None Were His Own.
Posted: Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:34 pm
Found this somewhere else in a discussion about Hitler. I always heard Hitler was a maniac, I can't fully disagree but one side of me always knew there was something else to him. He was in ways all of us.
Your opinions?
I've written this many times: Hitler's beliefs were far from unusual. Some are very old, some arose from scientific theories from his own time, some were bog standard imperialism and some were the result of the cataclysmic crisis of WW1 and the post WW1 world.
Hitler plainly did not invent nationalism, fascism, anti-Semitism, racism, nor pseudo scientific ideas such as eugenics, racial superiority etc.
The British obviously believed that they were superior to all the people they conquered. The Americans plainly believed that they are superior to the Africans they used as slaves or the Native Americans- or even the South Americans.
Hitler was not the first to state that Jews and other "inferiors" should be exterminated: Martin Luther towards the end of his days was violently anti-Semitic. In the broad "Volkist" movement in Germany at the end of the 19th century and up to the rise of the Nazis, numerous Volkists had suggested mass murder, deportation and isolation of Jews. In Russia, extremely violent progroms (the word is Russian, and has come to mean violence or demonstrations against Jews) swept the empire even before Hitler.
WW1 was a major catalyst for Hitler's ideas. A very important thing to know about Hitler was that he was no madman, nor an idiot. He had a very powerful mind and went by intuition a lot: he was an inspired gambler and always took an opportunity when presented. However, he liked broad ideas, and disliked detail. These broad sweeps and general principles would become the main thrust of Nazi ideology, where rather vague ideas like the power of (German) blood, and willpower would overcome real ideologies, such as Capitalism, Communism or, indeed, world Jewry.
Hitler took in notions, rather romantic notions, such as Volkism (a pseudo scientific study of "German-ness", via history, (real and imagined), folklore, culture, politics and even biology, often with a mystical element to it), nationalism, conspiracy theories and popular racial theories from his own time. For instance, there was a popular theory at the time to explain why Sub Saharan Africans had apparently achieved so little, or the Aboriginals of Australia, and why Europeans had achieved so much. This theory put the environment at its heart: if conditions are too easy, like Tahiti for example, there is no spur or need for innovation. If conditions are so severe that life is a mere subsistence, with no hope of improvement (as was believed about much of Africa), then society stays in the stone ages. If however, the environment provides the right balance of chance for improvement, and yet enough of a spur to require improvement, like temperate Europe, then society will progress.
Hitler took all of these ideas and never let detail or counter theories bother him. He also had a cataclysmic view of history: empires are founded by men with pure blood and who understand thoroughly what they are trying to achieve, and who follow their duty fastidiously. As they conquer others, these conquered people demand rights, and are eventually fully assimilated into the empire. But because they do not have the right blood and because they secretly loath the empire, they gradually make the empire decay until collapse is inevitable.
Like it or not, this is not unlike the arguments nationalists make about mass immigration, and, indeed, the USA had very strict immigration policies at one time, where pretty much the only people allowed in were of British and Irish blood. Hitler admired this.
When WW1 happened, this seemed to confirm Hitler's broad and somewhat distorted ideas: the widespread belief that Germany had not been defeated on the battlefield, but because of a "stab in the back" by businessmen, politicians, trade unionists, communists and so on, and, allegedly, Jews. Thus preserving the notion that outsiders- those who by blood, religion or political affiliation are not actually "German"- cannot be relied upon to understand what Germany wanted to achieve and could not be trusted to do their bit.
WW1 was also mechanised slaughter. Not the first: that dubious honour must go to the American Civil War, but that was far away and, to Europeans, backwoods politics. WW1 saw several new things happen, though: entire economies became adjusted for war purposes: even civilians played a direct role in warfare, and for the first time, terrible new weapons were available in large numbers: bombers, machine guns, tanks. The days of bright uniforms and cavalry charges were over. And due to his experiences in the trenches, Hitler lived in fear of such repeats and hence leaned in the direction the German army had gone in the last few months of war: highly mobile warfare.
The Versailles Treaty, Wall Street Crash and Great Depression (the latter two blamed firmly on Jews) only confirmed Hitler's theories, and only hardened his (and other people's) nationalism. The Weimar Republic was seen as an alien, foreign imposed and unwanted, impotent Government.
Since politics had let Germany down, and all intellectual political theories likewise, and since it seemed that the world opposed Germany, Hitler began to think in polarised terms, as he put it himself: "It must be the either/or" with no middle ground.
This "either/or" would generalise how Hitler would deal with everything from Jews to the final fight for Germany's existence. He had told the German people in Mein Kampf and elsewhere that this was a moment of destiny: Germany would either win, and fulfil her rightful destiny, or would fail and fail completely and thus face destruction at the hands of lesser races. He wrote in his last political will and testament that the German people had failed, through lack of conviction, and hence deserved destruction.
Hitler's cataclysmic view applied to his own people, too.
Hitler could only have happened when he did, at a time of world crisis and at a time where racism, nationalism, imperialism, new science and mass slaughter and political ideology were at such odds. There were no or few countervailing ideologies around.
