Völler's Hitler plan (SPOILERS)


So, even if Völler figured out the Antikythera calculations and managed to get to Germany in 1939 right before the invasion of Poland, why does he think killing Hitler would make HIM a Fuhrer?

Völler kills Hitler and then, what, his most loyal followers like Goebbels, Himmler, Göring, the masses of men, women, boys and girls mesmerized by their Fuhrer would just accept his slayer as a new leader? And we're talking about 1939 when Hitler is peaking, not 1945. No way, Hitler's assassin would be hanged more than anything else.

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It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Voller's plan is "telegraphed" way at the beginning of the movie when he tells the African-American hotel staffer in 1969, "You didn't win the war...Hitler lost it."

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Voller should have minored in geology at universtity. "I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling tectonic plates!"

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And Hitler should have minored in art school.

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Voller's plan to off HItler was flawed to begin with.

Pretty sure Hitler had some men in mind to lead in case something happened if Hitler got killed or whatever.

I may not be a World War II historian expert or whatever but i saw that Valkrie movie by Bryan Singer years ago

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In 1939 Hitlers second was still Rudolf Hess. He was depicted later as a mad men, because he insisted on the peace treaty with England, but most likely this was just the Nazi narrative to discredet him.
He was political ousted with the war, as he was not really helpful as non military. But before the war, he was the one with the strongest claim, Hitlers official Second. But not sure, if he would be able to take control. More likely Himmler with his most effective executor Heydrich would have done a silent coup and take control - the SS was by 1939 already powerful enough. Goering of course could have also made it to the top, as he was by far the most popular Nazi by 1939 (he only became a joke after he failed conquering UK with his Luftwaffe, became fat and a junkie). His popularity was the main reason in the first place he was so highly ranked within the Nazi party, as the other Nazis hated him.
If anyone wonder: Goebbels was always happy to be the man in the shadow (as long he got a hot girl). He was more the Machiavellian type.

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It is time travel, why 1939? why not before, kill Hitler when he was not even known, and take his place.

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now youre being stupid. youre just thinking like an idiot like Rhodes from the Avengers Endgame.

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Was Rhodes even in endgame? Why am I answering a crazy person?

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yes he was frikkin Avengers Endgame. He was also in Infinity War

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Because he's needs for Hitler to have built up the nazi party and Germany. At 1939, he'd be inserting himself into an already built up country. Going back earlier leaves too much to chance.

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Then he must have a successor in mind, a successor won't make the same mistake. I am sure he studied history enough to make an informed choice, and made plans for him to take over.

Did he do any of that?

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An interesting plan would have been to save Reinhard "The Butcher of Prague" Heydrich from assassination in 1942, assassinate Hitler instead, and then have Heydrich take over. Heydrich had brutally put down the resistance in Czechoslovakia and some historians speculate that his scheduled meeting with Hitler (which he never kept due to his death) would have seen him transferred to occupied France to deal with the reistance there. If he had taken this position and then Hitler suddenly died... who knows what could have happened. He was certainly ruthless and capable enough to take Hitler's place. His weakness was over-confidence and vanity, though, which directly contributed to his successful assassination.

On the other hand, this would have meant that the invasions of Poland and Russia still would have happened, so perhaps it wouldn't have changed anything, maybe only delayed Germany's downfall a bit longer.

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Invasion of Russia was mostly about oil (most wars were after it's discovery), I wonder if the invasion were successful, perhaps under Heydrich, would the war have ended very differently?

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Perhaps, though I do wonder if Heydrich's character flaws would have lead him to a similar ruin in the end. Maybe if he listened to his generals a bit more than Hitler he could have pulled it off.

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My understanding was that the device was not a time machine that you could program to go anywhere and anywhen, it was a machine that merely indicated when rifts in time appear.

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Thanks, I haven't watched it so I did not know that.

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I don't think we're ever meant to believe in Völler or his plan

Mads played him as an offensive, arrogant ass on purpose

So yeah, I have NO doubt Völler's plan would've failed spectacularly

Never mind that Völler, a literal rocket scientist AND a mathematician, was careless enough to overlook the importance of continental drift in his calculations.

That said, though, I got the impression that the antikythera mechanism would never do anything other than summon time travelers to the battle of Syracuse. Archimedes built it for that purpose and that purpose only, which is why he was so unsurprised at the appearance of two flying machines carrying strangely dressed, heavily armed strangers at his moment of dire need.

