WI: The Screaming Eagles capture Hitler

Not really. The man is a drooling husk who is probably looking to off himself. Were any of the Nazi trials really memorable?
Goering gets some points for making a really good performance. In a civilian court he probably would have gotten a lighter sentence.

Of course everyone knew the court was rigged against the Nazi's and Goering was guilty anyways so...
 

BlondieBC

Banned
(Hopefully) slightly better than OTL, but that depends on how much subsequent U.S. actions muck things up i.e. backing douchebag dictators just 'cause they're anti-Communist, Operation Ajax-esque affairs, Vietnam-like conflict and so on.

One thing for sure: TTL's Band of Brothers would be even more epic. Dick Winter might just get his well-deserved Medal of Honor :D

Marc A

The only way they send in Dick Winters to capture him is if they don't know Hitler is at the Eagles nest. I have this picture of Hitler with his mustache shaved, bleach blond hair, and whatever comes closest to plastic surgery back then found in a corporal uniform, making his final plans to board a plane for the first leg of his journey overseas.

Now I do see a MoH for someone in the party who captures him, so if E company does capture him, Winters or E company commanders are likely candidates. But I would not rule out giving it to a Jewish soldier, mostly for symbolic measure. Maybe MoH for all three.

There would probably be lots of conspiracy theories claiming that the man captured was not the real Hitler, but only a double, while he himself had disappeared.

True, without DNA it would be hard to prove, and since most pictures showed him before the major health issues, the much older looking man with the shakes could easily be seen as a crudely done double by people who like conspiracies.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I think that if Hitler were captured he would have been tried and exuted.

i do not know what if any insantity defence were possible under the terms of the Nuremberg trials but politically not tyring hitler was impossible.

On a technical note, I thought that the major war criminals were hanged by Americans, and thus were strangled rather than the British approach of dropping enough to break the neckbut not to decapitate

He committed enough crimes while obviously sane by criminal definitions.

Now you also have to be mentally competent to stand trial, even if sane at the time of the crime. So for example, someone who committed a horrible double murder, but had severe brain damage from a cops bullet while being captured, would not be tried, but keep in a mental institution/hospital. By this second standard, a Hitler trial might not be justifiable depending on his health issues in the last month of the war.

But, in reality, we would still try him, and hang him.

With what, magic? There were plenty of people who weren't able to commit suicide.

Besides, perhaps the Furher wants to be in the dock. The Reich should be proud of what it has done for Europe. Etc. etc.

If he wants to be in the dock, the probably he will spend most of his time condemning Germans for failing him so badly.
 
The worst case scenario for Hitler is that he is turned over to the Soviets for trial. If that were to happen the NKVD would make sure he would have a new definition of the word pain before he died! :eek:
 
I thought the 7th Infantry Regiment got the Eagle's Nest first?

Could be mistaken, remember reading it on IMDb once ...
 
The only way they send in Dick Winters to capture him is if they don't know Hitler is at the Eagles nest. I have this picture of Hitler with his mustache shaved, bleach blond hair, and whatever comes closest to plastic surgery back then found in a corporal uniform, making his final plans to board a plane for the first leg of his journey overseas.

Now I do see a MoH for someone in the party who captures him, so if E company does capture him, Winters or E company commanders are likely candidates. But I would not rule out giving it to a Jewish soldier, mostly for symbolic measure. Maybe MoH for all three.



True, without DNA it would be hard to prove, and since most pictures showed him before the major health issues, the much older looking man with the shakes could easily be seen as a crudely done double by people who like conspiracies.
I like this scenarion, I can see him choosing a corporal's uniform out of sentimentatilty.
 
In a bad way, your explaination kills what I wanted to do.
Sorry about that but its a possibilty I think. Its that whole actions have cosequences thing. WW2 is all about competing ideals fighting againt each other ...and thats just the western allies;)
For this pod to happen and not have the consequences for the guys of easy company that I envisaged you can have a pod somewhat earlier say 1944 have FDR resign due to ill health and be replaced by Truman an alltogether tougher individual at this stage than FDR who was desperatly ill and not at his best by then.
Then you need a falling out with Stalin aided and abbetted by Churchill [gleefully I imagine] possibly the soviet spy network is discovered earlier?
Then this makes sense of a sort no lend lease to the USSR but its way too late to stop the soviet juggernaught but with Hitler gone its like getting the cake box but without the cake:D The rest of my post though still holds though [early cold war etc]
 
Uncle Joe insists that Hitler have a piano-wire suspension and a white-hot cremation... And the NKVD keep all the ashes of Adolf Hitler as a safety measure. You cannot be any less serious than that.
I don't know, that's a little... pedestrian I'd say. Sticking him in a raised open air nine by nine cage in the middle of Red Square would be more his style I would of thought.


