That’s the question - if you could go back in time and encounter baby Hitler in his crib, would you kill him?
It seems like these are the relevant questions as far as general opinions may go:
You’d be killing a defenseless baby in cold blood. Is this wrong?
Would you actually be preventing the Holocaust? Might it have happened anyway? (Historically, the holocaust probably would not have happened without Hitler, so let’s assume that for purposes of this discussion.)
If you changed the past, you might cease to exist. Would this paradox unravel the universe, or cause your death? (We’ll assume the universe would be just fine, although obviously the present would be different, and yes, you might undo your own existence.)
Was the Holocaust a good thing? This is something only those of you who actually think for yourselves would ever consider - but it’s possible that all the harm that the holocaust caused was outweighed by the good in social acceptance of jews and other ethnic and racial groups it generated. The holocaust almost certainly advanced the rights of minorities by decades, if not more - without it, much of the 60s movement may not have happened. I actually expect that this is not true - I’d guess the holocaust caused more harm than good. But it’s difficult to tell - effects that propogate through the future usually have a much greater overall effect than those that are just restricted to a brief time period, however terrible.
I’ve often thought of that Twiffy and the same about many other people.
One never knows who could have taken the place of a seemingly evil person. Perhaps Hitler was as nice a person as possible in the current of politics and social dissatisfaction that he was caught in. He didn’t invent the era that he lived in but rather was pushed to the front of it.
It wasn’t Hitler’s idea to kill Jews but rather there was a dislike of them and their activities that had been growing since the time of Martin Luther, and before. If you study the writings of Martin Luther, he proposes a plan to get rid of, and reeducate, Jews that is very close to what happened in the holocaust.
The document can be found online if you look for it, and it’s an amazing read for those interested in the holocaust.
So, the Nazis were like the swell of a Tsunami that began as a little ripple hundreds of miles away. What if Hitler had not caused it to crest?
This isn’t true at all. I like the story excerpt aesthetically, but think about what Hitler needed to be who he was.
Willingness to kill
Belief that Jews deserved killing
Now, what ANYONE needs to kill is 1) together with generalized 2), which is “Belief that X deserves killing”.
To say that someone who kills, maybe to prevent the holocaust, is the same as Hitler, is also to say that people who manage the death penalty are the same as Hitler, since they also kill. It’s saying that people who kill in self-defense are the same as Hitler.
My point is this: willingness to kill is something that most sane, normal people would have under extreme circumstances. What differentiates us from Hitler is WHO we would be willing to kill, under WHAT circumstances.
Hitler’s criteria was stupid. Killing Jews doesn’t help anybody. If I were to go back in time and kill baby Hitler, that criteria would be great - killing Hitler would presumably save millions of lives. That’s a definitive, almost objective difference that entirely bypasses all “but who decides who gets killed and who doesn’t” type objections.
A) I don’t know if I would still be alive or cease to exist
B) Killing Hitler may have delayed the holocaust to happen only at a future time on a much larger scale by somebody else
I don’t believe in predistination, but I also don’t believe in time travel, so I’ll have a go. I probably would not kill baby Hitler, because if I could go back I’d have no guarentee that history would automatically unfold the same each time. For all I know, if you rewind the tape again & again some minor variable could change the whole outcome. Would my presence introduce some minor (to me) bug that would kill one of his relatives, changing his upbringing & therefore his world view? Sort of like stepping off the path & crushing a butterfly?
Is the world we currently have worse for having had WWII than it would be if we hadn’t? What if someone from further in the future killed Hitler only to see a worse person come along in one of the countries where Germany committed atrocities? What if an even worse potential despot was born but killed by the SS? Preventing his death would also prevent the death of this super-evil person.
If I’d kill baby Hitler, I’d better make sure someone else would kill baby Stalin. I wouldnt’ want to come home to a plate of bead-soup after such a heroic act.
