Hitler and the rule of law

Hitler did not believe in the rule of law. He believed in the rule of men, more specifically, of himself and his Nazi revolutionaries. On August 19, 1934 Hitler was made the absolute dictator of Germany after a peblescite with an affirmative vote of nearly 90% of the German people. He was from that point onward above the law. Various books printed about the Third Reich have pointed out the consequences of an absolute dictatorship for daily life in Germany. H. Greenwood mentions in his journalistic account, The German Revolution, that a man was sent to a concentration camp briefly for calling the Sturm Abteilung (SA) “proletarian.” William Shirer reports in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich that man was put in a concentration camp for a few months for dating the girlfriend of a Nazi official. Hitler discusses in Hitler’s Table Talk a hypothetical situation where a citizen is brought before a magistrate for supposed wrongdoing when there is no law prohibiting the concerned behavoir. Hitler states that the magistrate should still punish the man. Certainly substantive justice is more important than procedural justice. But when you start punishing people for something that is not against the law you are walking on very slippery ground. Hitler not only talked about arbitrary justice he practiced it. He was known to have reversed judicial decisions based on his reading of newspaper accounts of particular prosecutions and trials. Why did the German people support a government that supressed free speech, nullified the judicial system and generally showed contempt for human freedom? When a great people  are rendered powerless and humiliated like the Germans were after WWI, they will rise up and return to barbarism if necessary to gain their self-respect.  The Third Reich was very much a return to paganism and barbarism for the sake of power.

Fictional Hitler

Hitler has been accused of a lot of things that he did not do. These accusations have been made to demonize him. But all they do is undermine the credibility of Hitler’s critics. Much of this unwarranted criticism comes from the Christians and the Jews. For example, the Christians claim that Hitler was deeply involved with the occult and made a pact with the Devil.  Hitler did read anti-semitic, occult literature when he was a teenager in Vienna. He also had his astrological chart drawn during the final days of the war. Hitler was not consistent in his religious   beliefs. But on the whole he was  a freethinker who did not believe in either good or bad supernatural beings. He certainly did not make a pact with the Devil. Many Jews take the position that Hitler is to be accused of everything conceivable. One Jewish writer who accused Hitler of murdering his girlfriend and niece Geli Raubal said that he was making the accusation because Hitler must not be allowed to have any victories. Oddly enough, it is Ian Kershaw, who is quoted in a book review of a few years ago as saying that he hated everything Hitler believed in, who has been the primary dispeller of myths about Hitler. In his two volume biography he asserts among other things: Hitler did not have Jewish ancestry ; he could not have killed Geli Raubal ; he did not have one testicle ; he was not a deviant in this sexual relations with women ; he did not frequently overrule his military commanders. The truth about Hitler is bad enough without embellishing it.

Auschwitz

Common sense would dictate that there was a Holocaust. Hitler made continuing threats against the Jews saying that he would annihilate (vernichten) and exterminate (ausrotten) them.  Oddly enough there is no document that links Hitler to a concrete plan for the mass killing of the Jews. Indeed, the evidence for the Holocaust is dubious. Take Auschwitz for example. First, for many years the plaque at Auschwitz stated that four million inmates died there. Now the plaque states the total as 1.1 million. A few years ago Elizabeth Dole came back from a visit to Russia with Soviet documents showing that 70,000 died at Auschwitz. What is the real figure? Second, I have seen video tape of an interview of the curator of the museum at the “death camp” by a young Jewish revisionist named David Cole. The curator clearly states that the “gas chamber” shown to visitors is a Soviet post-war reconstruction. Third, several years ago I saw a segment on 60 Minutes about the inmate symphony orchestra at Auschwitz. What kind of death camp would have a symphony orchestra? Fourth, I have read the two chapters on Auschwitz in Elie Wiesel’s autobiographical novel Night. There is mention of a crematory but there is no mention of a gas chamber. If a gas chamber was the weapon in the greatest crime in history, why didn’t Wiesel mention it? The simplest explanation for the above points is that Auschwitz was not a death camp but a work camp.  

Hitler and human freedom

Hitler did not believe in human freedom. In Hitler’s Table Talk : 1941-1944  he is recorded as saying: “A very large measure of individual liberty is not necessarily the sign of a high degree of civilization. On the contrary, it is the limitation of this liberty, within the framework of an organisation which incorporates men of the same race, which is the real pointer to the degree of civlization attained…Slacken the reins of authority, give more liberty to the individual, and you are driving the people along the road to decadence.” In other places in Table-Talk he is reported being against freedom of the press and the freedom of the German people to listen to Allied radio broadcasts. But like most opponents of liberty Hilter wanted freedom for himself and for his cronies. Although it was against the law during the war to suggest that Germany might be defeated Hitler had a conversation with Goebbels that did just that in the waning days of the war. Hitler wanted freedom for the lord of the manor but not for the peasants. Is what Hitler said in the quote above true? Does individual liberty lead to decadence. I was a college student in the 1960s and observed how increasing liberty for young people led to the quest for “sex, drugs and rock n’ roll”. As these baby boomers have aged in the United States we have seen the growth of an increasingly hedonistic and corrupt culture. So Hitler’s analysis is correct, I believe. Most people will abuse freedom if given the chance. But the great advances in civilization have taken place in a milieu where individual freedom promotes individual initiative. Certainly, the computer revolution could never have taken place in a collectivist and authoritarian society. Freedom is worth the risk of decadence.