The Great Man Theory take is that Hitler was saying and doing a kind of politics unique to his historical moment. He didn’t stumble into the right beer hall at the right moment and echo the sentiments of tens of thousands of his disgruntled military peers but transformed the popular views of a nation. His rhetoric was brilliantly gripping, rather than just heavily circulated. His political maneuverings were expert rather than just stubbornly persistent. His military strategies were the product of genius rather than meth and recklessness.
Go back in time and kill Hitler and you don’t fix the post-war disparity between the WW1 Axis and Ally powers. You don’t discourage re-militarization in a country overrun by US military contractors that saw massive profits in rearming the German state. You certainly don’t mitigate the impacts of the post-1917 wave after wave of Red Scares or keep Henry Ford from circulating “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in every Ford dealership on either side of the Atlantic.
At best, you spare Charlie Chaplain the shame of shaving off his tiny mustache. But there’s a strong reason to believe the post-Depression fascist wave that crested into WW2 was over-determined.
You can argue with a philosopher over that. But certain historical events can be over-determined, with enough causal factors prompting them that a given outcome is functionally inevitable.
Perhaps odds may favor “macro” events like “war”. They do not predict which countries are invaded, the brutality of the leader, the alliances, who the leader is, concentration camps, etc. but not a “Hitler”.
If you want to go back in time and prevent the Holocaust specifically, your time would be better well spent killing Henry Ford or Arthur de Gobineau or Martin Luther. Mass murder of Jews in Europe had been common place for centuries. It was a sentiment the Nazis capitalized on, not one they invented.
Similarly, if you wanted to deter shape of European politics that lead to the World Wars, temporal assassination of Bismark or Napoleon III would be far more effective. Those battle lines had been drawn well in advance of 1932.
The Great Man Theory take is that Hitler was saying and doing a kind of politics unique to his historical moment. He didn’t stumble into the right beer hall at the right moment and echo the sentiments of tens of thousands of his disgruntled military peers but transformed the popular views of a nation. His rhetoric was brilliantly gripping, rather than just heavily circulated. His political maneuverings were expert rather than just stubbornly persistent. His military strategies were the product of genius rather than meth and recklessness.
Go back in time and kill Hitler and you don’t fix the post-war disparity between the WW1 Axis and Ally powers. You don’t discourage re-militarization in a country overrun by US military contractors that saw massive profits in rearming the German state. You certainly don’t mitigate the impacts of the post-1917 wave after wave of Red Scares or keep Henry Ford from circulating “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in every Ford dealership on either side of the Atlantic.
At best, you spare Charlie Chaplain the shame of shaving off his tiny mustache. But there’s a strong reason to believe the post-Depression fascist wave that crested into WW2 was over-determined.
You wouldn’t stop WWII, but you would drastically change its nature.
Get rid of Hitler and you just end up with President Himmler instead. Virtually nothing else changes.
Says who?
History is not predetermined.
You can argue with a philosopher over that. But certain historical events can be over-determined, with enough causal factors prompting them that a given outcome is functionally inevitable.
Perhaps odds may favor “macro” events like “war”. They do not predict which countries are invaded, the brutality of the leader, the alliances, who the leader is, concentration camps, etc. but not a “Hitler”.
If you want to go back in time and prevent the Holocaust specifically, your time would be better well spent killing Henry Ford or Arthur de Gobineau or Martin Luther. Mass murder of Jews in Europe had been common place for centuries. It was a sentiment the Nazis capitalized on, not one they invented.
Similarly, if you wanted to deter shape of European politics that lead to the World Wars, temporal assassination of Bismark or Napoleon III would be far more effective. Those battle lines had been drawn well in advance of 1932.