1/ Could Donald Trump have become one of Germany's biggest supporters of Ukraine if his grandfather Friedrich hadn't evaded the draft in Bavaria? Let's take a dive into counterfactual history to consider what might have been. ⬇️ 
2/ Apart from being fun, counterfactual history is a useful tool for historical enquiry. It helps us to "conjectur[e] on what did not happen, or what might have happened, in order to understand what did happen." While it's speculative, it's also illuminating.
3/ Friedrich Trump emigrated from Bavaria to the United States in 1885 at the age of only 16. As he had not yet served the mandatory military duty of two years in the Kingdom of Bavaria, this emigration was illegal under Bavarian law, and he was subsequently banished by decree.
4/ Friedrich made his wealth in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush when he opened a restaurant, hotels and a brothel for miners in Whitehorse. In 1904, by now a wealthy man, he returned with his family to Bavaria. His son Fred was conceived there.
5/ However, the Bavarian authorities realised that he had illegally emigrated and in February 1905, they told him to leave within eight weeks. He repeatedly petitioned to have the decision reversed but was unsuccessful. He returned to New York City, living there until his death.
6/ At this point, we'll make the paths of history diverge. What could have happened if Friedrich had been allowed to stay in Bavaria, resumed his citizenship, and continued to live there until his death during the 1918 influenza pandemic?
7/ His son Fred (born October 11, 1905) would have been a German citizen. Inheriting wealth from his father, Fred would likely have followed Friedrich into the real estate and construction business. The early 1920s could have provided opportunities to acquire distressed assets.
8/ In our own timeline, Fred Trump was arrested for attending a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1927, and was sued in 1973 for banning black people from renting apartments he owned. So there's good reason to believe he was personally racist.
9/ In our alternative history, Fred Trump's possible racist ideation makes him attracted to the ideas of Adolf Hitler's rising Nazi Party. If he doesn't join the Nazis in the late 1920s, he certainly does in the 1930s when Party membership is expected of the business class.
10/ Being a Nazi Party member unlocks many doors for alt-Fred, who profits greatly from Hitler's economic expansion and military rearmament. He makes a lot of money from the Reich's housing programmes, under which credit is offered to private construction businesses.
11/ (In our own timeline, Fred Trump made use of loan subsidies created by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) under the National Housing Act of 1934. He build thousands of houses using FHA funds.)
12/ In 1935, the German armed forces are increased in size from 100,000 to 750,000. All those troops need somewhere to be billeted, so alt-Fred starts building barracks for the newly formed Wehrmacht. This makes him one of Germany's wealthiest businessmen.
13/ He continues his military-related building after the start of World War II, when housing is needed for Germany's war workers, and constructs dormitories for war workers across Germany.
14/ (In our timeline, Fred built barracks and garden apartments for U.S. Navy personnel near major shipyards in Virginia and Pennsylvania. The press dubbed him "the Henry Ford of housing.")
15/ As a man in his 30s, Fred could have been conscripted into the Wehrmacht. However, like Fred in our own timeline, he is able to use his connections to avoid conscription and survives the war. But unlike 'our' Fred, alt-Fred faces devastating losses due to Germany's defeat.
16/ Allied bombing and shelling destroys almost all of his properties, and everything he owns in eastern German territories is expropriated by newly installed communist regimes. But alt-Fred finds himself a wife amidst the chaos of postwar Germany.
17/ Alt-Fred doesn't marry Mary MacLeod from Scotland, unlike 'our' Fred. Instead, he marries Maria Mohr from Silesia, a German refugee driven out as part of the mass expulsion of Germans from territories awarded to Poland under the Potsdam Agreement.
18/ Baby Donald (who we'll call Donalt for our alternative timeline) is born on June 14, 1946, 13 months after Germany's surrender. He grows up in an environment where both adult Trumps are embittered against the communists and the Russians after their traumatic experiences.
19/ Although alt-Fred was one of the 8 million Germans who had joined the Nazi Party, he is able to convince the denazification process that he was merely a 'fellow traveller' (Mitläufer) and is given only relatively minor penalties, which are soon discontinued.
