NYT Magazine Asks Readers If They Would Kill ‘Baby Hitler’
Some 42 percent of New York Times Magazine online readers said they would use a time machine to go back and kill “baby Hitler.”
Another 30 percent said no, and 28 percent said they were unsure.
The query on Friday came a day after “Back to the Future” Day, in honor of the 80s movie series in which characters traveled back in time and changed the course of their history.
We asked @nytmag readers: If you could go back and kill Hitler as a baby, would you do it? (What’s your response?) pic.twitter.com/daatm12NZC
— NYT Magazine (@NYTmag) October 23, 2015
The poll set off a firestorm on Twitter, where the hashtag #babyHitler trended over the weekend.
Many of those who said they could not kill baby Hitler were worried about bringing about unexpected consequences.
The New York Times Magazine responded to the controversy by tweeting “LOL.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO