How Much Tolerance Should We Have for Hitler?

What he tried to say was that one doesn't have to aprove of Hitler and the Nazis in order to find them fascinating.

The deeper question is how a whole culture can follow a leader like Hitler. If we look at human history, Hitler was not all that unique.

Not true.

The Holocaust was unique. That is what led to "Godwin's Law" (i.e., the first person to mention Hitler loses the argument). That works because Hitler and the Holocaust were unique.

The Holocaust is morally unique precisely because there was no motive, because it was so senseless. There have been other mass killings in history -- though few on the scale of the Holocaust -- and some of those were also ethnically motivated. But, to my knowledge -- and I acknowledge here that my knowledge of history is incomplete -- the Holocaust is the only instance of genocide purely for the sake of genocide.

Some cases of mass murder -- the famines in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, for instance -- were the result of attempts to implement and/or maintain economic "reforms." Insane attempts, to be sure, and the deaths were a foreseeable consequence, and the perpetrators didn't mind. But the primary idea wasn't to wipe out all these people; the idea was to make an omelet without caring how many eggs got broken along the way. (Clarification: to an extent, these famines were targetted at specific groups of people, people who presented a problem for the regimes. But that leads to my next point.)

What about the ethnically-based mass murders, where the killings were intentional? Well, most of those cases were actually the result of conflicts over land, resources, etc. Saddam Hussein wasn't gassing Kurds for fun; he was gassing Kurds because there was armed Kurdish opposition to his government and he was trying to suppress it. The Bosnia/Kosovo ethnic cleansings were similar. The westward expansion of the United States, which some have termed "genocide," was a straightforward conflict over land. Indians had it, Americans wanted it, and the only way to get it was to take it by force. I don't mean, of course, that these arguments excuse the killings of innocents, particularly on the huge scales in question. These cases were terrible, horrible, no good, very bad. But in none of those cases was murder its own justification. General Sheridan may have said -- or may not have -- that the only good Indian was a dead Indian, but he didn't act on it. That is, while he may have killed Indians -- while many people did -- nobody was going around New York City ferreting out all those with a hint of Indian blood and slaughtering them; nobody, to my knowledge, was even suggesting it. Saddam Hussein wasn't planning to invade Turkey so that he could wipe out their Kurds.

But the Holocaust? It's different. Hitler's goal wasn't to take territory from Jews. It wasn't to take resources from Jews. It wasn't to destroy armed opposition to the German government. There was no underlying reason for it; the goal was to wipe out Jews. Worse, it was such an important goal for the Nazis that even while fighting a continental war for their regime's survival, resources were diverted away from the war effort to continue the Holocaust.

Is that different than merely killing people you come across? I think it is. I think killing for the pure pleasure of killing can be distinguished -- and can be reasonably said to be morally worse -- than killing to accomplish an end, no matter how evil the latter is. People talk about the Holocaust being "not more evil than killing six million other innocents." I'll stipulate for the sake of argument that if a group decides they're going to kill six million names at random from the phone book, that would be just as bad as killing six million people in order to wipe out a specific ethnic group. But that isn't what happened, and as far as I know, that has never happened. As such, the Holocaust is morally unique among actual historical events.

Dead is dead no matter what subjective test you wish to apply.

And stupid is stupid no matter that you can't make fine distinctions.

ForeverYoung

Although killing Jews was a European sport for many centuries. The Holocaust I agree was indeed unique.

Thank you, au1929: someone with a brain! Bravo :wink:

ForeverYoung
Might I suggest you tone down the rhetoric. You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Civility is a virtue.
Thank you.

I'll take that from you ......... because I respect you. Your tip is unwelcome, but clearly necessary as I realize I tend to become quite caustic when .................. oh, never mind.

Thank you.

And even if you don't approve of him, one should know thy enemy.

There you go again, Lucifer, showing what others mentioned as a problem with your entire thesis.

I objected to a statement, "dead is dead" from someone clearly ignorant of many things. That was subsequently put to rest by au1929.

