What if Hitler had been killed as an infant?
I recently saw a supposedly funny video (it was from TikTok) in which the actor time travels to the year 1889 and finds a lady holding her baby.He asks the lady the infant's name. She says that the name of the infant is Adolf Hitler. Now the actor kills the infant and sighs in relief. The people in the comment section were in fact saying that if that happened then the world would have been a peaceful place.
I am not saying that Hitler's actions are moral but I don't think the world would be a peaceful place even if Hitler was not born. But please feel free to speculate and comment how the world would have been without Hitler.
I am not saying that Hitler's actions are moral but I don't think the world would be a peaceful place even if Hitler was not born. But please feel free to speculate and comment how the world would have been without Hitler.
Comments (42)
Now, what would the world be like if the aforementioned things happened?
In my opinion if Hitler didn't exist then most likely the Nazi party wouldn't have reached this present fame.
One of these things is not like the others.
:razz:
After sighing in relief, the actor takes the time machine back to his time and finds himself in gloomy backward age where the Third Reich led by NSDAP controls the UK, basically all of West East and parts of East Europe. Now the deceased victorious leader of Germany, Otto Strasser, is worshipped as a God like figure. Now understanding that Hitler was crucial part for Germany not to succeed, and that when lead by the leftist Strasser the Germans indeed somehow could pull off a remarkable victory against the allies, the actor then decides to halt himself before killing this baby, which is so crucial for peace and democracy to prevail and for Nazi Germany to collapse. Once on the ground again in 1889 the first actor doesn't believe this second himself coming from this alternated future and the actor ends up killing the first himself. By doing this, he kills also himself and then the city of Linz police have this strange case of identical twins committing suicide close to the house where the Hitlers live. And history resumes it's course that we know and Germany loses WW2.
Well, not funny, but anyway, just making the point how alternate history is problematic.
I enjoyed every second of that. :D
The party pre-existed Hitler. The situation in Germany was the situation in Germany. Mussolini rose in Italy, Franco in Spain, etc. There is no reason to think that the Nazis (or a proxy of them) don't rise to power in the absence of Hitler.
By this same argument, is it necessarily true that there is no United States if one commits infanticide against George Washington or Thomas Jefferson? Just because a person did a thing doesn't mean that no other person could have done that same thing or something very similar under the same circumstances.
Germany was not a happy place in the 1920s into the '30s, and Hitler was by no means the only capable player. Germany didn't need Mein Kampf for a lot of people to hate Jews, for instance. Millions of Germans resented the terms of the WWI peace treaty, and so on and so forth.
But whatever reality is, alternate history has produced quite a few great stories.
Leaders like Hitler do not arise in a vacuum and are products of their time, taking advantage of historical trends and grievances to obtain power.
Without Martin Luther King would there not still have been a civil rights moment, albeit with a different figurehead or leader?
Is Donald Trump the cause of Americans divisions and concerns about globalism and racial and ethnic diversity or is he the symptom? Perhaps a little of both?
Hence why the idea to protect the new world by keeping it separate? The best "defence" for the New World would have been trade and technology transfer to the new continent right from the start. A young Aztec Empire armed with similar cannons, muskets and steel weapons would likely sent a renegade Spanish band lead by Cortés back to Cuba, if they would have been lucky. A capable army keeps European Imperialists out. Period.
WW2 was of course the second act of WW1 and with that war we can easily see the problem we have in just how muddled the whole thing was and ready to collapse into the Great War.
So if the driver of the car carrying the Grand Duke didn't make the wrong turn, does anybody really, honestly, think that a Great War would not have happened? That we would have enjoyed peace up until our time? That the last time the World burned would really be the time of Napoleon? Just as said above, there are these situations that play out somehow and likely aren't dependent on just one individual actor. Even if the individual actors make the certain path to be as it is.
