Audio Version
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| Hitler? More like Shitler! |
Today we enter “The Twelve Days of Hitler,” the period between the anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler (20th April) and the anniversary of the announcement of his death (1st May). It’s a bit like Black History Month for 1488ers, but many other people also take an interest.
One problem with evaluating Hitler is that, for many people, he is all that they know about German history, so he exists in kind of de-contextualized, detached, and over-dramatized space that is more mythic than historical. This may be one reason he is viewed as either uniquely good or, more commonly, uniquely evil. To get beyond this, it is important to see him in the context of the wider flow of German history.
When considering him in this way, the thing that strikes me most about him is not how exceptional he was, but instead how consistent he was with the rest of German history.
This opinion will inevitably surprise some, but the essence of Hitler is not his Antisemitism, his hatred of Communism, or even WWII. Whatever he did to the Jews, the Soviet Union, and Europe in general between 1938 and 45 are merely details. The real essence of Hitler was a kind of overstretch, lack of proportion, and deformity of purpose and effort. In other words, what he did he did too much or too little, and with a lack of "tone," balance, and sense of the bigger picture. Why else would he end up declaring war on three superpowers? One is reminded of Oscar Wilde's famous witticism about losing parents:
More importantly, this is exactly the recurring characteristic of German history that we see time and again, from the period when a German state – Prussia – first began to dominate German history to the modern day race-suicide-by-mass-migration overseen by Angela Merkel. In short, the Germans have always been a bit “iffy.”
Hitler’s extremism, his lack of proportion, and his inability to find balance are sometimes "explained" – or even "justified" – by referring to the “brutal” peace of Versailles that involved heavy financial reparations and the loss of colonies and much territory. The English economist John Maynard Keynes famously described this as a "Carthaginian Peace," comparing it to the extremely harsh terms the Romans imposed on their defeated Punic rivals:
More interestingly, Germany's path to war in WWI has similar characteristics to its path to war in WWII, and even to post-war German history – the same sweaty mania and tendency to overdo things – suggesting that something inherent in the nature of Germans was the cause of WWII, rather than merely the petty vindictiveness of Monsieur Clemenceau at Versailles.
Just as Hitler was pushing too fast and too far in the 1930s, so too was Kaiser Wilhelm in the years leading up to 1914. There, too, we see the same indelicate haste, arrogance, and insensitivity, something that is also mirrored in the present age with Angela Merkel and her über-signalling on migrants.
Kaiser Wilhelm, Hitler, Angela Merkel, and even the string of German post-war leaders who helped turn Germany’s military blitzkrieg into a manufacturing and export-driven "economic miracle," all share the same essential characteristic, namely a reckless desire to do whatever they do, as intensely and fanatically as possible, to the point where it ultimately causes terrible blow-back.
Thanks to the wise guidance of Bismarck, the one great German leader exempt from this lamentable tendency to push things too far, Germany, by the end of the 19th century, was – economically, industrially, and politically – an emerging giant. This giant was seeking its place at the top table, along with the established powers like Great Britain and France. This drive to push the older powers aside was encapsulated in the phrase a "place in the sun," meaning that Germany too wanted its slice of the colonial pie.
Apologists for Germany argue that the British – often referred to as "Anglo-Jewry" – were bent on stifling Germany’s "natural ascendancy." Interestingly, these often anti-Semitic narratives tend to downplay the fact that German society at that time was much more "Jewed" than Britain’s, with 615,000 German Jews to 275,000 in the UK in 1910. Indeed, a case could be made that the British victory in WWI was that of a "Goyish nation" over a "Germano-Jewish entity."
But the truth is that Britain had no wish to crush Germany. The royal families were closely connected, as were the economies. As a laissez-faire nation, Britain wanted to avoid expensive alliances and military entanglements. Indeed, a strong Germany even served Britain’s interests as a useful counterweight to two dangerous traditional enemies, France and Russia.
In the same way that Britain gradually acceded to the rise of America in the 20th century, it would have been willing to countenance the gradual rise of Germany in the early 20th century, as long as the Germans had acted with tact, consideration, and proportionality. This was precisely the reason there had been so few difficulties with Germany during Bismarck’s chancellorship (1862-90), as he was the diplomat par excellence. The problem, however, was Kaiser Wilhelm’s impetuosity, impatience, and disregard for the accepted way of doing things – or, in a phrase much used in those days, his "bad form."
Hemmed in by other major European powers, Germany sought to expand overseas through the acquisition of colonial possessions. Britain, the nation that ruled the seas, smiled on this, allowing Germany to quickly acquire a string of colonies – Kamerun (1884), Togoland (1884), German South-West Africa (1884), German New Guinea (1884), German East Africa (1885), Kiautschou (1898), and German Samoa (1900). But, dissatisfied with this, Kaiser Wilhelm decided to aim for nothing less than German naval supremacy, and ordered a massive expansion in the Kriegsmarine. This was an obvious existential threat to a naval power like Britain, and effectively pushed her into alliance with Germany’s less nautically aggressive neighbours, France and Russia, thus ensuring Germany’s ultimate defeat in WWI.
