Did evolution cause World War II?

Question

Ive read a lot of history books & researched the internet, and Hitler based his views on Darwinism. This is wheregot Hitler got his idea of the "Master Race". If that isnt pure evil i dont know what is.

-please keep all statements short and courteous cause if they are not you are just proving a theory of my own

Answer 1

Hitler was a product of WWI, and, history has shown, quite soft in the head. Hitler took ideas from any philosophy that agreed with his own to try and make them seem "normal" He used, Christianity, Darwinism, and the occult. Bottom line is that the people that he blamed for his own failings were killed because of him and his cronies alone.

Answer 2

Absolutely, there couldn't possibly be a world war if the tiny organisms had not evolved into higher forms of life.
Hitler's idea of a Master Race came from his reading a book about the Aryans by Antoine de Gotineau. Antoine said that the the most typical of the Aryan race are the Teutons . Hitler said that should include all Germans, so he called his people Ariens.
Actually, the name is Aryan, not Arien. An historic Arien is a follower of Bishop Arias.
" Heil und zeig, nie wider krieg " " Rader mussen rollen vor den Sieg ".

Answer 3

>Did evolution cause World War II?

Indirectly, yes. Clearly, if evolution did not happen, then life would never have developed beyond its very first form, and the world would be populated by brown scum in the ocean or something like that. The humans that caused World War II are a result of 3.7 billion years of evolution.

>Ive read a lot of history books & researched the internet, and Hitler based his views on Darwinism. This is wheregot Hitler got his idea of the "Master Race".

The ideology that the nazis based their beliefs on is called 'social darwinism'. Basically, it is the idea that races and societies act just as organisms do, and that over time the most superior races and societies would beat out the inferior ones and rule the world. This idea was also based partly on Friedrich Nietzsche's 'ubermensch'; Nietzsche proposed that eventually humanity would develop into superior beings that would supercede many of the problems that plagued the world in Nietzsche's time and develop a higher form of philosophy that would lead to a highly successful civilization. The nazis believed that the nordic race was closer to being this 'ubermensch' (which is german for 'supermen') than the other races. They felt that purging the world of lesser races and retaining the genetic purity of the nordic race would lead humanity to become ubermensch as quickly as possible, and that this end justified their means (which of course it did not).

>If that isnt pure evil i dont know what is.

Oookay wait one second here. You seem to be suggesting that because the nazis were evil, and because they based their ideology on an extrapolation of biological evolution (an extrapolation which as far as I know Darwin himself never suggested, making 'social darwinism' a somewhat inaccurate term), then automatically belief in evolution of biological organisms is evil. Forgive me if this assumption is wrong- you didn't say that explicitly- but I have seen many similar arguments and so I must suppose for the time being that it is correct. Naturally it is also completely false.

The truth does not take sides; if evolution happened, then believing that it happened is believing in the truth, whether or not such beliefs could potentially lead to evil actions. To illustrate, let's take another example, that of nuclear weapons. Many people would argue that dropping nuclear weapons on Japan at the end of World War II was evil. Of course, we all know that the development and use of nuclear weapons was in part a result of the belief in relativity and the Bohr model of the atom. Does that mean that belief in relativity and the Bohr model is evil, or that by causing evil the the belief is automatically false as well? Of course not! The Universe we live in works a certain way and possesses certain laws of physics, and just because those laws can be used to build devices for evil purposes (nuclear weapons) does not make them automatically false, nor does it make it evil or wrong to believe in them or teach them to other people. Evolution is much the same.

Answer 4

The answer is yes and no, I think your observation is a little too simplified. First, Hitler was either the sole survivor or one of only three survivors of his 1000 man regiment in one battle. (I cannot remember which one) Further he was blinded. He was wounded twice. I do not remember if this second wounding was also the one where his regiment was destroyed.

Hitler wrote that he realized he lived because he was meant to do something very important. He also stated that he survived because he was stronger than his contemporaries. In Darwinian terms, he saw himself as the fittest and appointed by destiny to survive. You should read Mein Kampf.

These are of course religious views and not scientific views. But they certainly come out of social Darwinism. Much as many people incorrectly believe evolution is a "random" process, many people at the beginning of the 20th century saw fittedness as the survival reason when of course the fittest person on that battlefield probably died since being fitted to a specific battlefield at Ypres is not something evolution is good at selecting for. It was a pre-Poincare' and pre-Einstein view of the world. It was deterministic and religious.

Hitler began to blame the Jews, not because of social Darwinism, but by observation during a time between battlefields where he was assigned to the home front in which he saw civilians adamantly opposed to the war. A group, dominated by Jews, did attempt a coup d'etat near the end of the war. Hitler saw this as undermining the German government and that a secret plot had been in place of all the world's Jews. The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion first surfaced in 1897 as an anti-Czarist work. Henry Ford adopted it as well in his writings. It was part of a long background set of beliefs that existed in Europe.

