WWII was an inevitability, it would have happened sooner or later. Killing Hitler would have just kicked the can down the road. If you really want to prevent WWII, you need to prevent WWI.
WWII was absolutely not inevitable, you're acting like every war turns into a world war. Instead of WWII you could have just as easily had a series of smaller conflicts like the Interwar period wars (which in our time had some Balkan shenanigans esp between Greece and Turkey, a free for all in Eastern Europe with Poland and USSR invading everyone around them, Spanish Civil War, etc).
Our timeline's WW2 was predicated on Germany being led by a very charismatic part madman part gambler with a very strong ideological bent, unlike for instance the more pragmatic government of Stalin which while was brutal, was ruthlessly pragmatic and threw away every bit of socialist/communist ideology whenever it suited him (no world revolution, extra nationalism, reestablishing religion, ranks in the army, having very ruthless alliances instead of more ideologically attuned ones, etc).
Hitler would have gone much farther if he didn't purge his Jews, he would have gotten the A-bomb first or maybe at least prevented US from getting one so soon. And so much of Eastern Europe was ready to fight Stalin with him until one by one most realized Hitler was even worse, see Ukraine especially. Nazi genocidal ideology really self-sabotaged their war effort to the point where almost any other type of a leader or ideology would have been more flexible and made strategic&pragmatic alliances.
But overall nothing about WWII was inevitable, you just subscribe to that same lazy historical determinism hypothesis born out of lazy school textbooks that try to make things feel obvious by framing everything very neatly and making it all feel almost self-congratulatory, letting you pay yourself on the back by making you feel like you "totally got how all these forces made it all inevitable".
Realistically US did not have to get involved and a wiser leader would have steered Germany away from a conflict with Russia. This isn't even some crazy alt history reach, it's literally in our own original history. Bismarck always try to emphasize how important it was for Germany to have Russia on its side or at least neutral. One of his chief foreign policy objectives was to keep Russia close to Germany and away from the perfidious Anglo-French pact that kept destabilizing Continental Euro affairs because the English always played the same game, they would switch sides during Euro wars to keep any one side from dominating (see Seven Years War for instance or their constant flip flopping on allying or fighting against Russia in the 19th century).
In a timeline with a more capable German leader both WWI and WWII would have began (if they even did, WWI probably would have but 2 possibly not) with Germany and Russia on the same side, which would make it very difficult to imagine how Germany could lose, fighting only on one main front in the Continent against France. USSR would supply Germany with raw material too, via land, impossible to blockade with Anglo-American + French superior navies. In fact, with a German Russian alliance there would be no need for either powers to even care about their navy that much, the two would be able to supply each other and work in perfect synergy, Germany interwar in our time provided a lot of high tech stuff such as engines, lathes, electrical components, special alloys, etc to USSR in return for raw materials, fuel, or even space to test their weapons.
Germany could have another war with France but it would be more similar to Franco-Prussian war than WW2. Poland would probably remain as a buffer state between Germany and USSR, if both sides were wise. Or not, just divided bc of the land that Germany coveted, but again, a non Nazi German leader might just know the value of keeping a friendly USSR (at least temporarily) while finishing off France and maybe even UK. And not declaring war on US without serious provocation when US was quite reluctant to directly involve in a European war, especially after already having hands full with Japan.
Killing Hitler would do next to nothing to change Asia. Japan would still take territory and invade China. Would start a war with the European allies and the US for resources. That literally wouldn't change without the funny mustache man.
That too. But they were more interested in eastern Europe at the time. With no Nazi Germany, they'd be even more focused on dominating there. Possibly fighting for influence in the Baltics with Italy. I doubt they'd invest much more effort in the far east than they did in our own timeline, at least for a while.
Those lucky Palestinian's don't know how lucky they are to have Israel protecting them so well so?
They've stopped all Jordanian, Egyptian, Lebanon and Syrian children from infiltrating Palestinian land quite well.
