I am a very very lazy person. I like to pride myself on being in the running with Lebowski. And to me hate takes way way to much energy. Having even the simple idea of killing has to take some effort. Kind of seems like he just set out on a life not worth living IMO
Scapegoating minorities was a tool for him to use to get into power, given that most people in Germany distrusted Jewish people at the time and coming off of the great war with massive dept and a broken country, someone would’ve taken advantage of the situation.
I recall he blamed the original surrender of Germany in WW1 on the Jewish people because the main signatory was Gustav Bauer, the chancellor of Germany who was Jewish.
You’re trying to find a rationale for some thing (xenophobia) that is utterly irrational. Some people are just shit humans.
IIRC during the third Crusade, the Christians slaughtered 60,000 Jewish people before they even got out of Germany. The beef goes way back.
Some people will say the origin is Christ’s death. But even reading that story it’s clear that Europeans and Israelites weren’t on good terms then either.
It’s hard to find a “cause” for a belief that isn’t rational.
Pogroms were common throughout Europe for hundreds of years. Because Christians were forbidden from lending money at interest Jews were the ones doing the banking.
When a ruler got too far into debt they’d incite some religious hatred and miraculously be out of debt, because their creditors were dead or missing.
“Expelling the Jews” is a mechanic in Crusader Kings 2. And it gets abused like it did historically, too- borrow a shitload of money and then expel the Jews. Suddenly you found free money.
There was a large economic element to him persecuting the Jews that gets ignored in normal discourse.
He wanted their assets to shore up German capital among other sources like slave labour at industrial facilities.
Nazi nepo babies are benefing from it to this day but everyone ignores that the same way they ignore how a lot of US capital was extracted from slavery.
Ingrained racist beliefs, as well as a pragmatic ‘those are a group that can’t fight back if pushed against. I will blame them because I want the majority on my side.’
However one cannot overstate the role cultural antisemitism played. Hitler didn’t ‘one day wake up.’ Europe has had a long history of hating the jewish people. Scapegoating and Persicuting them. Blood liable for example was an accusation that popped up from time to time. Kidnapping people to mix their blood with matzah bread. Complete bunk, but the jewish people are a stateless people who do not share local traditions and norms nor do they worship at the same place. Plus they often found work doing the things that people either couldn’t or wouldn’t do, which lead to oft conspiricies of jewish money lenders puppeting from the background.
That is the sort of enviroment young Adolf grew up in. Same as how people in the modern US are essentially being taught to think of disadvantaged blacks and mexicans as a existenital threat sucking wealth away from them.
Also if you’re wondering why any person turned out the way they are, looking at their childhood explains a lot. Hitler, in this case, had a violently abusive father and IIRC a few of his siblings died (I think from unrelated causes?) when he was a child.
A lot of Hitler’s ideas about Jews came directly from Henry Ford
To add on there is a documentary on Netflix called the circle of evil that dramatically shows the way hitler came to power. It’s not just antisemitism in Europe it’s a party of echo chambers with anti semitism and Hitler was the one most radical in his speeches while being highly influential. You don’t convince a country without a good indoctrinating speech about how the Jewish population is ruining everything. Germany just came off WW1 and a lot of bullshit stigma was thrown at the Jewish population because the war torn population stereotyped them as “helping both sides”. A lot of factors that nobody will be capable of recognizing are crucial to Hitlers power.
You should listen to the English translations of the speeches. History doesn’t repeat but it sure as fuck rhymes.
Dont forget about the insane shit the Japanese did too. This dives into the reasons they did Mark Felton documentary: WW2 Japanese Military Brutality
As an authoritarian with an economy and power based upon the willing participation of the people its necessary to have a group u can blame for when shit inevitably goes wrong.
Every politician blames a group (that isn’t themselves) for their failings. Trump blames the immigrants the democrats blame racist voters.
Going to the level of mass killings that requires some seriously fucked up shit in ur childhood to permanently fuck u in the head.
Adolph’s childhood would certainly be described by nobody as a good time. The one story I recall was him stripping naked to try and squeeze through the window bars in order to escape his father’s wrath, only to get stuck. He found the humiliation of his father’s laughter worse than the beating he was expecting.
Approaching this cynically, all right-wing politicians blame groups as others as being the cause of their country’s societal ills. That’s just how it works.
Jewish people were just one of the targeted groups, along with LGBT people, disabled people, and communists.
One universal truth throughout history is that it’s hard to unite people behind a common goal, but it’s easy to unite people against a common enemy.
Listen to any right wing politicians from around the world - their plans for making things better all start with getting rid of someone (be it a group of people or a governmental department).
woke up one day and said
LOL No. He built this up his whole life. Even wrote a detailed book about his ideas and plans 20 years or so in advance.
If you have some time check out the Hardcore History Addendum episode “Superhumanly Inhuman” that delves into the nazis and the Holocaust. I just started it a few days ago
Damn, I thought the Holocaust started in the 1930s! Shows what I know
He wanted to be an artist, originally. His stepfather wasn’t having it, he was rejected from art school, and his step harshly physically punished him while a sibling escaped that (I have a hypothesis on other abuse for that sibling but there are no known facts, so it’s irrelevant). Women weren’t valued either. I firmly believe a different childhood experience may have had a different outcome. Additionally, plenty of celebrated artists also broke rules of art. We won’t ever know for sure.
I can’t be arsed going into detail, but I’ll give you a half-answer to get you started: “Negative integration”. It basically means that ones identity is based on who you aren’t as opposed to who you are. Ramp this up to 11, and you further this negative integration into defining who ones enemies are, and that’s a core tenet of how fascism takes root.
