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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWould "killing Hitler as a baby" have made a difference to world history?
Was WW2 and the Holocaust inevitable? Would someone more disciplined and organized have led Germany? Would a much worse war have happened later on after nuclear weapons spread? Imagine Germany with a nuke.
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Ex Lurker
(3,814 posts)and there's a Bolshevik revolution in Germany, as there nearly was IRL. Would that have been better or worse? No way of knowing.
MillennialDem
(2,367 posts)made a difference.
That said, god damn I wish there had been a successful socialist revolution in Germany. Would be worldwide at this point.
ryan_cats
(2,061 posts)It would have changed August Kubizek's world history.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)who could have greatly accelerated Germany developing its own nukes. Who knows what would have happened if an equally evil and calculating, but slightly less insane, person had seized power in Germany?
MillennialDem
(2,367 posts)Guderian do his thing, Germany defeats Russia, England and the US are not able to defeat the European Axis. War ends with Japan crushed and a stalemate in Europe and a Fascist-Capitalist Cold War. Europe likely wins.
valerief
(53,235 posts)change history?
Real life is sooooo insane.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)That piece of work certainly didn't help matters.
demosincebirth
(12,540 posts)
Renew Deal
(81,861 posts)Was ISIS inevitable? What happens if Hussein dies of natural causes. His sons were bad news. It's impossible to know.
demosincebirth
(12,540 posts)region. His sons were clones of their father therefore, no ISIS.
FrodosPet
(5,169 posts)It's not so much a question IF ISIL was going to come to power, but WHEN.
demosincebirth
(12,540 posts)crazies of Islam. Issis would not have come to power, under any circumstances, if Saddam was in power. When we invaded Iraq, then they were dead men...not until. Too many if's in your belief.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)It is a fruitless exercise in futility.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)We are to the point that quantum entanglement in macroscopic objects can be demonstrated, objects that can be seen with the naked eye rather than subatomic particles.
http://www.livescience.com/17264-quantum-entanglement-macroscopic-diamonds.html
Cirque du So-What
(25,941 posts)is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Easy peasy.
6000eliot
(5,643 posts)I thought it further proves what a moron Jeb! is.
EL34x4
(2,003 posts)Among many other reasons.
If I were a serious presidential candidate, I would not have dignified it with a response.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Eliminating him probably wouldn't stop WWII but would likely have improved Germany's chances of winning.
Operation Barbarossa anyone? Sheer madness to invade Russia, Napoleon demonstrated that and Hitler didn't learn from his lesson.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)They'd have been a violent force with a political effect, but he pulled them together, and got them to the point where he became Chancellor. And after that, pulled all the power to himself, and was the driving force behind the annexations and invasions. I think German history in the 30s would have been significantly different without him, and thus what war might have started.
47of74
(18,470 posts)In the late 1920s the Nazis hadn't done very well in elections. In 1928 they only had 12 seats in the Reichstag and fared just as poorly in state elections. Without his popular appeal they might have remained more of a fringe movement. However the real fly in the ointment was the Great Depression and how the party might have responded to that without Hitler around.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)Two different classifications. They aren't mutually exclusive.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)means you backed the Holocaust. It's much easier to live in a world where everyone is completely bad or completely good. So that would make Al Gore a great orator.
MillennialDem
(2,367 posts)tried to take too much in one season.
Three choices.
1. Go full bore at Moscow, disregard Kiev.
2. Take Kiev, dig in for the winter. Try for Moscow in 1942.
3. Take Kiev then try to take Moscow.
#1 is the right choice. #2 is acceptable. #3 is madness. #1 is especially correct in hindsight, as the Russian SW front had lost virtually all of its armor and mobility fighting Army Group South. They wouldn't have been able to threaten Army Group Center's supply lines.
struggle4progress
(118,295 posts)Renew Deal
(81,861 posts)NCjack
(10,279 posts)and see his soul. So, JEB, probably right now the next international mass murder is a child, out there waiting for you to kill him and save civilization from crashing. Finding the next Hitler is more important than being president, so you need to begin you search today. (Stupid shit -- but actually smarter than W.)
Vinca
(50,278 posts)How many innocents died as a result of Dubya's war of choice? Some estimates are in the hundreds of thousands.
Behind the Aegis
(53,959 posts)It is all but impossible to know how history would have unfolded had Hitler died as an infant. Would WWII have happened? Given historical information, it seems likely it would have broken out one way or another. Would Germany have been the aggressor? Still very possible as Germany was humiliated and crushed after WWI, and it was a powder keg waiting to blow. However, the Soviet Union was also poised to start a war of conquest, and very well may have been the power which started WWII had it not been Germany. If Germany were not the aggressor, would Japan have entered the war? Would they have sided with the Soviets as opposed to fighting them? As for the Holocaust, it too was likely inevitable, but would it have been as large a scale as it was or been more like the pogroms of the past?
Taking out one individual, no matter how important or influential is only one domino in a maze of them. While certain dominoes would have never fallen had the "Hitler" one been removed, others would have one way or another, but it is still impossible to tell.
Yupster
(14,308 posts)Historians talk about the "river of time" theory or the "great man theory" of history.
Is history a river heading to a certain result? You can slow it down or even divert it, but in the end it will end up wheren it's going.
Or is history's direction shaped by great men?
In this case, I go with the great man theory.
There was nothing inevitable about Hitler taking over Germany in 1933, The Nazis were only one group of the right wing coalition which arose in post-war Germany. There was also a very strong communist movement in the streets and in the voting booths.The holocaust was also not inevitable. Even with his closest confidants, Hitler spoke of removing the Jews from Germany and even resettling then in Madagascar and even central Africa. That all changed with the invasion of Russia.
Anyway, little of that whole era was inevitable. Hitler gad serious challenges within the leadership of the Nazi Party. There were also many assassination attempts against him.
Ex Lurker
(3,814 posts)Hitler and the others were antisemitic to the core, and wanted to remove the Jews from Europe, but they thought in vague terms of deportation at first. Heydrich realized what could be done with modern technology, and that it was actually possible to exterminate millions of people in a short period of time.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)"Shouldn't peanuts look like peas?"
Are_grits_groceries
(17,111 posts)Obviously Hitler wouldn't have been around but who else would have emerged. It's the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Better to ask what would you go back and change the terms of the treaty that ended WWI? The conditions that developed in Germany led to a Hitler.
Response to Are_grits_groceries (Reply #24)
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MowCowWhoHow III
(2,103 posts)Answer: Nobody human knows
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)In the realm of alternate possibilities it could have been something worse.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)We have great-grandparents, grandparents and parents that were affected by WWII: Mortality-rates, long-term life-decisions, work-schedules, diets, social interactions...
We exist only because a specific sperm met a specific egg. If there were even a tiny abberation in the schedule on which our great-grandparents, grandparents and parents had sex and conceived off-spring, a totally different person would be born.
randome
(34,845 posts)If that was the case, then I would have no problem killing Hitler baby. It wouldn't affect our timeline but would make another one.
Case closed. 
[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)The Weimar Republic would have gone belly-up in a different way. Maybe they would have pulled their shit together and set up some parliamentary rules to get it functioning.
No WWII.
* No pact between Hitler and Stalin.
* No split of Germany.
* No conquest of Eastern Europe by communist troops. Poland would be part of "the West". Romania would maybe still be a kingdom and maybe also part of "the West", despite sitting right at the Black Sea and bordering Ukraine.
* The pacific war of WWII would have played out entirely different. Without the reconstruction after WWII, japanese society would be different. (For example: Consuming whale-meat came up in response to the hardships after WWII.)
* Europe would still have a strong jewish community.
The Cold War would have played out radically different.
* Without the pressure of the Cold War, the Soviet Union maybe would have been able to cast off its Stalinism earlier.
* Without the heroic deed of saving Russia from Hitler, Stalin wouldn't be a folk-hero in Russia today. Nationalism would have a different flavor in Russia.
* The Korean and Vietnam War would have played out differently.
* Without Communism as the big, global boogey-man, there would have been no McCarthyism.
* The Apartheid-regime in South-Africa would have played out differently.
* The history of all of South-America and Iran would have played out differently, as the CIA wouldn't have replaced those democracies with dictatorships to their liking.
* Without the economic pressure of the Cold War, the Soviet Union maybe never would have collapsed.