But the ideas themselves? Racism is merely an extension of class tensions: the notion that by birth, some are worth more than others, and hence this justifies all kinds. No, none of Hitler's ideas, even the most barbaric and preposterous, were his own.
Your opinions?
I've written this many times: Hitler's beliefs were far from unusual. Some are very old, some arose from scientific theories from his own time, some were bog standard imperialism and some were the result of the cataclysmic crisis of WW1 and the post WW1 world.
Hitler plainly did not invent nationalism, fascism, anti-Semitism, racism, nor pseudo scientific ideas such as eugenics, racial superiority etc.
The British obviously believed that they were superior to all the people they conquered. The Americans plainly believed that they are superior to the Africans they used as slaves or the Native Americans- or even the South Americans.
Hitler was not the first to state that Jews and other "inferiors" should be exterminated: Martin Luther towards the end of his days was violently anti-Semitic. In the broad "Volkist" movement in Germany at the end of the 19th century and up to the rise of the Nazis, numerous Volkists had suggested mass murder, deportation and isolation of Jews. In Russia, extremely violent progroms (the word is Russian, and has come to mean violence or demonstrations against Jews) swept the empire even before Hitler.
WW1 was a major catalyst for Hitler's ideas. A very important thing to know about Hitler was that he was no madman, nor an idiot. He had a very powerful mind and went by intuition a lot: he was an inspired gambler and always took an opportunity when presented. However, he liked broad ideas, and disliked detail. These broad sweeps and general principles would become the main thrust of Nazi ideology, where rather vague ideas like the power of (German) blood, and willpower would overcome real ideologies, such as Capitalism, Communism or, indeed, world Jewry.
Hitler took in notions, rather romantic notions, such as Volkism (a pseudo scientific study of "German-ness", via history, (real and imagined), folklore, culture, politics and even biology, often with a mystical element to it), nationalism, conspiracy theories and popular racial theories from his own time. For instance, there was a popular theory at the time to explain why Sub Saharan Africans had apparently achieved so little, or the Aboriginals of Australia, and why Europeans had achieved so much. This theory put the environment at its heart: if conditions are too easy, like Tahiti for example, there is no spur or need for innovation. If conditions are so severe that life is a mere subsistence, with no hope of improvement (as was believed about much of Africa), then society stays in the stone ages. If however, the environment provides the right balance of chance for improvement, and yet enough of a spur to require improvement, like temperate Europe, then society will progress.
Hitler took all of these ideas and never let detail or counter theories bother him. He also had a cataclysmic view of history: empires are founded by men with pure blood and who understand thoroughly what they are trying to achieve, and who follow their duty fastidiously. As they conquer others, these conquered people demand rights, and are eventually fully assimilated into the empire. But because they do not have the right blood and because they secretly loath the empire, they gradually make the empire decay until collapse is inevitable.
Like it or not, this is not unlike the arguments nationalists make about mass immigration, and, indeed, the USA had very strict immigration policies at one time, where pretty much the only people allowed in were of British and Irish blood. Hitler admired this.
When WW1 happened, this seemed to confirm Hitler's broad and somewhat distorted ideas: the widespread belief that Germany had not been defeated on the battlefield, but because of a "stab in the back" by businessmen, politicians, trade unionists, communists and so on, and, allegedly, Jews. Thus preserving the notion that outsiders- those who by blood, religion or political affiliation are not actually "German"- cannot be relied upon to understand what Germany wanted to achieve and could not be trusted to do their bit.
WW1 was also mechanised slaughter. Not the first: that dubious honour must go to the American Civil War, but that was far away and, to Europeans, backwoods politics. WW1 saw several new things happen, though: entire economies became adjusted for war purposes: even civilians played a direct role in warfare, and for the first time, terrible new weapons were available in large numbers: bombers, machine guns, tanks. The days of bright uniforms and cavalry charges were over. And due to his experiences in the trenches, Hitler lived in fear of such repeats and hence leaned in the direction the German army had gone in the last few months of war: highly mobile warfare.
The Versailles Treaty, Wall Street Crash and Great Depression (the latter two blamed firmly on Jews) only confirmed Hitler's theories, and only hardened his (and other people's) nationalism. The Weimar Republic was seen as an alien, foreign imposed and unwanted, impotent Government.
Since politics had let Germany down, and all intellectual political theories likewise, and since it seemed that the world opposed Germany, Hitler began to think in polarised terms, as he put it himself: "It must be the either/or" with no middle ground.
This "either/or" would generalise how Hitler would deal with everything from Jews to the final fight for Germany's existence. He had told the German people in Mein Kampf and elsewhere that this was a moment of destiny: Germany would either win, and fulfil her rightful destiny, or would fail and fail completely and thus face destruction at the hands of lesser races. He wrote in his last political will and testament that the German people had failed, through lack of conviction, and hence deserved destruction.
Hitler's cataclysmic view applied to his own people, too.
Hitler could only have happened when he did, at a time of world crisis and at a time where racism, nationalism, imperialism, new science and mass slaughter and political ideology were at such odds. There were no or few countervailing ideologies around.
But the ideas themselves? Racism is merely an extension of class tensions: the notion that by birth, some are worth more than others, and hence this justifies all kinds. No, none of Hitler's ideas, even the most barbaric and preposterous, were his own.