History Main / HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct

* "The Einstein Gun" is set in a world where Franz Ferdinand is never assassinated, because [[ForWantOfANail Gavrilo Princip's gun jams]]. World War I never happens, the old continental empires stand, Communism remains a mere fringe political theory, the USA stays isolationist and France becomes the West's beacon of democracy and freedom. Hitler remains in Vienna, where he [[InSpiteOfANail founds an equivalent to the Nazi Party]] and becomes Chancellor of Austria, where he institutes the same antisemitic and anti-Slav agenda as in reality, with the explicit support of Emperor Franz Ferdinand. The story ends with the Jewish-Austrian narrator and UsefulNotes/AlbertEinstein using an experimental time machine to send the eponymous gun back in time to the day of the assassination, hoping Ferdinand's death will derail Hitler's rise to power. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Oops.]]

* Discussed in [[http://www.reallifecomics.com/comic.php?comic=title-2838 this]] ''Webcomic/RealLifeComics''; Greg wants to go back in time and change something trivial (Las Vegas choosing to build a giant TV instead of a life-size [[Franchise/StarTrek U.S.S. Enterprise]]) and Tony points out all the [[ForWantOfANail cause-and-effect]] even a twenty-year change would cause before adding "Why do you think I haven't gone back to the mid-1930's and killed Hitler before World War II started?"

* ''Series/StudioC'' has one sketch where [[Franchise/BackToTheFuture Doc Brown]], Film/BillAndTed, [[Series/DoctorWho The Doctor]], [[Literature/HarryPotter Hermione Granger]], and [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Spock]] all show up at the same time and place to try to kill Hitler. (Well, except for [[spoiler: The Doctor,]] who is just there to [[spoiler: serve Bill and Ted with papers for copyright infringement.]]) In the end, [[spoiler: Hermione kills him, then hitches a ride with Bill and Ted back to her own time, because the Time Turner only travels backward and she doesn't want to take TheSlowPath home.]]

* In the 11th issue of ''ComicBook/SquadronSupreme'', Spider-Man finds out that the Squadron need Reed Richards' time machine for their goals and asks what they intend to use the time machine to accomplish.

--->''Take it easy on the kid, [=SilverFox316=]; everybody kills Hitler on their first trip.''

* Invoked in the AlternateHistory timeline ''[[Literature/WebersGermanyTheVeterinarianTotalitarian Weber's Germany]]''; Paul Driscoll from the ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS4E112NoTimeLikeThePast No Time Like the Past]]" manages to ''shoot'' Hitler during the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, but that just leads Friedrich Weber, otherwise a historical nobody, to seize control of the Nazi Party, then Germany, radically changing the course of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. According to WordOfGod, this led to the passage of a law banning attempts to change history through time travel.

* [[https://youtu.be/dq0irgJJCOA This time machine tale]] takes a moment from stealing cereal through time and creating paradoxes to explain why it won't work.

* [[http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/commentary/alttext/2007/02/72711 Why the grandfathers?]] asks Creator/LoreSjoberg in this short story.
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trcLKX1Yw34 This]] parody 'ad' for Mercedes shows a car stopping automatically when two kids are playing in the road, but then mowing down child-Hitler, as the car "recognizes dangers before they arise".

* Dean Burnett, writing for ''[[UsefulNotes/BritishNewspapers The Guardian]]'', argues against assassinating Hitler [[http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/feb/21/time-travellers-kill-adolf-hitler?CMP=fb_gu here]], on the basis that it's impossible to know whether doing so would make things worse (amongst other things).
* ''The Washington Post'' article "[[https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2015/10/23/you-should-not-kill-baby-hitler-try-this-instead/ You should not kill Baby Hitler. Try this instead"]] recognizes the futility of killing Baby Hitler and instead proposes that kidnapping Hitler as a child and raising him in Britain would be best.

* In Creator/RoosterTeeth's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsVuSVUzZrw Macrowave Time Machine]] short, Chris invents the time machine by putting a microwave inside a bigger microwave and turning them both on. The first time he uses it, he goes back in time to kill Hitler, and every other time he goes back again to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong fix what he screwed up the last time he went]], each time making things worse in the present.

* In the WebVideo/GloveAndBoots video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75nBenOWul0 10 Reasons Why Time Travel is No Good]], the concept of going back in time and killing Hitler is mentioned. However, it theorizes that doing so could create an alternate reality with [[EverythingsDeaderWithZombies zombie Hitler]] or a universe with [[InsaneTrollLogic 20 Hitlers]].

* ''Series/StudioC'' has one sketch where [[Franchise/BackToTheFuture Doc Brown]], Film/BillAndTed, [[Series/DoctorWho The Doctor]], [[Literature/HarryPotter Hermione Granger]], and [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Spock]] all show up at the same time and place to try to kill Hitler. (Well, except for [[spoiler: The Doctor,]] who is just there to [[spoiler: serve Bill and Ted with papers for copyright infringement.]]) In the end, [[spoiler: Hermione kills him, then hitches a ride with Bill and Ted back to her own time, because the Time Turner only travels backward and she doesn't want to take TheSlowPath home.]]
* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbtclliJY2k this Cracked video]], time-traveling assassins fail because they pick the wrong date, arriving during the siege of Berlin (the day Hitler would have killed himself anyway). And they ''almost'' (but not quite) help him survive.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S75Rfva9O8&feature=player_embedded This parody PSA]] is an inversion, with a time-traveling Hitler narrowly avoiding getting hit by a car.
* Parodied in ''WebVideo/HardlyWorking'''s [[http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6834347/hardly-working-killing-hitler Killing Hitler]]. The first time they try it, the adult Hitler beats up the time traveller. The second time he does it again, but as an adolescent. The third time traveller attacks him with a rifle when he's a small child. However, Hitler steals it, and then forces the traveller to tell him how to make an atomic bomb. And then kid Hitler travels through the portal into the future. And to add insult to injury, he renamed the city of Berlin [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Owen Sux]].
* Averted in [[http://vimeo.com/47489262 Punching Hitler]]; although they don't kill him, they [[spoiler:punch him repeatedly, causing him to change the direction of his life repeatedly in the end and presumably averting the Holocaust.]]

* Averted in ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' The Shisno Paradox, where Tucker and Sister offhandedly mention they shot Hitler during an argument. Though it's not quite clear if they killed Hitler before his rise to power, or shot him while he was in his bunker during the last days of the Reich.
* ''WebAnimation/{{Ducktalez}}'': Dewey attempts to avert this as soon as he gets time travel powers in episode five, but ultimately is forced to play it straight, even ending up saving Hitler himself.

[[folder:Toys]]
* ''ComicBook/BeastWarsUprising:'' One of the major nails in the backstory is that, during a version of the events of ''Beast Wars'', Beast War's Megatron managed to get away with shooting Optimus Prime in the head, but before she could vanish from existence, Blackarachnia managed to fatally poison G1 Megatron in return. The result was that without Megatron, the Autobot / Decepticon war proved far more destructive to Earth, and just in general.
[[/folder]]

* The short play [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GBccHlQHMks If You Could Go Back...]] presents the scenario where the scientist that created the machine has to send her layabout roommate to stop the assassin she herself sent multiple times, as in each iteration they try and assassinate Hitler earlier and earlier in his career, and each version only makes things worse. At the ending, the scientist [[spoiler: goes back to Hitler's childhood and talks to him and hugs him - changing his nature rather than adding violence to a violent world.]] Not that that changes the end result - a new dictator arises and does the exact same thing.
* There is a 1966 Swedish play, ''Å, vilken härlig fred!'', about war, democracy, and civil rights that touches on this. One scene is in an alternate history where Nazi Germany won [=WWII=] and... not very much seems different. A movie poster announces the latest 007 film -- 007 Gert Fröbe, that is -- and the latest teenage fad is rück und rüll music, but otherwise the actors read the actual newspaper of the day and discuss current events that the audience would be familiar with. But: when one of the actors complains about Hitler getting the Nobel Prize ("a fat geezer who spends his time at the Riviera wrapped in a blanket making bad paintings") a member of the audience fetches some policemen who drag the actor off stage.

