Hitler was a man too weak to work in the fields or enlist in the military or even learn how to ride a horse properly, yet a man who, by 1939, had emerged as the most dangerous person in the world. Murray spent many sleepless nights wondering how Hitler had managed to do it. Physically, he resembled nothing more than a high-strung bird, what with his hunched back, his skittish footing, and his dead, dusky eyes. Emotionally, he was totally unhinged, Murray believed. When things did not go his way, he threw temper tantrums, slammed doors, and locked himself in his bedroom at the Berghof, his home in the Bavarian Alps, where he would sulk until he felt well enough to plan his revenge against the person or people who had wronged him. He was more child than man; he was barely a man at all according to Murray’s assessment of his “awkward effeminate movements” and his “dainty little steps.”
Yet despite his apparent shortcomings, Hitler had transcended mankind. He had become a kind of demigod to the people of Germany, who had eagerly followed him into World War II and later stood by while he ordered the systematic extermination of six million European Jews. Now it was personology’s greatest challenge to tell the story of how a man endowed with such unremarkable physical and psychological attributes loomed as the most threatening political force in recent human history…
It was a wildly, perhaps irresponsibly speculative exercise, but for Murray, Hitler’s psychological profile was essential to the war effort. His meteoric rise to power could not be explained in purely physical or material terms.
He was neither strong nor rich nor powerful from the beginning, and so his ascendance had to involve some degree of studied self-creation, some mirage of charismatic projection that had enchanted the German people—the darkest version of Fitzgerald’s “unbroken series of successful gestures.” There was Hitler the man (“Insignificant, prototype of the little man,” read Murray’s notes), and there was Hitler the ruler, a man not equal to himself in the public eye.
“People look at him & see someone else, the figure of one who might have said and done what Hitler has said and done,” Murray scribbled as he pored over the OSS reports. On another three-by-five index card, he composed a list of the different Hitlers the Germans had known:
The gracious Hitler, soft, good-natured Austrian, excessively gentle & modest.
The possessed Hitler, speech, fury, fanatical.
The lethargic Hitler, exhausted, limp.
The sentimental Hitler, tearful, weeping over his dead canary.
The embarrassed Hitler, ill at ease in the presence of a stranger.
The soap-box Hitler, haranguing.
The expressionless Hitler, faceless.
He created the public image of himself, the people’s Adolf Hitler, through the power of oratory. He was a master of mass-intoxicating words and crude metaphors.
Destiny had cast him in the role of a “ship’s captain.” Germany, once purged of its Jewish population and its political dissidents, would emerge as a “paradise” on earth. “Hitler speaking before a large audience is a man possessed, comparable to a primitive medicine man, or shaman,” Murray wrote in his report. “He is the incarnation of the crowd’s unspoken needs and cravings; and in this sense he has been created, and to a large extent invented, by the people of Germany.”
Hitler’s power was real—exceedingly, frighteningly real—but Hitler the man was a collective fiction, a node of mass transference, a public hallucination of no more substance to Murray than the monomaniacal Captain Ahab, the villain of his favorite novel, Moby-Dick. The two characters shared an “intangible malignity,” Murray quoted from Melville, “a wild vindictiveness” that had rotted their souls before turning outward. If Ahab had directed his malice to the whale, making its white hump the sign and symbol of everything that was evil in the world, then Hitler had done the same with the Jews, the intelligentsia, the political left, the political right, the British, the French, and liberal democracy writ large.
In his subconscious, Murray claimed, Hitler believed that the only way to excise his psychological demons was to give them human form. Only then could they be vanquished—annihilated from the face of the earth.
Hm. If you watch the films of Hitler riding in cars through towns, you see the same reactions on the faces of the women whom he passed near as you do on the girls in the front rows of the Beatles concerts. Adoration, worship, and orgasmic ecstasy. Granted, he had Leni Riefenstahl filming and editing, and she knew her work.
But he was the 1930s rock star. Sinatra could manage that, too.
BramOctober 23, 2018, 11:49 AM
I don’t get the “too weak to enlist in the military” comment. He was enlisted in the military in WWI, which makes it a silly statement. During his enlistment he was wounded several times including exposure to mustard gas. That may have damaged his health permanently.
I’m no fan of the guy, but why make up easily refutable stuff about him?
james wilsonOctober 23, 2018, 12:19 PM
Insecure, effeminate, invented public personalities, Adolf and Barry found their way up to the top through the vehicle of democracy.
DougOctober 23, 2018, 12:23 PM
Marshall Mcluhan used to say that Hitler was only able to rise in the era of radio. The same goes for FDR. If they lived in the television age they would have been laughed off the stage. Just look at those bizarre photos of Hitler more fitting for a trained acting monkey than a head of state. One slip of the camera revealing FDR’s incapacity in his wherlchair would have emboldened our enemies even more. Just think of the sweaty and surly Nixon contrasting with the smooth operator Jack Kennedy.
ScOctober 23, 2018, 12:35 PM
I agree Bram. I’m always a bit skeptical when I detect “piling on” – “This guy’s Evil, so we can denigrate him anyway we choose! His painting sucked! He was sexually perverse! He had syphilis!” Who would question any of that, unless they were some sort of Nazi?
Some of it’s a desire to “explain” the evil, but some of it’s just rooted in a basic human desire to bond with others via shared sentiment, and also to distinguish one’s self with “special knowledge”. A lot of the stories about Hitler trace from captured senior Nazis who likely had ample reason to want to ingratiate themselves with their captors, and may well have nursed grudges against Hitler himself. Those retelling them have similar motives.
I see the “lessons” of Hitler as simply that people can have very dark impulses, which circumstances can allow to manifest in destructive ways; That groups can exponentially magnify and empower the worst impulses of their members; That tribalism is an addictive and debilitating drug. They’re pretty bland messages, but no less true.
ghostsniperOctober 23, 2018, 1:15 PM
The media has been lying since, well, forever.
You get to choose which lies to believe.
I think, with time, we perhaps tend to minimize the war. Soon, in about a half a month, we’ll be remembering the end of WW I, and I think probably most will see it as “meh.” Last week, I had a rare chat with a neighboring airplane passenger, and we covered a lot of history, since we had that mutual interest. He was unconvinced that WW II could be described in moral terms. I think I made him reconsider when I pointed out that this was the war of the greatest significance historically because of the 60-70 million-person death count. I took it further: in a twist of history, the losers in the war killed by far the huge majority of those killed, and they killed them wholesale in multiples versus their own casualty rates. And, they were mostly, by a large measure, civilians.
But, fuck that. It wasn’t a moral event. Riiiight.
Hitler was one scary motherfucker. Of course he was queer (old school meaning). I once read a bio of a Waffen SS field-grade officer who happened to see Himmler in a military review. Up close, Himmler was spastic and demonic in demeanor and behavior. He was a goddamn devil, but when he would close ranks with a soldier, he would pull himself up to something presentable.
That’s why I don’t think you can psychoanalyze Hitler in the same manner you would an average person. He fits in categories exclusive to pretty much just him. You’ve got Hitler, and then you’ve got the worst human principles of history – guys like Nero, Assurbanapol, the Marquis de Sade – and then you’ve got the bad people. Hitler is in a set of: Hitler.
Gordon ScottOctober 23, 2018, 2:41 PM
Those two photos of Hitler gesticulating? They were shot as part of a series for him to see what he looked like in various gestures. He was practicing. His speeches were delivered in person, often without amplification. Those photos would have told him not to use those combinations of expressions and movements.
