If You Could Meet any Two People in History, Who Would They Be?

An Ordinary Sunday Night? Think Again

On a Sunday evening at my home in Connecticut, I had the experience of a lifetime. As I walked into my dining room table with my TV dinner in hand, I nearly had an acute coronary occlusion after the sight presented before me. After dropping my meal immediately, I stared at the man sitting at my table. I didn’t move an inch before Adolf Hitler said to me in his German tongue, “Hallo. Kommen Sie sitzt.” Being a linguistics professor at the local college, I was able to translate this immediately and followed his request by sitting alongside the renowned Nazi legend. How is this figurehead of the twentieth century here alongside me in the year 2031? I do not have an answer to that and never will. For a few moments I was speechless until I came to realize that this is an opportunity that historians would only dream of. I, a lonely man of thirty-eight, was ready to question and reason with a man that not only influenced the past but the present-day as well.

I then began to make general conversation with the chief of the National Socialist German Workers Party. Adolf Hitler was finally going to explain his motives for the near obliteration of the Jewish population and end this sense of ambiguity worldwide. I then thought to myself, if Hitler, the man responsible for over twelve million deaths is here, then it is quite possible that his SS soldiers could be accompanying him outside. It then occurred to me that my life could be in serious jeopardy. Finally coming to my senses, I decided to put the risk aside and pursue this unreal occasion. I chose to begin probing chronologically, starting with his childhood in Austria.

He began describing his rough childhood, predominantly caused by his abusive father. More importantly, he informed me that he murdered the head of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna that rejected him in Austria, marking the onset of his campaign towards leading Germany to what he believed was greatness. At this point in the conversation, I started to feel comfortable to ask him more serious, psychological questions. He explained his motives for such hate against the Jews. As I was well aware, when Hitler rose to power in Germany, the economy had plummeted during the Great Depression. However, he was so set on creating a uni-polar world with Germany on top that he was willing to do whatever it took. As a result, he identified the Jews as the group responsible for this time of economic failure due to their small size, which decreased the chances of rebellion. With an entire nation on his back, this led to a hate movement against the Jewish people, eventually culminating with Kristallnacht, or the night of broken glass, on November 9, 1938.