Has anyone else read Mein Kampf?

[KCurtis]

.....

Never mind. Too political.

I think we did worry about it. So did Canada-when my grandfather was interned for giving pro-Nazi speeches it was because Canada minded- and should have.

[kiki1982]

The other poster is arguing not only that everything is not black and white and there is in fact grey, they are arguing that there is no black and white, there is only grey.

Oh, come on, everything has a cause and an effect. so many things have been written about this man and so many psychological assessments made that you can call him strange, twisted, psychopathic, narcissistic and a whole score of other things, but evil? What is evil?

Was Robbespierre evil because he wanted to kill all aristocrats (had he had his way and not been killed by his own beloved giullotine there would at least have been a few ten thousand people less on earth).
Were the very first Americans evil for practically killing the whle Indian population because of their fetish with slaves? Were the slave traders evil because they considered blacks as cargo (similar to the Nazis in fact). Ok so they were not setting out to kill them all, but they definitely made life unbearable for them and knew it full well. When they had discovered the blacks, they confiscated Indian lands and locked them up in reserves... hmmm

Interesting theory... but not backed up by history. There have been several theories as to the cause of delay in taking the British army prisoner at Dunkirk. One theory, strongly supported, was that Göering was anxious for the Lüftwaffe to have a share in the glory of the defeat as it had been the Panzer armor divisions that had rolled through Holland, Belgium, and were now on the way to victory over the French and British. Unfortunately the Lüftwaffe was delayed, and the effect of their bombs and bullets on the sandy beaches were not as effective as hoped.

As Wikipedia states, "In one of the most widely-debated decisions of the war, the Germans halted their advance on Dunkirk. Contrary to popular belief, what became known as "the Halt Order" did not originate with Adolf Hitler." One possible reason given was that the Germans wished to consolidate their forces facing the combined French and British forces in preparation for for a southward advance against the remaining French forces. Another possibility was that there were intentions of discussing a "conditional surrender".

Well, conglommerate the two then.

I suppose that's contamination from living with an Englishman.

That's simply naive. Even as it was, the Germans took some 40,000 British prisoners. Every prisoner in one less soldier in the enemy's ranks.

Not naïve. The more people you have to schlepp with you, the more difficult it is, logistically for a start.

Not exactly. The Battle of Britain as mounted by the German generals was part of the best route toward dealing with England. Rather than mounting an invasion that they were unprepared for, they intended to pound Britain into starvation. They daily hit the British factories, ports, and airstrips with bombers while the German bomber escort fighters sought to divert the British fighters. The British fought admirably, in spite of inferior equipment for the simple reason that they were fighting in defense of their home. The British also had the advantage of radar that gave them advance warning of when and where German attacks were taking place.

The Maginot line was part of that yes, however, German intelligence documents of the time show that (I believe) they estimated the actual Airforce as about half its size. That's a major problem. To add to that, they were extremely slow in building their planes (about 2 weeks I think before they rolled out of the factory) while the British could do two days. So, you shoot them down and they're back in the air. For every German plane that goes down and is lost there are an etra 7 before the German one on its own can be replaced. Not very clever in a war situation, wouldn't you say? On top of this, the German planes were more difficult to get out of so there was a higher chance of German airmen dying than there was for British.
British planes were also much much cheaper and they were easy to repair, which made the RAF much more agile than the Luftwaffe despite the latter having much better technology.

And yes they were fighting for their home, but surely that cannot have made the planes roll out of the factory can it. That's romantic nonsense to me.

The tactical error came when Hitler rescinded Directive no. 17.

Hitler's No. 17 Directive, issued 1 August 1940 on the conduct of war against England specifically prohibited Luftwaffe from conducting terror raids on its own initiative, and reserved the right of ordering terror attacks as means of reprisal for the Führer himself:

The Luftwaffe offensive against Britain had included numerous raids on major ports since August, but Hitler had issued a directive London was not to be bombed save on his sole instruction. However, on the afternoon of 15 August, Hauptmann Walter Rubensdörffer leading Erprobungsgruppe 210 mistakenly bombed the Croydon airfield on the outskirts of London instead of the intended target, RAF Kenley; this was followed on the night of 23/24 August by the accidental bombing of Harrow...

