Kill Hitler--Would You Do It?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is inspired by Stephen King’s The Dead Zone (book). In it, Johnny Smith shakes hands with politician Greg Stillison (sp?) and sees the future where the land is barren from a nuclear war and people are dead. He begins to ask people, as I do you,

If you could travel back to 1932 and kill Hitler, would you do it?

For me, I’m not sure. I would think I would, but I’d have to plan it for a long time, to make sure I get everything right.

There was also a Twilight Zone episode of this, but he ended up missing, and having to run because the Nazi’s spotted him.

2

Hmm, I think you may be asking the wrong question, but I’ll get back to that later. We shall assume that changing past events like this can exist in a vacuum and not cause any serious paradox. So killing 'Dolf in 1932 would be what we refer to as a Good Thing[sup]TM[/sup] for the most part.

The question then arises, though: by 1932, was it too late to make a difference? His goals and methods could persist after his death as a sort of personality cult (just ask any of the various Neo-Nazi factions around the globe), or somebody else could have taken up where he left off. Germany was devastated by the aftermath of WW1, and they needed something to pull them out of a national downward spiral of corruption, poverty, and internal conflict. Speaking as a jew, I rather wish they’d found something else, but I also understand why things went the way they did.

The real thing to ask – the classic “What If?” question – is would you go back to 1901 and kill Adolf Hitler when he was still a child? You’d know the potential destruction he would work upon the world, but the child would be innocent of those crimes. He wouldn’t yet have formed the twisted beliefs and psychoses that would lead to what came after.

3

I have to go to bed and shouldn’t answer a question that will turn into a GD, but what the hell:

Yes, yes I would. I would go back in time and kill him as a child if I had to, anything to prevent the destruction he caused.

4

I would, but I think it’s possible that someone else would just take his place in history. Not in a Twilight Zone “the past cannot be changed” kind of way, but because conditions in Germany were ripe for that kind of thing.

5

In a similar vein, I’d worry that killing him would result in someone even worse taking his place. Not that Hitler was a nice chap, but his military incompetence towards the end of the war (micromanaging strategy and production) must have contributed towards Germany’s loss. Would Himmler (or anyone else) have made that mistake?

In the end, though, I guess I probably would. It’s very hard to say with any certainty until you’re there with the gun in your hand, I suppose.

6

That’s what I would be thinking-that if Hitler was killed, maybe Stalin would take over the world? Or maybe someone like Mengele would get in charge.

That said, I still insist on taking Glenn Miller off the plane and putting Ronald Reagan on it instead!
Hey, maybe Glenn Miller would’ve become president! COOL!

7

I don’t think I’d do it, mainly because the long-term effect on the timeline would be inpossible to predict. Without Hitler, the outcome of WWII would have been quite different, but there’s no way to predict how with reasonable certainty.

8

Don’t forget to put L. Ron Hubbard with him ! :smiley:

As for me, I don’t know. Killing Dodolf would definitely be a good thing, but the Communists would probably have taken over Germany through civil war. On the other hand, they probably would have been a counterweight to Stalin, if theirs would have been a homegrown revolution. Like I said I just don’t know.

9

No, no, no… you get Hubbard to switch planes with Buddy Holly & co.

:slight_smile:

Seriously, It’s been said alerady, but there’s way too much uncertainty about the course events would take without him - I couldn’t in good conscience risk the future being even worse, especially when there are two very credible just-as-evil alternatives waiting around the bend of history (Eichmann and Stalin). On the other hand, I could easily do the Terminator thing, because in that scenario there really can’t be much worse to come from it.

What it comes down to, sadly enough, is that I wouldn’t risk even the slim chance of more deaths against the saving of “only” several million.

10

I wonder if perhaps instead of killing Hitler as a child like some have suggested, if we could have just changed some small aspect of his upbringing, which obviously must have influenced his views later in life. Perhaps if someone had further encouraged his artistic slant, he would have been a different person.

Sort of a chaos theory on changing the world, I know.
jarbaby

11

It depends on the type of time travel you’re postulating. Some time travel fiction speculates that the past is fixed; if I did go back in time, I am already a part of the history of that time, and failed to kill Hitler. Perhaps I even helped cause the whole thing. In that case, no way am I going near that time machine.

Another possibility is that I could make changes to the past, and they would ripple forward, growing ever larger, eventually reaching my previous “present”. In which case, as soon as I got back to the past and did almost anything, I would cease to exist retroactively. My father fought in World War II; I doubt my parents would have met if it hadn’t occurred, or had occurred differently. So, I go back, cross a street, the person who slows down to let me cross is late for a meeting, and blink, I’m gone. Chances of getting anywhere near Hitler… pretty slim.

My favorite time structure postulates that from any point in time, an infinite number of possible universes diverge, encompassing all the possible combinations of change that could happen in that instant. By going back in time, I would have gone back to point in my own past, but the future that progressed from that point on would be the future of an entirely different universe than my own. This one is best suited to avoiding paradoxes. So, I could do whatever I wanted to try and prevent the war, but it would have no effect on the people who died in my reality.

If it was the third option, I might go back and try and change things. Find out what happens in that universe, as an experiment. But killing Hitler is unnecessary, as jarbabyj pointed out. Just go back with some knowledge of the stock market and such, build up a good nest egg, and then become Hitler’s art patron. I hear he painted roses.

12

How do I know killing Adolf won’t result in something even worse? Like, say, a competent Nazi leader who wouldn’t try waging war with Russia during winter?

Eh. Better the devil you know…

13

Actually, what you should do, is go back in time, whack Hitler (boy, wouldn’t that look good on a resume?), and take his place. That way, you could ensure no one worse took over and instead of sending the Jews to concentration camps, you could ship them all off to somewhere else. Hey, I know its not a pretty solution, but at least you reduce the possibility of six million people getting butchered!

