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Originally Posted by Robotron
For starters I hate Hitler. However I am more angry/disappointed with the people who allowed it to happen and were sub-servant in his cause. Plenty of people rant racist/prejudice/xenophobic tirades all the time but the supposedly educated masses usually just ignore them. That a first world country with relatively decent education allowed itself to go the way it did is disgraceful and saddening. Hitler was an objectively bad person and I don't think anybody can argue that. To be honest hearing people say "he was doing what he thought was right" is really sad. Seeing as how even his studies his scientists performed gathered evidence against his cause and he just brushed it under the rug. He was in it for himself for the conquest, not some ill-perceived greater good. Every bit of evidence and moral fiber pointed towards him being wrong, he had to know. I am hard pressed to believe that somebody who has the competence to run a regime going for the brass ring is so disassociated that he couldn't see the folly of his ways. But I wasn't there, I am no expert. If he was that crazy than that just says something about the general intelligence of the German people circa 1930s-40s. Their loss, they can keep hither, we got Einstein.
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First let me preface by saying boo Hitler (I'm most definitely not saying boo-urns) so there's no confusion, but pretty much all of the evidence does point to him completely believing his own bullshit. If he really didn't believe that there were inferior races of people that needed to be eliminated, he would have stopped the death camps when Germany was in real trouble, when running these massive operations sapped supplies and manpower desperately needed for the war effort Germany was rapidly losing. When the US, Russia, and Great Britain were essentially at the gates, but he kept it all going right to the bitter end. Hitler really did go looking for the Ark of the Convenant, The Spear of Destiny, and on and on, because he really believed in the folklore about ushering in a thousand year reign for the chosen Aryan people. Hell, the only reason he invaded Russia was because he thought they were so subhuman the Germans would win the war in ridiculously easy fashion, and even told his advisors to fuck off when they explained the Germans would be outnumbered 10-1 in a country that's never been successfully invaded, so that may not be a good idea. Hitler was complete loon.
The article that brought this up on the show was about the banning of Wagner, Hitlers favorite composer, and the reason goes a little beyond just Hitler liking it, he literally based his entire regime off Wagner's work. Wagner's stuff was basically Germanic folklore about this noble race of people rising up and taking their destiny as rulers of the world. Hitlers entire war was essentially bad Wagner fan fiction. And as for the people, well, a lot were idiots, but in a very conventional way - they were proud and racist. Germany had been seething for years after WWI (I mean losing to the French is pretty embarrassing), and Hitler happened along in one of the most ridiculous, convoluted, luckiest paths to power ever, and became the poster child for all of this frustration. Really, the main reason he came to power was because Germany couldn't have an official army, which let him build his own private army, that ended up outnumbering the Germans by about 20-1. The French (again, fucking everything up) insisted on this no army clause, even though everyone told them it would cause WWII way back in 1915. People were so scared, because the government had crumbled, the economy had shat itself, and embarrassed because the French were taking their lunch money, that they pretty much allowed Hitler to whip them into a fervor and go do some insane shit. It isn't really an excuse, hell I'd fully endorse shitting on the Germans as much as possible, except that they'd probably enjoy it.