Unfortunately, even in the land of fiction, this is not an easy task. For one, Hitler survived ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassination_attempts_on_Adolf_Hitler at least 42 real-life assassination attempts]]'' thanks to his various [[PraetorianGuard bodyguards]] and [[StateSec security forces]]-- maybe one of them was ([[TimeTravelTenseTrouble or will have been]]) yours! Targeting him before his rise to power will often turn out to be ludicrously difficult as well-- locating a lone, disillusioned war veteran wandering around post-WWI Europe is one hell of a [[NeedleInAStackOfNeedles needle-in-a-haystack]] search.

In short, it appears to be a cosmic law that ''something'' bad has to go down in the period of 1933--1945, and Hitler's premature death is either impossible or will make things worse. For narrative purposes, consider the AnthropicPrinciple: who would read a story in which someone tries to change history for the better, [[TheUntwist succeeds]], and creates a stable utopian timeline that isn't infested with ClockRoaches? After they've killed off Hitler, what would the author do with the rest of the book?

Interestingly, it seems that neither [[UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt FDR]] nor [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill Churchill]] (or even [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Stalin]] while allied with them) have this immunity, because stories come up all the time about heroes having to stop a time-travelling neo-Nazi from [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight sabotaging the Allies]]-- villains simply wouldn't care about any of the possible consequences.

* Parodied to the point of self-awareness in [[https://i.redd.it/hdf62viv1zv41.jpg an issue]] of ''ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}'', where Hitler is getting used to beating down time travellers - and then he decides to [[StupidJetpackHitler hijack the time-travelling device]] and go after ComicBook/NickFury. He ''[[http://www.funnyjunk.com/Deadpool+vs+Hitler/funny-pictures/5072129 is]]'' [[FictionalizedDeathAccount killed outside his timeline]] by Fury, Deadpool and ComicBook/{{Cable}}, but the body is brought back to 1945 to keep history flowing.

-->'''Midnighter''': ''...it was just this pathetic little man going off to meet his ultimately quite '''mundane''' fate...''\\
'''Timecop''': ''It's '''always''' some pathetic little man. I seen ninety percent of the greatest scumbags in history up close, an' I can tell you: [[UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan Khan]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Cambodia}} Pol Pot]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Caligula}} Caligula]], [[UsefulNotes/TheSpanishInquisition Torquemada]], whoever, you look at any one of these worms an' you wonder how people didn't spot 'em a mile off. But they always end up on top anyhow, somehow...''\\
'''Midnighter''': ''Because people want them there. Adolf got elected, let's not forget.''\\
'''Timecop''': ''True, Dave. [[HumansAreBastards People suck]]. [[TheDungAges The past sucks]]. But [[TheAntiNihilist that ain't no excuse for not trynna change the future]].''

* One ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'' ''Time Twisters'' (Basically a ''[[ComicBook/ThargsFutureShocks Future Shock]]'' involving time travel) had Allied assassins go back to Hitler's birth to assassinate him. Hitler uses MentalTimeTravel to take control of his own infant self and kill the assassins, saving his own life in several different alternate realities. However, it comes back to bite him in the ass when his baby self's personality takes him over, leading him to make increasingly idiotic decisions and leads to his eventual suicide.

* In ''Harley's Little Black Book'', ''ComicBook/HarleyQuinn'' has lots of fun beating up Hitler to a bloody pulp, all the while giving him a [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech The Reason You Suck Speech]], as a result of which his car crashes, and yet somehow he survives. Later, though, this is subverted as Harley is so annoying that she [[DrivenToSuicide drives Hitler to shoot himself]]. This is likely a [[StableTimeLoop stable time loop]], though.

* ''Film/Timecop2TheBerlinDecision'': In the opening the protagonist has to stop the [[WellIntentionedExtremist well-intentioned but extremist villain]] from assassinating Hitler at a concert precisely because of the possibility of unforeseen consequences.

* ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheDialOfDestiny'': The titular dial (aka Antikythera) is an ancient artifact that can take anyone through a time fissure and with the right calculations, could send anyone back in time and alter history. Naturally, someone wants to use it to go back to 1939 and kill Hitler before he can invade Poland, but the twist in the plot is that [[spoiler:it's the surviving Nazis, led by [[BigBad Jürgen Voller]], who want to kill Hitler because they blame [[GeneralFailure him]] for Nazi Germany losing World War II, and seek to [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight replace him with a more competent Führer]]. Luckily, it turns out that the Dial of Destiny is fixed to send time travelers to 212-213 BC, during the Siege of Syracuse, and operates on a StableTimeLoop, meaning that [[YouAlreadyChangedThePast Voller's plan was doomed from the start]].]]

* Creator/DesmondWarzel's short story [[http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/08/wikihistory "Wikihistory"]] is basically a time traveler's message board discussion about the importance of not killing Hitler: it turns out World War II and the Third Reich are vitally important to the invention of time travel and the foundation of the TimePolice. Noobs who didn't read the rules keep going back in time to kill Hitler anyway, and an increasingly angry moderator has to clean up after them.
-->''Take it easy on the kid, [=SilverFox316=]; everybody kills Hitler on their first trip.''

* Desmond Warzel's short story [[http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/08/wikihistory "Wikihistory"]] is basically a time traveler's message board discussion about the importance of not killing Hitler: it turns out World War II and the Third Reich are vitally important to the invention of time travel and the foundation of the TimePolice. Noobs who didn't read the rules keep going back in time to kill Hitler anyway, and an increasingly angry moderator has to clean up after them.

* The ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' films after the second (plus ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'') shows that trying to prevent Skynet from existing will never work - [[StableTimeLoop after all, the time-travelling killer robots must come from somewhere]].

* On a closely related note, an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'' involves the clownish hero traveling back in time and, almost accidentally, preventing the attack on Pearl Harbor. Realizing what he's done, he wonders what his own time will be like now. ''"What hath Freak wrought?!"'' he wonders aloud. He returns home to find that... [[AntiClimax everything is exactly the same,]] except that Creator/SharonStone is now a [[ShakespearianActors Shakespearian actress,]] there are no Creator/ChevyChase movies, and Creator/RushLimbaugh is standing on a street corner collecting charity donations for the poor. He decides these are good changes.

* CommanderBadass of ''Webcomic/ManlyGuysDoingManlyThings'' is a member of the Navy TIALS, an elite group of time traveling soldiers from the future who go to right wrongs in history. While Hitler himself is mostly left alone (aside from getting a punch in the face), the Vietnam War is presented in this context: the Commander went to that time period twice, once to win the war for America, and a second time to stop himself cause winning the war caused the ''Franchise/{{Rambo}}'' movies to never exist, and that's just too bizarre a world to contemplate.

** This trope is discussed in ''Series/StarTrekStrangeNewWorlds'' in concerns with [[spoiler:Khan Noonian-Singh]] as he is so important to humanity’s historical path than getting rid of him would bring about a BadFuture, no matter how benign or malicious.

If you were given the power to [[TimeTravel travel through time]] and SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, how would you improve the world? For many, the answer is obvious: '''kill UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler'''. This would [[PreventTheWar prevent]] the atrocities of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust, and their myriad side-effects... right?

Unfortunately, even in the land of fiction, this is not an easy task. For one, Hitler survived ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassination_attempts_on_Adolf_Hitler at least 42 real-life assassination attempts]]'' thanks to his various [[PraetorianGuard bodyguards]] and [[StateSec security forces]] -- maybe one of them was ([[TimeTravelTenseTrouble or will have been]]) yours! Targetting him before his rise to power will often turn out to be ludicrously difficult as well-- locating a lone, disillusioned war veteran wandering around post-WWI Europe is one hell of a [[NeedleInAStackOfNeedles needle-in-a-haystack]] search.

