Posted on 01/10/2010 5:06:27 PM PST by Steelfish
LOL perfect!
That's a matter of self-serving opinion. LOL.
Evil people, like Hitler, do not come pre-equipped with horns and a pointy tail. If they did, they would be easier to spot and they would fool fewer people.
This is BS. I saw Jon Lovitz on SNL in a red suit with a pointy tail and horns and knew he wasn't evil as soon as I saw the skit.
You're excusing a largely Godless society's inability to recognize evil when it was stared down by it. Hitler trained his people well. The Depression- and WWII-era Germans are complicit in his evil. He laid it out for the world to read and see.
He fooled an entire Nation.
He didn't fool these people. These people ate up his evil with a Löffel.
> That’s a matter of self-serving opinion. LOL.
No, it’s a matter of self-serving fact. Just because you claim that your great-uncle wouldn’t agree with my assertion doesn’t make my assertion wrong. LOL.
> You’re excusing a largely Godless society’s inability to recognize evil when it was stared down by it.
Germany was/is a devoutly Christian nation during the early-mid twentieth century. Catholics and Lutherans, mostly. Largely Godless? No moreso than, say, contemporaneous United States of America.
> Hitler trained his people well. The Depression- and WWII-era Germans are complicit in his evil. He laid it out for the world to read and see.
> He didn’t fool these people. These people ate up his evil with a Löffel.
You seem to be claiming that the entire nation of Germany was evil during the Nazi regime. Every last man, woman and child. Is that a fair summary of your viewpoint?
> When you decide which one of these diametrically opposed premises is the true one let us know. lol
The premises stand comfortably together and are not diametrically opposed. Think about it. LOL.
Sure they do. Keep telling yourself that.
My point was that we couldn't judge Hitler's soft spot for children and animals as good. He may have been a pedophile since the Hitler Youth and the Brownshirts were rife with homosexuals and the Hitler Youth was the recruiting grounds for Roehm and his soldiers. The only children he had a soft spot for were blond and blue-eyed kids anyway.
Also, the Hidden Hitler documents Hitler's twisted nature as does other books like the Pink Swastika. I would hate to speculate why he liked dogs. I don't think we need to classify Hitler as absolutely evil, but I would never try to ascribe "good" to any of his actions when we do not know what was in his heart.
As to judging others, we should always observe the actions and family life of a person. His early life determines his character in so many ways and a person who has a father who deserted him as an infant has some major issues with self esteem, esp. with a fellow traveler mother who proceeds to dump her kid on relatives. Desertion by both parents is extremely detrimental to a child. Other clues to character are his acquaintances, mentors and friends. If they are evil, he is too. It is pretty easy to figure out.
One of the sadder outcomes of WW-II is that we were unable to capture Hitler alive. There’s alot that is left to conjecture as a result: it would have been extremely valuable for Civilization to have been able to figure out what made him tick.
Beyond doubt he was a Sociopath and a Megalomaniac. He probably had a whole shopping-cart of mental disorders in his bag of tricks to go along with those, too.
And yet the salient point remains: he was able to persuade an entire civilized educated modern European Christian nation to follow him, implement his Vision, and ultimately fight and die for him house-to-house in Berlin. And, at the same time, rat out 6 million of their Jewish friends and neighbors and exterminate them.
How does that work? Without a doubt Evil was at work within him. Yet we lost an opportunity to get insight into mental disorders that we would not easily be able to duplicate. How much of his Evil was he personally culpable for? And how much of it was excusable due to his mental disorders?
Tempting to say he was 100% responsible for all of it: in which case, we probably should not allow insanity as a legal defense or as a mitigating factor in court today. And yet we do. Should we?
And how do we avoid electing people like Hitler in future?
It would have been pretty useful for us to know. Because Hitler could happen again.
I feel for our young people. They are being taught revisionist history or no history at all. This is especially true in this era of Obama. Like Hitler, Obama could persuade people to abandon their principles and opt for dictatorship instead of freedom. Those who have little or no knowledge of Hitler are probably the ones who voted for Obama...just like the uneducated and ill informed in Germany back in Hitler's day.
The whole situation frightens me. As we baby boomers age and our parents and grandparents leave this earth, there will be no one to teach what things were like back then. And unless we speak up, we are doomed to repeat Hitler's Germany.
He was Adolph Hitler. All of it.
And how much of it was excusable due to his mental disorders?
He was Adolph Hitler. None of it.
Actually, Europe at the time was awash in post modern German philosophy which replaced the Judeo-Christian Classical philosophy in the 1800's. The Wiemar Republic was morally bankrupt. The Christian churches were only for the unenlightened and had been totally discredited by the elites for decades as nothing but myth and Jesus was nothing but a prophet. By the time Hitler came along, he easily filled the void.
I received this e-mail that compares Austria 1938 to America today:
“Friends, I had the opportunity to hear Kitty Werthmann speak at the Eagle Forum national conference a couple of months back. She told a powerful story about what it was like growing up under Hitler.
