I happened to think of my friend, Quinten Keynes, talking about the time he went to the Olympic Games in Berlin. He said he heard Hitler on the radio, and that it scared him. This started me thinking. Did Hitler just talk about politics in those famous rallies, or was it a platform to lanch off his prejudices?

Dear jimthedog: I remember hearing Hitler on the radio, but don't remember much about
what he said. Mostly he was bragging about how powerful Germany had become.
Get a copy of his book "Mein Kampf". In translation, of course.

Oh. That makes sense, knowing his character.

I could probably read Mein Kampf in German. I managed to find a dictionary last year. It was printed during the war.

Hitler was an extremely able leader who took a demoralized country and made it great
again. If he had not been so virulently anti-Semitic that he murdered so many innocent
people, he could be admired. We were lucky that he made the fatal blunder of invading
Russia.

Yes. It's too bad some people think like that for no logical reason.

dr bill, i think you comment--Hitler was an extremely able leader who took a demoralized country and made it great again. If he had not been so virulently anti-Semiticis not just simplistic, but wrong.

"the engine" that drove the economy was partly from stealing assets from not just the jews, but many others.. and from killing not just jews (the largest percent of the victims) but also handicapped, mental ill and chronicly ill, who were seen to non-human beings, who drained the econmy.

the jews made up close to 6 million of Hilters 8 to 10 million victims. Homeless (some gypsies, some just homeless) "illegal aliens" (many poles and others) and many of the sick, handicapped, and mental retarded and mentally sick made up the other millions of his victims. the numbers are hard to know, since many of the poor, homeles, and illegals just didn't have documentation.. and still have no one lamenting their passing. No one forgets about the genoside of the jews, because they have tried to make it unforgettable... but no one speaks out much for the gypsies.

the man was not just an anti semite, but a monster. many countries have had anitsematic leaders.. Jews were driving out of england for while (and later, allow in, but as second class citizens) out of spain, (where most if not all of their assest were seized) and else where, but hilter went beyond being an anti semite, and tried to commit genoside, killing not just german jews, but all the jews in europe, as well as 'purifying' european stock of physical and mental "misfits".

this is not a minor character flaw. there is no way he could be admired by any rational person.
his cruelty was not just visited on jews, and can not just be written off as anti semitism (as if some how, anti semitism was well, not nice, but well understandable... and something we all have but have learned not to talk about.. but something we have all come to a gentleman's agreement about.)

the man was cruel and barbaric, and has no worthy traits to admire.

Dear of troy: I repeat what I said: Hitler revitalized a demoralized nation. His methods were not
admirable, and he was in many ways a monster. But as Leo Durocher said, nice guys don't win
ballgames.

Dr. Bill...please don't forget, Hitler's "Master Plan" included the extermination of the entire Slavic race...that's the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Yugoslavs (the Balkans), Bulgarians, Rumanians, Ukrainians, and greater Russia...and then re-populating all of those lands with the Germanic people. That's why he gave the order to "shoot anything that moves" when he invaded Russia and slaughtered 20-50 million people (7 million of those military casualties... the rest innocents). And earlier had ordered the Luftwaffe to strafe tens of thousands of helpless refugees (mostly women and children)on the roads of Poland and Yugoslavia when he invaded those countries. He railed against the "Jew and Slav vermin" in Mein Kampf and other writings and speeches. He was a madman...pure and simple. (that doesn't mean he was wasn't intelligent, attractive, and charismatic...he did possess all those attributes which helped him accrue power). But how he came to power and what he did once he had that power are two different things. Doubtless his thirst for "racial purification" would have spread, if God forbid he had conquered Europe, to the Greeks, the Hungarians, the Italians, the Spaniards, the Portugese, and ultimately the Gallic French and Celts who were not Anglo-Saxon. Yes, we can all be thankful he invaded Russia like a fool...but a big part of that premature decision was the Brits fending him off in the Battle of Britain which discouraged him from his planned invasion of the British Isles across the Channel. Let's tip our hats to our British friends, too. The Blitz they perservered was no picnic. Hitler's original plan was to conquer Britain first, and then to impress the British armed forces for use in his invasion of Russia...but it didn't quite work out that way, did it?

Whit: We had trials of famous dictators in our history class recently. The prosecution in the Hitler trial barely touched on the things besides attacks on Jews. I wonder if anyone else in my class even knew about what you said.

Both sides were rather weak, but the defense was unable to realise that it's Judaism, not Jewism, so I voted guilty. I was also one of two who voted Deng Xiouping guilty.

The death camps, killed six million or so jews, out of almost 10 million killed..
in addition, as german forces moved eastward, they didn't much distinguish between civilians or military targets. the russians, had, like germany a stong central goverment, and good records, so we know more about the numbers. much of poland was rural, and church (baptismal and death) records were more accurate than government reords.. so the tally of the dead in these countries is harder to know.

jewish organizations have made a point about keeping holocast details about jews in the news, so 'everyone' knows about them. but the devistation in europe was pretty wide spread, and got worse and worse as one moved east.

While poland did have large industrial cities (Warsaw and Gdanzt and other) it also had a large rural population. small town and villages, sometimes escaped, other times, were killed... the entire village slaughtered, and building leveled, the whole place whiped of the map.

Yes...the Nazis kept meticulous records and were very methodical about the planned annhilation of the Jews because, unfortunately, the Jews were being used as political scapegoats. Otherwise, wholesale slaughter was as good a method as any, and, as of troy said, it was not uncommon for whole villages to be marched to pits and machine-gunned in the Eastern European countries, even well into German occupation, and sometimes for the smallest infraction. Of course, Hitler's plan for a population the size of the Slavs was one of systematic annihilation, with full utilization of the manpower available before it was expended. The plan was to impress all the Slavic peoples, systematically, as work-slaves and indentured servants, and as the work wore them out, dispose of them (work them to death). Then repopulate those countries with Germanic populations. And, of course, if the madman had conquered and set his designs on wider racial cleansing, it would have, by necessity, been gradual and systematic, not all at once. And that would, of course, meant turning on old "friends" like Italy and Spain (and I guess he'd have chased the Western Turks back across the Bosphorus). The Spanish under Franco might've given him a run for his money...but the rest would've been easy prey. And don't forget that Hitler cynically thought the English would throw in with him early in the war because of their Saxon blood, and a Germanic ruling family...indeed, abdicated King Edward IV(#?) and his US bride Wallis Warfield Simpson were quite chummy with Hitler early on, and used to fly over and visit him regularly. And that's why Hess was sent over in a cynical move to connive the English into the Axis...didn't work, of course. The Brits never had any intention of being guiled into an alliance with that madman. But what if the Nazis had rolled into Britain one way or the other...would they have eventually exiled the non-Aryan Celts...that's the Welsh, the Cornish, the Scots, and Irish-descended Brits over to Ireland (if Ireland would take them all), or ...?
And how long would Hitler had been patient with a Celtic Ireland sitting between his European Empire and a Germanic Iceland? Thank God these are questions we'll never have the answer for! And that's why I cringe whenever I see someone with a Slavic, Irish, or Italian surname in one of these neo-Nazi groups...it's, like, "what are you doing?...the Nazis had no plans for you...well, they did, but..."

Don't forget...Hitler's ultimate dream was a Germanic Europe...period.