CallmelennieOctober 23, 2018, 2:56 PM
@Bram
There is some element of truth to that statement. A completely accurate statement would be he was too weak and uncoordinated to serve as an infantryman. Which is why he served (with great distinction) as a runner, You dont need any strength at all to take a piece of paper from Point A to Point B, You do need a hell of a lot of courage, as every sniper from the other side is on the lookout for someone running parallel to the front lines during a battle. Who knows how many times Hitler cheated death
And I think this became part of his legend. He was the man who really wasn’t fit to be at the front, but still served Germany for over four years. And he served everyday of those four years as Hitler never took leave. Ad to that the legend of how this runt of a man miraculously regained his vision after being blinded by chlorine gas, which is a medical impossibility …and you see how he overcame his unimpressive physique
BTW, it is now widely believed that Hitler lost his sight temporarily in a mustard gas attack, which isn’t necessarily permanent. Another possibility is Hitler suffered a case of hysterical blindness when facing the possibility of dying by asphyxiation
VanderleunOctober 23, 2018, 2:58 PM
“Bram October 23, 2018, 11:49 AM
I don’t get the “too weak to enlist in the military” comment. He was enlisted in the military in WWI, which makes it a silly statement. During his enlistment he was wounded several times including exposure to mustard gas. That may have damaged his health permanently.
I’m no fan of the guy, but why make up easily refutable stuff about him?”
I understand that approach and attitude. Indeed, I agree with it.
At the same time this is AN EXCERPT from a book so perhaps what the author is getting at given more detail at an earlier point. Hard to say.
Bob SykesOctober 23, 2018, 3:38 PM
Emre’s book contains so many obvious lies that none of it can be believed. Why would Emre do that?
VanderleunOctober 23, 2018, 4:22 PM
Other than the excerpt here, none. What lies did Emre tell in the rest of the book?
in WW1 combat, Hitler won the Iron Cross, both classes.
He built and led a political movement that brought his country back from the (((abyss))).
History has proved him right about Czechslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the USSR. All gone from the map.
he wanted neither a European nor a World War; that was Churchill and FDR’s doing.
and History is in the process of proving him right about…(((something else))).
SuburbanbansheeOctober 23, 2018, 4:52 PM
Hitler was an ex-Catholic rebelling against his Catholic family, and his miraculous survival happened on the site of one of the great medieval Marian healing shrines, with a medical station in the church and directly above the grave of a visionary and saint.
So of course he spent the rest of his life fighting his extremely Catholic miracle, and trying to prove something nasty.
They say that sometimes God saves the lives of the wicked, just so that they’ll have no way to whine about unfairness when they come to the Last Judgment.
PA CatOctober 23, 2018, 4:56 PM
I’d take anything that Henry Murray said about Hitler (or anyone else, for that matter) with a whopping dose of salt. Murray was not the most well-adjusted guy himself. He went to visit Jung in Switzerland when he got involved with Christiana Morgan (with whom he developed the Thematic Apperception Test or TAT, a projective personality test) but didn’t want to divorce his wife Josephine. Jung himself had a wife and a younger mistress (Toni Wolff) and advised Murray to do the same, which he did for the next 40 years. While Josephine Murray regarded Jung as a dirty old man, both she and Christiana Morgan’s husband were persuaded to accept the long-term liaison between Murray and Morgan. Jung was also responsible for turning Murray away from medicine (he had earned his M.D. in 1919) toward psychology.
Murray was also noteworthy for the unethical experiments related to extreme stress that he conducted on Harvard undergraduates between 1959 and 1962. He subjected the men to intense personal abuse, specifically tailored to undermine their individual beliefs and ideals. One of these men was Ted Kaczynski, a mathematics major later known as the Unabomber.
Steve in GreensboroOctober 23, 2018, 4:57 PM
I don’t know about Emre or Murray (whoever they are). For my money, the greatest Hitler scholar is Norm MacDonald.
On Twitter:
David Harsanyi
✔
@davidharsanyi
Best things Hitler did, ranked.
1) Kill Hitler.
2) Stay faithful to his wife for their entire 24-hours of marriage.
Which is also true.
Rob De WittOctober 23, 2018, 9:19 PM
The most cogent book about Hitler, imo, is Alice Miller’s For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child Rearing and the Roots of Violence, wherein she makes the irrefutable connections among a heroin addict, a murderer of young boys, and finally Adolf Hitler – and the connection is child abuse. The book, her second I believe, was both a critical success and an entry on Germany’s bestseller lists for a hundred and twenty weeks. Miller herself said “All I needed to do was describe Hitler in such a way that it served as a mirror and suddenly many Germans caught their reflections in it.”
Don’t make the facile error of believing that she intends to excuse anything; but believe me, for those of us who are the beneficiaries of severe abuse, neglect, and personality destruction, Dr. Miller’s viewpoint explains….everything. It’s definitely worth a read if you feel tough enough.
Fuel FilterOctober 24, 2018, 4:45 AM
“…systematic extermination of six million European Jews.”
Why is there *NEVER* any mention of the other *SEVEN* million others he had killed? Instead the singular focus is always on Jews. And never any mention either of the 40-60+ million the allies lost in the ETO?
And always remember that Patton was murdered for simply stating the fact that we fought the wrong enemy. He wanted to continue to go East to wipe out the Commies in the West and have McAruther march West to wipe out Mao and meet up with him in the middle.
That is precisely what should have gone down.
Fuck Frank the Cripple for being so stupid – or so traitorous – as not to see this truth.
Gordon ScottOctober 24, 2018, 4:47 AM
There is a good book called Hitler in Hell by Isreali historian Martin Van Creveld. It is a telling of his life from a comfortable, but boring apartment in the underworld. Van Creveld is no fan of Hitler, but in the telling, one gets an idea of how various events and decisions made sense from Hitler’s point of view.
BramOctober 24, 2018, 7:11 AM
Hitlers goal was a unified Europe dominated by Germany. A sort of modern Holy Roman Empire. Kind of ironic that his vision is now a reality.
JohnTylerOctober 24, 2018, 7:23 AM
It was Hitler’s public oratory skills and his genius in knowing what to say to raise the emotions of the masses that allowed him to become Chancellor of Germany.
He knew how to manipulate an audience; to provide them exactly what they wanted to hear; to provide them a reason – and a solution (by eliminating the cause of their problems) to all their problems.
It has been often said that he was able to literally hypnotize an audience.
His personal foibles were meaningless; the people and his followers saw his public persona and that is all that mattered. Its a waste of time examining his own personal devils because the people never saw them and he know when to put on his “act.”
His “act was very effective because he actually believed in everything he said; to him, it was not an act at all.
He was probably the greatest public speaker in world history; no one could move the masses through speech as he was able to do.
And therein lies the warning, the danger.
Despite the fact that he was a failure at everything he ever did in life – aside from obtaining power – it shows that gifted speakers, devious ones (in that they know what the people need/want to hear) can rise to very high positions of power despite their own personal devils and lack of any other real ability other than hypnotizing and deluding the masses.
Obama is a perfect , modern day example of this; a gifted speaker, magnetic personality, knew what to say and how to say it, but a person of zero accomplishments who never in his adult life ever held a real job prior to his presidency.
He literally spoke his way – via his oratory – into the presidency.
Of course, once there, he had to repeatedly deceive the citizenry; e.g. you can keep your doctor……; Benghazi video………knew nothing of Hillary’s private server……… knew nothing of the IRS targeting ……; gun running into Mexico….knew nothing of spying on Trump’s campaign, etc
He was the perfect clone of Sergeant Shultz of “I know nothing ” fame of Hogan’s Hero’s.
