Politics Aussie Fascists and (neo)Nazis

[Malifice]

In order to end a war. In order to stop insane people with insane beliefs taking over the world.

So it is possible (in your view) for a sane person to order the murder of millions then?

And he wasn't trying to take over the world. You can think that if you want, but literally no scholar would ever agree with you, because its not true.

Japan was trying to take over a fair chunk of it though.

 

[Malifice]

Totally sane!

Yes. You can think s**t like that and be totally sane.

In fact that's what a lot of Islamist terrorists think (along with most cookers and RWNJ's) generally. That there is a 'clash of the cultures/ races' and also nearly as often that the 'Jews' are secretly behind the whole thing.

Nazis are not insane monsters. They're sane humans, doing sane human s**t, and with clarity and conviction, that invariably has monstrous and inhuman consequences.

It does no service to history to simply label Hitler as an insane madman, with his followers being obedient mind controlled puppets.

Do that, and we're just gonna end up with another Hitler (and there are already parallels forming in the USA and parts of Europe and Eurasia as we speak).

 

[the_interloper]

Yes. You can think s**t like that and be totally sane.

In fact that's what a lot of Islamist terrorists think (along with most cookers and RWNJ's) generally. That there is a 'clash of the cultures/ races' and also nearly as often that the 'Jews' are secretly behind the whole thing.

Nazis are not insane monsters. They're sane humans, doing sane human s**t, and with clarity and conviction, that invariably has monstrous and inhuman consequences.

It does no service to history to simply label Hitler as an insane madman, with his followers being obedient mind controlled puppets.

Do that, and we're just gonna end up with another Hitler.

I feel like a lot of them are vulnerable for a lot of reasons, not happy with their lot in life and now they have something to follow where they can blame things on someone else. It's easy to explain this away as a bunch of incels or whatever but it's worth trying to solve the issues that lead to this outcome.

 

[Malifice]

Personally I find it very hard to believe a Hitler full of hubris with victory after victory would have stopped. Fortunately we'll never know!

He still would have gone into Russia and he still would have lost there.

Whether Stalin would have stopped at Berlin without Roosevelt and Churchill giving him half of Europe and Manchuria, threatening him with Nukes, and with a million allied soldiers standing in his way is the bigger question.

 

[Malifice]

I feel like a lot of them are vulnerable for a lot of reasons, not happy with their lot in life and now they have something to follow where they can blame things on someone else. It's easy to explain this away as a bunch of incels or whatever but it's worth trying to solve the issues that lead to this outcome.

Easy to attribute to a bunch of incels, but this was an entire nation of literally tens of millions of people.

Go google a video of a Nazi parade. Millions turned out for them, ecstatic and cheering on the regime. The Gestapo (despite being feared) was actually quite small. They relied on public informants dobbing in neighbors (liberals, traitors, jews, homosexuals, communists, socialists etc) which the Germans did by the tens if not hundreds of thousands. SS soldiers would lead women and children into gas chambers by the thousands to die. Commanders would order the deaths of millions.

How does that happen to an entire nation?

Were they all 'insane monsters'?

It was a human phenomenon, with horrific inhuman results. That's what we need to study, and contemplate, so it never happens again.

 

[Beerfish]

I cant speak for all Nazis, only Hitler (based on his historical actions).

You actually can't speak for Hitler either. You can certainly see what he was responsible for though and draw your own conclusions as to where that would have ended up. I certainly can't see someone with his ideals playing nicely with the rest of the world in peace and harmony though.

Thank * they didn't win the atomic race or chances are we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

 

[Malifice]

You actually can't speak for Hitler either. You can certainly see what he was responsible for though and draw your own conclusions as to where that would have ended up. I certainly can't see someone with his ideals playing nicely with the rest of the world in peace and harmony though.

No I cant speak for him, but there is enough information around about him to paint a pretty comprehensive picture of the man.

Scholars unanimously agree he wasn't seeking 'world domination' for example, and I haven't seen any academic work ever suggesting he was mentally ill. He was a tea-totaling, no smoking bachelor, who was (by all accounts) relatively warm and charming to people he knew.

