Let's Kill Hitler

[LizzieMaine]

So -- you've gotten into your time ship and you've gone back to 1889 and a little town in Austria and you've successfully prevented the birth of one A. Hitler. Never mind the view of time travel which contends that history is immutable -- let's assume you could do it, and have, in fact, done it.

What kind of world do you come back to?

Me, I'll suggest the following:

-- The World War occurs, with the same result. The Central Powers are defeated, the treaty of Versailles is enacted.

-- Germany struggles thru the chaos of the early twenties, and although inchaote ultra-right-wing/anti-Semitic elements continue to fight in the streets with Bolsheviks and Social Democrats, the Nazi Party, under the leadership of Anton Drexler, never makes much of an impression and disappears by the time of the 1932 German elections. The Weimar republic remains in power, and eventually a reasonably-stable moderate-right government forms, glaring warily toward Russia, but otherwise avoiding any major violations of the Treaty of Versailles.

-- Mussolini ventures into Ethiopia in 1935, but is beaten back by the armies of the Lion of Judah, and is assassinated by partisans shortly after. Marshal Balbo becomes the new premier of Italy, and presides over a shaky peace. The Fascist party, without its charismatic leader, crumbles and a moderate-left regime holds sway in Italy.

-- Without the fear of Hitler driving its actions thru the 1930s, the Soviet Union turns inward, becoming more and more isolated as unrest builds in the outlying component republics. Without the experience of the Great Patriotic War in the 1940s, there is less and less to hold the USSR together, and there is less reason for a paranoid fear of external enemies. The USSR finally collapses under its own weight before the end of the 1940s, leaving a disunited and squabbling conglomeration of independent or semi-dependent states to battle among themselves. Focused on its own internal dissension, the rump Russian state pays little attention to the outside world. There is no Cold War. There is no postwar Red Scare in the United States, and Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin is defeated in his bid for reelection in 1950 when it is revealed that he had lied about his wartime military record.

-- There is no Civil War in Spain. An insurrection led by Francisco Franco is crushed by Loyalists, and Franco is executed in 1937.

-- Japan invades China in 1937, but world sentiment forces it to withdraw within a year. The militarist government continues to make noise, but is unable to secure any support from any other power. Eventually, it is dissolved by Emperor Hirohito and a more moderate government is installed in its place.

-- Following the withdrawal of the Japanese invaders, tensions resume in China between the Communist movement led by Mao Tse-Tung and the Nationalist government. Conflict continues thru the 1940s, but the Nationalists, under Chiang Kai-Shek are building their military power against any future Japanese incursions, and by 1949 the guerilla movement is crushed. The Nationalists consolidate their power, and Chiang rules until his death in 1975. Despite occasional tensions over trade matters, the Nationalist government remains a staunch ally of the West.

-- The United States, under Franklin D. Roosevelt, enters the League of Nations in 1937 and leads criticism of Japan's actions in China. Roosevelt does not seek reelection in 1940 and retires from public life. Wendell Willkie defeats Henry A. Wallace in a close election, and continues the New Deal/internationalist policies of his predecessor.

-- The recovery from the Great Depression continues -- by 1939 the Gross Domestic Product was already at approximately 1929 levels, and continues gradual expansion thru the 1940s and 1950s. Gains by Organized Labor during the late 1930s promote a continued slow increase in families moving toward a middle-class standard of living.

-- There is no Baby Boom. Population growth occurs at a far more gradual rate over the decades following 1940, with the birth rate growing apace.

-- The availabilty of college education to ordinary Americans expands very slowly. By 1960, only 6 percent of Americans had completed a four-year degree in any discipline, and less than ten percent had attended college at all. The high school graduation rate continues to steadily increase.

-- Television becomes a force in American life by 1944, with the popularity of the new medium increased by easy-purchase credit plans which put the devices into over ten million American homes by the middle of the decade. Radio continues, but as an increasingly specialized medium. Motion picture theatres close in droves as the television juggernaut sweeps the nation. By 1950, television penetration stands at nearly 95 percent of American homes.

-- Rock-and-roll does not evolve. With no vast postwar youth culture to nurture it, the rock-and-roll generation does not exist. Popular music is sharply divided between those who prefer gentle, mainstream ballads and those who enjoy the more "intellectual" forms of jazz. Swing bands remain popular into the 1960s, although their main audience is aging.

