On April 1st, the verdict was announced.
Ludendorff was found not guilty and immediately released.
I was sentenced to five years in prison. When the verdict was announced, the audience rose up and protested loudly.
But as Judge Nighthart continued his speech, the protests turned to cheers.
"After nine months, parole is possible."
Friends like Rohm, Strasser and Hess were all given short sentences.
I was imprisoned again in Landsberg Prison with Hess and Maurice, but the treatment was completely different from before.
Instead of a cold cell full of mold and cobwebs, I was living in a VIP room with heating, a bed, and a table.
After shivering in a dark, stained cell, coming to a cell decorated with clean wallpaper and picture frames feels like coming to a hotel.
Not only that, I was allowed unlimited visits and meals, and I was allowed to walk around the prison freely during working hours wearing plain clothes instead of a prison uniform.
The guards treated me with respect and provided me with the same quality meals as they did.
It's not a bad feeling to be experiencing the imperial prison life of the conglomerate CEOs I only saw on the news.
I spent my free time taking Hess and Maurice for walks during work hours, while also writing.
Strictly speaking, I just dictated from the side, and Hess took care of the writing.
And so, My Struggle was completed.
***
Mein Kampf, famous as Hitler's autobiography, was actually a book with such poor content that even Hitler himself considered it a dark chapter in his history.
The narrative is inconsistent, and the content itself is a bunch of nonsense that supports Jewish conspiracy theories, so it wasn't well-received, not only in the 21st century, but even at the time.
There is even an anecdote that Hitler said, "If I had known I would become the Führer, I would not have written such a book," and that he begged Speer, who was the Minister of Armaments and one of his close associates, not to read it, saying that he would be embarrassed to death.
However, the content of My Struggle, which I wrote, is 180 degrees different from the original, although the title is the same.
There was no Jewish conspiracy theory that it was all because of the Jews, nor any unrealistic delusions like Lebensraum.
Instead, it contained a 'prediction of the future world situation' that mobilized all of my knowledge of the future.
How is it? Don't you think it's starting to get interesting?
Naturally, Hess and Shrek had a hard time accepting my 'prophecy'.
That's understandable, because it was full of things that were completely unimaginable with their current knowledge and awareness.
"Excuse me, Mr. Leader. Do you really believe the world economy will collapse in five years?"
Even Hess, who would take action immediately without any objection to what I said, spoke in a tone that showed he couldn't believe it.
I smiled lightly and answered his question.
"Yes. Although it may be hard to imagine right now, I'm certain. And the economic collapse will begin in the United States."
In 1929, the Great Depression occurred, something that even people who are indifferent to history and economics have heard of at least once.
The causes of the Great Depression were so numerous that even in the 21st century, it was impossible to pinpoint exactly what caused it. Furthermore, my knowledge of economics was not much different from that of the average person, so it was difficult for me to explain in detail why the Great Depression occurred. However, the important thing was the very prophecy that the Great Depression would occur.
Did Nostradamus explain why this would happen?
He became famous just by saying that this would happen in the future.
Of course, it would have been a bit much to just write that a Great Depression would occur without any explanation, so I showed some sincerity by putting in everything I could think of using all my knowledge.
Even though it may be considered nonsense now, in ten years I will suddenly become a world-class prophet. Hehe.
The Great Depression will undoubtedly completely collapse the existing world order. At the same time, each country will attempt to overcome the economic crisis in its own way.
"Large countries with many colonies, like Britain and France, will try to use them to escape economic crises, while countries with few colonies will try to escape economic crises through other means."
"What is the method?"
"Of course, war. They wage war to seize other countries' colonies, or even create new ones, exploit their resources, and secure markets for their own goods.
And I predict that country will definitely be Japan."
"Is it Japanese?"
"Yeah, Japan."
It is a well-known fact that the military took advantage of the Great Depression to seize power and invade Manchuria.
I said that Japan, having taken control of Manchuria, would become more arrogant and look down on all of China, and would come into armed conflict with Western powers such as Britain and the United States who tried to stop it.
"Excuse me, Leader. There's something I don't quite understand······."
"Tell me."
"You said that Japan was attacking Britain and the United States to continue the war against China. I doubt people would think that this makes sense."
"I think so too."