America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don’t Let Freedom Slip Away. What I am about to tell you is something you’ve probably never heard or will ever read in history books.
I believe that I am an eyewitness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history. We elected him by a landslide – 98% of the vote. I’ve never read that in any American publications. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force.
In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25% inflation and 25% bank loan interest rates. Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn’t want to work; there simply weren’t any jobs. My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily.
The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party were fighting each other. Blocks and blocks of cities like Vienna, Linz, and Graz were destroyed. The people became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.
We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn’t have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living. Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group — Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back. Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler. We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed.
After the election, German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Works Service.
Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn’t support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage.
Hitler Targets Education – Eliminates Religious Instruction for Children:
Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn’t pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang “Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,”and had physical education.
Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail. The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had.
My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn’t do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn’t exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.
Equal Rights Hits Home:
In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death. Women who stayed home to raise their families didn’t have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men.
Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines. When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.
Hitler Restructured the Family Through Daycare:
When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.
Health Care and Small Business Suffer Under Government Controls:
Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna. After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.
As for healthcare, our tax rates went up to 80% of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.
We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn’t meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.
We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.
“Mercy Killing” Redefined:
In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesick-ness.
As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.
The Final Steps - Gun Laws:
Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily. No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.
Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.
After World War II, Russian troops occupied Austria. Women were raped, preteen to elderly. The press never wrote about this either. When the Soviets left in 1955, they took everything that they could, dismantling whole factories in the process. They sawed down whole orchards of fruit, and what they couldn’t destroy, they burned. We called it The Burned Earth. Most of the population barricaded themselves in their houses. Women hid in their cellars for 6 weeks as the troops mobilized. Those who couldn’t, paid the price. There is a monument in Vienna today, dedicated to those women who were massacred by the Russians.
This is an eye witness account.
“It’s true….those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.
America Truly is the Greatest Country in the World. Don’t Let Freedom Slip Away
“After America, There is No Place to Go””
> He was Adolph Hitler. All of it.
> He was Adolph Hitler. None of it.
Right then. The question comes down to whether you believe Adolph Hitler was perfectly sane, or whether he was completely batty. Because he was extremely one-way-or-the-other.
There is a longstanding judicial principle of diminished responsibility for the mentally insane, going back a very long time, in the US, Great Britain, and most other civilized nations.
You’ve indicated that he should have no diminished responsibility. The inference from that is that you believe Hitler was perfectly sane.
It could be so: but the circumstantial evidence suggests otherwise. Sadly we will never find out because he wasn’t captured alive.
Interesting summary - the parallels with today are unnerving, aren’t they?
In more “normal” times (if there is such a thing) this movie would be disturbing. But with an administration bent on issuing in a socialist/communist government, movies like this are downright scary. Our media, education institutions and entertainment industry is attempting to rewrite history.
We’ve seen it happen in real time - things will disappear from news stories that were there the day before.
Welcome to George Orwell’s “1984”.
No matter where our kids are schooled (home, public, private), I think every family should have accurate history books at home - to counter the misinformation.
Using your abilities for evil is not redeeming.
It's something we so desperately need right now - a show that will finally put Adolf Hitler in the context he deserves. Seriously - it was just the other day I was sitting around with my Aryan Youth Group/Pilates class, discussing how deeply reviled Hitler has been over the years. "If only someone could get into poor Adolf's size 7 loafers and understand where the poor guy is coming from," I wondered aloud - and shirtless, to get my point across.
Well thank the Devil for Oliver Stone, for he's revealed that his upcoming Showtime miniseries "Secret History of America" will help put mass murderers such as Hitler and Stalin "in context."
"Stalin, Hitler, Mao, McCarthy -- these people have been vilified pretty thoroughly by history," he told reporters during a press tour, managing to slip non-killer Joe McCarthy into the mix, without causing a murmur.
Now, I suppose "thoroughly" was code for "unfairly," but he's right about Mao, Hitler and Stalin - it's just the way things works, I guess, when you kill millions of innocent people. But true to his blind allegiance to relativism, Stone claims that "we can't judge people as only 'bad' or 'good.' Hitler was an easy scapegoat."
He's right: you had to blame the Holocaust on someone. But finger pointing is so judgmental! Case in point: Stone claims that conservative pundits will really dislike the show - maybe because conservative pundits don't require psychoanalysis to understand Hitler's motivations. Me? I don't care if Adolf's mommy never loved him, or the maid made fun of his willy. I had similar problems, and I still didn't kill six million Jews.
But saying only conservative pundits will be upset by this is really a slap in the face of all progressives. For Stone assumes that - unlike right wingers - the left will willingly accept his revisionist look at history's greatest mass murderers.
He's right: as embracers of all things relative, they are crackers to his cheese.
And if you disagree with me, then you're worse than Harry Reid.
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