History Main / GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel

* Inverted in {{Michael Chabon}}'s ''TheYiddishPolicemensUnion''. The story takes place in an alternate timeline where Hitler's defeat was actually ''worse'' than it was in our timeline. Among other changes, Germany was nuked in 1946 and the Holocaust killed only a third as many Jews as it did in RealLife. The book explores how these events (coupled with the collapse of Israel) make life more difficult for surviving Jews.

Interestingly, in [[RealLife reality]], a Nazi victory (though depending on how one actually defines "victory") seems to have been quite improbable. The Allies were in reality ''much'' more powerful in many ways-- including both population and industrial capacity-- than the Axis. There was no single, easily changeable factor contributing to the Allied success, and it is likely that ''many'' changes to history would be needed for Germany to have a decent chance of winning.

Talked to the wrong person? Nazi Victory! Left technology back before the dinosaurs were wiped out? Nazi Victory! [[ButterflyOfDoom Stepped on a bug]]? Nazi victory! Left a tap running? Nazi Victory! [[LogicBomb Prevented a Nazi victory? Nazi Victory]]!

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/washington_nazis.jpg]]

The strangest thing about Time Travel is probably that a) the Nazis winning WWII is the most common accidental timeline shift and b) that will usually be the only change in the new timeline. It almost seems like Germany was ''supposed'' to win, and that history is [[RubberBandHistory trying to snap back to its original form.]] Perhaps Germany actually won, and a neo-ally traveled back in time to make sure the allies won by making Hitler depressed or something.

The [[InvertedTrope inversion]] of this is HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct.

Talked to the wrong person? Nazi victory! Left technology back before the dinosaurs were wiped out? Nazi victory! [[ButterflyOfDoom Stepped on a bug]]? Nazi victory! [[LogicBomb Prevented a Nazi victory? Nazi victory]]!

* ''Warlords of Utopia'' by Lance Parkin, a novel in the FactionParadox universe (arguably, a sub-universe of the {{Whoniverse}}), has all the Alternate Universes where Hitler won declared war on all the Alternate Universes where ancient Rome never fell.

* Subverted in {{Animorphs}}. In one book the villain goes to several points in time to make humanity easier to conquer in the present. While the Animorphs are following him the villain makes a stop at D-Day to make sure Nazis win. But thanks to previous changes ''there are NO Nazis at All''. What everyone finds is an English force invading a France-Germany alliance, no one can figure out which side has the good guys, and Hitler is just a driver of a jeep.

** Interestingly, the Nazi victory doesn't last long. According to the original script and the subsequent {{Novelization}}, the Nazi regime collapsed shortly after.

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[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/washington_nazis.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:Dammit! I knew I shouldn't have left that tap running back in 1932...]]

'''As the amount of time-traveling you do increases, the probability of Hitler winning World War II approaches one.'''

You return home from your jolly time travel adventure in ancient Greece, having saved the world and being careful not to upset history and.. hold on a moment? Are those ''swastikas?!'' Hanging from the ''White House?!'' Looks like you've been hit by Godwin's Law of Time Travel.

Talked to the wrong person? Nazi victory! Left technology back before the dinosaurs were wiped out? Nazi victory! [[ButterflyOfDoom Stepped on a bug]]? Nazi victory! [[LogicBomb Prevented a Nazi victory? Nazi victory]]!

About the only time travel that ''doesn't'' result in a Nazi Victory is traveling to times after WWII (including the future)... unless a Neo Nazi steals your timetravel pod from you to [[StupidJetpackHitler help out Hitler]].

The strangest thing about Time Travel is probably that a) the Nazis winning WWII is the most common accidental timeline shift and b) that will usually be the only change in the new timeline. It almost seems like Germany was ''supposed'' to win, and that history is [[RubberBandHistory trying to snap back to its original form.]] Perhaps Germany actually won, and a neo-ally traveled back in time to make sure the allies won by making Hitler depressed or something.

Interestingly, in [[RealLife reality]], a Nazi victory seems to have been quite improbable (although ultimately depending on how one actually defines "victory", of course). There was no single, easily changeable factor contributing to the Allied success, and it is likely that ''many'' changes to history would be needed for Germany to have a decent chance of winning.