His problem want mental illness. His problem was that he was a National Socialist. An ideology no-one has any doubt that he truly believed in 100 percent.

Thank * they didn't win the atomic race or chances are we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

Ironically, Hitler talked up 'German superiority' often citing Nobel laureates and German success in sciences as proof.

Hitler was blind that many of those scientists and academics were Jewish, not the least of whom was Albert Einstein. Hitlers own policies of persecuting Jewish people (including prohibiting them from teaching at University in research projects) saw many of Jewish academics and scientists (and non Jewish sympathizers) flee Germany:

One of the ironies of Hitler’s desire for racial purity was that it drove out of continental Europe or into the camps many individuals who would have been extremely useful to the Axis war effort. Nowhere was this more evident than in the effort to produce an atomic bomb. A startling proportion of the most famous names on the project belonged to scientists who came to England or America to flee from the Axis. The large number of refugees and immigrants working on the Manhattan Project gave the American nuclear program an international character unusual in such a top-secret program—and unique amongst the nuclear programs that followed in other countries—and helped give life in Los Alamos, NM during the war its unique character.

Scientist Refugees and the Manhattan Project - Nuclear Museum

Ultimately the nation that did develop the Atomic weapon, needlessly then used it on civilians (twice), murdering 150,000 people in the process.

But that's a topic for a different thread.

 

[the_interloper]

Easy to attribute to a bunch of incels, but this was an entire nation of literally tens of millions of people.

Go google a video of a Nazi parade. Millions turned out for them, ecstatic and cheering on the regime. The Gestapo (despite being feared) was actually quite small. They relied on public informants dobbing in neighbors (liberals, traitors, jews, homosexuals, communists, socialists etc) which the Germans did by the tens if not hundreds of thousands. SS soldiers would lead women and children into gas chambers by the thousands to die. Commanders would order the deaths of millions.

How does that happen to an entire nation?

Were they all 'insane monsters'?

It was a human phenomenon, with horrific inhuman results. That's what we need to study, and contemplate, so it never happens again.

I'm more talking about the current climate of Nazi groups in Australia, but yeah I get what you're saying. Overall it means you need to prevent the rise of this stuff before it becomes like what we saw in Germany.

 

[Malifice]

I'm more talking about the current climate of Nazi groups in Australia, but yeah I get what you're saying. Overall it means you need to prevent the rise of this stuff before it becomes like what we saw in Germany.

We're seeing Far Right wing parties be a presence in Europe, with Gert Wilders in the Netherlands recently winning the popular vote.

We're seeing running street battles between far left and far right wing paramilitaries in the USA, with a charismatic populist far right leader threatening to overthrow the Constitution and imprison political rivals.

We're seeing a leader of Europe (Putin) make revanchist claims about a neighbor, while invading it and seeking to annex half the country.

All of the above people have supporters, who likely don't see themselves as 'anything like the people who supported that madman Hitler'.

They're the ones that need to learn from what Hitler was, what he believed, why people voted him in and enthusiastically participated in his regime, and what the outcome of all of that was.

Depicting Hitler as a monstrous madman doesn't help in that process, not only because it's simply not accurate, but also because it fails to explain how and why the Nazi regime happened, what it believed, and why people willingly and enthusiastically participated in it (and still do to this day).

 

[Beerfish]

So itt Hitler is just a misunderstood, completely sane guy with a stressful job who worked long hours. He loved his country and his people and enjoyed taking long walks in the Austrian countryside with his girlfriend and his dog. He at no time had any ambitions privately or publicly to conquer the world. Sure, he murdered a few million Jewish people but the allies dropped two nukes on Japan so what about that?

 

[Carringbush2010]

No, that's not (exclusively) the case.

Hitler was an ethnic nationalist. He had zero problems with a separate State for every single one of the 'races' of the world, and supported them.

Ethnic nationalists believe each race should have its own lands and State, free from other races, and that ethnicity should be the basis for membership in a State.

Not just your own race. Each race.

Again, this is why you'll see Malcom X on stage with White Supremacists. It's because despite hating each other, they actually have a lot in common.

With the risk of going off topic.

This could be used in debate against globalization.

