If Santa Claus had blogposted by self-inserting into "What if Kaiser Wilhelm" alternate history threads to brag about his own real-world actions, the internet culture surrounding it would be a surreal mix of obvious propaganda, bizarre psychological projection, and intense forum moderation battles.
Here is how that scenario would likely play out across the internet.
The Forum Posts
He would post under a thin pseudonym like §_Grobe_Welle_1888_§ or Wolf_88 on early 2000s-style alternate history forums. The threads would look exactly like this:
Thread: WHAT IF Kaiser Wilhelm II just decided to take Austria in 1938??
OP: “Think about it. Total hypothetical. What if the Kaiser simply marched into Vienna, and the Austrians completely cheered? No shots fired. Total triumph. Then, what if he took the Sudetenland because the British prime minister was too weak to stop him? Purely a thought experiment. Let's say the Kaiser is also a genius painter and a vegan. Thoughts?”
The Community Reaction
- Immediate Call-Outs: Users would instantly point out the lack of historical realism. Replies would say, "Bro, Wilhelm died in exile in 1941, and none of this matches his foreign policy. Also, why did you make him a vegan?"
- The "Main Character" Accusations: Forum veterans would mock the blatant self-insert fanfiction. “OP is coping hard. Why is your version of Kaiser Wilhelm suddenly obsessed with micro-managing infantry divisions in Russia and talking about 'living space' in the East? Total Mary Sue writing.”
- Mod Intervention: Moderators would constantly lock his threads for breaking forum rules. He would get temp-banned for "Off-Topic Soapboxing" and "Posting thinly veiled political manifestos in the timeline section."
The Psychological Shift
As the real-world war progressed, his posting habits would violently destabilize:
- The Blitzkrieg Era (1939–1941): His posts would be smug, high-effort, and filled with multi-paragraph essays explaining how his "Kaiser persona" predicted the exact collapse of the French defensive lines. He would aggressively downvote anyone who suggested the Royal Navy was still a threat.
- The Turning Point (1942–1943): After the real-world battle of Stalingrad, the threads would turn into frantic damage control. He would post threads like: "What if the Kaiser intentionally let an entire army get surrounded in the winter just to bait the enemy into a trap? (Hypothetically, it is a masterclass move, do not look at the news)."
- The Rage-Quitting Era (1944–1945): In the final months, he would completely abandon historical pretense. He would get permanently banned from the forum for mass-spamming threads about fictional "wunderwaffen" (wonder weapons) that his Kaiser insert was totally about to deploy to win the alternate war.
The Historic Legacy
Future internet historians would view these archived threads as the ultimate historical joke.
Digital archeologists would write essays analyzing the absolute delusion of a dictator trying to validation-seek on a niche internet board while his empire collapsed around him. The phrase "What if the Kaiser just moved the Steiner brigade?" would become a permanent internet meme.
If you want to explore this concept further, I can help you by writing a
mock forum script between him and angry moderators, or we can look at how
real-world wartime propaganda attempted to rewrite history in similar ways. Let me know how you would like to proceed!