Hitler (?)

[Ollie Garchy]

I think touches a nerve in many, many people. It's the fact that the Nazis could casually deem other humans as sub-human and because of this deny them basic human rights and treat them as animals. Of course, Nazi Germany was not the first regime to adopt this attitude....In a 'positive' light Hitler is often seen as a great conqueror on the scale of a Caesar or Napoleon, which is a favourable comparision. For example when talking about Russia it is often stated that it was this vast, desolate wasteland that laid ruin to the great armies of Napoleon and Hitler. For this reason he's admired by many people. If it's any comfort Hitler will be remembered as one of the most iconic figures in human history. It's a heck of a lot better than 99.9999..% of us will ever achieve, even if much of it is for the wrong reasons.

A personal thought...I gotta stop writing stuff that is going to get me in trouble. I gotta stop mixing Friday pints and writing on this forum. I apologize for my weird and poorly stated points of view.

 

[Ollie Garchy]

sorry...doubled.

 

[major liability]

Hitler was bad, but he had a purpose. I believe Stalin was a far worse person.

Besides, without Hitler, who would we use to compare people we hate to?

 

[Grimlin]

well...im shure that there were some great things about him...like how he ordered experiments never done before....like peeling the flesh off of a human to see how long it would take for infection to kill him...o, and my personal favorite, taking newborn chilren and droping them out the window of the builing to watch the mothers reation to the bby's death, and to see how long it would take her to break...yeah...great guy

really...you want us to tell you the bad things he did...there are too many to list...he was satans :cen:

 

[Damien435]

The people of the future, blonde and blue eyed, will truly laugh.

Being brown haired and brown eyes, and coming from a long history of brunettes and brown eyed relative, I can confidently say "Not on my watch." assuming your "blonde and blue eyed" is some sort of reference to Hitler's "superior race" of which he wasn't even a member.

 

[Del Boy]

I have never noticed this thread before, but I have to comment. I was very blue-eyed and fair, and the German girls just after WW11 thought I was just great. My mother in law, brought up in Germany, said I was typical Hitler youth material.

Let me say this - any praise of Hitler reveals a disgusting mind-set and anyone who says that there were others worse than Hitler are talking vile and ridiculous gibberish.

The whole package has never been surpassed for undiluted maniacal evil.

My opinion, formed over a great many years of observation and experience, and my last word on the subject, regardless of brainless, rose -coloured -spectacle -users' efforts to redeem his legacy.

 

[Englander2]

Hitler(?)

Anybody these days, who lives in Germany, has to be careful about expressing an honest opinion about Adolph Hitler. As by the Nuremberg trials, evidence which might be brought in defence of those in power between 1933 - 1945, is not allowed or wanted.
In my opinion this is wrong, because too many questions have not been answered correctly about this man and his followers. It is however not surprising, because the Social Democrats and trade unions in the Germany of today have a great deal of power. The current chancellor Mrs Merkel, also enjoyed an education in the GDR which normally was only given to those fully faithful to the Communist Party line. All the above organisations suffered under Hitler and are fully opposed to any kind of rehabilitation.
During the years which I have spent in this country however, I have come to the conclusion that many of the legends spread are based on War- and Post-war propaganda rather than reality. For younger people, who were not alive at the time, I can recommend John Toland's Hitler Biography as a basis to work on. Here can be found, that the Hitler family itself was not free of Jewish blood, which might explain the fact, that bodily he was everything else rather than an example of German blond-haired and blue eyed excellence.
The laws passed between 1933 and 1940 discriminating against Jews, are in themselves proof of a warped mind. They are however not an indication that he intended to commit genocide. For many years, he was also convinced, that he would be able to have his demands fulfilled without firing a shot.
His first great mistake in international politics, was to send troops into the remaining Czech state, after being successful in taking the Sudetenlands. This action cost him the admiration he had received from politicians all over Europe. The second and much more dangerous mistake, was to allow himself to be provoked into starting a war with Poland. This was exactly what a group of people who had been paying Churchill's private debts, had been waiting for.
After the war Churchill said "We have slaughtered the wrong pig," a short sentence, but significant. It meant in fact, that some of those with whom Britain had fought alongside, against Germany, were even more dangerous than the Nazis themselves.
The Holocaust is also a horrible capital which has not been clarified. Of the millions who died, many lost their lives while working in factories bombed by allied planes, although the governments concerned knew forced labour was being used at the time. Here just to put the blame on to one country, is to say the least, more than dishonest. By the way, Hitler's crazed mind was probably a result of being gassed in WW1. He won an award for bravery on the front line, but lost his sight for many weeks.