Secondly, even if you do manage to kill him, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero something as bad or worse might appear in his place]]: maybe an even worse dictator takes over and actually wins, or maybe [[DirtyCommies the Soviet Union]] starts the war instead. Maybe UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan never goes to war with Europe or the States and manages to [[JapanTakesOverTheWorld create its own nightmarish superpower]]. Maybe if there was no horrific slaughter of "undesirables" that took place under Hitler's leadership, the rest of the world wouldn't have experienced the sort of collective shock upon discovery of the Holocaust that spurred them into beginning the process of purging racist and fascist elements from their own lands. Maybe Hitler's death will cause some kind of paradox, from [[GrandfatherParadox retroactively erasing lives in the present]] to [[ApocalypseHow destroying the universe itself]].

In short, it appears to be a cosmic law that ''something'' bad has to go down in the period of 1933--1945, and Hitler's premature death is either impossible or will make things worse. For narrative purposes, consider the AnthropicPrinciple: who would read a story in which someone tries to change history for the better, [[TheUntwist succeeds]], and creates a stable utopian timeline that isn't infested with ClockRoaches? After they've killed Hitler, what would the author do with the rest of the book?

Ironically, it would seem that neither [[UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt FDR]] nor [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill Churchill]] (or even [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Stalin]] while allied with them) has this immunity, because stories come up all the time about heroes having to stop a neo-Nazi from [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight sabotaging the Allies with time travel]]-- villains simply wouldn't care about any of the possible consequences.

Compare JokerImmunity and GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel. This is a sub-trope of PrecrimeArrest, which is about ''anyone'' being punished for crimes that they've already committed from the perspective of the time-traveler. This is one case where attempts to PreventTheWar are ultimately counterproductive.

See [[Analysis/HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct the Analysis page]] for musings on how this trope might have worked in RealLife had Hitler actually died prematurely.

** The mini-series ''True Friends'', has Kitty Pryde and Rachel Summers accidentally travelling to the late 1930s. Kitty, who is Jewish and learned about the Holocaust from her grandfather, himself a camp survivor, decides to assassinate Hitler and most of his staff, until she is forced to choose between changing history and saving Rachel from the Shadow King.

* In the first story arc of ''Midnighter'''s solo series, he is sent back in time to kill Hitler in the trenches of World War One, only to be stopped by the TimePolice. Yeah, Creator/GarthEnnis isn't known for his subtlety. He can be damned insightful even with his dick jokes, though; In the penultimate chapter, Midnighter actually gets his chance to make the hit - on the night Hitler would commit suicide. Cue epiphany;

* In series 3 of ''Series/{{Misfits}}'' [[spoiler: an old Jewish man who's bought Curtis' power]] attempts to travel in time and kill Hitler. Not only does he fail, he accidentally drops his smartphone, which Hitler finds and [[TimelineAlteringMacGuffin uses to advance Nazi technology by decades]]. When the guy gets back to 2011, he finds a world where Nazi Germany won the war and now rules Britain. [[spoiler: So Kelly gets given the time-travel power and uses it to go back and take the phone off Hitler. And then chin him. And ask him why he's "such a fookin' dick". And then "kick the shit out of him".]]

** [[http://www.viruscomix.com/page493.html In this comic]], a sign on the time machine warns explicitly that “Booth is not to be used to kill Hitler”.[[note]]No, not John Wilkes Booth, although that WOULD be interesting...[[/note]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/MikeTysonMysteries'', [[TheAtoner the reformed]] Mike Tyson swore he would never use his fists for destruction except for two people: The "grandmaster" of the Klu Klux Klan, and Adolf Hitler. [[ChekhovsGun This last one ends up being used by Pigeon]] to trick Mike [[ItMakesSenseInContext into freeing the brain of Bobby Fisher, which was put inside Deep Blue by the android CEO of IBM]]. Fortunately for Mike, he later manages to accomplish his dream of killing Hitler when Marquess takes them back in time to 1889 to apologize to his son and Creator/OscarWilde, and they happen across Klara Hitler who asks them to watch her baby. Unfortunately, when they return to the present, they see that without Hitler the Jews [[TakeOverTheWorld took over the world]]. Mike doesn't seem to mind too much, however.

