Would you assassinate Hitler?

I might have been treated quite well under the rather enlightened laws of the Weimar Republic!

However, I guess I would immediately have been ripped apart by Hitler's thugs....

Yup, wanna take backup? Take out his thugs too? Or would you do the right thing and die. Martyr?

He he, Bunny wants to be a time traveling kamakaze preepmtive avenger.

I presume you meant pre-emptive? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Nah - no back-up - I'll take me karma and suck it in....

dlowen asked:

Lash - you sound as though you think a little like me on this one! What do you mean by accepting the consequences, exactly?

I was looking at some of the Time Travel ideas, like zipping in, doing the deed and zipping out unscathed...

I was sharing my decision that in a real life situation, with no magical escape, and knowing I would probably be immediately killed, as well, in this one case, would not dissuade me from ridding the world of Hitler, if given the chance.

(Thrilled to be of same mind with bunny on something.)

Yeppies - them pigs is out there prepping their wings for flight -and there is a blue moon rising! Gonna be a high time in the old town tonight! Deb and Lash is agreed on summat!


(and craven de kere is cruisin' for a bruisin'!)

It would be impossible to avoid all the possible negative consequences. The character of the WWII might have been different (the war was inevitable since the global tensions were not resolved as a result of WWI), and Stalin might have taken over all Europe. I do not think that such an alternative would be better than the reality that was established after the WWII. Since it is impossible to calculate all the "what ifs", I would prefer let the past be as it was. Therefore, I would not assassinate Adolf Hitler.

fair enough.

hitler
Puzzling question. I would not like my government to have a policy (covert or overt) in favor of assasinating leaders of other countries, yet I would, after knowing Hitler's capacity, have killed him without any hesitation.

Do events make the man or vice versa ?

What tipped the balance to put the Nazis into power was the calling in of US loans to the Weimar Republic following the Wall Street clash of 29. The loans were being used to pay reparations from WW1. The rampant anti-semitism picked up as a political tool by Hitler scapegoated Jews as (a) the architects of Wall Street (b) the inventors and mainstay of Communism (c) the capitulators in what was seen as Germany's pre-emptive surrender in WW1.

Much as the assassination of Hitler appeals to me, I have the feeling that German mass psychology had a particular momentum which would have simply have replaced Hitler with another and possibly more able Nazi.

Interesting view, Fresco. It was meant to be an ethical, rather than practicasl question, but, of course, the practical may affet the ethical.

JL Nobody - are you from the USA? If so, I think you will find your government is busy assassinating as we speak.

Dlowan, whom does the U.S. government assassinate (or give appropriate orders)? The planned war is not an assassination, this is an attempt to get rid of the rogue and aggressive regime in the startegically significant area. If the sniper was sent to kill Saddam, this would be an assassination; otherwise, this is a regular military campaign.

I believe you will find they are targetting Al Quaeda leaders.

There have been numerous examples of assassination by the USA -either directly or indirectly - as was the case, for example, with Allende in Chile - I believe you wil find such info in released CIA documents. The CIA was then told to cease such activity - for whatever that was worth - it seems it is now allowable again.

This has been argued out on another thread - which is what spawned this one, as I wished to debate the ethics of the practice, without complicating the ethics with current politics - but this thrread never workerd as I wished it to.

When I remember the name of the original thread I will post it here.

hitler
Fresco, your point is well taken. I'm not sure that there was a understudy (one or more) available to fill the Hitler role, but you are right that Hitler would never have succeeded were circumstances very different.

hitler
Dlowan, I was born here and I do suspect the existence of all sorts of policies and actions that the government wants to be kept covert. I was walking in a plaza in Mexico in the 1973 when an Austrian expatriat acosted me with "See what you did in Chile" (referring to the C.I.A.'s assastination of the their democratically elected president, Allende)? Furiously I answered "See what you did in Auswitz?(neither one of us was guilt for what happened in Chili or Auswitz).
Fresco, your point is well taken. If circumstances were very different Hitler may not have succeeded, but I wonder if, say the circumstances were as he found them but if he died of a heart attack, would there have been understudies for his role.

Well, there was certainly a gang of lieutenants, was there not? Did he not also have a lot of them murdered not long before he seized the Chancellorship in 1933? There was also a long-established terror - I wonder which of his henchmen would have succeeded into stepping into any breach and how they would have fared.

dlowan, what a thought-provoking question! I don’t know if I would be able to bring myself to kill anyone, but how about if I seduced Adolph and turned him from his wicked ways? (I would get younger as I traveled back in time, wouldn't I?) Or offered him a high-paying job in the USA to keep him from brooding about the problems of Germany? There are many ways to change the course of history without actually killing anyone.

Assuming that the only way to stop the carnage of WWII was to kill Hitler, I submit that if it is ethical to kill in defense of your family, then anyone who had a family member killed in the Holocaust would be morally justified in assassinating Adolph. It shouldn't be too hard to find a volunteer.

We assassinated hundreds of thousands of Japanese with atomic bombs to stop them from killing more people. We bombed Dresden, napalmed Vietnam, and shot countless soldiers in wars for less cause.

So what is the moral difference between killing a country's leader and its ordinary soldiers? None, but there seems to be an unwritten agreement between leaders that they won't try to assassinate each other. Ordinary soldiers and civilians, of course, are expendable pawns and fair game.

We cannot even guess what the repercussions would be if millions of people who died in WWII had lived and produced children and grandchildren, but uncounted others never met and married because there was no war to bring them together.

One of those children might have been worse for the world than Hitler. But every time we bring a child into the world we take a gamble on what effect he/she will have on history.

I vote that we kill Hitler and see what happens. If the world is worse off, we can always go back in time and kill his assassin.

dwolan-
It actually happened.
I read an article written by a retired British officer in which he describes his mental state when presented with the opportunity to kill Hitler.It was something of a state occasion and the officer was armed.Had he carried
out the deed which he seriously considered he may well have been tried and executed.I think the story was in The Sunday Telegraph about 15 years ago.It was a riveting read which explains why I remembered it.

spendius.

wtf of a question is that?
id kill that mofo in a split second

"You have a gun. You can kill him, now.

Would you?

You are an ethical being - should you? Do you have the right to?"


Hindsight Henchmen, eh?
Why stop with Hitler?