Would you tell Hitler's mom to have an abortion?

[12th Doctor]

Due to chaos theory if the Holocaust hadn't happened I wouldn't be born. Ignoring  that, the answer would be yes.

You are thinking of "Butterfly Effect" which is acctually the opposite of Chaos Theory.

At anyrate, the answer is no.  Not only do I not condone abortion, regardless of what the person might end up to be, I also think that things might have acctually have turned out worse without Hitler.

Without Hitler, the Great Depression would have dragged on in the US for quite a few more years, resulting in the possability for the rise of an "American Hitler" or a socialist regime.

Without Hitler, Germany might have fallen to communism through internal presure.

Without Hitler, there would have been no one to challenge Stalin when the Soviet Union became a super power.  Stalin would have rolled over Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe, easily conquered a weak Germany and moved on to take over France and Italy.

Hitler, like all other people, was created innocent, regardless of his deeds in life, until he acctually did something, no person woul dbe justified in taking his life.  If I could do something to change the course of history, by changing Hitler, I would wait until 1937 or 1938, when there would finally be just cause for his death (or the invasion of Germany).

[12th Doctor]

Actually closer to 11 million.  He killed 6 million Jews, but then there are the Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, the handicapped, the homosexuals, and several other groups of people.

Catholics

[12th Doctor]

Ahem, I take issue is the idea that Hitler did not help Stalin make himself more powerful. The Soviet Union became a superpower only because of Hitler's massively stupid miscalculation in invading Russia and allowing the Russians to completely take over half of Europe, while at the same time winning over enough converts in the U.S. to steal nuclear technology. Before Hitler's invasion putting the Red Army into the ultimate crucible, the Russian army could not even defeat Finland, so destructive were Stalin's purges and the atmosphere of terror. After the war, communism became x3 more powerful than before.

By 1945, Stalin would have has a fomidable military machine that the other nations of Europe would have had a hard time matching.  The Japanese were already planning to invade the Soveit Union before their pact with Germany.  This would have had a similar effect on the Soveit Union as the Nazi invasion.  The only difference is that it would not have weaken the Soviet Union nearly as badly.  Stalin wanted to be the military power of Europe, of that there is no question.  Without the Nazis in place, he would have used his influence in the 30's and early 40's to trigger communist revolutions all over Eastern Europe.  A war with Japan would also have meant Soviet expansion into Manchuria and Korea and Stalin's support for a communist over throw of Chinese government, perhaps as early as 1943.

Remember, Hitler took power in 1933, from that time on Germany sucked momentum away from the Soviets.  The reason Stalin could not over-take the Finns was because they were being supported, both by man-power and material, by the Nazis.

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1937 was the same year that war production began in earnest all over the world.  The global economy was imporving, because everyone, including the US, was building weapons.

[12th Doctor]

Ahem, I take issue is the idea that Hitler did not help Stalin make himself more powerful. The Soviet Union became a superpower only because of Hitler's massively stupid miscalculation in invading Russia and allowing the Russians to completely take over half of Europe, while at the same time winning over enough converts in the U.S. to steal nuclear technology. Before Hitler's invasion putting the Red Army into the ultimate crucible, the Russian army could not even defeat Finland, so destructive were Stalin's purges and the atmosphere of terror. After the war, communism became x3 more powerful than before.

By 1945, Stalin would have has a fomidable military machine that the other nations of Europe would have had a hard time matching.  The Japanese were already planning to invade the Soveit Union before their pact with Germany.  This would have had a similar effect on the Soveit Union as the Nazi invasion.  The only difference is that it would not have weaken the Soviet Union nearly as badly.  Stalin wanted to be the military power of Europe, of that there is no question.  Without the Nazis in place, he would have used his influence in the 30's and early 40's to trigger communist revolutions all over Eastern Europe.  A war with Japan would also have meant Soviet expansion into Manchuria and Korea and Stalin's support for a communist over throw of Chinese government, perhaps as early as 1943.

The problem with those speculations is that all of the predicted gains for Stalin actually DID materialize with the real Hitler.

But his gains were blocked by a strong west.  There would have been nothing stopping him if there had been no Hitler.

Also, the fact that Stalin did not aquire these gains via popular soverignty in the real TL makes a huge difference.

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What was going on domestically in Germany had no effect on Stalin's purges or 5-year plans, if anything, they spurred them by further discrediting democracy. Actually according to this site it was the British and French who came to Finland's aid:

http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0212881/invfin.html

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Britian and France did not help nearly as much as the Nazis did.

What was happening in Germany made a big difference because it caused several countires to be pulled into the Nazi sphere of influence.  Also, important scientists and industrial leaders throughout Europe, esspecially Eastern Europe, chose to make good with Hitler, instead of Stalin.

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Some of it was due to weapons, but not most. Though it is true that militarization helped Germany to recover from the Depression, the US military was still mostly untransformed up until December 1941.

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The United States was manufacturing arms for all of the great powers.  It doesn't matter that the US was not really building up its own military (which acctually isn't true, we started rearmament in 1939), we were building arms and transporting our raw materials to the UK, France, Italy and even Germany itself.

P.S. Not only that, but the global market swelled.  A rising tide lifts all boats.  Obviously, you need to take an economics course if you don't see how more economic activity in Europe, even if not directly related to the US, helps the US.