Now, you come back repeating "...even if you don't approve of him..." That is something so revealing that it sickens me. Of course, 'one should know thy enemy,' however, I would just love to understand how ANYONE could approve of Hitler.

So, Lucifer, tell me: just what is it that you approve of regarding Hitler?

* sitting back and waiting for a lot of backtracking and hedging about charisma, leadership, whatever 'sound and fury signifying nothing' you will try to post now ... think I'll go pop some corn *

I don't approve of Hitler. At least not his morals, and the purpose for which he strived for. Charisma? Leadership? You missed the point.

Stop trying to attack my curiosity. You seem to assume that just because I am fascinated by Hitler, that I must approve of him.

I wanted to consider the aspects of Hitler's life, his character, his actions and his influences to understand why he became the person he was, so that we would have a better position to judge his tolerance because if I simply asked someone why, all they would tell me is that he killed millions of Jews. I believe there is more to the story than one or two of a person's actions--why did they do it, and what motivated them? I have some answers, but I'm also curious to know why there would still be nazis out there today, and by posting, I was hoping some of them would come by and give a reasonable explaination, if possible.

I know I'm stupid and ignorant, and am humbled by your intelligence.

I did not try to attack your curiosity. You wrote, "...even if you don't approve of him." That's the statement with which I take issue. I really don't understand how anyone can approve of Hitler. That's all I did, no more, no less and certainly made no attack on your curiosity.



It is too bad that, if you 'simply asked someone why...,' that you were told he killed millions of Jews. He also killed millions of political foes, union members, gypsies, homosexuals, mentally ill people as well as attempted to take over Europe with the hope of taking over Russia next and, finally, the entire world.

You were hoping for a 'reasonable explanation' for Hitler's (Nazi) behavior? There isn't one. Don't you see it is beyond reason? Are you as fascinated by the Ku Klux Klan? They are also beyond reason.

If you were hoping for a reasonable explanation as to why there are still Nazis, then why not look for a reasonable explanation as to why there are all sorts of meglomaniacal people and hate groups?

I sinceriously suspect that everyone, who is "fascinated' by Hitler, is ... ehem ... well, not aware of history, to put it mildly.

Well, thank you, WH! I sinceriously agree. :wink:

As a kid I used to be fascinated by large carnivorous dinosaurs, does this mean I was unaware of (insert aplicable word here)? I'm sure I was, but couold that be derived from my fascination? I have also known people to be fascinated by H-bombs. Some are fasconated by the first and second world wars, others find the vietnam war captivating. I assure you they do not consider these events desireable.

It is my understanding that Lucifer wishes to understand the machinations that formed Hitler and brought him to power, not make value judgements about them. His choise of topic title non the less.

The title reffers to some speculating in his first post about the consequences of deterministism on the concept of personal guilt.

Einherjar, I know exactly what you are talking about. Fascination with a subject matter doesn't mean one condones what happened such as Hitler's killing of Jews or is blind to history. Many scholars write about these topics because of human curiosity. What people need to understand is the fact that all humans are capable of atrocities as proven by experiments done at Stanford and Yale universities. What happened in Germany and other countries against their fellow man all prove the tendency of humans to violate the decency standard of what most think as atrocious behavior. The "reasons" used to kill others become very subjective whether it's religion, culture, race, tribe, or nationality. Why people support violence against others is 'the' human frailty.

Human nature?
I think we are violent because most of us are not brilliant. Not patient enough to find a better solution, or answer, and instead, rush into things using force without thinking because of more primitive instincts. Perspective also has a play in this--that we see things one way, but never realize it the other way, and that we are locked into that view, which may cause us to oppose something strongly--so strongly that it overwhelms us to the point where we use force instead of stopping to think.

Is this a possible reason for Hitler's behavior, or do you mean that there is no reason because we are unconscious of our choices? That we are unconscious of why we like certain things, hate certain things, love the people we love, and hate the people we hate?

Re: How Much Tolerance Should We Have for Hitler?


Are you trying to defend what Hitler did?? Not a good idea.