Post: #1

I've always been fascinated with World War 2 and the European theater.

I started reading the Mannhein translation of Mein Kampf. I'm about a quarter of the way through it now.

I was pleasantly surprised, he doesn't spend a lot of time hating the Jews. There are a few pages dedicated to it, but Hitler changes the subject and discuses all sorts of problems that we currently discuss here on the forum.

Basically ineffective politicians, power concentrated at the top, and the plight of the working man being duped by the "social democrats" with victim hood. It's been an interesting read so far.

The writing seems familiar. History repeating itself?

Post: #2

Hitler was basically a struggling artist who never really had a good relationship with his father. He blamed the Jews for his lack of success in the art world. Like many creative people he was talented in multiple areas. He eventually found his art and passion in public speaking. Make no mistake ...Spoken Word is an art form. I'm a big fan of WW2 history. Lot of interesting things went on.

Post: #3

(09-07-2013 07:27 PM)Parlay44 Wrote:  Hitler was basically a struggling artist who never really had a good relationship with his father. He blamed the Jews for his lack of success in the art world. Like many creative people he was talented in multiple areas. He eventually found his art and passion in public speaking. Make no mistake ...Spoken Word is an art form. I'm a big fan of WW2 history. Lot of interesting things went on.

So far, from what i've read in the actual book, he didn't really hate or blame the jews for his lack of admission into the art academy in Vienna. The admissions staff said his drawing was better suited in architecture. He couldn't apply to the architecture school because he lacked a high school diploma.

The more and more i read, i see how that the antisemitism was not a driving force in Hitler's life like say it is for a Neo Nazi. It looks more like a massive PR trick to unite the German people. In the book, he goes on and on about the ineptitude of the masses. The antisemitism was just an easy way of getting everybody moving in a similar direction.

Seriously think about racism. It just feels good when you throw an entire group of people under the bus for some over generalization.

Post: #4

(09-07-2013 08:23 PM)frenchie Wrote:  

(09-07-2013 07:27 PM)Parlay44 Wrote:  Hitler was basically a struggling artist who never really had a good relationship with his father. He blamed the Jews for his lack of success in the art world. Like many creative people he was talented in multiple areas. He eventually found his art and passion in public speaking. Make no mistake ...Spoken Word is an art form. I'm a big fan of WW2 history. Lot of interesting things went on.

So far, from what i've read in the actual book, he didn't really hate or blame the jews for his lack of admission into the art academy in Vienna. The admissions staff said his drawing was better suited in architecture. He couldn't apply to the architecture school because he lacked a high school diploma.

The more and more i read, i see how that the antisemitism was not a driving force in Hitler's life like say it is for a Neo Nazi. It looks more like a massive PR trick to unite the German people. In the book, he goes on and on about the ineptitude of the masses. The antisemitism was just an easy way of getting everybody moving in a similar direction.

Seriously think about racism. It just feels good when you throw an entire group of people under the bus for some over generalization.

There was more going on than just killing Jews. It was a big international conspiracy to take Israel from the Palestinians and give it back to the Jews. That's what I think the whole point of WW2 was.

Post: #5

There's a whole book devoted to analyzing the evidence of his speed usage during the war.

There was a doctor who he always had with him for years that basically gave him something like b12 + Meth? DExedrine? whatever they had then.

HItler strongly praised him and said stuff like the guy was his "savior"-- savior from reality I'm afraid.

Hitler's grandiosity and attempts to conquer too many places, as well as refusal to surrender or withdraw when it was most strategic, were very possibly all amplified by his increased hypomania from speed.

It all kind of fits together if you take a somewhat paranoid, narcissistic guy with deep resentments he doesn't understand, have some natural performance talent and sociopathic willingness to murder and brutalize, which gets him to the top, THEN you keep it snowballing with adoring flunkies and increasingly large doses of speed, administered with the normalization of it being a Doctor giving it to you, and it helps make sense of how 20 million ended up dead because of this asshole.

Paranoia is really necessary for someone to be hugely destructive-- Stalin was very paranoid as well-- there is a TV movie with Robert Duvall playing him that is a fantastic depiction of Paranoid Personality Disorder.