I have been told that Germany wanted to avoid any of the excesses from WWI where they burned, raped and beat just because they liked it or because they got drunk. Such things happened in my hometown where civilians were caught in crossfire between two German regiments who had been drinking and who thought that the other was the enemy. For the same thing they were subjected to reprisals.

I don't know whether that is true, but it is a fact that at least in Belgium the German troops were pretty well-behaved apart from the fact that they were soldiers, of course. I have been told by a relative that 'they sang so nicely when on patroll, in different voices as well.'

Now I will say that I am not one who buys into the notion that Hitler was stupid or ignorant. Nor will I deny that his rein had a positive impact upon the lives of some individuals. The same can be said of Mao or Stalin or Pol Pot. However, as an American of German heritage I have no qualms whatsoever about calling Hitler "evil". He has the blood on his hands of not only millions of Jews... but also millions of Germans, Poles, Russians, etc... Where Hitler goes beyond a dictator such as Napoleon is in his genocide of millions of innocent citizens that he considered "inferior": the mentally retarded, homosexuals, the elderly, the physically handicapped, the Jews, Poles, Russians, Slavs... etc... This genocide... the systematic and mechanized execution of countless innocent human beings in concentration camps, mass graves, and slave labor camps goes far beyond the deaths caused as a result of warfare... and eventually these continued efforts to rapidly execute as many Jews as possible during the waning days of the war took precedent even over supplying the German military with needed equipment.

It has been argued by at least one historian that the genocide was not an aim from the beginning. Hitler had earlier requested Goering deal with 'the Jewish Question' who then asked someone else. However, there are indications that they meant to assemble them and then ship them off to an area, pretty much like the Indian reserves in America where they would leave them to themselves and be rid of them. To this effect they chased them over the border with the Sowiet Union when they were occupying Poland. There is discussion about where they were actually considering to put them as a vast area was needed, but some consider it to be Siberia. It is clear that after their Russian defeat, the genocide took off, partly fed by concerns that they couldn't feed them all in the ghettos (they had to work for food basically). They did a trial of a few transports of 5,000 deportees which they locked up in a self-built camp in the Lublin area of Poland, but it did not seem practicable and so they abandoned the idea.

There is no doubt that assembling people, locking them up etc. would eventually lead to extermination if they became a burden, but it can be seen as the effect of a system where anti-semitism and banning them from society had been made completely acceptable. Who was first? Anti-semitism or Hitler? And to what extent was Hitler influenced by already existent anti-semitism? And why?
Anti-semitism and killing Jews because they were Jews, regarding homosexuals as evil, killing Roma, killing or locking away people because they are 'idiots', lunatics or whatever was there long before him. The much loved Aryan race in the mind of Himmler will have added to the Lebensborn and euthanasia idea and the rumours about the Jews who caused WWI will have influenced ideas these people and the rest had. If it became acceptable to kill people on a great scale, it must have been not because Hitler alone told people so, but because everyone thought so. The average German may not have known that Jews were being killed on an industrial scale, but they did participate in and allowed initial anti-semitic things to happen as well as allowed themselves to be influenced.

That's just politically correct nonsense. A concentration camp commander can line up thousands of women and children and order that they be gunned down in cold blood... but he is not evil because he's nice to his dog and takes his mistress out to a fine meal afterwards?

Not PC nonsense. The concentration camp commander is expected to do so, is influenced by the system. In all likelihood he has spent his adult life surrounded by racist speech. The constant bombardment of such information corrupts a person. Look at the Americans and their slaves: so long it has lasted before they realised that blacks were also people, and they still have problems with it in some places!
There is a difference between entertaining the thought of exterminating people and actually doing it, personally presiding over it or shooting them from your balcony because you feel like shooting a few that morning (Goeth who was arrested for embezzlement). I can think of a whole lot more people in the Nazi regime who I could consider more twisted and evil than Hitler.

[Darcy88]

Oh, come on, everything has a cause and an effect. so many things have been written about this man and so many psychological assessments made that you can call him strange, twisted, psychopathic, narcissistic and a whole score of other things, but evil? What is evil?

Was Robbespierre evil because he wanted to kill all aristocrats (had he had his way and not been killed by his own beloved giullotine there would at least have been a few ten thousand people less on earth).
Were the very first Americans evil for practically killing the whle Indian population because of their fetish with slaves? Were the slave traders evil because they considered blacks as cargo (similar to the Nazis in fact). Ok so they were not setting out to kill them all, but they definitely made life unbearable for them and knew it full well. When they had discovered the blacks, they confiscated Indian lands and locked them up in reserves... hmmm

YES, they are evil. Hitler was evil. The man who crammed African men, women and children into the dark putrid hulls of those slave ships was evil too. Robespierre was pretty awful, I have no problem calling him evil. But Robespierre and Hitler are in entirely different ball parks. There is such a thing as evil Kiki. Its philosophical bull**** to blur the distinction between good and evil by fleshing out the causes and the effects. Whatever the causes, evil exists. A man who orders the deaths of six million people is evil. Say it was his inner circle and not even Hitler who ordered it, even though that's false. If he did nothing to stop it he is as evil as they. Its easy for you to say Hitler was not evil. Would have been much harder for a young Jewish child whose parents had choked to death on gas and who was soon to be next to say the same.

And its grossly absurd to say that the logistics of confining all those British soldiers as POWs would be too big a deal and render that prospect more problematic than having to fight them again in Normandy 4 years later.

Evil is the opposite of good. Love is good, justice is good, beauty is good, many other things are good. Hitler personified the opposite of these things, he personified evil.

[stlukesguild]

Was Robbespierre evil because he wanted to kill all aristocrats (had he had his way and not been killed by his own beloved giullotine there would at least have been a few ten thousand people less on earth).
Were the very first Americans evil for practically killing the whle Indian population because of their fetish with slaves? Were the slave traders evil because they considered blacks as cargo (similar to the Nazis in fact). Ok so they were not setting out to kill them all, but they definitely made life unbearable for them and knew it full well. When they had discovered the blacks, they confiscated Indian lands and locked them up in reserves... hmmm


You seem to have a hard time with moral; issues. None of your examples is too difficult to answer. Was Robbespierre "evil" for unleashing the "rein of terror"? Yes. Were the first Americans "evil" for killing virtually the whole Indian nation? Certainly those who ordered the killing (employed Smallpox infected blankets, etc...) and participated in such killing might be termed as such. Were the slave traders "evil"? Most certainly. In every instance these individuals saw other human beings as inferior beings undeserving of life and freely condemned them and killed them as if they were eradicating vermin. Almost certainly a great majority of those most involved in such actions took distinct sadistic pleasure in their actions. The irony of your ridiculous attempt at a defense is that it is the same defense that the Nazi war criminals attempted to mount after the war at the Nuremberg Trials: "I am innocent because the context was different." "I cannot be held responsible for my actions because the society as a whole accepted that the Jews and Homosexuals and Handicapped were inferior beings". It is the most lame of Liberal excuses... the notion that the individual cannot be held responsible for his or her actions because he or she is but a product of society.

SLG (quoted)-That's simply naive. Even as it was, the Germans took some 40,000 British prisoners. Every prisoner in one less soldier in the enemy's ranks.

Not naïve. The more people you have to schlepp with you, the more difficult it is, logistically for a start.

Housing such prisoners is far easier that dealing with the same individuals as armed soldiers. Both sides housed hundreds or thousands of prisoners throughout the war. They are simply transported to some point distant from the front... ideally in some isolated locale. This makes escape and reconnecting with one's side a near impossibility.