-- The suburbanization of America occurs, but at a slower pace than in the original time line. With no postwar housing shortage, there is no need for mass-built planned communities along the Levittown model, and expansion into the suburbs occurs on a one-house-at-a-time basis.

-- Racial tensions in America peak in 1942, when A. Philip Randolph leads his March on Washington. President Willkie meets with Randolph, despite outrage from Southern political leaders, and emerges with a call for "greater participation in American life by the Negro Community." With the tacit support of the Willkie Administration, anti-segregationists demonstrate across the South, leading to a wave of violence. Governor Eugene Talmadge in Georgia declares martial law, but President Willkie federalizes National Guard troops, and sends in a Regular Army force under the command of Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower to restore order.

-- A Supreme Court decision in 1944 invalidating the Southern White Primary voting system sparks further outrage, and is a factor in the presidential election campaign. The Dixiecrat party, under the leadership of Strom Thurmond, breaks from the Democratic party over the re-nomination of pro-civil rights candidate Henry Wallace, a move which fractures the Democratic vote and ensures Willkie of a second term. However, he dies in office and is replaced by Vice President Thomas E. Dewey, who pledges to continue Willkie's policies. The burgeoning Civil Rights movement continues to gain momentum, and in 1948 segregation in education and in public accomodations is declared unconstitutional. Progress continues thru the 1950s on all social and civil-rights fronts under the two administrations of President Adlai Stevenson.

-- Women continue to achieve social and political progress in the United States. The movement of women into the white-collar workplace which picked up steam during the Depression continues as the economy gradually recovered, and the independent-women-oriented writings of Marjorie Hillis are seen as the vanguard of a new American feminist movement. Labor organizer Bettye Friedan spends the 1950s studying the role of blue-collar women in the still-burgeoning labor movement, and her 1963 book, "A More Perfect Union," generates much controversy and spurs the ascent of many women to key roles in Labor.

-- The "Space Race" does not occur. Although scientists such as Robert Goddard in the United States and Werner von Braun in Germany collaborate on a number of interesting experiments, little practical value is seen in rocketry.

-- A young, promising right-handed pitcher named Fidel Alejandro Castro is signed out of the University of Havana in 1948 by the Washington Senators. Making his major league debut in 1950, he finds a niche on the Senators' staff as a crafty middle reliever with an insinuating curve ball. He remains with the club for the next fifteen years, capping his career with a dramatic win over the Dodgers in game seven of the 1965 World Series. He is elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972, where he is congratulated by the newly-appointed Commissoner, a former corporate attorney named Richard Milhous Nixon. The owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, John F. Kennedy, is also present for the induction.

-- Bell Laboratories develops the semiconductor in 1948, but commercial exploitation of the device lags. It finds some application in telephone repeater systems, and there is speculation that, one day, it might replace some of the smaller vacuum tubes used in radio and television.

-- Funding for a proposed "computing machine" is withdrawn after initial failures on the grounds that such a device has only limited practical benefit.

-- With only slow development of "computing machine" technology, and no Cold War to fuel its growth, no "internet" develops. The Fedora Lounge is not established in 2004, and this message is not posted, nor are any replies to it.


That's what happens when I kill Hitler. What happens when you kill Hitler?

 

[Stanley Doble]

You know, I have given this some thought and I wouldn't kill Hitler, I would give him a free trip to Paris.

Let me explain. One of the features of Hitler's character was, he was a mooch. In his younger years he usually lived with a relative or friend, when he became a successful politician he never owned a car or a house, they were provided to him free of charge by the party. It's just the way he operated, he seemed to like getting something for nothing.

So, here is what I would do. Go to Germany right after WW1 and look him up before he gets involved in politics. Praise his art work, buy a few paintings, give him a place to live as my protege. Then tell him I am making a trip to Paris and suggest he really needs to see the latest art exhibition and the Louvre.

Take him to Paris and keep him there by advancing small sums of money and giving him a place to stay. If possible, take him to New York and let him see something of America.

If you could keep him busy for a year or 2 by the time he got back to Germany the opportunity to become Fuhrer of the Nazi party would be gone.

It might have been possible to do this right after he got out of jail, after the Beer Hall Putsch and after writing Mein Kampf but I don't think any later.

