Would You Rather Have Helped Hitler or Committed Suicide?

[Nikitatos]

Hypothetically, would you rather have helped Hitler or chosen suicide? A lot of Germans (especially scientists and people with coveted skill sets) faced that decision. Work for Hitler or die.

I would chose death. Even if I had a full life with money, family, etc, I'd choose death. No amount of money or torture could get me to dedicate my life to helping evil people further their evil plans.

I wish Nazi scientists had made the same decision as me. They could have saved A LOT of people A LOT of pain and suffering. I think SI goes to way, way down in situations like these. This is A NOBLE death. Choosing not to help Nazis gets you into heaven.....no questions asked. God would give you a high give. "Nice job, dude!".

 

[Michael_the_ratman]

I would choose suicide any day over helping hittler. I try to live my life causing the least harms as possible. I would not be able to live my life peacefully if I knew I was responsible for the pain and suffering of millions. No amount of money or privilege can change my mind. I love making others happy and I hate to hurt others.

 

[VeryShy]

I would choose to aid Hitler in any way possible. No, I'm just joking, I would rather commit suicide.

 

[Gustav Hartmann]

Much more Germans committed suicide after Hitlers suicide.

 

[Soupster]

Here's the thing, with modern sensibilities, I doubt any of us would willingly have worked for/with Hitler. But at the time it was a slow, massively cultural build up that fostered the environment that allowed that to take place. Lies and propaganda and news all told how less than human Hitlers victims were. How much they were damaging society and holding back advancement, life and happiness. Without any real counter arguments presented, peope came to believe what they were told and an entire race of people were demonized, marginalized, and brutalized by that regime.

The scary thing is... this kind of thinking and propaganda is once again being spread about other groups, inciting people to embrace similar ideology towards them.

I like to think I would've seen what was right and sacrificed myself and my family instead of cooperating. I just don't know that it's that simple.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'd hope I would suicide but, none of us really know until we are in that situation and- hopefully, we never will be. I don't expect it would have been beyond them to start threatening your family if you didn't help. What then? You all commit suicide?

I wouldn't be so sure that any of our countries are entirely innocent either. I expect they all have skeletons in the cupboard.

When we buy cheap products, consume animal products, really just our modern lifestyles- we contribute to the system that makes other people/creatures suffer. Maybe it's extreme to decide to kill ourselves to stop it but- how many of us even make that much effort to even reduce what we consume? Even find out how what we use was made? That smart phone you are possibly reading this on may well contain cobalt mined by minors in horrific conditions. We like to think these things don't go on but- we know they do. We just pretend they don't and hey- everyone is doing it. Why shouldn't we just go along with it? Ok, it's not to the extreme of killing people but, I expect most of us are still complicit in a world that cruelly exploits others for our own benefit. I read a book ages ago with a great title- 'The Banality of Evil'.