* There is a 1966 Swedish play, ''Å, vilken härlig fred!'', about war, democracy, and civil rights that touches on this. One scene is in an alternate history where Nazi Germany won [=WWII=] and... not very much seems different. A movie poster announces the latest 007 film -- 007 Gert Fröbe, that is -- and the latest teenage fad is rück und rüll music, but otherwise the actors read the actual newspaper of the day and discuss current events that the audience would be familiar with. But: when one of the actors complains about Hitler getting the Nobel Prize ("a fat geezer who spends his time at the Riviera wrapped in a blanket making bad paintings") a member of the audience gets some uniformed policemen who drag the actor off stage.

* [[https://youtu.be/1iopv4BsMD4 This]] ad for Mercedes has Hitler being run over by a car as a child, as the car "detects dangers before they come up". Not surprisingly, the ad was rejected.
* Referenced in RealLife when the Austrian town where Hitler was born was captured by the Allies. Among the residents who spoke up at a meeting where the townsfolk decided to surrender without a fight was the elderly midwife who'd aided in Hitler's birth. She pointed out that their town would ''already'' suffer a black mark throughout history, in part because she ''hadn't'' strangled him as a newborn; as much as she wished she'd done so, the shames of the past couldn't be changed, and putting up a futile resistance now would only reinforce that stain.

If you were given the power to [[TimeTravel travel through time]] and SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, what would you do to improve the world? For many, the answer is obvious: '''kill UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler'''. This would [[PreventTheWar prevent]] the atrocities of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust, and their myriad side-effects... right?

Secondly, even if you do manage to kill him, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero something as bad or worse might appear in his place]]: maybe an even worse dictator takes over and actually wins, or maybe [[DirtyCommies the Soviet Union]] starts the war instead. Maybe if there was no nightmarish slaughter of "undesirables" that took place under his leadership, the rest of the world wouldn't have experienced the sort of collective shock upon discovery of the Holocaust that spurred them into beginning the process of purging racist and fascist elements from their own lands. Maybe Hitler's death will cause some kind of paradox, from [[GrandfatherParadox retroactively erasing lives in the present]] to [[ApocalypseHow completely destroying the universe itself]].

In short, it appears to be a cosmic law that ''something'' bad has to go down in the period between 1933 and 1945, and it's almost never the intended goal of "kill Hitler". For narrative purposes, consider the AnthropicPrinciple: who would read a story in which someone tries to change history for the better, [[TheUntwist succeeds]], and creates a stable utopian timeline that isn't infested with ClockRoaches? After they've killed Hitler, what would the author do with the rest of the book?

** This exchange actually foreshadows an important event later in the season. [[spoiler:Sayid, having unwittingly gone back in time to the days of the Dharma Initiative, tries to kill Ben as a child, knowing that he will basically grow up to cause much death and suffering, essentially becoming the "Hitler" of the island. It doesn't take, and it's hinted that Sayid's actions might have even been what pushed Ben over to the dark side in the first place.]]
* In ''Series/TheMagicians'' a group of students from the 70s or earlier wrote a thesis on going back in time to kill Hitler, even building a time machine to World War II. They failed to account for the fact that Hitler was a skilled battle magician and were killed.
* In series 3 of ''Series/{{Misfits}}'' [[spoiler: an old Jewish man who's bought Curtis' power]] attempts to travel in time and kill Hitler. Not only does he fail, he accidentally drops his smartphone, which Hitler finds and [[GivingRadioToTheRomans uses to advance Nazi technology by decades]]. When the guy gets back to 2011, he finds a world where Nazi Germany won the war and now rules Britain. [[spoiler: So Kelly gets given the time-travel power and uses it to go back and take the phone off Hitler. And then chin him. And ask him why he's "such a fookin' dick". And then "kick the shit out of him".]]