Hitler would later follow his ideas of determinism and social Darwinism and would realize certain races must be inferior and destined to be slaves. Evolution became his justification.

Now, while it could be thought of as causing WWII, or at least supported the justification, it is also then important to look at other movements at the time, such as Taylorism in industry which turned America into a global power. Taylorism has morphed into the field we now call management science, industrial engineering and industrial psychology. It would be no more proper to blame evolution for WWII than it would be to blame the ascent of Japan and Germany following WWII to Taylorism and consequently evolution. Taylorism is social Darwinism engineered in the work place.

Sorry I cannot answer this quickly, but I have never been able to give a short answer to anything. Additionally, I spent, due to occupation, quite some time studying the Holocaust.

A better view would be to look at colonialism, the gold standard, the industrial revolution, and land based societies combined with social Darwinism. WWII was the result of WWI and WWI was the result of a lot of complex arrangements.

I will provide some references:

On the gold standard:

Read any work by the economist Peter Temin:
In particular :
Lessons from the Great Depression

On Taylorism:
* Hugh G. J. Aitken, Scientific Management in Action: Taylorism at Watertown Arsenal, 1908-1915, Princeton University Press, Reprint 1985
* Braverman, Harry, 1974, Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, New York 1974, New Edition: Monthly Review Press, New York 1998, ISBN 0853459401
* Head, Simon : The New Ruthless Economy. Work and Power in the Digital Age, Oxford UP 2005 - Head analyzes current implementations of Taylorism not only at the assembly line, but also in the offices and in medicine ("managed care"), ISBN 0195179838
* Hughes, Thomas P., 2004 American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm 1870-1970. 2nd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0226359271
* Robert Kanigel, 1999 The One Best Way: Frederick Winslow Taylor and the Enigma of Efficiency, Penguin, ISBN 0-14-026080-3
* Fredrick Winslow Taylor, M.E.,Sc.D., 1911 The Principles of Scientific Management, Harper & Brothers.

I cannot provide references on land based societies and the industrial revolution but I just read a great book on it. If I can remember it I will post an edit.

You should also read Karl Marx, Engels and Lenin's works on capitalism. There were a lot of ideas going on at the time we now know won't work, but until they were tried we couldn't understand why they were wrong. Marx and Engels of course can be bought at Barnes and Nobles, but Lenin's can be very difficult to acquire in English.

There are a number of Holocaust libraries in the United States. If I knew where you were I could recommend one. Many are quite good, but most people do not know they exist. Many academic libraries also maintain good collections.

Answer 5

Not the theory of evolution itself, but a diluted and contorted version of it called "Social Darwinism" (from the 19th Century, propounded by Herbert Spencer) that poorly tried to apply a biological theory to culture and ended up constructing a social paradigm of scientific racism that endured into the 20th Century. Hitler may indeed have been a Christian and been allied with the Vatican, but Nazi medical science experiments also attempted to "prove" that people of Semitic heritage were a biologically inferior species of human. It certainly played an incredibly important role in the Second World War, but keep in mind that as a "cause" the Allied nations had little direct knowledge beyond rumours of the Holocaust until relatively late in the war.

Answer 6

In a sense you could say evolution caused WWII, since humans caused the war, and humans evolved out of primitive species.

As to Hitler's psychological state, evolution did not cause his evil, but social Darwinism provided an excuse for his actions.

green_meklar, your response was not exactly short like the asker requested, but it was brilliant.

Answer 7

Hitler basically took what Darwinism said happened in nature, and tried to convert it into a philosophy of 'the way things should be'. (It's called Social Darwinism, when cast in this light.)

Evolution is merely a scientific theory - it doesn't advocate natural selection as some preferred way of doing business. It merely says that's typically what happens in the wild.

Answer 8

This is propaganda put out by some religious groups seeking to discredit evolution theory because it contradicts their theology. The causes of WWII were multi-factoral. Hitler's meglomania, the economic conditions brought about by the Treaty of Versaille, and fascism are a few of the reasons. A discussion of this at link below.

Answer 9

Darwin was just used to justify racism. Racism is older than the Bible, and there are numerous examples of racism in the Bible. The parable of The Good Samaritan refers to a person doing good works despite being a shunned race. The Old Testament is filled with racism regarding oppressing or oppressed groups.

Answer 10

If you say evolution is the reason for Hitlers evil than you're not better than non-believers who claim that religion is the worst thing to happen...

You can't blame a belief on someones actions...