Hitler's involvement in Holocaust

R

radarsonar

Active member
Hi all,

It is well know that Hitler ordered total annihilation of jews from the map of Europe. But I recently saw a BBC documentary 'The Nazis: A warning from History' which seem to suggest that Hitler never gave direct orders for torturing or tormenting jews.

His style of governance was totally unstructured and he would never give detailed plans, but just talk in 'visions for Germany' and his supporters, loyalists implemented it in whatever way they liked(selfish motives or ideological motives) saying its the 'order from Fuhrer's office'.

This leads me to believe that Hitler did not plan in detail the concentration camps, torture plans etc, but his administration was totally unstructured and anyone could do anything under his regime, provided it resulted in implementation of Hitler's will.

This does not of course absolve him of crimes against humanity, but he may not be as dead cruel/psycho as he is portrayed to be. (Though he did have deep hatred for jews, he did not plan in detail to torture them like a psycho).

I think total character assassination of Hitler was done by Allies after winning world war 2. Let me know your thoughts on this.
 
I get the feeling you're not going to get much support for your theories, but let me input my two cents:

Hitler was politically very smart. He times his rise to power quite well with the collapse of the Weimar Republic, found a common "bad guy" in a separated group of society the majority already had prejudice against, promised to return Germany to world power and then followed up on his promise.

However, had he had any control over his subordinates at all (which I have the feeling he did, otherwise he would not have remained the head of a facist government very long) the smart thing would have been to ignore the whole "death camp" thing and take the large number of German troops staffing these camps and send them to battle. However, Hitler did know what was happening and made not attempt to stop it. The Final Solution was of his creation, and as the supreme leader of a Facist country whatever he said went. And he chose to staff these camps instead of sending more troops to frontline duty.

Verdict: Hitler was every bit as evil as he is portrayed to be, but there was a small touch of brilliance hidden in there.
 
I agree with you that Hitler was Evil because he wanted to eliminate Jews. But all I am trying to say is he did not devise detailed plans to torture them (like medical experiments on them, rape, torture, liquidation of jewish assets etc). These were done by selfish cold blooded psychos in Nazi regime who used Hitler's name to do these things to suit their selfish needs.

But yes, Hitler ignored these crimes and hence he is evil.
 
radarsonar said:
I agree with you that Hitler was Evil because he wanted to eliminate Jews. But all I am trying to say is he did not devise detailed plans to torture them (like medical experiments on them, rape, torture, liquidation of jewish assets etc). These were done by selfish cold blooded psychos in Nazi regime who used Hitler's name to do these things to suit their selfish needs.

But yes, Hitler ignored these crimes and hence he is evil.
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I would say that Hitler never "ignored" the crimes, but that he actually ordered them. Which in my eyes is even worse.
 
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radarsonar said:
Hi all,

It is well know that Hitler ordered total annihilation of jews from the map of Europe. But I recently saw a BBC documentary 'The Nazis: A warning from History' which seem to suggest that Hitler never gave direct orders for torturing or tormenting jews.

His style of governance was totally unstructured and he would never give detailed plans, but just talk in 'visions for Germany' and his supporters, loyalists implemented it in whatever way they liked(selfish motives or ideological motives) saying its the 'order from Fuhrer's office'.

This leads me to believe that Hitler did not plan in detail the concentration camps, torture plans etc, but his administration was totally unstructured and anyone could do anything under his regime, provided it resulted in implementation of Hitler's will.

This does not of course absolve him of crimes against humanity, but he may not be as dead cruel/psycho as he is portrayed to be. (Though he did have deep hatred for jews, he did not plan in detail to torture them like a psycho).

I think total character assassination of Hitler was done by Allies after winning world war 2. Let me know your thoughts on this.
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I think if you want to help Hitler out by apportioning guilt then you have to also look at Himmler and Goering as the architects of the system, but in the end no matter how little a part Hitler played in the process he is still responsible for the holocaust.

As far as character assassination goes I really don't think there was a whole lot to do, he had been responsible for a war and roughly 40-50 million deaths (Stalin gets most of the rest), destroying his nation and its reputation for years afterward (Germans are still apologising for him 70 years after his death), the man was a complete nut job.
 
MontyB said:
-snip-
As far as character assassination goes I really don't think there was a whole lot to do, he had been responsible for a war and roughly 40-50 million deaths (Stalin gets most of the rest), destroying his nation and its reputation for years afterward (Germans are still apologising for him 70 years after his death), the man was a complete nut job.
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Indeed (highlighting by me), from one apologetic German.

Hitler read all the material from the Wansee Conference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference) and IIRC approved directly.

Rattler
 
rattler said:
Indeed (highlighting by me), from one apologetic German.

Rattler
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The actions of the Nazis were absolutely inexcusable, but I fail to see why someone born in 1946 should feel the need to apologise on behalf of their country for things that happened before they were even born.

The architects of the events leading up to and during the war are almost without exception all long dead. I feel that it is time the world accepted that the Germany of today need no longer carry any blame for this. Germany has learnt from their errors and is a model citizen of the world which many countries would do well to emulate.
 
I agree.
Germany should not be apologizing anymore.
If anything, all it does is give political ammunition to right wing extremists in Germany.
 
Actually he did plan the concentration camps, that was the place he had all the Jews sent.

