Hitler, Genius or no?

[MKFaizi]

Going back to the idea of Hitler as genius:

I keep seeing the photograph of Hitler with Geli. He is lolling about on a lounge chair with the very young woman at his side. He looks like he is giggling and curling his toes.

He looks like a cunt.

Big cunt. Like you could shove a huge dick down his throat and jack off and he would not even notice.

Sorry for the vulgarity. But I think this photograph reveals his "womanish" nature.

Faizi

[La Verdad]

The genius contains the complete idea of woman within himself as well, he may be acting feminine in that one moment, though the rest of the time, he appears and sounds anything but effeminate.

http://www.captain-america.us/images/wa ... hitler.jpg

then again there's moments like these:
http://www.axishistory.com/fileadmin/us ... rhosen.gif

so go figure ^_^

[MKFaizi]

I have not yet looked at the links you posted. I will.

I think he looked very "womanish" with his gesticulations and foot stomping.

How did you come to hero-worship Hitler? What do you find in him of greatness?

Ultimately, he is a mere footnote in world history.

I do not mean that as an insult to you. I just wonder why you are attracted to this chorus girl.

Faizi

[MKFaizi]

I looked.

Oh, ha ha.

Why do you worship him? Why do you consider him genius?

Faizi

[La Verdad]

I looked.

Oh, ha ha.

Why do you worship him? Why do you consider him genius?

Faizi

Actually in the post that started this thread I end concluding he wasn't a genius, I just wanted thoughts on it.

Ultimately though his biggest 'claim' to genius would be that he lives "in and through his soul" (as Weininger put it) to a much greater degree than most men ever do.

I agree with Carlyle that Hero-Worship is vastly underrated though between the Nerobefehl and the Holocaust he can't accurately be considered a Hero to either side.

By March 1945, Allied forces had penetrated deep within Germany and were poised to launch their final assault on the Third Reich. Adolf Hitler was determined that the Allies should not make use of captured German infrastructure, and on March 19, 1945, he issued a decree entitled "Demolitions on Reich Territory." It has subsequently become known as the Nero Decree, after the Roman Emperor Nero, who was supposed to have engineered the Great Fire of Rome in 64 CE. Its most pertinent section reads as follows:

It is a mistake to think that transport and communication facilities, industrial establishments and supply depots, which have not been destroyed, or have only been temporarily put out of action, can be used again for our own ends when the lost territory has been recovered. The enemy will leave us nothing but scorched earth when he withdraws, without paying the slightest regard to the population. I therefore order:

1. All military transport and communication facilities, industrial establishments and supply depots, as well as anything else of value within Reich territory, which could in any way be used by the enemy immediately or within the foreseeable future for the prosecution of the war, will be destroyed.

The decree was in vain. The man most responsible for carrying it out was Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments and War Production. Appalled at the order, Speer deliberately failed to carry it out, shrewdly persuading Hitler that his planned - albeit imaginary - recovery of the lost territory could be done without the destruction of its assets. Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, 32 days after issuing the order. Speer handed himself to the allied authorities on 7 May 1945, on which date Admiral Karl Dönitz, Hitler's successor, signed an unconditional surrender.

Wikipedia

[MKFaizi]

Regardless of what you wrote at the beginning of this thread, I think that you consider Hitler to be genius.

He was a political genius because he well understood how to exploit fear. In that way, he is kindred to George W. Bush and thousands of other politicians. Hitler took the usual political megalomania to the point of deity. The German people allowed him to do that.

Are you also fascinated with Mao and Nixon and Ghandi and Bush? Attaturk? Ali Bhutto? Nehru? Thatcher?

If you did not consider Hitler to be possible genius, why did you devote a thread to him?

Faizi

[jmack]

"Up to now, most scientists have been too occupied with the development of new theories that describe what the universe is to ask the question why. On the other hand, the people whose business it is to ask why, the philosophers, have not been able to keep up with the advance of scientific theories....

However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should be in time understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, are able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God."

—Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

I was tempted to write a comedic entry on the genius or lack thereof of Adolph Hitler. But ther very thought of it put me in mind of that brilliant Gene Wilder, Zero Mostel movie in which two nebbishes attempt to produce a total flop of a braodway play in which they can sell three-thousand percent intererest, and profit from the loss. Only trouble is the public misses the point and adores their foray into tastelessness "Springtime for Hitler." So I plan dour.

I have heard the term genius bandied about all my life. There is even an attempt to quantify it by assigning the level to a score on a test. I have come within a point or two of that level on the test myself, but know I am not there yet since I contine to struggle to solve the Friday and Saturday NY Times crosswords. That is life. I know the score is just that only a number that someone with test taking skills can manipulate.