[12th Doctor]

I agree with angus. It would be her business. And as was said earlier in the thread, it could possibly lead to something much worse happening.

So if we have the oppurtunity to kill Osama, we should decline, because it could possibly lead to something much worse happening?

No, because, being in at the point at which time is acctually moving forward, we cannot possibly know what the consequences of such an act would be.  We can only progress foward.  With Hitler, we know what the alternatives and possibly pitfalls are.  It is the difference between being in the subway and standing atop the Empire State Building.

[12th Doctor]

Show me where it says the Nazis helped? They had a non-aggression pact with Stalin during this time, and were collaborating in the invasion of Poland. Even without foreign help though, the Finns completely humiliated the 100 times larger Red Army.

I don't really care about what your website says, I don't care what the website says.  The fact that the Nazis help the Finns is a well known fact, so well know that it has even been incorporated into video games like Panzer General II.  Also, the Finns were able to succeed because of the geograhpy of Finnland.  All of those rivers, lakes, mountains, fjords, forrests, etc., made it very difficult for the Soviets to fight against the Finns who were basically like the VietCong.  Last I checked, Most of Central Europe is nothing but a flat plain.

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I fail to see how this affected the purges or the 5-year plans.

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It affected the progression of the Soviet Union.  They would have been in a much better state by 1941 without the Nazis.

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I never said the US was not; however, military spending did not become one of the primary factors in economic performance until the end of 1941.

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Not true at all.  The US was building ships, tanks, planes.  The idea that we were not was nothing but a myth that was presented after Pearl Harbor because it help with the myth that we had been caught of gaurd and "suprised".  The fact is that the Japanese attcked because they feared the new American build up that was taking place and hoped to cut the US off at the knees before we bacame too much for them to handle.

Not only that, but the global market swelled.  A rising tide lifts all boats.  Obviously, you need to take an economics course if you don't see how more economic activity in Europe, even if not directly related to the US, helps the US.

P.S.  German opperations in Finnland were convert, obviously.  Stalin didn't know about it.  The Germans were possing as Finns.  The Nazis also bought and produced French arms and German weapons that were modified to appear French and British.

[12th Doctor]

Who are you going to believe, a computer game, for petes sakes, Panzer General III, or a real-life website talking about the real-life war,

I was just using that as an example.  Clearly, I don't base my oppinion from a game, but that website is wrong for not mentioning a commonly known fact:

http://www.answers.com/topic/ryti-ribbentrop-agreement

http://www.kolumbus.fi/rastas/nyky/reasons_ww2.html

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Irrelivant what the treaty said.  What the Nazis did was support the Finns covertly.  At the same time, the Nazis were making plans to aquire all the other territory they had put into the "Soviet Sphere".

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Stalin had not devoted his full military resources to Finland.  He still kept troops on the German boarder and on the boarder with Japan.

The Nazis has such an easy time in Norway because their navy blocked off the coasts and the Norwiegian army was ill equiped and had almost no fighting tradition.  Also, the way that Hitler attacked (north along though the passes and along the major rail land road lines) was different from the way the Soviets attacked (west through the forrests and over the hills).

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If we are assuming no Hitler, then we are assuming no Nazi movement.  No offense, but you aren't a very imaginative person, are you?  Without a Hitler, there would be no "would-be Nazis" and no Nazism  and thus, many of those scientist would never have been compeled to hold beliefs that would have driven them away from the communists, indeed, many might have become communists due to the lack of a coherent anti-communist voice.  Thus, most of the scientists would have had no problem selling out to the highest bider, which would not have been a weak Germany.

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Not true.  After the war, the Soviet Union was still far behind the US in over-all strength.  The Soviets did nto become a superpower until about 1950.  They still had to rebuild most of their country after all.

The Soviets ended up becoming a Superpower because of all of the technology that they were able to steal from the future NATO countries and the Germans.  I see nothing in an alternate timeline that would have changed any of this, except for the country would not have been smashed flat and economically devastated.

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A few small ships?  We are talking about massive fleets of transports and several air craft carriers and battleships, here, not ing tug boats.  These ships also need planes, ammunition, fuel... and this isn't even mentioning all of the tanks that were build... before 1941!  You clearly have no idea how massive this undertaking was, as early as 1936.

[12th Doctor]

I'm surprised no one has said this yet.

I would not tell her to abort, because I don't believe Hitler was inherently evil, or that anyone is inherently evil.  Instead, I'd tell her to raise her child in a more loving atmosphere that could have changed the course and nature of Adolf Hitler's life.

I believe people are a product of their circumstances in large part, and I don't think killing Hitler is necessarily the only way to stop the Holocaust because it was not inevitable that Hitler would become what he did.

I believe that I attempted to say something like that, but got side-tracked.  I agree with you, anyway.

I could use a little help here, too.

[12th Doctor]

Well of course I would urge hitlers mother NOT to get an abortion. Hitler was guilty of no crime during the age of innocence, something all children are in until they reach the age of reason which is usually between 13-15 years of age.

But those that would most likely be aborted, would most likely be criminals in thier later years.

Funny you should mention that, because I fall well with in the "most likely to be aborted" category.