Jerry Kraus
6/28/2014 5:51:00 PM
On Friday, June 27, 2014 2:49:38 PM UTC-5, Don Phillipson wrote:
> "jerry kraus" <jkraus1999@gmail.com> wrote in message
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> news:42837b6d-74fc-4fec-93f1-cd566e40a6d7@googlegroups.com...
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> > . . . we seem to agree here that the key problem that made Hitler
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> > dangerous was that his psychological power over his people was
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> > based on anti-Semitism and race hatred. This was what drove his
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> > territorial ambitions and made him a threat to world peace.
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> No #1: It was Hitler's actions (Rheinland, rearmament, Sudetenland,
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> Austria, Bohemia) that threatened peace -- not the German constitution
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> or psychological relations between the Fuehrer and the German population.
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Well, the question is, was aggressive expansionism an inevitable consequence of the "Master Race" psychology espoused by Hitler as a means of social control of the German people? Obviously, Roosevelt and Churchill thought so.. That's why they distrusted him even before he had engaged in any actions obviously dangerous to international peace.
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> No #2: As authors from Trevor-Roper to Kershaw concluded (based on
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> evidence), Hitler's motives were usually mixed and he was much more an
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> artful opportunist than a long-range strategic designer. His motives
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> included (1) revenge for defeat in 1918-19; (2) Aryan race theory (in
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> which Jews were extrinsically important (because rich and in Germany)
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> rather than intrinsically (doctrinally); (3) the aesthetic vision of a
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> German/
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> Aryan millennial future protected from alien threats (mainly Bolshevism
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> and Judaism) and generally "purified" (cf. extermination of the unfit,
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> mental
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> defectives etc.)
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Aren't all of these motivations highly irrational and potentially pathological?
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> The trouble with this is that no direct links can be traced from Hitler's
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> motives (e.g. revenge for Versailles) to specific actions (e.g. the
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> Nazi-Soviet Pact and the invasion of Poland, e.g. Amt 4 murders.)
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Some of Hitler's actions are obviously opportunistic -- e.g., the Nazi-Soviet Pact -- others, such as Operation Barbarossa and the Jewish Holocaust are obviously consistent with his long-range goals and social control strategies for the German people.
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> Secondly we must consider Hitler's administrative methods, encouraging
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> competition among his subordinates, so that many were keen to win
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> promotion by accelerating Hitlerite projects Hitler might not yet have
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> actually
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> ordered. This conformed to his Motive #3, encouraging initiative
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> and imagination in his young Aryan disciples -- just like (most of the
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> time) West Point, the Boy Scouts and today's jihadists.
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Possibly this exaggerated the effects of his strategies and policies. Possibly not.
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> > . . . this psychological aspect of his behavior was never really
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> > acknowledged formally, or dealt with in any practical way. Isn't
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> > this rather interesting, and very peculiar?
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> Professional soldiers tell us that Hitler's motivations (rightly or
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> wrongly understood) are no help in antisubmarine warfare,
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> air defence against bombers, or how to encounter tanks bigger
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> and stronger than your own tanks.
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> --
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> Don Phillipson
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> Carlsbad Springs
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> (Ottawa, Canada)