RE: Given a chance would you kill baby Hitler?
November 10, 2015 at 5:56 pm
(This post was last modified: November 10, 2015 at 6:08 pm by abaris.)
(November 10, 2015 at 5:33 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: There was actually another, less publicized German persecution of the Jews in the late 19th century. The whole world stood back and watched the Nazis. They could have stopped them if they'd wanted to, so what good would killing baby Hitler have done?
I wouldn't know which. Even more so, since Germany was only Germany since 1871. Before that it was a patchwork of counties, duchies and kingdoms with different allegiances. And it certainly didn't happen after 1871. That doesn't say anithing about antisemitism, which was prevalent in many European countries. Also in France, as the Dreyfus affair demonstrated in 1894/95.
No, it all boils down to WWI. If that didn't happen with the known results, Hitler wouldn't have happened. You may never forget the results of that war. The Middle powers agreed to an armistice according to Wilson's 14 points - mainly the self determination of peoples - but Wilson couldn't get through and cut and ran. And so, the winners took it all. Czechoslovakia got territories with a majority of Austrians, Italy got territories with a majority of Austrians and Germany was divided into two exclaves because the allies wanted to grant Poland access to the sea. Giving no regards to the prevalent population. Hungary lost a large part of it's territory to the treaty of Saint Germain. Later polls reduced Hungary even further, since in 1921, it lost the so called Burgenland to Austria. My grandfather was born a citizen of Austria-Hungary, but in the Hungarian kingdom. He ended up being an Austrian jew, persecuted by Hitler.
All of this fertilized the soil for nationalistic resentment.
There was a rather realistic french general or marshall, who saw through the treaty of Versailes. I don't remember whihc one it was, but when the treaty was signed, he said, it's not a peace treaty. It's an armistice for 25 years. He was only off by a few years.