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Hitler the racial anarchist — 50 Comments

1. I believe the accounts that Hitler had become addicted to amphetamines at some point in the 30s or 40s. I’m not sure it’s possible to make sense of much of what he was doing towards the end as he seems to be a paranoid, out of control speed freak.

   There is no question he was an anti-semite long before then, and he made no attempt to conceal his feelings on the subject from the German people.

   It’s hard to discuss the subject of death camps without sounding insensitive, or trite, but I’m not sure it had much to do with Hitler’s wanting to protect the German people or any concern over them knowing what was going on. Powerful countries have always located less pleasant functions on their outskirts, or in conquered territories. There aren’t a lot of oil refineries or coal mines or huge, maximum security prisons in Washington DC.

2. Rufus T. Firefly:

   Snyder’s theory is based on Hitler’s writings way before the end of the war, certainly in the 1930s and even earlier, I believe.

3. I haven’t read the link yet, but I also have no doubt Hitler believed there was an “Aryan” race and pure blood “Aryans” were superior to all others and were the natural leaders of mankind. He had a hatred of Jews because they had been so successful in Germany, but I’m sure he thought much less of other races, from a genetic, race, standpoint.

   He was a maniac, but he did have an ideology. Regardless of the number of Jews killed in pre-war Germany, the German people didn’t seem to mind them gong away.

4. Rufus T. Firefly:

   Read my articles on Klemperer’s diaries and you may change your mind on what the German people wanted or didn’t want.

   See also this, from a review of the diaries by a commenter at Amazon:

   One thing I took note of was, at least from what Klemperer saw, perhaps half the German population sympathized with the Jews, if only in a quiet way. He writes about meeting ardent Nazis and people who try to make his life miserable because of his Jewishness, but more often he notes expressions of sympathy from strangers, shopkeepers slipping forbidden food into his basket, that sort of thing. He even wrote about a “Star Club,” a group of Aryans who went around giving friendly greetings to Jews on the street who wore the yellow star, just to show them not everyone hated them…The problem was, at least in Klemperer’s case, most of the people who sympathized with him did so in a very quiet, unproductive way: they were either too apathetic or too scared to take real action and provide serious, tangible aid. As some wise person once said, all that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

5. Hitler picked out a group to blame everything on, thus excusing the rest of society and encouraging them to “purify” themselves of this population, but hid the actual facts – the dreadful, awful atrocity – of this “purification” from German society. Out of sight, out of mind. Kind of like the media today hides truths from the good little tools who are busily stigmatizing, preparatory to outlawing, maleness and whiteness. As for the theory of Hitler’s racial essence – does this not sound like opposition to cultural appropriation? Everyone back in your box!

6. “Actually, I think it’s somewhat simpler than that. Hitler needed the cooperation of the German people (at least for a while) in order to wage war.”
   The above comports with the Metaxas book on Bonhoeffer that I am in the middle of reading. Hitler used the institutions, especially creating the “German Church”; as though forming a rug out of the existing framework, with every intention of pulling it out in due time. Bonhoeffer was exasperated with the lack of action from those who sided with him (“the Confessing Church”). This was the very reason he left for the 2 years in London. The beginning chapters of this book remind me of our own times in terms of the political climate. Sobering, really.

7. Neo,

   Have you read Mein Kampf?

8. Hitler established a separate ‘nation’ — an SS ‘nation’ in occupied Poland.

   EVERY single death camp was located within that zone.

   Unlike all other occupied lands, this zone was exclusively under the authority of the SS — directly.

   Belarus had nothing to do with anything.

   This SS ‘state’ is lost on most as the Nazi maps are almost NEVER published.

   You could read a thousand WWII texts and never read of it.

   Based upon Nazi writings, it appears that this SS ‘nation’ was to be expanded ever eastward — to occupy and exterminate every nation to the east.

   It is wholly incorrect to think that Hitler was anti-Semitic per se — he was anti LIFE. Six million victims was no way enough for that monster.

   There is no doubt that once he’d finished with one race — he intended to exterminate yet others…. into the hundreds of millions.

   The gypsies and the Jews were merely at the top of his ‘bucket list.’

   Of note: the first victims in Poland were the intellectuals — the professors, doctors, etc.

   His rank order of murder was dictated by his paranoia.

   He fully intended to murder every Slav possible.