I have personally met only one person in my life whom I thought was a bonafied genius, and he was a drunk when not geniusing. And his death was the result of a very stupid thing. The doctor told him that the next time he got drunk it might kill him. He realized well into the drunk what was happening, and had a nephew drive him to a hospital fifty miles to escape the embarrassment of dying drunk in front of that doctor.

I don't like the term "evil genius" for a philosophical discussion, not because I don't believe in evil. I think evil is very real. I have met it and felt it several times in my life and it is horrible. Anyone who has read "Night" by Elie Weisel, has had a blast furnace feel of it, more horrid than all the photographs of the death camps can provide. Maybe in the mind of the man who masterminded the short-lived self-destructive master race had some evil genius. It wasn't in foreign policy. It wasn't military strategy. (he had some of the finest tactical and strategic generals in the world, and when ever they did well, he went out of his way to contramand them). He had a strange moment in history where his perverted political message seemed to strike the right chord, and he made it harmonize with the rivial of the pagan teutonic ideal p[lus the age-old bugabear of Jew-baiting. What ensued was the most terrible, destrucftive, cruel war in human history, one in which the scientific geniuses of thee nations raced each other to be the first to develop and atomic bomb.

But Hitler's rise seems more a product of an amazingly inept post-bellum German political structure, a worldwide depression, and extremely short-sighted political vindictiveness on the part of the winners of the first World War. Hitler was one of those unexplainable crazes, like Sinatra or the Beatles. The man himself, asside from apparently great charm or Charisma, was never even a political genius. He was something more powerful-- a symbol.

Now if you want to see an example of a mono-rail genius, look at one of the men who led the drive to destroy Hitler, Geroge Patton. And I mean the military leader under the glitz of the George C. Scott parody.

[Leyla Shen]

jmack wrote:

Hitler was one of those unexplainable crazes, like Sinatra or the Beatles.

I thought you explained it rather succinctly here, actually:

...more a product of an amazingly inept post-bellum German political structure, a worldwide depression, and extremely short-sighted political vindictiveness on the part of the winners of the first World War.

[MKFaizi]

Good post, jmack. I think absolutely you hit on the "genius" of Hitler when you said that he was a symbol.

By the way, I have a low IQ. I am borderline retarded with a score of about 80.

Faizi

[jmack]

I have a low IQ. I am borderline retarded with a score of about 80.

Faizi

Like I said in my earlier post, I don't much stock put in numbers from a totally subjective test. I struggle with the Friday and Saturday NY Times crosswords. I have even been know to google clues, for instance the uses of NONU as a meaning of unelite in London. But what that shows is a poor vocabulary on my part, a verbal parcity to which guilty I plead, but I don't think it means I have a low IQ, nor think I that you Faizi by saying so have attained the EMR IQ you proclaim. But then you were being, I am sure, semantic. But in this forum your responses reviewing, surprised at your comments, I am not.

Sink a demayo celebrating I am, my my Carona guzzleth; even though I don't know why anyone would want to sink a demayo, or any other craft.

[sue hindmarsh]

Hitler was a man of his time, as was Napoleon and Alexander. All these men had great power of mind and a will of iron, but none of them possessed true Genius, because all of them were swept along by circumstances. But I am quick to add that even had circumstances been different, I doubt any one of them would have gone very far in philosophy. To start with, they just weren’t masculine enough: all of them being obsessed with wanting to be popular and admired. (Being the Big Man is a great way to pick up chicks, or boys - as in Alexander’s case.) Also, they all showed that they weren’t really willing to take risks, as all of them became public servants. They may have been good at military strategy and diplomatic manipulation, but evidently not one of them was ever able to turn their powerful minds to nut out anything about Reality.

It just shows how rare and fundamentally different is the true Genius: not being at the mercy of his emotions, the sage is able to travel through circumstances as they arise without being overly affected; not interested in collecting groupies, the sage doesn’t flirt or pander to popular opinion; interested only in the survival of Wisdom, the sage dedicates himself to that purpose alone, neither taking on the responsibilities of a family, nor the status and security of a job; he directs his powerful mind and iron will to developing his reasoning ability to aid him in his purpose; and his purpose is not as petty as Hitler, Napoleon and Alexander’s: not for him to hold sway over millions of people's lives – the sage will not settle for anything less than possessing the Absolute within himself.

Sue

[jmack]

You brought up three intriguing figures in history, all three of whom had about the same time on top, ranging from Napoleon's 15 years to Hitler's 12.

