The Baby Hitler

[RobertScorpio]

Let us make a simple challenge....and see where our so called 'morals' take us to.

What if, all of a sudden, you found yourself back in the past. And you realized, with out a doubt, you were suddenly in the bathroom where a young three year old Adolf Hitler was taking a bath. You only had seconds to act before your trip to the past would end...

Would you, in that small amount of time, kill the child, the innocent child Adolf Hitler, so as to altertime and save the lives of the millions who would die because of his movement years later....

Or, would you see him for what he was, at that time, an innocent three year old baby.

Vote in the poll..and tell us why..

And how do you think the various Star Trek captains would act if given the same chance to rewrite history

Rob
Scorpio

 

[smeos]

Assuming that it's possible to change the past, no.

Not out of any moral or ethical taboos against killing babies, but simply because Hitler was, in a lot of ways, the lesser of a lot of evils.

Antisemitism and fascism were rampant in Germany and in Europe at the time. Hitler merely filled a void. If not him, then it would have presumably been someone else. Hitler's stupidity, arrogance and shortsightedness caused him to make a lot of tactical blunders that ended the war probably a good two or three years before it otherwise would have. If he's gone, then who knows who would have stepped in to replace him. I'd stick with the devil I know rather than the one I don't.

If you really want to get hard and cynical, then you could even argue that Stalin, who killed way more people than Hitler, was even worse . . . and we were his allies.

 

[Dayton3]

There probably would've been a World War II even without Hitler.

Japan and the United States were already on collision course and war was all but inevitable.

Stalin was reportedly preparing to invade Germany in 1941 but Hitler beat him to it.

So even without Hitler, there probably would've been a massive conflict in Eastern Europe.

World War II with a different face, but probably with the same players and just as horrific.

 

[JM1776]

None of the Trek captains would kill a young Hitler, knowing that it would so alter the timeline as to make the future to which they returned practically unrecognizable.

Well, first, I'd hope that my sudden appearance in his bathroom was not the catalyst that put him on the path to damnation.

Joking aside ... I would not kill him. You cannot be guilty before the fact. End of discussion.

 

[JM1776]

If you really want to get hard and cynical, then you could even argue that Stalin, who killed way more people than Hitler, was even worse . . . and we were his allies.

Excellent point. Made me recall Churchill's comment:

"If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."

 

[Photon]

Not good enough damn it, not good enough

Where's Guinana and Tasha?

 

[smeos]

Excellent point. Made me recall Churchill's comment:

"If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."

I don't actually believe that . . . although I often pretend to in my poly-sci classes to get everyone riled up. Stalin, at least prior to his whole Iron Curtain thing, contained his murder to Russia (although the Ukranians would probably disagree) therefore, I laregly believe that it was their problem to solve. Hitler was going around invading other countries and thus was a threat to everyone.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

As for Churchill comments, my favorite is the speech he drew up for radio play if the Germans had actually invaded England.

"The time has come - kill the Hun."

 

[JNG]

Would you, in that small amount of time, kill the child, the innocent child Adolf Hitler, so as to altertime and save the lives of the millions who would die because of his movement years later....

It's always been weak armchair historians who would think that the whole movement and its consequences boil down to one man's presence or absence. He was more comparable to the first guy to yell in a mob scene, the one who lets the rest feel they aren't the worst person for acting out after that. I hope starship captains would be sensitive enough to the complex flow of history to realize that altering events on a grand scale wouldn't be that simple, and would leave well enough alone.

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

#2. If I found myself in the past, I would go forward until one evening in Vienna when he was stepping out of his little print shop on the way to his indoctrination meeting. I'd pop him then. No need to traumatize his parents.

 

[Apogeal Alpha01]

Perhaps things would have moved along the same trajectory without Hitler, but would it have catalyzed into the same frenzied movement that brought about The Third Reich? A movement which had created not only a cultural movement of racial superiority, racial purity breeding programs with groups of men and women who's only purpose was to provide children for the fatherland. He also helped design an occult based religion around himself, the charismatic Hitler, to spur on the movement.

I could be wrong here, but power was not thrust upon him. He mobilized the movement.

