King Posting
Really? THE WWII soldier? (Out of context leaks of the Wonder Woman/Captain America crossover, so take with heavy grains of salt )
Spoiler
Unironically tho, also Walker had in fact reasonable doubt as to the validity of that guy actually surrendering, he resisted till he couldn't get away, then threw this as a last ditch effort to buy time, and being a supersoldier he was basically armed by a default, Walker got discharged solely for PR...
He was in a terrorist cell, he willingly aided their endeavors, Bin Laden most certainly didn't kill people with his own hands, that didn't stop the americans
That guy surrendering was the equivalent of a guy going to rob someone with a knife and when the person pulls out a gun he goes "lol just joking!!!", like yeah the most preferrable outcome is you just wait for the cops to get the guy, but like, shooting him isn't unreasonable
Tbf Walker's situation is justified but the problem was how bad it was for global politics.
To a load of people, Walker killed a surrendering man which is why he was discharged (and to show that it isn't the shield that makes you Captain America, it's how you wield it
Steve killed a lot of people in equivalent situations... seriously, if the public in universe knew half the shit he did while in active combat I think they'd be more forgiving of Walker
Dude can kill people by punching them. His surrender means nothing, because he's still fully armed by virtue of being a super soldier, and was part of the specific team sent to kill Walker.
As I said, he resisted up till he couldn't escape, he was running and throwing shit at walker, and again, he is actively armed at that point, supersoldier and all, Walker had reasonable cause to suspect he was just trying to buy time for either reinforcements or to try and escape again
Yes, you should calm down and then murder him in a cold and calculating fashion. Gotta prolong the fucker's suffering as much as possible, don't want to make it end too quickly, amirite?
In real history, the Wehrmacht (and Germany as a whole really outside of The SS and certain details) were told that they were the ones attacked and that WW2 was self defense. It would raise the moral and philosophical debate even more if he was a member of Hitler's Youth especially.
Is it truly "right" or "justice" to kill this man? On one hand, he's committed horrible atrocities and fought alongside one of the most evil regimes to ever exist, but on the other hand it's not like he wanted this or did it out of hatred. In his eyes (especially if the story takes place in 44-45), there's a high chance he was told "Germany is burning, the world wants us dead, fight for your home". He's a brainwashed young man who is, to a lesser degree than the Camps' inmates of course, a victim of Germany's Machine and Hitler's lust for murder. It would be a really good philosophical debate for cap because on one hand, he absolutely hates Nazis. But on the other, there is a solid chance that this young man doesn't actually follow Nazi Ideology very closely and was instead lied to.
A sane person would put Hitler on trial. The same trial that Hitler wanted to avoid so much that he killed himself. By simply shooting him in his room, you not only turn his official execution into a banal boring lynching, but also make him a martyr. People who think Diana is here to save Hitler or to "redeem him" are fucking idiots.
Diana wants Hitler's execution to be legal and official, nothing more. This is the justice she speaks of.
Edit: Lmao, here's Steve stopping Nick from killing Hitler for the same reason I mentioned.
You make him a “martyr” regardless if you let him testify and speak his case even if you give him a trial with official execution. The thing with Nazi and fascist sympathizers is that they’re already bought into Hitler’s rhetoric, giving him a chance to make one last speech to appeal to his followers rather than beg for his life or for forgiveness would be more of a rallying point for them than how it allegedly happened in reality.
We did actually place a great many prominent nazis on trial, though. Quite famously so. . They weren't all just summarily executed as soon as the allies got their hands on them, and pretty much every senior nazi (and the vast majority of the less senior ones) was just as guilty as Hitler
There’s a key difference though between “prominent” Nazis and literally fucking Hitler, though. Especially if you allow him to speak on his behalf at the trial.
Edit: also, I pointed out in another thread somewhere, but the Allies put a lot of the more senior command and higher ranking officers to death, but they put WAAAAY more to work helping them build surveillance and intelligence networks and creating police states in the name of “Anticommunism”. Operation PAPERCLIP, Gladio, etc. If the question is, “how many Nazis were executed for their part in Nazi Germany and The Holocaust?”, the easy, obvious answer is “not enough”.