* Croats and Serbs wouldn't be enemies and the genocidal yugoslavian civil-war of the 1990s never would have happened.
* The ukrainian nationalism, and the ukrainian WWII-era anti-communist rebel Bandera, wouldn't be tied to the Nazis, so the current ukrainian crisis would play out differently.
* The state of Israel would possibly never have been founded by the British, as there was no need.
* Without the propaganda-war in space, the US would have had less interest to go to the moon.
But apart from that, everything would have played out the same.
All the people would have met all the right partners in the right manner and at the right time to start just the right relationships and procreate at just the right time for just the right sperms and eggs to meet, creating just the same politicians, societal leaders, scientists and artists as in the original timeline.
So, apart from planet Earth having an entirely different geopolitical situation, and apart from its history being filled with a radically different setup of decision-makers, inventors and inspirers, everything would be the same.
You return from the past and find out that your weakling father is suddenly a successful author and that the bully now is an emasculated servant in this timeline. And your parents had sex in exactly the same way, despite them having different character-traits, for you to be created.
rogerashton
(3,920 posts)He was even crazier than Hitler in some ways.
patricia92243
(12,597 posts)better question. I really would like to see him answer that question and justify it compared to his stated beliefs now.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)davidn3600
(6,342 posts)If you go back in the past and kill Hitler as a baby, you would radically change the future...perhaps in incredible and unpredictable ways.
An entirely different timeline and future would be created. That timeline may have even bigger problems. There is no way to tell. Not only that, but the people would be different. For example, your grandparents or parents might not have ever met if it wasn't for World War II. They may have met someone else. So you may not even exist in that alternate timeline.
Javaman
(62,530 posts)I would approve his application to art school.
I would kick Gavrilo Princip in the head.
the Hapsburgs were basically financially bankrupt prior to WWI. It would have just been a matter of time before their monarchy collapsed. but then again, who knows what would have taken their place in the resulting vacuum?
RiffRandell
(5,909 posts)If only John Cusack's character (Max) hadn't missed the meeting due to fateful irony, although fictional. 
Good flick.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290210/
whatthehey
(3,660 posts)Yes that Stephen Fry. His novels are quite intriguing re-imaginings and this one lacks the gross-out aspects of, say, The Hippopotamus. Essentially we have to ask ourselves how the resentment over Versailles, the panic over Weimar hyperinflation and the political tensions in Europe would have been leveraged by a different demagogue. It's absurd to think they just would not have been leveraged at all. Just how effective, how motivated and how nuts frankly would the alternative opinion leader have been?
47of74
(18,470 posts)I was in a bookstore about 10 years ago and found a book that asked what it would've been like if Islam had never existed. The book suggested that we probably would've faced many of the same struggles today but it would have been between Western Christianity and a much more powerful Orthodox Christianity that would've been based in the Middle East.
Johonny
(20,851 posts)heck no George H. or George W. run.
lame54
(35,293 posts)
former9thward
(32,023 posts)The post WW I conditions of Germany created Hitler and created the Nazis. If not Hitler then someone else would have led that movement. Maybe that person would have been smart enough to leave the war to his generals and the outcome of WW II might have been completely different.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)Germany was primed for a rebellion against the punitive aspects of the Versailles treaty with or without Hitler, and most Germans were still fuming over the loss of Prussia and the status of Danzig. It's very likely that Germany would have eventually rearmed, rejected the treaty, and invaded Poland to reclaim that land with or without Hitler. Many historians also believe that the Anschluss was inevitable, given the German nationalism that was raging in both nations at the time. They probably would have gone to war over the Rhineland again as well.
The real question is whether they would have stopped there. Many of the Nazi territorial ambitions beyond those territories came directly from Hitler himself, and while many of Hitlers political opponents wanted to go to war to reclaim those lands, Hitler was the driving force behind the "Greater German Homeland" ideal that pushed the Nazi's further across the continent. While a war would have probably occurred without Hitler, it's unlikely that Germany would have had the same territorial ambitions.
And, of course, you have to remember that the two other Axis powers would have done their thing with or without Hitler. In fact, there are some very real questions about whether the Axis would have won if Hitler hadn't been present. Would the United States have cared about Mussolini conquering North Africa and the Balkans if Britain and France weren't being attacked by Germany? Would it have cared enough to launch a full invasion of Italy and Africa? Probably not.