   His murder toll has to include staggering numbers of Slavs, gypsies, priests, nuns, and Seventh Day Adventists. ( no survivors what so ever for them. )

   So the Holocaust really tallies past 20,000,000 souls.

   Epic numbers were murdered outside the camp system.

   The scale of those atrocities is only now pulling into view.

   And without a doubt Stalin was a co-conspirator… after a fashion… being an exemplar and and enabler.

   Indeed, he set the launch date for WWII — personally — and in writing. The damning documents had been in the Soviet state archives for decades before exposure to the world.

   It was Stalin that decided exactly where Poland would be partitioned.

   That monster set the Nazi monster loose — deliberately.

   He just didn’t figure on the Germans rolling over France.

9. In my mind, whether Hitler’s anti-Semitism was genuine or calculated political opportunism at its worst is an academic distinction. The Jews became, for him, the source of all that was bad and the death camps were a most extreme practical extension of such propaganda.

   Is that tactically any different than Iran targeting the U.S. as “The Great Satan” (accompanied by its own anti-Semitism), or the Palestinian hatred of Israel or even Obama’s (and the Progressive left’s) targeting of Republicans/conservatives as evil? The propagandizing of an evil adversary, i.e. an enemy, is simply justification for winning at any cost. As Robert Heinlein noted: “Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal,” and IMO therein lies the link between between Islamists and Progressives; like Stalin and Hitler, they were of the same mind and are competing for the same goal.

10. blert:

    You are certainly correct that Hitler was not merely anti-Semitic. They were central in his viewpoint, however, and therefore first on his list.

    I’ve written about some of his other plans for other peoples, but I can’t find the post at the moment.

11. T:

    I think the idea that Hitler wasn’t actually anti-Semitic, that it was some sort of pose or ploy, is ridiculous, although I have read works by people who advance that idea. All you have to do is look at that political last will of his, written right before he killed himself, to see how deep his Jew-hatred went, and how profound a part of his entire way of thinking it was, as well as being the legacy he wished to leave to the world and the work he wished to be carried on after his death.

12. Dennis Prager used to argue something along the same lines. Hitler hated the Jews because the Jews brought a moral vision / system of thought to the west… and Hitler wanted his pagan prelogic back.

13. I know a lot of historians don’t agree with Snyder’s book (actually, I think they just don’t like Snyder’s personality) and take him to task over all sorts of “facts”. I have, however, read the book and thought that he contributed some very original research – and certainly original and plausible outlook – on Hitler and the Jews.

    The full title of his book is: Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning The subtitle is very important. Snyder convincingly shows what did happen in nations that lost their political, administrative, and legal institutions altogether during WWII. Countries which still controlled them, e.g., Denmark, despite Nazi occupation were able (more or less) to save their Jews. Those countries where they were demolished, e.g., Poland, had no means left to save the Jews or other peoples the Nazis sent for extermination.

    Say what you will about bureaucracies and bureaucrats, however, in extremis, they are often an individual’s last hope. Smash all the state institutions and individuals are left to fend for themselves – and usually lose. His book couldn’t be more topical.

14. I think some other historians have a problem with the book because of that subtitle and how he develops it, which he discussed in a NY Times op-ed:

    Snyder further argues that the strain of climate change denial common in American politics is reminiscent of Hitler’s attitude toward science. Hitler thought war was necessary because he refused to believe that advancements like irrigation, crop hybrids and fertilizers could help feed his people. The denial of climate change could again push the world toward conflict, Snyder writes.

    “By polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the United States has done more than any other nation to bring about the next ecological panic, yet it is the only country where climate science is still resisted by certain political and business elites,” he writes. “These deniers tend to present the empirical findings of scientists as a conspiracy and question the validity of science – an intellectual stance that is uncomfortably close to Hitler’s.”

15. Ann:

    Yes, that part of the book—where he tries to tie in to climate change—is about .000001% of the book, just a few pages really. I didn’t read the book, but I flipped through it and noticed. So I don’t think it has anything to do with whether his Hitler theories are correct or not.

16. Nor do I. I just think that’s probably the main reason he’s drawn criticism from some historians. Plus the fact that he’s been out there pushing that idea as a selling point, as shown by that op-ed in the NY Times.

17. An example — here’s British historian Richard Evans writing in the Guardian about the book:

    His [Synder’s] speculations about possible Chinese or Russian wars of conquest driven by the need for resources are wild in the extreme. This is a pity: much of this book makes for compelling and convincing reading, but tying historical arguments to ecological nostrums in this way does not really work.