The Maginot line was part of that yes, however, German intelligence documents of the time show that (I believe) they estimated the actual Airforce as about half its size. That's a major problem. To add to that, they were extremely slow in building their planes (about 2 weeks I think before they rolled out of the factory) while the British could do two days. So, you shoot them down and they're back in the air. For every German plane that goes down and is lost there are an etra 7 before the German one on its own can be replaced. Not very clever in a war situation, wouldn't you say? On top of this, the German planes were more difficult to get out of so there was a higher chance of German airmen dying than there was for British.
British planes were also much much cheaper and they were easy to repair, which made the RAF much more agile than the Luftwaffe despite the latter having much better technology.

And yes they were fighting for their home, but surely that cannot have made the planes roll out of the factory can it. That's romantic nonsense to me.

I have never come across any data concerning the roll-over speed in turning out replacement aircraft during the Battle of Britain, and my father was a WWII Air-war aficionado. The size of the German air-forces employed during the whole of the battle numbered 2,550 while the British forces numbered 1,963. This shows a clear German advantage in numbers as well as in the technology of the aircraft. The Luftwaffe's Messerschmitt Bf 109E and Bf 110C were faster than the RAF's Hurricane Mk I and the Spitfire. In spite of this the German casualties numbered nearly 2700 aircrew vs British losses of less than 550. The British had several advantages. Most important was that of the Radar system which afforded the British advance warning of incoming German aircraft and their positions. Secondly the German pilots were quite limited in terms of engagement time. Having flown from bases in Belgium, Holland, and France they rapidly ran out of fuel and had to return home. The British pilots referred to this as "Channel Sickness". The British, on the other hand, could rapidly land, refuel, and re-engage in the fray. Another huge disadvantage was the fact that the Germans never developed serviceable large, long-distance bombers such as the British Avro Lancaster, Handley Page Halifax, and the Short Stirling and the American B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24 Consolidated, and B-29 Superfortress. Without such long-distance fighters able to deliver huge payloads, the Germans were unable to hit targets in the further Northern reaches of Great Britain and unable to deliver a large enough payload to do significant damage. Ultimately, it was the decision to shift from military, industrial and shipping targets to the terror bombing campaign against the British cities that afforded the British time to rebuild and eventuall take control of the air-war. The allied forces, however, did not gain a tactical superiority in the number of planes until 1942 when the Luftwaffe had committed a large percentage of its forces to the Russian front, while the Americans had entered the war bringing with them the advantage of the largest industrial complex in the world (Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, etc...) wholly unhampered by German bombers.

I have been told that Germany wanted to avoid any of the excesses from WWI where they burned, raped and beat just because they liked it or because they got drunk. Such things happened in my hometown where civilians were caught in crossfire between two German regiments who had been drinking and who thought that the other was the enemy. For the same thing they were subjected to reprisals.

I don't know whether that is true, but it is a fact that at least in Belgium the German troops were pretty well-behaved apart from the fact that they were soldiers, of course. I have been told by a relative that 'they sang so nicely when on patroll, in different voices as well.'

When one has the upper hand, one can afford to be magnanimous. Look at the American bombing tactics in the Middle-East. Attacks are precisely focused upon military targets. Of course there are mistakes which result in civilian casualties: "collateral damage in military terminology... but what do you think the American tactic would be if they were seriously fighting for survival. Carpet bombing of the sort used in WWII would not be out of the question. The problem is that the obsession with rounding up the Jews... and the atrocious treatment of the civilians in the Eastern front... the "inferior Slavs" resulted in an increased resolve and hatred of the Germans to such an extent that the Germans feared the Russians and their reprisals far worse that they feared the Western allies. There were even talks of a conditional surrender to the US and Britain while being allowed to continue on with the war in the East.

Who was first? Anti-semitism or Hitler? And to what extent was Hitler influenced by already existent anti-semitism? And why?

How is that even relevant. As a Rabbi friend of my studio mate has stated on a number of occasions, the only surprising thing about the Holocaust was that it hadn't been undertaken by the French as they were even more antisemitic than the Germans. Whatever the reality of antisemitism, it was Hitler and his high-ranking officials (especially Heinrich Himmler) who ordered the extermination of the Jews and other "inferior" human beings.

Anti-semitism and killing Jews because they were Jews, regarding homosexuals as evil, killing Roma, killing or locking away people because they are 'idiots', lunatics or whatever was there long before him.

