This is a great reminder that at one time Hitler was not the caricature of pure evil that he is now. He was real and nobody knew what the future held. Amazing snapshot into that time.
Bearing in mind that this "caricature of pure evil" image is basically result of propaganda of the winning side of WW2 it's only natural that it wasn't the case before he lost his war. Far more interesting about this article is the fact how much it was known about what the future held. Sure, Orwell might be somewhat above average in questions of history and politics, but still I'd say it is pretty surprising that he is giving attention precisely that parts of Mein Kampf and Hitler personality which are interesting now, 70 years after. Especially that part about Hitler seeing himself as "Christ crucified". "Hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds". Indeed, wasn't it pretty clear back then, that whatever war he started — he couldn't win? What must had happened in order to make victory possible? Yet his popularity was amazing, and Orwell describes perfectly why. I'm not sure I understood the reason so well before I read this.
From my reading of WW-II, no one was fighting war to stop Hitler was committing genocide. Participating countries really didn't cared so much about jews, they were just afraid that Hitler will march in to their borders. In fact, nations actively refused to give fleeting jews asylum.
There are however also theories that people actually didn't knew how ugly this was and there was often uncertainty if actually systematic genocide was in progress. It was only after allies found concentration camps, mountain of skulls, gas chambers etc, they realized full extent of what was going on. So Hitler's "caricature of pure evil" probably wasn't possible because of lack of reliable facts until he got defeated.
>What must had happened in order to make victory possible?
the nuke could have done it.
Scientifically Germany was on top since the second half of 18-nth century.
Oppie took a Ph.D. in theoretical physics at Gottingen, 1927.
> this thread rises lots of questions
'evil is perverted good' Paracelsus of middle-ages.
> "Bearing in mind that this "caricature of pure evil" image is basically result of propaganda of the winning side of WW2"
I'm not sure that any propaganda is necessary to convince 99.9% of people that the instigator of the largest genocide in human history is, in fact, a "caricature of pure evil."
Yea, Mao Ze Dong wasn't the same thing though. It's estimated as many as 60 million people died in China from hunger. Many others died from the civil war (Cultural Revolution). There may have been some genocide but the term doesn't apply as well as in Germany/Russia.
Yes but people were dying from hunger as a direct result of the policies that Mao implemented http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine He is largely responsible for these deaths even if he didn't personally exterminate them.
Genocide, as defined by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, is any of the following acts committed with INTENT to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group:
killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The intent is important, no matter what you might believe. That's why the killings in Srebrenica were recognized as genocide, even though "only" 8000 civilians were killed. It does not matter if 10 million or 10 thousand are killed, the intent is all that matters.
What follows is that the starvation caused by Maos policies were not a genocide, no matter how many people died, simply because the government didn't intend to kill all Chinese systematically. Quite to the contrary, they seriously believed that collectivization would end the starvation that has plagued China for decades.
The same applies to most deaths caused by Stalins regime. In some cases there was genocide going on, but the largest part of the victims of his regime were due to failed economic policies (starvation) and political persecution.
Whereas Hitlers policy was to exterminate ethnical or religious groups he deemed worthless, like the Jews, the Slavs, the Roma and many more. He clearly had the intention to exterminate those groups, he even stated it publicly.
So are you saying that when climate change happens, if it's as bad as many scientists fear, then modern US conservatives will take up the mantle of "largest genocide in history"?
> but in politics the outcome is all that matters, not the intent
And where is this written as Canon?
Politics is also performed with imperfect predictions of the future. If policies pursued in good faith result in the death of millions, the people implementing them are not as responsible as those for whom death is the policy.
Now, if their intent was to starve the masses to further their goals, you would have a point.
>> but in politics the outcome is all that matters, not the intent
> And where is this written as Canon?
In the minds of the survivors.
> If policies pursued in good faith result in the death of millions, the people implementing them are not as responsible as those for whom death is the policy.
History doesn't see it that way. People don't see it that way. Hitler and Stalin are equally reviled, even though Hitler's genocide was intentional and Stalin's was a side effect of "good intentions" -- a Communist revolution.
> Now, if their intent was to starve the masses to further their goals, you would have a point.
Like Mao and Pol Pot? Both were able to explain their programs as "for the good of the people", and both pursued their programs long after their effect was perfectly clear.
You may be able to find a specific definition of genocide, which makes that statement true. But in a very narrow definition of genocide as targeted extermination policy, as well as in a very broad definition, where a large part of the people who died in WWII would count against Hitler, this is not true.
Consider that modern day fascists are (rightly) reviled by modern mainstream society, yet communists are tolerated. There are even communists being voted into various parliaments and no-one bats an eyelid. Aren't you curious as to why this is, given Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Kim family, even Castro?
The reason is that roots of communism and nazism are different. Marx wrote Communist Manifesto in 1848 and it influenced working class movement in many ways, which, one can argue, has led to several good things in society. It also influenced the horrors you mentioned. Nazism, on the otherhand, is largely associated with Hitler, although it has roots in pan-Germanism and nationalism in general.
Thus, communism is associated with a wider spectrum of ideas and events than nazism, and because of that expressing some forms of communist ideas is tolerated in the modern society better than expressing the Nazi ideology.
The mistake often made in describing the crimes and actions of the Third Reich is to somehow dehumanize them, turn all the players into demons and monsters, the same techniques used by the Nazis themselves to target and exterminate Jews and other undesirables. To dehumanize Nazis is to turn them into archetypes as opposed to functioning humans; it sets us up to be "surprised" again when traits of the Nazis show up elsewhere, in other places, at a lessened level but with the same misguided goals and logic behind them.