Public “magnetic” personality and exceptional oratorical skills are a combination of attributes very few possess. And those that do have them can rise to the highest levels of power, irrespective of their morality and honesty and goals.
Mr. Filter, your numbers are off to the extent that you’ve totally blown your point. Not to mention, the jewphobia. Please, just quit it.
John TylerOctober 24, 2018, 9:45 AM
John Tyler, I have to take exception to the notion that Obama was “a gifted speaker, magnetic personality, knew what to say and how to say it…” I was stunned when I first heard this expressed in 2008; the fact that it’s still espoused by anybody leads me to believe nobody’s ever watched him.
I’ve been a performer, a trainer, and a public speaker throughout the last 60 years. Even for a politician, Obama is embarrassing to watch. He’s as wooden as Al Gore, has categorically no awareness of his audience and consequently how he’s being received, is unable to maintain his rhythm when confronted with interruptions (“Come on, guys. Come on, you guys. Now hold on…” Etc.)
The mystery of his public acceptance is attributable to somebody – not Obama, you may be sure – realizing that the Baby Boomers were ripe for the plucking by somebody who could assure them that they were as unique and wonderful as they’d always secretly hoped. They Were The Ones They’d Been Waiting For, after all, and their decades-long tenure in the closet of being normal and not hate-filled could finally be ended in the sunlight of publicly proclaiming themselves Better Than You.
And beside that, he could almost-convincingly impersonate somebody black, which gave everybody a tingle up their leg. What could be better?
Rob De WittOctober 24, 2018, 10:04 AM
For some reason, the above was signed “John Tyler.” Apparently, je me fucked up.
The opinion that Obama is/was/will always be a pitiful public speaker is all mine, and thank you.
AnonymousOctober 24, 2018, 10:26 AM
Most murderous spellbinders of their beliefs: Mohammed, Stalin, Hitler, Tojo, … .
What’s the difference between those four and Nadia Murad (Yadizi) recent Nobel Peace Prize winner?
Learn, then teach your children well.
Rob speaks the truth. Obama’s rhetoric and delivery only tickles an evil and willful soul. It is not like speech from generations past. Speech before television arrived was dramatic and over-expressive. Obama is weak and stuttering. He is affected; pre-war speakers never were affected, unless they were trying to do a bad Shakespeare on purpose.
Hitler was in the main, in regards to his delivery, metre and volume. But, with his own unique and strong talent at it, and his own style. Really, you must understand speech and rhetoric historically before you go off on this. Hitler loved the state solution. Hitler hated people groups.
Answer me something. Was it unparalleled to invade a neighboring country for princely purposes when Hitler walked the earth? Certainly not. In fact, his few invasions did nothing to ruffle England or the US. Stalin was down with that, and went in for his shares. Hitler had much, much more game in mind than that. Hitler was interested in anti-republic, anti-democrat, anti-monarch, anti-communist, dogma. He was interested in pro-German things. His way or the highway. Was it his drive for total war that was wrong? I could argue that America and a few of her allies were more total in their application of war.
Try to keep up with what’s happening, will you? Today we face a coordinated, foolish attack on the left-side politicals in America. If an actual explosion occurred, how would that differ from the assassination of Ferdinand in June of 1914? Class? Bueller??
Keep in mind, that this news event today is pinned on Pres. Trump by CNN, but riot violence, public spontaneous harassment, and baseball diamond shootings are not politically motivated. Left mob: good. Right mob: bad.
ghostsniperOctober 24, 2018, 2:11 PM
Rob / John is right.
I never saw video of Obama, so I never saw him speak, at all.
But I heard him a couple times on the radio.
I have spoken directly to thousands of people, from one to more than 100, at various times over the past 40 years. I have said it before and I will say it again, except in the comfort of gov’t, Obama would never make it on his own. Had he tried someone would have killed him, or he would have lived as a pauper. He was born a loser and spent his whole life the same and someone or something is behind his ascension, for he has not the fiber to provide it himself. He was one of the poorest speakers I have ever heard.
martOctober 24, 2018, 5:03 PM
there’s a youtube video – I don’t have the link – of Hitler’s normal speaking voice. It must be a very rare thing as you really only ever see Hitler speaking when he’s giving a speech in front of giant audiences. I don’t speak any German, but it was uncanny how persuasive his voice and phrasing was, after many decades – and being unable to understand a word he was saying.
I would never equate Trump to Hitler, but what they do have in common is the gift of persuasion. You can see the way Trump gauges every different audience he speaks to, how he perfectly matches the tone and range, whether it’s a one-on-one or at a rally, and every size and type of audience in between.
Blondi UtronkiOctober 24, 2018, 6:05 PM
Obama was not an eloquent speaker. He was predictable, boring and transparent. When he wanted to sound like a brother, he came off sounding like Richard Pryor doing Mudbone and Toodlum.
edaddyOctober 24, 2018, 7:41 PM
It never ceases to amaze me how Hitler is described as a force acting upon the German peoples. And, my fellow American Digest author and commentors are amazed at how such a gaunt and effeminate little man could lead a nation into such utter destruction.
The reality is the exactly the opposite. The German people chose Hitler to be the murder weapon who would destroy their culture. The lesson in Hitler is not Hitler. The lesson in Hitler is the culture that promoted him to power and unleashed him on the world. That, my friends, was the German people of 1930’s Germany.
It was the German society and culture that had evolved from 1850 to early 1900’s. It was the time from Umberto Ecco’s Prague Cemetary to Freud’s Sexual Theories to the Great War to the Weimar Republic and, ultimately, Hitler. Culturally, they were spent and were dead set on committing suicide. Hitler was the gun they shoved in their mouth.
The Jews? Well, what about the Jews? I have observed that, throughout history, when the Jews were oppressed, it was because of their damned relationship to God. No, I’m not talking about the crazed jihadi relationship to God. I’m talking about the historical stench of God that has stuck to an entire race of people. You see, God represents the Ultimate Authority, the Ultimate Patriarchy.
Eve’s apple was basically the child’s rebellion against the parent. Societies and cultures have to rebel against something. That “something” starts as parents/father, blah, blah, blah, then Norms (think 1950’s), then Government (think 1960’s). When you have nothing left to rebel against, you rebel against God.
The evolution of rebellion occurred in German and it eventually led to Hitler. He was the German people’s rebellion against God. Probably, the most effective way to rebel against God is to kill God’s children … the Jews. Even though the Jews might have been just as decadent as your run of the mill German attending a 1920’s Berlin Cabaret, you were still a Jew. You were the “God’s children” of history. Even though you were the most rabid Jewish atheist, you were still “one of them”.
And, anything relating to God had to be destroyed.
Hence the Holocaust.
Our culture is descending. No one can deny that like the Germans chose Hitler, American’s chose Trump. I pray that Trump can stop it, but it’s hard to be optimistic. We have at least one generation before us that has been indoctrinated from kindergarten through college and is being destroyed by the Left. We hope and pray that these children and their grandchildren will pursue a path that lifts our culture and society back to higher levels. If we fail and they fail, we have to ask ourselves, “Who will be the gun that our offspring put in their mouth?”
pbirdOctober 25, 2018, 11:27 AM
I think edaddy has it.
Haxo should be blocked or something.
Old SurferOctober 26, 2018, 3:24 PM
Hitler was a nasty piece of work, but his charisma is undeniable. Watch his speeches before the Nazi party gatherings with the sound turned up, they will give you chills even if you don’t understand German. Timing, gestures, all right on, dangerous power incarnate.