To dismiss all of them from the genius range is relatively hasty. Napoleon was very well educated for a man of his time, and probably was the supreme military tactician of his time, topped in history perhaps only by Patton, Sun, Alexander and Gaius Julius. He was certainly an opportunist of the first order, but he used his education to great advantage in many ways, not the least of which was instituion the Napolionic Code, which is still in some forms in use world wide as a legal systme, including in Louisiana. The desire for personal power overwhelmed his good sense, and ergo his downfall. Beethoven wrote his third symphony in honor of Napoleon, but later, when Napoleon showed his egomania, ripped it's dedication to shreds and retitled it Eroica. If I had been Napoleon spending those final six years of my life in exile on St. Helen's I would have thought, damn I inspired that work. For that alone I am immortal.

As to Alexander. Of your trio, he probably is the only genuine genius. His biggest flaw: Star struck by Athens. He was tutored by Aristotle, and bought into the aristotlean philosophy, though he never understood that unlike him, who sought to create a Helenistic world in his empire, Aristotle was a very nationalist Athenian, not a Helenist, and certainly not someone who considered the Persian Empire plus Egypt and what is now Pakistan part of his world view. Still Aristotle sent one of his disciples along with his former pupil to record his 12-year voyage. Of course I haven't mentioned Alexander's other tutor, his father Philip, founder of the Macedonian, might is right school of philosphy. He actually had the vision that a tiny army of men might destroy the most powerful empire that history had produced to that point. Alex simply followed through on (as Bocephus would sing) "a family tradition."

Of the three men, Alexander was perhaps the true philospher. His major flaw was he was too young to know better.At the age when he died, Napoleon was still a general in service to the French Revolution and two years away from his ultimate ego trip. And Hitler was still a struggling artist writing a memoir that was to become the Bible of Hell, and more than a decade shy of a rise to power..

As idealists go, Eskhandr is as close to Woodrow Wilson as the pre-Christian world was to produce. He actually believed his tenet of one world, all men (and in his day, he meant men. . . though it is rumored he was a mama's boy) are equal. And he, to my knowledge, is the only world ruler educated by a world class philospher. Hell, the french royalty knew better than to let Rousseau or DeCartes be more that curiosities at court.

[suergaz]

Bah, Hitler wasn't even a symbol. As a man of his time, as opposed to his own time (which genius amongst us will deny the opposition?) he is recalled for movements, actions, events. His thought? Not at all. He's left behind, the court of mockery won't even properly entertain him. It's enough to have one coroning de mayo making pretty with such flatulence as the existence of evil.

[MKFaizi]

Sugar wrote:

he is recalled for movements, actions, events.

Why he was a symbol.

Faizi

[suergaz]

I think you then mean "why he 'is' a symbol"

Hitler stands for Hitler.

[La Verdad]

my bad, double post.

[La Verdad]

Regardless of what you wrote at the beginning of this thread, I think that you consider Hitler to be genius.

He was a political genius because he well understood how to exploit fear. In that way, he is kindred to George W. Bush and thousands of other politicians. Hitler took the usual political megalomania to the point of deity. The German people allowed him to do that.

political genius is an abuse of the word genius - he was talented.

Are you also fascinated with Mao and Nixon and Ghandi and Bush? Attaturk? Ali Bhutto? Nehru? Thatcher?

Yes, I am. lol Nothing all that fascinating about Jorge Bush though o.o

If you did not consider Hitler to be possible genius, why did you devote a thread to him?

Faizi

I did consider it, and my conclusion was that he isn't - he fits snugly into the Weinigerian archetype of the Tribune. Interestingly,
Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen, or Rienzi, Last of the Tribunes was his favorite opera, many biographers and historians have taken note of August's Kubizek's anecdote of how Hitler went into a mystified trance after seeing this opera and deeply identified with the main character, and it's pretty ironic how closely his life ends like the last act.

The opera concerns the life of Cola di Rienzi, a medieval Italian populist figure who succeeds in outwitting and then defeating the nobles and their followers and in raising the power of the people. Magnanimous at first, he is forced by events to crush the nobles' rebellion against the people's power, but popular opinion changes and even the Church, which has earlier urged him to assert himself, turns against him. In the end the populace burns the Capitol, in which Rienzi and a few adherents have made a last stand.

During his young adulthood, the future Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler, witnessed a performance of Rienzi in his home town of Linz in Austria. He confided to a childhood friend, who had seen the opera with him, that "This was where it all began", meaning his plans for Germany and its people, implying that he saw himself very much in Rienzi's shoes as being the head of not just his country, but a vast empire like that of the Romans and the ancient Greeks.

