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Smurf
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As far as I'm aware the thing Hitler personally and directly killed was his dogs whom he poisoned. Everyone else was killed by his Waffen SS or soldiers. Does anyone know any time he actually directly murdered anyone?
Smurf said:but he did get a few medals in WW1 and he was wounded 3 times, so he did see action.
chound said:Is there any good character about Hitler.
I'm really impressed by his ability to inspire so many people to kill Jews.
His mustach(wot's the correct spelling) and haircut is really cool!
selfAdjoint said:I just can't understand this attitude, that you can abstract "cool" elements for current use from the image of one of the most horrible persons in history. Similarly you see images of Che and Mao used for purely decorative purposes. What message does this send to future generations?
There's no record or report of him ever having killed anyone with his own two hands.Smurf said:did he kill anyone on those missions?
WWI.In his autobiography he said that he was in combat but he just made that up he was just a courier during WWI.selfAdjoint said:Does anyone know if he killed anybody as a soldier in WWI?
His position as courier involved getting messages around during firefights and shelling. He "saw" plenty of combat, was wasn't participating in it himself.scott1 said:WWI.In his autobiography he said that he was in combat but he just made that up he was just a courier during WWI.
Bystander said:That's an inference drawn from accounts of the event --- and you just had to ask me whose inference (not percolating to the conscious level at the moment) --- based upon a lot of second-hand and circumstantial "testimony:" Hitler supposedly was carrying a drawn pistol when storming Rohm's residence; his orderly borrowed cleaning equipment following the event; and an unscheduled change of clothing. Strikes me the source is on the "suspicious" shelf alongside The Mind of Adolf Hitler, the OSS commissioned psychological profile.
zoobyshoe said:(snip) althought it's out of character for him.(snip)
No, I understand that.Bystander said:Up front: I ain't defending the guy; nor am I being contrary just for the sake of being contrary.
I've read parts of it quoted. To the extent they diagnose him as essentially paranoid I have to agree with it. "Paranoid Schizophrenic" is probably wrong because it neglects that obvious (today) extreme mania. Today he'd probably be called "Schizoaffective". I think if they were able to give him the whole battery of neurological tests, though, they'd find all kinds of deficits. Toward the end there, one of his arms was trembling uncontrolably, and he couldn't walk without dragging a foot.It's difficult to establish just what his "character" was, and just what he was and was not capable of doing. The OSS character profile to which I alluded earlier has been incorporated explicitly or implicitly into every study I've seen about the man.
I used to assume that; that under the wrong circumstances anyone might end up as a Hitler, but I don't think so anymore. Some people, because of unrecognized neurological problems coupled with psychological abuse and or neglect, end up much more prone to that than most. They're unstable to begin with, so really bad experiences twist them more grotesquely than other people. There may be a large number of incipient Hitlers, I don't know, but that large number is actually a tiny percentage of the total number of people.There's a real psychological block to ackowledging the fact that he was human, and that his thoughts, words, and deeds are things of which we're all capable. He was a monster, certainly, but he was not an anomaly.
Was pretty sure you did --- just didn't feel like dealing with misunderstandings from elsewhere.zoobyshoe said:No, I understand that.
Paranoid? Yeah --- on the other hand, there are very few people on the planet who can afford not to be --- it's a survival trait. Plus, the old question whether he's paranoid if people really are out to get him. Propaganda purposes demanded a personality assessment that could be lampooned.I've read parts of it quoted. To the extent they diagnose him as essentially paranoid I have to agree with it.
Recall, he was under the care/tutelage of a real quack for his physical health (arsenic for the digestive disorders), and probably not fully recovered from the bomb injuries."Paranoid Schizophrenic" is probably wrong because it neglects that obvious (today) extreme mania. Today he'd probably be called "Schizoaffective". I think if they were able to give him the whole battery of neurological tests, though, they'd find all kinds of deficits. Toward the end there, one of his arms was trembling uncontrolably, and he couldn't walk without dragging a foot.
You went from "benefit of a doubt" to "special case," and I went from "anomalous monster" to "benefit of a doubt." Maybe some one somewhere will trip over new material that sheds some light --- not going to hold my breath --- we're probably stuck with the hash, rehash, rerehash, ... renhash of the same old stuff.I used to assume that; that under the wrong circumstances anyone might end up as a Hitler, but I don't think so anymore. Some people, because of unrecognized neurological problems coupled with psychological abuse and or neglect, end up much more prone to that than most. They're unstable to begin with, so really bad experiences twist them more grotesquely than other people. There may be a large number of incipient Hitlers, I don't know, but that large number is actually a tiny percentage of the total number of people.
