Absurd hypotheticals

[yssie]

There are dictators and groups now with the same goals and practices as Hitler, who are perpetuating exactly that same sort of genocide... TODAY.


Hitler? Not possible, obviously. But there are others the world wouldn't mourn.

 

[Lynnie]

No, I wouldn't kill him...
My grandfather's family fled Austria b/c of the Nazi regime... My grandpop met my grandmom here in the US after doing so. So, had Hitler never done his thing, my grandparents may never have met, and I might not be alive Wow, that's really weird to think about!

 

[Regular Guy]

I have two sets of comments:

A

1) Regarding this particular "absurd hypothetical," I believe the same premise was the set up in the movie: "The Boys from Brazil," or quite similar.

2) Dancing Fire, regarding your comment:

one good thing about WW 2 was that it took the U.S. out of the Great Depression by creating so many factory jobs for Americans.

This is too much "making lemonade from lemons" for me.

B

1) Note...I would have thought the poster actually intended for us not to run on (and on) with her example, but to, at least perhaps, create new ones...so... how about...

2) A dispensing machine, like a candy dispensing machine, where the candies drop down to the bottom when you put in $1, but offers fine crystal items at each slot.


(edited to add)...and oops...I see my signature would otherwise have been missing, as it is everywhere...

Ira Z.

 

[waterlilly]

If I could be zapped back in time - basically know all I know now, but be sent back briefly to meet him at 8 years old and then be brought back to my current life.

ABSOLUTELY.

 

[Karl_K]

There would have been a ww2 Hitler or no Hitler.
The best thing to do if history could really be changed which it cant, would be to change the surrender terms at the end of ww1 that France insisted upon.
That was the only thing that would have avoided ww2 with Germany and kept Hitler or someone like him from rising to power.
The day it was signed another war with Germany was unavoidable.

Then you would have had to do something about Japan because they eventually would have went to war with the US without Germany fighting.
The conflict of interests in the pacific were to great.

Then you would have to stop a Russian invasion of Europe a few years later.

The point being there is not one single cause of ww2 but many.

 

[Arkteia]

I would be living in that time with the information of that time. I would see a charismatic orator who would show people the way and create jobs. The information about German victories was touted, the information about the defeatswas concealed. Extermination of Jews was totally concealed - very few were killed on the streets, most of them would be sent to labor camps with no one knowing what was going there.

As far as I know, there were two attempts to assassinate Hitler - bothby the end of the war, by peole close to him and knowing what was going to happen. Commoners did not attempt, they were unaware.

If not Hitler, there would Gebbels or Himmler or someone else. Hitler was the best orator, but he did not even create the party.

The books by Remarque are very illustrative in showing Germany by the end of the 20-es. Another book that I find interesting is autobiorgaphy by Adolph Speer, the Minister of Labor in Hitler's government.

And if it were not for Hitler, Stalin would be much closer to starting WWIII. Which was his plan but mercifully, he died.

All of it is a moot point because I am 1/4 Jewish.

 

[Iowa Lizzy]

My grandparents met in a displaced person's camp in Germany after the war. My grandfather was a POW and my grandmother had been taken from her home in Russia to work for the Nazis (she was a university student studying the German language so they put her to work).

If they had not met and been married, my mother would not be here. Hence, I would not be here.

I can't answer this question.

 

[Cehrabehra]

Probably not as I believe past is unchangeable. If you try to kill him it will probably fail and the trauma you inflicted in the attempt is what causes him to be a psycho in his future, our past.

I tend to think more along these lines as well, though less butterfly effect lol I tend to think that it is possible he prevented things from being worse. Do not read that as I support what he did or am pro hitler or whatever, just that there is no knowing if this is the better outcome.

 

[platinumrock]

Good lord, Uppy, that's quite a question!

Kill him? No. But if I was his teacher, I'd be requesting an emergency parent-teacher conference. After putting him on time-out and taking away his recess.

Hate is just as much a learned behavior as love.

 

[Cehrabehra]

some psychos are born - others are made...

 

[Arkteia]

Actually, this one was, probably born. He had a relationship with his niece, Heli Raubal. Apparently she committed suicide but there was (and is) a general belief that he shot her. Ostensibly she was the only woman he really loved.
Exactly like Stalin's wife Nadezhda who officially committed suicide but many people believe that Stalin shot her.
These two were a match for each other!

 

[stone-cold11]

Ya, but as Karl has stated, without the Versailles treaty that ended WW1, the situation in Germany probably would not have allowed for these radicals to ever rise in power and the extreme anti-semitic that follows.