--------------------------------------

I thought you explained it rather succinctly here, actually:

...more a product of an amazingly inept post-bellum German political structure, a worldwide depression, and extremely short-sighted political vindictiveness on the part of the winners of the first World War.

Times are the products of men, men are not the products of their times. The conditions in the Weimar Republic certainly eased his path to power, though without Hitler there is no NSDAP, there is no National Socialism. Hitler, his empire, and all it's actions have him as their spiritual forge.

Also, they [Hitler, Alexander, and Napoleon] all showed that they weren’t really willing to take risks, (cont.)

This one just blew my mind. Not willing to take risks? Alexander and Napoleon fought their own battles, and Hitler moved to Germany and volunteered to fight in WWI, and during his rise to power started dozens (if not hundreds) of beer hall fights where communists and national socialists alike were frequently killed, and tried to violently overthrow the Weimar government. These are men who, if anything, have a startling amount of eagerness to accept risk.

as all of them became public servants.

Alexander was the son of the King so he didn't get much say in the matter. Hitler fought tooth and nail with his father opposing a life of public service and following in his father's footsteps, and Napoleon was accepted to the École Royale Militaire and then served garrison duty (not exactly a career for the risk averse).

It just shows how rare and fundamentally different is the true Genius: not being at the mercy of his emotions, the sage is able to travel through circumstances as they arise without being overly affected; not interested in collecting groupies, the sage doesn’t flirt or pander to popular opinion; interested only in the survival of Wisdom, the sage dedicates himself to that purpose alone, neither taking on the responsibilities of a family, nor the status and security of a job; he directs his powerful mind and iron will to developing his reasoning ability to aid him in his purpose; and his purpose is not as petty as Hitler, Napoleon and Alexander’s: not for him to hold sway over millions of people's lives – the sage will not settle for anything less than possessing the Absolute within himself.

Amen.

Bah, Hitler wasn't even a symbol. As a man of his time, as opposed to his own time (which genius amongst us will deny the opposition?) he is recalled for movements, actions, events.
His thought? Not at all.

lol damn dude, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Hitler is definitely remembered for his ideas and is very much a symbol.

Regurgitating some of his 'thought' or displaying the insignias which represent it in any public forum in Western Europe, Canada, and Australia will generally be rewarded with a fine and/or a prison sentence. Any party in Germany or Austria using a platform excessively similar to his will be banned.

Hitler's bunker, and various personal headquarters throughout Europe each recieve more tourist revenue and attention than the graves of Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt combined. And the same trend is noticed in biography sales (Mein Kampf was recently on the bestseller list in Turkey, of all places: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4361733.stm).

Even the prison where his assistant was held had to be burned to the ground for fear it would become an Neo-Nazi shrine.

Russia, the country which endured the greatest number of casualties produced by the Wehrmacht is now the country with the greatest estimated number of Neo-Nazis (app. 30-60,000).
Virtually all of them probably have ancestors who died as a result of Operation Barbarossa - only adherance to an idea could create this paradox.

[Martin Sekemoddu]

'greatest number of neo-nazi's' - by far, the u.s.a.

george bush and adolph hitler ARE blood-related

hitler a genius? - no, but VERY well-versed on the art of timing

both bush and hitler are sub-par on intelligence scale, mid 90's


Martin Sekemoddu
Zambia, Africa

[La Verdad]

'greatest number of neo-nazi's' - by far, the u.s.a.

Wanna back that up with a statistic? The National Alliance was the largest Neo-Nazi organization in the country and it only had app. 1,000 members before it factionalized.

george bush and adolph hitler ARE blood-related

LOL yuh-huh. What an amazing 'fact'.

hitler a genius? - no, but VERY well-versed on the art of timing

both bush and hitler are sub-par on intelligence scale, mid 90's

I've never heard of an IQ test being performed on Hitler - although I'm pretty amazed if the alcohol-addled mind of el Presidente reaches all the way up to 90.

In 1945, an army psychologist named G.M. Gilbert, was allowed to examine the Nazi leaders who were tried at Nuremberg for war crimes. Among other tests, a German version of the Wechsler-Bellevue was administered. Here are the results:

1 Hjalmar Schacht 143
2 Arthur Seyss-Inquart 141
3 Hermann Goering 138
4 Karl Doenitz 138
5 Franz von Papen 134
6 Eric Raeder 134
7 Dr. Hans Frank 130
8 Hans Fritsche 130
9 Baldur von Schirach 130
10 Joachim von Ribbentrop 129
11 Wilhelm Keitel 129
12 Albert Speer 128
13 Alfred Jodl 127
14 Alfred Rosenberg 127
15 Constantin von Neurath 125
16 Walther Funk 124
17 Wilhelm Frick 124
18 Rudolf Hess 120
19 Fritz Sauckel 118
20 Ernst Kaltenbrunner 113
21 Julius Streicher 106

You may find these data in The Nuremberg Mind: The Psychology of the Nazi Leaders by Florence R. Miale and Michael Selzer, as well as in The Reich Marshal: A Biography of Hermann Goering by Leonard Mosley.

