Hitler never sought other’s approval growing up, or during his years in Vienna. He was always self assured that he was going to be the world’s best artist, that he would get into the Arts Academy. Hitler lead a relatively dismal existence, subsisting off of government paychecks and the generosity of others. It became obvious that other’s opinions of him meant very little to his own self-esteem. He had enough confidence to make up what he lacked in material belongings. It wasn’t until after fighting in World War I that Hitler began to get high acclaims from others.
In this week’s chapters Kershaw tried to explain the development of antisemitism within Hitler. I believe that we will never fully understand why or what event cause such hatred of Jews, because that hatred was irrational.
Each statistic that Hitler states as a reason to dislike Jews does not seem to be historically accurate. Jews served in the military in the proper percentages according to the population at the time. For some unknown reason, Hitler decided to take out his anger on the Jewish population. Any attempts of Hitler to explain his devout antisemitism do not seem historically accurate.
Hitler's hatred of the Jewish race wasn't logical or rational. There was no reason for Hitler to blame the Jews for Germany's problems.
The most overbearing aspect of Hitler’s attitude is his inability to accept responsibility. It was a theme in the first chapters of the book, and Hitler continues this well into his political career. He evades military service as a young man, and when caught, further hesitates to take responsibility and admit wrong doing. As a politician, he lives off of his party and manipulates his followers into engaging in his wishes. He uses Jews as a scapegoat for Germany’s problems, much like he blames everybody else for his problems.
What makes the least sense to me (and what would have surprised the most of I did not know the course of history) is how people followed Hitler. I don't think it was a singular thing, people followed Hitler in masses; something that he was saying resonated within them and drove them to action.
After WWI, The globe's introduction to modern warfare, we promised ourselves 'never again.' Yet, people allowed themselves to be driven into a genocide (the Holocaust). And multiple genocides have occurred since the Holocaust. As humans, we like to tell ourselves that we will never let such a tragedy happen again, but we have failed before and I wonder if we are failing again. There are ethnic conflicts, and just plain conflicts happening right now: is one of them going to be he next 'never again'?
In this week’s chapters Kershaw tried to explain the development of antisemitism within Hitler. I believe that we will never fully understand why or what event cause such hatred of Jews, because that hatred was irrational.
Each statistic that Hitler states as a reason to dislike Jews does not seem to be historically accurate. Jews served in the military in the proper percentages according to the population at the time. For some unknown reason, Hitler decided to take out his anger on the Jewish population. Any attempts of Hitler to explain his devout antisemitism do not seem historically accurate.
Hitler's hatred of the Jewish race wasn't logical or rational. There was no reason for Hitler to blame the Jews for Germany's problems.
The most overbearing aspect of Hitler’s attitude is his inability to accept responsibility. It was a theme in the first chapters of the book, and Hitler continues this well into his political career. He evades military service as a young man, and when caught, further hesitates to take responsibility and admit wrong doing. As a politician, he lives off of his party and manipulates his followers into engaging in his wishes. He uses Jews as a scapegoat for Germany’s problems, much like he blames everybody else for his problems.
What makes the least sense to me (and what would have surprised the most of I did not know the course of history) is how people followed Hitler. I don't think it was a singular thing, people followed Hitler in masses; something that he was saying resonated within them and drove them to action.
After WWI, The globe's introduction to modern warfare, we promised ourselves 'never again.' Yet, people allowed themselves to be driven into a genocide (the Holocaust). And multiple genocides have occurred since the Holocaust. As humans, we like to tell ourselves that we will never let such a tragedy happen again, but we have failed before and I wonder if we are failing again. There are ethnic conflicts, and just plain conflicts happening right now: is one of them going to be he next 'never again'?
I must agree with you, I have thought the same thing about the masses of people who followed Hitler. Especially with well educated college students and women. People you would not necessarily think would follow someone with with such hateful narrow-minded beliefs.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that we may never truly be able to understand his irrationally hatred of the Jewish population. Despite how hard we try to think about it, even with the help of Kershaw's book. We are looking at something in hindsight, an event that seems unfathomable to us, and we will never truly know how those people felt during that time period. And what kind of swayed people to follow these ideas Hitler spewed.
In the book it even made it seem like Hitler just up and wanted to go into politics after the war. Despite having no background or any connections to even attempt to go into politics. This seems to be a personality trait of his.
After reading this post, I agree with Marina that Hitler was self-centered in a sense in that he only cared for his own opinions, touting them as the best and the most logical ideas. It’s true that in his early years, Hitler had many grandeur ideas; such as his lottery plan, his idea to design Vienna into a better city, and his long lasting dream of becoming a famed artist, but lacked the sufficient talent to achieve these ideas. However, as Marina stated, it wasn’t until after the World War where Hitler’s grandiose ideas were seen not only as logical by himself, but also by the masses.
ReplyDeleteThe loss of the First World War deeply affected not only Hitler, but also the German nation as a whole. Before the War, German patriotism ran high, the success of the idea of Pan-Germanism and German cultural superiority spurred the beginning of the war. However, Germany was eventually defeated, leading to a population of emotionally and physically drained Germans, looking for a reason as to why they had lost the war.
This brings into the point of Kershaw explaining the development of anti-Semitism within Hitler. Although I agree with the sentiment that “we will never fully understand why or what event caused such hatred of Jews, because that hatred was irrational”, I think it is important to note that this strong anti-Semitism was not only present in Hitler, but in many of the German people. Kershaw states that “In the search of scapegoats, Jews increasingly became the focus of intensified hatred and aggression from the middle of the war onwards.” A new wave of volkisch anti-Semitism arose in Germany during the war. By the end of the war, “anti-Semitic hysteria, whipped up by the Pan-Germanists, reached fever pitch.
Although undeniable the illogical and irrational hatred of the Jewish race of Hitler, I found it important to note that Hitler did not come up with the idea of the Jewish scapegoat, but rather, Hitler strongly agreed with these sentiments and developed his own world view upon them. In turn, many of the confused German population listened to Hitler’s ideals and agreed. I find it most appalling not that Hitler had these radical anti-Semitic sentiments, but rather the fact that the masses listened to these ludicrous accusations of the Jews, and agreed.
Lastly, I’m in complete agreement of the “overbearing aspect of Hitler’s attitude is his inability to accept responsibility. It seems that throughout his life, he blamed external factors for his lack of success. It comes to no surprise that he would look for an external factor to blame after Germany had lost the war, which Hitler himself claimed “to be the best years of his life”.