How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Again strolling along the sidewalk with her shopping bags, Juliana thought, Maybe Goring will be the new Fuhrer when that Bormann dies. […]
But probably Goebbels will get it, she decided. That was what everyone said. As long as that awful Heydrich doesn't. He'd kill us all. He's really bats. (6.10-1)
And then, just as an example of how hard it is to know the future, we have Juliana here thinking that Goring will be Fuhrer and hoping that Heydrich won't be. By the end of the book, we know the situation is actually different: Heydrich may be an evil [insert four-letter curse here], but he might be the best choice.
Quote #8
"They're just babbling," she said. "Why do they use words like that? Those terrible murderers are talked about as if they were like the rest of us."
"They are like us," Joe said. He reseated himself and once more ate, "There isn't anything they've done we wouldn't have done if we'd been in their places. They saved the world from Communism. We'd be living under Red rule now, if it wasn't for Germany. We'd be worse off." (6.96-7)
Just like Abendsen, Joe Cinnadella plays his own "what if" game, but his game is "what if we were in the Nazis' position, what would we do?" For Joe, the answer is "the same thing." So Joe's view of history is that things have to turn out the way they did, because everyone would do the same actions.
Quote #9
Nevertheless, Mr. Baynes thought, the crucial point lies not in the present, not in either my death or the death of the two SD men; it lies—hypothetically—in the future. What has happened here is justified, or not justified, by what happens later. Can we perhaps save the lives of millions, all Japan in fact? (12.225)
Baynes has risked his life and Tagomi's sanity (not to mention been in the room when a bunch of kidnappers bit it), but even he doesn't know if he's had any effect on history. Baynes has an interesting view here, where his present is the future's past (and all that without drugs). So the actions here might help to make a better future. But does that make Baynes seem like he's trying to be "an agent […] of history" (see quote above)?