Interesting Fact

[bonami]

My daughter was browsing a web site on interesting facts yesterday when she came across an item on Adolf Hitler. Apparently when he was a boy 4yrs old he fell in a frozen river while playing and almost drowned. He was rescued by an older boy who became a priest in later life. I had never heard of this but on looking up some sites I found that this is true, the story had been found in a old newspaper clipping in 2012. Seemingly this had happened in 1894 and Hitler had never mentioned this incident at any time after. This has got me wondering how the course of history would have changed if the rescue had never took place. How many millions would not have died needlessly. No world war 2 no concentration camps no blitz the list is endless. I must say again I had never heard of this or read it in the newspapers maybe others have.

[Shaggy]

This story surfaced at the beginning of last year and even though much was made of it at the time, it seemed to die rather quickly. Thoughts of a cover up or threats are doing the conspiracy rounds as per usual. Regarding your point on how the world may have been had he drowned, you have to look at the other side of the coin to understand it fully. No Jewish holocaust, no space travel? no nuclear industry? the list goes on. The world might have very well been poorer for not having Hitler and his attempts at trying to make an Arian race. You also have to consider the millions of casualties of the war and the fact that if this had never happened, how crowded Britain might be now? I dont think theres enough bandwidth to discuss this in depth on caithness.org......

[sids]

He was captured in the First World War, by a Scottish soldier who considered shooting him, but didn't.

[Rheghead]

Would the death of Hitler have made that much difference? Plenty proto-nazis around totake his place. Lets be honest, the allies sowed the seeds that led to Hitler et al. If we humiliate anyone then they'll turn against us in the end.

[sids]

Would the death of Hitler have made that much difference? Plenty proto-nazis around totake his place. Lets be honest, the allies sowed the seeds that led to Hitler et al. If we humiliate anyone then they'll turn against us in the end.

You gonna turn against us?

[Neil Howie]

If Hitler had been assassinated and died earlier the War would have ended earlier. I don't think many people dispute that.

Do persons make a difference?

Wiki for one of my favourite historians:

Ferguson sometimes champions counterfactual history, and edited a collection of essays exploring the subject titled Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (1997). Ferguson likes to imagine alternative outcomes as a way of stressing the contingent aspects of history. For Ferguson, great forces don't make history; individuals do, and nothing is predetermined. Thus for Ferguson there are no paths in history that will determine how things will work out. The world is neither progressing nor regressing; only the actions of individuals will determine whether we live in a better or worse world. His championing of the method has been controversial within the field