A man wakes up in an unremarkable parking lot in Germany - Which, 74 years prior,
was known as the Fuhrerbunker, where the Nazi top brass in World War II waited out their final days.
He’s got a splitting headache - almost like he’d been shot in the head - and a strange
little toothbrush mustache. The year is 2022, and Adolf Hitler has just come back to life.
We can say for certain after his headache fades away, the next thing he will feel is
utter confusion. The world in 2022 looks incredibly different than it did in 1945,
in pretty much every conceivable way. The fashions have changed, social attitudes have evolved,
there has been another global pandemic, and technology has advanced dramatically. So,
before he could react to anything specific to his own personal views, he would probably
be pretty overwhelmed by the appearance of electric cars, flatscreen TVs, and smartphones.
It would take quite some time for him to get used to the fact that most people
have tiny computers in their pocket that function as phones and an access
point to the entire knowledge of our species. Once he recovered from the shock of absorbing
all the technological changes of the last seven decades or so, Hitler would be pretty upset with
just about everything he saw and learned about the state of the country he used to run. At the
end of World War II, his last glimpse at Germany, the country was in ruins. Its ports and railroads
had been decimated by bombs, the population had been wiped out by war and his own genocides alike,
and it seemed as if it might never recover. Now, Germany is considered to be a thriving
and widely trusted nation on a global scale. Though Hitler would likely be glad to see his
homeland doing well, he would be furious about everything else the nation is doing,
and has been doing since his death. First, he would see that the flag being flown by the
nation of Germany has changed in his absence. When the Nazi party rose to power in 1933, the
traditional black, red, and gold German flag was discarded, and two new national flags were chosen:
a black, red, and white flag and the horribly recognizable swastika flag of the Nazi Party.
In 1935, the shift toward Nazism was made complete and the swastika flag took its place as the
nation’s only official flag. After the fall of the Third Reich, and the end of Hitler’s regime,
the flag was returned to its original black, red, and gold self. This marked the end of the
darkest period in Germany’s history, and it would make Hitler absolutely furious.
This is far from the only way in which Germany has attempted to undo the damage
done by the Nazi party, both to itself and to the world at large. In March of 2015,
Chancellor Angela Merkel discussed the lingering effects of the war on the nation’s identity,
saying, “We Germans will never forget the hand of reconciliation that was extended to us
after all the suffering that our country had brought to Europe and the world.”
Speaking of Chancellor Merkel, Hitler would be infuriated if he happened to wander into a bar and
see her on TV, leading the country as its first female Chancellor. Women under the Nazi regime
were prohibited from holding executive office or taking any influential role in politics. They were
expected to stay home and act only as wives and mothers, giving up all other responsibilities
aside from supporting their husbands and having as many German babies as possible.
Not only does Merkel not have any children, but she holds the highest political office in Germany.
Hitler would demand that the bar’s proprietor change the channel to something else,
and when the TV flipped to an international news channel, he would be angry to see that
England recovered from the Blitz, and that Poland is its own country and still exists,
with its own beautiful cultural achievements, in spite of the damage done to it in World War II.
Hitler would snatch the TV remote from the bar owner’s hand and continue flipping through the
channels, looking for something, anything, that might indicate the lasting effects of his regime.
He would not like what he found. As someone who was big on censorship,
with the Nazi party devoting countless time and resources to propaganda and the crushing of all
dissenting opinions, the freedom of international and German media would come as quite a shock.
Starting in 1934, it was illegal to criticize the Nazi government or even joke about Hitler.
Doing so was considered a form of treason. Anti-Nazi newspapers were closed down,
radio broadcasts and print media were controlled, and propaganda was produced to glorify Hitler and
the Nazi party as a whole. He would turn to a channel where a sitcom was making fun of him,
and demand to know why that was allowed. Everyone he asked would just laugh at him,
as his face got redder and redder and he could do nothing to stop them.
You could only imagine his blood-boiling rage when he finds out that iconic and beloved Jewish
comedians like Mel Brooks and Charlie Chaplin have made millions with clever jabs at the Big,
Bad Fuhrer in movies like The Producers and The Great Dictator, both of which are
enjoyed just as much in Germany as anywhere else. It’s not just acceptable to joke about Hitler or
openly criticize him now, freedom of the press is a high priority in Germany and protected
by its constitution. The Press Freedom Index, compiled by the NGO Reporters Without Borders,
ranks Germany in the top 20 countries for free press, placing it well above the United States and
the United Kingdom. Berlin, Hitler’s old stomping grounds, is one of the top ten media cities in the
world with 440 foreign correspondents from 60 different countries reporting from on its soil.
The German Press Council, made up of publishing and journalism associations,
works to maintain free access to information as well as journalistic ethics in the country,
helping to ensure that nothing like the censorship under the Third Reich happens again.
