Has anyone else read Mein Kampf?

[kiki1982]

I didn't know that, but it makes sense. Actually, with what I know about myself, I completely believe that in the same situation I would have chose suicide. If you don't follow orders you end up in there with them, don't you? Yeah, I'll just take care of that myself thanks. Death really is preferable to some things, being forced to torture children is one of them.

I once saw a documentary about current permanent staff of a German concentration camp. They had an extremely fast turnover and one of the jobs which was particularly unwanted was turning off the lights in the evening, certainly in winter. It involved a last round to see whether everyone was out. One of those guys had been there 10 years and told the makers of the documentary that there had been suicides, drinking problems, depression and what have you amongst permamenent staff members. All of them.

They did do things pretty to-the-point though. A guided tour took visitors to the showers where the guide crammed a group into it of about 50 people like sardines in a tin, then asked one visitor to close the door and then told them that that was how things happened in the gas chamber... Dead silence.

If you have to do that every day, look at the permanent exhibition photos every day... indeed I think you go round the bend if you are normal in any way.

[mona amon]

I think you are confusing two things here. Actions being evil and people being evil. I never said those people were not responsible, indeed they were punished and rightly so, but I would go with Alexander III when he sketches the situation. There was something wrong in the mind of Mengele, but had he not been taught by a professor who conducted the same kinds of experiments on Namibia (I think) and had he not been handed absolute freedom to do what he liked, would he have done it in his private doctor's practice?
Of course his acts were evil, but was he evil himself, though? Clearly there was something wrong with him because he always kept on saying that he was the victim of a mistake of identity, but what did his uni professor, also obsessed with twins, genetics, etc. have to do with his experiments? - Kiki

An evil person is one whose acts are evil, just as a rabid dog is one that's infected with rabies. That's by definition. It does not matter if it's their fault or not that they are evil. But Kiki, what point are you trying to make by sweeping their evil-ness under the carpet?

The most notorious of these physicians was Dr. Josef Mengele, who worked in Auschwitz. His experiments included placing subjects in pressure chambers, testing drugs on them, freezing them, attempting to change eye color by injecting chemicals into children's eyes and various amputations and other brutal surgeries.[25] The full extent of his work will never be known because the truckload of records he sent to Dr. Otmar von Verschuer at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute was destroyed by von Verschuer.[26] Subjects who survived Mengele's experiments were almost always killed and dissected shortly afterwards.

He seemed particularly keen on working with Romani children. He would bring them sweets and toys, and personally take them to the gas chamber. They would call him "Onkel Mengele".[27] Vera Alexander was a Jewish inmate at Auschwitz who looked after 50 sets of Romani twins:


"I remember one set of twins in particular: Guido and Ina, aged about four. One day, Mengele took them away. When they returned, they were in a terrible state: they had been sewn together, back to back, like Siamese twins. Their wounds were infected and oozing pus. They screamed day and night. Then their parents – I remember the mother's name was Stella – managed to get some morphine and they killed the children in order to end their suffering." ~ from the Wikipedia entry for the Holocaust

It's "a bit rich" to call such a man evil? And the people who created a system where he could put his insanity into practice without any fear of retribution, they aren't evil? Then who is evil? Once again, what are you trying to prove? What lessons are we supposed to learn from all this?

[Alexander III]

I care much for the word evil. Nowadays our hearts bleed and our minds understand when they ought to unequivocally condemn. People fight the death penalty because they deem it too harsh. I am against it because of the chance an innocent man might be put to death, but if I had before me evidence conclusively incriminating a man for grave atrocities or otherwise evil deeds, I as judge wouldn't think twice about sentencing that man to death or torture. Its too bad Hitler took the matter into his own hands. Would've been nice if they could have gotten footage of him being hanged.

I don't like capital punishment. Capital punishment for me is revenge not justice. And it is cowardly revenge too, it is easy to shoot a man when he is on his knees. I dont see any honor in that type of revenge, and certainly no justice.


As for your previous reply as to what you would have done, I believe you which is fair enough. But the majority of men would have not been so able such as you to comitt suicide and abandon their wives and children to that monster.

