Passau's Curious Nazi History

Passau

In 2013 after returning from a trip to Germany, which included three days in Passau, I wrote a series of posts on this site that described the town’s connections with Hitler, who lived there for a few years as a small boy. Legend (with some degree of corroboration) had it that Hitler was saved from drowning in the Inn River by a playmate. This week I consolidated those postings in an article for the Times of Israel (Blogs). If you have not previously read this, it is quite interesting.

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/passaus-curious-nazi-history/

If the story about Hitler in Passau is true, it is fascinating to ask how it might have changed the course of history had Hitler actually drowned as a child. Would there have been a Second World War? Possibly because the Versailles Treaty helped lay the groundwork for the radicalization of Germany. Would there have been a Holocaust? I doubt it. It was Hitler’s unique personality combined with the fanatics and criminals that he surrounded himself with that made this happen.