Finished with television, Hitler would storm out of the bar, back out onto the streets and make his
way to a local library. Maybe he could find some good Nazi literature, or his own book, Mein Kampf,
to cheer himself up. Instead, he would be shocked at the wide variety of volumes on the shelves,
covering all manner of topics once banned under his own authority. The Nazi party conducted a
series of infamous book burnings, targeting books in Germany and Austria in the 1930s.
The initial wave of targets included those by Jewish, communist, socialist, anarchist, and
pacifist authors, including the works of writers like Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Victor Hugo,
Jack London, and Leo Tolstoy. Eventually, anyone who was not a vocal supporter of Nazism
was a target, and their books were burned. Hitler would fly into a rage seeing a copy
of Hugo’s “Les Miserables” on display, or a copy of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace.” These books were
meant to be eradicated from German soil. But time marches on, and you can’t fight the written word.
Just imagine what someone so insistent on fighting for traditional values would think of “50 Shades
of Gray.” But he wouldn’t stay focused on the fiction section long, because there has been
progress in Germany far more notable, and more upsetting to Hitler, than the inclusion of classic
literature and political theory in its libraries. One particularly tragic target of the Nazi book
burnings was the Institute for Sexual Science, founded in 1919 by Magnus Hirschfeld. The
institute conducted research into human gender and sexuality, covering a wide variety of topics
from health and safety to public sex education. It was especially notable for its, at the time,
groundbreaking studies of individuals in the gay community. It also acted as the home of
the Scientific Humanitarian Committee and the World League for Sexual Reform.
Tragically, and predictably, the Nazi party was not fond of Hirschfeld or his Institute,
declaring it “offensive” and targeting him for his Jewish identity. Nazis overtook the Institute in
1933, where they burned the contents of its library as Hirschfeld was exiled in France.
The buildings were destroyed completely by a bombing in 1943, and countless volumes
of research and progress were lost forever. Today, however, things are quite different.
Germany prioritizes sex education, which was made mandatory in 1992. Gay rights have also come a
long way since the time of World War II and the loss of the Institute for Sexual Science. Today,
there is no censorship of gay people in German media, discrimination for employment or housing
access on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal, conversion therapy is banned,
and same-sex marriage has been legal since 2017. Germany is a more diverse place than it was when
Hitler was in power, in spite of all his efforts and the efforts of those like him. Of the 82
million people living in Germany, over 19 million of them come from an immigrant background. 9.6
million people are living with a disability. There are hundreds of different religious communities,
and the nation’s constitution guarantees freedom of faith and the right to practice one’s religion.
Running down the street, increasingly upset and desperate to get away, Hitler would find
himself surrounded by all of the people he once tried to erase from Germany altogether, walking
around him and just going about their lives, happy, while he grows more and more miserable.
Out of breath, he would stop and look around him at the city of Berlin. When he last saw it,
it was a city in ruins, destroyed by the ravages of the war. The Brandenburg gate,
once crumbling to pieces, stands fully restored. The Reichstag looks like new,
now the seat of the German parliament and a place for tourists to pose for pictures. Some spots,
however, have been left as they were. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church,
damaged during a bombing in 1943, was deliberately left alone after the war. Throughout the city,
the old and the new, there are memorial sites and informational panels commemorating the
horrors of the Holocaust and pointing out the buildings that were once occupied by
the Third Reich. The city has been rebuilt, but its history will never be forgotten.
He might start screaming and ranting, as he was known to do. Yelling about the
horrors and evils of racial diversity, of sexual liberation, of gender equality, of free speech,
understanding, and tolerance. In his mind, he’d be the last man standing up for what he believes in.
To anyone else, he’d just look like some mad, old fool in a tasteless costume.
And finally, Hitler’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day would end with him being hauled off
to jail by the German police. You see, in Germany, the law bans symbols of “anti-constitutional
organizations” and has strict laws against displaying them in public. Nazi salutes or
positive statements about Hitler also fall under the designation. Displaying Nazi iconography,
such as a Hitler costume or a swastika armband, in public can result in up to three years in prison,
or five if the hateful display is considered to be inciting violence
against a specific racial or religious group. Naturally, a man making his way down the streets
of contemporary Berlin in full Nazi uniform and bearing an uncanny resemblance to Adolf Hitler
would draw quite a bit of negative attention - especially with his ranting and raving.
People would be taking pictures for Twitter, livestreaming on Instagram, and calling the
local police. Someone might throw an empty coffee cup at him, others would cover their child’s eyes.
Hitler could try to run, he could try to hide, but he would find himself brought in for questioning.
After a short conversation with the man, no officer in their right mind would release
him back out into Germany at large. He would receive the maximum sentence and likely be given
a psychological evaluation as well. So if Adolf Hitler woke up today,
and found himself in the present, he would see how the world has moved on without him
and done its best to make sure no one like him ever wins again, and he would end the
day the same way he ended the war: terrified, defeated, and locked away. And let’s be honest,
there’s no way he’s getting out for good behavior. Now check out “What If Hitler Had Won?”
and “Hitler's Actual Plan for Taking Over America” for more Hitler theories and facts!