Godwin's Law of Time Travel can also be used in telling similar stories about other past war-losers and faded empires. The Confederacy, the Soviets, the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the [[ModernMayincatecEmpire Aztecs]], and the colonial-era British are all possibilities. The Nazis are by far the most dominant in this field, however.

The [[InvertedTrope inversion]] of this is HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct.
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!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''TomStrong'' uses an interesting variation - the ancient empire that survived wasn't the Roman, it was the Aztec!
* Before ''Crisis on Infinite Earths'', DC Comics's Earth-X was an alternate earth where the Nazis won.
** After ''52'', Earth-X is reborn as Earth-10. The Superman of Earth-10 is named Overman and is rather upset that he came into his powers ''after'' the Nazis won; there's nothing for it but to turn the Nazi Empire into as much of a {{Utopia}} as he can make it.
* MarvelUniverse: Hauptmann Englande was a version of Captain Britain from an alternate universe where the Nazis won WWII.
* Subversion: in MarvelAdventures FantasticFour, the Watcher intervenes to return an alternate earth hopping Johnny Storm. When the other Watchers seek to punish him, he responds by stating that the distraction caused by Johnny made him miss a number of interesting timeline variations, including an Earth where the ''Aztecs'' won World War II.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Film]]
* Movies: ''The Philadelphia Experiment II''.
* Averted in all of the ''BackToTheFuture'' movies. None of Marty and the Doc's travels through time even raised mention of the Nazis let alone altered Nazi or WWII history.
** Biff Tannen-ruled 1985A was almost as bad, though.
* Averted in ''Blackadder Back and Forth'', as Edmund goes back in time and returns to find he caused Napoleon to dominate europe
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* Inverted twice in the novel ''TheProteusOperation'', where people from an AlternateUniverse go back in time to ''help'' the Nazis get elected in the first place and give them help to modernize their armies, and then again from the resulting dystopia to stop them from winning the war. The result is our universe. The original universe had the league of nations work. Fascism was a fad with Hitler's arrest after the Beer Hall Putsch being the end. A mixture of remaining Tyrants and power brokers, seeking a world more their liking helped fund a time machine. They got back to 1923 and helped Hitler. Eventually they gave him the bomb and jet aircraft to take down the Soviet Union. Hitler threw an atomic weapon into their time portal and by 1975 ruled everything but the Americas and Japan. Then Americans, using stolen German information create a weaker time portal and go back to 1939 and shut off the time portal supporting Hitler.
* ''TheBreach'' by Christophe Lambert (no not the actor) feature a TV Show that travel in past event to showcase them. They try to broadcast operation Overlord and thing start to go horribly wrong. The two alternate universes fight each other, the one we all know and that other one with a nazi victory.
* In ''{{Animorphs}}: Elfangor's Secret'', the protagonists are chasing a rabble rouser through time in attempt to prevent or correct any alterations to the time line he may have caused. The trope is subverted when the villain attempts to ensure a Nazi victory, only to discover that, due to his previous tampering, ''there are no Nazis'', and Hitler's just a shmuck driving a VIP's jeep. There is still a WWII of some sort with a properly timed D-Day, but the details of the circumstances aren't given.
* RayBradbury's ''ASoundOfThunder'' has a time traveler stepping on a butterfly in the Mesozoic era cause a fascist dictator type to win an election. Not actual Nazis, though. But the dictator's name is Deutscher, which seems close enough, particularly for a story written in 1952.
* The ConnieWillis novel ''ToSayNothingOfTheDog'', in which the disappearance of an obscure item of Victoriana in an English cathedral leads to the Nazis winning WW2.
* The book ''Making History'' features the protagonist sending a pill to cause male sterility back to the water supply of the village where Hitler would be born, erasing him from existence. Naturally, his absence during an incident in the trenches of the First World War results in the survival of a German soldier who would normally die, and he goes on to become a fascist, anti-Semitic dictator anyway--except he's smarter than Hitler, so he wins World War Two. The protagonist wakes up the next day and finds that he's in New Jersey rather than England, his grandparents having fled England in the face of a Nazi invasion. Major changes this has on the United States are that the anti-Communist paranoia during the Cold War is shifted against the Nazis, and that homosexuality is outlawed. This world also has much more advanced computing and electronics, for unknown reasons. There are a variety of other small differences mentioned.
** Horrible dramatic irony pops up because the poisoned water supply is later used to sterilize Jews and other undesirables.
* If I recall correctly, in one of the {{Pendragon}} books, the reason they ended up ''not'' saving the {{Hindenburg}} from exploding was because doing so would, of course, cause Nazis to win.
** It was something about cargo on the Hindenburg being used to fund a spy group that would steal the secret of the atomic bomb and sell it to Germany, and they would use nukes to win the war in Europe.
* Averted in {{Philip Roth}}'s alternate history ''ThePlotAgainstAmerica''. In a book specifically about America voting in an anti-semitic president and forming an amicable relationship with Hitler in the early days of World War II, America eventually changes its mind and enters the war anyway. The Nazis lose pretty much exactly how they did in real life.
