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> As for being "factually wrong", Hitler could just as well be equally vicious while being factually correct. Saying "I know Jews are not pulling the strings, b
by boxed 3y ago
> As for being "factually wrong", Hitler could just as well be equally vicious while being factually correct. Saying "I know Jews are not pulling the strings, but I want to blame and exterminate them anyway because I want to use them as scapegoats" would be factually correct, yet the deeds would be no less evil.
That's a better point. One would have to dig deeper in order to find the factually incorrect idea in this scenario.
It's all about the goal. If the goal was to improve Germany this stance you cited would clearly make him again incorrect about the facts, as the extermination of the Jews hurt Germany.
If the goal was to gobble up power and riches for himself and his cronies, then he was factually incorrect about how powerful the allies were, as that clearly backfired pretty damn badly on him.
I don't see how you can get to any position where Hitler isn't monstrously wrong about something very fundamental. You can be as cynical as you'd like, but at the end he killed himself in a bunker. Clearly that was not his goal!
- the_af 3y agoBut even if Hitler hadn't underestimated the Soviet Union, or if exterminating the Jews had been an actual way to improve Germany, the Holocaust still would have been an evil act.
- boxed 3y agoI mean.. sure. He did try other solutions too like deporting them all. Just that no country would take them. But that's another story.
- developer93 3y agoSo... that's OK then..?
- boxed 3y agoNope. But I think we should all be aware that the anti-semitism was super high at the time in surrounding countries too, that's why he couldn't deport them.
- the_af 3y agoWhat does the prevailing anti-semitism at the time have to do with anything? Let me restate: Hitler would have been wrong about genocide even if it had led to a German utopia. It didn't, but even if it had, genocide is still wrong. There is no world where gassing children, or shooting women holding their kids, is justifiable. Even if this somehow magically leads to an utopia. Some means can never be justified; this is one of them. Hitler's error wasn't that he underestimated the Soviet Union or that Germany ended up in ruins and he had to commit suicide: his error was conducting genocide.
- boxed 3y agoWell I think my point is that the reason he ended up at genocide was logical given the underlying beliefs. His core belief wasn't about genocide, that was downstream from the basic mistake. Like Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." Hitler believed absurdities. The atrocities flowed downstream like water flowing down a hill. Pol Pot and Mao also committed genocide, but they did it by incompetence of a very different sort. I am saying there's a unifying model where we can understand all of these.
- the_af 3y agoI'll grant you this: everyone believes themselves the heroes of their own story. Hitler didn't believe himself a villain; he believed himself a hero. But the moral cannot ever be "according to his underlying beliefs, genocide was logical", or "genocide was wrong because ultimately it didn't help Germany achieve its goals". You can understand why he thought genocide was the right course of action -- understanding people from history should never be taboo -- but you cannot ever justify it as logically consistent. Genocide is always wrong. It's so wrong, it should make anyone stop whenever their thoughts lead down this road. It's the definitive no-no of means, the means that can never be justified by any ends. Hitler may have been wrong about many things, and even right about some, but genocide is definitely always wrong, and we can say that he was a morally broken person because of it.
- the_af 3y agoMost of the Jews the Nazis killed weren't from Germany. Hitler invaded other countries and then enacted the Holocaust in them (well, not just the Holocaust: Slavs were also a favorite target of his).