My reading convinces me that Hitler was the only person who really wanted war in the late 30s. Or, that he played on other countries reluctance to confront him until he went too far in Poland.

So, if there was no Hitler and the Nazi party remained a small party of right wing extremists from the working class and petit bourgeoisie, then what?

We know he was never elected to anything, he got into power by a series of risky schemes and kept it by propaganda and intimidation. I don't think any other Nazi could have pulled it off.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about German politics to figure out what would have happened without Hitler and the Nazis. But whether there was a right wing or left wing government I seriously doubt it would have pushed for war. I should think they would have worked through the depression as other countries did and there would have been economic recovery in the late 30s.

Without Hitler and Mussolini would Stalin have pushed for gains in eastern Europe? He certainly did before and after the war but what if he did not feel threatened by right wing armies?

 

[Nobert]

Lacking the historical knowledge, I'll only venture this. With the National Socialists now being an inchoate band of malcontent thugs, the Socialists, galvanized by the martyrdom of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, gain the upper hand in the struggle for the hearts and minds of the German working classes. The Weimar Republic, already rearming and too unstable to handle the depression, totters, and Germany goes Communist. The Bauhaus is allowed to continue and soulless steel and glass buildings become the architectural norm even sooner. Artists like Grosz and Dix are deemed counter-revolutionary and suppressed. Grosz emigrates to the U.S. and starts working for Esquire magazine. Scores of Russians, no longer slated to die at Stalingrad and the like, burst into hearty choruses of "The Volga Boatman," then stop when they remember that their leader is still batsh** crazy, and that leaves more of them for him to carry out his paranoid policies on. They die in the purge. Charlie Chaplin takes seven years to make a film spoofing Alf Landon. Without the aegis of wartime America to operate under, Roosevelt goes mad with power and runs for reelection five times. He is finally taken down within his own party by the resurgence of Al Smith. As a cautionary tale, he serves to curb the ambitions of a young Joe McCarthy. The internet appears on schedule, but collapses when members of discussion forums have no earthly representative of the devil to compare their opponents to when discussing the merits of corn-based vs. wheat-based breakfast cereal. Kurt Vonnegut becomes a successful writer of historical romances.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Let me explain. One of the features of Hitler's character was, he was a mooch. In his younger years he usually lived with a relative or friend, when he became a successful politician he never owned a car or a house, they were provided to him free of charge by the party. It's just the way he operated, he seemed to like getting something for nothing.

So, here is what I would do. Go to Germany right after WW1 and look him up before he gets involved in politics. Praise his art work, buy a few paintings, give him a place to live as my protege. Then tell him I am making a trip to Paris and suggest he really needs to see the latest art exhibition and the Louvre.

In other words, Hitler was a proto-Hipster.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I would be more interested in preventing WW1. That was the real turning point in history. Nazism, the Russian Revolution, the Roaring Twenties, everything that came after traces back to it.

J B Priestley, English WW1 veteran, observed that the best young men of England, France, Germany, Austria and Italy were destroyed in the war. Those who remained were the runts. You can see what he means if you examine European politics in the thirties. The leaders are all of an older generation, too old to die in the war or else they are second raters.

He also observed how much the world changed for the worse. From 1814 or the end of the Napoleonic wars, up to 1914 there was a continuous rising arc of culture, education, science, the industrial revolution, unbelievable improvements in every sphere until at least in Europe and North America, there was a way of life better than anything ever seen in the world.

WW1 killed all that and turned things in a new direction, one that he did not like at all. I suppose you would have to have been born in the late 19th century to know the difference.

Oddly enough, in August 1914 almost nobody took the war seriously. They thought it would soon blow over, in fact they could not believe it started at all. The Naval Crisis of 1911 was much more serious and they managed that one peacefully.

How would one prevent WW1? Would it be enough to stymie the murder of Archduke Ferdinand by a student radical in Sarajevo? Would you have to take out Kaiser Wilhelm? We know Germany was spoiling for a fight with France, would they have found some other excuse to attack?

I don't know the cure for human folly. I suppose if one war were prevented they would find an excuse for another. Is there any way to stop politicians from wanting war when they see a chance for glory and profit by it, and knowing the blood and treasure will be provided by others?

