What are your thoughts on Hitler and the Holocaust?

Question

I'm sorry if it brings back bad memories etc. But I recently read several books on Anne Frank and just wanted others opinion on the Holocaust. Personally I was horrified, Hitler was sick but unfortunately very charasmic. He hated Jews and was a psycho..I'm not good on writing deep thoughts but wow..it was wow, millions died just because of a single man who later commited suicide...sick..Anyways any thoughts, I would like to hear others opinions since this is such a sad topic.

Answer 1

~If you have read only of the Jews, you have no inkling as to what Heydrich and Himmler really did. If you have not read about the Evian Conference and Churchill's and Roosevelt's participation (or lack thereof) in it, you have no clue as to why the Nazi's felt they could safely implement Operation 14f13 without fear of reprisal, or even condemnation, from the world at large. If you have not read Magna Carte, you fail to understand that by the time the Nazi's rolled around, the Jews had been treated as second class citizens in Europe for 1000 years, maybe a few rungs more up the ladder than Blacks in America, but downtrodden by aw and custom all the same. If you have not read the pronouncements of 'Mother Church' or the 'great thinkers' of the western world over the past millennium, you cannot understand how Hitler's beliefs were more the norm than the exception, or why. If you have not read about the Spanish Inquisition, you won't realize that Hitler wasn't even the first to do what the Nazis did. And if you have not read of the exploits of the US Bureau of Indian Affairs or of the British in South Africa in the 1890's you cannot understand where Heydrich and Himmler got their ideas for the camps. If you don't understand the consequences and impact of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, you cannot understand how a demigod such as Hitler could so quickly and completely rise to power in Germany. And if you do not read about Hitler himself and what he did after coming to power you cannot understand why he was named 'Man of the Year, 1938" by Time Magazine.

Unfortunately, the "Holocaust" has become synonymous with the murder of the Jews and it perpetuates the myth that all the Jews died in the death camps and that the death camps were designed exclusively to kill Jews and only Jews. This does a great disservice to the memory of all the other dead. Around18 million died in the camps. About 6 million of them were Jews. 30 million or so Slavs were spared because the Soviet Army repelled Operation Barbarossa and then won at Stalingrad. Stalingrad was the beginning of the end of the war and the defeat of the Germans was a certainty after they lost there. Instead of rounding up the Slavs and marching them into the ovens as had been planned, the Nazis had to devote their energies to their retreat and to the prosecution of a lost war.

You might also want to read a little about the camps. There is a huge difference between the concentration camps and the death camps. Fewer than half of the Jews who died under the National Socialists died in the death camps. Of the rest, many would have been interred in the concentration camps even had they not been Jewish. The would have worn a triangle instead of a star, but the result would have been the same. Read also about Jassenovak. That was a death camp that was not established for the Jews. And check into the number of Serbs who were slaughtered there (check the number as a percentage of the Serb population, then do the same with the Romas.) And give Uncle Sam and the Brits their fair share of the credit. The world's first concentration camps were erected in Tennessee (Van Buren called them Reservations) and the British invented the name 'concentration camp' when they built their hostels during the Boer Wars.

Don't write Hitler off as a madman. It is far too easy to do that, and doing so simply ignores the truth, both about the man and about the society of the times (not just in Germany, not just in Europe, but throughout the Western World). Read what Golda Meir and Haim Weizman had to say after attending the Evian Conference and read about "The Ship of the Damned". Goehring, Himmler and Heydrich had far more to do with the establishment, organization and operation of the camps (concentration and extermination) than Hitler did - by far. Der Fuhrer was too busy running his country and his war to be bothered with the mundane details. But insane? Hardly. Time honored him for a reason. He was a product of his times and his culture but he was in a position to do something about it, and when the world at large gave him the green light at Evian, he and his deputies went forward. But he did NOT devote his energies to the Jews and, had all the plans reached fruition, the body count would have been exponentially higher. The Jews would have constituted an even smaller minority of those killed (both in the extermination camps and in the concentration camps) if the plans for the Serbs, Romas, Poles, Russians and Slavs, to name but a handful, had been carried out.

I don't minimize what happened to the Jews. I am just enraged that the other 12 million actual victims and tens of millions of other intended victims have been forgotten and ignored. And I am appalled that history tries to excuse the entire affair by saying Hitler was mad, placing the blame solely on him and ignoring the part the rest of the world played in the process.

Then leave us not forget what Martin Van Buren, Andy Jackson, William Sheridan and Nelson Miles did, or what Stalin did, or what Mao did, or what Idi Amin did, or what Pol Pot did, or what Shah Pahlavi did, or what the Japanese and Chinese did to each other, or about more than a million Japanese civilians killed by the US bombing of Japanese cities and civilian centers before the needless nukes were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or what Diem did, or what ... well, you get the idea.


Well said, russkimuzhik. Let us not forget the Russian POWs who were killed immediately upon capture or the Russian civilians who were mowed down like wheat at harvest. Of course, some of the 25 million dead Soviet civilians must be credited to Stalin - they were not all Nazi victims.

