Suppose a freak group of Google interns resurrected Hitler, with memories intact, to use for a new YouTube talk show.
What might Hitler think of the people he once scapegoated Germany’s woes on, seeing them become a thriving, powerful democracy surrounded by enemies in various states of chaos and poverty? Did he ever show any sort of private grudging respect for any aspect of Jewish life, however at odds with his public propaganda it might’ve been then?
If he were asked to compare Israel with IS, would he defend one or the other?
Hitler’s original plan was to ship Europe’s Jews to some far away colony, such as Madagascar*. So to some extent I think he would’ve approved of the general idea of Israel, though I doubt he would’ve been pleased at their having a strong military or atomic weapons.
*(Madagascar seems to have been a weirdly common place to suggest for a new Jewish homeland during the first half of the 20th century amongst early Zionists and anti-semites alike. Several of the early Zionist conferences put it forward as a possibility before settling on Israel, and I’ve seen other early 20th century writers suggest it as well. Not sure why Madagascar seemed so prominant as opposed to some other random African location).
Fun fact: pre-Israel militant/terrorist/fascist/communist (bit of an identity problem!) group Lehi/Stern Gang attempted an Axis alliance. It didn’t work, but no reason was given so we can’t officially assume antisemitism.
Probably some consolation since the nazis supported zionism.
Personally, I doubt if he personally felt anything about jewish people other than as uses to get to power: he was a great actor — and as hollow as most actors; Splengler jeered at him as a Heldentenor — and he was not the biggest anti-semite in a party devoted to anti-semitism.
Nope, I said he wasn’t the most anti-semitic of the nazis.
Rosenberg, Frank, Streicher — insofar as he was a true nazi, they removed his offices early in the war — Kaltenbrunner, and Eichmann, amongst a cast of thousands, gave far more thought than Hitler to hating the jews. In fact they thought of virtually nothing else.
There was an ugly meme going around Facebook during the recent Gaza conflict that showed a picture of Hitler (called “the Great” in a lot of the pictures) and a purported quote: “I left some Jews alive so the world would know why I killed them.”
Ironically, the people I noticed who were posting this seemed to overlap a lot with people who denied the Holocaust happened at all. I never really got this, but then again I didn’t waste much time on trying to figure out this particular brand of idiocy.
IIRC, Hitler did not seem to have even grudging respect for Jews. He thought all that was needed to destroy them was just for Aryans to rise up. When the war was lost and the Allies were closing in on Berlin, he laid blame for the defeat on his people, basically saying that they had failed him.
With this in mind, I’d imagine he would look at Israel and Jewish life in the world and see it as a failing of the Aryans, rather than give the Jews any respect. His problems with Muslims had more to do with their particular ethnic origins than their religion; he didn’t really have a problem with Islam per se as far as I know and whether he’d support IS or not would just depend on whether he thought it would help him with other goals. There’s a quote from him often cited by Islam-bashers where he says that Islam is better than Christianity, but I think he just said that in a fit of rhetorical pique. I doubt he knew very much about what he was speaking. Shocker, I know.
Neither of your statements de-legitimize the documents and historical facts of the matter.
From what I’ve read, I don’t think Hitler was aware of those proposals from Lehi/Stern, and his learning about that might color the way he looked at the state of affairs today. After all, many Nazis (and their collaborators) wanted to stick with Plan A, namely compelling Jews to vacate most of Europe, and after all, it seemed like some of the Jewish community agreed with the idea of a volkisch, ethnically defined Jewish state outside of Europe! Hell, some Zionists have always dreamed of a Greater Israel stretching from Sinai to the Euphrates, which reminds me of the wild Nazi dreams of an empire stretching to the Urals, with a similar (if much smaller in scale) likelihood of enormous amounts of death and displacement needed to bring it about.
Hitler would probably look at the Middle East today and decide that his assessments of the Arabs as racial inferiors were justified, rather than chalk any of it up to things like US/British/French/Soviet/Russian partitioning of borders, support for (and installation of!) tyrannical regimes, colonial occupation, direct military aggression, and support of Israeli aggression.
As for Israel specifically, he would probably see it as confirmation of his assessments of Jews as treacherous and such. He would probably get a kick out of the Zionist terorrists shooting and bombing the British peacekeepers, shortly after said Brits liberated places like Bergen-Belsen. “I wish they could both lose,” etc. Of course that isn’t remotely fair to judge Jews like that, but Hitler wasn’t known for nuance.
He would think America is suicidal for allowing Jewish bankers to destroy the economy, allowing Jewish media to brainwash its children, allowing the Jewish propaganda of race mixing and multi-culturalism to destroy the white race in both the U.S. and Europe, and our politicians traitorous for take marching orders from Israel to help fight its wars. Standard anti-Semitic beliefs, not hard to find.
There’s actually an old joke that says decades after WW2, Hitler emerged from his hiding place in Argentina, and went out to see the world. When he came back to his hiding place, Dr. Mengele asked him, "Well, mein Fuhrer, how is it out there?’
Hitler shook his head and said, “You’ll never believe it- the Germans are making money and the Jews are fighting wars.”
Lots of “respect,” yes - but not at all “at odds with his public propaganda.” The idea was that Jews were, in many ways, superior to the vast majority of Aryans; a worthy adversary, if you will. Smart. Wily. Ruthless. Ambitious. Hitler is said to have said something along the lines of that if one shipped just five thousand Jews to a peaceful Aryan land such as Sweden, within a generation this small clique of Jews would control the banks, the universities, the political parties, etc., etc. Eichmann, I believe, held similar views – he has been quoted as saying that “we are fighting an enemy who . . . is intellectually superior to us.”
Do you have a cite for the first one? I’m barely aware of the CounterPunch website but e.g. this article by the founder is pretty clear that he/they aren’t truthers, right? That’s from 8 years back and he’s dead now, so the editorial line could’ve shifted for all I know. More recently I can find a truther website complaining about CP’s stance and this article they published is truther, although note the disclaimer.
Pre-1933 Hitler or 1945 Hitler? The former may have loved their advice on snappy outfits.
Not sure why you think so; the early Zionists definitely considered Uganda as a serious possibility. Hitler might have selected Madagascar to keep the Jews isolated on an island.
I was unaware of Mr. Alexander Cockburn’s death, but he was part of the long lineage of upper-class extreme leftist sympathizers in Britain, although more New Internationalist than pro-soviet — unlike his father the once famous communist journalist Claud.
More to modern concerns, he was the uncle of the charming actress, Olivia Wilde.
However one may reject such views, we need people like like that to challenge the neo-liberal orthodoxy of the presently dominant capitalist-political state.
No, like I said, the idea predates Hitler, and seems to have been popular during the early 20th century. It was advocated by both pro and anti-semetic Zionists, so I don’t think there was any idea of Madagascar being particularly isolating (plus I imagine an African Jewish state would be capable of building boats). Just curious why Madagascar in particular seems to have come up so often in early Zionist plans.