 

[Otter]

Bad idea, he was so inept at straregic warfare that anyone wh replaced him would do a better job.

 

[Nobert]

Bad idea, he was so inept at strategic warfare that anyone who replaced him would do a better job.

But would they have the same talent for strategic genocide?

 

[MissMittens]

Preventing Hitler from seeking power would be better than killing him and making him a martyr. Unless, of course, you could kill him before he wrote Mein Kampf

 

[Stanley Doble]

Have any of you read The Boys From Brazil? It is an old thriller. The plot concerns a fugitive Nazi scientist who creates 12 clones of Hitler in Brazil and places them for adoption with families as similar to Hitler's as he can find. Hoping at least one of them will grow up to be the new Fuehrer.

A Jewish group gets wind of the plot and decides to put a stop to it. They discuss different ways of killing the boys until one speaks up and says, you are talking about killing people who have done nothing wrong, because of who their parents are. You are no better than Nazis yourself.

This made me stop and think. Even if there was time travel I don't think it is right to kill anybody, even Hitler, as an innocent baby because of what he might do in 40 years time.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There are other ways. Suppose someone goes back to 1876 and convinces a teenage girl named Klara Polzi not to take a job as Alois Schicklgruber Hitler's housemaid. Tell her she deserves a better life for herself, or perhaps encourage her to join a convent. And presto, Adolf is never born.

 

[Shangas]

Lizzie, you come up with the most fascinating discussion-topics. Once I have collected my thoughts, I will contribute more meaningfully to this thread.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I still think of WW2 as Round Two of a fight that began in August 1914. It would be much better to prevent WW1. On the surface this should not be hard to do, as the whole thing was the result of a trivial crime and should never have happened. But I am not sure about the forces behind the scene that may have been looking for any pretext to start a war. I am thinking of the German high command who were concerned about the French military buildup and anxious to attack France before they became too strong.

If the war had never happened millions of lives would have been spared as well as immense waste of money and property. There would have been no postwar inflation, no reason to abandon the gold standard, no depression, no Hitler, no Russian Revolution, no Lenin, no Stalin, no Spanish Flu epidemic. There is no telling how the world would have developed.

 

[vintageTink]

How about we take out Stalin and Mao instead? Communism killed far more people, numbering between 85-100,000,000 and is still a threat.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I still think of WW2 as Round Two of a fight that began in August 1914. It would be much better to prevent WW1. On the surface this should not be hard to do, as the whole thing was the result of a trivial crime and should never have happened. But I am not sure about the forces behind the scene that may have been looking for any pretext to start a war. I am thinking of the German high command who were concerned about the French military buildup and anxious to attack France before they became too strong.

If the war had never happened millions of lives would have been spared as well as immense waste of money and property. There would have been no postwar inflation, no reason to abandon the gold standard, no depression, no Hitler, no Russian Revolution, no Lenin, no Stalin, no Spanish Flu epidemic. There is no telling how the world would have developed.

Actually World War II was Round Three of what started in 1870 with the Franco-Prussian War. After their humiliating defeat at the hands of a newly unified Germany, France was itching for a rematch that culminated in World War I.

 

[Horace Debussy Jones]

Your scenario reminds me of the movie, "Max" about what might have almost happened had Hitler become an artist instead of a radical orator/politician/psychotic dictator.
In the story, Max is also an artist and an art dealer as well as a disgruntled army veteran, having lost his painting arm in service to his country. He meets Hitler and offers him a chance to exhibit his work in his gallery. I won't reveal the outcome for those who haven't seen the film, but Max was also Judisch.

You know, I have given this some thought and I wouldn't kill Hitler, I would give him a free trip to Paris.

Let me explain. One of the features of Hitler's character was, he was a mooch. In his younger years he usually lived with a relative or friend, when he became a successful politician he never owned a car or a house, they were provided to him free of charge by the party. It's just the way he operated, he seemed to like getting something for nothing.

So, here is what I would do. Go to Germany right after WW1 and look him up before he gets involved in politics. Praise his art work, buy a few paintings, give him a place to live as my protege. Then tell him I am making a trip to Paris and suggest he really needs to see the latest art exhibition and the Louvre.

Take him to Paris and keep him there by advancing small sums of money and giving him a place to stay. If possible, take him to New York and let him see something of America.

