Posted on 02/09/2012 6:00:41 AM PST by Daffynition
HISTORY knows him as an evil Nazi monster — but Adolf Hitler was quite happy camping it up in the woods.
This rare archive picture shows him in lederhosen and knee-high socks lounging against a tree.
Unsurprisingly, the Fuhrer banned the snap — and several taken by his personal photographer in the late 1920s — calling it "beneath one's dignity". In another shot Hitler tilts his head and tries a mean and moody stare to camera, topped off by a military cap.
He never wore the hat again.
(Excerpt) Read more at thesun.co.uk ...
HITLER in seinen bergen(HITLER ON HIS MOUNTAINS)
Historian Roger Moorhouse, who wrote the book's introduction, said: "We have this image now of Hitler almost as a buffoon. But these pictures show he experimented with his own image. He was a very modern politician in that way."
Yeah, that one with the shorts has obviously been retouched, since the head is out of proportion to the body and the lighting is wrong. The light should be behind him, as you can see by the glare off his leg, but his face is fully lit as if by studio photography lights. I’d guess it was a Soviet propaganda job that was meant to embarass him.
I couldn't agree with you more, TF.
Yes, in an effort to understand how the Jews got into the tragedy of the National Socialist Germany, I struggled through her ‘The Origins of Totalitarianism”. Hardest read I ever experienced. Still do not think I got the full meaning of the book. Came to the conclusion that the difficult sentence structure was a product of language barriers. Not sure, but suspect she was primary in something other than English.
Who’s holding the cane? hitler or the Dog?
That pose is so staged. Poor dog probably had to hold that pose forever. The cane in that position is not natural.
In this photo, hitler’s head looks too big for his body.
I think quite the opposite: it is a mistake to forget that anything that evil was human. The Hitler who unleashed war and genocide was also the Hitler who liked the German forests, loved dogs and small children, was sentimental about protecting German troops (to their harm because that sentimentality resulted in over-armored tanks that sank in the Russian mud). . .
The next time, the monster will have endearingly human qualities, too. Remembering Hitler’s in context may make it easier to recognize the next monster and stop him.
Looks like he had the beginnings of that “frontal butt” thing goin’ on there.....
Being that “hindsight is 20-20”, I will only state that as a young boy who was a student of history. When about 12 years old, I read Mein Camp, another of Hitler’s books and several other autobiography’s on Rommel, Model, and Patton. Each of these men were shaped by being students of history themselves. Hitler, having been wounded by Gas in WWI, renounced it’s use in WWII even while American and British bommers were vaperiozing cities before the invasion of France. Another observation from reading Hitler was that he became “furor-ious” about German Jews who were bankers bragging in the French and English Press/Radio interviews in the 20’s how they had channeled economic and fiscal data to the Allied Nations of Britian - therefore, he also refused the service of Jews in the military and worked hard to remove them from society for fear of their treachory/treasonous actions being repeated from WWI. This is not an apology for the destruction of the Jewish community in Europe under das boot, but rather the untold basis of WHY Hitler and the Germans felt they “had” to one protect their Nation and to also ensure it’s survival by eliminating the threat. First they took the Jews property, whether banks, factories or homes and then they got rid of hungry mouths to feed; Mr. Joseph Stalin in Russia and Dear Leader Mao te Sung did this on a gradure scale and this Reader beleives that the “anointed One, pResident zObama” looks to socialist and communist founding fathers as the model to emulate. And liberal’s cheer just as the Nazi’s cheered their great leader, just as the Reds did Stalin/Lenin and the Red’s did Mao - and we think history will not repeat itself here in America? Soon enough given four more years, we will become Amerika with Dept of Homeland Security more than able to act as the State’s Secret Police. Hitler had his vaunted SS, and soon we will have our Drones, along with the GPS in our phones/cars/computers to pinpoint our whereabouts.... I digress.
