I was reminded of this in the brain transplant thread. It was a story about Hitler undergoing some type of operation, maybe a brain transplant, maybe not, but the end result is Hitler’s mind is transferred into the body of someone who ends up in a prison camp or something while the other guy’s mind ends up in Hitlers body. Somehow this is associated with Heinlein in my own transplant ready brain, but I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s the writing style, or maybe it just appeared in a collection that contained some Heinlein stories. The identity of Hitler may have been obscured as ‘The Leader’ or some other device. I think it was written from the point of view of the doctor performing the operation.
It doesn’t sound as good as that adventure story about a couple of French Resistance operatives who tried an ambitious water-based attack on Hitler in occupied Paris.
Y’know, They Braved Hitler’s Seine ?
The pinesl glands of a transparently Hitleruan Leader and a concentration-camp inmate are cross-transplanted, I believe owing to disease in the Hitler figure’s pineal. The story is “Heil!” by Heinlein, from the 40s and collected in Off the Main Sequence. The kjickjer, of course, is that identity resides in the pineal…
Thanks** Polycarp**! Glad to hear it’s Heinlein. This would have driven me nuts if I couldn’t find it. If Irishman hadn’t mentioned Heinlein and brain transplant together I’d have no way of recovering this memory.
That reminds me of another short story in which an evil leader, on the eve of his country’s destruction by its enemies (the man is unidentified, but described in such a way that it really could only be Hitler), is enticed to escape from his bunker by time travelers from the future. A dead, full-grown clone of the leader is left behind to be found by others. The time travelers pretend to be his friends, but are really taking him back to the future so that he can be scientifically and endlessly tormented for all of his crimes.
There were a lot of “Revenge on Hitler” stories - one featured a guy who looked like Hitler showing up in the bunker in 1945; Hitler kills him of course, and then his scientists put him into a time machine that they think will get him somewhere safe - but it takes him back a few hours…
Then there was Lester Del Rey’s “My Name is Legion” which also has a time machine and Hitler…
While we are at it, I remember a fragment of a 1950’s SciFi story about Nazi Germany. The Germans had discovered a way to warp spacetime, such that they could move close to other planets-they were able to get materials like tungsten, gold etc. by doing this. The experiment ended when horrible beats broke through and killed the scientists. The story was revealed from reading top secret German files. Anybody remember this one?
Very good!