Paranoia is very different than being circumspect and cautious for survival reasons. He pretty much set himself up such that he insured there'd be huge numbers of people out to get him. At the end of WWI no one knew who he was or cared. He spent years calling attention to himself in the worst way. Cautious people who want to survive don't do that. They keep a low profile.Bystander said:Paranoid? Yeah --- on the other hand, there are very few people on the planet who can afford not to be --- it's a survival trait. Plus, the old question whether he's paranoid if people really are out to get him. Propaganda purposes demanded a personality assessment that could be lampooned.
Those symptoms I mentioned might well have their roots in the things you cited.Recall, he was under the care/tutelage of a real quack for his physical health (arsenic for the digestive disorders), and probably not fully recovered from the bomb injuries.
Thing is, Mao and Stalin did pretty much the same thing without being the same kind of oraters. Then you have Pol pot, Idi Amin, and Saddam Hussein, among others. None of them Hitler style orators.arildno said:Very few have the rhetorical talent Hitler had. Thus, very few, if anyone, would be able to duplicate his "feats". Fortunately.
arildno said:Very few have the rhetorical talent Hitler had. Thus, very few, if anyone, would be able to duplicate his "feats". Fortunately.
Here, the major difference between these guys and A.H. is that while they were certainly able to influence enough individuals to retain power (and, from that power base be able to exert their atrocities), A.H. managed to make practically every German into a fervent Jew-hater and make persecution into a widely popular MASS MOVEMENT. This is not true of any of the guys mentioned.zoobyshoe said:Thing is, Mao and Stalin did pretty much the same thing without being the same kind of oraters. Then you have Pol pot, Idi Amin, and Saddam Hussein, among others. None of them Hitler style orators.
I really don't suspect that greenpeace is going to be able to cause anything on the scale of world war II anytime soon..
zoobyshoe said:Paranoia is very different than being circumspect and cautious for survival reasons. He pretty much set himself up such that he insured there'd be huge numbers of people out to get him.
At the end of WWI no one knew who he was or cared. He spent years calling attention to himself in the worst way. Cautious people who want to survive don't do that. They keep a low profile.
Anyway, I'm not aware that that personality assessment was ever made public while he was alive,
and, did anything in it really make it into any anti-Hitler propaganda? I had the impression that study was undertaken just to assess what they were up against, strengths and weaknesses.
Those symptoms I mentioned might well have their roots in the things you cited.
However, there were peculiar neurological things going on well before that. There are two films I've seen of him in the throes of this very strange, exited, rocking from side to side. One was during a speech. The other, he was sitting alone in some bleachers in a stadium by himself, rocking left-right left-right, very fast. (I think that was some footage taken before a rehearsal for some speech or other.)
At Berchesgarten he used to go out alone onto a large patio and pace back and forth ranting out loud to no one for about three hours a day.
Stories of him doing that go back to a report of a neighbor seeing him do it as a boy or teenager in the yard back of his house.
In Mein Kampf he, himself, confessed that he blacked out when he stood up and shouted for 20 minutes from the audience at the first meeting of the NSDAP he attended. People congratulated him for his patriotism and ferver afterward but he, himself, couldn't remember a word he'd said.
Something very weird happened to him once he got started shouting. He had to have been experiencing a gross distortion of his sense of time (I mean, who in their right mind gives 5 hour speeches?). Then there are those stories of him starting off shouting at someone and ending up writhing on the floor chewing on the carpet. One of his aids coined a secret nickname for him: "Der Teppichfresser".
He did not start out with a sound brain. That is: I believe there was something organically wrong with it. Blacking out and hours of shouting everyday = some kind of pathology.
I see the distinction you're making, but I'm not sure it's as important as you make it. If Pol Pot manages to gather enough people around him as he needs to seize power and persecute "intellectuals" (which is what he did), then it doesn't matter that he doesn't have mass support. All he needs is mass passivity, lack of opposition, while he rampages, and sets up killing fields. Mao and Stalin each executed more of their own countrymen in their seizure and maintainence of power than Hitler killed Jews. I don't remember the figure for Stalin, but I'm sure I read Mao executed at least ten million Chinese during his tyranny. So, after a point you would find the average Chinese person spouting rabid anti-capitalist jargon, in order not to be taken away and executed, just as the average German learned to vilify Jews and give the Hitler salute when meeting a neighbor.arildno said:Here, the major difference between these guys and A.H. is that while they were certainly able to influence enough individuals to retain power (and, from that power base be able to exert their atrocities), A.H. managed to make practically every German into a fervent Jew-hater and make persecution into a widely popular MASS MOVEMENT. This is not true of any of the guys mentioned.