Of course, the real answer is that we would not tamper with history. Who knows what would result?

While we're at it, yeah, kill Stalin too. And Idi Amin, and Pol Pot.

 

[Joshua Howard]

The folks who demonize the Third Reich (and Adolf Hitler) to the degree that both commonly are fail to understand one of the prime values of Star Trek... the value of that sort of regime and that sort of man in the course of human evolution.

Realistically, Nazi Germany and the Roman Empire were equally brutal... and each is responsible for just as much good today. We'll admire the Roman Empire today for it's strengths and it doesn't bother anybody if I point out the fact that the seal of the United States of America is in fact borrowed from the Eagle of ancient Rome.

Contrasting, if I tell someone that I admire the Third Reich for it's strenghs and point out that Mother's Day find's it's original roots in Nazi Germany, I may well get lynched to the nearest flagpole. Why? 2,000 years is enough time to desensitize people to the brutality of rowing until you die in a Roman Galley or being nailed to a Cross for your religious or political beliefs, and 200 years is enough time to desensitize people to the brutality of treating Africans like animals in the American slave trade.

Ultimately, we want to think we're an evolved species... and we want to pretend that what has happened in the last 100 years is the product of a few maniacs dominating a world full of evolved human beings. Realistically, we aren't that evolved; we have weaknesses, and the mistakes that Adolf Hitler made run in the veins of every one of us... in fact, they are not only part of us, but they are vital to our evolution; in Star Trek lingo, it would be grossly against the prime directive to alter the evolution of any lifeforms.

You would eliminate suffering by preventing the rise of every empire and every religion, but if you did that, you would have to eliminate yourself. A logical question along the same lines as the one posted here might be more aptly phrased; "If you had the power to eliminate all life, would you do it?"

Rather than pretending that we are 'above' the Third Reich, we would be better off learning from it's strengths and respecting it's weeknesses as a part of our genetic humanoid past; by refusing to acknowledge something in an unbiased way we might as well schedule the repetition of it.

 

[WHF]

How do we know things will turn out better for us without Hitler? Without Hitler maybe Germany is successful in WWII. Maybe Stalin ends up controlling all of Europe and the middle east. Maybe Stalin enters into a treaty with Japan. Stalin was an ally of Hitler at one point, instead he might ally with Japan.

Maybe what we know have today is the best possible outcome. A future time traveler may have saved Hitler's life in WWI in order to prevent far greater catastrophes.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Of course I wouldn't kill him.

Nor would Kirk - we saw an equivalent situation in "City On The Edge Of Forever." Sisko might - but he ain't the man Kirk is. The other captains - no, probably not.

 

[STIntergalactic]

Am I in the DS9 forum?

Anyhoo, no, I would not kill the young Führer. If anything, it'd be best to assassinate him at the start of the war. Even then, though, it might end up harming the timeline even worse.

 

[Red Ranger]

Am I in the DS9 forum?

Anyhoo, no, I would not kill the young Führer. If anything, it'd be best to assassinate him at the start of the war. Even then, though, it might end up harming the timeline even worse.

I was thinking the same thing!

No, I picked choice 2. We have no way of knowing if whoever else came to power in Germany might have been worse. The conditions were set after WWI for another conflict, with such things as punishing the losing side so badly it helped spark the economic problems in Germany and other parts of the world. And it also helped spark nationalist fury in Germany, taken advantage of by Hitler, but that same anger would have been exploited in Germany, either by a communist leader or another fascist.

I also want to point out that just because that fate didn't befall the U.S. doesn't mean it couldn't have happened. If you look at FDR's first run for reelection in 1932, many of his opponents, esp. Huey Long, had plenty of fascistic ideas that appealed to a population weary of the Depression. FDR stole some of their less outlandish ideas and made it part of the Democratic platform to save the country from potential dictators.

So to preserve the timeline, you can't kill a baby Hitler, because it wouldn't change all the other conditions that led the Axis to confront the Allies.

Red Ranger

 

[erastus25]

Um...what does this have to do with DS9?