On the contrary. It's a mistake to portray Hitler as non-human. Our natural reaction to Hitler and others as depraved is to disown them as "monsters," and "inhuman," but human is exactly what Hitler was, nothing more or less. It does not aid our learning or practiced skill at avoiding evil choices or behaviors when we dismiss Hitler as "non-human," and thereby excuse ourselves from self-examination. Of course, our purpose is not to excuse ourselves in such a way when we shun such people. We really mean to set ourselves and our culture and habits apart from such people, to say they are not kin, that they are outside our tribe and taboo. That, in itself, is a good thing, but we often carry such language too far, I think, and risk forgetting the very human capacity for both good and evil.
We know both, all too well, as an essential part of being human.
When a cat captures and teases a mouse to the point of exhaustion and death we might be horrified but we generally understand that the cat is doing his "natural born thing," as a creature born free from the responsibilities that come (whether one likes it or not) with "knowing good and evil."
When Cousin Lenny captures and teases a mouse to death we call the men in white coats, because Lenny is human and, as such, is born responsible, whether Lenny has "impulse control" or not and regardless of his education. Lenny is stained with true moral guilt regardless of any capacity for guilty feelings.
Ironically, Hitler and the Nazis arose out of a fashionable flight from moral responsibility, which makes dismissing him as "non-human" particularly dangerous.
Your greater point, that the author is treading dangerous ground by seeming to counter Hitler's "history" with the idea of a man being "quite happy camping it up in the woods" is a correct response, however. Among other things Hitler probably lacked any true capacity for happiness, and hated all who were not similarly messed up. That was a choice for evil that arises all to often from the depths of human hearts.
>>>suspect she was primary in something other than English<<<
You are so right. Her family was Jewish and she was born in Germany...fled the Gestapo to Paris, then to the U.S. in her 30s.
It is a battle trying to read that stuff, isn’t it? Especially for a hard-head like me...lol...
It is not that I support or in anyway feel justification for Hitler's rule over his country but rather that no one ever mentions the history of those jews who betrayed WWI germany in the conservation of the extermination of the jews. History is repleat with other examples of "revionist history".
Great post. I wanted to say something like that as soon as I read the what you responded to, but I couldn’t come even vaguely close to how coherently you expressed your ideas. Just so! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
LOL!
The whole room is laughing, over here. Really. (One, on background, suggests the effect might be a result of "Shicklegroober's" single testicle.)
A plurality, here, will admit to not having known Hitler was a "pot handle."
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Well, by all means, please educate us all about what the Jews of the early 1900s did to warrant the gas chambers for their children and grand children....after all, we want to hear all sides of the story.
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Oh, I get it...they slaughtered about six million Jews of all ages just to keep from feeding them.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Now, please explain the six million non-jews who suffered the same fate...oh, never mind...I guess they were just hungry too.
It is obvious that you discounted in total the treason was committed by some very fashionable German stewards of the economy, aka, Bankers who bragged in the French and English Press of their wartime exploits of giving information on production and economic matters to the English. American interned Japanese, Mao and Stalin slautered those with whom they disagreed and yet YOU failed to take a high morale on these two’s actions as well. So you are only concerned about Jews and become impassioned of only their plight. The entire world has continued to suffer because people betray their countries. Might America be suffering someday because of Clinton giving guidance systems to the Chinese, or because of Obama and Hillary’s diplomacy (or lack thereof?). I will state for the record that Hitler cut the jews out of society because he could not trust them due to the actions of a few very well placed spy’s who just happened to be jewish bankers and captains of industy in the first war, least they contine to betray Germany in the second war. That’s all. No moral justification, just that they felt they had justification whether you or I agree with their analysis of the problem or not. It is only in the past 150-250 years that the victor’s did not put to the sword all those who opposed them, or maybe take them as spoils of war. We as humans are not so civilized as to think what happenend in the 19th and 20th centuries, and continues to this day in the name of Socialism/Communism is any different than what happenned under the Nazi’s or Ghingis Khan.
A higher percentage of German Jews fought in World War I than that of any other ethnic, religious or political group in Germany; some 12,000 died for their country.[14][15] Ironically, it was a Jewish lieutenant, Hugo Gutmann, who awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, to a 29-year-old corporal named Adolf Hitler. After Hitler came to power, Gutmann was incarcerated by the Gestapo, but was later released and moved to Brussels, subsequently escaping to the USA after the war began[16][17]
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