History Main / GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel

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. Even if they won, if you are Continentalist-historian then you'll argue that Hitler ''never'' plotted to TakeOverTheWorld and just wanted to re-establish a German superstate dominating Europe, so the United States and many other countries probably wouldn't have been flying the Swastika. And even in Europe, chances are Nazi Germany would eventualy dissolve itself just like the Soviet Union did, though likely not before [[AMillionIsAStatistic every Jew and other “undesirable” in Europe was dead]].

Talked to the wrong person? Nazi victory! [[GivingRadioToTheRomans Left technology back in the Roman empire]]? Nazi victory! [[ButterflyOfDoom Stepped on a bug]]? Nazi victory! Left a tap running? Nazi victory! [[BeenThereShapedHistory Took part in some historical event]]? Nazi victory! [[PyrrhicVictory Prevented a Nazi victory? Nazi victory]]! [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight Caused a Nazi victory intentionally?]] [[OverlyLongGag Well... that one's on you this time.]]

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. Even if they won, if you are Continentalist-historian then you'll argue that Hitler ''never'' plotted to TakeOverTheWorld and just wanted to re-establish a German superstate dominating Europe, so the United States and many other countries probably wouldn't have been flying the Swastika. And even in Europe, chances are Nazi Germany would eventualy dissolve itself just like the Soviet Union did, though likely not before [[AMillionIsAStatistic every Jew and other “undesirable” in Europe was dead]].

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. Even if they won, if you are Continentalist-historian then you'll argue that Hitler ''never'' plotted to TakeOverTheWorld and just wanted to re-establish a German superstate dominating Europe, so the United States and many other countries probably wouldn't have been flying the Swastika. And even in Europe, chances are Nazi Germany would eventualy dissolve itself just like the Soviet Union did, though likely not before [[AMillionIsAStatistic every Jew and other “undesirable” in Europe is dead]].

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. Even if they won, if you are Continentalist-historian then you'll argue that Hitler ''never'' plotted to TakeOverTheWorld and just wanted to re-establish a German superstate dominating Europe, so the United States and many other countries probably wouldn't have been flying the Swastika. And even in Europe, chances are Nazi Germany would eventualy dissolve itself just like the Soviet Union did.

* Towards the end of ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' episode "The Countdown", Gumball and Darwin end up creating AlternateTimeline after Alternate Timeline. One of those timelines has the population of Elmore [[GratuitousGerman speaking German]] while looking very angry, which makes the Watterson brother ''immediately'' go back in time again in a panic.

* In the ''WetsernAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Back to the Past", [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick go back to the past with Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy's time machine. They find the younger versions of the heroes fighting Man Ray for the first time. Just as they are about to entrap him in a giant barrel of tartar sauce, they find that Patrick has eaten the whole barrel. This leaves Man Ray able to defeat them. Returning to the present, [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick find that Bikini Bottom has now become a dystopian monarchy ruled by Man Ray. The two must now go back to the past again and stop Patrick from eating the tartar sauce and destroying the future.

** In "The Past & the Furious" Cosmo and Wanda celebrate their birthday by visiting past children of theirs, but Timmy's meddling with each kid causes the course of the present to be changed and Cosmo & Wanda to lose their fairy godparent licenses. Timmy & Sparky both attempt to go back and re-write the timeline.
** In "Turner Back Time" Timmy goes back in time to an ancestor of his to teach him the right decision to make him rich. Even though Timmy and his parents are rich and happy in the present, they have rendered the town a dump and Timmy loses Cosmo & Wanda since he is considered happy.

Talked to the wrong person? Nazi victory! [[GivingRadioToTheRomans Left technology back in the Roman empire]]? Nazi victory! [[ButterflyOfDoom Stepped on a bug]]? Nazi victory! Left a tap running? Nazi victory! [[BeenThereShapedHistory Took part in some historical event]]? Nazi victory! [[PyrrhicVictory Prevented a Nazi victory? Nazi victory]]! [[SetWrongWhatOnceWentRight Caused a Nazi victory intentionally?]] [[OverlyLongGag Well... that one's on you this time.]]

