Teacher criticized for Hitler 'pros and cons' assignment

Well, Many historians say Hitler was a master strategist who changed many of the ways war has been fought since. He was also a great motivator of people and had his lust for power not been so great, probably would have been an even larger historical figure than he is.

for example.......... ??

I commend the teacher who recommends that children approach these subjects with open and enquiring minds. I detest the tactic of isolating a questionable proposition to attack what is otherwise a sound and wise course. Teach the children to question everything.

McGentrix, do you recall when Schwartzkopt did his press conference and discussed what military abilities Saddam Hussein was alleged to possess? Well, Hitler was an even bigger military idiot than Hussein--he was often the best friend the Allies had on the ground in Europe. Your statement: "Many historians say Hitler was a master strategist who changed many of the ways war has been fought since."--is a load of manure. There may a few crackpots out there writing revisionist history whom make such a claim, but not many, and certainly making such a claim is good prima facia evidence of being no historians at all.

I've had a look at the original article and the comments made in this thread.

I find it far more worrying that this teacher is so strongly the subject of censure than that she asked 14 year olds to consider the proposition that there is nothing so bad that NO good comes from it.

It is a truism that history is written by the victors. I have read/know far more about the Third Reich than the behaviour of Stalin or Mussolini. My understandings of their performances correspond, in the main, to Setanta's posts (whose knowledge of history never ceases to amaze me).

For me, the "Hitler is EVIL" message is quite absurd...he was a flawed, jealous, insecure man, who had suffered in WWI at the hands of incompetant generals (as many of the allies also did) and was brought to power on a tide of public sentiment which supported many of his prejudices. I'm not denying that he was head of state when horrific atrocities occurred but, as already commented, he oversaw the rise of a system of government in which both good and bad things happened.

I have visited the camp at Dachau, read Primo Levi on his experiences at the hands of camp guards and doctors and I studied the development of the system from its roots in the previous century. The German people needed something to beleive in and were duped/coerced into taking the facist line because industrialists and financiers supported Hitler over communist alternatives. Even these people, while they may have had latent anti-Semitic tendencies, were duped by the regime they supported.

To cast aside any argument of the benefits the regime (for which Adolf is himself the icon) may have had (short term or otherwise) for the German people, is to ignore the manner in which dictators appeal to the public - through fear and relying on a lack of education amoung the public to see through their fallacious arguments.

It is ESSENTIAL that the propaganda is understood and appreciated for what it puported to offer...health, wealth and happiness for the people...in order that we can see how good intentions can be mis-directed into atrocities. Without wishing to open up a completely different debate, we must use the knowledge of how the Nazis played to the desires and fears of the population in order to understand how our current desires and fears can be manipulated by identification of Al Quaeda (and by association all Muslims) as a force with much greater power than it actually posesses. We must guard agaist the use of divisive arguments to justify atrocities...we must make sure, in fact, that Guantanamo Bay does not ring in the ears of the students of 2050 in the same manner that Auschwitz rings in the ears of students, today.

14 years olds are quite developed enough to understand and appreciate these arguments. At least they are here, in Britain. Is the USA so different?

KP

Very well said Kitchenpete. (Especially the part about Setanta's knowledge of history. I couldn't agree more.)

KP, you articulated what I would have liked to say. There is a background for groups and their leaders coming to power and staying there, usually a vacuum of some sort, some needs, that the regimes fulfill. True of "good" groups as well as the opposite. Understanding the background for why a regime would be welcomed or tolerated, exclusive of the use of force, helps us understand new instances, if not prevent them.

Well said, KP.

Regarding Nazi medical experimentation, I belive that Walter is, for the most part, correct: the scientific experiments were deeply flawed, and few researchers would put much faith in the data (for an admittedly partisan, but nevertheless interesting article, see The Ethics of Using Medical Data from Nazi Experiments).

