Was April 20th 1889, the worst day in history?

Adolf Hitler, Kinderbild

The image above shows a young child—just a baby. He was born on 20 April 1889. Nothing in this picture would suggest that this infant would one day be responsible for the deaths of millions.

That child was Adolf Hitler.

There is a question sometimes posed in psychology as a moral thought experiment: if you could travel back in time to 20 April 1889, would you kill the infant Hitler? It highlights how impossible it is to predict the future—no one looking at this child could have foreseen what he would become.

Hitler’s father, Alois Hitler, was born in 1837 as the illegitimate son of Maria Anna Schicklgruber. His baptismal record did not name a father, so he initially carried his mother’s surname, Schicklgruber. In 1842, Maria Anna married Johann Georg Hiedler.

After Maria Anna’s death in 1847, Alois later amended his baptismal record in 1876 to list Johann Georg Hiedler as his father. He subsequently adopted the surname “Hitler,” a variation also spelled Hiedler, Huettler, or Hüttler—likely derived from a term meaning “one who lives in a hut.” Adolf Hitler had seven siblings, though three died in childhood.

20-Mind-Boggling-Facts-About-Adolf-Hitler-05

For 36 years, Hitler was an Austrian citizen; for nearly seven years, he was stateless. He held German nationality for only 13 years.

It raises an unsettling question: what if something had happened on the day of his birth? How different might the world have been?

It is tempting to look back and call 20 April 1889 one of the worst days in history—but in truth, it was an ordinary day. What followed was not inevitable, and that is what makes it all the more disturbing.

 

 sources

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Adolf-Hitler

 https://www.hitler-archive.com/index.php?y=1889-1922

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler

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