Talked to the wrong person? Nazi victory! [[GivingRadioToTheRomans Left technology back in the Roman empire]]? Nazi victory! [[ButterflyOfDoom Stepped on a bug]]? Nazi victory! Left a tap running? Nazi victory! [[BeenThereShapedHistory Took part in some historical event]]? Nazi victory! [[PyrrhicVictory Prevented a Nazi victory? Nazi victory]]! [[OverlyLongGag Caused a Nazi victory intentionally? Well... that one's on you this time.]]

When the time traveler tries to '''prevent''' the Third Reich altogether, and inevitably fails, it's HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct. For the consequences of "Nazis Win" scnenarios and such stories that don't always involve time travel, see AlternateHistoryNaziVictory and DayOfTheJackboot.

When the time traveler tries to '''prevent''' the Third Reich altogether, and inevitably fails, it's HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct. For "Nazis Win" stories that don't always involve time travel, see AlternateHistoryNaziVictory and DayOfTheJackboot.

When the time traveler tries to '''prevent''' the Third Reich altogether, and inevitably fails, it's HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct. For "Hitler Wins" stories that don't involve time travel, see AlternateHistoryNaziVictory and DayOfTheJackboot.

When the time traveler tries to '''prevent''' the Third Reich altogether, and inevitably fails, it's HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct. For "Hitler Wins" stories that don't involve time travel, see DayOfTheJackboot.

Talked to the wrong person? Nazi victory! [[GivingRadioToTheRomans Left technology back in the Roman empire]]? Nazi victory! [[ButterflyOfDoom Stepped on a bug]]? Nazi victory! Left a tap running? Nazi victory! [[BeenThereShapedHistory Took part in some historical event]]? Nazi victory! [[PyrrhicVictory Prevented a Nazi victory? Nazi victory]]! [[ComicBook/AvengersInvaders Used a reality-warping object to prevent a Nazi victory]]? [[RunningGag Nazi victory!]] [[OverlyLongGag Caused a Nazi victory intentionally? Well... that one's on you this time.]]

* Franchise/MarvelUniverse: Hauptmann Englande was a version of Captain Britain from an alternate universe where the Nazis won WWII.
** There is also the novel trilogy ''[[Literature/XMenChaosEngineTrilogy The Chaos Engine]]'' where the ComicBook/RedSkull uses a Cosmic Cube to create this reality...or so he thinks. In reality, the Cube is faulty and works by searching alternate realities and merging elements of them together, or entire alternate universes depending on the scale of the wish. Thanks to the wish, the Nazi's not only won World War II and conquered the planet, they rule an expanionsist, tyrannical and genocidal ''intergalactic empire'' under the Skull's leadership.

** There is also the novel trilogy ''The Chaos Engine'' where the ComicBook/RedSkull uses a Cosmic Cube to create this reality...or so he thinks. In reality, the Cube is faulty and works by searching alternate realities and merging elements of them together, or entire alternate universes depending on the scale of the wish. Thanks to the wish, the Nazi's not only won World War II and conquered the planet, they rule an expanionsist, tyrannical and genocidal ''intergalactic empire'' under the Skull's leadership.

* Towards the end of ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'' episode "The Countdown", Gumball and Darwin end up creating AlternateTimeline after Alternate Timeline. One of those timelines has the population of Elmore [[GratuitousGerman speaking German]] while looking very angry, implying that [[ButterflyOfDoom some of Gumball and Darwin's actions]] led to a Nazi victory in the war.

* Implied to have happened, albeit not in a specifically Nazi context, in Creator/OrsonScottCard's ''{{Literature/PastwatchTheRedemptionOfChristopherColumbus}}''. [[spoiler: A group of time travellers hail from a world where Europeans did not find America in the 15th century, and a ModernMayincatecEmpire later conquered Europe in a horrific, genocidal war. They travel back in time to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong by inspiring Christopher Columbus to discover the Americas... and end up giving rise to our world, in which the Spanish were the ones who conquered and enslaved the Mesoamerican peoples.]] The trope is later averted when [[spoiler: the protagonists themselves also travel back in time to avert the disaster - but this time ''much more carefully''.]]

* Implied to have happened, albeit not in a specifically Nazi context, in Creator/OrsonScottCard's ''{{Literature/Pastwatch}}''. [[spoiler: A group of time travellers hail from a world where Europeans did not find America in the 15th century, and a ModernMayincatecEmpire later conquered Europe in a horrific, genocidal war. They travel back in time to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong by inspiring Christopher Columbus to discover the Americas... and end up giving rise to our world, in which the Spanish were the ones who conquered and enslaved the Mesoamerican peoples.]] The trope is later averted when [[spoiler: the protagonists themselves also travel back in time to avert the disaster - but this time ''much more carefully''.]]