Regarding the school assignment: it would indeed be surprising if any regime was completely evil. Good things, after all, are bound to happen, if only by accident. A vicious blow to the head might actually cure a case of amnesia. A person thrown overboard might find a chest full of pirate treasure. An airplane crash might reveal dangerous equipment failures in other planes. In other words, even on a purely statistical level, we shouldn't be surprised that the Nazi, Fascist, and Soviet regimes actually did a few things right.

But then, so what?

For the historian, it's not particularly illuminating to discover that these totalitarian regimes managed to do some good -- as I mentioned, we should be much more surprised if they did no good at all. But determining if they did good would be, from a historical perspective, a trivial undertaking. What is more important is whether, on balance, they did more harm than good. That is a worthwhile question, and one that merits attention.

The teacher's assignment wasn't objectionable because it glorified Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, but because it asked the wrong question. By concentrating on the good things that these regimes accomplished, it focused on the molehill while ignoring the mountain. More than disregarding the importance of moral values, it disregarded the centrality of historical significance. As an exercise in historical research, it was misguided. As a didactic tool, it was of questionable utility. As a heuristic device, it was of dubious worth.

People are too sensitive. Too sensitive people do not push for advancments in anything. They are too scared and don't want to be offensive.

What this teacher did does not offend me. I would have thought the assignment was cool and would have done it even if I had to do the positive side of Hitler (Which I think is a vile man). In order to keep history from repeating its self it is important to know all aspects. It is important to know the positive of the bad.

How else are you going to learn how to stop something if you don't how it functions. There is always good and bad in situations. Bad situations have good. Good situations have bad. It is something that can not be avoided.

For Star Trek fans--this Dr. knowledge stuff--on an episode of Voyager the Doctor had to have a Cardasian holograph come up in the Holodeck to help out with a patient who was a Klingon (Belona Torres). The Cardasian is the one that had the info he needed that would help her to live but would kill the alien that was stuck to her. She refused his help because he was a Cardasian (who happens to be the equivalent of Nazis). Cardasian's had an occupation on Bajor over the Bajorins. He had the knowledge to help and she rather die than have it. The Doctor ends up using his information without telling her and he changed it and saved the alien life form. She lived also.

The point is that no matter how evil the methods they do advance medical technology, just people convert it into a less horrific way of doing it.

I say we should immediately dispense with any Hitler inspired things to make sure we don't offend anyone. Lord knows nothing good can come from anything inspired by the Nazis such as: Social Security, Interstate Highways, Works Projects Administration public works projects, ballistic rockets, jet engines that work, Volkswagens, anti-biotics, tape recorders, ultralight aircraft, complusory vaccinations, employer paid vacations, and those nasty people who work at the DMV: they just HAVE to be the products of some evil Nazi research project!

Welcome Peter--and so valid are your words. Good points.

Some corrections...


Porsche didn't start project number 12 with Zündapp - the design was made before Zündapp approached him. The three Zündapp protoypes were fitted with 5-cylinder radials, however, where as Porsche had originally planned for a 3-cylinder. As for the NSU protypes, only one of them looked truly Beetle like, this being the Drauz (not Draunz) steel bodied variant. Technically they were very similar to the final Beetle, having 4-cylinder boxers. The Type 60, was basically the code name for the entire Volkswagen project, not just the two protoypes built in 1935, these were called V1 (sedan) and V2 (cabriolet). The first Volkswagen prototypes built by Daimler-Benz were not in 1937, but in 1936. These were two V3 prototypes (the third was the updated V1), and a VW30 one-off. Later on, in 1937, the rest of the VW30's were completed. The Czech link is more related to Tatra, with their V570 prototypes than Skoda, although Skoda were indeed working on a similar project named 'Kadlomobil' which was completed in 1932.

Yes, Drauz, from Heilbronn.

And thanks for the other corrections - I'm really not a motor historian and just looked it up in some commentaries.

Oh, and welcome to A2K!

Re: Teacher criticized for Hitler 'pros and cons' assignment


I would say both. The crimes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao are no doubt so terrible that none of their accomplishments could possibly make up for them. They can't make any difference to the bottom line of their legacy. But this is precisely the conclusion any 'pro and con' discussion will reach if held fairly and honestly. I don't see why a teacher shouldn't ask his class to have such a debate.

