Would You Kill Hitler in 1930? A Moral Dilemma

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around a hypothetical moral dilemma: whether one would choose to kill Adolf Hitler in 1930, armed with the knowledge of future events. Participants explore the ethical implications of preemptively acting against someone who has not yet committed crimes, considering both historical context and potential consequences.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Exploratory
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants argue in favor of killing Hitler, citing the atrocities he would later commit as justification for preemptive action.
  • Others contend that killing an innocent man, based on future knowledge, raises significant moral and ethical questions.
  • One participant emphasizes the unpredictability of altering history, suggesting that killing Hitler could lead to worse outcomes.
  • Another viewpoint suggests that the advancements during and after World War II were significant, implying that Hitler's existence had some necessity for historical progress.
  • Several participants express uncertainty about the implications of their choices, acknowledging the complexity of the situation and the potential for unforeseen consequences.
  • A participant introduces the idea of paradoxes related to time travel, questioning how one could justify killing someone who has not yet committed crimes.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus; multiple competing views remain regarding the morality of killing Hitler and the potential consequences of such an action.

Contextual Notes

Participants highlight limitations in their arguments, such as the dependence on hypothetical scenarios and the uncertainty of historical outcomes. There are unresolved questions about the nature of morality in relation to knowledge of future events.

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Scenario: You are in 1930, Spetember 15th with all the knowledge of history you have now. Hitler and his Nazi's have just been elected into power in Germany.

Hypothetical: You find yourself in some situation in which you have the ability the shoot and kill Hitler. It is 1930 he has as of yet, committed no crime. Would you kill an innocent man? Or let Hitler go?
 
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Smurf said:
Scenario: You are in 1930, Spetember 15th with all the knowledge of history you have now. Hitler and his Nazi's have just been elected into power in Germany.
Hypothetical: You find yourself in some situation in which you have the ability the shoot and kill Hitler. It is 1930 he has as of yet, committed no crime. Would you kill an innocent man? Or let Hitler go?

YES - since I hate him because of what he has done (specially if you hypothetically assume that I am a Jew) and as what history has taught us what to believe.

YES - since I am a lawful citizen and FACTS points out that Hitler's crimes began as early as 1921 and therefore based on these facts I now have the reason to shoot and kill him. These are some of Hitler's crime before Hitler became the leader of the Nazi Party, in the General Election that took place in September 14, 1930.

- He was found guilty and sentenced to the death penalty for the Beer Hall Putsch (9th November 1923) leading a mob crime that killed 21 people and wounding hunreds. But was released after 1 year on 20th December, 1924, after serving just over a year of his sentence due to some 'favorable' turn of events.

- In September 1921, Hitler was sent to prison for three months for being part of a mob who beat up a rival politician.

NO - since I am a reasonable man and I might give him the benefit of the doubt that he will not commit his crimes (as you hypothetically mentioned that he is still innocent at that time).

NO - Hitler left Europe and the rest of the world devastated and with it a warning for the future. His regime had illustrated the dangers of nationalism, the obscenity of racism and the importance of democracy.

It was a very expensive and bitter lesson, but it did provide us the very valuable meaning of life and humanity.
 
So which is it? Would you or wouldn't you?


-I intentionally left out the beer hall putsch since he was punished for that, and released according to the rule of law in Germany at the time. I didn't know about the assault case, but I still think it should be ignored since it is certainly not deserving of death.

I want to focus on the ethical and moral implications of killing someone because of what you know they will do, but have not yet done.
 
I would not shoot him. His impact on history was vast and, therefore, killing him could result in an even worse situation arising. It seems impossible, but you can never be do careful when altering the past.
 
Smurf said:
Scenario: You are in 1930, Spetember 15th with all the knowledge of history you have now. Hitler and his Nazi's have just been elected into power in Germany.
Hypothetical: You find yourself in some situation in which you have the ability the shoot and kill Hitler. It is 1930 he has as of yet, committed no crime. Would you kill an innocent man? Or let Hitler go?
No, because I don't want to kill anyone on my birthday!o:)
Anyway, what you're saying doesn't make sense to me at all. I don't want to be 1 of those people who always get stuck on details and doesn't realize you're talking about an hypothetical situation for discussing morals or whatever like that, but you know what you're saying has some logical problem.
You know what he's going to do in the future, so you kill him and for sure he wouldn't be able to do his crimes. But hey how on the Earth can you claim you know what's going to happen in the future, when those crimes wouldn't happen?:confused:
We have the same problem for traveling to the past. If you were able to travel to the past and then you killed 1 of your grandfather (before your father would be born), we'd get into trouble here (no because of not having you here now:-p ) How come can you born when your father couldn't be born?:confused:
God! I myself don't know what the hell I'm talking about!:confused: :blushing:
 
No, the world needed Hitler at the time. Otherwise who knows where we'd be now.
 
