# Stopping Hitler (no 1920s death rays allowed) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 24, 2007, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303 "2007-01-24T20:44:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2007, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/41 "2007-01-25T17:06:57Z")
[QUOTE=saoirse] If I could just go to 1935, I would go to the French frontier with a whistle. When the German troops entered the Rhineland, I’d blow the whistle, which would be identical to the one the lieutenants used. The french army would cross the border, crush the Germans, and Hitler would be overthrown by his own army. [/QUOTE] I like this a lot. The French would have rolled right over the Germans in 1935 and Hitler and the Nazis would have been politically destroyed. I think it’s a much more realiable plan than trying to change Hitler psychologically. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2007, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/42 "2007-01-25T17:22:16Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] You can put a sterlization pill in the well of his village, to prevent his mother from ever concieving. Worked in _The Liar_. No, really, that exact scenario. [/QUOTE] I think _Making History_ is the Stephen Fry book that you actually mean. Yes, the plan worked. But the results were not as expected. (An excellent book, by the way.) ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/43 "2007-01-25T18:02:03Z")
You could lobotomize or paralyze the young Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2007, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/44 "2007-01-25T18:51:25Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] You could lobotomize or paralyze the young Hitler. [/QUOTE] You know how to carry out a lobotomy? I’m sure it isn’t as easy as you think. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2007, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/45 "2007-01-25T19:03:25Z")
[QUOTE=Alive At Both Ends] You know how to carry out a lobotomy? I’m sure it isn’t as easy as you think. [/QUOTE] No, but for Hitler, I’d like to [try.](http://www.mcmanweb.com/article-122.htm) “Walter Freeman lifted the patient’s eyelid and inserted an ice pick-like instrument called a leucotome through a tear duct. A few taps with a surgical hammer breached the bone. Freeman took a position behind the patient’s head, pushed the leucotome about an inch and a half into the frontal lobe of the patient’s brain, and moved the sharp tip back and forth. Then he repeated the process with the other eye socket.” [Yiddish]And if I slip, I slip.[/Yiddish] ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2007, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/46 "2007-01-25T20:18:57Z")
[QUOTE=Alive At Both Ends] You know how to carry out a lobotomy? I’m sure it isn’t as easy as you think. [/QUOTE] Why? It’s not like it’s brain surgery. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2007, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/47 "2007-01-25T20:37:32Z")
[QUOTE=ralph124c] British Intelligence had amde contact with the german Army COS (General Ludwig Beck); this was in 1936 or so. The german generals wanted two things from the British, in return for which they would order their troops to revolt against the nazi government: -(1) recognition of the coup leaders as the legitimate government of germany -(2) British military support of the coup Sadly, the British waffled-and lost their one (and only) chance to do away with Hitler and the nazis! [/QUOTE] Og _damn_…Cite? Reasons for waffle? ---
**Author:** ![Sonia\_Montdore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Sonia\_Montdore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sonia_Montdore)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2007, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/48 "2007-01-25T21:11:42Z")
[QUOTE=Annie-Xmas] You could lobotomize or paralyze the young Hitler. [/QUOTE] See no maiming rule. ---
**Author:** ![Neidhart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Neidhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neidhart)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2007, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/49 "2007-01-25T21:20:00Z")
Go back to France in August 1914. Somehow sabotage the “Miracle on the Marne”, allowing the Germans to take Paris and end the war by Christmas 1914. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2007, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/50 "2007-01-25T23:43:41Z")
[QUOTE=Slithy Tove] Why? It’s not like it’s brain surgery. [/QUOTE] _Dammit._ I didn’t think you could upstage my post. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2007, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/51 "2007-01-26T00:11:43Z")
Would the ‘no imprisoning’ rule allow changing the terms of an existing imprisonment? If so, I’d use the money to bribe the judges in the 1924 Hitler-Ludendorff trial of the participants in the 9 November 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. The object: to change the sentences from _Festungshaft_ (fortress confinement) to _Gefängnis_ or _Zuchthaus_ (normal prison sentences, _Zuchthaus_ being the stricter regime). The difference: _Festungshaft_ was not considered dishonourable. If Hitler, Hess, Göring et al. had served normal prison sentences of the same length as their _Festungshaft_, their ‘respectable’ supporters would have shunned them as ex-cons. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2007, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303/52 "2007-01-26T01:54:41Z")
Join the NSDAP as member 54 or lower (AH was member number 55) and use the unlimited funds at my disposal to bribe enough members of the central committee to nudge the party in a different direction. Either that, or buy enough rounds on 8 November 1923 to put the storm troopers under the table. The _Burgerbraukeller putsch_ never happens, Hitler is not arrested, he never writes _Mein Kampf_, and the party, deprived of martyrdom, fades into obscurity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stopping-hitler-no-1920s-death-rays-allowed/389303.md?page=2)