Again... that sound's like the excuse used at Nuremberg... or a child's excuse: "Well X did it to so I thought that executing human beings in concentration camps was something everyone did."

Not PC nonsense. The concentration camp commander is expected to do so, is influenced by the system. In all likelihood he has spent his adult life surrounded by racist speech. The constant bombardment of such information corrupts a person. Look at the Americans and their slaves: so long it has lasted before they realised that blacks were also people, and they still have problems with it in some places!
There is a difference between entertaining the thought of exterminating people and actually doing it, personally presiding over it or shooting them from your balcony because you feel like shooting a few that morning (Goeth who was arrested for embezzlement). I can think of a whole lot more people in the Nazi regime who I could consider more twisted and evil than Hitler.

You really do have difficulty entertaining the idea of personal responsibility and morality. Again, this defense was completely deemed irrelevant by the judges at Nuremberg. You don't get a free pass on morality by simply claiming that you were merely following orders.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Plus, I don't get the argument that because someone doesn't think they're doing something wrong doesn't make them evil. Oh, so the slave traders, serial killers, and genocide committers didn't think they were doing anything wrong, didn't think they were being mean? They must not be evil then, because evil acts can only be committed when the committer realizes what he's doing is evil! Please.

[kiki1982]

You seem to have a hard time with moral; issues. None of your examples is too difficult to answer. Was Robbespierre "evil" for unleashing the "rein of terror"? Yes. Were the first Americans "evil" for killing virtually the whole Indian nation? Certainly those who ordered the killing (employed Smallpox infected blankets, etc...) and participated in such killing might be termed as such. Were the slave traders "evil"? Most certainly. In every instance these individuals saw other human beings as inferior beings undeserving of life and freely condemned them and killed them as if they were eradicating vermin. Almost certainly a great majority of those most involved in such actions took distinct sadistic pleasure in their actions. The irony of your ridiculous attempt at a defense is that it is the same defense that the Nazi war criminals attempted to mount after the war at the Nuremberg Trials: "I am innocent because the context was different." "I cannot be held responsible for my actions because the society as a whole accepted that the Jews and Homosexuals and Handicapped were inferior beings". It is the most lame of Liberal excuses... the notion that the individual cannot be held responsible for his or her actions because he or she is but a product of society.

Oh, but now I see what the problem is in this discussion: you practice the idea that 'what I find evil from my present viewpoint is evil in itself' and I practice the idea that 'things must be understood in thier context, however despicable, sick etc. they are.' You are imposing your modern day morality on history which is a major flaw in understanding anything in history, if not irrelevant.

Robbespierre was maybe a tirant, but not evil. He had principles and followed them, that is all, maybe fed by a few excessive and abusive noblemen of the time. Unfortnately his reign of terror was allowed to continue for a short while. Calling it evil is irrelevant as it contributes nothing to understanding it.
Same goes for slavery.

I have never come across any data concerning the roll-over speed in turning out replacement aircraft during the Battle of Britain, and my father was a WWII Air-war aficionado. The size of the German air-forces employed during the whole of the battle numbered 2,550 while the British forces numbered 1,963. This shows a clear German advantage in numbers as well as in the technology of the aircraft. The Luftwaffe's Messerschmitt Bf 109E and Bf 110C were faster than the RAF's Hurricane Mk I and the Spitfire. In spite of this the German casualties numbered nearly 2700 aircrew vs British losses of less than 550. The British had several advantages. Most important was that of the Radar system which afforded the British advance warning of incoming German aircraft and their positions. Secondly the German pilots were quite limited in terms of engagement time. Having flown from bases in Belgium, Holland, and France they rapidly ran out of fuel and had to return home. The British pilots referred to this as "Channel Sickness". The British, on the other hand, could rapidly land, refuel, and re-engage in the fray. Another huge disadvantage was the fact that the Germans never developed serviceable large, long-distance bombers such as the British Avro Lancaster, Handley Page Halifax, and the Short Stirling and the American B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24 Consolidated, and B-29 Superfortress. Without such long-distance fighters able to deliver huge payloads, the Germans were unable to hit targets in the further Northern reaches of Great Britain and unable to deliver a large enough payload to do significant damage. Ultimately, it was the decision to shift from military, industrial and shipping targets to the terror bombing campaign against the British cities that afforded the British time to rebuild and eventuall take control of the air-war. The allied forces, however, did not gain a tactical superiority in the number of planes until 1942 when the Luftwaffe had committed a large percentage of its forces to the Russian front, while the Americans had entered the war bringing with them the advantage of the largest industrial complex in the world (Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, etc...) wholly unhampered by German bombers.