Moreover, evilness is not sufficient for being an effective mass murderer, only necessary. Without convincing a large part of his people that they have some good things going for them, they will not follow along. The purpose of teaching the Nazi history to high school student is to help them avoid repeating this history. To achieve this goal, they don't only have to learn what made Hitler (and Stalin, and Mao ...) evil, they also need to know what made them successful. This makes their accomplishments and victories worth paying attention to.

So why should a pro-and-con automatically fail? In Germany, one of the standard texts on Hitler is Sebastian Haffner's Anmerkungen zu Hitler, available in English as The Meaning of Hitler. In it, Haffner takes something close a pro-and-con approach. This is not the thread to review his book, so suffice it to list Haffner's chapter headings:"Life; Achievements; Successes; Misconceptions; Mistakes; Crimes; Betrayal". Based on these headings, you would expect a book that's soft as cotton candy on Hitler and the Nazis. You would be badly mistaken. At the end of the book, you know exactly who Hitler really was and what he really did.

The article in the initial post doesn't tell us much about the details of what this teacher did. But the pro-and-con approach can produce genuine insight on matters like this if applied properly. I know that from personal reading experience. If Walter has read Anmerkungen zu Hitler, as I'd expect he has, he knows it too.

(Edited to add the quote I was responding to)

Although Haffner's Anmerkungen has been was printed quite some time ago, I still would prefer it to Bullock, Toland, Fest or Kershaw. (And I must admit, I didn't like Haffner's political commentaries much :wink: )

Are you talking about his conservative comments for The Observer and Die Zeit, or his proto-socialist comments for the Stern and Konkret? Haffner changed his conclusions frequently, but he always stayed true to his approach -- passionate rationality, combined with a vigorous defense of proper form in policymaking.

Well, actually I disliked to read him from "different sites" - namely Stern and Zeit, as you correctly noted :wink:

(He's dead now since five years.)

I think that there is a context here which Walter may well miss, and you as well, Thomas. There has been, since the 1930's, a good deal of admiration for Hitler in the United States--which the war in Europe did not sweep away. My history teacher in high school openly praised Hitler, and repeated many of the shibboleths which remain current to this day--that he was a military genius, that he is responsible for social security and the WPA and CCC type of projects which Roosevelt used to such good effect, that he presided over a technological miracle in Germany, and many more specious claims of like kind.