Howard NelsonOctober 26, 2018, 9:42 PM
In addition to inspiring, impassioned, persevering leadership you need an organization to take impressive action. Beware AntiFA finding the leader equivalent to Mohammed, Robert E Lee, US Grant, Patton in determination and loyalty of followers.
On a surreptitious scale this is how a single-minded oligarchy of ‘educators’ took majority control of our schools. Resistance was fragmentary at best in the absence of leaders recognizing the snowballing threat.
Organized mobs of goons, thugs, gangsters will run riot and gain control over the poorly led and disorganized majority — look at much of South and Central America, Mexico for the stages of control, disillusion and dissolution.
Need a scapegoat for the groupies, during hard times, to be distracted with? How about Christians and Yazidis and Jews and the other Muslim sects, Buddhists, Baha’i, Tibetans, …
The Fascists understood this organizing principle in their tightly bound fasces symbol, and perverted it into their E Pluribus Unum format.
Hitler, as a meme. He’s very popular in the meme culture, and in some ways it’s because of the impossible span of time from 1945 till today (for a youngster). Hitler is fair game for humor. I guess he always was – that’s true. To us, he was a strange son of a bitch. To Germans in the Twenties, Thirties and Forties, he was a full-blown political savior.
I take issue with edaddy, above. Leadership matters critically. Blame Germany, but also western culture. That was what Herman Wouk wrote in his historical fiction trilogy about the war. But, do not fail to blame Hitler. And Himmler, and Goering, et al. Blame Chamberlain. Blame American Republicans, too. Spineless bastards that they were. Blame fucking Stalin, that back-stabbing SOB. Blame Mussolini. Get it correctly in your mind. That way, if Fascism ever does re-emerge, you can squeeze its neck early.
edaddy, the Jewish race partake in blessings and curses as is written in the Pentateuch. Christianity has given them a hard ride, even though the Savior explicitly forgave them for His crucifixion. Islam has no excuse for hating the Hebrew people; they are pretty much geopolitical, religious and racial rivals. That’s taboo to say nowadays.
Don’t put Trump in with Hitler. Are you retarded?
On Fascism. Note that Antifa call their opponents, who basically are anyone on the political Right, and when you scratch deeper, anyone in the center of the economy, “Fascists”. Take very careful note: Putin’s farce of an invasion force, in Ukraine, label Ukrainian loyalists the same way. The fucking Russians think they’re fighting “Fascists” in Ukraine (Europe)! Keep this in mind: Antifa are Anarcho Communists. “Fascist” is just an epithet, but dumasses from coast to coast fall for it, hook, line and sinker. Real fascism is a fanatical political adherence to state control. Read: Democrats.
President Trump (readers here know this but libs read here, too) has done an amazing thing. He has made it so that each new government regulation must sunset 2 regulations before it. That’s called shrinking regulation. Long pause. He is re-negotiating trade, and re-emphasized the borders in order to blunt the international motives of “Globalization,” which is a fancy word for Communism. Staring at you over my glasses. In my lifetime, there have been three presidents who have been the least interested in expeditionary war. Eisenhower, Carter, and Trump. One of those coupled that with weakness, which was Carter. But he was a dumbshit, wasn’t he? OK, you could add Nixon, who ended Vietnam, but then you have to add his bombing campaign in and the argument gets muddied.
Will we ever have another Hitler? I think that dumb kid from Florida, with the gun control, is doing a nice impression of him.
edaddyOctober 27, 2018, 6:55 PM
Mr. Klahn, how nice! If only leadership matters, then you personally can never be blamed politically. It’s the voter equivalent of “I was just following order, Sir.” Indeed leadership matters, but so do you and I.
Regarding Trump, perhaps you need to read my paragraph again, this time more carefully. Hitler and Nazism was a movement embraced by the German people. They brought Hitler to power and thus enabled him. Because of that they deserved to have their nation destroyed. I get a little tired of everyone ONLY bashing Hitler but letting Hansi off the hook … Probably, because so many American’s married the German women they got pregnant for a damned Hershey bar or pack of cigarettes.
Can we not be honest and acknowledge that We the People brought Trump to power? Trump is a movement. The difference is that Trump is a force for good while Hitler was a force for evil. Bottom line is that it scares the hell out of me to think of a movement as strong as Trump’s except for a candidate as evil as Hitler. As an American, I’m as uncomfortable as hell in giving anyone power when I go to the polls. Your point on that little gun control prick from Florida only emphasizes my position.
Different subject …
I must take exception to your comment that Christianity has given the Jews a hard ride. I personally believe that the veins of extremism that we see today has always existed within cultures and societies. When the West was “Christian”, then these veins of extremism existed within Christianity because that’s all there was. Hence “Christian” oppression of Jews. I’d wager that these veins even exist within Judaism. In our time, they are drawn to the Progressive movement and Trump has done a wonderful job flushing them out into the open.
edaddy. Certainly there is much self-hatred among Jews, and I expect those are liberals. I’m a little bit baffled by your comment overall: first you want group responsibilities, but then you want to let us Christians off the hook in your last paragraph. What’s it gonna be?
Chuckling, here. A fault in many debates is to take everything as absolute, or to the extreme of the argument. “…only leadership;” avoid absolute statements, if possible. No, Christianity is not wracked with Jew-hatred, even considering its long history. But, it is something to take account of. I mentioned H Wouk, and by the way I learned that guy is still alive at 103 years of age (!) / Gerard, take notice!! Anyway, Wouk, in his WW II trilogy, makes a point of spotlighting the internecine rivalries in Europe, and the moral is watch out every generation for this kind of conflagration.
Where will ours start?
On Trump: something big was needed because we were at the point where DC was completely ignorant of the American people’s guidance. They pretty much do whatever they damn well feel like in Washington DC, and the rest of us can go to hell. I wanted more upheaval by the president. I wanted him to enter office, and on Monday to chain the FBI headquarters and seize every hard drive. But, I’m hard that way. I want accountability.
Cheers.
Ray Van DuneOctober 27, 2018, 10:02 PM
Read “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” and then tell me about how Hitler lured the German people into being warmongers and mass murderers, by taking advantage of the hurt inflicted on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles!
BS! The Germans had a superiority complex from ancient times, and it took one lost war followed by one complete ass-kicking back to the Stone Age to get them over it!
Ray Van DuneOctober 27, 2018, 10:16 PM
My Father served in the US Army through the European campaign, and on into the early parts of the occupation of a defeated Germany. He never tired of telling me how he and his buddies used to marvel at how accurate US bombs, artillery, machine guns, and rifles were, because they managed to kill every last Nazi, and spared every German who had been secret anti-Nazis all along! Amazing!
ghostsniperOctober 28, 2018, 6:53 AM
Hitler and Nazism was a movement embraced by “some of” the German people.
===========
Because of that +what some of them chose” they “all” deserved to have their nation “and their lives” destroyed.
===========
Yes of course, blame ALL for the behavior of some.
Democracy (majority rule): The god that always fails.
Howard NelsonOctober 28, 2018, 2:40 PM
As I read it war damage is imprecise, the innocent die along with the guilty. After the war, the organized and those favored by the winners regain control permitted by the winners. Bureaucrats are needed to run the day to day operations whether they are of the guilty or surviving innocent.
Japan, Germany, Italy were somewhat civilized, and democratized in representative republican structures. Generation to generation lose or distort the lessons learned by the previous generation. The EU mega-bureaucracy is an excellent example of this forgetfulness multiplied by foolishness. Soon this irrationality and incompatibility will explode in widespread rioting, and scapegoats will be sought. Those responsible for this massive muckup and madness will sail off to their havens.