I know all that, not in too much detail, but it is a fact only recently released that they vastly underestimated the stock of planes the English had and German slowness in producing theirs meant that soon, the British had the upper hand in sheer amount of planes.
And yes, also the fatal mistake of leaving military targets to one side.

When one has the upper hand, one can afford to be magnanimous. Look at the American bombing tactics in the Middle-East. Attacks are precisely focused upon military targets. Of course there are mistakes which result in civilian casualties: "collateral damage in military terminology... but what do you think the American tactic would be if they were seriously fighting for survival. Carpet bombing of the sort used in WWII would not be out of the question. The problem is that the obsession with rounding up the Jews... and the atrocious treatment of the civilians in the Eastern front... the "inferior Slavs" resulted in an increased resolve and hatred of the Germans to such an extent that the Germans feared the Russians and their reprisals far worse that they feared the Western allies. There were even talks of a conditional surrender to the US and Britain while being allowed to continue on with the war in the East.

The Russian military has always been quite 'behind the times' in views on the enemy if I can be really crude. Not only against the Germans, against all they conquered. It is true that the Gemans hanged themselves out of pure terror for the Russians, but then the Red Army was not much better towards their fellow Slavs the Polish (however, they did despise them). That is the only real-life account I have heard, though, but the Russian psyche does not bode well for anyone else who has been conquered and is essentially weaker.

How is that even relevant. As a Rabbi friend of my studio mate has stated on a number of occasions, the only surprising thing about the Holocaust was that it hadn't been undertaken by the French as they were even more antisemitic than the Germans. Whatever the reality of antisemitism, it was Hitler and his high-ranking officials (especially Heinrich Himmler) who ordered the extermination of the Jews and other "inferior" human beings.

Hitler ordered Goering to solve 'the Jewish question' which initially was leaning towards forced migration (like the Tatars in Russia). It was only later that industrial etermination began. And it is known he knew about it and it is known that he did not do anything about it, but you can't call the system - which involved people like Eichmann who joined the SS to 'make a career' - and what it produced as the ideas of a few people. Eichmann, when tried in Israel, was called 'normal', even by Israeli psychiatrists although he organised the mass extermination of Jews and admitted it (in spite of what he said in the trial about following orders, tapes were found later in which he admits). If even people who are bound to be slightly biased admit he is totally normal, what does that say about being evil?

The system was evil, the people never were at their core, they were only influenced by it.

Again... that sound's like the excuse used at Nuremberg... or a child's excuse: "Well X did it to so I thought that executing human beings in concentration camps was something everyone did."

With your morality, I would like to see you try and do something else in such a climate. Remember, you have been in such a climate of hatred for at least 20 years, you have been bombarded with propaganda for the last 15 years and you are only moving in circles which endorse this kind of thing. And you possibly fear to end up the same as your prinsoners if you dare to put a foot crooked. At least Eva Braun said once to her sister (who was married to an SS official) when she asked questions about the poor lot of those prisoners that 'if [she wasn't] careful, [she] might end up there as well and then [she could] do nothing for [her] anymore.'

You really do have difficulty entertaining the idea of personal responsibility and morality. Again, this defense was completely deemed irrelevant by the judges at Nuremberg. You don't get a free pass on morality by simply claiming that you were merely following orders.

I never said he was not responsible, I only said I could never consider any person *evil*. As I said and I still believe the Nuremberg trials were a good start, but I hardly believe there was any way people were not going to be convicted. Admittedly, a few were acquitted, or came off with a light sentence, but the vast majority was convicted. They were all involved, yes, but were they all totally convinced of what they were doing had they not been subjected to the system for so long? I don't know.

