Nature of jet aircraft development in WW2 if Hitler had drowned in a river in 1894

[Cantankerous]

Since I've known for a few years that Adolf Hitler almost drowned in the River Inn in Passau, Germany, in January 1894, only to have a priest rescue him the last minute, I wanted to ask what jet aircraft development in World War II have been like if Hitler had drowned in the River Inn, especially when bearing in mind that the jet engine was created in the UK despite Nazi Germany building the first jet airplane.

[T. A. Gardner]

I doubt that it would have had much effect. Von Ohan was developing his engines independent of government support until Henkel hired him and started funding his work. So, Hitler or no, his research would have been unaffected. Most of the others doing jet research really didn't get into it in a big way until well into the war and with RLM and government support.
So, it would depend more on where Germany went politically and militarily post WW 1 with the Treaty of Versailles in place.

[Cantankerous]

I doubt that it would have had much effect. Von Ohan was developing his engines independent of government support until Henkel hired him and started funding his work. So, Hitler or no, his research would have been unaffected. Most of the others doing jet research really didn't get into it in a big way until well into the war and with RLM and government support.
So, it would depend more on where Germany went politically and militarily post WW 1 with the Treaty of Versailles in place.

Well, even if Hitler hadn't been elected chancellor, Japanese aggression in East Asia and a potential conquest of French colonies in North Africa by Mussolini would have motivated the US Army Air Force to envisage a requirement for a multi-engine intercontinental jet bomber able to strike Japan or Japanese-held areas of the Pacific directly from the mainland US and the Royal Air Force to develop jet derivatives of its existing bombers for attacks on Italian-controlled targets in North Africa.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Downing Hitler as a child more or less waives away WWII as we know it, or entirely. It would be simpler to ask the question from that point, no WWII or general war circa 1940, & where jet engine development would have gone.

I suspect that military development would lead, but the possibility of the civilian sector paying for development must be examined to see if there was a possibility. Absent a war My take is still there would be production aircraft with jet engines by 1950, mostly military. Tho Lufthansa or Pan Am might be asking for them as well.

[T. A. Gardner]

Well, even if Hitler hadn't been elected chancellor, Japanese aggression in East Asia and a potential conquest of French colonies in North Africa by Mussolini would have motivated the US Army Air Force to envisage a requirement for a multi-engine intercontinental jet bomber able to strike Japan or Japanese-held areas of the Pacific directly from the mainland US and the Royal Air Force to develop jet derivatives of its existing bombers for attacks on Italian-controlled targets in North Africa.

Once the US knew about Whittle's work, they'd have acted pretty much the same as they did historically. Stanford Moss and the turbocharger division at GE would have begun immediate development of an axial jet engine, and the production of a retooled to US standards Whittle engine would have started. Westinghouse would get a Navy contract for jet engines just as they did.
Design and testing of jet aircraft would have started.

In Germany, assuming they were at war, would still have had the issues with developing jet engines they originally had. The biggest roadblock would still be designing the compressor section so that it worked properly. The US and Britain had a huge advantage in having numerous companies that were very familiar with building turbines and even gas turbines that Germany lacked for the most part. This is because the German shipbuilding and steam turbine industries were relatively small and relied heavily on foreign engineering.
At GE Stanford Moss and his team had been studying gas turbine compressors in the form of turbochargers for over a decade and had blade profiles already down to a tee. All he had to do was apply extant knowledge to the problem of making a working jet engine. Over at Lockheed, Nathan Price, a protege of Abner Doble, a steam turbine genius, applied his knowledge of steam turbines to the J37 engine, but ended up with an overly complex design much like Daimler-Benz's engineers did with fixed and moving compressor blades, copying Rateau-style steam turbines.