Just as Kaiser Wilhelm’s shrill, overwrought Germanism was the driving force behind the horrors of WWI, so Hitler’s unhinged revanchism was the factor leading to WWII.
Many 1488ers like to share the meme about the "Jewish declaration of war on Germany" in 1933. This is a story from the Daily Express newspaper reporting on a Jewish campaign to boycott Germany. Obviously that didn’t work out, as the German economy was doing better than ever several years later. The Jews were, of course, unable to declare an actual war on Germany as they didn’t have their own state, unless you want to count the Soviet Union, where, I believe, one of the twelve members of the ruling Politburo was Jewish.
Also, the Jews were in a poor position to persuade other "Goys" to fight Germany. In the wake of WWI, pacifism was strong, with powerful supporters across the West. It was only Hitler’s excessive exploitation of this anti-war feeling that finally rekindled the will of Europeans to resist further German expansion; and an all-out invasion of Poland in conjunction with the Soviet Union that forced the reluctant hand of the Western allies. In short, Hitler had plenty of options and was making great progress, when his "inner German" got the better of him and madness ensued.
But, just as Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler’s political incontinence caused problems that then collapsed in on Germany, so the political recklessness of Hitler’s successors created the aberration of post-war Germany, an entity that sought "blitzkrieg by other means," namely through a combination of extreme moral signalling and insane over production with deleterious effects on society.
The moral signalling led to dangerous levels of ethnomasochism, feminism (aka "low birth rates"), tolerance for perversions, as well as a bloated, Culturally-Marxist "Green" party. The over-production led to a stress-ridden, workaholic society, beset with constant currency overvaluation and devaluation of its own people. This resulted in an unbalanced, self-loathing society, with the lowest birth rate in the world, that is now in the process of replacing its own population with Third Worlders.
If any people or ethnicity should ever be told to "dial it back a bit," it is clearly the Germans. Whatever they do, they end up overdoing, lurching to extremes, and trying too hard. The result is that things get pushed out of their natural form to become lopsided and skewed. Hitler is merely one of many examples of German leaders who exemplify this tendency; Merkel merely the latest.
But what accounts for this remarkable tendency and how can it be stopped?
The first of these questions is the most baffling. I am inclined to suspect it may even be a psychological tendency, inculcated in them by the ungodly grammar of their native tongue, which renders the use of syntax – a strong element of form in the English language – largely unnecessary in theirs.
One problem with evaluating Hitler is that, for many people, he is all that they know about German history, so he exists in kind of de-contextualized, detached, and over-dramatized space that is more mythic than historical. This may be one reason he is viewed as either uniquely good or, more commonly, uniquely evil. To get beyond this, it is important to see him in the context of the wider flow of German history.
When considering him in this way, the thing that strikes me most about him is not how exceptional he was, but instead how consistent he was with the rest of German history.
This opinion will inevitably surprise some, but the essence of Hitler is not his Antisemitism, his hatred of Communism, or even WWII. Whatever he did to the Jews, the Soviet Union, and Europe in general between 1938 and 45 are merely details. The real essence of Hitler was a kind of overstretch, lack of proportion, and deformity of purpose and effort. In other words, what he did he did too much or too little, and with a lack of "tone," balance, and sense of the bigger picture. Why else would he end up declaring war on three superpowers? One is reminded of Oscar Wilde's famous witticism about losing parents:
"To go to war with two major powers may be regarded as a misfortune; to go to war with all three looks like carelessness."
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| Frederick "the Gayed" |
Hitler’s extremism, his lack of proportion, and his inability to find balance are sometimes "explained" – or even "justified" – by referring to the “brutal” peace of Versailles that involved heavy financial reparations and the loss of colonies and much territory. The English economist John Maynard Keynes famously described this as a "Carthaginian Peace," comparing it to the extremely harsh terms the Romans imposed on their defeated Punic rivals:
"Two rival schemes for the future polity of the world took the field—the Fourteen Points of the President, and the Carthaginian Peace of M. Clemenceau. Yet only one of these was entitled to take the field; for the enemy had not surrendered unconditionally, but on agreed terms as to the general character of the Peace."In this view, Hitler’s reckless and doomed career of revenge, geopolitical over-ambition, and military overstretch were all forced on him by this supposedly unjustified national humiliation. But, actually, Germany had been defeated militarily – relatively fairly and squarely – and was hardly the first beaten country to be subjected to onerous peace terms, which, in effect, were imposed rather laxly, as proved by Hitler's subsequent career.
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| Kaiser Bill - nice hat! |
Just as Hitler was pushing too fast and too far in the 1930s, so too was Kaiser Wilhelm in the years leading up to 1914. There, too, we see the same indelicate haste, arrogance, and insensitivity, something that is also mirrored in the present age with Angela Merkel and her über-signalling on migrants.
Kaiser Wilhelm, Hitler, Angela Merkel, and even the string of German post-war leaders who helped turn Germany’s military blitzkrieg into a manufacturing and export-driven "economic miracle," all share the same essential characteristic, namely a reckless desire to do whatever they do, as intensely and fanatically as possible, to the point where it ultimately causes terrible blow-back.