18. From the Snyder quotes Neo posted, I am reluctant to read the book. I particularly don’t buy his

    [Hitler] “used this German racial power that he created over the six years to wipe out other states. It’s at that point that all kinds of things are possible in those other states. But also, you can then send German Jews east, to places like Minsk or Riga where you’ve wiped out the political order, and have them be killed there.”

    And “Any idea which allows us to see each other as human beings–whether it’s a social contract; whether it’s a legal contract; whether it’s working-class solidarity; whether it’s Christianity–all these ideas come from Jews.”
    Really? All these ideas, like seeing one another (an idea?) as human beings, come from Jews?
    Christianity is not just an “idea”, either. Didn’t “come from Jews.” God is generally considered as having had something to do with that.

19. Frog:

    All of that is Snyder talking about what Hitler believed about the Jews. I’m not sure whether your comment indicates you think it’s what Snyder believes. It’s most definitely not what he believes.

20. Here’s one good critic of Black Earth that I’ve read and the criticisms are not really due to Snyder’s bit on climate change:

    http://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2015/11/timothy-snyder-the-newton-of-the-holocaust/

    But even if Snyder is touting climate change, the warning I took from the whole book had to do with current proliferation of nation states that lost their “states”.

21. Neo:
    Sorry to differ, but I am merely quoting Snyder back to you. Those are Snyder’s words, no one else’s.
    “Any idea that allows us to see each other as human beings- comes from Jews” is something Snyder believes Hitler thought?
    Surely you jest.

22. Frog:

    No, I certainly don’t jest. And yes, it is what Snyder says Hitler thought. Read the whole interview that I linked to, or read the Amazon reviews.

    Hitler hated those ideas “that allowed us to see each other as human beings” and preferred the law of the jungle. Read the whole quote from Snyder, and read it carefully [emphasis mine]:

    So what Hitler does is he inverts; he reverses the whole way we think about ethics, and for that matter the whole way we think about science. What Hitler says is that abstract thought–whether it’s normative or whether it’s scientific–is inherently Jewish. There is in fact no way of thinking about the world, says Hitler, which allows us to see human beings as human beings. Any idea which allows us to see each other as human beings–whether it’s a social contract; whether it’s a legal contract; whether it’s working-class solidarity; whether it’s Christianity–all these ideas come from Jews. And so for people to be people, for people to return to their essence, for them to represent their race, as Hitler sees things, you have to strip away all those ideas. And the only way to strip away all those ideas is to eradicate the Jews. And if you eradicate the Jews, then the world snaps back into what Hitler sees as its primeval, correct state: Races struggles against each other, kill each other, starve each other to death, and try and take land…

    The entire connected series of thoughts is what Snyder is saying Hitler said and believed, based on close study of his writings and his actions.

23. Irene:

    Well, I disagree with that premise of Snyder’s. The countries that kept their institutions and identities as countries were allowed to keep them by the Nazis; it was not a random group. Those countries were the Nazis’ favored conquered countries, mostly because they were thought to be racially superior to the Slavic countries. They were on “hold,” as it were, while the Slavic countries were destroyed first. The Slavic countries (particularly Poland and Ukraine) had the highest percentages of Jews by far, too, so it was simple logistics to locate a lot of the death camps in Poland. Less distance to travel to get the Jews there, and more control over the local populations that the Germans already wanted to enslave and kill.

    If the countries of Western Europe would cooperate with the deportation of their Jews, fine. If they resisted, the Nazis pulled back. They gave those countries more autonomy for a while, but their plans were that later, they’d get to dealing with those countries more harshly, too, if necessary, and they would kill all the Jews ultimately, even the ones who lived in those countries. It was merely a matter of timing, and taking it one area of the world at a time. But the non-Slavic, Western-European countries would have been ravaged just as Poland was, if the Nazis had wanted to do it.

24. As far as the national mood went, Germany post-WWI was demoralized and looking for a reason why they lost. Many of them were scared of the Soviets, and could feel the social unrest in Germany as well. The writings of the period contain a sense of paranoia.
    I think it was psychologically easy to link the specters of Bolshevism and the “International Jewish Conspiracy.”

    I’ve noticed the same trend on some modern sites, where Jewish progressivism is linked to Fed manipulation and the same sort of industry “infiltration” and domination that Nazis used to complain about.

