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What Makes a Hitler?
Threat to global security, or threat to commit genocide? Or both? Or neither?
17 Responses to “What Makes a Hitler?”
This is a silly open link for “The Moderate Voice.”
It is Either, AND Both. Hitler was a weak nothing of a leader, with a weak (in truth, look at the numbers) military. However, Hitler had a will, he was willing to convince his people to share. THAT made Hitler Hitler, and that is why all of the threats now, were built during the Cold War.
The Soviet Union was a weak nothing of a leader, and now? the US has to clean up their mess.
Bipolar Disorder, a methamphetamine addiction, and a war machine at your disposal — makes a Hitler.
I didn’t think it was a “silly” post at all. It was a good read and quite thought provoking.
Having recently watched both the DVD series of THE WORLD AT WAR and Ingmar Bergman’s The Serpent’s Egg, it’s clear that Hitler was a product of his times. Change one or two circumstances and the Nazis are the laughingstocks thyer were from Hitler’s failed putsch to 1933.
As for the military? Hitler took over a weak Germany, but by the invasion of Poland it was the most modern army, and strongest in the world. Russia was depleted by Stalin’s insane purges- and he killed 5-6 x as many people as Hitler- Jew &non-Jew.
Hitler was a bad military leader, but a master motivator. Had he not attacked Russia, and not attacked American ships in the North Atlantic, and just devastated England by air for another year or two, he could very well have bombed the UK into submission, and then, by 43 or 44, taken on the Russians without having to fight a three prong war- East,West, and African fronts.
All of his generals urged caution, as Europe was in a capitulative mood. Same with Japan. Attacking Pearl Harbor as their doomsday. Also, few realize, but FDR only declared war on Japan then. It was Hitler who declared war on the US. Had he refrained, the US populace would not have supported a European campaign, even as we warred with Japan in the Pacific. FDR was ecstatic that Hitler declared war on us, for that was the end of the Great Depression, and the end of Hitler.
As for genocide, the world doesn’t give a damn. Had Hitler stayed within his bounds no one would care. Ten million dead is alot, but why is it given priority over Mao’s and Stalin’s dead, which range from 4-12 times as many?
Why is Hitler’s killing of Jews given priority over Mao’s and Stalin’s greater genocides? Because Hitler did it in Europe.
I’m hoping that was a sarcastic wink, Brian.
Does this post now subject the entire Moderate Voice site to Godwin’s Law?
Yeah, that was cynical. Still, given the persistence of anti-semitism even in environments where any other form of racism is condemned, I have to wonder how many people were really that offended by the specificity of Hitler’s genocide rather than by the fact that it happened in their back yard (culturally, if not geographically).
Well, I think part of the problem comes from the fact that while more Jews. percentagewise, died in the Final Solution, no one talks about the other victims, who made up more than 50%. My mom, a Lithuanian, has never understood why the dozen or so family members of hers that died, are not consecrated, nor the Poles, Russians, Commies, gays, etc.
It seems to me that this segregation of suffering only contributes to more hard feelings.
I’ve always wondered why the Holocaust museum is in DC, and not Berlin? Shouldn’t we have museums in this country for our atrocities- i.e.- the millions of Native and African Americans we killed?
And more people died in the Asian portion of the 2nd World War than in Europe, yet little is said of that, save for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the ‘bad guys’ got their comeuppance.
It’s all very strange, the way history deals with death, and how it’s dealt.
Good points, cosmoetica.
Damn good points cosmo (my new shorter nickname for ya).
Hitler killed many more Slavs than Jews, but no real uproar about that.
And Stalin, geez what a sick f*** he was. He takes the prize as the biggest mass-murderer in world history, but doesn’t get the proper amount of credit for this because Hitler’s crimes were more visible. Remeber alot of the Jews murdered were Slavs as well, and they should be honored equally.
They were both clearly suffering from mental instability.
Well, I think Mao might’ve topped Uncle Jo, but, again, there seems to be, in Western society, a sick need to be victimized, and I think it prob started with the late 60s-early 70s raising of ‘The Holocaust’- a term not used till then- to the epitome of human debasement and evil.
Yet, I’ve never heard anyone explain sufficiently the ethical calculus that says starvation and gassing (the Hitlerian method) is somehow worse than a bullet to the head (the Japanese method) or starvation and disease (the Maoist method) or midnight raids and genital mutilation (the American method) or wanton slaughter (the Conquistadorean method), etc.
And it goes beyond genocide, to all facets of life.
I think that’s a far more interesting avenue to explore than a long dad psychopath’s twisted mind.