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Yes, spot on.

His plan always had flaws because of his arrogance.
But my guess is he wanted to change two things in Hitler's favour: The Battle of Britain and the march to Stalingrad, change what general Paulus did.

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The continental drift thing was a moot point. If the calculations had been wrong, they wouldn't have found a time rift at all. Finding a time rift at the given time and place confirmed the calculations were correct. Besides, Archimedes was found to be wearing a wrist watch - which suggested at that point that Archimedes had himself travelled in time, so why wouldn't Archimedes know about continental drift? As it turns out, he found that wrist watch off a dead Voller, but the very presence of that watch in Archie's tomb meant he had been in touch with the future, and so it was fallacious to assume he couldn't have known about continental drift.

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Right

The main and perhaps only reason it was brought up was to demonstrate something Völler SHOULD have considered but didn't

And then the harbor full of Roman ships was supposed to confirm that he'd messed up

But you're right ... it doesn't matter, at least from Archimedes's perspective

If anything, it's just one more example of the same mistake nearly all time travel movies make: assuming earth is a fixed point in space/time

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The main and perhaps only reason it was brought up was to demonstrate something Völler SHOULD have considered but didn't

I see no reason why Voller should have considered it. Like I said, the wrist watch proves Archimedes had contact with the future, meaning no future knowledge could be excluded. To say Archimedes couldn't have known about continental drift is like saying he couldn't have possessed a 20th century wrist watch. And yet he did.

Be that as it may, when they see the rift, that would be proof positive that the device was accurate. What, was this supposed to be a different rift, which just happened to be at the wrong coordinates that they thought were right? Just how many time rifts are there? You'd think people would be stumbling through time by accident all the time if these rifts were that common. And like JepGambardella pointed out, in 2000 years continental drift would not have amounted to more than a few metres anyway (actually 5 metres at most, given the current estimates of 2.5 cm per year).

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I think the watch on Archimedes' body was the one that he took from one of the dead travellers from the 20th century, not one that he acquired in a subsequent trip to the future.

And what "continental drift" anyway? It can't be much more than a few meters over the course of 2000 years.

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I think the watch on Archimedes' body was the one that he took from one of the dead travellers from the 20th century, not one that he acquired in a subsequent trip to the future.

I do believe I said as much. But when Indy first sees the watch, he must assume that Archimedes has been to the future, rather than having been visited - after all, Archimedes is the one with the device, so at this point it looks like he had used it. But even if he had been given the watch by a time travelling person from the future, it still meant that he had had contact with the future - and why wouldn't he then possess knowledge from the future, like say, about continental drift? Point is, there is no basis for saying Archimedes couldn't have known about it. He couldn't have known about it the same way he couldn't have had a wrist watch.

And what "continental drift" anyway? It can't be much more than a few meters over the course of 2000 years.

Good point. And like I said, the rift was where they expected it to be, which proved the device to be accurate in any event.

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Oops! Right you are! That should teach me to read the entire post before replying!

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When Indy brought up "continental drift", I felt he was just trying to distract Voller from going forward, or at the very least introducing some doubt/uncertainty into his plans. He was gambling Voller might be quietly fearful as to where they would actually end up, but Voller was not dissuaded from abandoning the trip.

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Voller mentioned something about adding something extra to one of his V2 rockets when he got back to 1939 , so I guess he planned to take out Hitler and all his buddies at the same time and not even get blamed

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No, his '39 self was about to meet Hitler regarding the V1, which was used during the Blitz to terrorize the British. The V1 was actually a cruise missle, while the V2 was a proper ballistic missile. The V does not stand for rockets/missles, but actually for weapons which could change the outcome of war. V3 was e.g. a cannon.

Anyway, his plan was to replace his 39 self, kill Hitler and reveal being a time traveller who knows best how the war is to win. Hitler was megalomaniac, he did several power plays against his generals which usually ended in situations worsen the situation for the Nazis. Likely already preventing the british army getting rescued at Dunkirk would have killed the moral in Britain had weaken Churchills political standing massively. So a peace treaty could have been possible or at least Rommels North African war had played out drastically different. With North Africa secured, oil would have been secured, no reason to get into Russia that early. Ripple effect.

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