In the USA, the Right seems to be getting it right, while the Left continues to go more extremely wrong. Follow the money and publicized stupidities for guidance through this jungle of folly and hope Trump continues to stomp on the greater fools.
I would ask the commenters here to define for me the structure where you separate the peoples of a nation from the nation’s actions in war. You cannot. It is a shared responsibility; it is inherent in the definition of a nation.
You go to war against nations, usually, and when you do it’s Katie Bar The Door, and let ‘er rip. We spared collateral damage in Afghanistan, by leaving behind the bulk of our field artillery. We’re still there, 17 years hence. Do I advocate slaughter of civilians? Certainly not. But, the hand we tie is that of our soldiers, and confused initiative is just that: confused. Fight Germany. Fight Somalia (we fucked that one up, too). Fight the Seminole. Fight the Mexicans. Then, make peace.
I’m referring to past wars, of course. Hatchet: buried.
edaddyOctober 28, 2018, 7:22 PM
Gen. 15:16 … But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. God waited 400 years until a nation was utterly decadent before He destroyed it.
Do you want to be on the wrong side of history or on the wrong side of God? When God told the Jews to utterly destroy a nation, it was sin if they didn’t. What about that, Mr. Klahn?
edaddy. Either God had dominion in the Old Testament, or He didn’t. Is it my office to deny that He did? You take me for a fool, methinks.
God’s prerogative to destroy is utter, and utterly destroy He shall if it is His will to do so. This is child’s play. Yawn.
ChrisOctober 29, 2018, 5:05 AM
If Katharine Cook Briggs typed Hitler as ENTJ she obviously didn’t know much about him. Reading ‘Mein Kampf’ suffices to understand that he was an MBTI Feeler (F) and – unlike most men – not a Thinker (T). And he was an extraverted feeler, which means that he excelled in understanding the emotional landscape around him, so Murray from the OSS was spot on when he wrote: “He is the incarnation of the crowd’s unspoken needs and cravings; and in this sense he has been created, and to a large extent invented, by the people of Germany.” And Hitler was an introvert, more interested in his own world that in the realities around him, so most people who are knowledgeable about the MBTI him as INFJ. In that case his somewhat feminine and artistic personality traits aren’t surprising at all.
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
Hitler was a man too weak to work in the fields or enlist in the military or even learn how to ride a horse properly, yet a man who, by 1939, had emerged as the most dangerous person in the world. Murray spent many sleepless nights wondering how Hitler had managed to do it. Physically, he resembled nothing more than a high-strung bird, what with his hunched back, his skittish footing, and his dead, dusky eyes. Emotionally, he was totally unhinged, Murray believed. When things did not go his way, he threw temper tantrums, slammed doors, and locked himself in his bedroom at the Berghof, his home in the Bavarian Alps, where he would sulk until he felt well enough to plan his revenge against the person or people who had wronged him. He was more child than man; he was barely a man at all according to Murray’s assessment of his “awkward effeminate movements” and his “dainty little steps.”
The gracious Hitler, soft, good-natured Austrian, excessively gentle & modest.
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
Hm. If you watch the films of Hitler riding in cars through towns, you see the same reactions on the faces of the women whom he passed near as you do on the girls in the front rows of the Beatles concerts. Adoration, worship, and orgasmic ecstasy. Granted, he had Leni Riefenstahl filming and editing, and she knew her work.
But he was the 1930s rock star. Sinatra could manage that, too.
I don’t get the “too weak to enlist in the military” comment. He was enlisted in the military in WWI, which makes it a silly statement. During his enlistment he was wounded several times including exposure to mustard gas. That may have damaged his health permanently.
I’m no fan of the guy, but why make up easily refutable stuff about him?
Insecure, effeminate, invented public personalities, Adolf and Barry found their way up to the top through the vehicle of democracy.
Marshall Mcluhan used to say that Hitler was only able to rise in the era of radio. The same goes for FDR. If they lived in the television age they would have been laughed off the stage. Just look at those bizarre photos of Hitler more fitting for a trained acting monkey than a head of state. One slip of the camera revealing FDR’s incapacity in his wherlchair would have emboldened our enemies even more. Just think of the sweaty and surly Nixon contrasting with the smooth operator Jack Kennedy.
I agree Bram. I’m always a bit skeptical when I detect “piling on” – “This guy’s Evil, so we can denigrate him anyway we choose! His painting sucked! He was sexually perverse! He had syphilis!” Who would question any of that, unless they were some sort of Nazi?
Some of it’s a desire to “explain” the evil, but some of it’s just rooted in a basic human desire to bond with others via shared sentiment, and also to distinguish one’s self with “special knowledge”. A lot of the stories about Hitler trace from captured senior Nazis who likely had ample reason to want to ingratiate themselves with their captors, and may well have nursed grudges against Hitler himself. Those retelling them have similar motives.
I see the “lessons” of Hitler as simply that people can have very dark impulses, which circumstances can allow to manifest in destructive ways; That groups can exponentially magnify and empower the worst impulses of their members; That tribalism is an addictive and debilitating drug. They’re pretty bland messages, but no less true.
The media has been lying since, well, forever.
You get to choose which lies to believe.
I think, with time, we perhaps tend to minimize the war. Soon, in about a half a month, we’ll be remembering the end of WW I, and I think probably most will see it as “meh.” Last week, I had a rare chat with a neighboring airplane passenger, and we covered a lot of history, since we had that mutual interest. He was unconvinced that WW II could be described in moral terms. I think I made him reconsider when I pointed out that this was the war of the greatest significance historically because of the 60-70 million-person death count. I took it further: in a twist of history, the losers in the war killed by far the huge majority of those killed, and they killed them wholesale in multiples versus their own casualty rates. And, they were mostly, by a large measure, civilians.
But, fuck that. It wasn’t a moral event. Riiiight.
Hitler was one scary motherfucker. Of course he was queer (old school meaning). I once read a bio of a Waffen SS field-grade officer who happened to see Himmler in a military review. Up close, Himmler was spastic and demonic in demeanor and behavior. He was a goddamn devil, but when he would close ranks with a soldier, he would pull himself up to something presentable.
That’s why I don’t think you can psychoanalyze Hitler in the same manner you would an average person. He fits in categories exclusive to pretty much just him. You’ve got Hitler, and then you’ve got the worst human principles of history – guys like Nero, Assurbanapol, the Marquis de Sade – and then you’ve got the bad people. Hitler is in a set of: Hitler.
Those two photos of Hitler gesticulating? They were shot as part of a series for him to see what he looked like in various gestures. He was practicing. His speeches were delivered in person, often without amplification. Those photos would have told him not to use those combinations of expressions and movements.
@Bram
There is some element of truth to that statement. A completely accurate statement would be he was too weak and uncoordinated to serve as an infantryman. Which is why he served (with great distinction) as a runner, You dont need any strength at all to take a piece of paper from Point A to Point B, You do need a hell of a lot of courage, as every sniper from the other side is on the lookout for someone running parallel to the front lines during a battle. Who knows how many times Hitler cheated death
And I think this became part of his legend. He was the man who really wasn’t fit to be at the front, but still served Germany for over four years. And he served everyday of those four years as Hitler never took leave. Ad to that the legend of how this runt of a man miraculously regained his vision after being blinded by chlorine gas, which is a medical impossibility …and you see how he overcame his unimpressive physique
BTW, it is now widely believed that Hitler lost his sight temporarily in a mustard gas attack, which isn’t necessarily permanent. Another possibility is Hitler suffered a case of hysterical blindness when facing the possibility of dying by asphyxiation
“Bram October 23, 2018, 11:49 AM
I don’t get the “too weak to enlist in the military” comment. He was enlisted in the military in WWI, which makes it a silly statement. During his enlistment he was wounded several times including exposure to mustard gas. That may have damaged his health permanently.