Post: #6

I've skimmed through Mein Kampf, but couldn't really read it properly, too much bluster and it is all over the shop.

Post: #7

(09-07-2013 07:27 PM)Parlay44 Wrote:  Hitler was basically a struggling artist who never really had a good relationship with his father. He blamed the Jews for his lack of success in the art world. Like many creative people he was talented in multiple areas. He eventually found his art and passion in public speaking. Make no mistake ...Spoken Word is an art form. I'm a big fan of WW2 history. Lot of interesting things went on.

I think it is a tad more complex than that.

The idea that any one of us can make any kind of qualified statements to his motives without having spent years researching is a bit naive.

If no Hitler, then someone else would have come along. It is very faulty historical writing to try to suggest that post WW1 Germany was an invention of Hitler.

Look at the Versailles Treaty, Belfour Declaration, Dolchstoss Legende, Weimar Republic.

You'll find most of the explanation for the Nazi rise there.

Post: #8

Once hyper-inflation set in, Germany was only ever go down one of two roads: Communist or Fascist.

The Democratic Weimar Republic was doomed to fail.

Post: #9

history can repeat itself...

Post: #10

We are taught quite a white washed version of World War II in the US. Churchill and FDR hated Jews too. Both ordered mass killings of civilians. It really wasn't so much a war of good verse evil but rather a war of evil verse evil.

Post: #11

(09-08-2013 04:33 PM)babelfish669 Wrote:  We are taught quite a white washed version of World War II in the US. Churchill and FDR hated Jews too. Both ordered mass killings of civilians. It really wasn't so much a war of good verse evil but rather a war of evil verse evil.

True in part. FDR was not in the least anti-Semitic; indeed, Bernard Baruch, a Jewish financier, was one of his closest confidants. Churchill likewise never publicly evinced anti-Semitism, and there are even apocryphal rumors that he was half-Jewish (his mother was alleged in some circles to have been an American Jew, although more likely she was of Hugenot extraction). (An article deemed anti-Semitic by some was penned by a British fascist who wrote boilerplate articles for Churchill in the 1930s, but this particular article was never published and not discovered by Churchill researchers until the '80s).

Post: #12

His passion and skill in architecture was evidenced in his 'friendly' relationship with Albert Speer, who's book 'Inside the Third Reich' is an amazing read. I put 'friendly' in inverted commas, because Hitler was incapable of real friendships.

He wasn't a good politician, but a charismatic individual who learned public speaking techniques in his twenties, or early thirties.

That said, I find him endlessly fascinating and I think Europeans are deluding themsleves if they think we couldn't support someone like that again. There's a brilliant German film called Die Welle (The Wave) about it.

Post: #13

Hitler was a fascinating character, and unarguably the single most consequential figure of the 20th century. It's unfortunate that most of the scholarship on him is hopelessly biased from the outset, because it prevents us from understanding the man as he truly was, for good or evil. From all my reading on Hitler and WW2 in general, I've come to believe that the single biggest error most people (including most historians) make in trying to understand Hitler is in viewing him as a politician in the same vein as his wartime contemporaries Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, & Mussolini.

Because while Hitler was a politician in the literal sense that he was engaged in politics and led his country's government, he was quite unusual (and maybe totally unique among all modern world leaders) in his temperament, which was thoroughly artistic, and his attitude toward leadership, which was religious/messianic at its core. Even while leading the Third Reich in a war for survival, Hitler's interests were always focused on the arts. He saw the state as the vehicle for the cultural arts, and his entire worldview of the Aryans as noble and pure and the Jews as cultural corrupters was largely based on the arts. His artistic focus is also on display with the striking imagery of the Third Reich, much of which he designed personally. He understood the power of design and symbols. He wasn't building a political movement. He was building a new religion for the German folk, and he saw himself as the reluctant messiah, the man who wanted to be an artist but who was instead called by fate to redeem his people.

When you look at him like this, a more complex portrait emerges than the one we've all been taught. The standard Western portrayal of Hitler is almost comically evil - a psychopathic, warmongering megalomaniac with an especial hatred for God's chosen. The reality is simply that he was an ultra-nationalist German who wanted to create a new German state, one that could live up to his artistic vision - a thousand-year Reich where the German folk could live free from the influence of the various cultural corrupters he despised (most of which he tied into International Jewry, such as Communism, finance/banking and cultural perversion/degradation). His belief in this vision was so strong that he was willing to risk everything for it, including Germany itself. And so he did.

