Was Hitler actually evil?
- Thread starter crookeddy
- Start date
I don't quite understand what this means, my friend.
I read that he suffered a mustard gas attack in the trenches. Then in WW2 he forbade the use of chemical weapons because he didn't want ANYONE to go through that. I don't know if that counts as a redeemable quality, but it does mean even Hitler had his limits. If it's true. Does anyone know if it is?
I don't know, I'm afraid. I can't verify or deny that. But most people have limits- if Hitler didn't, he wouldn't have been so successful in taking control of his country and directing the war. You can't be a full-out world-hating screaming, burn-everything maniac and pull that off.
Sorry to post and run.
Psychiatry was in it's infancy then, and beating your children was considered your duty. Identifying abuse then would have been difficult - early abuse victims were often blamed the way crime victims are - society in general did not want to believe people would do such things. People like me who have had a ridiculously happy childhood easily forget or overlook the damage abuse and neglect do - the fact is that it affects multiple generations and it usually gets perpetuated in one form or another.
Even if there were a state sponsored mental health apparatus in place it would probably have been woefully ineffective. At the turn of the Century governments WERE encouraged to make the lives of thier citizenry better - then as now. As the most likely way to handle the situation then would have been the state/government taking children and consigning them to horrific conditions in orphanages Hilter may very well have turned out as evil as he did - the abuse and neglect would have come from more places. Adding sources of harm may not have diffused his dysfunction, it may have multiplied it exponentially making him feel there was no place safe in the world for him.
Unfortunatley for the victims of his prejudice and hate there was no safe place for them either.
In other words there are never any easy answers or solutions. many other could have said it better, but here I am.
No, you said that wondefully.
That was a very rational argument and I'm sorry to admit I was so caught up in my own argument I didn't grasp the fact that, as you say, avoiding the rise of evil individuals like Hitler is far, far more complex than simply "recognising abuse". For that I apologise. Indeed, you make a very good case- and a disturbing case, sadly- for the idea that, horrible as it seems, Hitler's evil could well have been very, very difficult to "head off". Who knows what "potential" exists in each personality, and how difficult it might be to escape a situation in which it comes to the fore or is exaggerated into something evil? Sadly, I think it requires massive societal upheavals before we can be sure such a thing won't ever happen again- which is part of what you so skillfully pointed out. 
A good point. However, if some people are indeed fundamentally "damaged" and sociopathic by nature (which does seems likely, I admit, because as has been pointed out most people manage to survive maltreatment without starting genocides), we can still act to treat them well so as to not create a situation where they explode in our face as monsters. Which is kind of what you're saying, I know.
I still maintain that it is essential to police our societies and take collective responsibility to ensure no-one is left outside and hurt, because in some cases- maybe only a few- that leads, as you point out, to something evil.
DerangedNasat - I guess I sometimes think you are all a little telepathic - you're on the internet and you're lovers of Trek so you must know my mind - right?
. Well, I have a bad habit of assuming I know other people's minds when I don't- as a fair few fellow posters will confirm! I often write as though I know how other's think, as they take me to task for
.
DerangedNasat - I guess I sometimes think you are all a little telepathic - you're on the internet and you're lovers of Trek so you must know my mind - right?
Well, I have a bad habit of assuming I know other people's minds when I don't- as a fair few fellow posters will confirm! I often write as though I know how other's think, as they take me to task for
I can always use help organizing the drawers in my mind!
Glory? Are you kidding? I suggest you go pick up anything written by Elie Wiesel. Anything at all.
I understand Hitler's dog liked him a great deal.
Hitler was raised in a European/Western mentality which at the time meant a heavy dose of anti-semitism. Hitler was more influenced by this specific line of thought then any general belief about wanting to build a master race. So Hitler's "evil" was very much tied to a place and time.
Hitler does kind of share an unique place in the pantheon of evil in that he has become the prototype caricature of evil and it has become taboo to view him as an actual person rather than as a cartoon figure. History is filled with genocide and Hitler has a lot of competition in that regard. It is also interesting that Hitler, who never killed anyone, has become the poster boy for evil, and often not the rank and file German's who carried out his plans.