[KCurtis]

I don't like capital punishment. Capital punishment for me is revenge not justice. And it is cowardly revenge too, it is easy to shoot a man when he is on his knees. I dont see any honor in that type of revenge, and certainly no justice.


As for your previous reply as to what you would have done, I believe you which is fair enough. But the majority of men would have not been so able such as you to comitt suicide and abandon their wives and children to that monster.

He didn't say he would abandon his children. There are clever ways of commiting suicide that are not violent.

[Alexander III]

He didn't say he would abandon his children. There are clever ways of commiting suicide that are not violent.

Comiting suicide is abandoning your wife and children in my book. As for comitting suicide, the method comes down to personal preference. For me I think the best way for men is with a gun, for women Heroin.

[KCurtis]

An evil person is one whose acts are evil, just as a rabid dog is one that's infected with rabies. That's by definition. It does not matter if it's their fault or not that they are evil. But Kiki, what point are you trying to make by sweeping their evil-ness under the carpet?



It's "a bit rich" to call such a man evil? And the people who created a system where he could put his insanity into practice without any fear of retribution, they aren't evil? Then who is evil? Once again, what are you trying to prove? What lessons are we supposed to learn from all this?

Good point. I don't understand why the person would be separate from the evil acts either.

[KCurtis]

Comiting suicide is abandoning your wife and children in my book.

No, I MEANT taking your wife and children with you- if you had to. That is always a last resort, I wonder how many families did that.

[mal4mac]

I don't like capital punishment. Capital punishment for me is revenge not justice. And it is cowardly revenge too, it is easy to shoot a man when he is on his knees. I dont see any honor in that type of revenge, and certainly no justice.

If it worked as a deterrent to future tyrants then, surely, it would be justice?

But, as tyrants have usually ended up being hung and it hasn't stopped future tyrants then we need to find better ways - not for any reasons of 'honor' but just because hanging them doesn't seem to act as a deterrent.

The ones who have ended up in the Hague look terribly frustrated during their interminable trials - all their power & money taken away, being confronted daily with the people they tortured, having to put up with all those boring lawyers and legal jargon (!) So maybe that *is* the best way?

Maybe some of them can be "turned"? Only allow them to read the worlds great literature - maybe a few decades "sentence" to reading the Ancient Philosophers, especially their texts on tyrants, could get some of them feeling real contrition?

We need to get lots of pictures of them sobbing with frustration, repudiating their former evil ways, and wishing they had been better people... Of course, to make that real, they would still have to get life sentences and no "easy life" - no fancy food, TV or pool for them...

[Alexander III]

It's "a bit rich" to call such a man evil? And the people who created a system where he could put his insanity into practice without any fear of retribution, they aren't evil? Then who is evil? Once again, what are you trying to prove? What lessons are we supposed to learn from all this?

The lesson we are meant to learn from all this is, that this is man, for better or worse this is who we are, Truth is if mankind did not produce it's Hitlers and genghis Kahns and Robespierres , it could never have produced it's Jesus and Gahndi's and Marcus Aureliuses. What we are meant to learn is that this is man, and what we often forget is that Hitler was not only driven by hate but by love, Love of his nation and people.



But a meek, humble man of honest sense,
Who, preaching peace, does practice continence;
Whose pious life's a proof he does believe
Mysterious truths, which no man can conceive.
If upon earth there dwell such God-like men,
I'll here recant my paradox to them,
Adore those shrines of virtue, homage pay,
And, with the rabble world, their laws obey.

If such there are, yet grant me this at least:
Man differs more from man, than man from beast.

[Darcy88]

Comiting suicide is abandoning your wife and children in my book. As for comitting suicide, the method comes down to personal preference. For me I think the best way for men is with a gun, for women Heroin.

Gun is a bad method. There's a chance you could survive. Hanging can either be the best and least painful or the worst and most agonizing way, depending on if you know what you're doing.

The lesson we are meant to learn from all this is, that this is man, for better or worse this is who we are, Truth is if mankind did not produce it's Hitlers and genghis Kahns and Robespierres , it could never have produced it's Jesus and Gahndi's and Marcus Aureliuses. What we are meant to learn is that this is man, and what we often forget is that Hitler was not only driven by hate but by love, Love of his nation and people.