What I've always found amazing about Hitler is how he managed to get an entire nation into his thrall. It's not enough to explain this away with the awful post-Weimar German economy or even Hitler's remarkable oratorical skill. It's not possible to understand from a political perspective, because it is simply impossible to do what he did purely from the political perspective. This is where the understanding of Hitler as the artist and the messiah is so crucial. Hitler simply does not make sense - and Nazi Germany itself does not make sense - if you look at Hitler as a mere politician. That was not how he was viewed by the German people, and it wasn't how he viewed himself. Hitler saw himself as an artist, the whole of Germany as his canvas, and the German people as his colors. Together, they would create a masterpiece - the thousand-year Reich. It was an extremely compelling vision when combined with the circumstances of the times, which saw not only the economic difficulties of everyday German life, but the rapid rise of Communism, which scared the hell out of many Germans and made them more willing to consider any alternatives that could stop it.

So imagine the average German of the early 1920s and early 30s. The Germany economy is shit, your entire life savings have been wiped out by hyperinflation, Communist gangs rove the streets and there are serious talks of a Communist revolution like in Russia in 1917, which caused mass death and suffering. The state is still crushed by the weight of reparations owed following the defeat of WWI. Everything is dysfunctional. Everything is shit. The future is bleak. Then, out of nowhere, a challenger appears. He's spitting hot fire on the mic like you've never heard. He's going after the Communists, he's going after the Jews (anti-Semitism was widespread at the time throughout Germany, it was not just a Hitler thing), he's going after the unjust Treaty of Versailles. He projects an image of strength, of optimism, of German pride. The symbol he marches under is striking to the eye. The sight of organized marches through the streets by his uniformed men provides a sense of order. This guy has something, people think. I may not agree with everything he's selling, but this guy definitely has something. This was not just another politician. This was something else entirely. This was a messiah offering nothing less than the redemption and rebirth of a once-proud nation that had been laid low and humiliated. Through this lens, the appeal of Hitler to the German people becomes more apparent.

Basically, Hitler was viewed in Germany as a combination of a modern rockstar (a status which didn't exist back then, but which best approximates his cultural influence at the time), a patriotic war hero, a messianic German folk leader, and finally...a politician. There was a reason he called himself the Fuhrer - the Leader - and not the President or the Chancellor or the Kaiser. He didn't envision himself in political terms. He saw himself as the leader of an ethno-religious movement (National Socialism) which would utilize the power of the state to create a reality in line with Hitler's artistic vision. Putting all moral judgments aside, this is why Hitler the man and Nazi Germany the state remain so utterly fascinating (and so inseparable). They were completely unique and unlikely to ever be repeated. And the reason for this is simply because it is so very rare for a man who views himself primarily as an artist to simultaneously possess the political savvy and oratorical ability to gain dictatorial power of a large nation. For better or worse, the man was truly one of a kind, and is one of the very few people who ever lived about whom we can say for certain: without him, things would have been much different.

Post: #14

Scorpion, we have had our differences, but great post man. Thumbs up. My opinion on Hitler follows a similar vein. I think its a great shame that the subject of Nazism cant be brought up without people foaming at the mouth. There has been a concerted effort to bury this period of history and that will prove to be a mistake. As a result, modern Germans(and Austrians) are a very empty people, completely lacking a national identity. The irony of this is that the immigrant groups(Turks, North Africans,etc.) here have a very strong identity. So there is a backlash building...Young Germans are raising the question, "Whats so bad about being German"?

People don't want to admit it, but Hitler was a genius of a politician. Only a handful of politicians in history have made good on their promises and Hitler was one of them. He just bit off more than he could chew in the end. As for the whole Jewish thing, I think they were merely scapegoats. In order to rally a people, you have to give them something to rally for/against. Anti-semetism had been common in the region for centuries and Hitler took advantage of it. BTW, I live across the street from his old flat here in Vienna.

Post: #15

I have posted this before. But if ever a photograph caught a moment in history when the world would change forever. It is this one.

