In re-reading what I wrote this morning, I saw a mistake in one thing I said, I said that Natural Selection had never been used to recommend the murder of the Irish, that was not true because among the 11 million European Jews the Nazis planned on murdering the Jewish citizens of Ireland were among them. Jewish-Irish being citizens of Ireland are as Irish as anyone whose name begins with an Mc.
In response to comments.
That Natural Selection was part of the thinking of the Nazis as they planned their genocide is undeniable as it was mentioned in the minutes to the Wannsee conference by Reinhard Heydrich, specifically in relation to the genocide of the Jews. From the Jewish Virtual Library
One of Heydrich's subordinates, Adolf Eichmann, took minutes, thirty copies of which were evidently distributed among the participants and other interested parties in the following weeks. The only surviving copy, marked No. 16 out of 30, was found in March 1947 among German Foreign Office files by American War Crimes investigators. After that discovery, the minutes, or "Wannsee Protocol," rapidly attained postwar notoriety.
The document's resonance derived above all from the coldly bureaucratic clarity with which it articulated a pan-European plan of genocide. The minutes are summary rather than verbatim, so we cannot be sure of all that was said, but the principal element of the conference was evidently Heydrich's lengthy exposition of past, present, and future policies. Some parts of the minutes were shrouded in euphemism, as when Heydrich discussed what the Protocol refers to as "new possibilities in the East." A table slated 11 million European Jews, listed by country, for inclusion in these "possibilities." Because of such euphemisms, Holocaust deniers among others have claimed that murder was not on the agenda, but elsewhere the Protocol is unequivocal:
In large, single-sex labor columns, Jews fit to work will work their way eastwards constructing roads. Doubtless the large majority will be eliminated by natural causes. Any final remnant that survives will doubtless consist of the most resistant elements. They will have to be dealt with appropriately, because otherwise, by natural selection, they would form the germ cell of a new Jewish revival.
Yeah, but Shirer doesn't mention it, and that's the only history that counts!
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I found my copy of Berlin Diary tonight and haven't had time to read it over. It's kind of long for a quick skim. I recall reading that for a "definitive source" it mentioning missed Kristallnacht, though I have yet to confirm that. I don't remember I did remember and checked his mention of the mass murders of the disabled in surprising detail, especially how an asylum for disabled children, known for its good care of them, under the administration of a Protestant a Pastor von Bodelschwingh. When he was ordered by the SS to hand over children under his care he refused and was ordered arrested. He resisted the attempt to take the children and his asylum was bombed. Of course, that doesn't count either. as he's a faith-head that they can't make into a villain. And, of course, the mass murder of disabled people is "euthanasia". It is interesting that even in 1939 it was known to Shirer's informants that the disabled were being murdered in gas chambers and the bodies cremated, before that technique of mass murder was practiced on other people. But that doesn't count, either.
DeleteI think it's pretty silly to think that a book written before the end of the war was "definitive" or that even his Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, written a half century ago, would stand as definitive today when so much research has been done since then.
I definitely think he wrote from a specific POV, he seems to have wanted to blame things on Fichte, who I'm not that familiar with, so I couldn't say how accurate that seems. Though he did mention that some historians noted the Darwinist features of Hitler's thinking. I think he was rather biased against the idea.
"And so with this mention of the preservation of the species and of the race in Mein Kampf we come to the second principal consideration: Hitler's Weltanschauung, his view of life, which some historians, especially in England have seen as a crude form of Darwinism but which in reality, as we shall see, has its roots deep in German history and thought. Like Darwin but also like a whole array of German philosophers, historians, kings, generals and statesmen, Hitler saw all life as an eternal struggle and the world as a jungle where the fittest survived and the strongest ruled – a “world where one creature feeds on the other and where the death of the weaker implies the life of the stronger.”
I quickly looked through his book, the section that talks about what he said in Mein Kampf. I don't see that he mentions him reading the eugenics textbook of Baur Fisher and Lenz in Landesberg prison, perhaps that information wasn't available to him when he wrote the book. I think a lot of his material is probably out of date in light of other information discovered since then.
Kenneth Branagh's history counts!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZMuOhuB3Wo
I have some very grave reservations about historical fiction, especially in its movie form. Too many people who have been to college think it's history, not to mention people who haven't. And all writers, directors and actors have an agenda that doesn't include an objective or even accurate account based on the primary documentary evidence.
DeleteI'll probably be accused of not having a sense of humor.
ReplyDelete"That Natural Selection was part of the thinking of the Nazis as they planned their genocide is undeniable as it was mentioned in the minutes to the Wannsee conference by Reinhard Heydrich"
Holy shit, Sparky -- you mean the Wannsee conference, which was convened to come up with the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem, was actually convened to plot the murder of every Jew on earth?
How did we all miss this until you figured it out?
Thank you for demonstrating the typical habits of the online atheist class. You are a. illiterate, b. a hypocrite, c. an ass hat. Now it only rests for more of you clique to expand the point, though I'm not going to bother looking in at your salon of silliness and self-congratulation to see it, I've seen it often enough to guess accurately.
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