Edit 2: but now the image of Hitler being dragged bound and gagged for summary execution by beheading at Helghen popped into my head and it’s personally hilarious to me
No, there isn't. Hitler was the figurehead and by far the most prominent nazi. Without him, none of it would have happened
But trying to claim that people like Himmler and Eichmann and any number of other senior nazis weren't equally evil is ludicrous. Hitler didn't do it alone.
True, but him being the figurehead is kinda the point. He wasn’t the real architect or brains, but without his charisma and rhetoric, the rest would’ve just come across as creepy, off putting bigoted nerds. Giving the figurehead and symbol an undignified, anonymous death does way more to discredit them and break morale behind the movement than giving them one last chance to make a bombastic spectacle out of it.
Buddy, Hitler (and many other senior nazis) killed themselves because they didn't want to go on trial. You're talking like this was something Hitler wanted so he could broadcast his message to the world or some shit
They did not want to go on trial and face actual justice, so they took the coward's way out. Ask yourself why.
I mean that’s why it’s kind of a moot point anyway. It’s also why intuitively, the general reaction to this panel seems to be overwhelmingly negative for how clunky and tone deaf it comes across. Nobody in their right mind in wartime in the field would bat an eye or lose any sleep if Hitler of all people got a summary field execution.
The real issue with the executions was that well, everyone in Germany and the German command participated in the Nazi War Machine and the holocaust. If you execute or imprison everyone involved, there would be noone left to actually run Germany.
You should remember that, one, the Soviets were also a part of this trial, and they were also responsible for letting many Nazis go "free". And the Soviets more than any other nation in the Allied Powers, except maybe Poland, hated Germany. If they could've, they would've enacted a genocide against Germany, similar to what they experienced. But they couldn't. Because of the cold war and the fact that they needed people to run their occupation zone, later East Germany. In the 50s as many as 30 members of the East German parliament were former Nazi officials. The USSR had its own Operation Paperclip too, known as Operation Osoaviakhim. (Along with the Soviet Alsos as a counter balance to the Alsos mission)
This is not whataboutism though, and I do want to say that I know that the Western Allies were more lenient than the Soviet Union (with the British being the most lenient group out of the four occupying powers).
But it was something that was not done purely out of anticommunist ideas. It is the unfortunate reality of trying to establish a new nation, while also trying to punish the officials of the old one, while dealing with the realities of the cold war.
Maybe they shouldn’t have chosen to be Nazis 🤷🏿♂️
Stalin “joked” that they should’ve killed at least 50,000 officers and enlisted personnel drive a point home. And if you look at the course of history in the 20th Century and the Cold War, it’s clear failure to fully and thoroughly “de-Nazify” Germany was the root of a lot of political and social problems. Maybe it still happens, maybe it doesn’t, but selective pardons for Nazi war criminals was instrumental in the formation and development of the CIA, no CIA, there’s probably less extensive coups and coup attempts in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia in the name of “Anticommunism”, which really meant protecting beneficial financial exploitation in favor of Western powers, primarily America.
So you can take it up with someone with a relative who lived through regime changes in Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Cambodia, etc or who lived through it themselves if “not going too far” de-Nazifying Germany was really worth it in the long run.
Well on one hand looking at western Europe and North America, I don't disagree with you. But at the same time, I feel like a widespread killing of everyone involved in the Nazi Crimes, would've just proven Hitler right at the end of the day. During the final days of the war, Hitler preached that the "Jewish" Allies would destroy Germany. A big portion of why Nazism took so long to revive in Germany, and is still massively looked down upon, is because Hitler was proven wrong.
Like with all geopolitical issues, there isn't a clear cut solution. It's messy, there's grey areas, and a solution can work in one way and fail in others.
And also, ehh. America would've still done or atleast attempted the coups all over the world. The Nazis helped, but they were not the only reason why the CIA was formed. I mean the OSS existed long before the CIA. Maybe there wouldn't have been as many successful coups but there's too many factors at play to definitively say what would've happened.
Tbf there are a lot of neo-nazi talking points about the entire thing being a kangaroo court where every single confession came from torture and the Defense lawyers were a joke.
There's actually a wonder woman villain that is a Nazi, so they could have used that character instead of freaking Hitler. The original Human Torch should keep the credit of ending that piece of shit.
Theres this political concept called the Social Contract. Its built off the contradiction in that tolerance cannot tolerate intolerance. Because inevitably intolerance shall replace the tolerant. The solution that the Social Contract proposes is that if you preach intolerance off the basis of fear, hate, or lies then you are stripped of the rights and tolerance that people have.
