# So...WOULD you kill Hitler? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2015, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643 "2015-09-26T22:40:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/21 "2015-09-27T00:14:57Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > The buck ultimately stops with him, sure, but given how many wheels were in motion across the continent I have zero faith that simply removing Hitler solves the problem. I also have zero faith that an alternate leader of Germany wouldn’t go for something equally as horrific whilst being more competent, imagine someone like Heydrich as the Fuhrer for example. > > In the end the most important thing about Hitler is that he lost, Nazism was totally crushed and is now reviled, so I’m not keen to re-roll the dice on that. My take is that a more competent German leader would see those 500K Jewish Germans as potential soldiers, scientists and workers and would have put those SS dickheads on the front lines. The whole Nazi repression stuff absorbed huge amounts of wealth and manpower. A guy like Heydrich might have won the war first and done the killing later. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/22 "2015-09-27T00:19:51Z")
I went with option 3 and screw your Rule #1 ------ a very positive maybe. There was going to be a Nazi Party anyway and possibly others like it. Who is to say that we wouldn’t have ended up with a Goring, Himmler or Rohm as leader and the ultimate power in Germany? Could one of them have been worse? What if the Communists had gained control? The “devil I know” is the worse I can imagine but ------- is he the worst there _could_ have been. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/23 "2015-09-27T00:36:44Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > My take is that a more competent German leader would see those 500K Jewish Germans as potential soldiers, scientists and workers and would have put those SS dickheads on the front lines. The whole Nazi repression stuff absorbed huge amounts of wealth and manpower. A guy like Heydrich might have won the war first and done the killing later. Well quite, if he does thought the situation might end up worse which is my point, it’s like playing Russian Roulette with an unknown number of bullets loaded into an unknown number of chambers, when the stakes are not only your own life. If we could jump back and forward I’d say fill your boots, but I’m assuming the OP means this is a one-time deal, once you’ve killed Hitler you’re stuck with whatever results from it. Though why restrict yourself to Hitler? If the time jump is a one time thing and you’re comfortable with the idea why not get serious and draw up a hitlist, selected on the basis of complicity in the Holocaust and role in Germany’s war effort? Yeah I know, fighting the hypothetical, bad! ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/24 "2015-09-27T00:44:20Z")
I always answer this question from the young kids in bars the same way. Of course, I would kill him, but it wouldn’t stop the holocaust. And it wouldn’t. If you’ve got time, google Heimrich Himmler. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/25 "2015-09-27T00:53:21Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > If we could jump back and forward I’d say fill your boots, but I’m assuming the OP means this is a one-time deal, once you’ve killed Hitler you’re stuck with whatever results from it. Though why restrict yourself to Hitler? If the time jump is a one time thing and you’re comfortable with the idea why not get serious and draw up a hitlist, selected on the basis of complicity in the Holocaust and role in Germany’s war effort? Yeah I know, fighting the hypothetical, bad! But if we take Hitler out of the picture and no one else who had the charisma or the popularity to take his place? Schleicher? Do you think he would have wanted, or the Wehrmacht allowed, war? I know the big man view of history isnt a popular one. But I see no other Hitlers on the horizen. Its an easy call IMO. Take out Hitler and the Nationalist side of the German political equation becomes as fragmented as the Socialist/Communist side. Remember too that the person who would have taken Hitlers place would have needed to be able to marshal the political power to change the Weimar Constitution. The only other political force in Germany who would have wished that were the Communists. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/26 "2015-09-27T00:55:34Z")
> [@Tithonus](#): > > 1. Absolutely NO fighting the hypothetical! > 2. Please explain your answer either way. > 3. Please _don’t_ debate other people’s answers. […] No offense at all meant to the OP, but I can’t help reading this in a cartoony German accent. Although I guess Hitler wouldn’t say “please”. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/27 "2015-09-27T00:57:01Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > I always answer this question from the young kids in bars the same way. Of course, I would kill him, but it wouldn’t stop the holocaust. > > And it wouldn’t. If you’ve got time, google Heimrich Himmler. This is just silly. Himmler would never have been in a position of power without Hitler. He had neither the charisma nor ability to lead. Also, check out the paper I linked above. He didnt look to happy about being ordered to begin the Holocaust. The Holocaust could only happen in the anarchy that was Nazi Germany and under the fog of war in the East. And those conditions were only possible under Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/28 "2015-09-27T00:58:24Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > I kind of dont agree with this. No country would/could have thrown the resources down the rabbit hole to build one nor built an allstar team of international talent to do it. Until the bomb was successfully tested no one was sure it would have worked. > > I also disagree that we dodged a bigger bullet than Hitler. Hitler committed genocide. He started wars that cost the lives of tens of millions. He also brought the bomb into reality far sooner than it would have been created, if ever. The gun-type bomb is quite simple. They dropped it without testing and it worked perfectly. Once the science of nuclear physics was known, nuclear power and nuclear weapons were obvious developments that someone would have pursued sooner or later. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/29 "2015-09-27T01:13:39Z")
