Ask me about Adolf Hitler.

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I really like Carlos Castaneda's works. They may be fiction (no one really knows)

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Yes, we do, and yes, they are.

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How do you know?

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Virtually no one believes Castaneda's books to be actual reportage. Try his Wikipedia entry, or like, anything ever written about him. Whether this discredits him spiritually is up to you.

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But now that the topic of fiction has arisen, how do you feel about claims that your favorite biography, Life and Death of Adolf Hitler is itself largely fiction? I quote from one (typical) Amazon review:

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Mr. Payne is not out to lie or deceive. But there are many parts of his book which, we now know (and he could have known when he wrote his book) that are based not on actual fact, but on bogus, sensational "biographies" of Hitler which have nothing to do with the truth.

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Some of these reviews go on to tear Mr. Payne's book to absolute shreds when it comes to accuracy.

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Payne writes well, but entire chapters are completely fabricated, thus making the book worthless. A salient example is chapter 6 where Hitler makes a year-long visit to Liverpool to visit his brother. This is the most embarrassing idiocy to ever appear in a Hitler biography (and there's loads of competition for this dubious distinction).
Hitler was never in England, as his apartment records clearly show from Vienna.

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I'm not hating on you, this has been a great thread, I just thought you'd like to know.

[A_C_Slater]

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But now that the topic of fiction has arisen, how do you feel about claims that your favorite biography, Life and Death of Adolf Hitler is itself largely fiction? I quote from one (typical) Amazon review:

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Mr. Payne is not out to lie or deceive. But there are many parts of his book which, we now know (and he could have known when he wrote his book) that are based not on actual fact, but on bogus, sensational "biographies" of Hitler which have nothing to do with the truth.

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Some of these reviews go on to tear Mr. Payne's book to absolute shreds when it comes to accuracy.

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Payne writes well, but entire chapters are completely fabricated, thus making the book worthless. A salient example is chapter 6 where Hitler makes a year-long visit to Liverpool to visit his brother. This is the most embarrassing idiocy to ever appear in a Hitler biography (and there's loads of competition for this dubious distinction).
Hitler was never in England, as his apartment records clearly show from Vienna.

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I'm not hating on you, this has been a great thread, I just thought you'd like to know.

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Payne never states Hitler was in England for a year. It was four or five months. And one can leave an apartment for that amount of time and still be listed as living there if you give no notice of a change of address.

At my old apt I used to get calls and mail from people looking for the previous tenant the entire year I lived there.

All I know is that Robert Payne wrote many bios. He did a Life and Death of Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, and probably a few others. So I figure he is a prominent Historian, unless he would have the balls to just make all this stuff up about everyone he ever wrote about.

And any biographer could be claimed to not really know what was going on? How could they unless they witness events in the flesh or have an offical government record of such events? Only Speer is able to acheive that, but even in that case he is Hitler's underling and could be trying to save face in many instances.

No one ever has a complete view of History. Any History teacher will tell you that.

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Has Hitler recently been proving to be Austrain/German

Is there ground for arguing for him to be from either country ?

I seem to remember reading something about this a few years back.

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Hitler was from Austria.

[A_C_Slater]

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I opened this thread a couple days ago and a few questions just came to my mind.

1. Did he have a sense of humor?
2. What sort of conspiracy theories have you heard surrounding Hitler and Nazi Germany that you give credence to?

Feel free to ignore these questions if they've already been asked . . . I'll read the whole thread later when I have time.

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Speer writes on Hitler's humor:

Hitler had no humor. He left joking to others, although he could laugh loudly, abandonedly, sometimes literally writhing with laughter. Often he would wipe tears from his eyes during such spasms. He liked laughing, but it was always laughter at the expense of others.

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"The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke


Hitler was the guy that decided to "do something" about the flourishing of evil. He had to combat the evil Bolsheviks and the evil Jews. He would make sure that "good" would prevail.

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Well put. Also, Edmund Burke never said the above quote. Somehow there are countless variations of that line attributed to him, evolving over the years through crappy highschool history papers and such.

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The guy is fielding questions from forum members and answering them the best he can. What has been discussed has not been dictated by the OP and he has not shown any lack of desire to put his knowledge into a broader context. If you would like the discussion to go as such, why don't you ask him questions yourself?