And YES is was as cruel and bad a man as he is portrayed. I had two Grandfathers in WW2, one on a Uboat, and one in a ME109E4- ME109G6, and they kept journals that my grandmother passed down to my mother, when my mother dies I get them, but I have read what they wrote, they were both scared to death of what Hitler would have done to them had they not joined the Nazi political party, and they were both Loyal germans, theres no Jewish blood anywhere in my entire family tree, and my family hates what Hitler did and stood for.
 
senojekips said:
The actions of the Nazis were absolutely inexcusable, but I fail to see why someone born in 1946 should feel the need to apologise on behalf of their country for things that happened before they were even born.

The architects of the events leading up to and during the war are almost without exception all long dead. I feel that it is time the world accepted that the Germany of today need no longer carry any blame for this. Germany has learnt from their errors and is a model citizen of the world which many countries would do well to emulate.
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There's people here apologising for slavery that ended 150 years ago & all involved are long dead.Guess it's just part of modern thought.
 
George said:
There's people here apologising for slavery that ended 150 years ago & all involved are long dead.Guess it's just part of modern thought.
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Yes, I must agree,... but perhaps more like "modern lack of thought"

Part of that guilt trip visited upon us by the Politically Correct minority.
 
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Well....to answer your question. No one actually knows if he ordered the holocaust. We know he ordered the tormenting of the jews but no one actually knows if he signed an agreement for the death camps. This is because there is no written evidence to suggest this and the people in charge actually said it was in the interest of the Fuhrer not that the Fuhrer ordered. If Hitler had lived for the Nurembeurg trials it would have been highly unlikely that he would have been executed for the holocaust.
 
Bearing in mind that Hitler micromanaged his subordinates and that virtually nothing occurred without his approval, I think that you are probably wrong.

Whether he was executed for the Holocaust or not, is moot, as he authorised the commission of so many atrocities it is only a guess as to what they would have actually ordered his execution for. Probably a string of charges so long they would still be reading them out.
 
I'm not, I refuse to apologize for something I DID NOT DO, or have any part of. Like the Third Reich, I refuse to Apologize for that too, as in I had no part of it.
 
rattler said:
Sorry, just entered the thread here, and I do not find the reference to *Executed*?

We *know* what happened, here the doku: http://www.warandtactics.com/smf/the-lounge-get-a-beer-go-off-topic/funny-videospictures!/msg11424/#msg11424

Happy new year!

Rattler
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Hi Rattler,

My apologies, I did not make myself clear, as i was answering the post above where Yin717 stated
Yin717 said:
If Hitler had lived for the Nurembeurg trials it would have been highly unlikely that he would have been executed for the holocaust.
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senojekips said:
Bearing in mind that Hitler micromanaged his subordinates and that virtually nothing occurred without his approval, I think that you are probably wrong.

Whether he was executed for the Holocaust or not, is moot, as he authorised the commission of so many atrocities it is only a guess as to what they would have actually ordered his execution for. Probably a string of charges so long they would still be reading them out.
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This is true, he had good control over his men yet there is no substantial evidence meaning we can not prove it, which is what I am stating. However he was very much content on focusing on the armed forces rather than the SS during the war so I think he may have had little interest in what was happening to the jews so long as they were 'taken care of'.
 
I cannot understand how you come to the conclusion that he had little interest in the Jews, they were a major "interest" of his from the earliest days, only surpassed I think, by his desire to regain Germany's "rightful" place in the world and free it from the crippling debt and conditions imposed by the Versailles Treaty.

My main point being that none of the camps would have ever even been built without his approval.
 
senojekips said:
I cannot understand how you come to the conclusion that he had little interest in the Jews, they were a major "interest" of his from the earliest days, only surpassed I think, by his desire to regain Germany's "rightful" place in the world and free it from the crippling debt and conditions imposed by the Versailles Treaty.
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Oh no, I'm not saying that. He did care very much, but with the war going if he new they were be taken care of then why should he spend so much time on them when he had a war to fight?

senojekips said:
My main point being that none of the camps would have ever even been built without his approval.
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Well, weren't many of them actually converted from concentration camps to death camps? Also at the start of the war, this will probably support your theory, the SS followed behind the army and would round up the Jews before shooting them. But then again, who needs Hitler's approval for that so long as he was told by Himmler that the Jews were being taken care of?

An interesting thing to find out would be if there was a picture, hidden somewhere, of Hitler at a death camp or at Jewish execution places to prove that he knew about it.
 
Yin717 said:
Oh no, I'm not saying that. He did care very much, but with the war going if he new they were be taken care of then why should he spend so much time on them when he had a war to fight?



Well, weren't many of them actually converted from concentration camps to death camps? Also at the start of the war, this will probably support your theory, the SS followed behind the army and would round up the Jews before shooting them. But then again, who needs Hitler's approval for that so long as he was told by Himmler that the Jews were being taken care of?

An interesting thing to find out would be if there was a picture, hidden somewhere, of Hitler at a death camp or at Jewish execution places to prove that he knew about it.
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I'm afraid that I can't go on with this conversation.

To imply that Hitler may not have known about the death camps and approved them personally flies in the face of all the known facts. The same with the Einsatzgruppen.

Private diaries of Goebbels and Himmler unearthed from the secret Soviet archives show that Adolf Hitler personally ordered the mass extermination of the Jews during a meeting of Nazi German regional governors in the chancellery. As Goebbels wrote "With regards to the Jewish question, the Fuhrer decided to make a clean sweep ..."
Source:http://www.auschwitz.dk/Auschwitz.htm
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