The Great War nearly started already at 1911 from the Agadir Crisis, hence in my view the alliance system laid in Europe would have bound to have snapped at some point, some butterfly-moment similar to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand would have happened sooner or later, let's say during the years from1914 to 1930.
And let's think about the alternate history if the Great War hadn't happened in 1914, but later. Would it have been anything better in the 1920's or 1930's. Or how about happening in 1950? Likely military technology wouldn't have make the leaps in peacetime 1914-1918 as it did then, but the technology would have advanced. And with even better weapons, better airplanes, more chemical weapons, no understanding of how modern war is fought, guess what would happened to the death toll in the first years?
(War Flag and the Marine Jack of the German Empire in a demonstration in Germany in 2018.)
Even without Hitler's presence on the geopolitical scene of the early 20th century, humanity would still enter into clashes like WWI and its continuation. The mentality, culture, and society of the time was heading towards an armed conflict of monumental scale. Hitler only made it happen - in the case of the Second Great War - earlier. Without it we would still have a romanticist Germany trapped in the medieval and modern glory of war for prestige and recognition. Without Hitler, we would still have a weak and cowardly LON that would not act when needed. Without Hitler we would still have Benito and his fascist regime looking for the glory of the Roman Empire in Italy, the red fear with Stalin in the Soviet Union, and Hirohito and his ambitious conquests with the Empire of Japan in Asia. Without Hitler, China would still be dissipated and at war over different ideologies. Without Hitler, the world would still, remain the same.
?
It's corrected now - I confused the acronyms -. Thank you for pointing that out.
I agree.
That aside, what bothers me is the following:
Not straying from the OP's intent, say that the nonexistence of Hitler is our goal. One way is, as the OP spells out is Quoting philosopher004
However, another way would be prevent Hitler's parents from ever meeting - no meeting, no sex; no sex, no Hitler.
I have a hunch that people won't mind preventing Hitler's parents from meeting but will balk at the idea of actually killing an infant, Hitler or not. I could be wrong but if I'm not, what gives? After all, the end result - Hitler's nonexistence - is identical. :chin:
I think people are not balking here to kill the infant(i doubt if they will be able to do it if give a chance) because of the fact that they know more about Hitler than his parents and he is doer of the things people hate him for.
So, given a choice between preventing Hitler's parents from meeting and stopping his birth OR killing the infant Hitler, you would choose...??? :chin:
Also think of the following scenario. Imagine you knew about Jesus, knew how much good he would bring into the world, and hopped into a time machine, took yourself back to 1 AD and killed the infant Christ. People would be unanimous in their condemnation of your actions - you did an extremely bad thing.
By the same token then if you killed infant Hitler, you would've done something "good". People should be united in their approval of your act. Yet, this doesn't seem to be the case. There's an asymmetry here that bothers me.
I personally don't know.I can only speculate about the consequences ,the world might have been better or worse.
Quoting TheMadFool
But the comment section of that video seemed happy .That is not that many people but nevertheless I was surprised at their reaction.
The world would be in a constant state of overproducton crisis.
The Jews would not be welcome in any country, and they would not have regained their ancient homeland.
There woudl be less turmoil in the Middle East.
America and Russia, and later every man and his brother (so to speak; meaning all countries that have it) would not so quicly and easily develop nuclear weapons
The cold war, if any, would have been more temperate
There would be much fewer technological advances, including computers, tvs, air travel, etc. etc.
There would be less social justice, most of Europe would still be kingdoms, politically, and more people would live in abject poverty
Likely bacterial infections would maim and kill many people antibiotics not having been invented
Viet Nam war and Korean war never would have occurred, so wouldn't the WWII
(The things being supporting LGBT parades, capitalism and the welfare system)
But they are each a core American value.
