Hitler didn’t need Darwin to justify his killing. If so, why would he murder the Jews who are maybe the most successful individual ethnic group in history? He hated non-Aryans. He was infected with hatred of any group that was not Aryan. Because he or other Nazis might have quoted Darwin does not change the fact that Darwin or no Darwin, Hitler wanted to kill a lot of people.
re: “Because he or other Nazis might have quoted Darwin does not change the fact that Darwin or no Darwin, Hitler wanted to kill a lot of people.”
True, but remember that Hitler and Nazism believed in racial, evolutionary superiority, the Aryan “superman” - who, because of that superiority deserved to rule everyone else.
Yes, he killed Jews, but he also killed many others based on the social Darwinian idea of “useless eaters” such as the mentally retarded, the elderly, gypsies, the terminally ill - these were seen as a drag on the evolutionary growth of humanity and the Reich.
Look, as I said, I do not blame Darwin for Hitler or Marxism, but the idea of naturalistic evolution allows for whatever moral platform you may want to create as it removes such ideas as “moral absolutes” and that altruism is actually an impediment to evolutionary progress. One can believe in “morality” without belief in God, but what morality will it be?
Again, I’m not disagreeing with your premise that Darwinism does not necessarily lead to Nazi beliefs or Marxism, and that people can be motivated by many things other than Darwinism to account for their brutal behaviors, but those ideas do not violate Darwinist naturalism either.