did you know that Hitler was a vegetarian?

Question

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_of_Adolf_Hitler

Answer 1

MYTH: "Hitler was a vegetarian."

FACT: No, he wasn't. Not in the traditional sense of the word. Hitler occasionally reduced his meat consumption because of digestive problems. If you want to call that vegetarianism, you might as well say that all meat-eaters are vegetarian for the eight hours they're asleep each not and not eating meat. Of course, educated people will understand that it's irrelevant that Hitler was vegetarian, but non-vegetarians delight in repeating this myth as though they've made some sort of point.
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Before we see the evidence that Hitler wasn't a vegetarian, it's important to look at where the argument that he was comes from, because it's an argument that's never made honestly. No one who makes that argument ever offers any proof. Rather, they just heard it somewhere and immediately assumed it was true -- much like the idea that Microsoft is conducting an email test and they'll pay you when you forward that message to everyone you know. And yet, if you tell them that Hitler wasn't actually a vegetarian, these same people who instantly believed in Hitler's vegetarianism without question, suddenly demand all manner of proof that he was not.

Why do they require such a high standard of evidence that Hitler was not a vegetarian, when they require no evidence at all that he was? Simple: They want to believe that Hitler was a vegetarian. Many meat-eaters are threatened by vegetarianism because it implies that they're doing something wrong. But armed with the (mistaken) idea that the most infamous butcher ever to live was a veggie, that allows them to easily dismiss the whole concept of vegetarianism in one fell swoop. How convenient. That's why they require no proof when they hear that Hitler was a vegetarian. That idea comforts them, so they're all too happy to latch onto it.

If you think I'm exaggerating about the importance that anti-veggies place on the idea that Hitler was a vegetarian, look at this letter that someone wrote to award-winning author John Robbins, who has written several books promoting a meatless way of eating:

You people who say that we would all be more peaceful if we ate a vegetarian diet always seem to forget that Adolph Hitler was a vegetarian. That pretty well destroys your belief system, doesn't it? (FoodRevolution.org)
My god, take a look at that: It pretty well destroys your belief system?! That's how important Hitler's alleged vegetarianism is to non-veggies.

And this brings up another point: It wouldn't matter even if Hitler had been a vegetarian. That is, it would not "pretty well destroy [our] belief system". Bad people occasionally make good choices. What's so hard to understand about that? Had Hitler actually chosen to be a vegetarian, that would simply have been one of the better choices he made. If Hitler was fond of chess, that wouldn't invalidate chess. In fact, one of the best players in the history of the game, Bobby Fischer, is a raving anti-Semite, but nobody stops playing chess because of that.

And of course, even if Hitler had been vegetarian, likely every single other mass-murderer in history was not. If you were keeping score, that would be, Vegetarian Mass Murderers: 1, and then Non-Vegetarian Mass Murderers: XXXXX.....

And now we come to a curious battle: Hitler vs. Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was a vegetarian only for about a year, from the ages of 16 to 17 (ivu.org, 08016.com), but of course most people don't know that. If a meat-eater is (mistakenly) told that Franklin was a vegetarian, they'll demand to know whether he ever ate meat, and if it's admitted that he did, well, then that's their "Aha!" moment. They'll triumphantly exclaim, "So Franklin wasn't really a vegetarian, was he?!" I'm sad to have witnessed a conversation that actually went that way.

That's important because the same people have much softer criteria for Hitler. Hitler's "vegetarianism" was that doctors tried to put him on a vegetarian diet for health reasons, but he didn't really stick with it. For those desperate to believe that Hitler was a vegetarian, if Hitler ever avoided meat then he was a vegetarian. But the standard for Franklin is different: Franklin has to avoid meat 100% of the time for his entire life otherwise he's not really a vegetarian at all!

Why the inconsistency? Because meat-eaters want to believe that Hitler was a vegetarian and they don't want to believe that Franklin was. It's like if Hitler ever ate a potato then he's a vegetarian while if Franklin ate fish once after sixty years meat-free then he's not.

(To be clear, as we said earlier, Franklin was a vegetarian only for about a year, but most people don't know that. I'm talking about how the standards would be applied for people who don't know.)

So what constitutes being a vegetarian? Most would agree that it's a deliberate decision to not eat meat, for whatever reason. By that criteria Franklin was a vegetarian for a about a year, and for the rest of the time he wasn't. For Hitler, there's no compelling evidence that he stuck with the veggie diet he was prescribed for any appreciable length of time at all.
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Robert Payne is widely considered to be Hitler's definitive biographer. In his book, Hitler: The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler, Payne says that Hitler's "vegetarianism" was a "legend" and a "fiction" invented by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda. According to Payne:

"Hitler's asceticism played an important part in the image he projected over Germany. According to the widely believed legend, he neither smoked nor drank, nor did he eat meat or have anything to do with women. Only the first was true. He drank beer and diluted wine frequently, had a special fondness for Bavarian sausages and kept a mistress, Eva Braun… His asceticism was fiction invented by Goebbels to emphasize his total dedication, his self-control, the distance that separated him from other men. By this outward show of asceticism, he could claim that he was dedicated to the service of his people. In fact he was remarkably self-indulgent and possessed none of the instincts of the ascetic."
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While it is true that Hitler's doctors put him on a vegetarian diet to cure him of flatulence and a chronic stomach disorder, his biographers such as Albert Speer, Robert Payne, John Toland, et al, have attested to his liking for ham sausages and other cured meats. Even Spencer says that Hitler was a vegetarian from only 1931 on: "It would be true to say that up to 1931, he preferred a vegetarian diet, but on some occasions would deviate from it." He committed suicide in the bunker when he was 56 in 1945; that would have given him 14 years as a vegetarian, but we have the testimony to the contrary of the woman chef who was his personal cook in Hamburg during the late 1930s - Dione Lucas. In her "Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook," she records that his favorite dish - the one that he customarily requested - was stuffed squab (pigeon). "I do not mean to spoil your appetite for stuffed squab, but you might be interested to know that it was a great favorite with Mr. Hitler, who dined in the hotel often."
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In their efforts to discredit animal rights activists, supporters of animal research periodically proclaim to the media that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian and that the Nazis did not engage in animal research.

