So I’ve got a faulty time travel device that can send one of two things back to Hitler’s office any time after January, 1933. Either a letter containing a question the Fuhrer will answer truthfully - OR one of those boxing gloves on a spring that will smack him in the face. It won’t kill him, though.
What do you want to send back? I’ll give you Hitler’s translated reply to your question OR the video of him taking a glove to the chops. You’ll make no profit from either though, I’ll need them back once you’ve watched or read them to prevent time paradoxes.
Reason I ask is to find if most people prefer to punish evil from the past if they could, or understand it better if they could. I’m 99% sure I’m the only one on the poll who would want an answer to a question, my question would be sent to 1944; I’d ask him exactly how much he knew about what went on in his concentration and extermination camps.
Oh, and should have said it’s a parallel universe where Andy Warhol wore red underpants instead of green ones, so don’t be concerned about your choice altering history and the butterfly effect destroying our galaxy.
“Do you realize that the course or action you have embarked on will end with a pistol in your hand, cyanide capsule in your mouth and the Russians nipping at your heels?”
(It’s a riff on something my brother does. Anytime he meets someone he asks them to tell him a joke. Over the years he has asked hundreds of people; from vagrant panhandlers to CEOs to sports stars and common people. People tend to play along. He jots them down and keeps track.)
Asking a question, without a doubt. Punching him in the face may server some with a sense of gratification for the horrible evils that he committed, but particularly considering we can’t affect history, all we can do is learn from it. We’re now faced with a potentially invaluable glance into the mind of one of the most pivotal people of modern times. He’s universally seen as one of the most evil people in history. So, if we have an opportunity to really understand his motivations, his though processes, or find a way in which we may have stopped in sooner, maybe that will give us some insight to prevent a similar events in the future. This is even more valuable because the OP posits that we will receive an honest answer, not just whatever he feels like saying, which may or may not have any real value beyond the resources we already have.
That said, I’m not really sure exactly what the most valuable question might be. Ultimately, I’m interested in knowing what he realistically thought he’d accomplish. Sure, we know what he publically said, but I think there’s a lot more there. I’m interested in knowing exactly how much knowledge of the holocaust and other war crimes he really had and seeing how he felt about the parts he didn’t know about. Really, I think if I were presented with the opportunity, it would be worth consulting with historians to see what gaps of knowledge they’d want filled.
Either way, even a largely wasted question, I think, would ultimately be far more valuable than even a solid and satisfying sock to the face.
It’s like the opposite of the Mastercard commercial questions:
Understanding Hitler? Priceless. Punching him in the face? Priceless. Finding stashed Nazi loot? A billion dollars!
Ha, that was actually my original thought. I changed it to a punch as I thought it would be even more one sided otherwise (although poll results are proving me wrong, quite surprising).