Nah, I think cleaning him up, insuring he has the best medical care possible to recover is the way to go. Seeing how reviled he is, seeing the Jews recover and form their own nation, I wonder if Stalin would be able to restrain his need for the immediate gratification of pulling the trigger himself if he could instead have Hitler in a one man cell just down the hall to visit from time to time?

"Hello Adolph. Interesting news from Palestine- the Capitalist are forming a new country for the Jews you didn't manage to kill-Israel! Of course, the workers of the Soviet Union condemn this aggression on the peoples of Palestine, but the entire world is not yet a workers paradise!"
Ha! I actually find that vaguely appropriate.


Hitler commits suicide. In prison. Thus preventing that option for at least several other Nazis who will be captured.
I don't know, whilst Himmler was able to do that this is Hitler we're talking about. I don't think there would be a minute that he wasn't under constant observation, even when washing or on the toilet. The minute he tries anything the crash team comes charging in to restrain him and he ends up tied down to the bed until his trial is over and it's time to visit Mr. Pierrepoint.
 
I don't know, whilst Himmler was able to do that this is Hitler we're talking about. I don't think there would be a minute that he wasn't under constant observation, even when washing or on the toilet. The minute he tries anything the crash team comes charging in to restrain him and he ends up tied down to the bed until his trial is over and it's time to visit Mr. Pierrepoint.
They don't think the later Nazis will commit suicide, but are worried that Hitler will? How does this logic follow?

Out of sight, out of mind.
 
If Hitler is caught alive then another aspect is that he would have to serve a long prison term just for everything he did BEFORE 1939

Knight of the long knives
Reichtagfire
Kristallnacht

I am sure there are other things prior to 1939 and after his release from prison after the beehallattempt that he did that was against the law. Did his niece really commit suicide or was she murdered?

As for a war crime the first thing to come up would be starting a war THAT WASNT AGAINST THE LAW PRIOR TO WW2.

If he is put on trial for murdering the jews he can always blame Himmler and say that he never ment then to be murdered.

If the trial of Goring was something that came close to beeing a farce then imagine Hitler ranting the same way. And if the trial ends in 1947 there might come a request from Israel. "Please let us execute him"
 
the trial would be interesting, because for all his horrendous crimes, hitler effectively WAS the law in Germany, and would play that up as much as possible. What Angle would the prosecutors have taken in court against that defence?
 
If Hitler is caught alive then another aspect is that he would have to serve a long prison term just for everything he did BEFORE 1939

Knight of the long knives
Reichtagfire
Kristallnacht

I am sure there are other things prior to 1939 and after his release from prison after the beehallattempt that he did that was against the law. Did his niece really commit suicide or was she murdered?

As for a war crime the first thing to come up would be starting a war THAT WASNT AGAINST THE LAW PRIOR TO WW2.

If he is put on trial for murdering the jews he can always blame Himmler and say that he never ment then to be murdered.

If the trial of Goring was something that came close to beeing a farce then imagine Hitler ranting the same way. And if the trial ends in 1947 there might come a request from Israel. "Please let us execute him"

I doubt he lives more than a few months, not talking 1947! He would be up in front of a military tribunal, found guilty, and sentenced to death within a very short time!
 
The only way they send in Dick Winters to capture him is if they don't know Hitler is at the Eagles nest. I have this picture of Hitler with his mustache shaved, bleach blond hair, and whatever comes closest to plastic surgery back then found in a corporal uniform, making his final plans to board a plane for the first leg of his journey overseas.

Now I do see a MoH for someone in the party who captures him, so if E company does capture him, Winters or E company commanders are likely candidates. But I would not rule out giving it to a Jewish soldier, mostly for symbolic measure. Maybe MoH for all three.



True, without DNA it would be hard to prove, and since most pictures showed him before the major health issues, the much older looking man with the shakes could easily be seen as a crudely done double by people who like conspiracies.
Corporal Leibgott, just recieved the Medal of Honor in this scenario.
 

pnyckqx

Banned
What if, instead of hiding in his Feuher Bunker in Berlin, Hitler and his staff hide out at Eagle's Nest and are captured alive by the 101st Airborne division, 506th PIR Company "E"?

What changes does that result in?
As much as he is villified --perhaps rightfully so-- it would be interesting to see Hitler interrogated by Captain Sobel

There may not have been much left for further interrogation.

"I want to hear you scream."
 
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