> [@thirdname](#): > > The gun-type bomb is quite simple. They dropped it without testing and it worked perfectly. Once the science of nuclear physics was known, nuclear power and nuclear weapons were obvious developments that someone would have pursued sooner or later. They tested it first: > **[Trinity (nuclear test)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test))** > > Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon, conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. MWT\[a\] (11:29:21 GMT) on July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was of an implosion-design plutonium bomb, nicknamed the "gadget", of the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. Concerns about whether the complex Fat Man design would work led to a decision to conduct the first nuclear test. The code name "Tri... ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/30 "2015-09-27T01:14:57Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > But if we take Hitler out of the picture and no one else who had the charisma or the popularity to take his place? Schleicher? Do you think he would have wanted, or the Wehrmacht allowed, war? I know the big man view of history isnt a popular one. But I see no other Hitlers on the horizen. Its an easy call IMO. Take out Hitler and the Nationalist side of the German political equation becomes as fragmented as the Socialist/Communist side. > > Remember too that the person who would have taken Hitlers place would have needed to be able to marshal the political power to change the Weimar Constitution. The only other political force in Germany who would have wished that were the Communists. The idea that Germany needed one strong leader rather than a weak and corrupt democracy, one Fuhrer for one people, wasn’t [Hitler’s idea alone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_von_Sch%C3%B6nerer) - later of course he became convinced that _he_ should be said leader. There were plenty of nationalists around to grab on to that idea and fill the niche, maybe someone who was a complete unknown in OTL who like Hitler would find a ‘calling’ absent the presence of Hitler to do it, though if you want to say none of them have the same charisma as Hitler that’s a fair point. On the other hand, it wasn’t just Hitler’s charisma that lead to the Third Reich, I wouldn’t want to gamble on how large a part it was though. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/31 "2015-09-27T01:29:29Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > They tested it first: > > [Trinity (nuclear test) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)) No, thirdname is right. The Trinity test was of the much less certain implosion design for the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima was not tested. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/32 "2015-09-27T01:34:54Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > The idea that Germany needed one strong leader rather than a weak and corrupt democracy, one Fuhrer for one people, wasn’t [Hitler’s idea alone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_von_Sch%C3%B6nerer) - later of course he became convinced that _he_ should be said leader. There were plenty of nationalists around to grab on to that idea and fill the niche, maybe someone who was a complete unknown in OTL who like Hitler would find a ‘calling’ absent the presence of Hitler to do it, though if you want to say none of them have the same charisma as Hitler that’s a fair point. On the other hand, it wasn’t just Hitler’s charisma that lead to the Third Reich, I wouldn’t want to gamble on how large a part it was though. Thats fair enough. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/33 "2015-09-27T01:36:03Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > No, thirdname is right. The Trinity test was of the much less certain implosion design for the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima was not tested. Ignorance fought. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/34 "2015-09-27T02:58:34Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > This is just silly. Himmler would never have been in a position of power without Hitler. He had neither the charisma nor ability to lead. Also, check out the paper I linked above. He didnt look to happy about being ordered to begin the Holocaust. The Holocaust could only happen in the anarchy that was Nazi Germany and under the fog of war in the East. And those conditions were only possible under Hitler. My point was Himmler, plenty of other like minded SS and a couple centuries of anti-semitism, the holocaust would still happen without any Hitler. Smaller or larger scale we don’t and won’t know. And the paper above wouldn’t effect my family. My grandparents were already here in the U.S. and my parents were born. ---