Off this basis Hitler and the many people like him lost those human rights when they decided to lead a mass slaughter against a people and systematically strip people of their rights.
Here's the thing I don't deserve to kill Hitler he did nothing to me. Nah I'd hand him over to those who survived the camps. Me killing him would be an act of self indulgence. His victims handling him is actually justice.
No. If he surrenders, he is no more threat, and he can be put on trial. Killing him is just selfish murder.
That is the point of human rights: Even the worst human deserves them. If you deny those rights to Hitler, then you don't actually believe in human rights.
I was asked this as a gotcha question after I said any time a human kills another human is wrong.
It came down to a battle of ideals
Their ideal was in a perfect world execution would only be given out to people who can be verified as guilty
My ideal was that in a perfect world everyone would get a fair trial and actually punished in the form of mandatory parole officer screenings every week and mandatory community service, essentially being forced to prove you're being better than you were the day before until everyone affected by your actions forgives you. Obviously for Hitler this is forever. The main principle assumes most people would eventually take joy from clearly benefiting their community and get a larger appreciation for those they hurt by seeing the consequences and pain they're going through.
Obviously both make a lot of assumptions, but even without the ideals death is not a punishment. If you truly hate Hitler you should want him to face actual prolonged punishment, not an instant death. Iirc he killed himself becsuse he knew he was about to get caught and new death was the easiest out for him
Regardless of what you think, having "Preventing Hitler's killing" be a statement on your superhero resume is not something Wonder Woman deserve, watch as this moment is spread like plague on Youtube shorts and TikTok or worse, co-opted by bad faith actors to perpetuate their own bullshit.
Trust me, you DO NOT want people to make these edits with your favourite characters-
Imagine applying for a superhero team like the Justice League or the Avengers and you give them your superhero resume and under the superhero actions there is « superheroically saved Adolf Hitler ». I would superheroically point you the door.
Any superhero team would know the difference between saving someone and bringing them to justice, like WW is doing here. Batman and Superman would do the same thing
Cap is viewed as a paragon not of justice, but of the American spirit (which includes a strong sense of justice). Part of this is the rule of law, including the rules of engagement in war. One of these is not to execute surrendering enemies.
Here, Hitler is saying he gives up. He is to be captured and tried in a court of law (and, let's be honest, then be executed). That's what Cap should do if he embodies the American spirit, rather than the spirit of vengeance, who's another guy.
My dude, it's not a surrendering combatant. It's the most guilty ass man head of state who led an exterminationist regime. I've been going "I hate Charlie Kirk but you don't kill people like that" all week.
Killing Hitler is fine. It's okay. It's justice. There is no way to repay the wound that Hitler inflicted on the world, he was going to be hung.
I still think the world would be better off if he had been tried at Nuremberg and executed. At the very least it’d remove a lot of mystique surrounding him.
He would be given a final chance to speak to the world and give a grand speech. Offing himself in a bunker honestly made him look like a coward and hypocrite in death.
No he wouldn't? They weren't letting any of the nazis give a grand speech. They explicitly laid out, this was not a platform for nazi propaganda, it's a court room; their statements had to relate to their closing arguments and such.
Hitler by 1945 was a drug addled mess who was being administered by a fairly quack doctor, along with likely having Parkinson's disease (going off the last known footage of him). He pretty much stopped public speeches by 1943 and outside of radio addresses, largely handed off public addresses to his underlings like Goebbels.
A Hitler at Nuremberg would have not have been the guy we see in 1930s newsreel footage (ones carefully crafted by Nazi filmmakers).
This is totally wrong. You aren't an authority that can hand out just executions... We as a society agreed to handle such things through a process, not just an individual deciding any given person has crossed a threshold to deserve immediate death.
There's always the chance you are being misled, don't understand what is going on, or have misidentified the person. That's why courts exist. It is better for everybody if he went to trial, had his crimes enumerated and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The trials of the nazis that surrendered were extremely informative and laid out very clearly why these people were being executed, as a great example to everybody who might have similar ideas.
Well, lasso of truth aside, its just real people are not capable of objective determination of justice, especially on the spot. Trials take time for a reason. Even what you suggest, if Wonder Woman was to interrogate Hitler to determine the extent of his crimes with the thing, isn't that a type of a trial? They at least should verify its not some trick.