* Subverted in RogerZelazny's ''Roadmarks''. A highway runs from one end of time to the other with offshoots that lead to alternative time lines and poor Hitler still can not find the place "where he won."
* Played with in "Missives from Possible Futures # 1: Alternate History Search Results" by JohnScalzi. None of the alternate histories described result in Germany winning World War II (in most of them World War II never happens at all) -- but a quarter of them result in Germany winning World War I.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live Action TV]]
* ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' in the episode ''The City On The Edge of Forever''. Dr. [=McCoy=] saves the life of a woman who goes on to start a mass peace movement before WW2, thus delaying America's entry into the war long enough for the Nazis to build an atomic bomb. Result: man never goes into space. Also according to this episode, this woman's death changed the alignment of the flipping ''stars''.
* Also happened in ''StarTrekEnterprise'' at the end of season 3.
** This trope was somewhat averted since not one minor thing started the whole thing, but rather, a little thing in a BIG Time War made some aliens interested in helping Hitler win the war, which apparently would ''delay human evolution''. With much futuristic technology. The same radical faction that managed to ''[[EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt stop the evolutionary chain of an entire (other) species]]''. And by the end of the [[StoryArc arc]], it's revealed ''[[spoiler:with all the advanced technology at their disposal, and invading America and all, the nazis '''were still starting to lose the war.]]'''''
* The ''DoctorWho'' audio: Colditz. Somewhat of a subversion in that they don't find themselves in a Nazi-controlled future, they are actually in Germany during the war, and a minor character reveals that she's from Britian in the 1960s - controlled by the Nazis due to the Doctor's appearance in Colditz Castle. The line of causality ends up being quite confusing.
-->The Doctor: ''"The German Reich!? Hahaha, I should have known. The oldest paradox in the book!"''
** ''Warlords of Utopia'' by Lance Parkin, a novel in the Faction Paradox universe (arguably, a sub-universe of the {{Whoniverse}}), has all the Alternate Universes where Hitler won declared war on all the Alternate Universes where ancient Rome never fell. It's as awesome as it sounds.
* This trope was also used in one of the early arcs in ''Galactica 1980.''
* This happened in the first episode of ''TimeCop'' the TV series, complete with the hero going back in time to prevent the Nazi Future by stopping the Nazis from getting the atomic bomb.
* In the 1980 series ''Darkroom'', a man finds that he can send morse-code messages to a ship during WWII. He tries to give the United States an edge by telling them information from history-books-- and the next day he opens the door to see a Nazi-parade, since Hitler had won and the Nazis now ruled the world.
* Parodied by ''TheWhitestKidsUKnow''. Apparently, just resetting your internet history is enough for Nazi zeppelins and Nazi dinosaurs with laser eyes to appear.
* Averted in QuantumLeap, despite constant time travel Hitler never won WWII because the main characters could never go back far enough. (They did go back to the civil war once though)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* TabletopRPG: The alternate universe "Reich 5" in ''{{GURPS}}''.
** Reich-5 is a bit too well-thought-out to fit this trope: It was caused by [[spoiler:FDR getting assassinated in 1933 and Charles Lindbergh becoming President]], ''not'' meddling time-travelers. Likewise, Reich-2 was caused by [[spoiler:Churchill not becoming Prime Minister of the UK]]; Reich-3 was caused by [[spoiler:Japan attacking a Russian target instead of Pearl Harbor]], and so on.
* Played with in the FreedomCity setting for MutantsAndMasterminds. In the unaltered timeline, the Nazi's won WWII, and proceeded to conquer the world. Later, Dr. Tomorrow defected from the Nazis, stole a prototype time machine, and went back and altered history so that the Allies won.
** Well, not really... ''Erde'' still exists, a parallel universe where the Nazis are still the ruling power. Whether the regular universe always existed (with a Dr. Tomorrow character having always appeared at that time period), a universe already existed which Dr. Tomorrow further altered, or the regular Freedom City universe came into being when Dr. Tomorrow stepped into it is left unexplained.
* This can be played straight or inverted in the TimeTravel card game ''{{Chrononauts}}''. There are four potential ways in which 1945 can unfold. The standard timeline, at the beginning of the game, is as history happens (dropping of atomic bombs, Hitler commits suicide in his bunker). To play this trope straight, all that you have to do is avert Pearl Harbor (playing AmericaWinsTheWar extremely straight). On the flip side, if you avert Pearl Harbor ''and'' assassinate Hitler, war never happens in the first place (the fourth variant, US Invades Tokyo, doesn't go into detail about Hitler's fate).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:VideoGames]]
* In ''CommandAndConquer'': Red Alert, Einstein creates a time machine so he can kill Hitler, but returns to find that World War II still happened, except this time it was the USSR that invaded Europe. It is referred to as the Great World War II in the manual and is said to have been many times more destructive than our World War II.