Hey, we get our ideas from the Bible, right? If God can do it with floods, plagues and pillars of fire, why shouldn't we do it with Zyklon B, smallpox infested blankets, bullets and nukes?

Have a nice day.

Answer 2

As for Adolf Hitler's personality, he was a megalomaniac, a charlatan, a fantastic public speaker, a brute, a kid with a chip on his shoulder, and a man who felt that everything was someone else's fault. The Holocaust cost Hitler the war. The trains carrying the people to the death camps had priority over war machinery and men. The cost of the Holocaust in terms of money did not allow Germany to keep upgrading there weapons. Having lost relatives in the camps, having relatives from the United States fight in World War II and seen the camps first hand, having been to Germany and visiting a camp, having watched the Nuremberg Trials on tape, having met holocaust survivors, having talked to members of the Hitler Youth who said they knew of the camps, etc., there is no way anyone with more then one active brain cell can say that the holocaust never happened. In summation, Hitler was a maniac and the Holocaust was real.

Answer 3

History deserves to be read - whether the memories are good or bad. I agree with Ruski, and gave him thumbs up.

There were many charismatic leaders during the Second World War, it is a true shame how many of their names have been forgotten, yet Adolf Hitler's name keeps getting brought up time after time. I have sympathy for the people of Russia, since millions more Russians died during the war (1941 - 1945) than in the concentration camps. Yet, if one looks here on Yahoo Answers - it's always "Hitler and the Holocaust."

If you read even more about the Pacific War in Asia from 1937 - 1945, you'll also be horrified, since millions also died (and I have sympathy for the Chinese people), and many in some very sick ways. Anyways, these are my thoughts, and I felt quite compelled to share them with you.

Answer 4

Actually, did you know that the first victims of Concentration Camps were political rivals?
About 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. 11 million were killed in all.
Truthfully, I believe what most people think about the Holocaust (Hitler was a psycho, it was real, lots of people died, etc.). But what I'm most annoyed with is the fact that people always think that it was only Jews, when it was only a little over half. The rest were gypsies, homosexuals, communists, Jehovah's witnesses, the mentally disabled, and more.

(Fast Fact: Did you know that Hitler killed his own mentally disabled Aunt?)

Answer 5

Hilter came along at a time when Germany was having severe social and economic problems. There were hundreds of thousands of people out of work, people had little food to eat and losing their homes. You are right, he was extremely charasmatic and he said the right things at the right time. He brought preceived stability to a very unstable country. Also, be prepared for some people on this forum claiming that the Holocaust never happened!

Answer 6

if you think about ideologies they take you long time back to study their origin and their development
in case of Hitler you have to go to Napoleon that he was the man who generated hope among German that Germans can make a great Reich after his defeat there was a setback to this dream
it was completed by Bismark no doubt he was a great man great leader and great leader and great diplomat. but he did a big mistake that he did not make Austria part of that Reich and Austria was having German blood and the base of German Reich was German blood in German Reich
Germany was not alone responsible for world war 1 but he was treated so badly after the war the other nation capture the part of Germans they were to made such a big fine that they were impossible for German Germany was demilitarized while other country have their army it was the cause that made German angry from inner side
in the war and after the war Jews were not having any sympathy for Germany or German they think only about their money only.they were money minded devils.and this was the reason they became aim of Hitler and Germans anger and what happen to holocaust Germans or Hitler was not responsible for it condition were responsible for it

Answer 7

It wasn't just one person who caused this. We have a tendency to blame atrocities, holocausts and genocides on one madman. We blame Saddam Hussein, Stalin, Idi Amin, etc. and call them madmen, but in doing so we put blinders on and fail to see the the key participation of so many others and the circumstances which allowed them to do these horrible things.
If we are to learn from history, we shouldn't be satisfied with simplistic answers. Human beings have done so many awful things to other human beings throughout history. If humanity is to progress, we need to at least try to understand why these things happened.

Answer 8

You will be more sad if you read about blockade of Leningrad.
Hitler didn't hate the Jews only.

You would cry if you read another diary, written by 10-year-old Tanya Savicheva, whose family died one after another.
That was the real diary, never fixed by greedy "editors". Nobody made millions selling it like Otto Frank did.

Answer 9

Hitler was a genius with insanity ideas of is insanity!He has written five fabulous books and published and became senator of his country believing the Third Reich Shall Rise!He should of been incarcerated and electrocuted never for him to stop frying!He hated jews, yes, and he was a jew himself;he was not Austrian.The encyclopedia's are wrong about his heritage.No jew(s) is going to agree with me, and the other their was no Holocaust!They did not create gas chambers for the jews, that is inadequated history,or there was no gas chambers at the time.Neither six million jews were persecuted,only maybe two million jews only,that history is tripping.I know everybody will attack me on this issue;I'm not going to discuss this with anybody on this; I know I'm right!By the way,can you survive a holocaust and tell?Be serious!Point proven.

Answer 10

i was not alive during that time so i only have what i've read to go on but, i'm with you. he was a very sick, sadistic person with a warped sense of reality. his own. it makes me sad each time i think of the horror that those people went through