Adolf Hitler celebrating the declaration of WWI.

Post: #16

(09-07-2013 08:23 PM)frenchie Wrote:  

(09-07-2013 07:27 PM)Parlay44 Wrote:  Hitler was basically a struggling artist who never really had a good relationship with his father. He blamed the Jews for his lack of success in the art world. Like many creative people he was talented in multiple areas. He eventually found his art and passion in public speaking. Make no mistake ...Spoken Word is an art form. I'm a big fan of WW2 history. Lot of interesting things went on.

So far, from what i've read in the actual book, he didn't really hate or blame the jews for his lack of admission into the art academy in Vienna. The admissions staff said his drawing was better suited in architecture. He couldn't apply to the architecture school because he lacked a high school diploma.

The more and more i read, i see how that the antisemitism was not a driving force in Hitler's life like say it is for a Neo Nazi. It looks more like a massive PR trick to unite the German people. In the book, he goes on and on about the ineptitude of the masses. The antisemitism was just an easy way of getting everybody moving in a similar direction.

Seriously think about racism. It just feels good when you throw an entire group of people under the bus for some over generalization.

Yes- it's like luring fat people to war by promising them ice cream. It seems as though the Germans deep hatred for Jews was inveterately sown.

Hitler, the great hypocrite politician denouncing centralized power and then becoming the eptiome of it. Heartiste recently posted about how Hitler was a sad beta/omega oneitis sap.

Neo Nazi's are morons.

If Hitler had game, WWII might not have happened the way it did.

Post: #17

Hitler didn't need game, women fell over themselves just to see him, let alone touch him. Like fame game times 100. Imagine Justin Beiber combined with Jesus = Hitler to 1930s German women.

Ha, I get your point though.

Post: #18

The anti-semitism was normal for the time, Protestants have always hated Jews... Martin Luther was a notorious anti-semite.

Post: #19

Hitler was Catholic and the German population was about half and half Protestant - Catholic.

Post: #20

Most of the anti-semitism out of Germany comes from the belief that Jews were responsible for Germany's defeat in WWI due to them getting America in the War in exchange for Palestine via the Balfour declaration. The subsequent hyperinflation and economic woes emanating from the Versailles Treaty and war reparations were seen as created by Zionists.

Post: #21

(09-10-2013 11:00 AM)Teedub Wrote:  Hitler was Catholic and the German population was about half and half Protestant - Catholic.

Maybe nominally but there was nothing of Christ's teachings in his horrible determination to murder for no reason.

In particular Christ was an early anti-racist; in one place he said "There are no Jews, no Greeks" as a way to argue that people are inherently similar and should not be pre-judged or hated for surface attributes.

And of course the famous "You shall know them by their fruits."

20 Million dead corpses, nothing to brag about.

Post: #22

(09-09-2013 02:40 AM)RussianSoul Wrote:  People don't want to admit it, but Hitler was a genius of a politician. Only a handful of politicians in history have made good on their promises and Hitler was one of them. He just bit off more than he could chew

Yes, a genius, but just like a white-hat genius can help people-- like why we don't have polio today because of medical researchers-- a political genius can manipulate the populace into great horrors they would not have done otherwise.

This is not a positive accomplishment.

To say Hitler "made good" in any sense is a rather bizarre analysis which seems to implicitly support his policies and philosophies, as well as your minimization of his murders.

"Bizarrely evil, skillfully manipulating mass murderer" seems a better overall characterization.

"He just bit off more than he could chew." Another bizarre rationalization.

Screaming ten year old girls pushed into cyanide ovens, summarized as "making good" , and "just biting off a little more than he could chew?" Maybe they were going to be feminists?

As far as foaming at the mouth, the closest I've seen to a politician foaming at the mouth was Hitler amping up the bestial, lowest common hate denominator in the Germans. Our Tea Party reactionaries here in the USA are cuddly teddy bears compared to them.

Your casual discussion of mass murder seems otherworldly to me.
"Oh they hated the Jews anyway."

Everybody hates each other sometimes. What's important is what keeps us from killing each other for now decent reason.

Let's get an inside look at how this genius cleverly gets his way. After all, there's nothing like watching the masters at work!!