**Author:** ![Sario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sario/32/18580_2.png) [@Sario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sario)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/35 "2015-09-27T03:45:39Z")
Someone may have already covered this: No, for two reasons. One, killing an innocent kid is just wrong, no if ands or buts. Two, Hitler may have been the face of the Nazis, but he was not the sole driving force behind them. As I see it, if Hitler was never Hitler, someone else would have been. The Nazis would still have taken power, WWII would still be fought, and the Holocaust would still happen. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/36 "2015-09-27T03:55:24Z")
Absolutely, no question. Maybe the Holocaust wasn’t Hitler’s idea alone, but c’mon, it’s _Hitler_. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/37 "2015-09-27T04:14:38Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > My point was Himmler, plenty of other like minded SS and a couple centuries of anti-semitism, the holocaust would still happen without any Hitler. Smaller or larger scale we don’t and won’t know. And the paper above wouldn’t effect my family. My grandparents were already here in the U.S. and my parents were born. I simply disagree with this. Its debatable that the antisemitism was worse in Germany than in the East and, save for a few bloody pogroms there, there was no Holocaust. The Holocaust was very time and situation specific. The Germans were trying to get rid of its Jews prewar but hardly anyone would allow them to immigrate…including us. And the British wouldnt allow them to go to Palestine. The Holocaust needed the lawlessness that was Nazi Germany to flower. Just found an interesting in depth interview with historian Sir Ian Kershaw: [http://ww2history.com/experts/Sir\_Ian\_Kershaw/Hitler\_and\_the\_Holocaust](http://ww2history.com/experts/Sir_Ian_Kershaw/Hitler_and_the_Holocaust) > [@](#): > > LAURENCE REES: Could we put it the other way round then, and say that this simply couldn’t have happened, if it hadn’t been for Hitler? > > SIR IAN KERSHAW: Again I think you say that if you put the proposition that way: ‘no Hitler no Holocaust’, I would agree with that. By the time we’re speaking about, now in 1941 and ’42, of course you’ve got a momentum we’ve been talking about that’s built up of, in particular, the police apparatus which has its own momentum, but that momentum itself has come from a whole number of steps prior to that which Hitler has backed and approved of and ok’d at every stage and given his imprimatur to, given his authorisation to, has legitimised. > > So, as the head of the state he’s actually represented these policies which have been carried in that way, so in this sense you can, I think, truly say that Hitler was absolutely essential to the carrying out of the Holocaust. So Hitler is a necessary but not sufficient cause of the overall explanation but still you’d say or I would say ‘no Hitler no Holocaust.’ He addresses many Holocaust related topics. A very good read. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/38 "2015-09-27T04:15:18Z")
> [@Sario](#): > > One, killing an innocent kid is just wrong, no if ands or buts. It’s an interesting timey-wimey moral question whether you’re innocent or guilty of crimes you’re going to commit in the future (and I’m sure glad we’re limiting that question to time travel, and not extending it into, say, psychological profiling). If I was allowed to fight the hypothetical, maybe I would try to reform Little Hitler. Instead of killing him, could I just sodomize him a bit? And take pictures, and then distribute them to his friends and family? He’d be too traumatized to ever have a career in politics. Joking about sodomizing a child is OK if the child is Hitler, right? I mean, if child \*murder \*is on the table… ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/39 "2015-09-27T04:35:22Z")
Do we get a quick view of Germany 1930-1950 after we kill the little snot? If we get an even worse outcome: 1. Germany is clever enough to disguise their atomic bomb program and gets it in 1940 and still starts taking over the world. 2. The US is gripped by a massive Pacifist Movement and sits out the war (Star Trek (Original) did this - Kirk ensures the death of the person who would have created the movement) 3. Japan and Germany attack the US Navy on both oceans - and this time, they go after the carriers, not the battleships 4 5 6 Do we get to go back and stop ourselves from killing him? ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2015, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643/40 "2015-09-27T04:46:09Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > But if we take Hitler out of the picture and no one else who had the charisma or the popularity to take his place? Schleicher? Do you think he would have wanted, or the Wehrmacht allowed, war? I know the big man view of history isnt a popular one. But I see no other Hitlers on the horizen. Its an easy call IMO. Take out Hitler and the Nationalist side of the German political equation becomes as fragmented as the Socialist/Communist side. > > Remember too that the person who would have taken Hitlers place would have needed to be able to marshal the political power to change the Weimar Constitution. The only other political force in Germany who would have wished that were the Communists. Well remember also that Hitler killed off many of his rivals so we dont know if one of those could have been a “rising star” so to speak and taken his place. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-would-you-kill-hitler/732643.md?page=3)