And before everyone jumps on me for supporting this ideology, I'm merely pointing out that ethno nationalists / isolationists whatever term you wanna use will view race separation as a good thing. 'We all can't get along, so best everyone keeps to themselves'

I don't agree with that thinking but I could some who are not ethno's / isolationist would see merit in the argument.

Of course I'm well aware that if globalization didn't exist we'd be living in the stone ages still (ok slight exaggeration but the point stands).

 

[Gethelred]

In order to end a war. In order to stop insane people with insane beliefs taking over the world.

There's a pretty good case to be made that the Japanese were already beaten in WW2, and that the bombs did not need to fall on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The decision was made to flex for Russia, to ensure that a message was sent: we have these bombs, and while you might have them too we're more willing to use them.

From here, the death toll of those two bombs dropped is difficult to define precisely:

There is, I think it should be clear, no simple answer to this. In practice, authors and reports seem to cluster around two numbers, which I will call the “low” and the “high” estimates. The “low” estimates are those derived from the estimates of the 1940s: around 70,000 dead at Hiroshima, and around 40,000 dead at Nagasaki, for 110,000 total dead. The “high” estimates are those that derive from the 1977 re-estimation: around 140,000 dead at Hiroshima, and around 70,000 dead at Nagasaki, for a total of 210,000 total dead. Given that the “high” estimates are almost double the “low” estimates, this is a significant difference. There is no intellectually defensible reason to assume that, for example, an average (105,000 dead at Hiroshima, 55,000 dead at Nagasaki) would be more accurate or meaningful.

... with the largest population of supposedly military targets within the radius being at Hiroshima being considered to be around 20 thousand: they killed far, far more civilians than they did military.

It is certainly enough to make one question, who is the more insane?

It's a matter for historical dispute because you can find different arguments for and against the dropping of those bombs, but it's a picture painted by the better part of a century's since worth of American exceptionalism.

 

[Malifice]

With the risk of going off topic.

This could be used in debate against globalization.

The negative impact of globalization are mainly the offshoring of labor to places where it's cheaper. While this helps developing countries economies (and improves the standard of living there) it hurts the labor market in more developed (read richer) countries.

The reality is that people in developed countries need to upskill (which they're generally going to have a much easier time of doing).

It makes no sense to make something in Australia, when I can make 10 of them in Vietnam for half the price.

There is no way to get around the above, it's just about Governments managing it, by creating a strong social welfare net, and providing ample opportunities for upskilling into new trades and professions.

The next big wave (that we're only just seeing the tip of the iceberg now) is with AI. Instead of offshoring jobs elsewhere, a computer can just do it, and that AI isnt just doing labor jobs, its also doing information jobs (writing, advising, legal work, management, HR, programming etc).

Compare Germany in 1935 (closed borders, ethnic nationalism, fascism, tariffs and a mixed economy) with Germany now (integrated in the EU, with free movement and an economic union with its neighbors, and a liberal economic capitalist model).

I know which is the better place to live, and which is more developed, advanced, humane and just better, in literally every single metric.

Globalisation isnt a bad thing. It (like most things) just comes with its own issues that a good government addresses.

 

[Malifice]

There's a pretty good case to be made that the Japanese were already beaten in WW2, and that the bombs did not need to fall on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The decision was made to flex for Russia, to ensure that a message was sent: we have these bombs, and while you might have them too we're more willing to use them.

Yep.

Here is the final troop dispositions in Europe at the end of WW2:

If the Soviets wanted to (and Stalin and most Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries most definitely did want to), they could have easily overrun the US/ UK/ French forces in Europe and finally had their (European) Communist utopia they've always wanted (and that Marx advocated for).

The Western Allies managed to placate Stalin by handing him literally all of Eastern Europe (behind the wall) either directly (Konigsberg, now Kaliningrad) or indirectly via 'Soviet controlled rebuilding' in Poland, East Germany, Ukraine, Slovenia, Lithuania etc, and all of Manchuria (which they annexed off the Chinese, although it was occupied by the Japanese at that time).

