History PlayingWith / HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct

** Killing Albert Lebrun early causes UsefulNotes/{{France}} to fight with such vigor that the CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys will practically ''never'' have existed as a trope. In fact, the neo-Nazis may return to a completely ''French-dominated'' Berlin.

*** The Time Police aren't just protecting Hitler; they're also protecting his enemies like Roosevelt, Churchill, and UsefulNotes/CharlesDeGaulle. If they die, then it would be just as disastrous if Hitler died, it's that the disasters happen to the Axis instead.

** Killing Hitler even a fraction of a second early causes a horrific TimeCrash that [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt shatters the universe into innumerable little pieces]].

** Any time traveller who tries to go to the periods of UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, the UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic, or UsefulNotes/NaziGermany finds that they just can't. Their time machine automatically sends them to the periods of UsefulNotes/AllTheLittleGermanies, UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}}, UsefulNotes/WestGermany, UsefulNotes/EastGermany, or (most often) modern UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} at random, too long before Hitler is born (and thus risking a different ButterflyOfDoom by trying to change things so he cannot exist/gain power) or after he's dead.

** Killing Emperor Hirohito or even UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini before [=WW2=] would cause Hitler to conquer the entire universe. However, killing anyone else (even UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt or UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill) would either do nothing or possibly even ''benefit'' the universe.
*** On that note, killing Roosevelt, Churchill, or any of the other allied leaders would pretty much guarantee an {{Utopia}} later down the line.

** Causality refuses to allow a paradox. Bob invented the time machine that he planned to use to kill Hitler, so he couldn't possibly use it to change the past, so he'd never have invented it. Ipso facto, if Bob has the time machine, Hitler must have started [=WW2=].

** A group of time-travelling neo-Nazis talks Hitler out of suicide, but this causes UsefulNotes/WorldWarII to end sooner.

** Killing Emperor Hirohito or even UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini before [=WW2=] would cause Hitler to conquer the entire universe. However, killing anyone else (even UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt or UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill) would do nothing or possibly even ''benefit'' the universe.

** Related to the above: "You know who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand? [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy A time traveler just like you,]] trying to create a bright future for UsefulNotes/{{Serbia}}. Now do you see why temporal assassination [[DidntThinkThisThrough is a much worse idea than it might seem at first?]]"

*** The Time Police aren't just protecting Hitler; they're also protecting his enemies like Roosevelt, Churchill, and UsefulNotes/CharlesDeGaulle.

** Whatever other rules of time travel the tale follows, it is impossible to do anything to Hitler. You can do literally anything else, prevent Pompeii from going off and dinosaurs from going extinct, save Constantinople from [[UsefulNotes/TurksWithTroops the Ottoman Turks]], turn UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan into a geek so colossal that Creator/WoodyAllen could have played him in ''Film/TheConqueror'', strangle UsefulNotes/JosefStalin in his crib, help UsefulNotes/{{Napoleon|Bonaparte}} win at Waterloo, turn UsefulNotes/RichardNixon into [[RichardNixonTheUsedCarSalesman a used car salesman]] and UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan a multiple winner of UsefulNotes/TheEGOTs, but time travellers may as well pretend the period from April 20, 1889 and April 30, 1945, inclusive, just does not exist.

** Killing UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt early causes the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates to enter the war much sooner and inspires the Manhattan Project to be developed much earlier. When the neo-Nazis return to their present, they find that UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} has been reduced to an irradiated crater, and [[IronicHell the rest of the German Reich split between]] UsefulNotes/{{France}}, UsefulNotes/{{Poland}}, and an UsefulNotes/{{Israel}}i satellite state.

** Alternately, UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini takes over Europe by slowly but surely, conquering territory via well-planned-out attacks and swaying fascists in Spain and the weakened Germany over to his side. Stalin goes with his original plan to wait things out, which leads to a UsefulNotes/ColdWar between Capitalists and Communists.