While the "feats" of Mao, Stalin etc. might well be duplicated, those by Hitler is a lot rarer.
I know, but you're missing my point about the difference between caution in a dangerous world and paranoia. When I say he was paranoid, I mean it in the psychiatric/psychological sense, not that he was merely justifiably locking his doors at night, staying away from bad neighborhoods after dark, and keeping his marks in a money belt, the kinds of cautious things that might casually be exaggerated as "paranoid".Bystander said:Step 1 in any political career.
What I'm asking is whether the propaganda dept ever actually used it to publically lampoon him as you suggested. I'm not aware of any effort to make him look silly outside of the Chaplin film and a three stooges episode.OSS commissioned the study in a genuine effort to be able to predict his moves in advance; they got a load of Freudian quackery that was useless, and turned it over to the propaganda dept.. Make it public? You don't tell the homefront that they are being manipulated.
This strikes me as a knee-jerk dismissal of something you haven't seen yourself. The first footage I mentioned is clearly not a loop since he is speaking the whole time he's rocking from side to side, and you can see his mouth match his words, as well as extraneous, non-repeated movements. The other footage doesn't have him speaking as a check, but there are no peculiar "versaille jig" jerks in it to suggest it isn't a continuous piece of film. There's no reason to doubt it's genuine since I saw him doing the same thing in the speech film.More of the "Versailles dance." Kinda doubt that trick was used just once.
He was trying to overcome a speech impediment, an excercize he undertook deliberately. Hitler was talking out loud to himself: cultivating his self image and fantasy world.Demosthenes shouted at the waves with a mouthful of pebbles. Does wonders for voice control.
No one came to the conclusion young, weird Hitler was going to do anything awful. They remembered this stuff just cause it was so weird.Do you know how many people talked to Ted Bundy and "knew" he was going to do something awful?
He was 34 at the time, and couldn't remember it right after he'd said it.Unless you are one of the one in a hundred, you can't remember a single word of the first two minute speech you presented in Jr. High or Middle School.
In the account I read, the carpet chewing was literal. After a period of frenzied screaming at someone, he fell to the floor, rolled around, and ended up gnawing on the edge of the carpet. The aids ushered everyone out of the room, closed the door, and waited till he eventually came out, apparently unaware of anything unusual.Figure of speech, a colloquialism, much as critics describe Robin Williams acting style as "gnawing on the scenery." The literal translation was taken as fact by someone "freshly fallen from the turnip truck" and incorporated into the "why we fight" films and cartoons.
I don't believe that. Hitler's speech style grew out of his mania. He could basically not stop himself from venting like that. The text of his speeches is awful: full of purple prose, mixed metaphores, repetitions, and incoherent logic. This wasn't a choice for political purposes. He couldn't concentrate to sit down and write. He had to dictate his book to Hess, and they had a hard time talking him out of his original title: "Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice." Hitler couldn't understand why that wasn't a perfectly good title.It is the pathology of politics. The man was a traditionalist, believing in face to face rallies rather than fireside chats, but otherwise indistinguishable from Roosevelt, or Churchill and "Fight them on the beaches, in the dunes, in the hedgerows, in the cottages, from the ditches..."
Between the definition of paranoia I got in Abnormal Psych. 40 yrs ago and DSM III 20 yrs. ago, very little human behavior, other than Karen Quinlan and Terry Schiavo type vegetation, isn't paranoid. I'm not brushing you off here, but "paranoid" to the Freudians is not equivalent to today's "non-analytical" (in the Freudian sense) diagnoses. Wild man? Sure. Affected behavior? Churchill's cigar? FDR's cigarette holder? It's politics.zoobyshoe said:I know, but you're missing my point about the difference between caution in a dangerous world and paranoia. When I say he was paranoid, I mean it in the psychiatric/psychological sense,
Editorial cartoons, WB, Disney, MGM animations, "... personally shoot the paper-hanging son of a b*tch" (Patton, the movie, reflects the dissemination of myth that took place at the time), I'll have to check "Up Front," "Sad Sack," and other "contemporary literature."not that he was merely justifiably locking his doors at night, staying away from bad neighborhoods after dark, and keeping his marks in a money belt, the kinds of cautious things that might casually be exaggerated as "paranoid".
What I'm asking is whether the propaganda dept ever actually used it to publically lampoon him as you suggested. I'm not aware of any effort to make him look silly outside of the Chaplin film and a three stooges episode.
Damn! Caught me. It is. Did a little "lab work" on it last night, turned down the sound on Fox (that's a lie, it's always down, and I don't watch anything but the ticker) and watched John Kerry rock from left to right and back 3-4 times in a 10 or 15 sec clip of dem reactions to Bush. Is he a neural pathology case? Or got bladder disease? Or just fidgety?This strikes me as a knee-jerk dismissal of something you haven't seen yourself.