Thanks to the wise guidance of Bismarck, the one great German leader exempt from this lamentable tendency to push things too far, Germany, by the end of the 19th century, was – economically, industrially, and politically – an emerging giant. This giant was seeking its place at the top table, along with the established powers like Great Britain and France. This drive to push the older powers aside was encapsulated in the phrase a "place in the sun," meaning that Germany too wanted its slice of the colonial pie.
Apologists for Germany argue that the British – often referred to as "Anglo-Jewry" – were bent on stifling Germany’s "natural ascendancy." Interestingly, these often anti-Semitic narratives tend to downplay the fact that German society at that time was much more "Jewed" than Britain’s, with 615,000 German Jews to 275,000 in the UK in 1910. Indeed, a case could be made that the British victory in WWI was that of a "Goyish nation" over a "Germano-Jewish entity."
But the truth is that Britain had no wish to crush Germany. The royal families were closely connected, as were the economies. As a laissez-faire nation, Britain wanted to avoid expensive alliances and military entanglements. Indeed, a strong Germany even served Britain’s interests as a useful counterweight to two dangerous traditional enemies, France and Russia.
In the same way that Britain gradually acceded to the rise of America in the 20th century, it would have been willing to countenance the gradual rise of Germany in the early 20th century, as long as the Germans had acted with tact, consideration, and proportionality. This was precisely the reason there had been so few difficulties with Germany during Bismarck’s chancellorship (1862-90), as he was the diplomat par excellence. The problem, however, was Kaiser Wilhelm’s impetuosity, impatience, and disregard for the accepted way of doing things – or, in a phrase much used in those days, his "bad form."
Hemmed in by other major European powers, Germany sought to expand overseas through the acquisition of colonial possessions. Britain, the nation that ruled the seas, smiled on this, allowing Germany to quickly acquire a string of colonies – Kamerun (1884), Togoland (1884), German South-West Africa (1884), German New Guinea (1884), German East Africa (1885), Kiautschou (1898), and German Samoa (1900). But, dissatisfied with this, Kaiser Wilhelm decided to aim for nothing less than German naval supremacy, and ordered a massive expansion in the Kriegsmarine. This was an obvious existential threat to a naval power like Britain, and effectively pushed her into alliance with Germany’s less nautically aggressive neighbours, France and Russia, thus ensuring Germany’s ultimate defeat in WWI.
Just as Kaiser Wilhelm’s shrill, overwrought Germanism was the driving force behind the horrors of WWI, so Hitler’s unhinged revanchism was the factor leading to WWII.
Many 1488ers like to share the meme about the "Jewish declaration of war on Germany" in 1933. This is a story from the Daily Express newspaper reporting on a Jewish campaign to boycott Germany. Obviously that didn’t work out, as the German economy was doing better than ever several years later. The Jews were, of course, unable to declare an actual war on Germany as they didn’t have their own state, unless you want to count the Soviet Union, where, I believe, one of the twelve members of the ruling Politburo was Jewish.
 |
| Slow news day. |
But, just as Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler’s political incontinence caused problems that then collapsed in on Germany, so the political recklessness of Hitler’s successors created the aberration of post-war Germany, an entity that sought "blitzkrieg by other means," namely through a combination of extreme moral signalling and insane over production with deleterious effects on society.
The moral signalling led to dangerous levels of ethnomasochism, feminism (aka "low birth rates"), tolerance for perversions, as well as a bloated, Culturally-Marxist "Green" party. The over-production led to a stress-ridden, workaholic society, beset with constant currency overvaluation and devaluation of its own people. This resulted in an unbalanced, self-loathing society, with the lowest birth rate in the world, that is now in the process of replacing its own population with Third Worlders.
But what accounts for this remarkable tendency and how can it be stopped?
The first of these questions is the most baffling. I am inclined to suspect it may even be a psychological tendency, inculcated in them by the ungodly grammar of their native tongue, which renders the use of syntax – a strong element of form in the English language – largely unnecessary in theirs.
Perhaps in this "one simple trick" lies the difference between the equilibrium of the Anglo mind and the characteristic lopsidedness and tendency towards extremism of the German. Someone more gifted in that atrocious language than me will have to study the matter in greater depth.
As to the solution, perhaps what is needed is something akin to the unjustly infamous Morgenthau Plan. Namely the splitting up of Germany into smaller political units, so that its unbalanced drives – both in peace and war – can be weakened and dissipated, as they were for a thousand years before the rise of Prussia, Hitler, and Angela Merkel by the mosaic of the Holy Roman Empire, the best "form" for the German people!
As to the solution, perhaps what is needed is something akin to the unjustly infamous Morgenthau Plan. Namely the splitting up of Germany into smaller political units, so that its unbalanced drives – both in peace and war – can be weakened and dissipated, as they were for a thousand years before the rise of Prussia, Hitler, and Angela Merkel by the mosaic of the Holy Roman Empire, the best "form" for the German people!
Affirmative Right
April, 2016
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