* Implied to have happened, albeit not in a specifically Nazi context, in Creator/OrsonScottCard's ''Literature/Pastwatch''. [[spoiler: A group of time travellers hail from a world where Europeans did not find America in the 15th century, and a ModernMayincatecEmpire later conquered Europe in a horrific, genocidal war. They travel back in time to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong by inspiring Christopher Columbus to discover the Americas... and end up giving rise to our world, in which the Spanish were the ones who conquered and enslaved the Mesoamerican peoples.]] The trope is later averted when [[spoiler: the protagonists themselves also travel back in time to avert the disaster - but this time ''much more carefully''.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "All the Presidents’ Heads" the team travels back in times of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution to get rid of Professor Farnsworth's dishonorable ancestor. Fry accidentally screws Paul Revere's Ride by borrowing a lamp from church. When the team returns, they find that the British won the war (complete with ''Rule, Britannia!'' revamped in style of series' main theme playing on the background).

* Towards the end of one episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'', "The Countdown", Gumball and Darwin end up creating AlternateTimeline after Alternate Timeline. One of those timelines has the population of Elmore [[GratuitousGerman speaking German]] while looking very angry, implying that [[ButterflyOfDoom some of Gumball and Darwin's actions]] led to a Nazi victory in the war.
* In the ''WetsernAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Back to the Past" Spongebob and Patrick go back to the past with Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy's time machine. They find the past younger version of the heroes fighting Man Ray for the first time. Just as they are about to entrap him in a giant barrel of tartar sauce, they find that Patrick has eaten the whole barrel. This leaves Man Ray able to defeat them. Returning to the present, Spongebob & Patrick find that Bikini Bottom has now become a dystopian monarchy ruled by Man Ray. The two must now go back to the past again and stop Patrick from eating the tartar sauce and destroying the future.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/FairlyOddparents'' episode "Father Time" Timmy accidentally destroys his dad's prize trophy, one he had won in the past in a school race. Timmy feels the best way to help his dad out is change the past so he never won the trophy. After time travelling back and achieving his goal, he returns to the present only to find that he has changed the course of his dad's life. He never married Timmy's mom and became dictator of the world, and Timmy technically doesn't exist. Timmy decides to go back in time again so he can make his dad win the trophy.
** In fact, the Fairly Oddparents loves playing with this story. In "The Secret Origin of Denzel Crocker" Timmy goes back in time to Mr. Crocker's childhood to find why he has become the insane, miserable, fairy-obsessed person he is. Through a sequence of events Timmy winds up being the one that caused Crocker to turn into what he is.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'' when he half-accidentally ''prevents'' the Pearl Harbor attack, and thus presumably the United States's entry into World War II. Concerned about how the present may have changed, he returns to find things like Rush Limbaugh collecting money to help the poor, a complete lack of Chevy Chase movies, working cold fusion and Sharon Stone now being a Shakespearean actress. He congratulates himself on having made the world a better place. The part he didn't see? [[spoiler: [[WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain The Brain]] [[CrossoverPunchline is now president]]]], but one may debate on whether that's truly a downside.

* Subverted in ''Literature/{{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. Tobias wants to kill him anyway, but Cassie insists that they can't kill him just because he's Hitler since he hasn't actually done anything in this reality. But Tobias "accidentally" kills him a few minutes later anyway.
** While it may be true that the actual Nazis didn't win, we still start off in an alternate-timeline-present that has America (including the Animorphs) in a very nazi-like state, where everyone's racist and whatnot.

* In order to make his favourite magazine legal, the Hippy from Hell in ''[[Literature/BillTheGalacticHero Bill the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Ten Thousand Bars]]'' winds up changing history so that it's the Third Reich that spreads through the galaxy rather than Bill's own galactic empire.
* In Creator/DeanKoontz's ''Lightning'', the Nazis themselves attempt this. They built a time machine and traveled into the 1980s to learn how they will lose the war, as well as arm themselves with some modern weapons.
* The book ''Literature/MakingHistory'' 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.

