# Was Hitler a good man? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 2013, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967 "2013-12-10T11:21:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2013, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/121 "2013-12-18T16:41:57Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > The benefit in strategic bombing is debated, as well as the morality. Generalizing, German and English people tend to think that strategic bombing is moral but ineffective. Japanese and American people tend to think that strategic bombing is effective but immoral. You snipped the end of my sentence. It reads in full > [@me](#): > > As I said, the morality of strategic bombing is often debated, contrary to the OPs statement that Bomber Harris is never condemned, and there was benefit in the strategic bombing, regardless of one’s views on the morality of it contrary to the OPs statement that there was “no benefit gained at all”. How effective or ineffective it was can be debated, but not that it had no effect at all. It didn’t have the morale shattering, war winning effect all on its own that that Giulio Douhet and others had predicted, but in the ETO for example strategic bombing of Germany effectively destroyed the Luftwaffe and tied down thousands of guns and hundreds of thousands of men in AAA defenses who could more profitably have been used on the Eastern Front. ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/122 "2013-12-19T00:51:12Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > … It’s like a sense of humor. Most everyone thinks they have a sense of humor, but many don’t. Sorry, I don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/123 "2013-12-19T16:32:45Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > It should also be noted that the attack on Fort Sumter was only the last, and most intolerable, incident of a pre-war campaign of seizure of federal property - arsenals, post offices, mints, court houses, custom houses - by the Confederacy. Well, however you want to look at it. But Fort Sumter was in Charleston Harbor, in South Carolina. By your standards, the South “seized” all of the Southern states by seceding. Heck, the colonies “seized” themselves, from Great Britain, by declaring independence - if you want to look at it that way. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/124 "2013-12-19T16:55:58Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Well, however you want to look at it. But Fort Sumter was in Charleston Harbor, in South Carolina. By your standards, the South “seized” all of the Southern states by seceding. Not exactly. The issues are similar, but distinct. _If_ there was a right to secede from the Union, it wouldn’t automatically follow that every piece of property owned by the federal government but located in the seceding state became property of that state. Even the CSA was aware of this, and send a delegation to sign a peace treaty with the U.S. and make an arrangement to settle the issue of the stolen federal property, but no agreement came of it. > [@LinusK](#): > > Heck, the colonies “seized” themselves, from Great Britain, by declaring independence - if you want to look at it that way. Another case of ‘similar but distinct’. The Confederates claimed a right to secede, but instead of pursuing their claim before the Supreme Court, which was invested with the power to adjudicate disputes between states and rule on interpretation of the Constitution, they declared that they were correct and set about seizing property. The colonies had no such remedy available. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/125 "2013-12-19T17:00:31Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > The benefit in strategic bombing is debated, as well as the morality. Generalizing, German and English people tend to think that strategic bombing is moral but ineffective. Japanese and American people tend to think that strategic bombing is effective but immoral. I’m not sure what you mean by “strategic” bombing, but I think the professional opinion is that bombing civilians is not only ineffective, but counter-productive. The German bombing attacks on London, for example, did nothing to weaken British resolve - if anything, it strengthened it. The Americans dropped more bombs on North Vietnam that they did in all of WWII, but still lost the war. In his book, Speer wrote that when the allies switched from attacking munitions factories to bombing civilians, they (the Germans) were down to one week’s worth of ball bearings. Had they kept on attacking factories, instead of people, it would have crippled the German war effort. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/126 "2013-12-19T19:57:40Z")
There is just so much wrong compressed into such a small space here. > [@LinusK](#): > > I’m not sure what you mean by “strategic” bombing, but I think the professional opinion is that bombing civilians is not only ineffective, but counter-productive. The professional opinion is that the weapons weren’t yet up to the task. With nuclear weapons it is possible to effectively destroy an entire nation. The firestorms at Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo were all quite devastating, but being able to conjure up a firestorm at will wasn’t possible, largely being a matter of luck and uncontrollable circumstance. > [@LinusK](#): > > The German bombing attacks on London, for example, did nothing to weaken British resolve - if anything, it strengthened it. The Americans dropped more bombs on North Vietnam that they did in all of WWII, but still lost the war. Here you are actually right; prior to the war the casualties bombing would produce was grossly overestimated, and the morale of the survivors was expected to be broken. Psychological casualties among civilians were expected to outnumber physical casualties by a factor of 10-1. Not only was the ability of bombing overestimated, the underlying logic of its morale breaking effect was on unsound logic. You can’t surrender to a bomber. > [@LinusK](#): > > In his book, Speer wrote that when the allies switched from attacking munitions factories to bombing civilians, they (the Germans) were down to one week’s worth of ball bearings. Had they kept on attacking factories, instead of people, it would have crippled the German war effort. Bullshit, on many levels. First, there was no switch from bombing factories to bombing civilians. It had become clear very early on to Bomber Command that the smallest target they could reliably hit at night was a city, and even that was dicey. See the [Butt Report](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_Report): > [@](#): > > The results, first circulated on 18 August 1941, were a shock to many, though not necessarily to those within the RAF who were already largely aware of the failure of crews to navigate to, identify, and bomb the targets.[3] > > Any examination of night photographs taken during night bombing in June and July points to the following conclusions: > > [ul] > [li]1.Of those aircraft recorded as attacking their target, only one in three got within 5 miles [(8 kilometres)].[/li][li] 2.Over the French ports, the proportion was two in three; over Germany as a whole, the proportion was one in four; over the Ruhr it was only one in ten.[/li][li] 3.In the full moon, the proportion was two in five; in the new moon it was only one in fifteen. …[/li][li] 4.All these figures relate only to aircraft recorded as attacking the target; the proportion of the total sorties which reached within 5 miles is less than one-third. …[/li][/ul] > The conclusion seems to follow that only about one-third of aircraft claiming to reach their target actually reached it.[4] > > Postwar studies confirmed Butt’s assessment showing that forty-nine percent of RAF Bomber Command’s bombs dropped between May 1940 and May 1941 fell in open country. The USAAF continued with the fiction that precision bombing was possible during daylight using the Norden bomb sight, but they were perfectly aware that very few of their bombs were actually hitting the intended target [either](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_bombing): > [@](#): > > The US defined the target area as being a 1,000 ft (300 m) radius circle around the target point - for the majority of USAAF attacks only about 20% of the bombs dropped struck in this area. The U.S. daytime bombing raids were more effective in reducing German defences by engaging the German Luftwaffe than destruction of the means of aircraft production. > > In the summer of 1944, forty-seven B-29’s raided Japan’s Yawata Steel Works from bases in China; only one plane actually hit the target area, and only with one of its bombs. This single 500 lb (230 kg) general purpose bomb represented one quarter of one percent of the 376 bombs dropped over Yawata on that mission. It took 108 B-17 bombers, crewed by 1,080 airmen, dropping 648 bombs to guarantee a 96 percent chance of getting just two hits inside a 400 x 500 ft (150 m) German power-generation plant. The USAAF continued to attack “factories” rather than “civilians” throughout the war in Europe, there was no shift from bombing armament factories over to bombing civilians. The simple fact was, however, that very few of their bombs landed anywhere near the target, and as the target areas were industrial areas in cities, all of those misses landed on the rest of the city. While ball-bearings were a bottleneck for the Germans, they were able to disperse and diversify production and importation. The Allies weren’t even aware of just how much of a bottleneck ball-bearings were for Germany. Your statement that Speer said Germany were down to one week’s worth of ball bearings is incorrect\*, and the [Schweinfurt–Regensburg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweinfurt%E2%80%93Regensburg_mission) mission was an expensive failure for the USAAF with the highest loss rates yet experienced in the war, 60 B-17s were lost and a further 95 damaged, many beyond repair. The [second raid](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Raid_on_Schweinfurt) conducted two months later fared no better losing 77 B-17s shot down or scrapped as beyond repair and another 121 damaged. > [@](#): > > Outright losses represented over 26% of the attacking force. Losses in aircrew were equally heavy, with 650 men lost of 2,900, 22% of the bomber crews. The American Official History of the Army Air Forces in the Second World War acknowledged losses had been so heavy that the USAAF would not return to the target for four months; “The fact was that the Eighth Air Force had for the time being lost air superiority over Germany”. Had they continued attacking the ball-bearing factories, the 8th Air Force would have crippled itself, not the German war effort. \*[Albert Speer reported an immediate 34 per cent loss of production,[26] but both the production shortfall and the actual loss of bearings were made up for by extensive surpluses found throughout Germany in the aftermath of the raid. The industry’s infrastructure, while vulnerable to a sustained campaign, was not vulnerable to destruction by a single raid. Speer indicated that the two major flaws made by the USAAF in the August strike were first in dividing their force instead of all striking the ball-bearing plants, and second, failing to follow up the first strike with repeated attacks.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schweinfurt%E2%80%93Regensburg_mission) ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/127 "2013-12-19T21:35:38Z")
> [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > All (or almost all) people think they are good. Deep, down where it matters they are a good person and what they do is for the best. I would bet Hitler thought that deep down he was a good man doing what is needed/best. I’m going to disagree. I’ve known people who pride themselves on being badasses and scaring everyone they deal with. Hitler repeatedly reveled in the apparent ease with which his forces killed people and sowed terror and destruction. He scoffed at religion and pacifism, advocated taking advantage of the weak, and explicitly planned to kill large numbers of people for various reasons. I believe he would have laughed at anyone suggesting he was a “good” person. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/128 "2013-12-26T08:22:38Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Nope, not going to go there. Nosiree, Bob. Coward. (See next post.) ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/129 "2013-12-26T08:23:51Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > If only he had stuck to painting, the world would have been better off. So, how good was he? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/130 "2013-12-26T16:43:05Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > So, how good was he? His work was, you know, [_if you like that sort of thing_](http://www.bytwerk.com/gpa/hitlerpaintings.htm). He experimented with technique in some of them, but the subject matter seems to be mostly architecture, which gets old pretty fast. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/131 "2013-12-26T18:06:50Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > So, the first question is, did Hitler really think that the world would be a better place if he achieved his ends, wiped out the Jews and the rest, and conquered a large part of the world. Yes. Better for his people, at least. > [@](#): > > The second is, would that justify the actions taken. No. So to go back to your first question: > [@](#): > > Thinking about it further, if he thought what he was doing would make the world a better place, wouldn’t that justify it? If I’m reading this correctly, it’s taking a liberal moral outlook (or moral relativism, maybe) to its most absurd possible conclusion, which is that your intentions are all that matters and all that matters is being good according to your own definition of “good.” But Hitler is an example of why that’s ludicrous. At some point you have to think about how your actions affect other people. You can’t be called a good person if you don’t think about that. > [@](#): > > I suppose the question is, if you honestly believed the existence of Jews to lead inexorably to the enslavement and diminution of mankind, wouldn’t it be your duty to kill as many as possible? Yes. And everybody else would think you were a genocidal maniac, and they’d be right. > [@](#): > > Obviously he didn’t actually **do** good, but we can’t issue moral judgements against people who thought they were doing good on the basis of their ignorance or delusions. Hence the laws of insanity, you can’t be held responsible for your actions if you don’t know that what you’re doing is wrong. You’ve mistaken legality for morality. We don’t consider people _legally_ responsible for things they do if they are unable to understand the consequences of their actions. From a moral standpoint you would be within your rights to feel differently. And how can you be a good person if you don’t do good? If following your own moral code makes you a good person no matter what you actually do and no matter how many people it harms, doesn’t that mean _being_ good is meaningless? ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/132 "2013-12-26T18:12:05Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > If following your own moral code makes you a good person no matter what you actually do and no matter how many people it harms, doesn’t that mean _being_ good is meaningless? It’s pithy but we have an ancient proverb that cuts right to the heart of this argument. One that was even quoted earlier in the thread. > [@Astrid](#): > > The road to hell is paved with good intentions-- the old cliché that eh, kinda sorta applies here. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/133 "2014-01-02T21:24:42Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > I’m going to disagree. I’ve known people who pride themselves on being badasses and scaring everyone they deal with. Hitler repeatedly reveled in the apparent ease with which his forces killed people and sowed terror and destruction. He scoffed at religion and pacifism, advocated taking advantage of the weak, and explicitly planned to kill large numbers of people for various reasons. I believe he would have laughed at anyone suggesting he was a “good” person. There was a time would I would agree with you but have seen too much. The one that sticks in my memories is a guy from my hometown (pretty rural area) who was very much a badass and seemed to prize himself on it. He despised weakness, thought teachers were worthless and stupid and that most children (except for the worthy people’s kids) should not be educated. He thought homeless should work or starve and even took it upon himself to bust up a food drive. He relished laying off people at the drop of a hat (I can understand having doing so but would rub salt in the wounds making public statements while he did this). IN other words, the guy was a major ahole. Well, he caught himself some terminal cancer. Before he died and was still mobile I found myself sitting next to him at a get-together (can’t remember what for) and had to listen to this guy talk about that while he was a hard man he was a good man and did what was best for people. It was soon apparent that this asshole thought he was a ‘good person’. Delusion runs deep and I could definitely see Hitler talking the same way. ---
**Author:** ![Dana\_Scully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Dana\_Scully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dana_Scully)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2014, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/134 "2014-01-03T14:47:10Z")
No; he was a very bad man. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2014, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/136 "2014-01-05T01:16:34Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Nope, not going to go there. Nosiree, Bob. We’ll just paint a… a happy little Gestapo here… yehhh… a little dab of Aryan White right here… See? Happy little SSs… isn’t that better? ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/137 "2014-01-08T18:24:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Well, he was a vegetarian and a teetotaler, and very fond of dogs. > > That’s something, I guess. He was against hunting and I expect that he was nice to his old mum . ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/138 "2014-01-09T05:53:19Z")
A small boy charm towards women means he was shy with them. ---
**Author:** ![Clark\_Cello](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58f4c7/32.png) [@Clark\_Cello](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clark_Cello)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2014, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967/139 "2014-01-12T04:10:44Z")
I haven’t read the whole thread, but just to address one point in the OP, while Hitler probably didn’t think he was a bad guy, he was also certainly not basing his actions on “making the world a better place”. Hitler had no interest in making the world a better place. If you had suggested it to him, he would have thought you odd for thinking it important or desirable. Hitler was concerned with promoting Germans (at the expense of others), and, especially, gaining power and proving he was better and smarter than anyone else. I am not saying that Hitler had no non-evil characteristics, but making the world a better place was very low on his priority lost. And yes, he was a pretty evil dude. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-hitler-a-good-man/675967.md?page=6)