Post: #23

(09-10-2013 11:33 AM)LowerCaseG Wrote:  Most of the anti-semitism out of Germany comes from the belief that Jews were responsible for Germany's defeat in WWI due to them getting America in the War in exchange for Palestine via the Balfour declaration. The subsequent hyperinflation and economic woes emanating from the Versailles Treaty and war reparations were seen as created by Zionists.

Have a listen to Benjamin Freedman to understand why Germany turned on the jews:

Post: #24

(09-09-2013 02:40 AM)RussianSoul Wrote:  I think its a great shame that the subject of Nazism cant be brought up without people foaming at the mouth.

I don't suppose that comes from the fact that he, oh...

- started a war that left Germany and the rest of Europe in utter ruins, killing about 80 million people.

- espoused and promoted a destructive, militant, pseudo-scientific and completely debunked world-view that was a motivation for countless atrocities committed on the Eastern front.

- suppressed any and all forms of scientific, philosophical or artistic views that deviated in any way from his artificial, constructed notion of what it meant to be German, causing an exodus of some of the countries greatest minds at the time.

- terrorized any form of dissidence and deviating thought through secret police and the threat of concentration camps.

- tortured and murdered about 17 million men, women and children in death camps on an industrialized scale.

No matter how you cut it, Hitler and his ilk were among the most destructive and dispicable individuals in human history. They caused so much death, destruction and misery to such a large chunk of humanity that any good they may have done is rendered irrelevant. Getting rid of unemployment and building roads doesn't mean much when one turns around, commits genocide and destroys half a continent in the process. This is like praising a serial killer because he fed homeless puppies.

On another note, Hitler and the National Socialist regime were a product of their times. They would have never happened had it not been for the dire conditions of post-WWI Germany, the Weimar Republic, the Treaty of Versaille, and the economic turmoil that arose from them. It has been observed time and time again that economic turmoil, widespread existential uncertainty, along with anger and frustration among the populace are breeding grounds for extremist, militant, tribalist and batshit-insane ideologies.

Just like weak individuals with emotional issues and interpersonal problems are easy prey for charismatic cult leaders, so too are entire populations when given the right conditions. Scapegoats, often particular ethnic or social groups, are almost always constructed as false causes of the country's current misfortune to vent public anger. The target audience (in this case, the Germans) are typically made to believe they are bred from some superior stock or humanity. Usually they are fed a nostalgic, dumbed-down, black and white, often fabricated version of their people's history, a type of semi-mythical 'Golden Age' or 'Glory Days', all the while told they would rise up again if only they weren't kept down by the [insert scapegoat of choice]. This is done specifically because it is exactly what the populace wants to hear, just like a cult that draws its members in by providing them with affection and a sense of purpose.

This same formula has been repeated to varying degrees by most major fascist movements and/or totalitarian dictatorships in modern history: the Third Reich, Cambodia under Polpot, North Korea, etc. Now it can be seen in Greece as well with the Golden Dawn Party.

There's a reason why Hitler is as despised as he is today. It's easy for us to run our mouths when most of us have never had to deal with war, real state-oppression or genocide. Great people are (ideally) remembered as such because how much they benefit the world around them. Hitler did absolutely nothing that brought long-term benefit to society.

I, too, find it utterly bizarre -- and somewhat sickening -- how some here can casually rationalize these types of atrocities as "biting off more than you can chew". Yeah, he gassed, tortured, murdered, deliberately attempted to wipe out about 17 million people from the face of the earth (people foget, the 6 million Jews only made up about a third of the Holocaust) with cold, industrial precision. "Oops! Bad call, I guess. A lot of people here hated the Jews, heehee!" Left an entire continent in complete ruins. Ruined and destroyed tens of millions of people's lives...and that's what you call "biting off more than you can chew"...?

Post: #25

(09-10-2013 11:54 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  

(09-10-2013 11:00 AM)Teedub Wrote:  Hitler was Catholic and the German population was about half and half Protestant - Catholic.

Maybe nominally but there was nothing of Christ's teachings in his horrible determination to murder for no reason.

I wasn't there were, I was just correcting Samseau's earlier statement that implied Germany was Protestant at the time.