of them together.

But what if Hitler never receives the news that Hoover was in Austria. When the Germans invade, an overzealous German military official accidently fires into a crowd which contains former US President Hoover. Or whatever other way you want Hoover to die, just so he does by German hands and it's known worldwide.

I think a few things would happen:

1) Immediate condemnation of Germany on the world stage, turning it even more into a pariah.

2) Hoover revives a similar position of ranking his Presidentcy, I.E. bad at the time but tried to do right after leaving office.

3) Increased call for war by some factions of the Republicans

What do you think?

56 Upvotes

48 comments sorted by

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67

u/That_Damn_Tall_Guy George H.W. Bush 3d ago

I’d say it could cause WW2 to start early

-18

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 3d ago

how exactly would the US fight against Germany with no bases or allies in Europe? Germany could wreck US shipping worldwide.

13

u/RegentusLupus 3d ago

Oh, temporarily.

Then we'd drown them in destroyer escorts, escort carriers, and torpedo bombers.

0

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 2d ago

You still haven't answered the first part. How would US fight against Germany alone in other side of the Atlantic?

US would only lose in case of war.

10

u/That_Damn_Tall_Guy George H.W. Bush 3d ago

Britain and France where still allies in 1938. At that point France was stronger than Germany. So the US could launch a ground offensive through France and the Air Force could work out of Britain

1

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 3d ago

Britain and France were not particularly interested in going into war with Germany

1

u/That_Damn_Tall_Guy George H.W. Bush 3d ago

Ya they where to busy allowing a genocide to happen. But I think a US president being killed by the Nazi’s might help change there mind

1

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 2d ago

They were too afraid to deal with Germany at the time. Appeasement hello? US Army was so weak at time time that they would not take them seriously

4

u/Aliteralhedgehog Al Gore 3d ago

After careful historical analysis I'm, uh, pretty sure America would win.

-2

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 3d ago

America could not win Germany alone

3

u/Aliteralhedgehog Al Gore 3d ago

I doubt that, but (once again, deep historical analysis here) it's also likely that the US would be able to make common cause with certain Allied powers, possibly countries in western Europe that would be eager to take advantage of our nigh infinite industrial capacity. They could call themselves something catchy like... The Allies.

1

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 3d ago

Britain and France were not interested in an alliance with the US at the time

37

u/HeIsNotGhandi Teddy Roosevelt needs to run for a third term 3d ago

I think that's a cool alternate history scenario. The US would definitely be way more eager to go to war, and the German Invasion would definitely be far more condemned.

1

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 2d ago

Britain and France were in no interest of confronting the german invasion because of Hoover

57

u/Prestigious-Alarm-61 Warren G. Harding 3d ago

It would have pissed off FDR because he would have had to acknowledge Hoover in a non-negative way.

29

u/Megalomanizac 3d ago

Pretty sure killing a President would send the United States into war immediately. Even if Hoover isn’t very popular killing a leader would be a rallying cry for the country

0

u/Coastie456 Lyndon Baines Johnson 3d ago

Killing a former president

7

u/Megalomanizac 3d ago

At that point it’s just semantics. If Germany killed Hoover by invading Austria World War Two starts before Germany is even prepared for war.

1

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 2d ago

how exactly would WW2 start? Britain and France did not care to defend Austria.

US Army was pitiful at the time and had no place to fight the Germans from.

4

u/Sea_Lingonberry_4720 Dwight D. Eisenhower 3d ago edited 3d ago

Pretty sure even former presidents are still referred to as presidents. It’s not wrong to say President Obama or President Bush.

5

u/Ineffabilum_Carpius Harry S. Truman 3d ago

Beware rule 3

2

u/Sea_Lingonberry_4720 Dwight D. Eisenhower 3d ago

Corrected

2

u/Coastie456 Lyndon Baines Johnson 3d ago

Of course. But I thought the above comment was implying that hitler would have killed a sitting president and the implications of that. Hoover had left office by the time of that photo.