** Bob tries asking his fellow TimePolice if any of them would go back to kill Hitler, only for Charlie, one of the founding members, to answer that ''he'' killed Hitler ''without'' time travel, [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld since he was already alive back in World War II and made it look like the suicide history knows it as]].
** Alice goes back in time to kill Hitler early, comes back to her time to see the adverse effects it's caused, and goes back in time to save him from herself. But she can't bring herself to follow through on that...

** Killing Hitler before September 1, 1939 manages to prevent UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, thus becoming nonexistent.

** People use the "killing Hitler" gimmick as a way to [[SchmuckBait lure dumb people]] onto a time machine and [[UriahGambit dump them somewhere where they would make the least ripples possible.]]

** The way TimeTravel works in the setting wouldn't allow anybody to kill Hitler even if they wanted to (such as a variation of MentalTimeTravel that ''only'' allows people to see through other people's eyes à la ''Film/BeingJohnMalkovich'', only being able to travel as far back as the day after UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy's assassination, or being placed on the date that would allow an assassination of Hitler ... on Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of UsefulNotes/SouthAmerica, meaning it would take at least a week to get to UsefulNotes/{{Europe}}. And if they try to jump one week earlier to prevent this offset, the machine just dumps them in UsefulNotes/{{Antarctica}} one week ''after'' the planned date for Hitler's assassination).

* '''Conversed''': "I wonder why killing Hitler always ends bad for time travelers on TV." "Perhaps because UsefulNotes/WorldWarII was such a crucial event of the twentieth century? You can't just remove ''that'' and call it a day."

** To make sure nobody messes up the course of modern history, a TimePolice is focused on protecting Hitler against time travellers. Since this work makes the Time Police complicit in Nazi Germany's multifarious crimes (and its agents are well aware of that), the agents assigned to Hitler's protection live in a constant "MyGodWhatHaveIDone" state of mind and are very prone to [[TheAlcoholic alcoholism]] and/or nervous breakdowns.

*** Some members of the Time Police [[DirtyCop are corrupt neo-Nazis]] and are just using the preservation of history as an excuse not to kill their idol. In fact, [[GambitPileup the Time Police is also using this to prevent them from changing it themselves.]]
*** But, knowing that killing Hitler will only take things FromBadToWorse, all the Time Police can do is knuckle down and continue to perform their duty.
*** The Time Police aren't just protecting Hitler; they're also protecting his enemies.

** A Holocaust survivor goes back in time to kill Hitler and thus [[ItsPersonal save his family and friends among countless others]] -- [[NiceJobBreakingItHero but it only makes matters worse]], [[GodwinsLawOfTimeTravel making the Axis win WWII.]]

** While the story does not spell out "you cannot kill Hitler", it's pretty obvious it runs on this rule when the time traveler takes every possible step to make sure they travel to 1943 and ends up in 1889 instead. For further drama points, [[ShootTheShaggyDog the traveler is killed in the past, making absolutely sure their efforts were]] AllForNothing.

** Every attempt at killing Hitler causes an AlternateUniverse in which he escalates his atrocities in retaliation, to the point that the time traveller eventually [[DrivenToSuicide blows their brains out]] when they discover that the Nazis wiped out all the inhabitants of France or something similar. [[CruelTwistEnding In turn]] this creates [[TemporalMutability yet another timeline or universe]], which may be even worse than everything before it.
** Hitler learns that he cannot be kills without creating something even worse. Consequently, [[GenreSavvy he becomes even bolder and intensifies his regime]], believing he has ProphecyArmor for his grand destiny to TakeOverTheWorld and destroy all lesser humans.

** Killing UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt early causes the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates to enter the war much sooner and inspires the Manhattan Project to be developed much earlier. When the neo-Nazis return to their present, they find that UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} has been reduced to an irradiated crater, and [[IronicHell the rest of the German Reich split between France, Poland, and an Israeli satellite state]].
** A group of time-travelling neo-Nazis talks Hitler out of suicide, but this causes UsefulNotes/WorldWarII to end faster.

** Bob kills Hitler and prevents WWII. He returns to the present time and finds that [[ForWantOfANail his interference]] has caused all sorts of [[NonSequiturCausality illogical consequences]], such as Dvorak becoming the most widely used keyboard layout, the line "BeamMeUpScotty" actually being said in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'', and [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment his friend Alice growing a handlebar mustache.]]

