An old thought experiment

Introduce myself ("Hi, my name's... Lukas"), offer to look at his artwork ("Lemme see whatcha got there, A"), buy him a few beers, talk ("Drink up, you've just been rejected"), discuss art ("I've seen lots of paintings of men killing their fathers"), bring him back to my German abode ("It's just right over there. I'm alone and I keep it warm.") give him Ecstasy which I've brought along from the future ("It's just Aspirin to help with your dejected soul"), and then tap that Hitler ass, of course ("Stop hugging me and bend over!").

According to historian Lothar Machtan, who wrote The Hidden Hitler, Adolf boi was gay. His lovers in the past may have failed in stopping Hitler from becoming the monster that he was, but I, Sexy Celebrity German style, could certainly prevent World War II in this situation.



Woof!

having sex with pure evil.....intriguing....

i'd kill him...simple as that....yes, i'm very unimaginative....

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I think i'd let him be, sure he did some terrible things but you never know what the world would be like now without WW2.

Think histories best left to be.

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Try to angle for a post in the coming Thousand Year Reich, eventually establishing my prescient knowledge of coming events and using that to convince Hitler to pursue a different war strategy post 1940.

Now if it's say, Lenin circa 1905, I slit his throat with a butter knife and go about my business...

Just a place? For some reason I'd have thought you'd have gone for the top job.

Not a bad plan, Sexy. Although you should be sure to use protection, it's almost certain that Hitler had aquired syphilis at some point before the 20's. Oh, and I think the Hitler was Gay theory has been fairly thoroughly refuted. Which is a shame, a few musical numbers would have cheered up Downfall no end.

Much better to have the ear of the man with the inside track on the job than to stand in his way and get steamrolled.

My god, I just have the overwhelming urge to kick you in the groin over and over again untill you vomit and then pass out from the pain.

Just remember that Adolf H. got a real kick out of schadenfreude, your passion for the job might dissipate around the fifty-third banana-skin-on-the-floor-of-the-Reichschancellery gag. That or the first dispatch-you-to-Birkenau howler.

As for myself, I'd also try and get in Hitler's rather short good book. Keep myself dull and stoic, but capable and fairly highly placed in the party's organizational structure. When the man with the comical moustache finally came to power I'd angle myself a job as head of the civil service. From there bureaucratic fudging, incompetence and rife corruption begins with abadon. Of course, I'd have to temper it so I don't get killed too soon, but hopefully I could get a good few years of lost memos, delayed reports and outright indolency in before the firing squad. Imagine the damage you could do to the government of the Reich just by being a grey man in a suit with a secret agenda and the sort of trust that comes from being involved from the begining.

Didn't Goering pretty much corner that market already?

I'd let him be, and go off and be a scientist in some other country. I don't think I'd be prepared to suffer to consequences of murdering him. Yes, I realise that the consequence of leaving him alive be would be the deaths of millions of people, but at least that way there's a decent chance that I would survive.

There's plenty of useful I stuff I could 'discover' if I were free; how to build a nuclear bomb, for instance.

Fair point, but his blunders more likely arose from the stress of his many briefs and his addiction to painkillers. I'm fairly sure I could've made things even worse and not lost Hitler's confidence so quickly.

Alvin - that's a unique one, I've never encountered anyone who'd try and hand the bomb to the Allies earlier. Things could've have gone very differently in that world, imagine a nuclear strike against central europe, or using it to a force a diplomatic victory. Hitler could've been in power for decades after.

There's probably a good counterfactual in that situation.

Hey Adolf, lets see this artwork.

Ah, very nice.

Thats how the conversation would start. It would end with "it was nice meeting you, and I one day hope you make the correct choices"

I would't want to force a change in the course of history, you kill hitler and who knows a worse candidate could have been the head of the third reich. Maybe the person who plays the role of hitler focuses his efforts on the nuclear bomb and destroys half the world. You can't judge history by the events caused by a single man. Its not possible because there are too many variables in situations like this.

Not to sound crude but the death of millions of jews was or is the course of history that has set up where we (the world) are today. Now think to yourself, Is it really such a bad place? do you know how much good has come out of it? I know alot of you here are against the Israeli goverment like me, but seriously, it could be alot worse. It is too selfish to alter the course of history by killing hitler, you would change too much and deny too many people sucess.

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Δύο άτομα. Μια μάχη. Κανένας συμβιβασμός.

Well, there'd be plenty of other stuff I could explain to them, or at least set them on the right track. I reckon I'd be looking at a good few Nobel Prizes. Also, I'd be sure to make a bit of cash Back to the Future 2 style.

I'd convince him that he was a brilliant artist*, should keep at it til he finds a school with vision, and if he started showing signs of going political I'd get him hooked on drugs. Nothing stops a life in it's tracks like heroin.

*this strategy has no bearing on any compliments I may have doled out in the Mofo Art Gallery.

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good one.
even if it's "itS"
("it's its", just noticed, maybe one to remember in order not to mistake a verb with a possessive pronoun/adjective the next time)

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We're a generation of men raised by women. I'm wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.

ok, first of all, i volunteer to assasinate the above grammar nazi....

second, martin, i was really expecting something much more efficient than screwing with some papers as a burocrat....fairly dissapointing actually....i would have flunked your ass for that in fact....

also, to whom ever said that something much worse might have happened...i really don't see what could be worse than the second world war...the amount of destruction was unparallel, i think the most humans could acomplish in such a short period of time and with the weapons that were at hand....

so there is no doubt in my mind that things could only get better if he was killed...he WAS the mastermind of the nazi movement was he not?

so yes, what i would do is ask him to show me his artwork...get him in a secluded place and kill him in cold blood....leave no trace of myself...then, since i can't go back, i would carefully watch for anyone that might replace him and is spreading hate amongst the germans....then i would assasinate each and every one of them...and wouldn't feel the least bit guilty.....

of course, i'm also of the belief that everything that happens has its reasons.....

hee!

I'd have no compunction about killing him, if it came to that, knowing that I might save so many innocent people. You raise the followup issue here though, that isn't really accounted for in the initial question: that while he was the leader/mastermind, he wasn't the only guy with these ideas. And if not for the socio-economic climate in Germany at the time, he could not have gotten the sort of stronghold that he did. Things in Germany were so bad that people in factories were being paid a couple of times a DAY, because by the end of the week, inflation would have cost the company more to pay them for the work. (The People's Chronology, by James Trager) People were looking for someone to blame. Hitler pointed at the Jews (and the gays and quelle surprise, the artists... and others) but many, many people bought into his scapegoating.

yes, but he was undoubtedly the most charismatic of them all...that was what drew so many germans to his ideas, they looked at him as their saviour. so i'm thinking the nazi movement, even if it wouldn't be completely anihilated with his death, would take a serious blow....so serious that they might never recover or become as strong as they were with Hitler as the leader....perhapse remain a small radical party within the parliament....

a good idea would be, after killing him of course, to somehow manage to renegotiate the Versailles peace treaty that was the main cause of such economic conditions in germany at the time...get a group of uber smart people together and try to improve the economic situation so that the people wouldn't feel so desperate....but i think that's almost an impossible task to perform by one self....

Good point.
They need to make an online game out of that.
"Treaty at Versailles: the Home Version"