If you could keep him busy for a year or 2 by the time he got back to Germany the opportunity to become Fuhrer of the Nazi party would be gone.

It might have been possible to do this right after he got out of jail, after the Beer Hall Putsch and after writing Mein Kampf but I don't think any later.

My reading convinces me that Hitler was the only person who really wanted war in the late 30s. Or, that he played on other countries reluctance to confront him until he went too far in Poland.

So, if there was no Hitler and the Nazi party remained a small party of right wing extremists from the working class and petit bourgeoisie, then what?

We know he was never elected to anything, he got into power by a series of risky schemes and kept it by propaganda and intimidation. I don't think any other Nazi could have pulled it off.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about German politics to figure out what would have happened without Hitler and the Nazis. But whether there was a right wing or left wing government I seriously doubt it would have pushed for war. I should think they would have worked through the depression as other countries did and there would have been economic recovery in the late 30s.

Without Hitler and Mussolini would Stalin have pushed for gains in eastern Europe? He certainly did before and after the war but what if he did not feel threatened by right wing armies?

 

[LizzieMaine]

-- WIth the death of Lenin in 1924, a fierce struggle erupts between rival Bolshevik factions, ending with the icepick murder of Josef Vissarionovich Stalin by agents of Leon Trotsky. The Trotskyite regime pushes for mass industrialization during the early 1930s, but dissension continues among the Politburo over the leader's arrogant, condescending personality. Factions form within the government and back-door Kremlin intrigue becomes the hallmark of the regime. Dissension among the various Soviet states leads to the use of military force under the direction of Moscow to keep them in line, even as the Trotsky regime continues to thunder about the need for global revolution, causing much concern among the Western powers.

In the Far East, Japan invades China in 1937, beginning a reign of terror that, with no opposition from the preoccupied West, will kill or enslave nearly half a billion Chinese. Retreating to the western mountains, deposed Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek and communist guerilla Mao Tse-Tung form an alliance to resist the invasion, but they are powerless against the onslaught. The guerilla movement is massacred, and Chiang and Mao are executed by the Japanese.

In 1939, the world is stunned by the announcement of the Anglo-German Alliance, intended as a bulwark against a possible Soviet push westward by the increasingly unstable Trotskyite regime. France subsequently joins the European Axis. An uneasy peace continues thru the year.

In the United States, hysteria over possible war leads to the assassination of President Roosevelt by radical isolationists under the leadership of Father Charles E. Coughlin. The 1940 election is chaotic, but a potentially-uniting figure is found in the person of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, who runs under the banner of the new America First party, and sweeps to victory over Republican Robert A. Taft and Democrat John Nance Garner. The first order of business is a non-aggression treaty between the United States and the European Axis.

On June 22, 1941, Germany shocks the world by launching Operation Sea Lion -- invading the South Coast of England from Axis bases on the Normandy coast. London is sacked within a week of the invasion, and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and King George VI are publicly executed as "traitors to the British people." Edward VIII is restored to the throne as an Axis puppet. Oswald Mosely becomes Prime Minister, with Rudolf Hess as Berlin's official representative in London. Standing in Westminster Abbey, Adolf Hitler proclaims the next phase of his Thousand Year Reich -- the cleansing of the continent of "inferior elements." In America, President Lindbergh praises the triumph of the Aryan people and pledges American support for the New Order in Europe. Hitler looks across the Atlantic and smiles enigmatically.

Operating from Axis bases in India and Eastern Europe, a two-pronged assault on Trotskyite Russia begins in the spring of 1942. Weakened by internal dissension, the Soviets are no match for the Axis onslaught, and Moscow falls before winter. Trotsky is unceremoniously executed by troops sacking the Kremlin, and the entire Politburo is executed by a mass firing squad. Lenin's body is disentombed, dragged thru the streets, and hung from its ankles in front of a gas station, where it is abused by the invading forces. The Slavic peasantry is enslaved for food production, and within five years the native population of the former Soviet territory has decreased by fifty percent.

Disturbed by Axis hegemony, Imperial Japan forms an alliance with Berlin, becoming in effect a vassal state of the New Order. Tokyo is given authority over the entire Pacific rim, from Manchuria to Australia, but is, in turn, under the direct supervision of Viceroy Karl Doenitz. Emperor Hirohito is allowed to retain his position on a purely ceremonial basis, but efforts are made to suppress the traditional Shinto faith as an obstacle to full allegiance to the Reich.

