When would be the best time to kill Hitler

[Christian Ankerstjerne]

Assuming you had a time machine, when would be the best time to kill Hitler, to save as many lives as possible? Too early, and someone else could easily take his place. Too late, and there's no point.



(And no, I don't have a time machine. Really, I don't. Nothing to see here.)

[Gorque]

I given this great thought and what I would do is not kill Der Führer but instead I would travel back in time and kidnap him, say when he was twelve or so and then transport him to another place and era, such as 1848 Germany. I choose this time due to his strong nationalist tendencies, the massive discontent then roiling Europe and his yearning for the less complicated times of yore. Who knows, maybe he could've accomplished something that would have foiled the eventual consolidation under the Prussians.

[Carl Schwamberger]

I'd have some Jewish art dealer buy his paintings. Build a working & social relationship.

[T. A. Gardner]

Well, I don't think it'd be this:

[Kingfish]

Obviously just before he reaches for that last slice of key lime pie

[Markus Becker]

November 9th, 1923. The Bavarian police killed 16 Nazis during the Beer Hall Putsch, including the person standing right next to Hitler. It could have easily been him.

[Phaing]

In the trenches during WW1.
It would hardly be an unusual way to die, and he was wounded and gassed, a couple times for each.

In fact, one is tempted to wonder how he made it out of there at all...

[Markus Becker]

All of his time traveling wanna be killers were killed in the trenches? They were an unsafe place, weren't they?

[Frankfurter]

Assuming you had a time machine, when would be the best time to kill Hitler, to save as many lives as possible? Too early, and someone else could easily take his place. Too late, and there's no point.



(And no, I don't have a time machine. Really, I don't. Nothing to see here.)

General von Witzleben´s plan to arrest him, or kill him (Witzleben at that time preferred an arrest, the men actually chosen to take Hitler would have killed him) at the time of the Munich Treaty would have been the best time. The surprise moove at Munich (weak Chamberlain, Mussolini´s moderation, Hiter´s big success within a matter of a few days) made it impossible as no one in Germany would have supported a coup against a "peacefully" successful Hitler. It was a matter of days, sadly...

[Christian Ankerstjerne]

Some good input above!

How would you consider 3 July, i.e., right after the Night of the Long Knives? This would have created a serious power vacuum, combined with a politically tense situation.

[Markus Becker]

IMO too late. The Nazis might not remain in power and WW2 looks not likely to occur but I'd rather have him dead before he 'killed' the first free and democratic German state. In 1923 he was just one of the local radicals in Munich, not a national political figure.

[Futurist]

November 9th, 1923. The Bavarian police killed 16 Nazis during the Beer Hall Putsch, including the person standing right next to Hitler. It could have easily been him.

Yeah, either this or sometime during World War I. It would be better for Germany in comparison to a later assassination of Hitler considering that Germany's Jewish population probably wouldn't emigrate en masse if Hitler never came to power in Germany and instituted various anti-Semitic measures.

[Skarpskytten]

... Too early, and someone else could easily take his place ...

Stephen Fry (yes, the comedian) explores this idea in his hilarious (and dark) alternative history novel ]Making history.

[James A Pratt III]

Good times right before he came to power in 1933, Munich 1938 before Chamberlin's appeasement, or in late 1939 the Munich bomb that went off about 20-30 minutes too late. Goring would have succeeded him. Many people think of goring as a Bloated, bemedaled, brutal, buffoon. he was in real life a very intelligent man who is not going to take the risks Hitler did as in the 1938 Czech affair let alone start WW II. Note in 1938-39 the German military leadership had real doubts about the combat readiness of their army. So under Goring Germany there might not have been a world war.