    I think that Jews as a culture do have a tendency to excel, and that draws envy. They also have a tendency towards leftism, and that tempts them to meddle and adopt the mantle of “mastermind.”
    Ironically, if they’d just become conservatives they might find more peace.

25. “I think the idea that Hitler wasn’t actually anti-Semitic, that it was some sort of pose or ploy, is ridiculous, although I have read works by people who advance that idea.” [Neo @6:27]

    . . . and I agree. My point, perhaps not so clearly made, was that historically (not morally) it is an academic distinction. I couldn’t care less if Hitler’s anti-Semitism was purely political because it’s the results (the orchestrated deaths of six million people) that matter and those results were and remain clearly immoral and evil. Likewise, today, with the hatred of Jews in the Middle East (and the, perhaps, slightly less rabid anti-Semitism of Europe) I am deeply concerned for the future of Israel and amazed at the many liberal Jews who blindly support the ideologies of these enemies of Western civilization, which has proven itself to be their one true refuge on the planet.

26. T:

    I think I understood that you thought the distinction was academic. I just thought I’d try to make clear where I stood in the controversy.

27. Neo: Thanks for the edit. Missed the “Hitler says”.
    Snyder’s phraseology is perhaps misleading if Hitler did not actually SAY what Snyder says “Hitler says”!

28. The horrors of the holocaust make us want to study the German people to find something uniquely evil in Germans or in German culture which would make the holocaust possible. The fact that Germany was one of the richest most scientifically advanced countries in the World further erodes our illusions about human progress and the perfectibility of human nature. Although there is nothing within Christian theology which could possibly justify mass murder the history of mutual antagonism between Rabbinic Jews and Christians for over a millennium makes it easy to latch onto those uneasy interactions as an explanation for the holocaust. Holocaust survivors themselves, like Elie Wiesel, who were so close to the suffering were just as prone or more prone to take away the wrong lessons from the event as everyone else.

    This quote from Elie Wiesel illustrates that problem:
    “No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”
    http://www.hitlerschildren.com/article/1336-famous-holocaust-quotes-from-survivor-elie-wiesel
    Elie Wiesel was so wrong on so many levels here but because he was a victim he has been elevated to an oracle. To conflate collective judgments against a religion like Islam with racism is completely irrational, but because the pure victim has spoken that makes it so.

    Whether Timothy Snyder is correct in all the details, he has done mankind a massive favor by casting aside the false narratives which purport to explain the holocaust and has dug deeper into unexplored psychological territory. There is no question that Hitler was a theist. He may have loved Nietzsche but he rejected Nietzsche’s atheism. Instead, Hitler was a pagan who strongly resented the fact that Christianity sets moral boundaries on human behavior and forces us to recognize the common humanity of other people.

    This line of reasoning leads to some interesting intellectual vistas. Although the feuding Jews and Christians have viewed each other as false believers or worse, Hitler correctly understood that Christianity and Judaism are two branches of the same religion. It is ironic that Hitler blamed the Jews for the Christian religion which they themselves had rejected and fought against ever since its founding, but he was correct. The theological minutia differ between the two religions but the same world view of a loving moral creator God who watches and judges our behavior infuses both religions. Like Jacob and Esau the Christians and Jews are two brothers struggling to receive the birthright as if God is not big enough to bless them both. Hitler was a pagan who had no interest in the birthright, but he still resented God’s covenant with Israel because it is that covenant which brought modernity to Europe and which has set boundaries on human behavior, boundaries which Hitler hated. For that covenant Israel had to die.

29. Does Hitler require so much analysis? He hated Jews and tried to kill them all. End of story.

    As for the German people, they may not need so much analysis either. Yes Germany was very culturally and scientifically advanced – but it did not have much of a small-d democratic tradition. Here in America we have always taken it for granted that if you don’t like what the government is doing you speak out about it and try to change it. But most people, in most places, for most of history just go along with whomever is in power. Because if you don’t very bad things are liable to happen to you.

30. It was a core tenant of Hitlerism — advanced by his ‘pope’ Himmler that the feral was to be exalted.

    This theme — exaltation of the feral — was brought out in “Das Boot” … and rather explicitly, too.

    By the end, the blond propagandist is totally disillusioned about barbarism.

    Kooky just doesn’t even begin to describe the twisted ethos of Hitlerism.

    As even Speer wrote, what ever norms or morality Hitler had shifted drastically even within six months.

    By the end, that monster was authorizing the murder of Berlin babies — by the tens of thousands — by way of flooding the subways — to extend the bloodshed by another half-a-day.

