From: altar@beaufort.sfu.ca (Ted Wayn Altar)
Subject: Re: Hitler was a vegetarian?
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 04:19:10 GMT

TANAKA Tomoyuki writes:

>I heard that (Adolf) Hitler was a vegetarian.

>Is this true?
>If so, what were his reasons for being one?


Permit me to begin with a true story.

Albert Schweitzer took seriously his principle of "reverence
for life".  It accounted for his ethical vegetarianism and his
attitude towards all animals.  The American TV star Jack Paar
once visited him at his hospital in Lambarene.  A dog appeared in
the courtyard chasing a chicken.  In French Dr. Schweitzer, No!
No! Remember we have won the Nobel Peace Prize!"  :-)  :-)

Just as don't have to deny the dog his or her nature for us to
remain consistent and proud of our better human actions,
similarly we don't have to deny that Hitler was a vegetarian to
still hold that by and large vegetarianism has a salutary effect
on both one's health and even one's social attitudes.  Not every
vegetarian need be a saint or a good person, nor is vegetarianism
sufficient to elevate the morality of all individuals.

Ok, having said that, it is well documented that Hitler was a
practicing vegetarian.  Biographers and historians of Hitler,
have documented this fact, as unpalatable as it is.  However, as
you know, vegetarians are a diverse bouquet and the actual
practice varies considerably between different kinds of
"vegetarians".

While must be careful in taking Hitler at his word, as well as,
those lickspittles of his who were so  enamored with this
destructive necrophiliac (Eric Fromm's apt clinical diagnosis),
apparently that Hitler did eliminated meat from his diet, but not
always consistently.

Hitler was primarily motivated to become a vegetarian by medical
reasons (plus maybe personal need and political expediency to
identify with Richard Wagner, who advocated vegetarianism but for
"medical reasons", never became a vegetarian).  As first reported
in one of Hitler's own letters in 1911, Hitler had quite evidently
suffered from a general history of weak health and strong stomach
pains.  At that time in Germany, such stomach complaints were
widely treated by prescribing meatless diets.  (see Robert
Proctor, RACIAL HYGIENE: MEDICINE UNDER THE NAZIS, Harvard U.
Press, 1988, p. 228).

After Hitler's exposure to mustard gas during the WWI and his
notorious disposition to be irascible even during meals, his
lacto-ovovegetarian diary diet was all the more a necessity for
the treatment of his sensitive stomach.

As I mentioned, Hitler was not always consistent in his actual
practice of a meatless diet.  For example,  journalist Otto
Strasser in 1920 (see Strasser's HITLER AND I, 1940) reports
Hitler eating the sliced beef sandwiches Strasser's wife had
prepared), although apparently during the war years before his
final suicide, Hitler did become more strict (this also was used
to promote the propaganda image of Hitler as the self-sacrificing
leader who lived the ascetic life).

It is important to note that Hitler did, early on in his career,
attempt to curry favour from the then very large German
vegetarian movement.  After he became chancellor, however,
he clearly turned on the vegetarians, just as he ignored
the many dozens of other groups to whom he had made
promises.  Here is the relevant quote from Janet Barkas's book,
THE VEGETABLE PASSION 1975, N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons:

     Vegetarian societies were declared illegal and were
     forced to become part of the German Society for Living
     Reforms.  The magazine "The Vegetarian Warte" ceased
     publication in Frankfurt in 1933.  The Mazdaznan
     movement, a modern vegetarian cult based on the
     teachings of the Persian prophet Zoroaster, was
     outlawed because Dr. Rauth, the leader, was Jewish. . .
     .
     . . . Members of vegetarian societies were subject to
     raids in their homes.  Even those books that contained
     only vegetarian recipes were confiscated by the
     Gestapo.  Soon pressure forced the German vegetarian
     societies to leave the International Vegetarian Union.
     The vegetarians were viewed suspiciously by the Reich's
     Health Department because they might claim Hitler as a
     member of their own organization.  The very use of the
     word "peace" was cause for suspicion.

It has never been easy to be a vegetarian in the West :-(

Permit me to contribute one more piece of information.
Heinrich Himmler was a chicken farmer and Goring was
an avid hunter who kept personal hunting preserve.  Why is this
never brought when talking about hunting, but Hitler is often 
brought up when we talk about vegetarianism?  Is this not another
indication of the real cultural prejudice against vegetarianism
that still exists?

Now, instead of lamenting that Hitler was a vegetarian, at least
during his later years of his destructive life, let us on move
on.  To this end, permit me to cite a thoughtful passage from
Carol Adam's important book, THE SEXUAL POLITICS OF MEAT, 1990.
I think you will like this passage. Indeed, I highly recommend
this book for all vegetarians, men included.  ;-)

     "One way that the dominant culture comforts itself
     about the radical critique of vegetarianism is to focus
     on execrable individuals who were vegetarians.  Thus,
     meat eaters throw out the fact that Hitler was a
     vegetarian.  That meat eaters cling to this line of
     defense when issues of animal oppression are raised
     reveals the need to delegitimate the protest they do
     not wish to hear.  The message appears to be: after
     all, if Hitler is on the other side, the side of
     animals, then it is better not to be on that side.  But
     Hitler's vegetarianism was related to the natural
     health movement (1) not to the protest literature and
     tradition as described in this book.  It is apparent
     that Hitler's vegetarianism did not arise from a
     coherent ethical stance but had to do with his
     obsession with purity that had genocidal consequences."

     "Hitler's vegetarianism demonstrates what occurs when
     the health benefits of vegetarianism -- the arguments
     from the vegetarian body -- are severed from the
     protest literature of vegetarianism that undergird the
     ethical issues.  The result is narcissism.  One finds
     in the writings of vegetarians such as Percy Shelley
     the concern that any illness would be used to judge the
     appropriateness of their diet and the efficacy of their
     arguments; they understood the distortions that occur
     when health is the measure of the diet rather than
     ethics.  In his preface to HEARTBREAK HOUSE, Bernard
     Shaw identifies this problem: "Being an idle house it
     was a hypochondriacal house, always running after
     cures.  It would stop eating meat, not on valid
     Shelleyan grounds, but in order to get rid of a bogey
     called Uric Acid".  The tendency to find the
     consumption of organic meat acceptable is similar to
     the focus on Hitler's vegetarianism; both evidence a
     resistance to examining one's own involvement in the
     dominant discourse of meat eating."  p 151-152.


I think there are some very good insights here being voiced by
Carol Adams.  Any vegetarians care to comment?

                       ted
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg