Poll: Would you time-travel and kill Hitler?

[Mistermixmaster]

I think someone else might have said this, but doing so could have horrible ramififications for the world as we know it... We might even trigger Godwins Law of Time Travel [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitleo3hnku5u?from=Main.GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel]...

 

[Bocaj2000]

Killing Hitler would have probably diverted the holocaust. No other military leader would be stupid enough to divert so many troops and resources just to commit genocide. Wait... never mind.

EDIT: there is actually a very good argument available that operation Valkyrie was a success. So maybe he was killed...

 

[Bloodstain]

The genocide committed by Hitler was neither the worst nor the most recent genocide in mankind's history.
Besides, I think the world was "ready" for national socialism at that time; even if Hitler was killed, someone else would have done it. Maybe not even a German, I guess the Italians and possibly even Britons could have done something similar.
Hitler wasn't the cause of the movement. It wasn't like everybody was peaceful and happy and then Hitler came and turned everyone into murderous bastards. Entire Europe was tense and desperate; people had no money, no jobs, no food. And people like to blame others for their own misfortune. Hitler just used the situation and gained popularity by giving food, etc.

Moreover, there's a ton of ways how the world could screw up after a sudden death of Hitler. We can't imagine all possible ramifications.

Therefore, no. I wouldn't kill Hitler.

 

[Bernzz]

Did you even play Red Alert? Einstein travels back in time, makes Hitler vanish, and then Stalin invades Europe in a war worse than WWII!

So no.

 

[Dfskelleton]

No, I'd go back in time, kick Hitler in the balls and run away, kick Himmler in the balls and run away, kick Stalin in the balls and run away, steal some guy's grenade, knife or gas mask, and go back forward in time.
Thus, I'd have forced my foot upon the testicles of the wicked, removed all possibilities for future disorientation, and returned with a badass souvenir.

 

[Brian Hendershot]

No, I played Singularity and watched all the Back to the Futures. I know what happens when you mess with the Timeline.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

No, because as horrible as Hitler was, it was better him than someone who actually knew what he was doing. Hitler's personal intervention in many key battles led to allied victory.

Also, this [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitleo3hnku5u?from=Main.GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel] and this [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ptitlekz83hawz?from=Main.HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct] might come into effect.

 

[FalloutJack]

No, I wouldn't. And I'll explain why. Paradoxes and unpredictable alterations in history aside, there are good reasons not to kill Hitler.

For one, when the U.S. finally decided to get involved in World War II, it gave us an end to The Great Depression. Furthermore, with all the bad press that we've gotten about our hands in other wars, World War II was our Big Damn Heroes moment and it'd be kind of dumb for me to diminish that.

The OTHER good reason is that Hitler had crazy-good security fueled by his paranoia. People had TRIED to kill him and failed. Do you want to go down in history as just another one of the failed assassination attempts? I wouldn't. There's nothing you can take back there that will guarantee that an army of soldiers won't cut you down.

And before the OP decides to get cute with me, I'll be wearing a cup and steel-toed shoes to counter any attempt to kick me in the balls.

 

[Betancore]

No. History is history. Hitler's not the only bad thing that happened, and honestly, messing around with time is troublesome and confusing. I wouldn't do it. I might end up making myself not exist or something.

 

[Lybs]

I'd say no, I wouldn't have since Hitler could have been dead 2 years after the war ended 1946 according to a documentary I saw on history channel about 1-2 years ago about Hitlers medical record.
Anyone who have red history about the last days of the Reich have notice one thing from what the eye witnesses testimony, he was a wreck when he was in the bunker and not just because that the war (which actually his generals predicted that he was fighting a losing war in december 1941) but his illness was getting worst.
According to his inner circle only a very few people knew about his Parkinson disease and according to the journals he had changed personal doctors more then 10 times.
He then tried a relatively new medical treatment that some doctors where experimenting with to treat it, medicines developed from plats from the amazon that where newly discovered.
One of the medicines his personal doctor forced him to became a vegetarian so the medicine would have better effects, half of the things he used was classed by todays standards as close to poison and the harmed his body and made his disease even worst.

Plus if Hitler didn't united the major countries against him one can only ponder if Stalinism could have led to another conflict instead

 

[Verp]

No -- if I had a time machine, I'd go back in time to see the dinosaurs.

 

[kypsilon]

Absolutely not. Doctor Who would be terribly upset with me if I did.

 

[Dejawesp]

The lessons learned from the Second World War far outweigh the lives lost.

 

[Dana22]

No. Whats done is done. Changing the past could only make it worse. Or could it ?

 

[Kair]

If there was no Hitler and Nazism, fascism would still exist.

 

[yamitami]

I can't remember what show it was, something Twilight Zone-ish. A woman was sent back in time to do just that and the whole episode was her struggling with killing a child even though she knew he would go on to kill millions. At the end of the episode she gathers her courage and jumps off a bridge with baby Hitler.

And then a replacement baby was found, belonged to the housekeeper or somesuch, and that baby ended up being the historical Adolf Hitler.

Odds are with time travel you'd just end up making things worse.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

No.
There are a ton of other dictators who were just as bad, Hitler just had better press coverage (being of Armenian descent, I am eternally bitter that our genocide doesn't make into history books while you can't go five blocks without tripping over a new holocaust memoir). Also, I'm a pacifist and the dude's been way too much fun in fiction to get rid of.