** Bob tries asking his fellow TimePolice if any of them would go back to kill Hitler, only for Charlie, one of the founding members, to answer that he ''did'' kill Hitler ''without'' time travel, [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld since he was already alive back in World War II and made it look like the suicide history knows it as]].

** Hitler's early death, like everything else in history, has both positive and negative consequences. There may never be a World War II or Holocaust, but South Africa and British India could collapse into civil war.

** You ''can'' kill Hitler, but it will just create a new timeline where Hitler died, while Hitler still lived until his suicide in 1945 in your timeline.

* '''Enforced'''

** The way TimeTravel works in the setting wouldn't allow anybody to kill Hitler even if they wanted to (such as a variation of MentalTimeTravel that ''only'' allows people to see through other people's eyes à la ''Film/BeingJohnMalkovich'', only being able to travel as far back as the day after UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy's assassination, or being placed on the date that would allow an assassination of Hitler ... on Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America, meaning it would take at least a week to get to Europe. And if they try to jump one week earlier to prevent this offset, the machine just dumps them in the South Pole one week ''after'' the planned date for Hitler's assassination).

** To make sure nobody breaks the course of modern history, a TimePolice is focused on protecting Hitler against time travellers. Since this work makes the Time Police complicit in Nazi Germany's multifarious crimes (and its agents are well aware of that), the agents assigned to Hitler's protection live in a constant "MyGodWhatHaveIDone" state of mind and are very prone to [[TheAlcoholic alcoholism]] and/or nervous breakdowns.

** While Hitler may be deservedly called evil, he certainly didn't live in a vacuum. [[MirrorCharacter Like his own regime, its opponents also exhibited]] imperialism, racism, ethnic cleansing, militarism, and totalitarianism: Britain and France were also imperialist colonizers, Soviet Russia was a totalitarian state that regularly committed acts of ethnic cleansing, and America's ideology of eugenics and racial segregation inspired Nazi race laws. [[DeliberatelyBadExample Hitler certainly took these rotten practices to grotesque extremes]], but it doesn't change the fact that his opponents weren't much better. Hitler's actions showed people how horrible racial supremacy was. Had he not existed, the world might have remained a less tolerant place with racism and colonialism still rampant.

** Any time traveller who tries to go to the periods of UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, the UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic, or UsefulNotes/NaziGermany finds that they just can't. Their time machine automatically sends them to the periods of UsefulNotes/AllTheLittleGermanies, UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}}, UsefulNotes/WestGermany, UsefulNotes/EastGermany, or (most often) modern UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} at random, before Hitler is born or after he's dead.

** Causing Hitler to stub his toe results in Hitler [[TakeOverTheWorld conquering the universe]].

** Any time traveller who tries to go to UsefulNotes/NaziGermany finds that they can't. Their time machine automatically sends them to UsefulNotes/AllTheLittleGermanies, UsefulNotes/{{Prussia}}, UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, the UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic, UsefulNotes/WestGermany, UsefulNotes/EastGermany, or (most often) modern UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} at random.

** Alternatively, [[DefusingTheTykeBomb you can get young Hitler into art school]], but another German nationalist simply rises in his place and launches a war. On the other hand, this guy doesn't have genocidal designs against Jewish, black, Roma, and Slavic people, so him winning isn't ''that'' terrible.

** While Hitler may be deservedly called evil, he certainly didn't live in a vacuum. Imperialism, racism, ethnic cleansing, militarism, and totalitarianism [[MirrorCharacter were qualities all his adversaries shared]]: Britain and France were also imperialist colonizers, Soviet Russia was a totalitarian state that regularly committed acts of ethnic cleansing, and America's ideology of eugenics and racial segregation inspired Nazi race laws. [[DeliberatelyBadExample Hitler certainly took these rotten practices to grotesque extremes]], but it doesn't change the fact that his opponents weren't much better. Hitler's actions showed people how horrible racial supremacy was. Had he not existed, the world might have remained a less tolerant place with racism and colonialism still rampant.