The Hitlers and Ghengises and Robespierres are the exceptions. Few men harbor such unscrupulously murderous ambitions in their breasts. You are right of course that evil is an essential part of humanity and those utopians who imagine it possible for evil to ever disappear from the face of this earth are naive and blinded by clouds. But a Hitler need not have arisen. If the good men of the time had acted with more courage and conviction that vile weed could have been extinguished before it spread over Europe. That is why this attitude of understanding I see so many show towards evil is downright frightening to me. A tyrant who eliminates all political rights and freedoms and then uses his illegitimately acquired power to wage unjust wars and commit crimes against humanity forfeits his right to our understanding, he marks himself a monster, a dark shadowy piece of fate that must be mercilessly put down.

There was something wrong in the mind of Mengele, but had he not been taught by a professor who conducted the same kinds of experiments on Namibia (I think) and had he not been handed absolute freedom to do what he liked, would he have done it in his private doctor's practice?
Of course his acts were evil, but was he evil himself, though? Clearly there was something wrong with him because he always kept on saying that he was the victim of a mistake of identity, but what did his uni professor, also obsessed with twins, genetics, etc. have to do with his experiments?

I for one am not defending anyone here, I have never denied their responsibility, but only said that calling all of those people evil is a bit rich and that that is profoundly black and white. That has no place in this.

This is what I'm taking about. Kiki, I'm afraid that evil does in fact exist, as do evil persons. Again, its easy to regard so softly a thing we think upon from a distance, but to those millions of Jews who choked to death on gas the matter really was black and white. The men responsible for their situation were evil.

And what about your wife and children? If you committed suicide she would have had to fend for herself. Admittedly she would maybe have got a handsome pension (although I don't know whether suicide qualified for that), but otherwise...
Suicide takes guts.

In all likelihood you would have been as blinded as all the rest and your wife would have been the naïve arm decoration she was supposed to be. Your children would have been the model Aryan children: the nice blonde boy and the girl with the golder tresses and you would not have had the courage to leave them.

No I really wouldn't have been as blind. Hitler's speeches were quite starkly mad. Sure, if I were an entirely different person with a full set of radically altered convictions and passions and temperaments, maybe I might have gone along with the situation. But that is a meaningless point, since I am who I am, that other person wouldn't be me. As political as I am, I would have been one of the first sent to a concentration camp, probably as early as 1933.

And as far as leaving my wife and children, they would probably be better off widowed and orphaned than with a husband and father who openly opposes the policies of the regime in power. Some things are worth more than emotional ties. Transgressing every principle, ever truth and every good I know and hold dear, would be worse than facing death, whatever other things I would have to consider.

I would have enjoyed a hot glowing sense of triumph at being martyred for a cause so worthy as that of opposing Hitler. Far better than dying in a warm bed at age 70 after leading the long comfortable life of a coward.

[kiki1982]

An evil person is one whose acts are evil, just as a rabid dog is one that's infected with rabies. That's by definition. It does not matter if it's their fault or not that they are evil. But Kiki, what point are you trying to make by sweeping their evil-ness under the carpet?

I know all what he did and that is not my point, the man was clearly twisted. HOWEVER, an evil man would not be capable of any good. Yet Mengele gave sweets to his victims. The older ones regarded that as deception, the younger ones not. An evil man would not wish to give sweets, he would just wish to kill or see people killed (and there were some of these around). He received his new victims with asking them to call him 'uncle Mengele'. Pretty digusting if you think of it, although it was not necessary to keep them sweet so to say as they were prisoners anyway. Whether they wanted or not, they were there to experimented upon or could dhe not bear them to cry or something?
The experiments like sterilisation, were carried out already in 1906 in Namibia on indigenous tribes by his teacher, professor Fischer who was later manageing the university of Berlin. That Mr Fischer was also obsessed with twins. You see how far this goes back?