Notice that there is a clear correlation of IQ with social status. Notice, as I've pointed out before, that success in the practical socio-econimc sense usually goes to those with IQs between 125 and 150. And finally, notice that there are no towering IQs in the 150 plus range, as one would expect from theoreticians. None of these men were original thinkers.

What was Hitler's IQ? We will never know for sure, but we can guess that it wasn't much different from those at the top of this list. He wasn't an original thinker either.
http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/grady/nazi.html

I've heard that an IQ of at least 115 was a requirement of every NSDAP leader appointed to the rank of Gauleiter (a position somewhat analogous to governer in America) and up. Haven't found anything to corroborate this though. The fact that Julius Streicher (Gauleiter of Franconia)had 106 suggests it is either:
1. false
2. he was appointed prior to the rule's implementation and slipped by due to ex post facto
3. or it was simply overlooked, (which is possible, Hitler approved of Streicher - even after he was discharged from all NSDAP offices due to his involvement in the Kristallnacht fiasco)

[suergaz]

La Verdad:

Times are the products of men, men are not the products of their times.

You will find upon a closer examination that it goes both ways.

lol damn dude, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Hitler is definitely remembered for his ideas and is very much a symbol.

Yes, he is a symbol, but he wasn't originally, just a politician who knew how to manipulate symbols among other things. Take me on my words or reserve your own about my ideas, dude.

[La Verdad]

La Verdad:
Times are the products of men, men are not the products of their times.

You will find upon a closer examination that it goes both ways.

I know that's why I usually don't bring it up. For every 'Beatles' example they can give I can shoot back one more 'Mohammed' type example and it always turns into a giant and very gay circle. I'll agree to disagree - though history is still, in essence, an ever-developing collection of stories about the lives of great men.

lol damn dude, you have no idea what you're talking about.
Hitler is definitely remembered for his ideas and is very much a symbol.

Yes, he is a symbol, but he wasn't originally, just a politician who knew how to manipulate symbols among other things.

lol so basically we agree on the main point - Hitler is a symbol regardless of it's changing meanings

Take me on my words or reserve your own about my ideas, dude.

I'll admit I don't know what's in your head, I'm just sayin what you posted didn't make any sense.

[MKFaizi]

La wrote:

and (wisely) has never apologized,

Anti-Lynching Legislation

I thought the US had apologized for slavery but apparently the US has only apologized for lynching. Close enough.

"Hey, tarbaby, I be real damn sorry my granddaddy hung your granddaddy on the sycamore tree.

"But I ain't apologizin' for no damn slavery, get it?"

I mean, if you are going to apologize, go all the way. If you ain't, then, shut up.

Personally, I don't give a damn whether the US apologizes for slavery or not. I mean, what is that going to accomplish -- we are so sorry that ya'll were treated sub-humanly? Like that is going to make up for it?

I think even the pretense of such apology is an insult.

Plus, as a descendent of slave owners, I have never committed any act of prejudice against a person based on his skin color or race.

My kids are half Paks. Neither of them consider themselves to be white. I have full understanding of "color." I do not recognize racial differences. Jesus was not WASP. Jesus was brown.

It is not apology that is necessary or desirable.

Progress is desirable. A stupid, politically based, congressionally blessed apology does not heal wounds.

Proximity heals wounds. Personal interrogation of racial hatred heals wounds.

Faizi

[La Verdad]

Jesus was not WASP.

Well it's kinda difficult to be protestant when you antedate protestantism (and the things it protests against to boot) :P

As for Jesus being brown that's not very probable. Jewish for sure, but brown? For that to be true the demographics of the Levant would've had to have changed substantially sometime between then and more recent history in a way that can't be explained without modern transportation, not to mention we lack any evidence for these migrations.

It would also mean every artistic representation of Jesus that exists today is wrong.

[suergaz]

It's remarkable how a thread on Hitler transmutes into speculation on the colour of Jesus.

[MKFaizi]

La wrote:

It would also mean every artistic representation of Jesus that exists today is wrong.

Well, yes.

Faizi