20/ Post-war Germany desperately needs housing, so alt-Fred does what he knows best and gets back into the property and construction business. He builds his fortune anew as Germany rebuilds its devastated housing stock in the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) of the 1950s.
21/ As avowed anti-communists, alt-Fred and Maria vehemently oppose normalisation with East Germany. Alt-Fred is one of many right-wing Germans to reject the legitimacy of the GDR – as the border slogan goes, "Germany does not end here! The Fatherland is over there too!"
22/ Alt-Fred uses his wealth to found his own newspaper, Trumpwelt, to campaign against any moves towards normalisation. He is outraged by Willy Brandt's policy of Ostpolitik and denounces West Germany's agreement to mutually recognise East Germany in the 1970s.
23/ From then on, any engagement with the left-wing SPD is anathema in the Trump household, on threat of disinheritance. Meanwhile, alt-Fred's son Donalt is coming of age, but finds himself having to take over the company far earlier than anticipated.
24/ Since 1955, Germany has been importing guest workers (Gastarbeiter) to provide labour. Turks have become the largest group from 1961 onwards. However, alt-Fred's racial views lead to him instituting an illegal ban on them renting his properties. The federal government sues.
25/ (The real Fred Trump was sued by the US Department of Justice in October 1973 for illegal racial discrimination in renting properties, in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The case was settled in 1975 with a consent decree.)
26/ In the ensuing controversy, alt-Fred's Nazi past is highlighted. Fearing blowback against his business empire, he steps down and hands over the reins to 27-year-old Donalt. The younger Trump becomes the president of Trump GmbH.
27/ After seeing how his father was burnt by politics, Donalt dials down the anticommunism and continues his father's policy of donating to the Christian Democrats. He presents himself as a conservative but not extreme rightwinger. He builds a popular chain of Trumphaus hotels.
28/ Donalt is not a celebrity. He lives in Germany's financial centre, Stuttgart, which has a far more staid (even boring) reputation than New York City. He has been brought up with West German bourgeois values, rather than in NYC's cut-throat, mafia-ridden real estate market.
29/ In 1990, Donalt's greatest stroke of good fortune comes when the government of the newly reunified Germany gives him a prominent role in the privatisation of state-owned property in the former East Germany. He is involved in the restructuring and sale of state-owned housing.
30/ Donalt makes a huge amount of money in the newly privatised eastern German property market. However, he also makes himself very unpopular in the region with accusations of profiteering and business deals of dubious legality, though this doesn't hurt his standing with the CDU.
31/ The fall of communism leads him to redirect the outlook of his father's pet newspaper, Trumpwelt. It now becomes a glossy magazine promoting Donalt (who is a man of no small ego) and his business empire. However, Donalt and his mother Maria retain a visceral hatred of Russia.
32/ Fast forward to February 2022. Russia invades Ukraine, shocking the world and prompting SPD Chancellor Olaf Schulz to announce a Zeitenwende (historic turning-point). The invasion has a deep impact on Donalt, whose late mother frequently warned of "Ivan coming west".
33/ Using the pages of Trumpwelt, Donalt urges Germany to step up its support for Ukraine. He highlights his family's history of dispossession by invading Russian/Soviet forces and links this to Ukraine's plight. He becomes a prominent pro-Ukrainian voice in the CDU.
34/ (In our world, Trump has a strange and much remarked-upon affinity for Vladimir Putin. His closest allies advocate forcing Ukraine into a 'peace plan' which would effectively amount to surrendering to Russia.)
35/ In 2025, the SPD coalition collapses in a row over the budget. The CDU returns to power. Donalt is elected as a CDU Bundestag member. Although he is intrigued by the rise of the AfD, its base is in eastern Germany, where many have not forgiven Donalt for his 1990s role.
36/ Donalt's pro-Ukrainian advocacy makes him a natural choice to lead a parliamentary committee overseeing the supply of weapons to Ukraine. Soon, Leopard 2 tanks and Taurus missiles are headed east – all because Friedrich managed to stay in Bavaria 120 years earlier... /end
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