MovieChat Forums > The Last Supper (1996) Discussion > Killing Hitler Wouldn't Have Even Delaye...

Killing Hitler Wouldn't Have Even Delayed the National Socialist Party

posted 15 years ago by TheDrizzle77
8 replies | jump to latest

Don't get me wrong, I loved this movie. And I took it for a dark comedy-esque movie. But there are things I still look at and question.

The killing Hitler question.

Hitler was just appointed as the "Propaganda boss" a little under a year after the DAP or German Workers' party was formed by Anton Drexler and other members.

The way I see it, I would be asking if you would kill Drexler before January 1919. If he doesn't start the DAP, I seldomly think that the Nazi party, as we know it today, would've caught on.

But the double-edged sword leads me to believe that Hitler, despite Drexler being purged, would've ran into Fascism or some other form of Nazism anyway. And if that's the case, had you killed Hitler, Drexler and everybody else involved with the DAP, how are you to believe it would have ended? Between the Treaty of Versailles and feeling sabotaged by the Jews and other non-Aryan races living in Germany during the WWI era, who is to say another German wouldn't have come up with this idea.

I guess, in retrospect, thousands of thousands of people would've died regardless. If you go back, you have to kill every German with this belief of sabotage. Or if you don't the Halocaust still takes place. Just a terrible outcome either way.

Now THAT'S how you put thought into one simple phrase uttered in a movie.

[–] tain-5 15 years ago

That is the point, it's a stupid question. Not only killing Hitler would have changed very little but the premise itself shows moral relativism. Historical speculation can be a fun game but that's all it is.

[–] ColinChapman 13 years ago

To OP.

Sorry, but you're wrong. Without Hitler the NSDAP would never have gained such popularity. It was a small and struggling party most people in Munich didn't even know existed. When Hitler joined it he quickly rose in their ranks and soon everybody came to listen to Hitler, not to Drexler. Thanks to Hitler's oratory skills the word spread and more and more people came to listen to what he had to say.

In fact Hitler managed to get general Ludendorff interested in supporting him and his 1923 coup, which failed. Thanks to Hitler's patriotic speech he got a minor punishment and spent comparatively short time in prison.

When he got out he quickly gained ever more sympathy, but the nazi party was still comparatively small. Enter the Depression of the 30's. Now Hitler's ideas sounded more interesting than ever and people honestly believed he was the man that could save Germany.

Quite simply. Without Hitler's skill as a speaker and his ruthless politics the nazi party would have remained a small and insignificant party. In this scenario I believe communism might instead have been big in Germany.
As a matter of fact many Germans voted for the nazis mainly because they feared the communists, and the nazis clearly showed early on they were taking swift action against them.

Although deep nationalism was already prevalent in Germany in WW1, and the Prussian military ideals very much alive, the hatred of jews became a central theme when Hitler became leader of the nazi party. The way Hitler saw it the jews were guilty for everything, not just in Germany but elsewhere too. Since Karl Marx was a jew, Hitler saw communism as a jewish idea and that needed to be destroyed.

At best, some "prussian" type leader among the Conservative party of Germany might end up leader, and possibly side with Mussolini, but the agenda to exterminate jews and start a total war was unlikely.

Mussolini was a fascist, but neither him nor other of the Italian fascists ever had an agenda of exterminating jews. Throughout the war Mussolini refused to hand over all the jews living in Italy. Only a very small group was sent to concentration camps.

But despite Hitler and his terrible deeds I must say I wouldn't want to kill him to change history. Why? Because now we KNOW better than to trust a man spewing out a patriotic jargon and playing the people like a fiddle. Thanks to Hitler we have seen the TRUE face of nazism. This includes racism, extermination of other races, total war and evil. Without Hitler it is possible nazi parties would be far more popular today.

The way I see it, it wasn't Hitler who was to blame, but all those gullable idiots who didn't see past all that nationalistic crap and realized what the hell this man was about. In Mein Kampf, it was already clear he wanted all Europe to be free of jews and that it had to be done as soon as possible.

[–] electrictroy 13 years ago

>>>Because now we KNOW better than to trust a man spewing out a patriotic jargon and playing the people like a fiddle.

Then how did Bush and Obama get elected?
As for killing Hitler, there are plenty of other speakers that could have filled his shoes and rallied the National Socialists to dominance. Perhaps that man would be "kinder", more like Mussolini and not anti-jew, but we'd still see a Nazi-dominated Germany.

[–] StartingAllOver14 13 years ago

Then how did Bush and Obama get elected?
As for killing Hitler, there are plenty of other speakers that could have filled his shoes and rallied the National Socialists to dominance. Perhaps that man would be "kinder", more like Mussolini and not anti-jew, but we'd still see a Nazi-dominated Germany.

STOP SAYING THAT THE CLIMB IS A GOOD SONG, CAUSE IT ISN'T!!!!!!!!

[–] mark-1589 13 years ago

Well, it would be worth a try.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] the_fifth 12 years ago

Yes, good post in general evanmang87. I also would add that the issue of antisemitism can not (and ought not) to be related only with Germany of the beginning of the Century. The Jews (and other minorities elsewhere) have always been persecuted (albeit in different degrees) for as long as humans have existed. It's "the other", something that we do not understand fully and therefore we resent it and sometimes even want to destroy it. The "proper English" or the French were as antisemitic as Germans were. So were Italians(FYI Mussolini and others came up with Fascism which became the Nazi's inspiration as a political doctrine), North-Americans in general etc. You get the point don't you? Now, what happened during WW2 was horrible for everyone (starting with Germans themselves) and it should not be ignored. I think though that people really need to open up their eyes and understand that even today there are plenty evil people lurking around and no they are not exclusively Republicans. I've met plenty of pseudo-Liberals who in fact are simply degenerated. Stop judging people based on religion and political beliefs (unless both are explicit propaganda for violence towards anyone).

[–] MidnightThud 8 years ago

The real issue and its the problem with the hypothetical is why Did Germany lose? Mainly because of hitler and all his issues undermining and hamstringing the German war machine.

So yes....MAYBE the holocaust or even to the same extent may not have happened but assuming the War still did occur from the fallout of WW1... they might have had a smart. stable leader who did not implode and won the war!

So in this case losing 6 million to save the entire World from the Nazis and the brutal Japanese mind set of the time..... gotta happen folks