    !

    His orders were disobeyed.

    By the end he had put death sentences on both Goring and Himmler, shot his brother-in-law — and felt sorry for himself.

    &&&&

    Every time I see the 6,000,000 victims of the Holocaust number — I gag.

    That figure comes from Nazi records.

    Only now it’s VERY apparent that the monsters did not keep records worthy of the name — as they shot down staggering numbers of Jews, gypsies, Slavs during 1941.

    It’s only now that Westerners are coming to realize that Stalin murdered ANYONE fleeing east — as a refugee or what not.

    These victims were impressed into penal battalions — and slaughtered by the tens of thousands.

    Stalin NEVER had any refugee support — what so ever.

    Refugees were murdered.

    This largely explains why so many Jews did not flee to the east. They already knew the Soviet system.

    Anyone leaving their domicile without Soviet permission = state enemy.

    That did not mean prison during the war. It meant death in penal formations.

    One has to stop conflating the Holocaust with strictly Jew murder.

    That monster was systemically murdering non-Jews, too.

    It’s just that non-Jews were killed by brutality, starvation, cold, disease… never making it to the death works the Nazis are infamous for.

    The more you look, the higher the toll.

    As staggering as the death camp crimes were — they were wholly eclipsed by unrecorded killings in the field.

    All of these were DELIBERATE genocides.

    The idea of building death camps came AFTER the psychological impact upon the front line killers was taking a brutal toll.

    At the forefront of Nazi // SS thinking was the need to stop the truth from leaking out to the German people.

    This last aspect is still largely overlooked.

    The death camps were designed — almost entirely — to permit the killing machine to continue — without further blow-back inside Germany.

    Yes, the front line trigger-pullers were BLABBING.

    &&&&&&

    You might note that SS fatalities at the front were at epic levels… almost from the start.

    One tactic that the Nazis used was to rotate death camp killers — to the front — where they died in battle.

    On the record, Hitler’s murder lust was unquenchable.

    Hence, I deem him as fundamentally anti-LIFE.

    Like Stalin — his decision equation was:

    “No people — no problem.”

    What a ghoul.

31. Everyone gets this wrong because the whole idea is to absolve marx..engels said a world wide congflagration would sweep the world..then it was marx who argued the jewish question…as well as creduting the jews with inventing capitalism and stating that without getting rid of its creators you coukd not end it

    most everything you read is wrong and ignoires all that knowing that few in the masses read it..inckuding most authors…those that do, are marxists wanting to save and separate the reason from The action

    (Inhong kong now…crazy week)

32. A lot of people including Hitler himself thinking Western cosmopolitanism is because of Jewish influence. Falling on deaf ears or not, I just want to say this is a misconception. Jews celebrate Chanuka as the victory of Jewish nat’lism against the Hellenic multiculti of the day. NT says “There is no Jew and no Greek”. Western cosmo’plism is the lineal descendant of Greek thinking, same as democracy. If the West is hoist by a petard, it is its own. Leftoxicated Jews are no argument to the contrary.

33. It’s reported that Hitler, visiting some agricultural science establishment spoke, men of the world-wise, to the director. We both know Jews aren’t the actual issue, but the German people demand I do this.
    Hitler, among his other talents, was a skilled politician and could be counted upon to know what his audience wanted and to twist it to satisfy both them and his own goals.
    I presume Hitler actually believed most of what he tried to make happen. But there is this and that, here and there, to muddy the waters.
    There were plenty of camps liberated in Germany by the western Allies. It’s where we get our stock footage. It is less well known that there were many smaller satellite camps doing one or another awful thing.

34. I think I have seen it asserted that Hitler picked up his ideological antisemitism, after the first war. He may have said something to this effect in Mein Kampf.

    I can’t recall exactly. Reading that disjointed exercise in – whatever it was – was such tedious drudgery that I did it in unsystematically approached bits and pieces, and never did do a thorough analysis.

35. Richard Aubrey:

    Follow the link and read Hitler’s last political will, written very shortly before he killed himself. There is virtually no question that his hatred of Jews was not only visceral and real, but probably the most salient fact of his political and philosophical life.