Technically there's no recognition of sexual orientation in the Constitution other than if a citizen wants to have unnatural relations with another and it's not illegal by some other policy (bestiality for example) all rights and protections do apply. That said if the majority oppose it for one or more reasons they have a right to vocalize and rally against it. People for some reason seem to associate "homosexuality" with physical attributes, (soft voice/specific vocal tone, skin, being skinny, or just otherwise ridiculously "nice" or "happy" .. where the term comes from [ironic as the extreme opposite is simply being violently mentally ill]) whereas in reality it's allegedly a physiological determination. You corrupt women into being vile, arrogant tramps it's understandable for a rational man to not be attracted to most. Or a society of degenerates who make you think you're unfit to reproduce because you won't join their debauchery. An explicit form of Nazi-ism in the highest degree, actually. Which is all fine and dandy (to others) .. until there's none left of the only people who know how to operate or fix anything more complicated than a sandwich or know how to do anything more complex than clubbing a man over the head. Perfect for rotting a nation from the inside out as matter of fact. Those smart kids who are geniuses in school who may be a little bit off socially and could use their brainpower to create things that make enemy nations quake in their boots, instead of being their buddy and looking after them, let's shove their head into a toilet and give them a swirly. That'll learn 'em. Idiots don't even see even if it's not foreign propaganda being levied as "good 'ol freedom" they're playing right into enemies hands or their own defeat.
Capitalism is really the only humane way to aggregate an overpopulated world of nearly 8 billion.
Welfare system is a safety net for emergencies. Not a bed for comfort. Every developed civilization has such a mechanism.
Absolutely.
Well hold up now. There's God (Lord, rather) mentioned. And you know what that means. If there wasn't normal sexual reproduction the 2 million U.S. population in the 1770's would have been overrun in no time. There would be no America. As we know it.
Kind of goes without saying. "Right to life" ... which is... living. Childbirth. Be like saying since there's no explicit right to breathe oxygen in the Constitution we should have to pay for it lol.
You can never rationally argue a counterfactual. Absent Hitler, Stalin arguably takes over Europe and in the end 100 million die instead of the actual 50 million in WWII.
Besides, suppose you have a baby and I kill it, explaining that it's destined to become a bad person. What kind of insanity would that be? Wouldn't it make more sense, if you could affect the past, to act as minimally as you could? Get Hitler admitted to art school, mission accomplished, no bloodshed. Or get the Allied powers to adopt less punitive measures at the Treaty of Versailles. That would actually make some historical sense. You can't just go killing people's babies. Where would it stop? Some of the Antifa types would gladly kill your baby if you wear the wrong colored hat, and they'd feel very self-righteous about it.
Yeah I agree,I was concerned with the killing part of the video but i was intrigued by only his abscence weather even if he was alive as a good person:smile:.
I am not interested in engaging this, I would just like to make a point about Left intellectuals. This is an incredibly ignorant statement that should not exist, but it does it exist. The man who wrote this is a strict provincialist, without any concrete knowledge of the workings of capitalism throughout the world. The reason this man is able to hold this view is because this narrative dominates, especially in Western countries that live off the exploitation of third world countries. The sheer fatalism attached to this dogmatic premise is simply proof that Left intellectuals have failed. If they had succeeded many things should be general knowledge, ingrained in the culture. Just like we no longer believe the sun revolves around the earth. This error was obliterated, not merely by evidence, but by intellectuals championing its truth in culture. We live in times where intellectuals champion their theories in academic institutions away from culture. We will all pay for this because this gentleman's ignorant and provincial consciousness represents a vast majority of humans. The intellectuals have failed.
Even if the discussion never gets as far as the philosophy of historiography, it could still be interesting. If you don't have anything to say about it, feel free to ignore it. Or if you have a critique of counterfactual history, I for one would be interested to read it.
Good points.
Did you change the name of this thread?
No I realised this just now.Can it be changed by any moderators.
It was probably already changed by a moderator.
Is that possible?
Yup.
The symptom of much deeper problems... after he's treated(and hopefully eradicated by anti-viral meds) the problems will remain. Those attempting to bring the problems to light will be compared to previous 'enemies' of America, like communism and socialism...