1) There is a Holocaust Museum in Berlin
2) I took a class in ethical and religious implications of the Holocaust last year. At the start of the course, my (incredible) professor explained why we were studying the Holocaust instead of, say, Rwanda or Russia (to be clear, he said those genocides deserve study too, and I agree).
What makes the Holocaust unique isn’t the scope of the killing per se, there have been higher body counts. The Holocaust is “special” due to the confluence of 3 factors
1) The development of a highly specialized technical and scientific bureaucracy specifically facilitate the machinary of death.
2) The targeting of people not for political opposition but for no other reason aside from their race or ethnicity–indeed, subordinating the greater interests of the state to the murderous ideology.
3) The widespread popular participation and legitimation of the killing that transcended a momentary bout of akrasia.
Some genocides have threads of one or two of these factors, but no others have the whole fabric tied together.
Stalin killed more people than Hitler but did not have one particular ethnic group he was striving to completely eliminate as the dominant reason for the slaughter. Same for Mao. That made Hitler different from them. Nazi Germany was also different from Rwanda, where the goal as so similar for the first reason he cited in his follow up post, which was the cold blooded organization and methodical long term system created to accomplish that purpose.
Well, there are factors that separate the Holocaust, but the other major genocides have equally discerning factors- from Genghis Khan thru Mao, and past to Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and the others.
But, let’s be serious, if we want to acknowledge the real reason the Holocaust gets more press. POWER.
American Indians, blacks, Cambodians, Russian peasantry, Chinese refugees, etc, all lack the political and media clout that the Jewish pacs and organizations have.
How many Nazi films have there been vs, how many films on the Middle Passage, or the Sand Creek Massacre, which was merelt one of thousands of such raids the US ARmy conducted in the 19th C. Schindler;s List was a terible fim- dramatically and factually, but at least it was made. Where’s the equivalent film on the Armenian genocide, or King Leopold in the Congo?
Those films will never be made, and to deny the influence of power and $ in this is ridiculous.
Those that acknowledge this are often called anti-Semites, or Holocaust deniers, but to acknowledge this truth is to merely try to level the playing field for other groups that suffered.
And, I noticed, neither of you answered my ethical calculus, you merely danced around the issue with preciously worded replies.
Novelist and essayist Philip Lopate, a Jew, is one of the few writers to tackle this. He’s labeled people like Wiesel and Wiesenthal Holocaust whores, and termed them chairmen of the Holocaust, Inc.
As sick as the Holocaust deniers are, in face of the Nazi pride in their work, and the detailed records, to me those who have gotten rich off the selling of the Holocaust are every bit as depraved.
It’s akin to Jesse Jackson going beyond his fallacious claims about being on the balcony when MLK was shot, and auctioning off bits of King’s skull on EBay.
David: that’s good to know abourt Berlin’s museum, but it does not explain why we have one, and not one for slavery of American Indian genocides. For the killing, specifically, as far more many blacks and Indians died here than people in the death camps.
As for your 3 talking points: 1) Stalin actually was doing many of the same experiments on people in the 20s, so- nada on that. 2)Blacks and Indians were certainly targeted for their race. What was Manifest Destiny? And the truth was that the death camps did not get started until a couple of years into the war. It was an outgrowth of the war, not the cause of it, so that’s specious reasoning. They were still looking for a Final Solution precisely because they had tried ghettoes and deportatio first. 3) This is rather nebulous, but do you think that the kids who played Cowboys and Injuns weren’t being acculturated to kill when they went west?
Seems your prof could do with hitting the books a bit more.
Again, why this reveling in suffering, and excusemaking exists is what I find far more interesting than Hitler’s motives, which, in reality, are frightening not because they were so rare, but because they were so banal. These were the common goals of all despots- from time immemorial.
Jim: Jews were the top target, but hardly the main. Over a million Gypsy peoples died, 2 mill Poles, gays, Commies, POWs, etc. Pol Pot sought to eliminate all educated Cambodians. This is even more bizarre than goinf after an ethnic group. He wanted to return his nation to barbarism.
Another point being missed is the Japanese war crimes. Was the terror subject to Koreans, Chinese and other Asians any different that the slaughter of Europeans? Same thoughts as cosmo amd pyst.
Rudi brings a good point.
The Jap and Chinese gov’ts have hushed up Jap wartime crimes, for diff reasons, but it’s known that the Japs ran death camps before the Nazis, and that Hitler got many ideas on human experimentation from what the Japs did in China.
Some Nazis even though the Japs too barbaric, so that’s another one against David’s claim of why the Holocaust tops all other genocides.