** To Deconstructed 3: A plan to change the world needs a starting point. Destroying the Nazi regime is as good a first step as any. And depending when in Hitler's regime the traveller lands, [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust it's necessary]].

** A Jewish time traveler keeps trying and fails to kill Hitler before he's done anything wrong, which fuels his antisemitism [[StableTimeLoop and eventually motivates him to become the genocidal dictator he was]]. [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom Upon realizing they inadvertently caused Hitler's rise to power and genocidal biogtry]], [[DrivenToSuicide the Jewish time traveler kills themselves.]]

** While the story does not outright says the "you cannot kill Hitler" rule, it's pretty obvious it runs on this rule when the time traveler takes every possible step to make sure they travel to 1943 and ends up in 1889 instead. For further drama points, [[ShootTheShaggyDog the traveler is killed in the past, making absolutely sure their efforts were]] AllForNothing.

** Whatever other rules of time travel are followed by the tale, it is impossible to do anything to Hitler. You can do literally anything else, prevent Pompeii from going off and dinosaurs from going extinct, save Constantinople from [[UsefulNotes/TurksWithTroops the Ottoman Turks]], turn UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan into a geek so colossal that ''Film/TheConqueror'' could have been filmed with Creator/WoodyAllen, strangle UsefulNotes/JosefStalin in his crib, help UsefulNotes/{{Napoleon|Bonaparte}} win at Waterloo, turn UsefulNotes/RichardNixon into [[RichardNixonTheUsedCarSalesman a used car salesman]] and UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan a multiple winner of UsefulNotes/TheEGOTs, but time travellers may as well pretend anytime between April 20, 1889 and April 30, 1945 just does not exists.
** Any time someone thinks of killing Hitler, whether they are capable of time travel or not, members of the TimePolice [[UnPerson disappear]] and/or [[LaserGuidedAmnesia mind-wipe]] them just in case.
** Causing Hitler to stub his toe results in Hitler conquering the universe.
** Killing Emperor Hirohito or even UsefulNotes/BenitoMussolini before [=WW2=] would cause Hitler to conquer the entire universe. However, killing anyone else (even UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt or UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill) would do jack shit or possibly even ''benefit'' the universe.

** Alternatively, [[DefusingTheTykeBomb you can get young Hitler into art school]], but another German nationalist simply rises in his place and still launches a war. On the other hand, this guy doesn't have genocidal designs against Jewish, black, Roma, and Slavic people, and so him winning isn't ''that'' terrible.
** You could go back in time to the Paris Peace Conference and draft and implement a more lenient version of the Treaty of Versailles. But World War II happens ten years later under a communist dictator.

** In the absence of Hitler, Stalin/another major dictator of the time is motivated to cause a longer and bloodier war.
** [=WW2=] caused a war between our TimePolice [[AlternateHistoryNaziVictory and the Zeitkorps]]. The latter were eventually defeated but [[PyrrhicVictory that area of the timeline is an utter mess and the travesties cannot be prevented]] without [[HereWeGoAgain reviving the Zeitkorps.]]
** The TimePolice spells out to the potential time traveler that historically, assassinations have caused more harm than good, citing the assassination of UsefulNotes/FranzFerdinandOfAustria and UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln as examples of why you can never solve the problems of the world by murdering one person and the consequences can spiral out of control.
** Related to the above: "You know who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand? [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy A time traveler just like you,]] trying to create a bright future for Serbia. See now why temporal assassination [[DidntThinkThisThrough is not as good of an idea as it might look at first glance?]]"
** Causality refuses to allow a paradox. Bob invented the time machine to kill Hitler with, so he couldn't possibly use it to change the past so he'd never have invented it. Ipso facto, if Bob has the time machine, Hitler must have started [=WW2=].
** Hitler himself was so utterly racist that it actually made people start to become more progressive and politically correct. Killing him would basically mean that racism and other sorts of bigotry would run rampant in the present time.