And while Japan would have still been an upstart empire with dreams of driving out the European colonialists surrounding them, it's not exactly a secret that Roosevelt really didn't want to fight a war in the Pacific. In fact, most historians agree that it was Japans invasion of French Indochina in 1941 that convinced Roosevelt that a war with Japan was inevitable. Why? Because that invasion put Japan in a position to grab the East Indies, Singapore, and Malaysia...all English colonies that were shipping much needed war material that England needed to fight off the Nazi's. If Germany hadn't been attacking Great Britain, those colonies would have been far less important to the British and, by proxy, the political interests of the United States. The only real question is the Philippines. Japan wanted them, and surviving documents seem to suggest that Japans original idea was to offer America a deal...the Japanese keep the Philippines, and in exchange they would have given up any claims to the Hawaiian island chain. Because the Japanese knew that they needed to neutralize the threat of the American fleet if they were going to have any chance of success, it's hard to say how they would have implemented this, whether they would have still attacked Pearl Harbor, and whether the United States would have been amenable to any kind of negotiations with them afterward. We undoubtedly WOULD have still fought a war with them, but it's hard to predict how much death America would have put up with for it. There's a big difference between sacrificing tens of thousands of soldiers to "save the planet from an Axis takeover", and sacrificing tens of thousands of soldiers to "reclaim our colonies".
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)but I think he was a product of his times, and if it hadn't been him someone else might have filled the void. Of course, it's always difficult to second-guess history.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)They have been a constant part of human history. They are still going on, but since it is the "good guys" and their allies doing it, it doesn't get much attention.
AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)Our parent's probably wouldn't have met and thus we wouldn't exist.
MosheFeingold
(3,051 posts)And raised him in a loving Jewish home, instead of under the thumb of the tyrant Alois who beat him daily in his drunken rages and filled his head with anti-Semitic crap. I would have cared for him when he came back damaged from WWI, instead of be subjugated to the worst of institutional mental care imaginable, replete with a doctor right out of central casting of a horror novel who filled what was left of his head with bullshit and got him hooked on meth. I suspect he would have become a quite good painter.
A more interesting question to me is whether you would talk him out of suicide after the failed Beer Hall Riots, as did a female member of his family, when his persona was more fully formed.
She is quoted as regretting that decision more than anything she did in her life.
NobodyHere
(2,810 posts)
haele
(12,660 posts)- looking at some of the refugee problems we are having in the world even now, there would have been a genocidal component to a European world war that would have involved Jews, Gypsies, and any other "minority" group that could be targeted as "Traitorous [FITB]s bringing down our nation". Pogroms were not unknown throughout eastern and central Europe. Facism was still growing in opposition to the Stalinist communist state movements.
WWI and plantation-colonialism had caused a lot of economic and political uncertainty, especially since home governments were expending more and more capital to maintain the colonies for the investor businesses that were running them vice re-building post WWI. The punishment doled out to the German states for their part in WWI was needlessly cruel and a major reason for the rise of the Nazi state as opposed to a more progressive reconstructive state; in fact, the reason why the Marshall plan was implemented post-WWII was evidence that the Allies had learned the lesson of WWI.
The punitive terms of the treaty of Versailles along with an insistence of the major countries to engage in a parochial messing with the established gold standard instead of maintaining an international gold standard or monetary system could be linked to the Great Depression's effect on Europe - these were the primary components to the rise of a reactionary nationalist "Hitler" figure.
Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich, and the rest - they were all waiting for a figurehead to push into a leadership position. It would be easy enough to find any number of "attractive" sociopathic neurotics with delusions of greatness to prop up. Anyone would do - Hitler was just there at the right time to be groomed and let go.
Killing baby Hitler would do very little to stop Stalin, Franco, Mussolini, or Tojo - or any number of "captains of industry" who were manipulating governments to make more money through war and resource extraction production.
Haele
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Why not Prescott Bush?
No trillions lost, no Iraq/ME destabilized...
MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Traveling back i time and killing Baby Hitler would result in a timeline separate from our own in which bby Hitler was never murdered by a time traveling murderer.