The reason why he was obsessed by Roma children was probably not because they were Roma gypsies, but because they were even worse off in Auschwitz than the rest. They were even less worth than the Jews. It is hard to believe, but they did not receive food or even less than the rest and they had no beds (if I am not mistaken). They were tucked into the furthest barracks and were exempt from working with the rest, locked up only and in the last months left to fend for themselves, they did not even bother to take them with them when the camp was going to be liberated. If he was doing experiments, my guess would be that he would subject them to the worst as they were worth the least.

I tend to agree with Alexander III that this is man. You give one slightly twisted and conditioned personality power over others and he will do this of his own accord. That is what we are meant to learn from this, not call him evil.

The only man who could be evil is the one who does these things by himself, having had no guidance to do so. Like a Breikvik (or however his name is spelled). He is a good candidate. Evil is not the man who has been told for his whole career that Jews are inferior, gypsies the scum of the earth, and that it is ok to do experiments on people.

It's "a bit rich" to call such a man evil? And the people who created a system where he could put his insanity into practice without any fear of retribution, they aren't evil? Then who is evil? Once again, what are you trying to prove? What lessons are we supposed to learn from all this?

I think Alexander III has answered that question the best it could be answered.

[cafolini]

Gun is a bad method. There's a chance you could survive. Hanging can either be the best and least painful or the worst and most agonizing way, depending on if you know what you're doing.



The Hitlers and Ghengises and Robespierres are the exceptions. Few men harbor such unscrupulously murderous ambitions in their breasts. You are right of course that evil is an essential part of humanity and those utopians who imagine it possible for evil to ever disappear from the face of this earth are naive and blinded by clouds. But a Hitler need not have arisen. If the good men of the time had acted with more courage and conviction that vile weed could have been extinguished before it spread over Europe. That is why this attitude of understanding I see so many show towards evil is downright frightening to me. A tyrant who eliminates all political rights and freedoms and then uses his illegitimately acquired power to wage unjust wars and commit crimes against humanity forfeits his right to our understanding, he marks himself a monster, a dark shadowy piece of fate that must be mercilessly put down.



This is what I'm taking about. Kiki, I'm afraid that evil does in fact exist, as do evil persons. Again, its easy to regard so softly a thing we think upon from a distance, but to those millions of Jews who choked to death on gas the matter really was black and white. The men responsible for their situation were evil.



No I really wouldn't have been as blind. Hitler's speeches were quite starkly mad. Sure, if I were an entirely different person with a full set of radically altered convictions and passions and temperaments, maybe I might have gone along with the situation. But that is a meaningless point, since I am who I am, that other person wouldn't be me. As political as I am, I would have been one of the first sent to a concentration camp, probably as early as 1933.

And as far as leaving my wife and children, they would probably be better off widowed and orphaned than with a husband and father who openly opposes the policies of the regime in power. Some things are worth more than emotional ties. Transgressing every principle, ever truth and every good I know and hold dear, would be worse than facing death, whatever other things I would have to consider.

I would have enjoyed a hot glowing sense of triumph at being martyred for a cause so worthy as that of opposing Hitler. Far better than dying in a warm bed at age 70 after leading the long comfortable life of a coward.

Very good. Hitler was indeed a coward. Look at his last two deeds. He knew of the possibility of the bullet failing. So he took the arsenic first. Then, because he knew of the inmense pain of death by arsenic, he shot himself.
But he didn't even care about Eva and gave her only the arsenic so that she couldn't possibly be left alive after his death.

"I will never marry. A woman only sees you as a hero if you do not marry her." ~ Adolf Hitler

Right before death, he pleased her, when he had nothing to lose.

[kiki1982]

The Hitlers and Ghengises and Robespierres are the exceptions. Few men harbor such unscrupulously murderous ambitions in their breasts. You are right of course that evil is an essential part of humanity and those utopians who imagine it possible for evil to ever disappear from the face of this earth are naive and blinded by clouds. But a Hitler need not have arisen. If the good men of the time had acted with more courage and conviction that vile weed could have been extinguished before it spread over Europe. That is why this attitude of understanding I see so many show towards evil is downright frightening to me. A tyrant who eliminates all political rights and freedoms and then uses his illegitimately acquired power to wage unjust wars and commit crimes against humanity forfeits his right to our understanding, he marks himself a monster, a dark shadowy piece of fate that must be mercilessly put down.
This is what I'm taking about. Kiki, I'm afraid that evil does in fact exist, as do evil persons. Again, its easy to regard so softly a thing we think upon from a distance, but to those millions of Jews who choked to death on gas the matter really was black and white. The men responsible for their situation were evil.

