From: kja@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (krista.j.anderson)
Subject: Re: Goebbels' diaries reviewed by Irving??
Keywords: Chelmno,Eichmann,Goebbels,Irving
Organization: AT&T
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1992 19:04:30 GMT

In article <15797@pitt.UUCP>, geb@dsl.pitt.edu (gordon e. banks) writes:
> In article <1992Jul20.162323.8463@hobbes.kzoo.edu> k044477@hobbes.kzoo.edu (Jamie R. McCarthy) writes:
> 
> >>although he defensively said "that is Himmler's affair and his
> >>alone" when pressed on it.
> >
> >Hitler said that?  The Fuehrer was _pressed_ on this issue?  I find
> >this a little hard to believe;  where in Irving can I find this
> >statement?
> >
> I don't have the book anymore, it is back at the library, but it
> is about 2/3-3/4 of the way through.  Near the end of the war,
> when the allies began liberating the concentration camps, one
> of the generals asked Hitler what about these camps.  Hitler's
> first response was "allied propaganda", but when pressed by
> the general, he made the Himmler statement.  Try looking up
> Jews or Final Solution, I forget what Irving calls it in the
> index.  Maybe Danny Keren can find it in his copy.

I have a question here for Gordon or anyone else.  After reading
the Hitler biog by Walter Payne (not the best one; next time I feel
like reading about Hitler I'll get the Joachim Fest biog)
I had the general impression that Hitler intentionally tried to
avoid direct sensory confrontation with the ugly parts of war, at
least by the time he'd returned to Berlin toward the end.

Payne seemed to think that Hitler did not want to risk weakening
his resolve to take his war, etc. to the ultimate conclusion
because of seeing bombed neighborhoods, suffering Berliners, etc.
To me this seemed like the opposite of Himmler's attitude that he
should witness first-hand the results of his decisions and hence his
visit to the concentration camp.

The idea that Hitler intentionally avoided having to see the
results of the war is contrary to an Erich Fromm analysis of Hitler
where Fromm considers Hitler to be a necrophiliac, in the more
general sense of the word where the person is overly fascinated
with death and decay.  If Payne is right, then Fromm is wrong.

(Personally I think that since Hitler's creative urges were stifled,
he consciously decided to express himself or make his mark on the
world through destructive means since that turned out to be easier
for him in his time and place than becoming an artist or architect.
I don't think he was crazy so much as he was evil and selfish.  He
was a megalomaniac and having control over people's lives and
deaths was for the sake of power rather than fascination with
death, I think.)

So, finally, my question is that if it is true that Hitler wanted to
be isolated from the sight of the ugly results of war despite the
fact that the war was his idea, then wouldn't it also make sense
that he would want to have nothing to do with the details of the
Holocaust even if it was his idea in general?

I mean, after Kristalnacht, his pattern was pretty much set and
Payne quotes from a speech he made afterward that shows a great
deal of insight into why people become destructive.  I just can't
see any reason not to infer that he wished death to the Jews and
then maybe to everyone else including himself.

That's not to say that other Nazis weren't capable of dreaming up
and carrying out the Holocaust all by themselves, but it seems more
likely that Hitler would have been included in the plans and that
the plans had mutual agreement among all the Nazi heavies.