** A group of time-travelling neo-Nazis kills UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill early, but the murder just spurs Britain and its allies into attacking Germany sooner.
** Killing UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt early causes the United States to enter the war much sooner and inspires the Manhattan Project to be developed much earlier. When the neo-Nazis return to their present, they find that Berlin has been reduced to an irradiated crater, and [[IronicHell the rest of the German Reich split amongst the French, the Polish, and an Israeli satellite state]].

** Hitler's historically-accurate suicide is actually a result of time travel. WWII originally was ''worse'', and our timeline is actually an improved version.
** Many of the failed attempts on Hitler's life in real life were actually thwarted by time traveling neo-Nazis.

** A young German artist time-travels to 1900 in an attempt to [[ScrewDestiny assassinate a would-be dictator when he's still a child]], all because of a vague prophecy. He specifically targets artists because he learned that the would-be dictator was an artist. While it seems that he managed to kill Hitler since he wiped out all artists in Germany, he never realised one thing which [[ShootTheShaggyDog renders all his efforts useless]]: [[TomatoInTheMirror He]] ''[[SelfFulfillingProphecy is]]'' [[TheKillerInMe Adolf Hitler.]]

** Killing Hitler as a baby means the time traveler goes down as a baby killer because their lack of historical knowledge means they didn't know they could have just killed him during, for example, UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and have a reasonable doubt.
** While Hitler may be deservedly called evil, he certainly didn't live in a vacuum: imperialism, racism, ethnic cleansing, militarism, and totalitarianism [[MirrorCharacter were qualities all of his adversaries shared]]: Britain and France were also imperialist colonizers, Soviet Russia was a totalitarian state that regularly committed acts of ethnic cleansing, and it was America's ideology of eugenics and racial segregation that inspired Nazi race laws. [[DeliberatelyBadExample Hitler certainly took these rotten ideals to a grosteque extremes]], but it doesn't change the fact that his opponents weren't much better. Hitler's actions showed people how horrible racial supremacy was and if he hadn't existed, the world might have remained a less tolerant place with racism and colonialism still rampant.

*** Some of the Time Police [[DirtyCop are corrupt neo-Nazis]] and are just using the preservation of history as an excuse not to kill their idol. In fact, [[GambitPileup the Time Police is also using this as a means to prevent them from changing it themselves.]]
*** But, knowing that killing Hitler will make things so, so much worse, all the Time Police can do is knuckle down and continue to perform their duty.

*** ...Which is why the time traveler could change their mind and instead do just that. All they needed was just to try killing him before World War II can start, and check the time period first to see whether it did.

** A Jewish time traveler keeps trying and fails to kill Hitler before he's done anything wrong, which fuels his antisemitism [[StableTimeLoop and eventually motivates him to become the genocidal dictator we all know]]. [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom Upon realizing they inadvertently caused Hitler's rise to power and genocidal biogtry]], [[DrivenToSuicide the Jewish time traveler kills themselves]].
** The time traveler [[HeroicBSOD will be broken by the fact]] that even if he kills Hitler, the world will still be [[CrapsackWorld a sucky place]], and killing one bad guy just means that someone else will be waiting in the wings to take his place.
** While the story does not outright says the "you cannot kill Hitler" rule, it's pretty obvious it runs on this rule when the time traveler takes every possible step to make sure he travels to 1943 and ends up in 1889 instead. For further drama points, [[ShootTheShaggyDog the traveler is killed in the past, making absolutely sure their efforts were]] AllForNothing.

** Every attempt at killing Hitler causes an AlternateUniverse in which he escalates his atrocities in retaliation, to the point that the time traveller eventually [[DrivenToSuicide blows their brains out]] when they discover that the Nazis wiped out all the inhabitants of France or something similar. [[CruelTwistEnding Which in turn]] creates [[TemporalMutability yet another timeline or universe,]] that may be even worse than everything before it.
** Hitler finds out about being unable to be killed without creating something even worse, he becomes even more emboldened and intesifies his regime, believing he has ProphecyArmor for his grand destiny to TakeOverTheWorld and destroy all lesser humans.

* '''Exploited''': People use the "killing Hitler" gimmick as a way to [[SchmuckBait lure dumb people]] onto a time machine and [[UriahGambit dump them somewhere where they would make the least ripples possible.]]