I understood Hess and Shrek's doubts. Common sense dictates that in a war, attacking another country out of the blue to continue the war is improbable.
But Japan did something crazy.
At the time, Japan needed more oil to continue its war with China.
However, when the United States, which accounted for the majority of imports, imposed an oil export ban, Japan decided to secure oil through war.
I don't understand. It's normal not to understand.
Japan was not normal, so they did exactly the opposite.
In the case of Britain and France, he also wrote that although they are now the world's most powerful nations, the colonies that made them powerful would later become their obstacles.
To solve this, it is also said that the colonies must be liberated to eliminate their own contradictions.
In the case of Britain, it was relatively quiet and gave up its colonies, but France, living up to its nickname of the "gangster of Europe," showed its ugly side until the end.
Representative examples include Vietnam and Algeria, both of which poured in a lot of war money and manpower but ended up losing.
"And it's so absurd to say that China will become a superpower that dominates the world economy. You know what kind of country China is, don't you?"
China in the 1920s was a backward country, not much different from how people in the 21st century view Afghanistan.
Think about it. If you suddenly told people that a developing country, not even a third-rate country like Afghanistan or Somalia, would suddenly become a superpower on par with the United States or Russia in 70 years, would they believe you? They'd probably tell you to stop talking nonsense.
"Yes. I know. That's why I said that."
"yes?"
"Today's China is a backward country, rife with warlords, a vast majority of the population illiterate, and a lack of even decent factories. Even at best, its military is only on the level of European armies from 30 years ago.
But China has the largest territory in Asia and the largest population in the world, meaning it has limitless growth potential.
"If a country with a vast workforce, vast territory, and abundant resources were to experience true peace and begin to grow… would the outcome be predictable?"
In Mein Kampf, I wrote confidently that while Germany's current enemies are its neighbors, such as Britain, France, and Poland, in the future the United States and China will be greater opponents than them.
Like Hess and Schreck, people may not understand right now, but their perception will change over time.
However, there were quite a few things that were too far in the future, such as the Internet, smartphones, AI, and drones.
Even predictions need to have some plausible explanation and some degree of reality for people to accept them.
But then suddenly try adding science fiction elements like robots or Mars exploration.
People are going to read this properly and ignore it, thinking, "This kid is just crazy."
Instead, he wrote quite specifically about the elements that people of this period might think about, such as the future of tanks and airplanes.
These two weapons will be crucial factors that will determine the future battlefield.
At the same time, the topic of battleships couldn't be left out. Battleships of this era were considered a significant weapon, comparable to nuclear weapons in the 21st century.
Why?
If there was a weapon that could sail all the seas of the world, protected by sturdy armor, and had the firepower to sink enemy warships with a single blow, what could be better than a battleship?
It was not for nothing that the Allied Powers stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles that Germany could never possess battleships.
However, after World War II, the battleship's luster faded.
Britain used aircraft carriers to launch a surprise attack on the Italian port of Taranto, rendering the Italian Navy semi-crippled. Japan, inspired by this, also actively utilized aircraft carriers and successfully attacked Pearl Harbor.
Having lost most of its battleships in the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States had no choice but to use aircraft carriers instead of battleships to confront the Japanese.
In this process, the United States discovered that aircraft carriers were surprisingly useful, and later, they began to value aircraft carriers more than battleships, defeating the Japanese military, which was obsessed with outdated big ship and big gun doctrine, and forcing their surrender.
Knowing the future, I asserted that the era of battleships was over and that the future was aircraft carriers.
Although it doesn't have the powerful firepower of a battleship, it can launch aircraft to attack from a distance that the main guns of a battleship cannot reach, so it will be much more useful than a battleship in future naval battles.
Lastly, he did not forget to include the current state of Germany, the direction Germany should take in the future, things to watch out for, and a condemnation of incompetent politicians.
My struggle, which was completed in one way or another, brought about a great controversy, just as I intended.
***
They say that when My Struggle first came out, sales weren't that great.
Sales of Mein Kampf began to surge in the 1930s, as support for Hitler and the Nazi Party began to rise. Before then, there were far more people who didn't even know that the book existed than those who knew about it.
But in this world where history has changed because of me, my struggle has quickly become a hot potato.