** Red Alert 3 takes this even further: just as the USSR is about to lose its second engagement with the European/American Allies, Soviet soldiers go back in time to kill ''Einstein''. When they come home they find that the USSR is winning! Hurray! Except now because the Allies and USSR were spending all their time bombing each other, neither of them saw the ''Japanese'' gaining power...
*** There's some subtle FridgeBrilliance in both cases. By deleting Hitler, Germany would never invade Russia. As a result, the Soviet Union would become the dominant power. Of course, in-game Einstein is crucial to the Allies victory, which leads too:
*** The Soviets deleting Einstein, and thus taking away the Allies victory ticket. But also, they prevent Einstein from inventing the [[NukeEm Atomic Bomb]]. Thus, no nukes get dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki and industrial powerhouse of Japan starts rolling out the pain. Also, since there are no nukes, the Soviets signature weapons... don't even exist.
**** Though one wonders why this didn't happen at an earlier point, given that The Great World War Two from Red Alert happened ten years after the real date of WW2, according to the manual.
* Deliberately done in the "cinematic" video game ''Rocket Ranger''.
* The videogame ''FreedomForce vs. The Third Reich''. Slight variation in that it wasn't due to any accidental meddling, but a successful attempt of a supervillain to go back in time and provide Nazi Germany with the superpower endowing Energy X, leaving the heroes to set things right.
* Inverted in ''CityOfHeroes'' where a modern-day time-traveling Nazi sect known as the 5th Column are more or less removed and replaced in history by a non-Nazi splinter group called The Council in a sort of temporal coup. Word is they're hiding outside of time, however.
** There used to be an alternate dimension accessible through Portal Corp called Axis America. However, at the same time as the Council takeover, that dimension got replaced with the "Council Empire." Again, however, Reichsman, that dimension's EvilCounterpart for Statesman, is imprisoned underneath Boomtown, and there have been hints.
** And combining "Rome Never Fell" with this trope, a certain story-arc involves time-traveling Nazis helping out evil Romans.
* The adventure game Time Gentlemen Please has this as the central plot. Of course, Hitler has an army of dinosaur clones. And it all started with a simple attempt to watch Magnum PI.
* Can be subverted, averted or played straight in ''Titanic: Adventure Out of Time''. The ending changes depending on what items you finish the game with. Each of these items somehow effects World War I ''and'' II, so if you're lucky both wars will be averted and Hitler will be noted to become a famous painter. Other options include the Nazis winning WWII, and the Nazis not existing but with Russia taking Germany's place, and ''they'' win WWII.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* [[http://www.viruscomix.com/page417.html This]] ''{{Subnormality}}'' strip.
** Subverted in a couple of other strips, with a pair of neo-Nazi time travelers attempting to ''intentionally'' invoke this trope (with little success). [[http://www.viruscomix.com/page451.html I do declare you boys picked]] [[TheodoreRoosevelt the wrong Roosevelt!]]
* Mentioned in [[http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2412.html this]] ''IrregularWebcomic'' strip, which ''of course'' references this very page.
* In ''[[StylisticSuck The Adventures of John and Dave]]'', Dave travels four weeks back in time, causing Nazis to win World War II.
* Inverted in a guest comic of ''TheAdventuresOfDoctorMcNinja'', where Doc kills Hitler only to find [[AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever 100-meter-tall Jews]] terrorizing the city. Then everyone went so he's saying Hitler was right argh argh rawr, and the comic was taken down.
* According to ''Bug'', this is one reason why [[http://www.bugcomic.com/comics/crummy-gift/ Time machines make crummy gifts]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* Deliberately done in the first season finale of the ''JusticeLeague'' animated series, where the immortal villain Vandal Savage sends information, including how the rest of the war was supposed to play out and plans for technology that wouldn't have been developed for another couple decades, to his past self in order to help the Germans win.
** Was it ever explained where Vandal Savage got the technology to build giant wheel shaped tanks that shoot lasers? Because I don't recall those being something you saw on DCAU earth.
* Averted in the 1982 series ''Dungeons&Dragons,'' in which the evil wizard Venger captures an advanced modern fighter-jet, and gives it to a Nazi pilot, so that Germany will win WWII, and the "meddlin' kids" will never have been born. (The absurdity of the first part should be self-evident, since a fighter jet is useless without the modern infrastructure needed to operate and maintain one.)
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Web Original]]
* Invoked purposely along with exploring the consequences of ignoring HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct in [[http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/features/ttravel.htm this short story]] by [[ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee Crowshaw]].
* The [[GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse Global Guardians]] once had to stop a mad scientist intent on going back and killing Hitler (and thereby changing the world for the ''worse''... and when they got back, discovered a Nazi victory. Luckily, the rules by which TimeTravel worked in the setting meant that it was an [[AlternateUniverse alternate dimension]] and not a change in the timeline.
[[/folder]]

