'The victors write history'

[dwindley]

Im sure you have all heard the phrase 'the victors write history'.
it is a subject i have thought about much. i have always been interested in what hitler really believed in and what his world view really was.

i havent done a great deal of research into the man so far, but i often wonder what our history books and other sources do not tell us about hitler.
but as much as i can read what experts and others say i am interested to hear the thoughts of other enquiring minds,
and this forum strikes me as the place to pose such questions.

one line of thought i had was;
that he saw a need for change in our messed up world, and maybe believed the only way to change the world was by force and superiour violence.
he might of just been a maniac with a grudge against jews,
who knows. i doubt we will ever know the full truth.

maybe some of you have interesting information you can link?
regardless i would like to hear others thoughts.

[Jebus]

I believe the whole Hitler saga can be summed up as a case where jealousy turned to rage. While rage is usually self destructive, Hitler was able to use it to gain followers which in turn gave him the confidence needed to pursue a successful political career.

The young Hitler was probably a socially awkward bigot who attributed most of his society's problems on Jews and immigrants. He took pride in the fact that he proved to be a good soldier and he was devastated after losing WW1. After the war, he spoke openly of how he blamed the loss on Jews who he felt had acted against Germany. I don't think he had ever planned to get into politics but he got some pride when noticing how people were drawn to his angry oratory style.

I don't think killing millions of Jews is anything he ever wanted. Hitler actually wanted to send them all to Madagascar. He was surrounded by evil men, such as Eichmann, and as he got distracted by the war effort he chose to turn a blind eye to the slaughter.

[brimstoneSalad]

I don't think killing millions of Jews is anything he ever wanted. Hitler actually wanted to send them all to Madagascar. He was surrounded by evil men, such as Eichmann, and as he got distracted by the war effort he chose to turn a blind eye to the slaughter.

He was also drugged up, and suffering some kind of psychosis. His personal physician was among those evil men.

But there's no single individual who can be as evil as a group, when they put their minds together, and congratulate each other, magnifying each other's bigotries and ambitions. Group-think psychology. People can come together to do both great and terrible things. The Nazi party was a monster with many heads.

Hitler wasn't pure evil; I doubt anybody is. However, his evil deeds, regardless of the extent of his complicity or involvement and planning, will always greatly overshadow the few good things he did.

[TheVeganAtheist]

brimstoneSalad, do you know much about Hitler's religious beliefs? Did he think of himself as a Christian? Ive heard both sides of the arguments (1) he was a devout Christian (2) he lied to gain followers. Id be interested in hearing what you have to say.

[brimstoneSalad]

Hitler was a complicated person, and it's very hard to cut through all of the propaganda.

Even harder, because a lie repeated frequently enough can even be believed by the liar, and with religion, belief and title may be all that matter.

With his claimed vegetarianism, we can actually examine that and find inconsistencies, since people aren't vegetarian just by claiming it and believing themselves to be -- not so with religion.

Hitler was a Christian because he said he was, and there's no other more important defining quality beyond that -- no set of beliefs all Christians hold, or any sense of consistency. Nobody really owns the word. He was also a Catholic, because he was never excommunicated, although you might call him lapsed, and some have tried to argue on various technicalities that he wasn't catholic because his beliefs differed from the Church (and if that's the case, most Catholics aren't Catholic either, which is fair enough, but you can't have one without the other).

As to what he actually believed, that's a little more complicated. He would fairly certainly have been considered a heretic if not for his political power -- very much along the lines of Newton's heretical theology, for example. If Christians want to claim Newton, then they can't avoid claiming Hitler just because his beliefs were a bit far afield from orthodoxy.

In a sense, 1 and 2 are both correct. He was devout in his own way, with his particular brand of theology. He was all about Christ (as a warrior messiah come to set fire to the world and destroy the Jews), and he hated atheism (although some in the Nazi party were atheists; he was never so ideological as to rock the boat over anything, ever the politician). However, he also seriously downplayed what would have been considered heretical in his beliefs when it suited him, and towed the Catholic line when he needed to like a good politician.

[Jebus]

he hated atheism

What makes you think Hitler hated atheism?

[brimstoneSalad]

What makes you think Hitler hated atheism?

Because he said so. Both publicly and in private.

For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: 'Lord, make us free!' is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: 'Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!"

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith ...we need believing people.