Hitler was no military genius--far from it, his only "coup" was the attack on France in 1940. There are several flaws in the Hitler as military genius, and were this a class of H.S. students, who had been exposed, as almost all (at least white) Americans have been, to the Hitler nonsense, it would be well worth refuting them. So i will. When Hitler launched the invasion of Czechoslovakia, logistics broke down almost immediately, armored vehicles rushed into production broke down, the infantry and the artillery were the only arms prepared to move effectively--which results from centuries of traditions going back to Frederick II, and has nothing to do with the Nazis. In 1938 and again in 1939-40, Hitler correctly assessed the lack of resolve and the helplessness in the face of his bullying which Neville Chamberlain displayed. He correctly identified the undercurrent of fascism and anti-semitisim in France, which when coupled with a government of nonentities dedicated to rocking no one's boat, would follow Chamberlain's lead. This is politics, and involves no military judgment. The Poles were willing to fight, and do their best. Saddly, Pilsudski's government had been largely ineffective, and his was a "cult of personality." [Edit: Yes, i know Pilsudski was dead, and that left a leadership vacuum in Poland.] No effective leadership confronted Hitler in 1939. Driven from their homeland, leaderless, thousands of Poles nevertheless gave their best for six years against Hitler. The flew for the RAF in the battle of Britain; their airborne Brigade landed across the Rhine from Arnham, to try to help the British "Red Devils" trapped and slowly bleeding to death there; two divisions of Polish infantry and an armored brigade fought in Italy for the United Nations, many veterans of the campaigns against Rommel in North Africa. Norway had its Quisling, but those who could escape did, and served the British in special services, and crewed the Norwegian destroyer which participated in the Normany landing. Belgians flew for the RAF, and sent a brigade to North Africa. Hitler's simple gutter politics assessment of the lack of will in the leadership of his potential enemies is no evidence of military judgment, and his complete failure to understand how most of Europe would resist him is evidence of a lack of a political depth perception. Even the application of those political instincts would have gone for naught had not there been men like Guderian, Mannstein and Rommel to put into effect techniques and doctrines which were developed on the Russian and Italian fronts in the First World War. Without a centuries old tradition of individual initiative, dating from the reign of Frederick II, the Werhmacht would not have performed as superbly as it did, despite Hitler's interference. Germans developed the jet engine, so i am mystified as to how one credits that either to an Austrian whose former wartime experience was as a low level non-com running messages in the trenches, or the back-stabbing, murderous group of thugs who made up his coterie. Hitler consistently demanded more and more bombers, and was openly hostile to the fighter arm. I recommend Adolf Galland's brief and excellent war memoirs on that subject. The prototype jet was available in March, 1943--yet it did not regularly fly in combat until 1945. Soviet tanks became a nightmare for the Germans with the PzkwII's, III's and IV's--and when German engineers came to look at captured models, the panzer officers pleaded with them to simply make that tank for them. Instead, they got the Tiger and Panther tanks, which were clearly superior to most contemporary tanks, and which were labor, engineering, machine tooling and resource intensive to produce, in a nation soon to live night and day under a rain of Allied bombs. The Germans in Normany used to say that a Tiger can knock out ten Shermans before they get him--and the Amis (the Americans) always have at least eleven. The Germans produced a few thousand Tiger and Panther tanks. We produced more than 50,000 Shermans; the Soviets produced more than 70,000 tanks in the T-series. That Germany was able to keep up at all was a tribute to the competence of Milch, and the brilliance of Speer--and nothing for which Hitler deserves any credit. Galland was constantly at odds with Luftwaffe command for planes, pilots and resources to protect Germany, and got open hostility in reply. In The Rommel Papers, the author makes it clear that he foresaw disaster for the defenders against an allied invasion without either air superiority or the bare ability to contest air superiority. On June 6, 1944, in all of France, the Germans flew 160 sorties. A sortie is one plane flying one mission--the same plane, with the same or a different pilot can fly more than one sortie per day. Which explains how the RAF, and the 8th and 9th Army Air Forces were able to fly more than 14,000 sorties over Normandy alone on that day. Hitler had no grasp of what air power was about, and was still looking for the next Stuka when the Luftwaffe were hiding their planes in forests, and taking off from logging roads, because every other airfield, road, bridge, railway yard, or transportation infrastructure of any description was being shot to hell every day by waves of Mustangs and Hawkers with fuel and bullets to burn, and time on their hands.

Hitler knew nothing of sea power, and feared and mistrusted his own Navy. Admiral Raeder openly defied Hitler, refused to adopt the Nazi salute, refused to make lists of Jewish officers. He didn't last long, but Hitler had basically lost any advantage he might have had by that time. When Bismark and Prinz Eugen sortied in 1941, although Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had had a successful cruise against merchant shipping, it would never happen again. Graf Spee was lost in the Battle of the River Plate in 1939, trying to operate too far from friendly bases, and with no air cover. Bismark sank Hood in minutes, sending 1400 men to their death; but flimsy, slow, old-fashioned Swordfish bi-planes of the Royal Navy Air Service wounded her greviously, and her presence drew the Royal Navy like flies to honey. She sank after repeated air attacks, attacks by Mountbatten's destroyers, attacks by the host of cruisers and battleships drawn from their convoy duty to get the ship that killed Hood. For whatever her excellence, she could not have handled Rodney, Ramillies, Revenge, and more than half a dozen heavy cruisers.

It is doubtful that the German Navy could have played a significant role on the surface in World War II. Venturing onto the playground of the Royal Navy and the United States Navy, however, was tantamount to suicide. Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen with an escort of destryers, did however, run the English channel in broad daylight in 1942, and once again, Adolf Galland is a good source for this operation--because he provided the air cover which assured their survival. In the North Sea, a concentrated fleet with good air cover might have played a role--although that is by no means certain. Hitler squandered the resource. The war beneath the waters was brutal and bloody, and eventually, predictably, a graveyard for both Germans and their war effort.

When a preponderance of resources and overwhelming air superiority finally gave the British victory in North Africa, Hitler's reaction was typical, and typically inane and stupid. He poured men and tanks into Tunisia, and although they made trouble for the British, and gave the Americans their first scarey taste of combat with the Germans, they were basically a self-supporting prisoner of war camp with a very high price of admission. Rommel complained of the lack of initiative and the timidity of the German regimental commanders, and was full of praise for the resourcefulness of their American counterparts who had been caught in his trap, and fought their way out. When the Volga froze over, and the Soviets poured over the ice at Stalingrad, to surround and eventually destroy the Sixth Army, Hitler orderd Von Paulus to fight to the last man. Time and again, he refused field commanders the right to assess their own positions, and fall back to save their troops. In France, he signed onto OKW's plan of a great armored battle in the interior, and refused to release the panzers needed to throw back the Allies in Normandy. Many others had the same mistaken idea, but that is hardly a grounds for asserting his military genius. Rommel has clearly stated in his papers that the Allies must be stopped on the beach, that the units necessary must be in position beforehand, because they would never make the approach march in the face of Allied air superiority. The Sixth Fallschirm Jaeger (sp?) in Brittany was 60 kilometers from the invasion beaches. All their transport was shot to hell on the first day--it took them six days to make the journey, marching in the brief northern European nights, because nothing that moved on the road in the daytime lived. The British did all they could to convince the Germans that the main invasion would be in the Pas de Calais, and Hitler believed it, because he wanted to believe it, and because that was where he had invested his resources. While the Seventh Army reeled back from the Allied hammer blows, and the massacre of Operation Cobra, the Fifteenth Army sat placidly by, listening to Patton's phony radio signals, and waiting for the "real invasion." The catalogue of Hitler's military stupidity could fill far more space than i've already used, so i leave it here.

As for the red herrings about social security, and the make-work projects which Roosevelt used in the 1930's, a simple look at the calendar is useful. Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933, Hitler became Chancellor in 1933. It is a good deal of a stretch to credit Hitler for the very necessary policies which Weimar has instituted, and Roosevelt may well have copied. Soup kitchens and make-work public works projects were the brainchild of Ernst Rohm and his Brownshirts. Hitler and the Nazis simply appropriated the programs, and took the credit. When Rohm was percieved as a threat, he and most of his Brownshirts were simply murdered. I've already noted that Milch and Speer, and a host of excellent German minds whose names haven't been mentioned here, are responsible for the ability of the Germans to produce high-quality manufactured goods and machines in the period--once again, to credit Hitler is only reasonable for those who are trying to find something in the man to praise. Nothing for which the crypto-Hilter lovers in America credit him is any more than expropriated. The original ideas which Hitler provided were nationalist expansion at the expense of his neighbors (a prescription for war), the invasion of the Ukraine for purposes of colonization (a prescription for defeat), and the extermination of the Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, "mental deffectives"--i simply cannot accept any of the specious claims which have been advanced here for any good having come from Hitler or the Nazis. Any accomplishment of the German nation in the periof from 1933-45 is an accomplisment of that nation alone, despite and not because of Hitler.

One might argue that Stalin and Mao produced some good for the Russians and the Chinese respectively. One might well imagine that people such as the Chechens, the Ingusetians, the Tibetans, and many others would have different opinions on those topics. I cannot for a moment believe that Hitler, a phony and a gutter politician from the day one, deserves credit for any good to anyone at any time.

Thanks. The pre-war history of the Volkswagen happens to be my main hobby, I have been studying it intensively for 4 years now!