There are many similar books that criticize and present a vision for the German leadership, so I just got through them.
What caught people's attention was my prediction of the world situation.
"For one reason or another, the world economy will collapse all at once? And in the United States at that? That's ridiculous."
Many people were reluctant to believe that I was predicting a global depression.
Excluding Germany, the global economy was booming, so suddenly an economic crisis was declared. It was only natural that people dismissed it as nonsense.
In particular, they were busy ridiculing China's growth, saying that there was no such thing as science fiction.
"China? China? Those uncivilized barbarians are controlling the world economy. Isn't that Hitler crazy?"
"Maybe my ancestors are Chinese?"
However, several scholars who had already noticed China's potential published papers and actively defended my argument.
Although it was only a minority, as some scholars agreed with my argument, people's reactions gradually became divided.
In particular, the response to Japan's ambitions to invade Asia differed from the two previous predictions.
Above all, Germany lost its Asia-Pacific colonies, including Qingdao, to Japan due to its defeat in World War I.
Although the perception of Japan was not entirely bad due to Japan's gentlemanly treatment of prisoners, it was not entirely positive, so my argument surprisingly received a favorable response.
Above all, the biggest event that made this book widely known was when My Struggle was introduced to China by Chinese students studying in Germany.
"Have you read Mein Kampf?"
"My struggle? What is that?"
"This book was written by a German gentleman named Adolf Hitler. It contains a tremendous amount of content. You should read it."
"But I don't know German?"
"I knew this would happen, so I did my translation."
During this period, the Chinese people were upset that their country was being treated as a third-rate country by the Western powers, but they also suffered inwardly because it was true.
But then, in Germany, a certain revolutionary appeared and wrote in his autobiography that China, even if it was treated as a mean country at the moment, had tremendous potential and would grow into a world power in the future, so it was only natural that he would be sympathetic.
Even in the 21st century, nationalistic content is popular. How much more so in the 20th century? And what if a foreigner with no connection to China were promoting China?
When the illegal translation of Mein Kampf was introduced in China, the reaction was explosive.
Although it was primarily read by intellectuals rather than the largely illiterate Chinese populace, Mein Kampf gained worldwide fame as they began to spread awareness of the book's existence to the general public and even to foreigners in China.
"My Struggle is a ray of hope for the Chinese people. I sincerely hope this book will be widely read not only by the Chinese people, but also by all the peoples of Asia and the world."
Finally, the popularity of Mein Kampf reached its peak when Sun Yat-sen, the father of China, mentioned the book.
"It's a success, a great success! A great success!"
These were the words of Max Amann, whom I met after being released from Landsberg Prison.
Max Amann was a friend of mine who was involved in the publication of Mein Kampf as the head of the publishing house 'Franz Echer'.
In real history, it was Amann who gave Hitler's autobiography the name Mein Kampf.
What was the original title of "Mein Kampf"? It was "Four Years of Lies, Cowardice, and Folly." It sounds like the title of a modern-day light novel.
Anyway, Mein Kampf became incredibly popular in China, and as it spread to Japan, and then through Japan, its name began to become known to countries around the world, Mein Kampf sold like crazy.
At a time when awareness of copyright was still low, many of the translated copies of Mein Kampf circulating in the market, especially in Asia, were illegal translations. However, even taking this into account, the sales of Mein Kampf were beyond imagination.
Thanks to this, the Nazi Party's finances were so strong that it didn't have to worry about money for several years. Naturally, my position within the party became even more solid.
Even Drexler, who had been acting as party leader while I was in prison, was eventually forced to acknowledge me and step down as honorary chairman.
But, my friend, you don't know it, but this is a much happier ending.
In the original history, you were a dog to Hitler, then you were sued for defamation and retired. And that was before the Beer Hall Putsch.
However, in this return, I treated Drexler firmly as the party leader, even if it was only in name, and he seemed satisfied with his treatment and did not clash with me.
Isn't this what it means to be good to your sister and good to your brother-in-law?
As Mein Kampf gained explosive popularity, the party's once-fading popularity also rose again.
Naturally, the number of people who wanted to join the party increased again, and among them
"Nice to meet you. My name is Paul Joseph Goebbels."
There was also Goebbels, a master of propaganda and agitation unprecedented in human history.