36. Sorry I’m so late to this thread after posting two comments so early. There’s a lot of good analysis here and I think most of it is right, even though some of it appears contradictory on the surface.

    neo-neocon, regarding his last political will; I think if you read it as written by a mentally unfit man whose paranoia and mega-lomania were exacerbated by long term amphetamine drug abuse and lack of sleep you might conclude it’s primarily an insight into the ramblings of a madman. Does it come from fundamental beliefs he held, yes, but he was nowhere close to thinking rationally at that point.

    One commenter mentioned some people try to put too much analysis into why Hitler and the Germans did what they did, and I agree. Read what Henry Ford said about Jews, or Charles Lindbergh, or Joseph Kennedy. And the list of politicians, entertainers, philosophers, theologians, athletes… who have held distinct views about the superiority of some races over the others is too long to begin to list. One still finds these beliefs common in much of the world.

    When you are in China most of the people are nice. Most seem to truly like Westerners. Most will treat you kindly, just as the “Star Club” neo-neocon references, but that doesn’t mean they do not believe they are genetically superior to you and you are a member of an inferior race. To this day there is a distinct, racial and ethnic hierarchy that many Oriental peoples ascribe to; Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese… Even within China one is presupposed to have certain, genetic characteristics based on one’s surname (which relates to one’s genetic tribe); intelligence, strength, negotiation skills, literary, talent, artistic talent…

    And there are no shortage of websites one can go to where one can read the craven thoughts of modern people, citing “science” and “scholarly research” to promote the purity of their race over others.

    The Jewish people have a long history of working together to improve the stature of their people within any community they find themselves. The Germans in 1930 were not the first people to resent them for this, nor, seemingly the last. As others wrote here, the Jewish people and the Slavs were simply Hitlers first targets in purifying the planet so his perception of the “pure” race would be free to rule and bring mankind to a Utopia on Earth.

    He really, honestly believed that, as did many Germans (and other European peoples). Why were death camps outside of German borders? Just as I wrote previously, nations place unpleasant things as far from the rulers and elites as possible. That doesn’t necessarily mean the rulers and elites are against those things happening.

    We do this today in America. We’re against manufacturers destroying the environment we see everyday so we buy our electronic toys from China and our automobiles from Mexico; where pollution is rampant. The consumers don’t really care that environments are destroyed so they can drive their new car with the USB port for their smart phone; they just don’t want to see it in their backyard. Look at the battle Walter Cronkite and the Kennedy’s have fought to keep wind turbines out of the line of sight from their coastal mansions.

37. To expand more on the “Star Club” and other Germans who were sincerely nice to Jews and other enemies of the State.

    When discussing genocide and torture any analogy seems trite, but I think it is a similar mindset to what we see with environmentalism. People don’t want unpleasant, unsightly things happening in their community. If I see my neighbor dumping paint or oil into the sewer in front of our house I may take him to task; “Hey, if you need help I can take that down to the recycling center for you.” But when I buy my new circuit board I don’t give a thought to the toxic waste dumped in some river in China in its manufacture.

    If, before eating a hamburger, people had to watch a video of that particular cow being slaughtered while in line at the fast food restaurant, would people quickly stop going to fast food restaurants?

38. Neo. I understand that. Point is, deliberately or not, there droppings to muddy the waters.

39. Where anti-Semitism comes from is a puzzle. Most of the accusations against Jews seem, to me, to be after the fact. First, the anti-Semitic believer hates Jews and then takes up or makes up falsehoods to support the hate.
    This would be understandable if anti-Semitism is in the air, so to speak. Sort of like with Sarah Palin. Lots of people hated her and cast around for reasons to back up the hate. Then they believed them, or pretended to. Cart before horse, in both cases, imo.
    I had read, decades ago, that Hitler’s mother had breast cancer and was treated in the best way known, which, iirc, was horrifying, involving acid. And Hitler, sitting in the waiting room of the Jewish doctor, absorbed her helpless pain. Even this wouldn’t do it, if anti-Semitism were not in the air. So where did it start? Why?

40. ” Even this wouldn’t do it, if anti-Semitism were not in the air. So where did it start? Why?”

    Hitler’s; or in general?

    In general, there are probably a number of different reasons; depending on what people think “Jews” means, and whatever ostensive definition they are capable of performing – if any.

    Tacitus might have one “explanation, medieval Englishmen another, and Hitler still another.

    Just what a “Jew” is, even seems to be in dispute, as we have seen here. Whether “Jews”, however defined, and whether secular or religious, are presumed by Jews or non-Jews to have a starring “role” in a “world historical drama” which non-Jews are expected to respect, affirm, and accommodate, is yet another question.