Have you ever seen a film called De Tweeling (The Twins). A pair of twins is separated because their parents die or something. One goes to relatives in Germany and the other to relatives in the Netherlands. The one who is with relatives in Germany gains a boyfriend and husband who joined the SS because he had the right looks and he felt flattered he was offered the opportunity. Eventually he dies in the war. The other gains a Jewish boyfriend who was murdered or at least put in a camp. Eventually they meet up and when the former complains about her lot of widow the latter blames the former. Why?

Eichmann joined the SS to make a career, or so he said himself. He can't help that he was asked to do something because his organisational talents made him the right man for the job. And he cannot help being emotionally scarred if you will (that is essentially what racism is) by spending his youth subjected to hatred for less than perfect people. It was the process of firstly despising Jews, then attacking them on the street and finding that OK, then taking them from society that made sure they were ever less human and more beast. Hence the process of first cramming them into passenger trains and then in cattle carriages with straw into the bargain. From there, it is just a small step to killing them. Mr Stanley Milgram has illustrated the kind of paralysis in his Lost Letter experiment. You think that does not apply to these people then? Arendt who reported on Eichmann got it wrong based on his own defence of only taking orders, but I think Milgram hits the nail on the head. And thus there was also such a process in the Sonderommandos which had to shove dead people from te gas chambers into the ovens. Firstly they did it one by one because they were fellow people, and finally they just crammed them all on one rail and shoved them in. They admitted they did not see them as people anymore. Are these people evil? They are bound not to be because they were fellow Jews, yet someone subjected to hatred for Jews since childhood is supposed to still hold a neutral opinion? You know as well as I that that is impossible.

[Drkshadow03]

Oh, but now I see what the problem is in this discussion: you practice the idea that 'what I find evil from my present viewpoint is evil in itself' and I practice the idea that 'things must be understood in thier context, however despicable, sick etc. they are.' You are imposing your modern day morality on history which is a major flaw in understanding anything in history, if not irrelevant.

Robbespierre was maybe a tirant, but not evil. He had principles and followed them, that is all, maybe fed by a few excessive and abusive noblemen of the time. Unfortnately his reign of terror was allowed to continue for a short while. Calling it evil is irrelevant as it contributes nothing to understanding it.
Same goes for slavery.

No, the problem is that just because one should view history within its context doesn't mean one cannot also bring in their own value-judgements and condemn the ethics of individuals or even large sections of society.

I don't think there is anything particularly controversial about saying, "The German Dictator who instituted the murder of 6 million Jews and many other people who he perceived as undesirable such as Roma and gays, was an evil man."

[OrphanPip]

I was just a paper hanger
No one more obscurer
Got a phone call from the Reichstag
Told me I was Fuhrer
Germany was blue
What, oh, what to do?
Hitched up my pants
And conquered France
Now Deutschland's smiling through!
But it wasn't always so easy...
It was 1932. Hindenburg was working the Big Room and I...
I was playing the lounge. And then I got my big break.
Somebody burned down the Reichstag. And, would you believe it?
They made me Chancellor. Chancellor!
It ain't no myst'ry
If it's politics or hist'ry
The thing you gotta know is
Ev'rything is show biz
Heil myself
Watch my show
I'm the German Ethel Merman
Dontcha know
We are crossing borders
The new world order is here
Make a great big smile
Ev'ryone sieg heil to me
Wonderful me!
And now it's...
CHORUS:
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Goose-step's the new step today

[Darcy88]

Eichmann joined the SS to make a career, or so he said himself. He can't help that he was asked to do something because his organisational talents made him the right man for the job.

YES HE CAN HELP IT. He can tell them no, refuse, act on principle and not gruesomely and coldly slaughter innocent Jewish men, women and children. You are regurgitating the Nuremburg defence. It doesn't work. Again, its easy for you now to deny the existence of evil, but put yourself in the shoes of one of those Jews fated to choke to death on gas and I'm sure you'd be singing a different tune. You have too much understanding for the perpetrator and not enough for the victim.

