Quote:
Originally Posted by Blind Mapmaker
Berlin/Jerusalem 1916: The German and Ottoman Empires are hard-pressed to hold the line against the Entente Powers. To pre-empt a British attempt to garner Jewish support (what happened in OTL with the Balfour Declaration) German diplomats convince the German and Ottoman governments including a reluctant Wilhelm II (who didn't care for his Jewish subjects very much, but didn't mind Zionism as an easy way to be rid of them) to sponsor a "National home for the Jewish in Palestine". While the leading Zionists in the Entente Powers wisely decline to comment on this development, it earns much interest in Germany, Austria-Hungary and occupied Russian territory. It also turns Jewish opinion in the US in favour of Germany. This combined with the wise decision not to resume unrestricted submarine warfare kept the Americans out of the war (but still friendly to the Entente). The eventual German collapse is just as complete as in OTL, but when the British Empire reluctantly takes up the Zionist cause afterwards the Germans still get all the praise for taking the first step. With Jewish charities in America setting up donations to help starving German children and invalids, anti-semitism has much less appeal in the immediate post-war situation and leads to a minor Austrian corporal in German service to return in disgust to his Austrian native soil. Anti-semitism still plays some role in German politics, but it doesn't form an important platform in any of the major parties. Without a strong NSDAP the Weimar coalition of Zentrum, DVP and SPD manages to weather the storm of the World Economic Crisis and Germany manages to avoid another dictatorship.
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Pretty longwinded explanation riddled with lots of what I would not agree with. Whatever you can say of Wilhelm II, he did not try to get rid of Jews - the Germany before WWI was among the most tolerant countries with respect to Jews in the world. Wether Jewish sympathy would have helped a lot to keep America out of the war is also doubtful, in my opinion. It's probable that Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare (which in any case should have been used relentlessly against Britain as long as the despicable Hunger Blockade was maintained) was only a pretext for America to enter the war. They would have found something else, one always does.
It's also not the case that Germany was more antisemitic after the war than any other nation, and in any case, Hitler's right wing party enjoyed no great successes at first. Even as late as in 1928 the NSDAP achieved a meagre 2,5% result in the election, the soaring rise of this party only began in 1929 with the Depression.
To avoid the NS dictatorship ("Yet another dictatorship"? Had there been another one before that?), all this convoluted stuff isn't really necessary. All kinds of coincidences might have achieved the same. For instance, something may have convinced the conservative parties not to seek a coalition with the NS Party in early 1933. No government can be formed, so another election is held in which the NSDAP achieves only an unspectacular result of 27% (they were on the downward slore, having achieved 37% in late 1932, but only 32% in early 1933). Hitler never becomes chancellor and remains a footnote in history.
Or even simpler: During the
Bürgerbräu-Putsch, policemen fire upon the putschists, and one bullet's trajectory leads it right through Hitler's Brain. End of story. Alternatively (should you share Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth's sentiment about saving the latter for transplantation experiments), simply assume that Hitler faces a far less understanding judge in the trial afterwards, and is sentenced to 10 years in prison for treason. After being released in 1933, he emigrates to the US, where he becomes a third class science fiction author, who later founds his own religion called "Systemology" (mainly to avoid paying taxes). He dies as a rich man in 1976.