If you were given the power to [[TimeTravel travel through time]] and SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, what would you do to prevent the atrocities of the past? For many, the answer is obvious: '''kill UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler'''. This would [[PreventTheWar prevent]] UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust, and their myriad side-effects... right?

Unfortunately, even in the land of fiction, this isn't easy to pull off. For one, Hitler survived about ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassination_attempts_on_Adolf_Hitler 42 (known) real life assassination attempts]]'' thanks to his various [[PraetorianGuard bodyguards]] and [[StateSec security forces]] -- maybe one of them was ([[TimeTravelTenseTrouble or will have been]]) yours! Trying to target him before his rise to power will often turn out to be ludicrously difficult as well. Locating a lone, disillusioned war veteran wandering around post-WWI Europe is one hell of a [[NeedleInAStackOfNeedles needle-in-a-haystack]] search.

Ironically, it would seem that neither [[UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt FDR]] nor [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill Churchill]] (or even [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Stalin]] while allied with them) has this immunity, because stories come up all the time about heroes having to stop a Neo-Nazi from [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight sabotaging the Allies with time travel]] -- villains simply wouldn't care about any of the stated consequences.

* In the ''Manga/{{Devilman}}'' story "Late Spring in Vienna", Akira and Ryo end up in Austria in the 1920 to "kill a demon...". A real one, turned into a Count. He has decided to buy a portrait of his wife Sophie, painted by a poor painter that has no choice - he would have preferred to keep it because he loves Sophie. A Jewish art dealer makes the arrangement, but the same evening Sophie dies, burnt by her demon husband. Akira and Ryo kill the lord demon and then come back to their time, hoping that history is in good shape after what they did. Then, back in the 20s, the painter is furious after Sophie's death, and places the blame on his dealer: "I hate you, I'll spend my entire life to destroy you and your whole race!" and the art dealer starts to run after him: "Hey, what are you saying? Where are you going like that? Adolf? UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler!"

* In series 3 of ''Series/{{Misfits}}'' [[spoiler: an old Jewish man who's bought Curtis' power]] attempts to travel in time and kill Hitler. Not only does he fail, he accidentally drops his smartphone, Hitler finds it and [[ETGaveUsWifi uses it to advance Nazi technology by decades]]. When the guy gets back to 2011, he has created a world where Nazi Germany won the war and now rules Britain. [[spoiler: So Kelly gets given the time-travel power and uses it to go back and take the phone off Hitler. And then chin him. And ask him why he's "such a fookin' dick". And then "kick the shit out of him".]]

* Non-Hitler example in ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'': The vampire Kain, while leading [[LastStand a losing battle]] against the army of the brutal tyrant Nemesis travels back in time. There he murders Nemesis's past self, the boy-king William the Just, [[FaceHeelTurn before he turns evil and unstoppable]]. When he returns to his time, he finds the vampire race almost wiped out by [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge crusaders avenging their beloved king]]. It turns out Kain was set up by [[TheChessmaster Moebius]], who arranged both the time travel, William's turn to evil, and the subsequent crusades.

* One recurring joke in John and Hank Green's Brotherhood 2.0 videos is the Evil Baby Orphanage, a project suggested by a fan in the midst of a conflict over whether killing Baby Hitler was ethical: instead of killing him, kidnap and raise him in a hidden mountain orphanage with other kidnapped historical despots.

* ''The Washington Post'' article "[[https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2015/10/23/you-should-not-kill-baby-hitler-try-this-instead/ You should not kill Baby Hitler. Try this instead".]] recognizes the futility of killing Baby Hitler and instead proposes that kidnapping Hitler as a child and raising him in Britain would be best.

->''"If you time-travel into the past and then try to kill [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Hitler]], it won't work as intended. It may even backfire."''

If you were given the power to [[TimeTravel travel through time]] and SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong, what would you do to prevent the atrocities of the past? For many, the answer is obvious: '''kill UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler'''. This [[PreventTheWar would prevent]] UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust, and their myriad side-effects... right?