Besides fighting like a maniac against everything around him, who knows what Hitlers function was - but there might be a reason you weren’t allowed into his nursery a hundred years before your birth.
Since time-travel is a fantasy, and I don’t live in the fantasy world of others, I won’t answer this question.
Reality, and we must respect reality if we are to be sane, remains: no one at the time of Hitler’s infancy would ever have thought he would grow up to do what he did.
There is likely no one living at that time who would have murdered him to prevent the horror they could never have imagined.
In addition, murder is always wrong, so murdering anyone for any reason is out if we want to respect one’s right to life, which is a good idea … if we don’t want to teach others to disrespect life … disrespect that may come back to bite us.
Indeed, Americans murdered scores of thousands of Iraqis to steal Iraq’s oil distribution rights and prevent the “holocaust” of a significant economic depression in America that would have resulted from the loss of the Iraqi crude Saddam was about to divert to China when the sanctions expired.
America has yet to nuclearly hear from the scores of millions of outraged and vengeful Middle Easterners regarding the lesson of mass murder America has taught them … and we must wonder how long it will be before America “hears” from their “students” on the matter. …
If that’s your motivation - not to be bitten, it’s just as easy to reason that, if you kill someone, he’ll never be able to come back to bite you or disrespect you.
If killing to save yourself from harm is wrong, the world is a mistake. If life is sacred the HIV virus has a right to live too.
As to the infants aparent lack of malintent - I read an acount of Paramahansa Yogananda onnce where he was given a baby to bless it and nearly dropped it because he looked in the eyes of a murderer.
Of course I can’t testify to this, but I certainly don’t see children als empty vessels. I’ve seen some venomous looking babies here and there.
“But fear of death, however powerful it may be and however useful it may be as a motive for seeking peace and, hence, law with teeth in it, cannot be the fundamental experience. It presupposes an even more powerful one: that life is good. The deepest experience is the pleasant sentiment of existence. The idle, savage man can enjoy that sentiment.”
[Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind.]
That is, the noble man, in Nietzsche’s sense of the word “noble” [vornehm].
This deepest experience is the following:
“to be oneself the eternal joy of becoming, beyond all terror and pity - that joy which also includes joy in destroying…”
[Twilight, Ancients, 5.]
The answer to the question doesn’t interest me, but the amount of times I’ve heard the “killing baby hitler” question does.
You see, I heard of this question before. Many years ago. I asked my friend for fictional ideas, for a story of mine, and he suggested time travel as a way to kill baby hitler.
Then I read a descrption of Twillight Zone episode, and it had the same type of plot.
Now here we are, chatting on a philosophy board, and baby hitler is all up in my face again. The first response to the thread had someone say they’ve thought about killing baby hitler before, among other people.
Why is this repitition never explained. Why is some reptition never noticed? Why why why? haha. That’s 3 whys.
No. Babies are innocent. I would make a wish to raise him myself because after being abused emotionally by my insane Mommie Dearest, I know how to do it right.
SS… you need a dose of Yomama, sweetie. I fear for you.
cute but putting that aside I dont think I would kill him. I am far too self serving to alter time, if it stopped the hallocost than the changes from it would be lost and we wouldnt be any better off, and if it didn’t prevent the hollocost that there would be no point in killing him.
Becides we can’t forget that Hitlers Ideas that were developed in aushwitz jumped medical science dramatically as the war itself had, if that haddent mappened many people would still be dying from pointless diseases and afflictions that were cured since then from that reserch.So again no.
Also his exsistance was used as a standing point to teach the future of psychology and what could happen if unattended. essentually preventing others from becoming the next hitler, so again no.
I probably would not kill baby Hitler, because if I could go back I’d have no guarentee that history would automatically unfold the same each time. For all I know, if you rewind the tape again & again some minor variable could change the whole outcome. Would my presence introduce some minor (to me) bug that would kill one of his relatives, changing his upbringing & therefore his world view? Sort of like stepping off the path & crushing a butterfly? 
