Given a chance would you kill baby Hitler?

[abaris]

Given the chance I would talk baby Hitler's mom into signing him up for art lessons asap

Did you know, she paid for him having piano lessons? He quit, because he didn't have the patience.

Again, following the idiotic chain of events and possible paradoxons. If you want to kill someone connected to Hitler, kill his father, who, by all accounts was a brute, always beating his children into submission. Today considered to be one of the key ingredients for creating a serial offender. Kill him right after Adolf was born and not 14 years later, when he actually snuffed it, and you would have a different Adolf.

But again, solves nothing, since WWI would still happen, with all it's consequences. Hitler isn't the cause. He's the result. I know, WWI is still celebrated by certain people. But actually, it was only the first cause for all the vileness of the 20th century.

[Rhondazvous]

As I said, when playing the time game, there are other figures preventing the first cause for Hitler and saving millions of people in the process. Short term, since nobody can say what would have filled the void. Hitler's just the demon mask everyone associates with the Holocaust. But there's a very complicated chain of events leading up to a nobody taking over a major industrial nation.

When removing Hitler, WWI still would have happened. The treaty of Versailes still would have happened. Only the person leading the nationalist right would have been a different person. Maybe a less emotional, even more determined one. There were lots and lots to choose from, who carried the same resentments.

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?

Plus, if you go back in time and are arrested and executed for killing an innocent baby, you will die before you are born and you won't be able to get back to your time machine to finish out the rest of your life in the 21st century. Go figure.

[abaris]

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.

[Losty]

New thread, if given the chance would you save Franz Ferdinand and would it have changed everything

[Anomalocaris]

New thread, if given the chance would you save Franz Ferdinand and would it have changed everything

No. There were still many less invasive opportunities to stop WWI in the month after the death of FF.

[Rhondazvous]

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.

Persecution of Jews in Germany goes way back. Consider the Hep Hep Riots of 1815 that involved both destruction of Jewish property and the killing of Jews. Again, we are not disagreeing. We both agree that Hitler was just a spearhead f8r anti-Jewish sentiments that were already in the public sphere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of...in_Germany

[abaris]

New thread, if given the chance would you save Franz Ferdinand and would it have changed everything

I'm rather sure of that. Franz Ferdiand had a lot of flaws, but what he got right was seeking equal representation and rights for the slavs. It put him in opposition to the Hungarians, thereby opening a whole new can of wirms, but WWI wouldn't have happened, as and when it happened. Even more so, if he survived his uncle and took the throne. Franz Josef was, by all accounts, a rather mild and benevolent ruler, who overturned most death sentences and even refrained from criticizing artists after one of them commited suicide after the emperor said he didn't like his work. He even refused to fire a personal servant, who was so drunk every morning that he couldn't attend to his duties anymore, out of fear, the servant would land on the streets penniless. He also refused three times to appoint mayor elect of Vienna Karl Lueger because of his antisemitism. But he was also a staunch catholic conservative, who believed in his god given right to rule.

Franz Ferdinand was very different. A brute, but a realistic one. He saw the only chance for survival of the empire in granting equal rights to every ethnicity within the country. It might have bought a few decades.

[abaris]

Persecution of Jews in Germany goes way back. Consider the Hep Hep Riots of 1815 that involved both destruction of Jewish property and the killing of Jews.  Again, we are not disagreeing. We both agree that Hitler was just a spearhead f8r anti-Jewish sentiments that were already in the public sphere.

In 1815, it wasn't Germany. It were territories with different allegiances. There were 2 dominant powers. One Austria and the other Prussia. Differrent goals, opposing policy, different religions. One catholic, the other protestant. Until 1866, when Prussia became the only dominat power. It's misunderstanding history to speak of Germany when talking about any period before 1848/49. It only became a nation in 1871, after the French/Prussian war. But with a largely federal structure.

[Anomalocaris]

The personality of Wilhelm ii had a lot to do with Germany's course from 1890-1914.  Killing Wilhelm ii might well have preserved the bismarckian policies and prevented WWI.  No WWI, no hitler.

No, it doesn't boil down to a single person. If you wanted to kill one single person to prevent WWI, it would be Gavrillo Princip, who never could take the shots at Franz Ferdinand and his wife, thereby preventing the incident setting the wheels in motion. But that of course doesn't say, another one wouldn't have taken his place.

The black hand will survive, and it is their avowed goal to incite a general European war in the hopes that Austria will fall and a Serbian hegemony over the southern Slavs would emerge. So the death of Príncip may alter the details of how the war between the entent and central powers will start in the bulkans within a few years of 1914, it will not Greatly lessen the possibility that a war between essentially the same entent and the same central powers will break out in the same bulkans within the same few years after the middle of 1914.

[abaris]

The black hand will survive, and it is their avowed goal to incite a general European war in the hopes that Austria will fall and a Serbian hegemony over the southern Slavs would emerge.   So the death of Príncip may alter the details of how the war between the entent and central powers will start in the bulkans within a few years of 1914, it will not Greatly lessen the possibility that a war between essentially the same entent and the same central powers will break out in the same bulkans within the same few years after the middle of 1914.

So go back to 1878. Prevent the treaty of Berlin. Or move your ass to 1908 and prevent Austria-Hungary from annecting Bosnia/Herzegowina. Or go to 1903. Prevent the Serbian king from being overthrown.

See what I mean?

What's the spark? What would prevent the load from going off?