Unfortunately, even in the land of fiction, this isn't easy to pull off. For one, Hitler survived about ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassination_attempts_on_Adolf_Hitler 42 (known) real life assassination attempts]]'' thanks to the protection of his various [[PraetorianGuard bodyguards]] and [[StateSec security forces]] -- maybe one of them was ([[TimeTravelTenseTrouble or will have been]]) yours! Trying to circumvent these by targeting him before his rise to power begins will usually turn out to be ludicrously difficult as well. Locating a lone, disillusioned war veteran wandering around post-WWI Europe is perhaps the ultimate [[NeedleInAStackOfNeedles needle-in-a-haystack]] search.

Secondly, even if you do manage to kill him, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero something as bad or worse might appear in his place]]: maybe an even worse dictator takes over and actually wins, or maybe [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn the Soviet Union]] starts the war instead. Maybe if one erases Hitler's nightmarish slaughter of "undesirables" that took place under his leadership, the rest of the world wouldn't have experienced the sort of collective shock upon discovery of the Holocaust that spurred them into beginning the process of purging racist and fascist elements from their own nations and colonies. Maybe doing so will cause some kind of paradox, from [[GrandfatherParadox retroactively erasing lives in the present]] to [[ApocalypseHow completely destroying the universe itself]].

Ironically, it would seem that neither [[UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt FDR]] nor [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill Churchill]] (or even [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Stalin]], when allied with them) has this immunity, because stories come up all the time about heroes having to undo a mad would-be Nazi's [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight altering the outcome of World War II using time travel]] -- villains simply wouldn't care about any of the stated consequences.

* In series 3 of ''Series/{{Misfits}}'' [[spoiler: an old Jewish man who's bought Curtis' power]] attempts to travel in time and kill Hitler. He accidentally drops his 2011 phone, Hitler finds it and Nazi tech leaps forward sixty years in an instant. When he gets back to 2011, he has created a world where Nazi Germany won the war and now rule Britain.
** [[spoiler: So Kelly gets given the time-travel power and uses it to go back and take the phone off Hitler. And then chin him. And ask him why he's "such a fookin' dick". And then "kick the shit out of him".]]

* [[http://www.artc.org Atlanta Radio Theatre Company]], who do audio dramas in the vein of old-fashioned RadioDrama, has a story called ''The Assassins'', where the time traveler trying to halt UsefulNotes/WorldWarII goes back in time to assassinate a six-year-old boy to prevent the formation of Nazi Germany. The catch? Hitler was the guy who eventually ''replaced'' the dictator-to-be that was assassinated by the time traveler.
* One recurring joke in John and Hank Green's Brotherhood 2.0 videos is the Evil Baby Orphanage, a project suggested by a fan in the midst of a conflict over whether killing Baby Hitler was ethical: instead of killing him, kidnap and bring him to a mountain retreat with other kidnapped historical despots.

* There is a 1966 Swedish play, ''Å, vilken härlig fred!'', about war, democracy, and civil rights that touches on this. One scene is in an alternate history where Nazi Germany won [=WWII=] and... not very much seems different. A movie poster announces the latest 007 film -- 007 Gert Fröbe, that is -- and the latest teenage fad is rück und rüll music, but otherwise the actors read the actual newspaper of the day and discuss current events that the audience would be familiar with. But: when one of the actors complain about Hitler getting the Nobel Prize ("a fat geezer who spends his time at the Riviera wrapped in a blanket making bad paintings") a member of the audience leaves to come back later with some uniformed policemen who drag the actor off stage.

Besides, [[GodwinsLaw you know who]] ''[[GodwinsLaw else]]'' [[GodwinsLaw killed Hitler]]? '''''[[DrivenToSuicide Hitler]].''''' And [[HitlerAteSugar you don't want to be like Hitler]], ''do'' you?

[[http://superredundant.com/?comic=1233-art-of-debate Referenced]] in Webcomic/LeagueOfSuperRedundantHeroes. "You went back in time to kill Hitler and prevent World War 2. That's like Time Travel 101. It sounds like a good idea, but you have no idea what the consequences would be to a change that massive".