If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you be willing to do it?

Question

Would you stop one life for another? Could you say that one life is less important then another?

Answer 1

If someone were to go back in time and kill hitler it would have already happened and with the shady details around his death maybe it did. But this is a question less about time travel and more about utilitarianism since the death of Hitler at a younger age before rising to power would assumably save 12 million people from being exterminated.

I would say that one life is less important than another. Its apparent that while everyone is loved and has family and friends that surely appreciate them dearly, their overall contribution to society as a whole is extremely less significant than say that of Martin Luther King or even someone like Isaac Newton.

I'm just your regular college kid and as special as I think I am--I can honestly admit that I am one of millions is a sea of people who have lived lives incredibly similar to mine. I hope to make change but so far have not and thusly I must say that if I were to give up my life so someone more ambitious, more courageous, who can help push and advance the evolutionary process of humanity then yes i would give up my life.

There are six billion people on this planet and some of them don't like to think. They like cheeto-s and primetime TV. There are millions of them. As much as it may tug at your heart to say it--you are not as important as many great men and women who have come before you and will come after you.

Nonetheless, the real question is what and whom are you dying for and in the big picture, is it worth it?

Answer 2

No, I would not, at least, not before he did anything bad. If he alreadt did bad things maybe, but not when he was still young. It is our experiences that we have when we are young that shape us into who we are today and Hitler didn't have a happy childhood. I'm one of those people who thinks that being nice to people may help hape who they are and if I went back, I would try to teach child-Hitler to respect life.

If I tried to change something in the past it wouldn't really be Hitler, because as someone else already noted, someone else would just take his place. Instead I would try to make Wilson's League of Nations work better. With all the resentment Germany and the other nations had for each other, WWII was inevitable. Resolving the tensions between them, might have saved more lives than killing Hitler would have.

All life is important, but I suppose when you compare one life to six million, it seems such a small price to pay. So I guess you could be justified in killing Hitler, but someone else would just take his place. Or it could be another group getting killed. Holocausts happened all over the world and yet no one did anything about it. Perhaps the earlier answerer was right in saying that from this we can learn to intervene quicker to prevent the Jewish holocaust from happening again.

So yeah, I wouldn't have killed Hitler, because by adding more violence, nothing gets solved, someone else would take over...in order to have fixed things you would have to have tried to make peace between the nations, rather than further dividng them.

Answer 3

Difficult question. Historically speaking, killing Hitler would do very little. He didn't invent anti-semitism, nor did he create the geopolitical lead to WW2. Scientifically speaking, the whole altering of the space time continuum is a rather scary concept. Emotionally speaking, heck yeah I'd like to put a bullet in that SOB, but we cannot act on emotion alone. We are creatures of both emotion and intellect we must have a balance between the two. I say let sleeping dogs lie, If Hitler hadn't taken over, maybe someone that wasn't crazy would have started up the third Reich, then we'd really be screwed.

Answer 4

Difficult decision! On the one hand, killing Hitler wouldn't necessarily stop a global war from happening, simply delay it. The resentment the German people harboured towards Western Europe for the sanctions placed on it after WW1 would not simply go away, and nor would Japan's dreams of an empire.

Though, on the other hand, killing Hitler would certainly save many, many lives. So I will put off my decision until I am sent back in time. :)

Answer 5

Yes bloody right i would, he was just a wierdo who wanted to create the perfect blonde haired blue eyed nation, he should have taken a good look in the mirror, as he was the opposite if what he longed for. Freeks like him dont deserve 2 live, i could easily become an assasin if 4 the right reasons

Answer 6

My immediate answer would be yes, in a heart beat. However, by letting history write itself, did Hitler not teach the world about tyranny and the abuse of power? Funny how even the worst events can have a positive outcome.

Answer 7

i couldnt, if he wasnt alive my grandparents would never have meet and we wouldnt exist.
a lot of todays technology wouldnt exist. he did as much for technological advancements as many other people. war is the greatest reason for invention.
yes he was a monster, but how much of that was for external presssure?
he didnt become disallusioned and emittered by him self.
why kill him, is like saying kill all the people that bullied him and turned him into a monster, it turns you into a monster . then it would be ok for people to come back in time and kill you?
you cant change time though it is a nice thought, but i think the back to the future films showed haw dangerous meddling with time is.
good luck with the thumbs down i know im gonna get! :)

Answer 8

You wouldn't dare kill him, haven't you learned not to mess with the space time continuum? Consider the possible consequence.

You kill Hitler as a young child, years later, say 1933, Ernst Roehm instead becomes dictator, in mid 1930s, HE decides to begin 'heavy water' experiments which lead to the first nuclear bomb built in 1939. With that device, he easiliy defeats mother russia and the allies, and the Final Solution is 'completed.'

Your mistep in the space time continuum caused the death of ALL European Jewry and enslavement of half the planet...way to go!....you should'a stayed home in bed where it was safe and leave the living to others..

Answer 9

Don't look at me either.

If I did it, my parents would never have met. So I wouldn't exist and couldn't go back in time, so I couldn't kill him and so Hitler would still have lived, so my parents met, so I exist to go back in time and kill him but then my parents would never have met.

So I don't exist and don't go back in time, so I can't kill him, Hitler lives, my parents still meet, I go back in time and kill him so my parents never meet, I don't exist, can't kill him, Hitler lives, doesn't go back in time, meets my parents, kills himself before he exists and I am my parents.

Dietrich Eckart became Ernst Röhm's mentor instead of Hitler's, groomed him for Führer and the rest, as they say, is history.

My brain hurts. And you should leave well alone.
.

Answer 10

how far back in time? kill him as an adult and as the monster that he was- absolutely I could.
him as a child- no, because as a child he still had the potential to be a human