They are only the exceptions if man is not condoned to be violent.

Of course evil exists, but it is not embodied in people. That is profoundly philosophical but man is too imperfect to be perfectly evil, therefore there are no evil people, but only people who are somehow disposed to follow evil. Yet they are always capables of being kind.

I think it was a bad thing to execute them all. We could have learned so much of them, yet we killed them and have only their statements from Nuremberg to tell us what they thought. It would have been much better to put them in a room together and eavesdrop. That could have shed a light on what was really going on. But no, they had to die.

The British locked the German military officers they captured up in a nice country estate, gave them proper food and every comfort they might require and then recorded their conversations. After two weeks of this, the secret service was amazed at what they talked about. They were able to learn a lot about how the system worked and what the military actually thought of Hitler at that point. Before Nuremberg, they could have done the same, but no, they absolutely had to die and quickly... It was already bad enough that the two most important people had died.

No I really wouldn't have been as blind. Hitler's speeches were quite starkly mad. Sure, if I were an entirely different person with a full set of radically altered convictions and passions and temperaments, maybe I might have gone along with the situation. But that is a meaningless point, since I am who I am, that other person wouldn't be me. As political as I am, I would have been one of the first sent to a concentration camp, probably as early as 1933.

And as far as leaving my wife and children, they would probably be better off widowed and orphaned than with a husband and father who openly opposes the policies of the regime in power. Some things are worth more than emotional ties. Transgressing every principle, ever truth and every good I know and hold dear, would be worse than facing death, whatever other things I would have to consider.

I would have enjoyed a hot glowing sense of triumph at being martyred for a cause so worthy as that of opposing Hitler. Far better than dying in a warm bed at age 70 after leading the long comfortable life of a coward.

To be honest I don't know what I might have done. I suppose it would have depended on my husband. I think at least I would not have accepted that he do any of this nonsense, but I don't think I would have accepted that he openly protest. Then it would have been emigration. Far enough away.
I would probably not have been the one to hide Jews. However, if I had been in England, I would probably have done something, if I met the right people, as I would have been safe. For me there should always be enough reward to warrant the effort. The threat of being put in prison (as far as I would have known back then) or shot would not have warranted protesting or hiding Jews. Martyrdom in such a way, I find silly. Not because it is not honourable, but because you have done nothing much to improve things either way.

[kiki1982]

"I will never marry. A woman only sees you as a hero if you do not marry her." ~ Adolf Hitler

Right before death, he pleased her, when he had nothing to lose.

I wonder whether he also never married because he was supposed to be this very hard working man, married with the people as it were and constantly busy to improve the life of the people. Or that was the image anyway. Though I don't think that idea - that the Führer is constantly looking out for the people and thinking about the people, even protecting his people - that this can be paired with a marriage. There would be someting between the Führer and his people, a kind of 'second woman' or 'mistress'... That would have been a problem as everyone should have been able to identify with the Führer.

[KCurtis]

The Hitlers and Ghengises and Robespierres are the exceptions. Few men harbor such unscrupulously murderous ambitions in their breasts. You are right of course that evil is an essential part of humanity and those utopians who imagine it possible for evil to ever disappear from the face of this earth are naive and blinded by clouds. But a Hitler need not have arisen. If the good men of the time had acted with more courage and conviction that vile weed could have been extinguished before it spread over Europe. That is why this attitude of understanding I see so many show towards evil is downright frightening to me. A tyrant who eliminates all political rights and freedoms and then uses his illegitimately acquired power to wage unjust wars and commit crimes against humanity forfeits his right to our understanding, he marks himself a monster, a dark shadowy piece of fate that must be mercilessly put down.



I would have enjoyed a hot glowing sense of triumph at being martyred for a cause so worthy as that of opposing Hitler. Far better than dying in a warm bed at age 70 after leading the long comfortable life of a coward.

I don't think any peice of literature could state this any better than you have, truly impressive.