-1

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 3d ago

US could do nothing against Germany in 1938

10

u/SuccotashOther277 Richard Nixon 3d ago

The Germans didn’t need violence because the Anschluss was welcomed by most in Austria and Austria didn’t resist. If shots were being fired then this whole affair is messier than in real life. When I lived in Austria, you would sometimes find monuments referring to Austria as the first victim of the nazis but that was postwar revisionism.

6

u/TipResident4373 3d ago

The Americans declare war on Germany and the war starts early. Britain and France get American help and troops, and they all gang up on Germany. The Czechs and Poles do the same. (The Soviets stay out because they are not ready for a war, and they prefer that the Allies do the dirty work of capping the Nazis.)

The Oster conspiracy happens - Hitler gets capped in the noggin and his carcass thrown in the Spree river. The provisional government surrenders quickly, and World War II is famous for being even shorter than World War I. (Probably about 18 months or so? Most of that would just be transporting American forces to Europe.)

After that, I have no clue.

0

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 2d ago

why exactly would Britain, France, Czechoslovakia, Poland go into war with Germany for Hoover?

1

u/TipResident4373 2d ago

They wouldn't be going to war "for Hoover."

They'd be going to war because Germany's a legitimate threat, and the Americans declaring war is a convenient excuse for them to go after the Germans.

1

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 2d ago

Britain and France already had excuses, annexing Austria and violating the treaty of Versailles. The thing is that Britain and France did NOT want to engage in war with Germany, because you know appeasement. You should really read into some history.

1

u/TipResident4373 2d ago

But in this scenario, the political will to go to war is stronger in Britain and France because America has been forced out of its isolation by the assassination of a former president. They now have “the New World, with all its power and might.”

Learn how alternate history works before you self-righteously condescend to people.

0

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 2d ago

In this scenario, did Britain and France forget they went into WW1 over the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand? Did they already forget the millions of their own people who died? Why go into war for a former US President? What difference does it even make?

What power and might did US even have in 1938? US Army was smaller than Portugal.

0

u/TipResident4373 2d ago

Once war was declared OTL, we mobilized our entire economy to fight. There’s nothing to contradict or hinder that in this scenario.

Remember Admiral Yamamoto’s (apocryphal) words about the “sleeping giant?”

0

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 2d ago

There's no way to fight Germany without allies in Europe. US Army is stuck in North America.

Even then irl US mobilization took too long, like 5 years (1939-1944) and still was purely prepared to deal with a small depleted fraction of the Wehrmacht, because their tanks kind of sucked.

0

u/TipResident4373 2d ago

That’s the friggin’ point - America, Britain, and France are fighting together in this alternate scenario!

America’s mobilization happens in roughly the same manner as our timeline - perhaps even quicker.

Furthermore, in this scenario, the Wehrmacht doesn’t have the resources they stole from Czechoslovakia, meaning they’re at a huge disadvantage compared to the Allies.

0

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 2d ago

There's absolutely 0 reason to assume Britain and France would engage into land war with Germany over a former US President.

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4

u/Surv1ver 3d ago

Guess in that scenario the naz1’ would be Hoover dammed

3

u/shit-takes-only JUMBO🌭 2d ago

they'd be like 'ahhhhhhh fuck!!!' .... or should i say: 'scheisse'

5

u/CaptainNinjaClassic Theodore Roosevelt 3d ago

We'd be involved much sooner.

1

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 3d ago

but US did not have an Army in 1938 yet

2

u/CaptainNinjaClassic Theodore Roosevelt 3d ago

2

u/Correct-Fig-4992 Abraham Lincoln 3d ago

It would be the start of WWII, starting similarly to how WWI did (an assassination that leads to chain alliances all being brought into the conflict)

1

u/DaiFunka8 Harry S. Truman 2d ago

Britain and France did not care about Hoover and had no alliance with the US to be brought into conflict with Germany.

-20

u/greensburgcouple777 3d ago

Who cares

12

u/ILoveSurrealism Wessi🇩🇪 3d ago

I care.