Ooooooh! This just occured to me! Suppose someone worse than Hitler had taken over Germany and future folks traveled back in time to whack him, and what we ended up with was Hitler! Scary thought, huh?

14

Irronically enough, this is the concept behind the game Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

In the game, Einstein devoloped a time machine in the fifties, and someone went back and killed Hitler. In turn, Stalin took over Europe, resulting in the almost exact same type of thing, but with Russia and Stalin, not Germany and Hitler.

Anyways, here’s my take on the whole situation:

Now, let’s assume that if I did go back and kill Hitler, I would be able to travel back to the present time, and be in that altered time-line. Well, let’s say because of my actions, I would normally not exist, but my time machine simply put my self from the past into the present, so there I am, a man with no identity in a world I don’t know or understand. I would have no knowledge of the past 60-70 years of history. And who knows, maybe technology would be less, or possibly more, advanced. It’s a fact that war causes technology to increase faster than times of peace. Without WWII as we know it, life could be drastically different. This could easily cause me to try and fix my actions, by going back and stopping myself, let’s say. But maybe I don’t believe myself, and kill Hitler anyways, or do some other action that radically alters the future, and no matter what I do, I can never get back to the time-line that I know, because it is always containinated by my actions, however seemingly insignifigant.

Another point to keep in mind, is that millions of people died in WWII, if those millions lived, they would procreate into hundreds of millions in the generations that followed. Maybe one of those persons becomes a world leader and orders a nuclear strike at some other country? Or maybe he becomes a scientist and cures all known diseases, sounds like a good thing, but then we have a HUGE population problem. Any number of things could happen with a whole new set of people living in the world.
So no, I wouldn’t kill Hitler, the repercussions are just too unpredictable and frightening.

15

Kill Hitler? Sure, although the possiblity of worse does threaten. but if I’m going back killing people then can I add a few to the list?
1.Lenin
2.Stalin
3.Castro
4.Mao
5.Assorted tyrannical scum around the world, including, but not limited to, the Kim dynasty of North Korea, Idi Amin and whoeever invented boy/girl bands.

This list coule get awfully big couldn’t it

16

You betcha! It would go something like this:

Prior to entering my time machine, I would gather a few items to help me with my goal. The first item would be flamethrower. The second would be to-go order of “Sauerkraut mit Speck” (Hilter’s favorite dish), and finally one case of plutonium.

I’d travel back to 1932 and befriend Adolf with my charm and wit. One night I would ask himm to come to my warehouse apartment for party. He of course would accept because I tell him of the wine, women and most importantly the “Sauerkraut mit Speck”.

We arrive at my warehouse apartment and much to Aldolf’s dismay, there is no wine or women. Fortunately, Adolf notices the piping hot pot of “Sauerkraut mit Speck” located on a pedastal in the center of the warehouse. Without hesitation, Adolf runs to the pot of food to indulge his hearty appetite.

As he begins to scoop a large spoonful of “Sauerkraut mit Speck” from the pot, my plan begin to unfold.

Earlier, I had rigged the pedestal to reacte to any weight change and set the flamethrower to ignite on that very spot when any weight change occurred. Needless to say, Hilter get incinerated and I know have twice-cooked “Sauerkraut mit Speck”.

I then take my time machine and set it for 60 seconds in the past and set it on a loop for 6 million times. :slight_smile:

On the way home I set the time machine to November 5, 1955 so I can meet Marty McFly and give him the plutonium he needs for the flux capacitor in the Delorean. This way he doesn’t have to go through 3 friggin movies try to generate 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to get home.

After that I’d probably stop off and watch a live Jimi Hendrix concert, save JFK, John Lennon and “Different Strokes” star Dana Plato from certain death.

On second though, I’d probably just bring a knife back to 1932 and stab Hilter in the head.

17

Sounds like a plan to me, Linear Crack. :smiley:

18

I wouldn’t kill Hitler, unless it was under the same circumstances that I would kill any other person – if it was my job to do so (like if I go back in time and become an M6 agent – and the chances of the former are probably greater than that of the latter), or if Hitler was coming at me with a knife or a gun, or attacking my spouse/parent/child, or anyone else for that matter. Even 1932 Hitler probably wouldn’t be doing any of those things, although I admit to ignorance about exactly what crimes he would have committed by that year. At that point, I think I still have to take the high road, and make some sort of citizen’s arrest, which I’m sure would be a dismal failure. Even if I attempted to kill him, I might only wound him, and fuel his hatred for Jews even more, thus causing the holocaust, or increasing its proportions from what he originally planned to what actually happened. (I’m not Jewish, but perhaps he thinks I am.)

What about another crime, one less than murder, say kidnapping? I could kidnap him and take him to a large, desolate farm in the western US, where I would keep him well-fed and far away from any other people that he might possibly influence, and he can’t receive or send any mail. Even if he escaped, it might take him some time to get back to Germany, and he would have missed the window of opportunity for rising to power. This still allows for the possibilty that someone WORSE will have come into power, or that Hitler escapes and then makes his power play in Montana.

Kidnapping is still a crime, so what if I (ugh) seduced him and convinced him to willingly come live on my desolate farm? If someone could guarantee that Hitler was in fact the worst possibility for Germany, and that the other guy would be a better choice, this might be an option, no matter how personally distasteful.

Frankly, the entire enterprise seems doomed from the beginning.

19

Well, why stop at Hitler? If I had the guts I take out Eichmann, Mengele and Hitler.

20

Interesting possibilities here. You have a time machine, why not sending him to his so-called Germanic Golden Age, like 1st century AD Germany ?