I’m no fan of the guy, but why make up easily refutable stuff about him?”
I understand that approach and attitude. Indeed, I agree with it.
At the same time this is AN EXCERPT from a book so perhaps what the author is getting at given more detail at an earlier point. Hard to say.
Emre’s book contains so many obvious lies that none of it can be believed. Why would Emre do that?
Other than the excerpt here, none. What lies did Emre tell in the rest of the book?
in WW1 combat, Hitler won the Iron Cross, both classes.
He built and led a political movement that brought his country back from the (((abyss))).
History has proved him right about Czechslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the USSR. All gone from the map.
he wanted neither a European nor a World War; that was Churchill and FDR’s doing.
and History is in the process of proving him right about…(((something else))).
Hitler was an ex-Catholic rebelling against his Catholic family, and his miraculous survival happened on the site of one of the great medieval Marian healing shrines, with a medical station in the church and directly above the grave of a visionary and saint.
So of course he spent the rest of his life fighting his extremely Catholic miracle, and trying to prove something nasty.
They say that sometimes God saves the lives of the wicked, just so that they’ll have no way to whine about unfairness when they come to the Last Judgment.
I’d take anything that Henry Murray said about Hitler (or anyone else, for that matter) with a whopping dose of salt. Murray was not the most well-adjusted guy himself. He went to visit Jung in Switzerland when he got involved with Christiana Morgan (with whom he developed the Thematic Apperception Test or TAT, a projective personality test) but didn’t want to divorce his wife Josephine. Jung himself had a wife and a younger mistress (Toni Wolff) and advised Murray to do the same, which he did for the next 40 years. While Josephine Murray regarded Jung as a dirty old man, both she and Christiana Morgan’s husband were persuaded to accept the long-term liaison between Murray and Morgan. Jung was also responsible for turning Murray away from medicine (he had earned his M.D. in 1919) toward psychology.
Murray was also noteworthy for the unethical experiments related to extreme stress that he conducted on Harvard undergraduates between 1959 and 1962. He subjected the men to intense personal abuse, specifically tailored to undermine their individual beliefs and ideals. One of these men was Ted Kaczynski, a mathematics major later known as the Unabomber.
I don’t know about Emre or Murray (whoever they are). For my money, the greatest Hitler scholar is Norm MacDonald.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAMgT8LuZaw
On Twitter:
David Harsanyi
✔
@davidharsanyi
Best things Hitler did, ranked.
1) Kill Hitler.
2) Stay faithful to his wife for their entire 24-hours of marriage.
Which is also true.
The most cogent book about Hitler, imo, is Alice Miller’s For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child Rearing and the Roots of Violence, wherein she makes the irrefutable connections among a heroin addict, a murderer of young boys, and finally Adolf Hitler – and the connection is child abuse. The book, her second I believe, was both a critical success and an entry on Germany’s bestseller lists for a hundred and twenty weeks. Miller herself said “All I needed to do was describe Hitler in such a way that it served as a mirror and suddenly many Germans caught their reflections in it.”
Don’t make the facile error of believing that she intends to excuse anything; but believe me, for those of us who are the beneficiaries of severe abuse, neglect, and personality destruction, Dr. Miller’s viewpoint explains….everything. It’s definitely worth a read if you feel tough enough.
“…systematic extermination of six million European Jews.”
Why is there *NEVER* any mention of the other *SEVEN* million others he had killed? Instead the singular focus is always on Jews. And never any mention either of the 40-60+ million the allies lost in the ETO?
And always remember that Patton was murdered for simply stating the fact that we fought the wrong enemy. He wanted to continue to go East to wipe out the Commies in the West and have McAruther march West to wipe out Mao and meet up with him in the middle.
That is precisely what should have gone down.
Fuck Frank the Cripple for being so stupid – or so traitorous – as not to see this truth.
There is a good book called Hitler in Hell by Isreali historian Martin Van Creveld. It is a telling of his life from a comfortable, but boring apartment in the underworld. Van Creveld is no fan of Hitler, but in the telling, one gets an idea of how various events and decisions made sense from Hitler’s point of view.
Hitlers goal was a unified Europe dominated by Germany. A sort of modern Holy Roman Empire. Kind of ironic that his vision is now a reality.
It was Hitler’s public oratory skills and his genius in knowing what to say to raise the emotions of the masses that allowed him to become Chancellor of Germany.
He knew how to manipulate an audience; to provide them exactly what they wanted to hear; to provide them a reason – and a solution (by eliminating the cause of their problems) to all their problems.
It has been often said that he was able to literally hypnotize an audience.
His personal foibles were meaningless; the people and his followers saw his public persona and that is all that mattered. Its a waste of time examining his own personal devils because the people never saw them and he know when to put on his “act.”
His “act was very effective because he actually believed in everything he said; to him, it was not an act at all.
He was probably the greatest public speaker in world history; no one could move the masses through speech as he was able to do.
And therein lies the warning, the danger.
Despite the fact that he was a failure at everything he ever did in life – aside from obtaining power – it shows that gifted speakers, devious ones (in that they know what the people need/want to hear) can rise to very high positions of power despite their own personal devils and lack of any other real ability other than hypnotizing and deluding the masses.
Obama is a perfect , modern day example of this; a gifted speaker, magnetic personality, knew what to say and how to say it, but a person of zero accomplishments who never in his adult life ever held a real job prior to his presidency.
He literally spoke his way – via his oratory – into the presidency.
Of course, once there, he had to repeatedly deceive the citizenry; e.g. you can keep your doctor……; Benghazi video………knew nothing of Hillary’s private server……… knew nothing of the IRS targeting ……; gun running into Mexico….knew nothing of spying on Trump’s campaign, etc
He was the perfect clone of Sergeant Shultz of “I know nothing ” fame of Hogan’s Hero’s.
Public “magnetic” personality and exceptional oratorical skills are a combination of attributes very few possess. And those that do have them can rise to the highest levels of power, irrespective of their morality and honesty and goals.
Mr. Filter, your numbers are off to the extent that you’ve totally blown your point. Not to mention, the jewphobia. Please, just quit it.
John Tyler, I have to take exception to the notion that Obama was “a gifted speaker, magnetic personality, knew what to say and how to say it…” I was stunned when I first heard this expressed in 2008; the fact that it’s still espoused by anybody leads me to believe nobody’s ever watched him.
I’ve been a performer, a trainer, and a public speaker throughout the last 60 years. Even for a politician, Obama is embarrassing to watch. He’s as wooden as Al Gore, has categorically no awareness of his audience and consequently how he’s being received, is unable to maintain his rhythm when confronted with interruptions (“Come on, guys. Come on, you guys. Now hold on…” Etc.)
The mystery of his public acceptance is attributable to somebody – not Obama, you may be sure – realizing that the Baby Boomers were ripe for the plucking by somebody who could assure them that they were as unique and wonderful as they’d always secretly hoped. They Were The Ones They’d Been Waiting For, after all, and their decades-long tenure in the closet of being normal and not hate-filled could finally be ended in the sunlight of publicly proclaiming themselves Better Than You.