This comment is neither for nor against Israel. It is simply acknowledging that it was the immigration of Jews, and then especially the establishment of Israel, which served as the catalyst for most Palestinian nationalism versus the broader Arab nationalism that fermented under the Ottomans.
I think there would have been a World War 2 too no matter what because of the harshness of the Verseille treaty, the economic impacts of the great depression and the idea the Germans hadn't lost the war because the war had ended on foreign territory and they had been "stabbed in the back". Maybe the ideology would been different and they wouldn't have executed all their best jewish scientists and could have even won the war had their goals been more limited say take the Sudetenland, Austria, the German parts of Poland and Alsace-Lorraine... But their were plenty of Facist parties around at that time like In Italy, Croatia, Slovakia, Spain and Portugal and antisemitism was rife in Europe so someone similar could have happened either way just with a different leader...
This is what gets me, why did the parents name the kid Hitler? Didn't they know about the whole Hitler thing? Seems like it could have been easily avoided
That and the Great Depression lead to both fascists and communists gaining a lot of electoral power. Hitler and the Nazis actually only got 37% of the vote in the last election. The President made him Chancellor because he was from the old bloc of conservative elites and they were spooked by the commies. They thought he was a good counter to them.
Hitler's rise had way more to do with the surrounding circumstances than anything else.
Yeah but like it wouldnt have been the brand of his specific idelogy, the DNVP or a military style coup lead by a guy like Kurt Schlechter would have been going. That or the democratic forces of germany like the SPD the DDP or Z would have made a comeback, without hitler Hidemburg likely wouldnt have run in 32' therefor surerly Braun or a democratic oriented leader would have won the election and that would have have fixed abouy half of thr issues with unstable coalitions which lead to the lose of faith in democracy, people overstimate how much the NSDAP was popular, hitler arrived to the chancelorship because Franz von Papen thought he could play him like a fiddle. Anyway is evident he couldnt.
Not only Von Papen but the whole conservative old gard, if Hindenburg didnt objected the reforms for the landowners they didnt even had elections. Hindenburg also eroded the whole structures of the Weimar republic and was only intrested in his own needs.
Yeah not saying he didnt, Had whilhelm Marx won with the burgerblock back in 25' who knows. And yeah fuck the DNVP and DVP and the nazis ofc. But above all else, fuck you, special party for the interests of the unmarried (last one is a joke)
The good old "Great man vs. trends of time" arguement.
You're right, Germany was fraught with problems and there were a lot of folks who'd like to rise up. Their methods would vary of course. It is fun to think about the possible outcomes.
It is. Places such as Africa, India and Austrolasia are fought over by the powers to get worthless land. Each time they get some sliver of land they make a big hoohah about it in the newspapers.
Roosevelt maintained that the rest of the American continent, and only the rest of the American continent (islands all around are debatable) was to be seen as a place where to extend the authority of the US, so it checks out.
I believe a lot of people who theorise about killing Hitler tend to forget that he wasn’t the inventor of crazy populist nationalism with racist flavourings. Like the existence of his political career was more of a symptom of the social, political and economic crisis of the Weimar Republic. If Hitler wasn’t around to use similar rhetoric, someone else would.
Fascism was a big political movement with Italy, Austria, Spain, and Portugal's government falling to it before WWII.
Even France, UK, and US (nazis famously held a rally in square madison) had prominent fascist movements that were luckily suppressed before they could do more damage.
Ww2 and hitler wouldn't have been a problem if the treaty of Versailles wasnt so harsh on Germany and forcing them into economic disaster because they got stuck with the bill as austria hungary and the ottomans were broken up so much that they couldnt pay reparations
I mean the part where Hitler dies and the unchecked Soviet Union invades Europe.
In red alert 1 the intro movie is Einstein in his newly made chronosphere. He goes back in time and meets Hitler as he’s leaving prison and kills him. The Soviet Union then invades Europe.
