Of all the incarnations of Doctor Who‘s time-traveling protagonist, Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor is perhaps most strongly associated with the character’s dark side, manipulating foes and friends alike for what he perceived to be the greater good. However, a 1991 novel took this to the extreme by making him an ally of humanity’s most infamous evil: German dictator Adolf Hitler.
Written by former script editor Terrance Dicks, Timewyrm: Exodus was the second novel in Virgin Publishing’s Doctor Who: The New Adventures, a book series that began after the original program ended in 1989. Traveling to 1950s London with his companion Ace, played in Doctor Who by Sophie Aldred, the Doctor discovers that history has been altered so that the Nazis won World War II. Thus, the pair must travel back in time, inevitably crossing paths with Hitler to find out what caused this change.
Arriving first in Munich, Germany, the Doctor and Ace meet Hitler after his failed attempt to overthrow the government in 1923. Ace is shocked when the Doctor resets Hitler’s shoulder and promises that he will one day rule the country, even stopping her from assassinating the future despot with her trademark Nitro-9 explosives. The Doctor justifies these actions as necessary to put history back on track, as without Hitler, a more competent fascist could replace him and prove impossible to beat.
The TARDIS then travels to the 1939 Nuremburg rally, where Hitler embraces the Doctor upon remembering their encounter in 1923. Quickly becoming his closest confidant, the Doctor discovers that the Führer is possessed by the Timewyrm, who first appeared in the previous novel, John Peel’s Timewyrm: Genesys. The Timewyrm is trapped in Hitler’s mind, making him particularly unstable and his actions impossible to predict, so the Doctor teaches Hitler ways of suppressing the alien entity.
Unfortunately, an old enemy is also serving as one of the Führer’s top advisers: the War Chief from “The War Games,” the ten-part serial co-written by Dicks with Malcolm Hulke to finish the Second Doctor’s final season. Here, he serves to parallel his fellow Time Lord; while the Doctor is trying to ensure Hitler’s downfall, the War Chief is trying to ensure his victory, with the end goal of creating an army of Nazi zombies to conquer the universe. To stop this scheme, the Doctor forges unlikely alliances with Hermann Goering and Heinrich Himmler, convincing both that the War Chief will betray the Führer.
Yet, it is ultimately the Doctor’s scheme that comes closest to ensuring Hitler’s total victory. Arriving after the War Chief’s defeat, the Führer reveals that he has achieved symbiosis with the Timewyrm, thanks to the techniques the Doctor taught him. In other words, the Seventh Doctor’s typical role as cosmic chess master has backfired dramatically, turning Adolf Hitler into a self-assured master strategist that will inevitably win the war and bring all of creation under Nazi rule.
Having one option left, the Doctor and Ace travel to 1940, where Hitler is about to order the destruction of the British Army at the Battle of Dunkirk, cementing the changes to history. With a final manipulation, the Doctor goads the Timewyrm out of Hitler and traps it in the void, leaving Germany’s leader a defenseless and blubbering wreck. On the advice of the person he trusts the most, Hitler withdraws his army from Dunkirk, unwittingly sowing the seeds for his defeat and death five years later.
All of this highlights what makes the Seventh Doctor unique amongst his other incarnations. Doctor Who saw him using plenty of people as tools for the greater good, including Ace on more than one occasion. Nevertheless, Timewyrm: Exodus demonstrates how even he can fall victim to his own machinations, not only by presenting him with a pawn as unpredictable as Adolf Hitler, but by making him the person who almost turns Hitler into the absolute ruler of existence.
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