And beside that, he could almost-convincingly impersonate somebody black, which gave everybody a tingle up their leg. What could be better?
For some reason, the above was signed “John Tyler.” Apparently, je me fucked up.
The opinion that Obama is/was/will always be a pitiful public speaker is all mine, and thank you.
Most murderous spellbinders of their beliefs: Mohammed, Stalin, Hitler, Tojo, … .
What’s the difference between those four and Nadia Murad (Yadizi) recent Nobel Peace Prize winner?
Learn, then teach your children well.
Rob speaks the truth. Obama’s rhetoric and delivery only tickles an evil and willful soul. It is not like speech from generations past. Speech before television arrived was dramatic and over-expressive. Obama is weak and stuttering. He is affected; pre-war speakers never were affected, unless they were trying to do a bad Shakespeare on purpose.
Hitler was in the main, in regards to his delivery, metre and volume. But, with his own unique and strong talent at it, and his own style. Really, you must understand speech and rhetoric historically before you go off on this. Hitler loved the state solution. Hitler hated people groups.
Answer me something. Was it unparalleled to invade a neighboring country for princely purposes when Hitler walked the earth? Certainly not. In fact, his few invasions did nothing to ruffle England or the US. Stalin was down with that, and went in for his shares. Hitler had much, much more game in mind than that. Hitler was interested in anti-republic, anti-democrat, anti-monarch, anti-communist, dogma. He was interested in pro-German things. His way or the highway. Was it his drive for total war that was wrong? I could argue that America and a few of her allies were more total in their application of war.
Try to keep up with what’s happening, will you? Today we face a coordinated, foolish attack on the left-side politicals in America. If an actual explosion occurred, how would that differ from the assassination of Ferdinand in June of 1914? Class? Bueller??
Keep in mind, that this news event today is pinned on Pres. Trump by CNN, but riot violence, public spontaneous harassment, and baseball diamond shootings are not politically motivated. Left mob: good. Right mob: bad.
Rob / John is right.
I never saw video of Obama, so I never saw him speak, at all.
But I heard him a couple times on the radio.
I have spoken directly to thousands of people, from one to more than 100, at various times over the past 40 years. I have said it before and I will say it again, except in the comfort of gov’t, Obama would never make it on his own. Had he tried someone would have killed him, or he would have lived as a pauper. He was born a loser and spent his whole life the same and someone or something is behind his ascension, for he has not the fiber to provide it himself. He was one of the poorest speakers I have ever heard.
there’s a youtube video – I don’t have the link – of Hitler’s normal speaking voice. It must be a very rare thing as you really only ever see Hitler speaking when he’s giving a speech in front of giant audiences. I don’t speak any German, but it was uncanny how persuasive his voice and phrasing was, after many decades – and being unable to understand a word he was saying.
I would never equate Trump to Hitler, but what they do have in common is the gift of persuasion. You can see the way Trump gauges every different audience he speaks to, how he perfectly matches the tone and range, whether it’s a one-on-one or at a rally, and every size and type of audience in between.
Obama was not an eloquent speaker. He was predictable, boring and transparent. When he wanted to sound like a brother, he came off sounding like Richard Pryor doing Mudbone and Toodlum.
It never ceases to amaze me how Hitler is described as a force acting upon the German peoples. And, my fellow American Digest author and commentors are amazed at how such a gaunt and effeminate little man could lead a nation into such utter destruction.
The reality is the exactly the opposite. The German people chose Hitler to be the murder weapon who would destroy their culture. The lesson in Hitler is not Hitler. The lesson in Hitler is the culture that promoted him to power and unleashed him on the world. That, my friends, was the German people of 1930’s Germany.
It was the German society and culture that had evolved from 1850 to early 1900’s. It was the time from Umberto Ecco’s Prague Cemetary to Freud’s Sexual Theories to the Great War to the Weimar Republic and, ultimately, Hitler. Culturally, they were spent and were dead set on committing suicide. Hitler was the gun they shoved in their mouth.
The Jews? Well, what about the Jews? I have observed that, throughout history, when the Jews were oppressed, it was because of their damned relationship to God. No, I’m not talking about the crazed jihadi relationship to God. I’m talking about the historical stench of God that has stuck to an entire race of people. You see, God represents the Ultimate Authority, the Ultimate Patriarchy.
Eve’s apple was basically the child’s rebellion against the parent. Societies and cultures have to rebel against something. That “something” starts as parents/father, blah, blah, blah, then Norms (think 1950’s), then Government (think 1960’s). When you have nothing left to rebel against, you rebel against God.
The evolution of rebellion occurred in German and it eventually led to Hitler. He was the German people’s rebellion against God. Probably, the most effective way to rebel against God is to kill God’s children … the Jews. Even though the Jews might have been just as decadent as your run of the mill German attending a 1920’s Berlin Cabaret, you were still a Jew. You were the “God’s children” of history. Even though you were the most rabid Jewish atheist, you were still “one of them”.
And, anything relating to God had to be destroyed.
Hence the Holocaust.
Our culture is descending. No one can deny that like the Germans chose Hitler, American’s chose Trump. I pray that Trump can stop it, but it’s hard to be optimistic. We have at least one generation before us that has been indoctrinated from kindergarten through college and is being destroyed by the Left. We hope and pray that these children and their grandchildren will pursue a path that lifts our culture and society back to higher levels. If we fail and they fail, we have to ask ourselves, “Who will be the gun that our offspring put in their mouth?”
I think edaddy has it.
Haxo should be blocked or something.
Hitler was a nasty piece of work, but his charisma is undeniable. Watch his speeches before the Nazi party gatherings with the sound turned up, they will give you chills even if you don’t understand German. Timing, gestures, all right on, dangerous power incarnate.
In addition to inspiring, impassioned, persevering leadership you need an organization to take impressive action. Beware AntiFA finding the leader equivalent to Mohammed, Robert E Lee, US Grant, Patton in determination and loyalty of followers.
On a surreptitious scale this is how a single-minded oligarchy of ‘educators’ took majority control of our schools. Resistance was fragmentary at best in the absence of leaders recognizing the snowballing threat.
Organized mobs of goons, thugs, gangsters will run riot and gain control over the poorly led and disorganized majority — look at much of South and Central America, Mexico for the stages of control, disillusion and dissolution.
Need a scapegoat for the groupies, during hard times, to be distracted with? How about Christians and Yazidis and Jews and the other Muslim sects, Buddhists, Baha’i, Tibetans, …
The Fascists understood this organizing principle in their tightly bound fasces symbol, and perverted it into their E Pluribus Unum format.
Hitler, as a meme. He’s very popular in the meme culture, and in some ways it’s because of the impossible span of time from 1945 till today (for a youngster). Hitler is fair game for humor. I guess he always was – that’s true. To us, he was a strange son of a bitch. To Germans in the Twenties, Thirties and Forties, he was a full-blown political savior.
I take issue with edaddy, above. Leadership matters critically. Blame Germany, but also western culture. That was what Herman Wouk wrote in his historical fiction trilogy about the war. But, do not fail to blame Hitler. And Himmler, and Goering, et al. Blame Chamberlain. Blame American Republicans, too. Spineless bastards that they were. Blame fucking Stalin, that back-stabbing SOB. Blame Mussolini. Get it correctly in your mind. That way, if Fascism ever does re-emerge, you can squeeze its neck early.
edaddy, the Jewish race partake in blessings and curses as is written in the Pentateuch. Christianity has given them a hard ride, even though the Savior explicitly forgave them for His crucifixion. Islam has no excuse for hating the Hebrew people; they are pretty much geopolitical, religious and racial rivals. That’s taboo to say nowadays.