I always wondered if the timing of the development of nuclear weapons would have went a lot worse in a different timeline than ours. It seems like a very dangerous period to transition into.
Not to be the guy but in the book Brian talks about Nazism and other dictatorships/totalitarianisms, they learned from the mistakes they made, so it couldn't happen without them
C1nders-Two@reddit
WWII was an inevitability, it would have happened sooner or later. Killing Hitler would have just kicked the can down the road. If you really want to prevent WWII, you need to prevent WWI.
SamYeager1907@reddit
WWII was absolutely not inevitable, you're acting like every war turns into a world war. Instead of WWII you could have just as easily had a series of smaller conflicts like the Interwar period wars (which in our time had some Balkan shenanigans esp between Greece and Turkey, a free for all in Eastern Europe with Poland and USSR invading everyone around them, Spanish Civil War, etc).
Our timeline's WW2 was predicated on Germany being led by a very charismatic part madman part gambler with a very strong ideological bent, unlike for instance the more pragmatic government of Stalin which while was brutal, was ruthlessly pragmatic and threw away every bit of socialist/communist ideology whenever it suited him (no world revolution, extra nationalism, reestablishing religion, ranks in the army, having very ruthless alliances instead of more ideologically attuned ones, etc).
Hitler would have gone much farther if he didn't purge his Jews, he would have gotten the A-bomb first or maybe at least prevented US from getting one so soon. And so much of Eastern Europe was ready to fight Stalin with him until one by one most realized Hitler was even worse, see Ukraine especially. Nazi genocidal ideology really self-sabotaged their war effort to the point where almost any other type of a leader or ideology would have been more flexible and made strategic&pragmatic alliances.
But overall nothing about WWII was inevitable, you just subscribe to that same lazy historical determinism hypothesis born out of lazy school textbooks that try to make things feel obvious by framing everything very neatly and making it all feel almost self-congratulatory, letting you pay yourself on the back by making you feel like you "totally got how all these forces made it all inevitable".
Realistically US did not have to get involved and a wiser leader would have steered Germany away from a conflict with Russia. This isn't even some crazy alt history reach, it's literally in our own original history. Bismarck always try to emphasize how important it was for Germany to have Russia on its side or at least neutral. One of his chief foreign policy objectives was to keep Russia close to Germany and away from the perfidious Anglo-French pact that kept destabilizing Continental Euro affairs because the English always played the same game, they would switch sides during Euro wars to keep any one side from dominating (see Seven Years War for instance or their constant flip flopping on allying or fighting against Russia in the 19th century).
In a timeline with a more capable German leader both WWI and WWII would have began (if they even did, WWI probably would have but 2 possibly not) with Germany and Russia on the same side, which would make it very difficult to imagine how Germany could lose, fighting only on one main front in the Continent against France. USSR would supply Germany with raw material too, via land, impossible to blockade with Anglo-American + French superior navies. In fact, with a German Russian alliance there would be no need for either powers to even care about their navy that much, the two would be able to supply each other and work in perfect synergy, Germany interwar in our time provided a lot of high tech stuff such as engines, lathes, electrical components, special alloys, etc to USSR in return for raw materials, fuel, or even space to test their weapons.
Germany could have another war with France but it would be more similar to Franco-Prussian war than WW2. Poland would probably remain as a buffer state between Germany and USSR, if both sides were wise. Or not, just divided bc of the land that Germany coveted, but again, a non Nazi German leader might just know the value of keeping a friendly USSR (at least temporarily) while finishing off France and maybe even UK. And not declaring war on US without serious provocation when US was quite reluctant to directly involve in a European war, especially after already having hands full with Japan.
rip-droptire@reddit
bro wrote an essay in the r/greentext comment section
wsdpii@reddit
Killing Hitler would do next to nothing to change Asia. Japan would still take territory and invade China. Would start a war with the European allies and the US for resources. That literally wouldn't change without the funny mustache man.