As a testimony of his allegience to "America's great racial ally" President Lindbergh allows the installation of an Axis "governor-general", with whom he will share authority over the North American continent, ruling from the new continental capital of Minneapolis. Joachim Von Ribbentrop is appointed to this position.

As part of Axis racial purity laws, all persons of African ancestry in North America are deported to Axis work camps in Africa. All persons of Jewish ancestry are deported from the North American continent to relocation centers in Eastern Europe, where they are subjected to further "processing."

The United States is divided into Production Zones, with the remaining population assigned to specific functions. Industrial production is concentrated in the Northeast and Upper Midwest. The Lower Midwest and South are designated Agricultural Zones. The population of the Mountain and Western states is forcibly relocated to either the Industrial or Agricultural zones depending on ancestry -- persons of Northern and Central European ancestry are assigned to Industrial tasks, while persons of Southern European ancestry are relocated to the Agricultural territory. Persons of Slavic ancestry are deported to the former Soviet territories.

The Mountain States become a fortified bulwark, separating the Far West from the East. California is reserved as a resort location for leaders of the Axis regime, and is reconstructed under the supervision of Reichminister Albert Speer. The regime's Propaganda Ministry takes control of the radio and motion picture centers of Hollywood, from which they beam high-powered broadcasts covering the entire globe.

An American resistance movement crops up in the early 1950s, under the leadership of former UAW president Walter Reuther, former ILU president Harry Bridges, former Communist Party USA leader Earl Browder, and a fiery young organizer from Michigan named Malcolm Little, who had escaped deportation for his African ancestry by convincing the authorities that he was "Asiatic." They attract a base of support in the Industrial Zone, and make a series of guerilla strikes against key Axis installations. The North American division of the Gestapo, under the leadership of Joseph R. McCarthy, spends much of the decade tracking down and exterminating these resistance cells. One cell leader, former attorney Joseph N. Welch of Boston, is hung from a meat hook on live television, but his final words resonate, sowing the seeds of future revolution -- "Have you no decency? At long last, have you no decency?"

 

[Edward]

I'm far from convinced Hitler was the key to preventing WW2. Had Streseman pushed harder and been more militant, he could have taken Germany into a war with the Allied Nations a good ten or twelve years earlier than did Hitler. Likely without the death camps et cetera, which would be better than the war with them in place, but still. It seems to me that ultimately when you trace the roots back a lot of it comes down to the inevitable clash of competing empires. I can't see any one way to have prevented that, though. Ultimately, I don't think I would assassinate Hitler, given the chance - too great a danger of the butterfly effect kicking in hard with the unintended consequences. I do think there's a lot to be said for the notion that WW2 would still have happened, with the Wehrmacht led by a much more rational, competent German high command who would never have opened up a war on the Eastern front, never have subsequently declared war on the US, driven Britain back to the channel and occupied at least all of mainland Europe.

If George VI's preferred candidate had beocme PM in place of Churchill, as memory recalls, the UK would have had a government led by a man who wanted to negotiate a truce with Hitler. Most 'what if' historical fiction imagines Hitler winning the war, but the shape of a negotiated settlement would be interesting upon which to speculate...

How about we take out Stalin and Mao instead? Communism killed far more people, numbering between 85-100,000,000 and is still a threat.

No politics, please.

 

[Two Types]

Actually World War II was Round Three of what started in 1870 with the Franco-Prussian War. After their humiliating defeat at the hands of a newly unified Germany, France was itching for a rematch that culminated in World War I.

Arguably, WW1 actually began as round three of the Balkan Wars (or was just another in a long line of wars to see who would take over from the Ottomans - a conflict that was still ongoing through the 1990s).

 

[Two Types]

No Hitler = no WW2 = no headlong rush to create ever-more efficient communications systems = no mobile phones = people still able to meet up at an agreed time and place simply by speaking to each other in advance.

 

[Two Types]

How about we take out Stalin and Mao instead? Communism killed far more people, numbering between 85-100,000,000 and is still a threat.

Not really something we can discuss here, considering the no politics rules. One might contend that neither Mao or Stalin were actually communists. But we do know Hitler was a Nazi.