The implication is that these 'revelations' suggest a sinister similarity between Nazis and animal rights 'zealots' and serve as a warning that animal advocates have an anti-human agenda.

But the real story about Hitler and the Nazis is miles from the myth. One legitimate response to such claims is that it doesn't matter whether Hitler was a vegetarian; as Peter Singer said, "The fact that Hitler had a nose doesn't mean we're going to cut our noses off."

Biographical material about Hitler suggests a contradictoriness in reports about his diet. He is often described as a vegetarian who nevertheless had a special fondness for sausages and caviar, and sometimes ham. One of his biographers, Robert Payne ("The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler) took exception to the view of Hitler as an ascetic, and said it was deliberately fostered by the Nazis to project an image of Hitler as pure and dedicated.

Wrote Payne: "Hitler's asceticism played an important part in the image he projected over Germany. According to the widely believed legend, he neither smoked nor drank, nor did he have anything to do with women.

"Only the first was true. He drank beer and diluted wine frequently, had a special fondness for Bavarian sausages, and kept a mistress... "His asceticism was a fiction invented by (Nazi propagandist Joseph) Goebbels to emphasize his total dedication, his self-control, the distance that separated him from other men..." Biographer John Toland ("Adolf Hitler"), describes Hitler's early student diet as consisting of "milk, sausage, and bread."
Moreover, Hitler never promoted vegetarianism as a public policy for either health or moral reasons. His lack of policies and public support for vegetarianism is significant in a leader who rigorously enforced other health policies, such as anti-smoking and anti-pollution legislation, and pregnancy and birthing measures for women.

The rumor that the Nazis passed an anti-vivisection law is also filled with contradictions. No such law was passed, although the Nazis reported that such a law existed. The Nazis allegedly passed an anti-vivisection bill in 1933.

"Lancet," the prestigious British medical journal, reviewed the Nazis' law in 1934 and warned anti-vivisectionists not to celebrate because the Nazis' law was no different, in effect, from the British law that had been passed in 1876, which restricted some animal research, but hardly eliminated it. An enormous amount of research on animals continued to be carried out by Nazi doctors.

The evidence of Nazi experiments on animals is overwhelming. In "The Dark Face of Science," author John Vyvyan summed it up correctly:

"The experiments made on prisoners were many and diverse, but they had one thing in common: all were in continuation of or complementary to, experiments on animals. "In every instance, this antecedent scientific literature is mentioned in the evidence, and at Buchenvald and Auschwitz concentration camps, human and animal experiments were carried out simultaneously as parts of a single programme."
It is important that the facts be known so that the myths about Hitler and the Nazis cannot be used against the animal rights and vegetarian movements.

Animal rights advocates should not let these false claims appear in the media unchallenged. The record must be set straight.

Answer 2

it is unknown no remember if or not he replace into certainly an entire vegetarian. yet that incredibly isn't significant. human beings oftentimes use the reality that Hitler replace right into a vegetarian as the thank you to declare that vegetarianism is undesirable. whether, that argument is incorrect. The argument that because of the fact Hitler would have been a vegetarian, vegetarianism could be undesirable, is an occasion of an argumentum advert Hitlerum logical fallacy.

Answer 3

He was also an artist.
Is there a point to this?
Some people do evil; some people do good. Did you know 99% of all serial killers ate meat?

As a side note, wikipedia is not a credible source... that was drilled into me throughout college. Wiki is written by *average joes.* Anyone can add; anyone can edit. Popular thoughts and knowledge are not fact. It would be like siting the things we say here on Y!Answers as fact for some other purpose.
Dot-coms are sketchy too as they have commercial sponsors.
Best to stick with dot-orgs and dot-govs.

Answer 4

Yes read it in HITLER'S TABLE TALK: 1941-1944. Enigma Books.

This book is the most significant record of Hitler's mind and character in existence. … It must be read, to understand the inner workings of a mind capable of genocide. A rare and revealing look into a repellent mind.

Not meaning that being vegetarian leads always to the same extremes LOL!

Answer 5

Yes, it is well documented that Hitler was a vegetarian. Amazing that he would not eat animals but he would authorize the slaughter of humans. Before he committed suicide he tested the poison on his pet dog Blondie. It just goes to show the mind of a disturbed person.

Answer 6

yep. and so was gandhi and einstein. do either facts have any relevance to whether or not one should be a vegetarian? I would hope not. When you choose to do something or not do something, it should be based on the merits of the issue itself, not on which famous people did it.

Answer 7

Whether it's true or not it is reminiscent of the fact that there are certainly vegetarians with a psychotic concern for animal welfare but not a corresponding concern for human welfare.

Another tell-tale sign of the psychopathology involved.

Answer 8

There is no proof of that. It's all here say.

Wikipedia?? LOL..you are kidding me? Did you know that the articles are just written by people like you and me and can be edited by anyone just by logging in? Believing everything on that site is just like believing everything you read on this site. The facts listed on wikipedia are not proven half the time.

Answer 9

Ya did u know he killed 6 million jews and started the second world war.

Answer 10

That's a myth. He was on a diet that was supposed to include less meat and more vegetables and fruits. His doctors put him on this diet to help with stomachaches and other digestive problems. He ate German sausage until the day he died.

Answer 11

Yes
Just goes to show that being vegetarian does not mean you are a good person.