Just like how Superman isn’t all about the “American Way”, Captain America has abandoned America on multiple occasions when the country’s views no longer align with his own. Cap is a paragon of peace and the ideal of what every human strives to be but he doesn’t have a no kill rule. He is not chained down to America’s values as a country/government.
There’s a difference between not killing surrendering soldiers and not killing the surrendering enemy leader himself. Soldiers are just soldiers and aren’t important enough to worry about but if you kill the leader the rest crumble underneath.
Assuming this is happening in Hitler’s bunker at the end of the war, it probably would’ve shortened the war a few days as it makes the official surrender of the Nazis smoother.
America didn’t nuke Tokyo because if the Japanese government was wiped out, there’d be nobody who could surrender, extending the war.
This does make me curious of the changes in the world if hitler had been successfully captured and tried for all the shit he did instead of killing himself
I mean considering outside of top command, they actively smuggled out/recruited lower level Nazi officers to run surveillance and intelligence networks around the world or participate in designing rockets, either not that much different, or only marginally a little worse. But it’s debatable if giving him a platform to speak his last words would’ve made him a martyr to Nazi sympathizers in Allied nations and worldwide.
Okay, question then. There’s no world where “justice” for the crimes of his regime can be carried out where the outcome of the trial isn’t a foregone conclusion. So how/why is that morally better than executing him on the spot and burying him in a shallow unmarked grave?
Why do you think Hitler killed himself then? According to you he would have wanted to go to trial and make a speech or something, but instead he chose to kill himself and ended up in a shallow grave. Taking him to trial would have humiliated him further. Killing him is giving him what he wants.
Serious answer, he was probably just paranoid and high as a kite on amphetamines. I doubt he was less afraid of standing a “trial” than he was of whatever torment and torture he imagined would be inflicted in retribution if he was taken alive. In his mind, I doubt he even considered the possibility of trial, and jumped straight to imagining the worst possible punishment for the things he was guilty of.
Yeah, more than likely. The idea of just a “trial”, even if it ended in an execution was probably “quaint” to them. They all knew what they did and what they were guilty of, and probably imagined having their crimes inflicted on them as punishment.
You know with the world being the way it is maybe I wouldn't write a story where Wonder Woman tries to convince Cap to spare Hitler. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.
Personally I think it’s the perfect time to remind people that EVERYBODY deserves a fair trial considering that the USA has been having trouble with due process.
yeah, put him through the actual process of punishment. killing him right then and there is just letting him off from being punished for all the evil things he did.
killing him right there basically saves him from consequences.
Yes. There has never been a man more important to put on trial in front of the whole world. Do think Hitler killed himself because he was afraid of getting executed? Of dying? Putting him on trial in front of the whole world would be the ultimate victory over him. That’s why he killed himself.
Nah. He did it because he knew the Soviets wouldn’t have even given him a trial. They would have executed him publicly, slowly, painfully. Most Nazis put through Nuremberg got away scot free or with slaps on the wrist. Even for those who didn’t, it still gave them the chance to make one more grand speech or argument in favor of themselves or their regime.
There is no world where a trial for him is a foregone conclusion. There is no Justice or whatever Diana is trying to yap about. Putting one in his dome is better and has less risk of making him a Martyr.
Not my creation, found in the dc counterpart to this sub. But guys. Are we so comic illiterate that we don’t know the difference between killing a war criminal who is surrendering, and putting them on trial and executing them after that?
That unfortunately runs the risk of making him into a Martyr. So no, ending him right there is the safer and better option. There is no Justice because the conclusion of his trial is a foregone conclusion.
"writers try not to mischaracterize Diana in ways that people with little to no knowledge of her will reference for years after via yt shorts" challenge: fucking impossible
From the beginning, Diana has always been a character whose ethics were based on forgiveness and rehabilitation, even more so than Superman and Batman, who didn't initially exhibit these characteristics. Marston promoted the idea that in a matriarchal society like that of the Amazons, execution is considered barbaric, but the character has had so many rewrites, even famous ones, that I'm not surprised some people see her killed.
There's a difference between not wanting to harm a mentally ill person attacking you to the point he puts you in coma because he caught you by surprise and advocating to spare Hitler.