No. He may have done some horrible things, but World War II made for some amazing advancements and was necessary for humanity in many ways.
 
cefarix said:
No, the world needed Hitler at the time. Otherwise who knows where we'd be now.
Is evil necessary to prevent evil?
 
Are they saying better the devil you know than the one you don't know?

I dunno, I think I'd shoot him. Doesn't seem like things could be worse off than if you let him go through with it. Then again, I'm an idiot:wink:
 
  • #10
Would I shoot Hitler? Yes, I think I would. But is that really the right thing to do? The issue is so complex that I don't know if killing him would stop the horrible things that occurred during WWII. I think that Germany was in a perfect state to be led by anyone who was willing to point the blame for their current state on anyone else. And there were other countries in the Axis Powers. So, to just kill Hitler based on the reason that it would benefit the world is not an irrational statement, but I certainly don't think one can prove that it would completely change the way history occurred. There are just too many variables to comprehend.
 
  • #11
I was going to post something like this a few days ago but i figured everyone would start throwing in BS technicalities no matter how well defined i made the situation.
 
  • #12
What are the BS technicalities that you're referring to?
 
  • #13
No, I would not shoot Hitler because there is no way of telling how the world would be today. I have no guarantee that something worse wouldn't happen instead of Hitler's reign or something directly caused by his death.

For example, if Hitler hadn't started WWII and researched nuclear weapons, Einstein would not have come to the US when he did, and for all we know he wouldn't have been as useful as he was. Modern physics might be lacking!

Just a hypothetical thing... :)
 
  • #14
Pengwuino said:
I was going to post something like this a few days ago but i figured everyone would start throwing in BS technicalities no matter how well defined i made the situation.
You should have... I think these are somewhat fun.
 
  • #15
Smurf said:
Scenario: You are in 1930, Spetember 15th with all the knowledge of history you have now. Hitler and his Nazi's have just been elected into power in Germany.
Hypothetical: You find yourself in some situation in which you have the ability the shoot and kill Hitler. It is 1930 he has as of yet, committed no crime. Would you kill an innocent man? Or let Hitler go?


If Hitler had not comitted the events he did then there would be no reason to kill him, It's a paradox, He must commit to the event to the point that it is recordable as such in history.

Other than that, It becomes a designer parallel Universe time line and does not change the Original time line you came from, When you traveled back to your original time line then you'd find nothing changed unless you went through changed time in the normal flow of time in the Universe you thought you had changed, then you can live in your designer Universe unchanged, But once you leave the designer time line it will revert back to normal recorded history by shifting you back to your original parallel Universe.

It's the only way around the paradox barrier that I know of using the designer Universe theory.:smile:
 
  • #16
Jameson said:
What are the BS technicalities that you're referring to?

Oh people will say something stupid like "But you'd never be absolutely sure history would have the outcome you say it will" after saying over and over "Let's just ASSUME that history will turn out *such and such way*". And you'll say it over and over and over and people will still say "but... what if you're wrong!" and you just want to beat them with a hammer while yelling "ITS ONE OF THE ASSUMPTIONS YOU MAKE FOR THE SAKE OF THE ARGUMENT, IT IS RIGHT, IT IS NEVER WRONG, THATS WHY ITS AN ASSUMPTION" because I have asked things like this before.

So actually its not technicalities, its people who are so insecure about their personal opinions being monopolized that they can't think about a different situation even if for the sake of an unrelated argument.
 
  • #17
Alright. Sounds like you are pretty passionate about this. I said something similar to what you professed to hate, but not to say that this whoele thread is pointless. I'm only saying that to kill Hitler on the assumption that it would completely change the outcome of history is something I coudn't say is true. But I think I would kill Hitler because of my hate of what he did.
 
  • #18
No, because:
1. Wars speed up the advancement of technology
2. There are many interesting WW2 movies
3. I have not been personally affected by him except in positive ways (#s 1 and 2), therefore I am should be grateful he did what he did.
4. Actually, if it wasn't for Hitler, Poland would not have been occupied by the Soviet Union (would it have been eventually?). If this had not happened, my parents would not have met and I would not have been born.
5. Right now, we live in a relatively peacful time. I feel that it was Hitler who caused this peace by the reaction against war and dictatorship that he inspired.

In summary, there are many reasons to be grateful that Hitler came to power. If you were to examine your lives, I'm sure you could find a reason to light a candle for him on his birthday. Actually, I feel sorry for him. All he wanted to do was to shape the world into the way he wanted it. True he was crazy, but aren't we all. :smile: Anyways, its not like the people he caused the deaths of would not have died eventually. I couldn't kill a man that never did anything wrong to me personally. However, if someone stole my car and I knew I could get my car back by killing him and not get caught, I would. Ω
 
  • #19
Jameson said:
Alright. Sounds like you are pretty passionate about this. I said something similar to what you professed to hate, but not to say that this whoele thread is pointless. I'm only saying that to kill Hitler on the assumption that it would completely change the outcome of history is something I coudn't say is true. But I think I would kill Hitler because of my hate of what he did.

Paradox says: You can not change your original Hilters History.

NOTE: Any event with a Paradox creates a designer Universe. :smile: Catch 22: You can not leave it if you wish it to remain as your new time event line.

If you keep Hitler from killing all those people you will have to stay in that designer Universe for the changes to take place.

It is also possible that once you jump to a designer parallel time line you will never find your way back to what was your (original) Universe as you once knew it, You'd be lost in parallel designer Universes.:smile:

Hope this helps.
 
  • #20
Problem is, there's no guarantee that if somebody had killed Hitler, somebody equally bad wouldn't have stepped up to take his place. For example, Himmler wasn't a very nice guy, either.
 
  • #21
I'd write a book, outlining every major historical event that Hitler would become responsible for, then I'd go back. If history's actors, knowing the sequence of events that would occur, did not stop him themselves, they would have no one but themselves to blame.
 
  • #22
NoName013 said:
4. Actually, if it wasn't for Hitler, Poland would not have been occupied by the Soviet Union (would it have been eventually?). If this had not happened, my parents would not have met and I would not have been born.
haha. If you go back in time and kill hitler, do you cease to exist?
 
  • #23
Jameson said:
Alright. Sounds like you are pretty passionate about this. I said something similar to what you professed to hate, but not to say that this whoele thread is pointless. I'm only saying that to kill Hitler on the assumption that it would completely change the outcome of history is something I coudn't say is true. But I think I would kill Hitler because of my hate of what he did.

Well I have no idea what you're talking about. All I am passonate about is how stupid people get when you ask them a simple question and they decide to start throwing in their own crap to ruin the argument all together. Nothing to do with the current argument at all.
 
  • #24
So nobody wants to take the gamble and shoot him? I wonder what percent of Holocaust victims would say yes. Seems we're pretty removed from the situation today.
 
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  • #25
It seems like people these days are so far removed from actual death and destruction that no one is capable of even thinking about suffering hte indignity of killing a human even if its the save (or even allow the possibility of saving) tens of millions of people.
 
  • #26
No one's even tried talking about the actual moral implications of punishing someone for something he hasn't done yet, but you know he will...
 
  • #27
Smurf said:
No one's even tried talking about the actual moral implications of punishing someone for something he hasn't done yet, but you know he will...

Well what are the moral implications of letting a man go who will be the root cause of the death of tens of millions of people.
 
  • #28
Even if you could interact with Hitler, There is no guarantee you would succeed in killing him, Hitler and his men may kill you and you'd become a part of the masses that died. Even if you did know where and what he did at specific times, the Historical data would not have enough (details) to assure your success. Then all the unkown factors will work against your plot. R.I.P
:smile:
 
  • #29
Pengwuino said:
Well what are the moral implications of letting a man go who will be the root cause of the death of tens of millions of people.
If you do not stop evil, you are partly responsible for it, are you not?
 
  • #30
coffee na lang dear said:
I might give him the benefit of the doubt that he will not commit his crimes
What crimes did Hitler commit?
 

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