    But then, Jews cannot seem to define a Jew with perfect agreement, much less say what it means socially or culturally; much less “morally”.

41. In general.

42. I think Hitler simply viewed them as subversive and as an enervating force, in the competition and struggle of human types for survival.

    And I think that he saw Jews as being identifiable in biological as well as cultural and social terms.

    The Karaites, extensively commented on here, make an interesting case.

    It illustrates, I think, the muddle; as well as how we non-Jews underestimate the centrality of the Talmud to what at present is considered more or less official Jewish identity and outlook. Most of us have not read it, and are staggered and somewhat dismayed when we are taken through it and some of the related literature.

43. ” Richard Aubrey Says:
    January 21st, 2016 at 2:42 pm

    In general.”

    I’d go to Tacitus on that.

    I’d bracket Apion. The Alexandrian polemics are too fantastic, and based it seems to me on a program of envy.

44. DNW:

    Are you aware that there are many sites online that have fake Talmud quotes, designed to foster anti-Semitism? Unless you’ve studied actual Talmud with a bona fide Jewish Talmud scholar, be very very wary of what you read.

45. neo-neocon Says:
    January 21st, 2016 at 3:00 pm

    DNW:

    Are you aware that there are many sites online that have fake Talmud quotes, designed to foster anti-Semitism? Unless you’ve studied actual Talmud with a bona fide Jewish Talmud scholar, be very very wary of what you read.”

    No, I was not aware of that.

    I am referring to material such as the texts used in class by adjunct professor Richard Hertz, then of Temple Beth El.

    These were generally about the Talmud, rather than systematic studies from the inside, so to speak.

    The aim of course was not training us to be Jews or Rabbinical students, (though as I recall all but two of the ten or so of us identified as Jews when the Prof queried) but only to familiarize us with the origin, foundation, and the overall character and tenor of the supposition framework, as illustrated by certain supposedly paradigm cases or excerpts.

    We had a number of texts. One of the texts I happen to remember was a slim volume called “The World of the Talmud”, by Morris Adler. The title of the other, a large thick light blue paperback, escapes me at the moment.

    These were viewed as mere supplemental materials. The lectures which were read, were primary.

46. This is interesting, doctrines on the (ultimate) Resurrection, etc.

    http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/t08/t0814.htm#page_265

47. If Hitler really wanted to fight for the Aryan people, he would have destroyed Islam in the ME. By helping Islam, in fighting Jews who were often under Islam’s control, Hitler helped ensure the slavery of the Aryan people, since Islam destroyed much of the Aryan culture in Persia.

48. Basically, if Hitler was still alive, I would told him that he was a traitor to the Aryan race. His own purported ideals were in fact, reversed on himself. And that was something which his power made him immune to, nobody could tell him that.

    But it’s something he needed to hear. Preferably right before his head separates from his body.

49. Where anti-Semitism comes from is a puzzle. Most of the accusations against Jews seem, to me, to be after the fact. First, the anti-Semitic believer hates Jews and then takes up or makes up falsehoods to support the hate.

    From my research, it goes back to Islamic slave raids, where Italian/Lombardian merchant patriarchs and Jews in Europe and the ME, helped in the selling of European slaves to Islamic Caliphs and harems.

    Islam had a direct market for slaves, they would go raid for them directly. Then there was a secondary market, economic, where slaves in general were sold, to the highest bidder.

    Europe’s DNA was built upon hatred and fear of Islam, and to a lesser extent the Vikings. The Vikings mellowed out pretty soon in Normandy, and converted to Christianity soon afterwards, by around 1000 AD.

    Islam was significantly more virulent and aggressive in expansion.

    Humans tend to fear foreign enemies, and begin hating them. But it was easier to develop a genetic hatred of Jews, who they could touch and kill, than to take on the Islamic war machine, which they could not even touch. They could only huddle in their fortified baronies and pray.

    That’s my theory and research results, at least. Some of it is explained by epigenetics as well.

50. Ymarsakar:

    Time to go back to the drawing board on your theories of the origins of anti-Semitism. For one thing (and I don’t have time right now to get into it very deeply), anti-Semitism was alive and well WAY before the time you specify.

    Also, I missed the part where people developed anti-Italian/Lombardian-merchant-patriarchstism as a result of their involvement in the slave trade (and it’s a common assertion that Jews were over-involved in various slave trades, including the Atlantic one; the assertions are not true).

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