 

[senojekips]

In John Toland's book "Adolph Hitler", he alludes to the fact that young Adolph was "different" pretty much right from his childhood. A rather odd child that always seemed to have dreams of greatness.

I have read the book several times and find it quite fascinating, probably the best book I have found on the subject.

I think that it is time that some of these repressive laws were removed as they are not achieving anything of importance any longer. I don't think Hitler was a genius, by any stretch of the imagination, however he did achieve some great things in his efforts to return Germany to what he thought was it's rightful place in Europe, from there on in it all went pear shaped. Like many people who make a few well timed decisions, he started to think that he was infallible in all things.

 

[MontyB]

well...im shure that there were some great things about him...like how he ordered experiments never done before....like peeling the flesh off of a human to see how long it would take for infection to kill him...o, and my personal favorite, taking newborn chilren and droping them out the window of the builing to watch the mothers reation to the bby's death, and to see how long it would take her to break...yeah...great guy

really...you want us to tell you the bad things he did...there are too many to list...he was satans :cen:

While I am certainly not going to condone such actions I do think it worth pointing out that the allies didn't seem to mind a whole lot when they started using the same research after the war nor did it seem to be a great issue when they were recruiting German scientists, doctors and engineers after the war.
Just look at the case of Wernher von Braun most people seem to have forgotten his past at Mittelbau-Dora out of preference to post war exploits.

 

[perseus]

Just look at the case of Wernher von Braun most people seem to have forgotten his past at Mittelbau-Dora out of preference to post war exploits.

Monty, can you find any evidence he was directly responsible for the treatment of forced labour there, or whether he just accepted it since there was nothing he could do? I think there was an occassion were he picked slave labour and regularily attended the factory at Mittelwerk, but he never visited the camp itself

 

[MontyB]

Monty, can you find any evidence he was directly responsible for the treatment of forced labour there, or whether he just accepted it since there was nothing he could do? I think there was an occassion were he picked slave labour and regularily attended the factory at Mittelwerk, but he never visited the camp itself

He certainly made one trip to Buchenwald concentration camp to arrange for the transport of more prisoners to Mittelwerkas this is recorded in his letters that have been published recently.

There are also some fairly well researched claims in a book called Wernher von Braun: The Man Who Sold the Moon that he made at least one inspection of Dora in 1944 and participated in administrative meetings at Mittelwerk to discuss bringing in a thousand French laborers, these claims appear to be backed up in Wernher von Braun, the SS, and Concentration Camp Labor: Questions of Moral, Political, and Criminal Responsibility
Michael J. Neufeld
German Studies Review, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Feb., 2002), pp. 57-78

Unfortunately I can't post the articles here as they are from subscription sites.

However perhaps this would be better left for dedicated thread rather than hijacking this one.

 

[Del Boy]

While I am certainly not going to condone such actions I do think it worth pointing out that the allies didn't seem to mind a whole lot when they started using the same research after the war nor did it seem to be a great issue when they were recruiting German scientists, doctors and engineers after the war.
Just look at the case of Wernher von Braun most people seem to have forgotten his past at Mittelbau-Dora out of preference to post war exploits.

Here we go again. The thread is about HITLER, not the German people.
Again - the essence of the evil is the conducting of DEATH camps, as a special project of deliberate genocide. This is where he beats all comers in the stakes, and he never made any secret of his ideals and plans. QAs his deputy Hess reiterated at Nuremburg - 'I regret nothing'. Why rebuild the monsters. Personally, I would not dirty my hands. But then, I have the weakness of being emotional, and therefore the purely academic does not always wash with me, as compared with conscience.

 

[LeEnfield]

I think Hitler brings out the statement to the full about, "Power corrupts, total power corrupts fully"
Churchill and Roosevelt were still constrained by the Public and the ballot box, where as Hitler wasn't and there was no one to reign him in

 

[MontyB]

Here we go again. The thread is about HITLER, not the German people.
Again - the essence of the evil is the conducting of DEATH camps, as a special project of deliberate genocide. This is where he beats all comers in the stakes, and he never made any secret of his ideals and plans. QAs his deputy Hess reiterated at Nuremburg - 'I regret nothing'. Why rebuild the monsters. Personally, I would not dirty my hands. But then, I have the weakness of being emotional, and therefore the purely academic does not always wash with me, as compared with conscience.

I take it you missed this addition to the second post?

However perhaps this would be better left for dedicated thread rather than hijacking this one.

I think Hitler brings out the statement to the full about, "Power corrupts, total power corrupts fully"
Churchill and Roosevelt were still constrained by the Public and the ballot box, where as Hitler wasn't and there was no one to reign him in

Its certainly applicable but I am not sure its accurate, I tend to think his actions more cult like than corrupt I think its far easier to compare him to the Jim Jones and David Koresh's of the world.