Hah! Gotcha!The first footage I mentioned is clearly not a loop since he is speaking the whole time he's rocking from side to side, and you can see his mouth match his words, as well as extraneous, non-repeated movements. The other footage doesn't have him speaking as a check, but there are no peculiar "versaille jig" jerks in it to suggest it isn't a continuous piece of film. There's no reason to doubt it's genuine since I saw him doing the same thing in the speech film.
He was trying to overcome a speech impediment, an excercize he undertook deliberately. Hitler was talking out loud to himself: cultivating his self image and fantasy world.
What I was getting at here is that there are lots of people who remember lots of things ex post facto. Much as Cayce and Nostradamus are visionaries ex post facto.No one came to the conclusion young, weird Hitler was going to do anything awful. They remembered this stuff just cause it was so weird.
Politics is the art of making noise without saying anything. If I want to be really terse in summarizing English speaking history, I quote Lincoln, "A house divided...," FDR, "A date which...," and Churchill, "Never have so many..." When I'm feeling long-winded, I'll include TR, "Speak softly..."He was 34 at the time, and couldn't remember it right after he'd said it.
I could be wrong. This has also been triumphed as one of THE propaganda successes of all time; serendipitous, but a success.In the account I read, the carpet chewing was literal.
You have just described the content of every U.S. presidential campaign speech, debate, address to congress, fireside chat, and state of the nation for the entire 20th century.After a period of frenzied screaming at someone, he fell to the floor, rolled around, and ended up gnawing on the edge of the carpet. The aids ushered everyone out of the room, closed the door, and waited till he eventually came out, apparently unaware of anything unusual.
I don't believe that. Hitler's speech style grew out of his mania. He could basically not stop himself from venting like that. The text of his speeches is awful: full of purple prose, mixed metaphores, repetitions, and incoherent logic.
This wasn't a choice for political purposes. He couldn't concentrate to sit down and write. He had to dictate his book to Hess, and they had a hard time talking him out of his original title: "Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice." Hitler couldn't understand why that wasn't a perfectly good title.
Not quite. For example, approximately 70% of German students were organized in the Nazi student organization PRIOR to Hitler's elevation to power.zoobyshoe said:ISo, after a point you would find the average Chinese person spouting rabid anti-capitalist jargon, in order not to be taken away and executed, just as the average German learned to vilify Jews and give the Hitler salute when meeting a neighbor.
I have no idea what this means. What are "organized" students?arildno said:Not quite. For example, approximately 70% of German students were organized in the Nazi student organization PRIOR to Hitler's elevation to power.
That would probably be 70% of organized students (rather than the student total), but still an alarming fraction.
Well, Hitler never "won" any election until he'd already been in power and begun taking things over behind the scenes. He was appointed chancellor as the result of some strange backroom wheeling and dealing wherein a great deal of pressure was put on Hindenberg to appoint him. Once appointed chancellor, he took advantage of the power that position gave him to take the government over from within. When Hindenberg died 8 months later, Hitler was able to just declare himself President as well as Chancellor. No one could stop him.Furthermore, Hitler won by democratic measures (about 35% in the last 1933 election, I think) and was a widely popular leader.
If I stipulate for the sake of argument 35% support for his anti-semetic stance, there are still a majority who aren't applauding. After his consolidation of power, however, everyone learned to sound like they'd supported him all along and could rattle off the party line about Jews in their sleep. If you didn't, you disappeared.Taken in conjunction with that Hitler's anti-Jew rhetoric was practically unchanged from the 1920's to 1945, and that his advocated measures towards Jews were unambiguous from early on, this makes the Nazi case very unique, not to mention highly shaming for the majority of Germans living in the 1930's.
They KNEW what Hitler was doing, and applauded it.
No, there is no evidence that Hitler personally killed anyone during World War II. He was a political leader and did not participate in combat or military operations.
Yes, Hitler was responsible for ordering the deaths of millions of people during the Holocaust, including Jews, Romani people, LGBTQ+ individuals, and others deemed "undesirable" by the Nazi regime.
No, Hitler did not have a military background and did not serve in any military operations. He was a corporal in World War I, but was not directly involved in combat.
While Hitler did not personally oversee the day-to-day operations of concentration camps, he did play a significant role in their creation and implementation. He also visited some camps and gave orders for their expansion and the extermination of prisoners.
Yes, Hitler was the driving force behind the "Final Solution," which was the Nazi plan for the systematic genocide of Jews and other groups. He gave orders for the construction of extermination camps and the mass murder of millions of people.