PaulMcIcedTea@reddit
I don't think the USSR would have just let Japan take all of Asia and especially China.
wsdpii@reddit
That too. But they were more interested in eastern Europe at the time. With no Nazi Germany, they'd be even more focused on dominating there. Possibly fighting for influence in the Baltics with Italy. I doubt they'd invest much more effort in the far east than they did in our own timeline, at least for a while.
The_Demolition_Man@reddit
WW1 was also an inevitability. Maybe you could prevent or delay it by killing every monarch of every great power pre-1873 or so
A_Guy_Without_a_Hat@reddit
This comment was posted by Robespierre's ghost apparently.
Facu_Baliza@reddit
You could make a religion out of thiDONT
thr33beggars@reddit
Part 2:
Maybe things aren’t so bad, bros.
Throwaway74829947@reddit
Lmao, if Israel never existed I sincerely doubt that there would be an independent Palestine. You'd see Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria on that map.
ArcadeRivalry@reddit
Those lucky Palestinian's don't know how lucky they are to have Israel protecting them so well so? They've stopped all Jordanian, Egyptian, Lebanon and Syrian children from infiltrating Palestinian land quite well.
epabafree@reddit
"those lucky palestinians" which bro, they are all ni'cided
HaeliXu@reddit
newspeak just say the word
ArcadeRivalry@reddit
ThatsTheJoke.png
Throwaway74829947@reddit
This comment is neither for nor against Israel. It is simply acknowledging that it was the immigration of Jews, and then especially the establishment of Israel, which served as the catalyst for most Palestinian nationalism versus the broader Arab nationalism that fermented under the Ottomans.
hairyballsinmybutt@reddit
Didn't Germany get totally fucked over in the aftermath of WW1? There were probably a lot of Hitlers in Germany at the time.
TiaxRulesAll@reddit
I think there would have been a World War 2 too no matter what because of the harshness of the Verseille treaty, the economic impacts of the great depression and the idea the Germans hadn't lost the war because the war had ended on foreign territory and they had been "stabbed in the back". Maybe the ideology would been different and they wouldn't have executed all their best jewish scientists and could have even won the war had their goals been more limited say take the Sudetenland, Austria, the German parts of Poland and Alsace-Lorraine... But their were plenty of Facist parties around at that time like In Italy, Croatia, Slovakia, Spain and Portugal and antisemitism was rife in Europe so someone similar could have happened either way just with a different leader...
TheBear8878@reddit
This is what gets me, why did the parents name the kid Hitler? Didn't they know about the whole Hitler thing? Seems like it could have been easily avoided
hairyballsinmybutt@reddit
Exactly
renaldomoon@reddit
That and the Great Depression lead to both fascists and communists gaining a lot of electoral power. Hitler and the Nazis actually only got 37% of the vote in the last election. The President made him Chancellor because he was from the old bloc of conservative elites and they were spooked by the commies. They thought he was a good counter to them.
Hitler's rise had way more to do with the surrounding circumstances than anything else.
Kurama1917@reddit
Yeah but like it wouldnt have been the brand of his specific idelogy, the DNVP or a military style coup lead by a guy like Kurt Schlechter would have been going. That or the democratic forces of germany like the SPD the DDP or Z would have made a comeback, without hitler Hidemburg likely wouldnt have run in 32' therefor surerly Braun or a democratic oriented leader would have won the election and that would have have fixed abouy half of thr issues with unstable coalitions which lead to the lose of faith in democracy, people overstimate how much the NSDAP was popular, hitler arrived to the chancelorship because Franz von Papen thought he could play him like a fiddle. Anyway is evident he couldnt.
dontknowanyname111@reddit
Not only Von Papen but the whole conservative old gard, if Hindenburg didnt objected the reforms for the landowners they didnt even had elections. Hindenburg also eroded the whole structures of the Weimar republic and was only intrested in his own needs.