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* Played with in the FreedomCity setting for MutantsAndMasterminds. In the unaltered timeline, the Nazi's won WWII, and proceeded to conquer the world. Later, Dr. Tomorrow, defected from the Nazi's, stole a prototype time machine, and went back and altered history so that the Allies won.

* Played with in the FreedomCity setting for MutantsAndMasterminds. In the unaltered timeline, the Nazi's won WWII, and proceeded to conquer the world. Later, Dr. Tommorow, defected from the Nazi's, stole a prototype time machine, and went back and altered history so that the Allies won.

[[folder:Video Games]]

* The [[GlobalGuardiansPBEMUniverse Global Guardians]] once had to stop a mad scientist intent on going back and killing Hitler (and thereby changing the world for the ''worse''... and when they got back, discovered a Nazi victory. Luckily, the rules by which TimeTravel worked in the setting meant that it was an [[AlternateHistory alternate dimension]] and not a change in the timeline.

* Invoked purposely along with exploring the consequences of ignoring HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct in [[http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/features/ttravel.htm this short story]] by [[ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee Crowshaw]].

You return home from your jolly time travel adventure in ancient Greece, having saved the world and being careful not to upset history and.. hold on a moment? Are those ''swastikas?!'' Hanging from the fucking ''White House?!'' Looks like you've been hit by Godwin's Law of Time Travel.

* ''StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' in the episode ''The City On The Edge of Forever''. Dr. [=McCoy=] saves the life of a woman who goes on to start a mass peace movement before WW2, thus delaying America's entry into the war long enough for the Nazis to build an atomic bomb. Result: man never goes into space. Also according to this episode, this woman's death changed the alignment of the flipping ''stars''. {{So Yeah}}

->''The first rule of time travel is that any and all modifications made to the timeline result in Hitler winning World War II. Run over a hippy in 1968? Hitler wins.''
-->--colonel_green of [=ScansDaily=]

You return home from your jolly time travel adventure in ancient Greece, having saved the world and being careful not to upset history and.. hold on a moment? Are those ''swastikas?!'' Looks like you've been hit by Godwin's Law of Time Travel.