* The Creator/ConnieWillis novel ''Literature/ToSayNothingOfTheDog'', in which the disappearance of an obscure item of Victoriana in an English cathedral leads to the Nazis winning [=WW2=].
** In the setting of Connie Willis's time travel stories, the danger of Nazis winning World War II is catastrophic, because in the backstory, the inventor of time travel was a descendant of Holocaust survivors, which would mean time travel would never exist in the first place. In ''Literature/{{Blackout}}''/''All Clear'', the protagonists spend a lot of time worrying that [[ForWantOfANail whatever little thing they do]] will make the Nazis win.
* ''Warlords of Utopia'' by Lance Parkin, a novel in the Literature/FactionParadox universe, has all the Alternate Universes where Hitler won declared war on all the Alternate Universes where ancient Rome never fell.

* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in ''Literature/TimeRiders'', Paul Kramer intentionally changes history to ensure that Germany wins [=WW2=] because he believes that this will prevent the BadFuture that he grew up in. Unfortunately, he goes insane fifteen years into his reign as the new ruler of Germany and sets off a doomsday device, resulting in TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Thankfully, this is fixed by the end of the book.
* Played with in ''Living Space'', a short story by Creator/IsaacAsimov. Thousands of years in the future, mankind has expanded into an infinity of parallel universes, and one day someone accidentally encounters Germans from a world where Hitler won doing the same. (The title, "Living Space", is a translation of "Lebensraum"). Fortunately, the Germans have also had thousands of years of history since the Nazis and are now quite reasonable, and the two worlds agree to stay out of each other's way.

* Spike.TV produced a tv special called ''Alternate History'', talking about Nazi America in a realistic light and how it could have happened. It shows that Hitler could have made certain decisions or invented certain technologies [like nuclear weapons] that would have defeated the USA. The USA, now Nazi America, is similar to the US of today except under totalitarian rule and all non-white Americans are slaves or racially targeted to the point that many Americans ironically want to move to Mexico [instead of today where it's vice versa]. The lack of liberty and large non-white populations of America causes a civil war where the American people become "terrorists" against the government.
* 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 his changes ended up leading to a Nazi victory.

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. Even if they won, if you are Continentalist-historian then you'll argue that Hitler ''never'' plotted to TakeOverTheWorld and just wanted to re-establish a German superstate dominating Europe, so the United States and many other countries probably wouldn't have been flying the Swastika. And even in Europe, chances are Nazi Germany would eventualy dissolve itself just like Soviet Union did.

* [[http://www.exiern.com/?page_id=1195/ This comic]] was created by when the author of ''{{Exiern}}'' read this Wiki/TVTropes page.

* The ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "The Best Christmas Story Never Told" features a UsefulNotes/{{Soviet|RussiaUkraineAndSoOn}} variant. After traveling back in time to [[TheSeventies 1970s]] Hollywood, Stan meets a young Creator/MartinScorsese and ends up convincing him to to quit drugs. In effect, Scorsese never makes ''Film/TaxiDriver''. Without ''Taxi Driver,'' John Hinckley Jr. never becomes obsessed with Creator/JodieFoster and thus never tries to assassinate UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan in order to impress her. Without the sympathy vote that would've occurred as a result of the assassination attempt, Reagan loses re-election to Walter Mondale, who hands over control of the country to the Soviet Union. Everything gets reset to a CloseEnoughTimeline at the end of the episode, though.

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. Even if they won, if you are Continentalist-historian then you'll argue that Hitler ''never'' plotted to TakeOverTheWorld and just wanted to re-establish a German superstate dominating Europe, so the United States and many other countries probably wouldn't have been flying the Swastika. And even in Europe, chances are Nazi Germany would eventualy dissolve itslelf just like Soviet Union did.

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. Even if they won, if you are Continentalist-historian then you'll argue that Hitler ''never'' plotted to TakeOverTheWorld and just wanted to re-establish a German superstate dominating Europe, so the United States and many other countries probably wouldn't have been flying the Swastika. And even in Europe, chances are that Nazi Germany would eventualy just dissolve itslelf just like Soviet Union did.

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. Even if they won, if you are Continentalist-historian then you'll argue that Hitler ''never'' plotted to TakeOverTheWorld and just wanted to re-establish a German superstate dominating Europe, so the United States and many other countries probably wouldn't have been flying the Swastika.