Hitler associated Atheism with Nihilism and Marxism/Communists, which of course he fiercely hated. He had serious issues with the freethinking community -- even more so than with the churches.

He might have had heretical and unconventional Christian beliefs, but he believed he was on a mission for God and Country, and believed atheists (and Jews), secularism in particular, was a threat to that.

By helping to lift the human being above the level of mere animal existence, Faith really contributes to consolidate and safeguard its own existence. Taking humanity as it exists to-day and taking into consideration the fact that the religious beliefs which it generally holds and which have been consolidated through our education, so that they serve as moral standards in practical life, if we should now abolish religious teaching and not replace it by anything of equal value the result would be that the foundations of human existence would be seriously shaken.

Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward.

This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief. The great masses of a nation are not composed of philosophers. For the masses of the people, especially faith is absolutely the only basis of a moral outlook on life. The various substitutes that have been offered have not shown any results that might warrant us in thinking that they might usefully replace the existing denominations. ...There may be a few hundreds of thousands of superior men who can live wisely and intelligently without depending on the general standards that prevail in everyday life, but the millions of others cannot do so.

He saw atheists as destroying the foundations of social morals, and secular philosophy as incapable of replacing them.

He didn't necessarily disagree that many points of Orthodox religion were incorrect, but he was certainly a theist regardless of whatever unusual Arian heretical beliefs he had.

He was pretty consistent on these points.
He talked about churches mainly in the context of utility to social order, but he talked about faith and belief in God as the foundation of morality in much more certain terms.

[dwindley]

he may of been very religious publicly, but for the purpose of politics. look at politics today. many are religious and if a politician is an atheist he or she will often hide under a banner of religion to keep their office.
not that im slandering against gay people. but gay politicians have a better chance on the political podium than an atheist. well in the states anyway from what i remember reading in Mr.Dawkins book the god delusion.

[Jebus]

He saw atheists as destroying the foundations of social morals, and secular philosophy as incapable of replacing them.

He didn't necessarily disagree that many points of Orthodox religion were incorrect, but he was certainly a theist regardless of whatever unusual Arian heretical beliefs he had.

He was pretty consistent on these points.
He talked about churches mainly in the context of utility to social order, but he talked about faith and belief in God as the foundation of morality in much more certain terms.

Interesting. Often the people who claim he was atheist are the same ones who claim he was vegetarian but you can't have it both ways. If the propaganda honestly describes Hitler he is a Christian vegetarian and if the propaganda are lies it is more likely that he is an atheist (or agnostic) meat eater.

[brimstoneSalad]

Interesting. Often the people who claim he was atheist are the same ones who claim he was vegetarian but you can't have it both ways. If the propaganda honestly describes Hitler he is a Christian vegetarian and if the propaganda are lies it is more likely that he is an atheist (or agnostic) meat eater.

The truth is somewhere in-between on both points; that is that he was a Christian with unorthodox views. However, a "half-vegetarian", on the dietary side of things, is not a vegetarian; it's just somebody who doesn't eat much meat.

He could have even been 99% vegetarian, but that would still make him a meat-eater.
He didn't eat much meat, and would complain to his chef sometimes when he used broth, but it wasn't a big issue for him (he didn't fire his chef despite this being a regular thing -- strange, no?), and he regularly received meat injections (cow organ based, I think) -- those two points are pretty much beyond doubt.
He had a sensitive stomach if I remember correctly, so his avoidance of red meat in particular may have had just as much to do with that.
There are enough reports that he ate meat (squab, I think, and maybe some other dishes), to make it very likely, but the timing of those reports isn't very clear. It's possible he was just cheating, and didn't think anybody would know. These reports come from hotels and things; I don't think he would have had his chef prepare meat for him, because his chef knew his dietary preference and would have mocked him.

Flexitarian might be an accurate descriptor. There are a lot of so called "vegetarians" in the states who apparently think chicken is a vegetable; that might be along the lines of Hitler's beliefs in that regard.

I've never read anything where he spoke against vegetarianism, whereas he had spoken against orthodoxy (though never against god or in favor or atheism, from what I've seen), but I don't think he had the resolve to be vegetarian even if he thought it was a generally good thing not to kill animals.

We have a lot recorded of Hitler's thoughts. He straddles the line of contradiction on some points, but on others his beliefs are more consistent throughout. The disparity between public image and private belief were a problem he seemed to struggle with, but he let a lot slip too.