There are problems with the morality of America's entrance into WW2. Mainly that are great ally Old Uncle Joe was hardly any better than Hitler, an also that if America had been a strictly neutral as we claimed pre-war neither Japan nor Germany would be a threat to us.
Hitler was raised in a European/Western mentality which at the time meant a heavy dose of anti-semitism. Hitler was more influenced by this specific line of thought then any general belief about wanting to build a master race. So Hitler's "evil" was very much tied to a place and time.
Hitler does kind of share an unique place in the pantheon of evil in that he has become the prototype caricature of evil and it has become taboo to view him as an actual person rather than as a cartoon figure. History is filled with genocide and Hitler has a lot of competition in that regard. It is also interesting that Hitler, who never killed anyone, has become the poster boy for evil, and often not the rank and file German's who carried out his plans.
There are problems with the morality of America's entrance into WW2. Mainly that are great ally Old Uncle Joe was hardly any better than Hitler, an also that if America had been a strictly neutral as we claimed pre-war neither Japan nor Germany would be a threat to us.
Well.. yeah. Consider what might happen to someone that didn't keep his trains running on time.
I'll just go with your "batshit insane and evil as fuck".
...but his review of the Ipad is spot on!
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4[/yt]
Leaving aside his WWI career and whether that's literally true in the sense you mean, he was, legally, a murderer dozens of times over even in the narrowest definition.
By that era, to a nation as large as ours, neutrality had become a thoroughly meaningless term. And one of FDR's foremost reasons for wanting to join the Allies was the fear of what a totally Nazified Western Europe might do to South America, and then North America, in the decades ahead.
Not to cheapen a serious thread, but that's exactly why GL's conception of Anakin's origins in the PT was so pernicious. There's just no way that a kid as well-mannered and compassionate as the one in Ep. 1 could ever become the mass murderer of Ep. 4. GL's smart enough to know this, but why compromise the PT's box office with a tale of evil one could actually take seriously, even in pulp space fantasy terms?People are only evil through their actions. Hitler's actions were evil, so he, unfortunately, must be seen as a man of evil. I say, unfortunately, because as is usually the case he was a product of his society at the time, and it could easily have been averted had people been more sensible and compassionate.
Hitler was, I have read, severely abused as a child, once being beaten so hard he was in a coma for two days. Then he was a soldier in the First World War, and the horrors of the trenches, and furthermore remember this is a culture where such horrific violence against boys and young men was considered acceptable, indeed promoted. It was a boy's duty to submit to such maltreatment. Can you imagine what it's like to be abused and maltreated on a regular basis, only for all of society- all of European culture- to implicitly, indeed sometimes explicitly, show you that this is normal, to be accepted or excused, that no-one cares if people like you are subject to horrific violence. Perhaps if his society- and indeed all European societies- hadn't shown him every day that the violence and abuse he suffered was okay, and "justified" and his duty to submit to it, perhaps he wouldn't have gone on to be so deranged and twisted to become such a man of evil.
There's a thought. Perhaps if we don't abuse and mistreat our sons, they won't end up genocidal maniacs trying to take over the world.
Bigotry is evil, maybe the purest evil we are capable of, and Hitler was an immense bigot, so yes I would say he was very evil.
Yeah, this I've got to hear.
I agree. Mental illness is a physical condition. Billions of people have suffered the kind of abuse described here; it's been the norm throughout History and prehistory, from the Vikings to the Spartans to the American Indians to the Germans, and just about everywhere else until modern time. And there may have been many people who became as repulsive as Hitler as a result, but there were not many who achieved his level of evil.
The only problem with the morality of America's entrance into WWII was that it took us so long to go to the aid of our allies. Ironically, of course, in those days it was the Right Wing that was Isolationist and the Left Wing who wanted to fight.
Well.. yeah. Consider what might happen to someone that didn't keep his trains running on time.
I'll just go with your "batshit insane and evil as fuck".
...but his review of the Ipad is spot on!
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQnT0zp8Ya4[/yt]
Ohhh Hitler. He's spawned more Internet Memes than any one man alone.
Similar threads
