Gandhi hoped to prevent World War II by encouraging Hitler to seek peace. This is the first of two letters he wrote to Hitler. He wrote the second a few months after the invasion of Poland.

As at Wardha
C.P.
India
23.7.'39

Dear friend,

Friends have been urging me to write to you for the sake of humanity. But I have resisted their request, because of the feeling that any letter from me would be an impertinence. Something tells me that I must not calculate and that I must make my appeal for whatever it may be worth.

It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to the savage state. Must you pay the price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has seliberately [sic] shunned the method of war not without considerable success? Any way I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have erred in writing to you.

Her Hitler
Berlin
Germany.

I remain,
Your sincere friend,
M. K. GANDHI

Source: “Mohandas Gandhi's letter to Adolf Hitler, 1939,” theguardian, (October 12, 2013).

Gandhi’s Prewar Letter to Hitl