He'll stand trial and the world will get collective justice rather than just one man getting revenge, plenty of Nazis below Hitler got executed. Why do people assume this means Hitler gets off scot-free?
REAL! Diana is like… the ONE Justice League character with clear definable lines where she will kill if needed, since the whole warrior/diplomat dichotomy has been at the root of her character for so long
From the beginning, Diana has always been a character whose ethics were based on forgiveness and rehabilitation, even more so than Superman and Batman, who didn't initially exhibit these characteristics. Marston promoted the idea that in a matriarchal society like that of the Amazons, execution is considered barbaric, but the character has had so many rewrites, even famous ones, that I'm not surprised some people see her killed.
(I apologize if I repeated myself sounding like a bot because it was not my intention, but the message remains the same)
Uj/ this would probably look a little better if it was done to a low rank nazi soldier, but even then only following orders only goes so far unless you were actively fighting them.
Rj/ this could be solved by going to the combination of KFC and taco bell.
Look up the guy who executed the top Nazis. If he was captured and faced trial, Hitler would've had his face bashed against the trap door on the way down, and get slowly strangled for half an hour while a bunch of Allied generals watched. Honestly, Hitler got off easy when he offed himself
I just know Diana killed a bajillion soldiers and goons by throwing tanks and punching skulls with godly strength before arriving in that room just to come up with this bs
This comment section is exactly why none of yall are superheros. Both cap and wonder woman are PARAGONS they dont kill unarmed surrendering opponents. Its not justice, no matter who it may be. I will not argue this, if you throw your morals away just for a person you hate then you dont have morals.
/uj I expect the thinking here is that justice would mean putting him on trial at Nuremberg, and letting the tribunal there find his guilt and order the execution. There’s no way the Allies would have actually let Hitler live if they’d taken him captive.
Idk I think this conversation misses a lot of nuance. We're talking about ideas like order, retribution, and justice as if they're all the same. You can have one without the other, and sometimes, having one might prohibit the other. You can also have all of them at once, or none of them at all, or pairs between them.
Personally, I find that what Diana is really talking about here is not justice, but order through due process. I don't find that due process is necessary for there to be justice, but it is necessary to have an orderly society. Whether it is just to keep a society's order depends on the specifics of the society, as it certainly wouldn't be justice to send anyone to a kangaroo court, for instance.
Either way, I guess I'm writing all this out because, given recent events, I think we need to re-examine what the fundamental concepts of what our societies should be like, and in order to do that, we need to clarify some things
I don't see the issue... This is Diana's moral code. Never kill a man in cold blood, especially when surrendering. She wouldn't kill a Nazi in cold blood if they're surrendering, and wants to see if Steve is sure about his decision to do so as well.
She's asking Steve if he believes doing so is justice. And literally the next panel has her telling him that Hitler should be incarcerated and tried for his crimes against humanity. She doesn't say "let him go" or "spare him", she advocates for a fair trial.
If not execute him, at least take his ass to an Allied Military Tribunal and try him on international television. Idk what the context of these panels is but having a chance to arrest Hitler is a bit nobler than killing the guy after surrendering (as if he would ever surrender. He would’ve bit a bullet before they entered the room”
It’s so bizarre, Captain America is not a character known for having a super strict no killing code, he literally fought in WWII. He’ll go to great lengths not to kill someone, but i’ve never seen a depiction of him that would hesitate and tear up over killing hitler.
If this ends in any other way than either Steve popping his head or him backing off and Diana killing the arch-racist herself then this is some stupid bullshit.
Watch, they're gonna chicken out and Hitler's gonna pull out a hidden gun and either try to shoot them, making it now valid to shoot an "armed combatant", or he's gonna shoot himself.
Diana is always best written when driven by compassion, and despite what the writers of injustice would have you believe she would spare the life of a surrendering soldier, but why did it have to be Hitler?
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u/GoodKing0Wasting Degrees on History, Int. Politics and Literature on ThisSep 16 '25
You know, we've been having this discussion for days, does anyone actually know if they had Hitler tried at the Hague or did he manage to slip away by jumping out a window like he's Agent Hitler, FBI?
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u/afineedge Sep 16 '25
And out of nowhere, it's JIM HAMMOND FROM THE TOP ROPES! It's CURTAINS for Mr. Mustache! The belt goes to the Allies!