Anyway, I don't think any of the ST captains would have killed him. There's no way to know if history would have been even worse without Hitler. One could argue that the culture was in such a disarray in Germany during the post-WWI era that it was inevitable that someone would start a revolt. Perhaps the guy who would have replaced Hitler would have succeeded in creating a nuclear bomb and started a permanent atomic winter?

 

[PKTrekGirl]

Erm...up until now I assumed that this was in the DS9 forum because of the tie-in with Dukat, who has often been compared to a Hitleresque character.

However, we have still not had any mention of Dukat or the Cardassians...so now I'm really wondering.

RobertScorpio, could you please explain why you posted this in here? And where you are going that is DS9-related?

Thanks!

 

[RobertScorpio]

Erm...up until now I assumed that this was in the DS9 forum because of the tie-in with Dukat, who has often been compared to a Hitleresque character.

However, we have still not had any mention of Dukat or the Cardassians...so now I'm really wondering.

RobertScorpio, could you please explain why you posted this in here? And where you are going that is DS9-related?

Thanks!

Sisko condoned murder to save the Federation. Whether or not he pulled the trigger, he did put it into motion. Most fans, in the SISKO'S PALE MOONLIGHT believe he was justified for doing so..

So, by extension, would killing Hitler, if it meant to change the future and six million Jews would still be alive, would most murder a baby Hitler to change the past? Most people seem to be saying no...interesting poll results in both threads..

Rob
Scorpio

 

[Defcon]

Erm...up until now I assumed that this was in the DS9 forum because of the tie-in with Dukat, who has often been compared to a Hitleresque character.

However, we have still not had any mention of Dukat or the Cardassians...so now I'm really wondering.

RobertScorpio, could you please explain why you posted this in here? And where you are going that is DS9-related?

Thanks!

Sisko condoned murder to save the Federation. Whether or not he pulled the trigger, he did put it into motion. Most fans, in the SISKO'S PALE MOONLIGHT believe he was justified for doing so..

So, by extension, would killing Hitler, if it meant to change the future and six million Jews would still be alive, would most murder a baby Hitler to change the past? Most people seem to be saying no...interesting poll results in both threads..

Rob
Scorpio

I don't see the connection. Sisko didn't alter the past, he made a decision in the present which only influenced the future. Where is the connection to killing a historical figure and changing the timeline in the process?

@ topic:

I'm against altering the timeline, too.

Beside some of the reasons above: Even if that would have prevented WWII or the Holocaust, who knows if not one of those who have died during that time lives because of my action and becomes an even bigger mass murderer than Hitler?

 

[RobertScorpio]

Erm...up until now I assumed that this was in the DS9 forum because of the tie-in with Dukat, who has often been compared to a Hitleresque character.

However, we have still not had any mention of Dukat or the Cardassians...so now I'm really wondering.

RobertScorpio, could you please explain why you posted this in here? And where you are going that is DS9-related?

Thanks!

Sisko condoned murder to save the Federation. Whether or not he pulled the trigger, he did put it into motion. Most fans, in the SISKO'S PALE MOONLIGHT believe he was justified for doing so..

So, by extension, would killing Hitler, if it meant to change the future and six million Jews would still be alive, would most murder a baby Hitler to change the past? Most people seem to be saying no...interesting poll results in both threads..

Rob
Scorpio

I don't see the connection. Sisko didn't alter the past, he made a decision in the present which only influenced the future. Where is the connection to killing a historical figure and changing the timeline in the process?

@ topic:

I'm against altering the timeline, too.

Beside some of the reasons above: Even if that would have prevented WWII or the Holocaust, who knows if not one of those who have died during that time lives because of my action and becomes an even bigger mass murderer than Hitler?

Which is why I changed the criteria in the other poll..if you were taken back into time and told by "GOD" (Q) that if you kill Hitler, peace would come to earth for a million years...would you do it..

And yes, the question is relevent with Sisko..he did his actions not knowing what would come, but in this scenero you do...

I think, if given the chance to do it all over again, and this implies knowing the out come, he would....so that means if Sisko was offered a chance to change history so that he didn't put the plan into motion he would say...no...he would do it the same way...

Rob
Scorpio