In addition to handing over half of Europe to the Communists, they also sent the following message:

'We have this new kind of bomb, and your numerical superiority doesn't mean s**t anymore. Also we're no afraid to use it, even on massed civilian centers. Watch now for two demonstrations in Japan. Stand the * down.'

That worked (at least long enough for Stalin to go away and rebuild and strengthen his position, and develop a bomb of his own) and left us with the Cold war.

From here, the death toll of those two bombs dropped is difficult to define precisely:

... with the largest population of supposedly military targets within the radius being at Hiroshima being considered to be around 20 thousand: they killed far, far more civilians than they did military.

And as atrocious (and a clear war crime) as the Atomic bombings were, they pale in comparison to the firebombing of Tokyo (which killed between 80,000 and 130,000 civilians, burnt alive horribly), and the allied strategic bombing campaigns in places like Dresden and elsewhere.

The allied strategic bombing campaign deliberately killed between 800,000 to 1.6 million people (mostly civilians), and should the Nazis have won the war, would have seen Churchill, Truman, Roosevelt and others hang as war criminals for ordering it.

 

[Malifice]

So Hitler is just a misunderstood, completely sane guy with a stressful job who worked long hours.

No, he's not misunderstood. His reasons for his actions were repeatedly and expressly stated and expanded upon by him hundreds of times, including in books he wrote and speeches he made.

People understand him just fine. He was a National Socialist through and through.

He was sane and did work long hours in a stressful job though.

He loved his country and his people and enjoyed taking long walks in the Austrian countryside with his girlfriend and his dog.

Yes. This is actually true.

He at no time had any ambitions privately or publicly to conquer the world.

He certainly never expressed (nor implied) any public ambitions to conquer the world, nor were any of his actions predicated on such a desire.

His expressed ambitions were to reclaim territory stripped from the Germans via the Treaty of Versailles on the French border and in Poland and in the Czech Republic, to unify all German speaking peoples (mainly Austria) into a single Nation (which the Austrians also supported) and to forge an alliance with the UK (another Germanic nation).

All of which (barring the alliance with the UK) he achieved.

His second and third stated goals was the removal of Jewish people from Germany, and an invasion of the Soviet Union to defend Germany from Stalin and the Far Left Communists (and to obtain living space and resources for Germany).

Both of which he also did.

Sure, he murdered a few million Jewish people but the allies dropped two nukes on Japan so what about that?

You stated above that Churchill, Truman and Roosevelt were not madmen, despite murdering millions in war crimes via atomic bombs and allied strategic bombing campaigns.

Apply the same logic to Hitler, only using the National Socialist world view. Think like Hitler.

In Hitlers view (and the view of the Nazis), Jewish people were the masterminds behind every single German misfortune. Jewish Banking families (the Rothschilds etc) were the secret financiers of Europe who screwed Germany over in WW1, and were behind Germanies defeat in WW1, by denying them finance and 'stabbing them in the back' at home. The Jewish people were behind Capitalism (Jewish moneylenders, and aforementioned banking families) and were also behind Communism (Lenin and Marx were Jewish). The Jewish people had foisted Communism on Russia (the Judeo Bolschevik conspiracy theory) leaving Germany with the 'Asiatic Hordes' at its borders. Jewish people were also behind 'cultural Marxism' of decadent art, liberal 'woke' laws and academia, and 'leftism' being taught at Universities.

They were (from the Nazi point of view) also parasiting off the German people, taking all the well paying jobs of German people, hoarding money, infiltrating academia and the legal profession, and engaged in 'ritual cannibalistic sexual abuse of children'. The Jews were the puppet masters and were actively screwing over Germany, and trying to keep Germany weak and on its knees.

Note how the above two paragraphs are also nearly exactly what most Trump supporters (Qanon, conspiracy thinkers, cookers generally) currently also think is happening (the WEF/ George Soros and Hollywood elites are spreading cultural Marxism and ritually sexually abusing kids to impose global socialism on everyone etc in a program of cultural marxist woke socialist agenda'). There is a reason Neo Nazis love Trump, and pro Trump social media sites and rallies are infested with Neo Nazis.

Hitler truly believed the above nonsense was true, just like literally millions of Americans currently believe the above nonsense to be true.