Don’t put Trump in with Hitler. Are you retarded?
On Fascism. Note that Antifa call their opponents, who basically are anyone on the political Right, and when you scratch deeper, anyone in the center of the economy, “Fascists”. Take very careful note: Putin’s farce of an invasion force, in Ukraine, label Ukrainian loyalists the same way. The fucking Russians think they’re fighting “Fascists” in Ukraine (Europe)! Keep this in mind: Antifa are Anarcho Communists. “Fascist” is just an epithet, but dumasses from coast to coast fall for it, hook, line and sinker. Real fascism is a fanatical political adherence to state control. Read: Democrats.
President Trump (readers here know this but libs read here, too) has done an amazing thing. He has made it so that each new government regulation must sunset 2 regulations before it. That’s called shrinking regulation. Long pause. He is re-negotiating trade, and re-emphasized the borders in order to blunt the international motives of “Globalization,” which is a fancy word for Communism. Staring at you over my glasses. In my lifetime, there have been three presidents who have been the least interested in expeditionary war. Eisenhower, Carter, and Trump. One of those coupled that with weakness, which was Carter. But he was a dumbshit, wasn’t he? OK, you could add Nixon, who ended Vietnam, but then you have to add his bombing campaign in and the argument gets muddied.
Will we ever have another Hitler? I think that dumb kid from Florida, with the gun control, is doing a nice impression of him.
Mr. Klahn, how nice! If only leadership matters, then you personally can never be blamed politically. It’s the voter equivalent of “I was just following order, Sir.” Indeed leadership matters, but so do you and I.
Regarding Trump, perhaps you need to read my paragraph again, this time more carefully. Hitler and Nazism was a movement embraced by the German people. They brought Hitler to power and thus enabled him. Because of that they deserved to have their nation destroyed. I get a little tired of everyone ONLY bashing Hitler but letting Hansi off the hook … Probably, because so many American’s married the German women they got pregnant for a damned Hershey bar or pack of cigarettes.
Can we not be honest and acknowledge that We the People brought Trump to power? Trump is a movement. The difference is that Trump is a force for good while Hitler was a force for evil. Bottom line is that it scares the hell out of me to think of a movement as strong as Trump’s except for a candidate as evil as Hitler. As an American, I’m as uncomfortable as hell in giving anyone power when I go to the polls. Your point on that little gun control prick from Florida only emphasizes my position.
Different subject …
I must take exception to your comment that Christianity has given the Jews a hard ride. I personally believe that the veins of extremism that we see today has always existed within cultures and societies. When the West was “Christian”, then these veins of extremism existed within Christianity because that’s all there was. Hence “Christian” oppression of Jews. I’d wager that these veins even exist within Judaism. In our time, they are drawn to the Progressive movement and Trump has done a wonderful job flushing them out into the open.
edaddy. Certainly there is much self-hatred among Jews, and I expect those are liberals. I’m a little bit baffled by your comment overall: first you want group responsibilities, but then you want to let us Christians off the hook in your last paragraph. What’s it gonna be?
Chuckling, here. A fault in many debates is to take everything as absolute, or to the extreme of the argument. “…only leadership;” avoid absolute statements, if possible. No, Christianity is not wracked with Jew-hatred, even considering its long history. But, it is something to take account of. I mentioned H Wouk, and by the way I learned that guy is still alive at 103 years of age (!) / Gerard, take notice!! Anyway, Wouk, in his WW II trilogy, makes a point of spotlighting the internecine rivalries in Europe, and the moral is watch out every generation for this kind of conflagration.
Where will ours start?
On Trump: something big was needed because we were at the point where DC was completely ignorant of the American people’s guidance. They pretty much do whatever they damn well feel like in Washington DC, and the rest of us can go to hell. I wanted more upheaval by the president. I wanted him to enter office, and on Monday to chain the FBI headquarters and seize every hard drive. But, I’m hard that way. I want accountability.
Cheers.
Read “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” and then tell me about how Hitler lured the German people into being warmongers and mass murderers, by taking advantage of the hurt inflicted on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles!
BS! The Germans had a superiority complex from ancient times, and it took one lost war followed by one complete ass-kicking back to the Stone Age to get them over it!
My Father served in the US Army through the European campaign, and on into the early parts of the occupation of a defeated Germany. He never tired of telling me how he and his buddies used to marvel at how accurate US bombs, artillery, machine guns, and rifles were, because they managed to kill every last Nazi, and spared every German who had been secret anti-Nazis all along! Amazing!
Hitler and Nazism was a movement embraced by “some of” the German people.
===========
Because of that +what some of them chose” they “all” deserved to have their nation “and their lives” destroyed.
===========
Yes of course, blame ALL for the behavior of some.
Democracy (majority rule): The god that always fails.
As I read it war damage is imprecise, the innocent die along with the guilty. After the war, the organized and those favored by the winners regain control permitted by the winners. Bureaucrats are needed to run the day to day operations whether they are of the guilty or surviving innocent.
Japan, Germany, Italy were somewhat civilized, and democratized in representative republican structures. Generation to generation lose or distort the lessons learned by the previous generation. The EU mega-bureaucracy is an excellent example of this forgetfulness multiplied by foolishness. Soon this irrationality and incompatibility will explode in widespread rioting, and scapegoats will be sought. Those responsible for this massive muckup and madness will sail off to their havens.
In the USA, the Right seems to be getting it right, while the Left continues to go more extremely wrong. Follow the money and publicized stupidities for guidance through this jungle of folly and hope Trump continues to stomp on the greater fools.
I would ask the commenters here to define for me the structure where you separate the peoples of a nation from the nation’s actions in war. You cannot. It is a shared responsibility; it is inherent in the definition of a nation.
You go to war against nations, usually, and when you do it’s Katie Bar The Door, and let ‘er rip. We spared collateral damage in Afghanistan, by leaving behind the bulk of our field artillery. We’re still there, 17 years hence. Do I advocate slaughter of civilians? Certainly not. But, the hand we tie is that of our soldiers, and confused initiative is just that: confused. Fight Germany. Fight Somalia (we fucked that one up, too). Fight the Seminole. Fight the Mexicans. Then, make peace.
I’m referring to past wars, of course. Hatchet: buried.
Gen. 15:16 … But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. God waited 400 years until a nation was utterly decadent before He destroyed it.
Do you want to be on the wrong side of history or on the wrong side of God? When God told the Jews to utterly destroy a nation, it was sin if they didn’t. What about that, Mr. Klahn?
edaddy. Either God had dominion in the Old Testament, or He didn’t. Is it my office to deny that He did? You take me for a fool, methinks.
God’s prerogative to destroy is utter, and utterly destroy He shall if it is His will to do so. This is child’s play. Yawn.
If Katharine Cook Briggs typed Hitler as ENTJ she obviously didn’t know much about him. Reading ‘Mein Kampf’ suffices to understand that he was an MBTI Feeler (F) and – unlike most men – not a Thinker (T). And he was an extraverted feeler, which means that he excelled in understanding the emotional landscape around him, so Murray from the OSS was spot on when he wrote: “He is the incarnation of the crowd’s unspoken needs and cravings; and in this sense he has been created, and to a large extent invented, by the people of Germany.” And Hitler was an introvert, more interested in his own world that in the realities around him, so most people who are knowledgeable about the MBTI him as INFJ. In that case his somewhat feminine and artistic personality traits aren’t surprising at all.