Kurama1917@reddit
Yeah not saying he didnt, Had whilhelm Marx won with the burgerblock back in 25' who knows. And yeah fuck the DNVP and DVP and the nazis ofc. But above all else, fuck you, special party for the interests of the unmarried (last one is a joke)
assraider42069@reddit
Get your allergic to sunlight ass outside and touch grass instead of playing Hoi4 all day.
Echolomaniac@reddit
The good old "Great man vs. trends of time" arguement.
You're right, Germany was fraught with problems and there were a lot of folks who'd like to rise up. Their methods would vary of course. It is fun to think about the possible outcomes.
1sadora@reddit
If you were to kill baby Hitler the world would be 10000 times more racist
Sethleoric@reddit
This is so true that it actually hurts lmao
PerterterhTermertehh@reddit
oh and we'd all fucking LOVE eugenics
catinterpreter@reddit
It's very much continuing and accepted in a variety of forms.
684beach@reddit
Which is a good thing, theres bad and good eugenics
Kurigohan-Kamehameha@reddit
Or maybe selective human breeding wouldn’t have gotten a bad name right off the bat
…maybe I’m just being optimistic, you can’t rely on someone to be objective about the inferiority of their own genes.
Ok_Statement_7836@reddit
Eugenics is a game that we all love to play,
Just collect the good ones and throw the rest awaaaaay
hornwalker@reddit
The only good thing Hitler did was kill Hitler
thr33beggars@reddit
Where’s my time machine?
PalpitationFine@reddit
Average Israeli settler
Automatic-Worry-1498@reddit
On it
Martijnbmt@reddit
Maybe someone else would have done a better job
VerdNirgin@reddit
So what you're saying is that Hitler was actually good
unibrowcowmeow@reddit
Sounds like the plot of an Ace Combat game
avengeds12345@reddit
Mfw
ReallyTeddyRoosevelt@reddit
Its isolationist when you realize that the whole hemisphere is ours by manifest destiny. Its just internal shenanigans.
W1D0WM4K3R@reddit
Those dirty Canadian insurrectionists need to be reminded that it's American land, and they were always Americans
TW1TCHYGAM3R@reddit
Sets the white house on fire for a second time
What was that again?
babypho@reddit
Uh well we wanted to demolish it for our ballroom anyways
SemblanceOfSense_@reddit
Google Monroe Doctorine
angelis0236@reddit
Manifest destiny doesn't count
WeaponH_@reddit
Monroe doctrine
Sethleoric@reddit
Well they never said they were isolationist to the rest of the American continent
Taiwan_Lanister@reddit
America First means “No, New Wars” across the globe
potatishplantonomist@reddit
Eurasia, Estasia, Oceania and Americas seems to be what they're going for now
stunafish@reddit
There's a second "scramble for Africa" and it is left a barren wasteland or absorbed as a puppet-state for Estasia
ToumaKazusa1@reddit
That's probably where the forever war is being fought
prussian_princess@reddit
It is. Places such as Africa, India and Austrolasia are fought over by the powers to get worthless land. Each time they get some sliver of land they make a big hoohah about it in the newspapers.
Lucariowolf2196@reddit
nickq808@reddit
Did someone phone the Based Department?
TomatoSpecialist6879@reddit
They were about as isolationist on paper, as Germany was when they "annexed" every country around them.
Cruentum@reddit
Big stick policy would continue forever
Due_Title_6982@reddit
He meant they were isolationist until the USSR took Europe
RaiderCat_12@reddit
Roosevelt maintained that the rest of the American continent, and only the rest of the American continent (islands all around are debatable) was to be seen as a place where to extend the authority of the US, so it checks out.
Kevin_LeStrange@reddit
Isolationist until INGSOC party takes over.
VengineerGER@reddit
He should have gone to Austria Hungary in 1914 and point Franz Ferdinand‘s driver towards the correct turn instead.
Lord_Chromosome@reddit
But also consider, no Israel.
