Shooting Hitler

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[Don't ask me how I got to this particular topic. People have tried to follow my chain of thought, only to go mad in the attempt. Let's just say it has something to do with what I've been reading lately.]

One of the staples of time travel stories is a strange ethic about tampering with the past. No, we're not talking about the kind of chaotic consequences that a small change far in the past can create, as in Ray Bradbury's short story, "A Sound of Thunder." I'm talking about when people have an opportunity to right a great wrong, and the effects are largely predictable. The classic question is, If you had a chance to kill Hitler before he unleashed Nazism on Germany, the Holocaust on Europe, and World War II on the world, would you do it? As I get older, I'm increasingly surprised that anyone hesitates at the answer: Of course you would.

Here's a simple rule of thumb: If you would applaud an action taken by someone living through a particular historical moment, you would expect someone with historical hindsight to do exactly the same thing. For example, if you think it was the right decision for the United States to attack Afghanistan in 2001, any time traveler who took Bush's place should also order the same assault on the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Everyone who reads about the famous failed assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944, a.k.a. "the von Stauffenburg plot," wishes it had succeeded. When you hear that Hitler's enemies tried to kill him on earlier occasions, you wish those had succeeded, too. Rewind further, and you wish that a lucky partisan had bombed Hitler's train as he was visiting the Eastern Front. Rewind further, and you wish that Hindenburg had send Hitler and the NSDAP packing, instead of giving the future Fuhrer the first step on the path towards Gleichschaltung. If Hitler had died in the trenches in WWI, even better.

The events of 1933 to 1945--the Nazi seizure of power and the Second World War--depended on Hitler the man, capable of wreaking havoc beyond what fascism could do as a virulent political disease. The events after 1945, the Cold War, were also Hitler's creation. Who knows, perhaps the US and USSR would have acquired nuclear weapons, had a different version of the Cold War, and ended it with a bang instead of a whimper. That seems unlikely, for at least two reasons. World War II escalated the Soviet regime's paranoia about the West, leading to the creation of its Eastern European satellite states, an aggressive foreign policy beyond its sphere of influence, and a grim determination to get nuclear weapons at any cost. By rallying the multi-ethnic empire around the regime, Operation Barbarossa also helped keep the Communist Party and Stalin in power. World War II mobilized the USSR on a level it hadn't achieved before, gave the Communists broader opportunities to liquidate their enemies, gave the Red Army battle experience it lacked (and successes it had missed during the Civil War and the clumsy conflict with Finland), and armored the regime in the prestige of having won the Great Patriotic War.

So, yes, given the chance, I'd shoot Hitler on the spot. Anyone who would have hesitated because of the unpredictability of history should stop to think about the choices they have to make each day that have an effect on the future.

Comments

[wmr]

How about blowing up Lenin's train before it got to the Finland Station? I'm no expert, but I believe his influence on events was even greater and more baleful than Hitler's. Also, without Lenin -- both as an axample and as a boogeyman -- Hitler might never have gained the power he did.

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wmr: 'Seven Days to Petrograd', by Tom Hyman:

"In a thriller that recalls Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal, Hyman dramatizes one of the great "what if's" of history, namely, what if Lenin had been assassinated aboard that famous "sealed train" that took him from Switzerland to Petrograd's Finland Station in 1917? Hard pressed on two military fronts, and with America about to enter the war, Germany makes a deal with Lenin: money and secret transportation to Petrograd in exchange for his promise to pull Russia out of the conflict. Churchill gets wind of the scheme and, with the support of Secretary of State House (though without the knowledge of President Wilson), hires an American secret agent, the tough and resourceful Bauer, to kill Lenin on the journey. Bauer boards the train disguised as a member of Lenin's revolutionary party and, in circumstances that become increasingly perilous after his cover is blown and he has fallen for the charms of a beautiful "comrade," makes attempt after attempt to fulfill his assignment. Hyman (The Russian Woman, Giant Killer) doesn't quite display Forsyth's narrative flair, but his story is a clever mix of fact and fiction, and propulsively suspenseful."
http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Days-Petrograd-Tom-Hyman/dp/0670808652/sr=8-1/qid=1167750783/ref=sr_1_1/105-5917315-5876436?ie=UTF8&s=books

Kingdaddy: 'Making History', by Stephen Fry

"A time-travel tale, of sorts, this novel by a British comedian is alternately funny and thought-provoking. The protagonist, Michael Young, is a trendy, somewhat vapid graduate student at Cambridge who is just finishing his dissertation on the early years of Hitler. Fry alternates chapters describing Michael's actions with sections of his dissertation, allowing a glimpse into the environment that spawned the rise of the Fuhrer. Upon Michael's meeting with physics professor Leo Zuckermann, the nefarious plot thickens. What if Hitler had never been born? What would a world without the Holocaust be like? The two men send male-sterility pills back in time to the water supply used by Hitler's parents. Instantly, Michael finds himself, British accent and all, as an American student at Princeton in an entirely different world. Is it a better world? The novel is full of surprises, with the outcome not even remotely as pristine as Michael had hoped. This is a strange book, full of dry British humor and quips. It also deals with the Nazi "final solution," a topic at the far extreme from laughable. It takes readers into a world of ironic possibilities fraught with disaster, resulting from the best of intentions. YAs will find this an easy read that will stretch their imaginations, entertain them, and leave them thinking about the possible outcomes of the "road not taken."
http://www.amazon.com/Making-History-Stephen-Fry/dp/1569471509/sr=1-1/qid=1167751376/ref=sr_1_1/105-5917315-5876436?ie=UTF8&s=books

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I beleive the geniside of hitler was a much needed event to rid the jews of germany before they did any real damage to us germans economy and politics. It happend for a great caus and great reason beyond you and me my freind.
And no i would not have shot Adolf but meirly take the bullet for him.

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