 

[Del Boy]

No -didn't miss it.

 

[Damien435]

The Holocaust is also a horrible capital which has not been clarified. Of the millions who died, many lost their lives while working in factories bombed by allied planes, although the governments concerned knew forced labour was being used at the time. Here just to put the blame on to one country, is to say the least, more than dishonest. By the way, Hitler's crazed mind was probably a result of being gassed in WW1. He won an award for bravery on the front line, but lost his sight for many weeks.

Ah yes, of those 12,000,000 killed damn near 12,000 were killed in bombing raids on factories by those vile, pig headed Americans. Do you know that Israel condemns the actions by the Allies from WWII for NOT doing enough to stop the Holocaust? Their argument is that the allies knew about the Holocaust but never once bombed one of the camps where this was happening to put a stop or at least stall the slaughter. The allied defense? We would have killed 1,000 people bombing those buildings. Israel's response: You would have saved ten times that number. How many were killed in that factory that was producing Panzer IV's and Tigers and how many more would have been killed if those factors could have continued producing weapons of war unmolested and delaying the end of the war another day, week or month?

If Osama bin Laden builds a daycare center on top of his command post and we bomb it anyways are we the *******s for killing those kids or is the jackass who tried to use them as a human shield the *******?

Hitler's hatred for Jews wasn't a product of a gas attack in WWI, it was a product of several millennia of antisemitism worldwide. It was a product of living in a world where hatred towards Jews was common and accepted. Most of all it was a product of his crazed beliefs that said Jews are sub-human and a parasitic race, found in many countries around the world but unable to form their own homeland, they feed off of the success of the stronger, pure races. True, Hitler did not want to kill all Jews right from the start, he just wanted them out of the Reich, so they tried to leave but France and England had quotas on the numbers of Jews they would let emigrate into their countries every year, Russia was kicking Jews out and in Poland Jews made up a sizable minority, but a minority nonetheless. The only nation that didn't have quotas on Jewish emigration was the United States, but being shielded by 3,000 miles of ocean meant that few Jews who had just lost most of their possessions to their neighbors or the Nazi government could afford to make the trip, so the quotas weren't necessary. Make no mistake about it, there is no rationalizing Hitler's actions or passing the blame, Hitler was involved in every step of the process from the decision to use antisemitic rhetoric to gain public support and eventually end up in office to the calm manner in which the Nazi hierarchy gathered in Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin, and planned the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question". There is no justification of these actions, there is no explaining it away as society's impact on the delicate male psyche, there is no shifting the blame. Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich and Eichmann are all responsible for their actions and them alone. In July 2004 I joined the Army with a kid who's last name is Eichmann, his great-uncle was the man who invented the process that would kill millions of Jews as well as other "undesirables" in the concentration camps. If he doesn't make any excuses for his great-uncles actions, what the hell makes you think you have the right to do so?

 

[Del Boy]

Damien has it straight and true. This man has spelled it out, listen to him.

 

[Supostat]

I might have hooted too much glue in my time, but I want to know what Hilter (read Nazi Germany) did that was sooooooo bad.

Most important thing that WW2 started because of Hitler decisions. International society of that time could excuse him killing Jews and other `untermensch` people just like it excused Soviet Union for its crimes against humanity, just because entire West World had fresh memories of WW1 and no one wanted another great, annihilating war. Therefore there was also excuse of violation of international relations, i.e. occupation of Czechoslovakia by Germany.

If Hitler hadn't decide to expand the `Great Reich` over territories of other states/countries, the WW2 most likely won't be started. Even with full-scale holocaust in Germany.

Hitler was person, who started the chain of events which eventually lead to WW2. That's the main reason of his `badness`.

 

[Doppleganger]

Most important thing that WW2 started because of Hitler decisions.

There would have been another world war after WW1, Hitler or no Hitler. Hitler was a sign of the times, not a cause of it.

If Hitler hadn't decide to expand the `Great Reich` over territories of other states/countries, the WW2 most likely won't be started. Even with full-scale holocaust in Germany.

If Hitler hadn't been around there was still Josef Stalin to contend with.

Hitler was person, who started the chain of events which eventually lead to WW2. That's the main reason of his `badness`.

Hitler, in a sense, was born in the wrong time. Had he been born in 300BC, 400AD or 1200AD, we'd be reading about the 'great conquerer' Adolf Hitler in our history books, instead of the inhuman monster he is known as today. He did nothing worse than what his predecessors did - the main difference was the scale.

 

[perseus]

Most important thing that WW2 started because of Hitler decisions.

Perhaps the European war, what about the Pacific theatre? It has been said that either would have happened without the other.