He wasn't a madman. He was a National Socialist.

Know the difference. Once you do, you can show those millions of Americans how they're not doing anything new by voting in a populist far right wing charismatic orator promising to go after 'the deep state/ Soros/ Far Left/ Antifa and do away with Democracy and the Constitution'.

They're just repeating history.

 

[Carringbush2010]

Do that, and we're just gonna end up with another Hitler (and there are already parallels forming in the USA and parts of Europe and Eurasia as we speak).

Not to mention South America, seems there's 'support' for fringe view figures / policy over there. Javier Milei comes to mind.

I never used have this view, but the orange man seems eerily similar to the evil Austrian in his 'The US and phuq everyone else' attitude, that became clear in the 2016 election. He even sucked in Vlad to 'befriend' him, even with his isolationist view, to be fair I think they've both sucked each other in, both in bad faith.

Watch ya back Vlad, dipsh*t Donnie's gonna knife ya in the back (actually don't, let him knife ya).

 

[Malifice]

Not to mention South America, seems there's 'support' for fringe view figures / policy over there. Javier Milei comes to mind.

I never used have this view, but the orange man seems eerily similar to the evil Austrian in his 'The US and phuq everyone else' attitude, that became clear in the 2016 election. He even sucked in Vlad to 'befriend' him, even with his isolationist view, to be fair I think they've both sucked each other in, both in bad faith.

Watch ya back Vlad, dipsh*t Donnie's gonna knife ya in the back (actually don't, let him knife ya).

Ive said it before but riddle me this:

In a 'certain country' there was a Republic that had just come out of both a War it lost, and an economic crisis. Globalization had affected many, mostly blue-collar working-class people, who felt afraid and disempowered. Armed right wing civil paramilitaries (many of which were former soldiers) clashed in street battles with ANTFIA leftists. Shops, homes and places of worship were burnt down. Attacks against ethnic minorities increased.

In the middle of all this came a funny looking firebrand charismatic orator, who didnt come from the established ruling class. People didnt take him seriously at first.

This leader attempted to seize power by force by convincing his followers to march on the city hall in armed insurrection (for which he was subsequently tried for). He also threatened to suspend the constitution. He demonized and promised to target a number of ethnic minorities, ANTIFA and the Left, whom he blamed for all the countries problems. He pandered conspiracy theories often. He said Immigrants were 'poisoning the blood of the nation'.

He promised he would lock up these political enemies, and immigrants and send them to detention camps. He promised he would make his country great again. Once he got in power, he drastically increased the number of people being put to death, attempted to seize power by force via a criminal conspiracy He also made a secret pact with Russia.

Which country and leader am I talking about above? Germany and Hitler or the USA and Trump?

(Its a trick question. I'm talking about both)

 

[kranky al]

No I cant speak for him, but there is enough information around about him to paint a pretty comprehensive picture of the man.

Scholars unanimously agree he wasn't seeking 'world domination' for example, and I haven't seen any academic work ever suggesting he was mentally ill. He was a tea-totaling, no smoking bachelor, who was (by all accounts) relatively warm and charming to people he knew.

His problem want mental illness. His problem was that he was a National Socialist. An ideology no-one has any doubt that he truly believed in 100 percent.



Ironically, Hitler talked up 'German superiority' often citing Nobel laureates and German success in sciences as proof.

Hitler was blind that many of those scientists and academics were Jewish, not the least of whom was Albert Einstein. Hitlers own policies of persecuting Jewish people (including prohibiting them from teaching at University in research projects) saw many of Jewish academics and scientists (and non Jewish sympathizers) flee Germany:

One of the ironies of Hitler’s desire for racial purity was that it drove out of continental Europe or into the camps many individuals who would have been extremely useful to the Axis war effort. Nowhere was this more evident than in the effort to produce an atomic bomb. A startling proportion of the most famous names on the project belonged to scientists who came to England or America to flee from the Axis. The large number of refugees and immigrants working on the Manhattan Project gave the American nuclear program an international character unusual in such a top-secret program—and unique amongst the nuclear programs that followed in other countries—and helped give life in Los Alamos, NM during the war its unique character.

