From: geb@dsl.pitt.edu (gordon e. banks)
Newsgroups: soc.history
Subject: Re: Goebbels' diaries reviewed by Irving??
Keywords: Chelmno,Eichmann,Goebbels,Irving
Date: 27 Jul 92 15:15:38 GMT
Organization: Decision Systems Laboratory, Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.

In article <1992Jul24.190430.15086@cbfsb.cb.att.com> kja@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (krista.j.anderson) writes:
>
>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.
>
Irving also painted Hitler as capable of enormous denial about
what was happening, right up until the last week of the war,
he was still talking about making a breakout and turning the
tide, long after everyone else had given up hope.
I read parts of a book called "Hitler: the Psychopathic God"
(forget the author) which claimed Hilter identified with
Wotan (the destroyer God in Norse mythology).  He found a very
interesting painting in a Munich museum showing Wotan wreaking
havoc and mayhem in which Wotan had the same hair style and mustasche
as Hitler.  The painting was made in the 19th century.  The implication
was that Hitler saw the painting and modeled his appearance on
it.  The painting was striking (if you didn't know the date of
origin, you'd assume it was a painting of Hitler), but it may
be too great a leap to make without any other evidence.
John Toland's book on Hitler was pretty good, I thought.
I haven't read any others.

>
>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.
>
I don't think there is much evidence that Hitler exposed himself
to the results of the carnage.  That would certainly be well
documented.  He was holed up in bunkers for most of the war.
I think he was a fanatic who dedicated himself to building up
Germany, which was his ideal.  His odd notions that the Jews
had much to do with Germany's defeat in WWI and his hatred
of them were probably seen by him as peripheral to his main
goals of making Germany into a 1000 year Reich.  I don't think
he wanted to be destructive as a goal in itself.  It just turned
out that destruction was the result of his unswerving fanaticism
in pursuing his goals for making Germany supreme.  I think he
was less in it for personal power than Stalin was, actually.
Hitler had principles, however perverted they seem to us,
and was dedicated to an ideal outside himself.  Stalin, I think,
was not.  He could have as well been a fascist as a communist.
With Hitler that would have been unthinkable.

>
>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?
>
Yes.  And I'm sure that those of his followers who had read his
writings (which means all of them) would have considered what
they were doing to the Jews perfectly consistent with Hitler's
philosophy.  That's why I say he was responsible whether he
gave the order or not.
-- 
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Gordon Banks  N3JXP      | "Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and
geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu   |  it is shameful to surrender it too soon." 
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