Would you save kid Hitler?

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2006-07-18 05:34am

Keeping Hitler around has one massive benefit for us: We know he loses the war.

The downside is the holocaust, and since if we remove Hitler people like Himmler will still be around we can't say that removing Hitler will stop it. Chances are if we remove Hitler someone will take his place as well whihc coul be good or bad. We could end up with some dunce who nobody follows and we don't get WW2, or we could end up with someone smarter at fightingwars who doesn't make a load of stupid mistakes.

So my plan is to go back in time and save his life (maybe during the gas attack that almost got him in WW1) and then pretend i'm Jewish. Hopefully having his life saved by a Jew will lessen his anti-semetism and so lessen or stop the holocaust.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2006-07-18 05:47am

Hopefully having his life saved by a Jew will lessen his anti-semetism and so lessen or stop the holocaust.

Actually, a good try.

However, given the company of Nazi dickheads he stuck with when he was in power, I highly doubt it. People like Rosenberg, Heyderich, Himmler, Bormann would proceed regardless. And should Hitler be not "in wave" with the Nazi sentiment in Germany, he'd be removed from power pretty quickly. He rode the wave of hatred, but should he have backed down just a little, and he'd be wasted by his own compatriots.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2006-07-18 09:46am

Depending on how time travel in the OP works, the very act of time travelling has invalidated your origin point. So whats the loss from rolling the dice once more, when they need to be rolled anyway

1. Me? I wouldn't go back.

2. If I DID go back, accidentally stepping on a bug and offing Hitler are vastly different scales of interference. I actually doubt that my origin point will be much affected by someone breathing a little more air in Germany in the 1930s. Until I wreak a vast change, I can still go home, assuming my magic time-traveler goes both ways. From my POV, the future doesn't exist yet as soon as I go back in time, but I happen to know what it will turn out to be with no change in the past, so the potential future is essentially Home Base for me.

Lord Woodlouse · Post by **Lord Woodlouse** » 2006-07-18 09:54am

2000AD wrote: Hopefully having his life saved by a Jew will lessen his anti-semetism and so lessen or stop the holocaust.

The doctor who treated his mother's breast cancer was a Jew, and Hitler made sure he was kept alive. He's apparently gone on record as saying "If all Jews were like him there would be no Jewish problem".

So no, I'd not count on that. If you're going to "fix" Hitler you need to take him out of that whole environment.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2006-07-18 10:12am

If you're going to "fix" Hitler you need to take him out of that whole environment.

Which leads us to the next interesting question - if you had a chance to waste the entire NSDAP elite in childhood, would you do it?

Lord Woodlouse · Post by **Lord Woodlouse** » 2006-07-18 10:29am

Stas Bush wrote:
If you're going to "fix" Hitler you need to take him out of that whole environment.
Which leads us to the next interesting question - if you had a chance to waste the entire NSDAP elite in childhood, would you do it?

I'd do as little as possible to prevent the events that happened. If the removal of Hitler does that, and means all the former Nazis go about their life and become artists, accountants or town drunks, fine. That's good enough for me.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2006-07-18 03:29pm

How much would you pay me?

Okay, seriously now... no. I have no idea what would have happened with him out of the picture, and that uncertainty is dangerous. Every tiny thing in the past had some reprocussions in the future, and muddling with it could do anything.

Besides, it's not like Hitler fucking came up with the whole thing himself. Without him, there'd have been plenty others to do equally atrocious things. Maybe someone worse. Someone just as evil, but saner. That would have been bad.