Scientist Refugees and the Manhattan Project - Nuclear Museum

Ultimately the nation that did develop the Atomic weapon, needlessly then used it on civilians (twice), murdering 150,000 people in the process.

But that's a topic for a different thread.

Germany was the world centre for theoretical physics pre Hitler.

 

[JB1975]

Someone who thinks it's perfectly acceptable to murder 6 million innocent people because they're a certain race is not of sound mind.

I get your whole he was still a human angle and I agree to a certain point but you're sailing pretty close to being an apologist with this kind of talk.

'Old-fashioned' antisemitism was transformed by racial theories derived from Darwinism in the late 19th century, and continued to become more popular in the 20th century.

Jews were suddenly seen as a race apart, as a people who were not only incompatible with other races, but who could and would actively undermine the progress of Anglo-Saxons and Aryans.

Numerous peoples and groups subscribed to these ideas throughout Europe. Wagner helped to make such views popular in Germany, long before Hitler came on the scene.

Once you put such ideas in historical context, you begin to see that --as abhorrent and strange as they are to us-- such thinking was relatively common and often acceptable at the time. Combine it with a cocktail of colonial ambition, a lost war, and a failed economy, and a significant portion of Germany (not just Hitler) was determined to deal with 'the Jewish Question'.

----------------------------------------------------

I think that the task is not so much to humanise, but to historicise. Once you see people like Hitler as historical actors who do not perform in a vacuum, you begin to understand how a horror such as the Holocaust could actually unfold.

Unfortunately for humanity, insanity has nothing to do with it.

 

[JB1975]

So itt Hitler is just a misunderstood, completely sane guy with a stressful job who worked long hours. He loved his country and his people and enjoyed taking long walks in the Austrian countryside with his girlfriend and his dog.

Hitler is largely understood, when you look through the prism of history.

Think about the popularity of eugenics in countries such as Australia, the US, Britain and Canada throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Many of the most respected people in these societies advocated the forced sterilisation of swathes of the population, ie. those peoples considered to be racially problematic: Indigenous people, homosexuals, intellectually and physically disabled, the 'defective' lower orders etc.

Some of these same people praised the 'progressivism' of Nazi Germany.

How far removed do you think these ideas are from the more rapid elimination of a people?

-----------------------------------------------------------

Also think about studies which have looked at the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Before the gas chambers, at least 2 million Jews were murdered by being dragged into forests in their thousands and shot.

A bloody business. You'd think that the men who carried it out must have been sociopaths or ideologues.

But they weren't, mostly. Studies by Christopher Browning (Ordinary Men: Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland) make it clear that they were average citizens willing to do a nasty job for their country. Many weren't antisemitic, but led women and children to the pits and blasted their brains out, because they were happy to follow orders. Even when allowed to 'step aside' from the horror, most of the men persisted.

---------------------------------------------------------

Moral: insanity is involved, but it belongs to all of humanity.

 

[barreness]

Hitler is largely understood, when you look through the prism of history.

Think about the popularity of eugenics in countries such as Australia, the US, Britain and Canada throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Many of the most respected people in these societies advocated the forced sterilisation of swathes of the population, ie. those peoples considered to be racially problematic: Indigenous people, homosexuals, intellectually and physically disabled, the 'defective' lower orders etc.

Some of these same people praised the 'progressivism' of Nazi Germany.

How far removed do you think these ideas are from the more rapid elimination of a people?

-----------------------------------------------------------

Also think about studies which have looked at the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Before the gas chambers, at least 2 million Jews were murdered by being dragged into forests in their thousands and shot.

A bloody business. You'd think that the men who carried it out must have been sociopaths or ideologues.

But they weren't, mostly. Studies by Christopher Browning (Ordinary Men: Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland) make it clear that they were average citizens willing to do a nasty job for their country. Many weren't antisemitic, but led women and children to the pits and blasted their brains out, because they were happy to follow orders. Even when allowed to 'step aside' from the horror, most of the men persisted.

---------------------------------------------------------

Moral: insanity is involved, but it belongs to all of humanity.

The gas chambers were invented because a lot of troops found mass slaughter distasteful and would quit after a few of them.