[Alexander III]

YES HE CAN HELP IT. He can tell them no, refuse, act on principle and not gruesomely and coldly slaughter innocent Jewish men, women and children. You are regurgitating the Nuremburg defence. It doesn't work. Again, its easy for you now to deny the existence of evil, but put yourself in the shoes of one of those Jews fated to choke to death on gas and I'm sure you'd be singing a different tune. You have too much understanding for the perpetrator and not enough for the victim.

But there is a wrongness in saying "YES HE CAN HELP IT" when I and you would and all of us would have not had the courage to sacrifice ourselves for others.

[mal4mac]

Oh, but now I see what the problem is in this discussion: you practice the idea that 'what I find evil from my present viewpoint is evil in itself' and I practice the idea that 'things must be understood in thier context, however despicable, sick etc. they are.' You are imposing your modern day morality on history which is a major flaw in understanding anything in history, if not irrelevant.

'One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.' - The Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule is a standard that has been in place for millenia, if not from the dawn of human cognition. It's a fairy obvious moral standard that people can surely see is the 'right thing'. If they don't, if they go against it, then they are evil - now, then, whenever.

Hitler, the slave owners, Robespierre and the large minority of German people who voted Hitler in, consciously went against the Golden Rule. They were 'bad and harmful' people by any standard, historical or present day. And 'bad and harmful' is the dictionary definition of 'evil'.

Saying that Robbespierre was evil contributes to understanding, because we can then ask why he was evil, why didn't he follow the Golden Rule? Same goes for slavery.

Eichmann joined the SS to make a career, at the expense of following the Golden Rule. You can't use the excuse 'I was just following orders'. He was evil. Full stop.

The Jews who had to shove dead people from the gas chambers into the ovens were not evil. Who cares what anyone does with your dead body? You can't feel and suffer after you are dead.

[Darcy88]

But there is a wrongness in saying "YES HE CAN HELP IT" when I and you would and all of us would have not had the courage to sacrifice ourselves for others.

Actually, in all honesty, I would never be an Eichmann. Maybe I could have possibly been a Hitler supporter at that time, but there is no way in hell I myself would have killed innocent Jews. And there were a LOT of Germans who wouldn't have been able to take the path of an Eichmann either, even if they were anti-semitic and brainwashed and wrapped around the fuhrer's finger.

[cafolini]

YES HE CAN HELP IT. He can tell them no, refuse, act on principle and not gruesomely and coldly slaughter innocent Jewish men, women and children. You are regurgitating the Nuremburg defence. It doesn't work. Again, its easy for you now to deny the existence of evil, but put yourself in the shoes of one of those Jews fated to choke to death on gas and I'm sure you'd be singing a different tune. You have too much understanding for the perpetrator and not enough for the victim.

Sometimes you make sense.

[PrinceMyshkin]

YES HE CAN HELP IT. He can tell them no, refuse, act on principle and not gruesomely and coldly slaughter innocent Jewish men, women and children. You are regurgitating the Nuremburg defence. It doesn't work. Again, its easy for you now to deny the existence of evil, but put yourself in the shoes of one of those Jews fated to choke to death on gas and I'm sure you'd be singing a different tune. You have too much understanding for the perpetrator and not enough for the victim.

Notwithstanding his claim that he was "only following orders," he was able to process an exemption for a Jewish friend of his. No doubt his own life would have been at stake if he had tried to exempt ALL Jews, but couldn't he have exempted one or two more?

[Darcy88]

The moral principles I base my sentiments on when I condemn a man like Eichmann come not from some new perspective of right and wrong that's arisen in the few decades since world war 2. Its old, older even than the sermon on the mount. Some voice inside Eichmann called out to him that it was egregiously and disgustingly wrong for him to commit such horrid deeds. Context can justify behaviors we now deem immoral to a certain extent, but in no historical or situational context is it morally permissible to annihilate in cold blood entire peoples, innocent and unarmed, by the millions.