RE: Nietzsche Understood that Germany Must be Destroyed
January 25, 2014 at 10:04 am
(This post was last modified: January 25, 2014 at 10:08 am by Ryantology.)
I specified Germans specifically because, although Hitler came to rule over a large part of Europe, it's safe to say that most outside of Germany and Austria didn't have much say in the matter.
While I would hardly deny that the Versailles Treaty was a large factor in Hitler's ascent to the top, by 1932 (when he was elected Chancellor) , Versailles was almost a decade and a half past, and the victors by then had relaxed a lot of the most evonomically-onerous penalties. Weimar Germany was actually starting to get its act together a little bit and Nazi fortunes waned. It was the Great Depression which sealed its fate.
None of this excuses a revanchist German population from electing Hitler. Again, Germans could not possibly claim ignorance. Hitler was always candid about his prejudices, as well as how he intended to avenge himself and his people against enemies he explicitly identified in print and in speech by the mid 20s.
Hitler was anti Semitic, antidemocratic, racist and fueled by anger over the results of the Great War. He was just like millions of other Germans, especially the veterans and youths who formed the early core of National Socialism. It wasn't just fear or desperation; he was precisely what Germany wanted.
While I would hardly deny that the Versailles Treaty was a large factor in Hitler's ascent to the top, by 1932 (when he was elected Chancellor) , Versailles was almost a decade and a half past, and the victors by then had relaxed a lot of the most evonomically-onerous penalties. Weimar Germany was actually starting to get its act together a little bit and Nazi fortunes waned. It was the Great Depression which sealed its fate.
None of this excuses a revanchist German population from electing Hitler. Again, Germans could not possibly claim ignorance. Hitler was always candid about his prejudices, as well as how he intended to avenge himself and his people against enemies he explicitly identified in print and in speech by the mid 20s.
Hitler was anti Semitic, antidemocratic, racist and fueled by anger over the results of the Great War. He was just like millions of other Germans, especially the veterans and youths who formed the early core of National Socialism. It wasn't just fear or desperation; he was precisely what Germany wanted.