KaszualKartofel@reddit
somehow no major conflict makes it harder for UK to keep financial solvency? Does anon know ehat war is or does?
croptochuck@reddit
Well they just kept waiting for Germany to pay their WW1 debt
KaszualKartofel@reddit
I believe a lot of people who theorise about killing Hitler tend to forget that he wasn’t the inventor of crazy populist nationalism with racist flavourings. Like the existence of his political career was more of a symptom of the social, political and economic crisis of the Weimar Republic. If Hitler wasn’t around to use similar rhetoric, someone else would.
Live_Carpenter_1262@reddit
Fascism was a big political movement with Italy, Austria, Spain, and Portugal's government falling to it before WWII.
Even France, UK, and US (nazis famously held a rally in square madison) had prominent fascist movements that were luckily suppressed before they could do more damage.
KaszualKartofel@reddit
yeah that's my point. Hitler isn't really unique.
Live_Carpenter_1262@reddit
I was adding onto your point
AutomaticGrape9263@reddit
Good ol' Hitler, he saved us all.
Andymania_@reddit
Ww2 and hitler wouldn't have been a problem if the treaty of Versailles wasnt so harsh on Germany and forcing them into economic disaster because they got stuck with the bill as austria hungary and the ottomans were broken up so much that they couldnt pay reparations
FixenFroejte@reddit
I think this hypothetical has been played with before.
https://i.redd.it/62khql83ai1h1.gif
ur12b4got739@reddit
Time will tell. Sooner or later, time will tell.
Knarin@reddit
Hell March starts playing
calmdownmyguy@reddit
I don't think the soviet union if germany was fighting along side Europe
PaulMcIcedTea@reddit
Without a war in Europe, they would have been more active in opposing Japanese expansionism.
slobcat1337@reddit
This is the story behind Command and Conquer: Red Alert 1
Fancy-Restaurant-746@reddit
I thought it was Ace Combat with the country names.
slobcat1337@reddit
I mean the part where Hitler dies and the unchecked Soviet Union invades Europe.
In red alert 1 the intro movie is Einstein in his newly made chronosphere. He goes back in time and meets Hitler as he’s leaving prison and kills him. The Soviet Union then invades Europe.
stormspirit97@reddit
I always wondered if the timing of the development of nuclear weapons would have went a lot worse in a different timeline than ours. It seems like a very dangerous period to transition into.
UnDebs@reddit
omg it's literally animal farm
SaKaHa@reddit
Not to be the guy but in the book Brian talks about Nazism and other dictatorships/totalitarianisms, they learned from the mistakes they made, so it couldn't happen without them
party_peacock@reddit
>be me
>in the midst of WWII
>invent time machine
>go to 1924, Landsberg Prison, Germany
>find a young, bitter Hitler who just got released
>shake his hand, erasing him from existence
>return to present expecting the war to be averted
>Germany never went Nazi, no WWII, no Holocaust
>but without a fascist threat to check them, the Soviet Union grew completely unopposed
>Stalin had amassed a massive military machine and launched a full-scale invasion of Europe
>the continent is drowning in a sea of red tanks and iron curtains
>the Allied forces are barely holding the line in a brutal, desperate war
>realize my attempt to save humanity just created a massive global nightmare
>my name? Albert Einstein
creeper6530@reddit
HOLY SHIT
baddieslovebadideas@reddit
Idk if I want to live on the hitler timeline, or the time traveling baby murderer timeline
Beebah-Dooba@reddit
U.S. still would have embargoed and been attacked by Japan. It was really like 2 separate wars but the U.S. was important in both
tommygunner91@reddit
WW2 bankrupted the UK so no WW2 no debt 🤔
JustChillin3456@reddit
Won the war but lost our culture
cat_pavel@reddit
HamBlamBlam@reddit
Jesus anon, go back and try killing some different babies. You’re never going to solve the world’s problems if you give up after the first one.
Mother_Lead_554@reddit
You shouldn't have done that he's just a boy