Interesting side point Fritz Haber invented the synthesising of nitrogen fertilizer, essentially why we have 8 billion people. Also weaponised chlorine for WW1 and invented the precursor for zyklon B........ and a Jew

Hitler wasn't sane. He suffered multiple gas attacks(nerve agents) and PTSD(probs) from time in the trenches, was also being pumped full of meth and bull testicle extract(or whatevs the Dr thought) on the daily.
I don't know how people can watch a speech, even an early one, and go yeh this guy seems legit

Nationalism exists in pretty much every country, why did it turn to whole scale genocide and delusions of European control? Material conditions of liberal germans fell to such an extant they embraced fascism, put a psychopath in charge and we see what happens. Franco was in charge for decades, though a massive campaigner and a war criminal was nowhere near the destruction of hitler

*sorry not directed at you JB, I agree mostly, more just my general thoughts on the thread

 

[barreness]

'Old-fashioned' antisemitism was transformed by racial theories derived from Darwinism in the late 19th century, and continued to become more popular in the 20th century.

Jews were suddenly seen as a race apart, as a people who were not only incompatible with other races, but who could and would actively undermine the progress of Anglo-Saxons and Aryans.

Numerous peoples and groups subscribed to these ideas throughout Europe. Wagner helped to make such views popular in Germany, long before Hitler came on the scene.

Once you put such ideas in historical context, you begin to see that --as abhorrent and strange as they are to us-- such thinking was relatively common and often acceptable at the time. Combine it with a cocktail of colonial ambition, a lost war, and a failed economy, and a significant portion of Germany (not just Hitler) was determined to deal with 'the Jewish Question'.

----------------------------------------------------

I think that the task is not so much to humanise, but to historicise. Once you see people like Hitler as historical actors who do not perform in a vacuum, you begin to understand how a horror such as the Holocaust could actually unfold.

Unfortunately for humanity, insanity has nothing to do with it.

Where's my calipers, you look like you need a phrend

 

[JB1975]

The gas chambers were invented because a lot of troops found mass slaughter distasteful and would quit after a few of them.

Interesting side point Fritz Haber invented the synthesising of nitrogen fertilizer, essentially why we have 8 billion people. Also weaponised chlorine for WW1 and invented the precursor for zyklon B........ and a Jew

Hitler wasn't sane. He suffered multiple gas attacks(nerve agents) and PTSD(probs) from time in the trenches, was also being pumped full of meth and bull testicle extract(or whatevs the Dr thought) on the daily.
I don't know how people can watch a speech, even an early one, and go yeh this guy seems legit

Nationalism exists in pretty much every country, why did it turn to whole scale genocide and delusions of European control? Material conditions of liberal germans fell to such an extant they embraced fascism, put a psychopath in charge and we see what happens. Franco was in charge for decades, though a massive campaigner and a war criminal was nowhere near the destruction of hitler

*sorry not directed at you JB, I agree mostly, more just my general thoughts on the thread

He suffered gas attacks, never heard about PTSD before, but neither or the combination of these amounts to insanity.

Was he in control of his faculties and lucid once the Russians started heading for Berlin? Probably not. Was he sane before and upon seizing power and forming a racial state? Most likely yes.

The notion that the destruction of Europe's Jews was a product of Hitler's mind alone isn't supported by the history, at all. It wouldn't have happened if the Nazis hadn't been in power, if democracy hadn't collapsed, but the point I'm making is that the madness of the Holocaust wasn't one mad man's vision. It was the vision of many people at the time.

 

[Whiskey Stat]

The Real Dictators podcast did a pretty good job on Hitlers' life, right from being a young mumma's boy until his death. It is quite amazing how many balls* needed to align for him to actually take power.

They go right through his entire life in a fair amount of detail, 26 episodes all up for any who are interested.

Adolf Hitler - Rise and Downfall - Noiser Podcasts

www.noiser.com

*Turns out he really did only have one ball, although the other was not in Albert Hall.

 

[Chief]

*Turns out he really did only have one ball, although the other was not in Albert Hall.

Word on the characteristics of Goering's? Number and size?