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CW, perhaps I phrased my post too strongly. I'm not intending to attack the OP too viciously. I'm just commenting that the extremely narrow focus of his interest on Hitler the man seems curious.

And I respectfully disagree with you: he's shown several instances in which he has deliberately avoided gaining a broader context for his knowledge. For instance, he doesn't want to explore Nietzche and Schopenhauer any further, despite their being the philosophical launching-pads for the man he is interested in. He takes an agnostic sort of of approach to questions about the war more generally and the deaths involved in the "final solution" in particular. He's not interested in comparisons between Hitler and other demagogues.

I can appreciate OP's original reasons for being interested in Hitler, I just think that he's selling his own understanding of the phenomenon short by not looking a little further afield.

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I forgot to mention that I also have 'The Fall of Berlin 1945' by Anthony Beevor in my library. While not a biography of Hitler it does have a lot of direct witness testimony to his persona in that last year of his life.

[A_C_Slater]

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The guy is fielding questions from forum members and answering them the best he can. What has been discussed has not been dictated by the OP and he has not shown any lack of desire to put his knowledge into a broader context. If you would like the discussion to go as such, why don't you ask him questions yourself?

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CW, perhaps I phrased my post too strongly. I'm not intending to attack the OP too viciously. I'm just commenting that the extremely narrow focus of his interest on Hitler the man seems curious.

And I respectfully disagree with you: he's shown several instances in which he has deliberately avoided gaining a broader context for his knowledge. For instance, he doesn't want to explore Nietzche and Schopenhauer any further, despite their being the philosophical launching-pads for the man he is interested in. He takes an agnostic sort of of approach to questions about the war more generally and the deaths involved in the "final solution" in particular. He's not interested in comparisons between Hitler and other demagogues.

I can appreciate OP's original reasons for being interested in Hitler, I just think that he's selling his own understanding of the phenomenon short by not looking a little further afield.

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This isn't a thread about Nietzche and Schopenhauer. From what I've read they hold very pessimisstic world views and hold survival of the fittest type ideologies. I'm not going to study philosophies from men that I feel are wrong and based upon misanthropy, in the same way I won't study philosophies regarding the myth of the Aryan Superman which is obviously false. As far not understading him in relation to other demagogues, I have read a biography on Stalin. Though he was more of a bureaucrat then a demagogue. I have also read a Lenin biography and he was more similar to Hitler in the way he acquited power via rhetoric. Stalin owed nothing to rhetoric.

And as far as ancient demagogues there is just not as much information about them as there would be a 2oth century demagogue. But what I do know is why Hitler had an interest in pessimisstic philosophies. A man that spent so much time living on the streets and in the trenches of WW1 would certainly take on a pessimisstic view.

It would nearly be impossible to rise above those experiences and assume a benevolent world view.

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Actually it was von Manstein that was the architect of the French campaign. His theory was that the French commanders would be married to the past assumption that any invader would attack them directly on the Maginot Line. Manstein took advantage of this thinking by having the main thrust through the Ardennes forest, which would then be the "path of least resistance". In fact, they used von Leeb's forces to make a feint on the Maginot line (in order to reinforce in the French command's mind that their assumptions were correct) while Guderian drove through very rapidly through the Ardennes in the main attack. Funny how Guderian was always the one doing the main attack. They used him for the main attack in the Eastern front as well.

Rundstedt was the top German general in the French invasion. Guderian was the main attacker (the main wing). Von Leeb was the decoy along the Maginot line (the left wing). Von Leeb was the decoy (on the right wing). This triple wing approach had the effect of France getting forced to spread its defensive front thus insuring success for Guderian down the middle. Manstein was a true genius in the same league as MacArthur and Genghis Khan. Hitler immediately saw merit in Manstein's plan while most of the other generals didn't like it.

And yes, Hitler was a poor commander. He was the guy who ordered Rommel to stand his ground in Tobruk when the optimal play was to retreat in order to shorten their over extended supply lines. Hitler was a fan of Napoleon's maxims which emphasized attacking even when beat. In fact, the dates during which he initiated his attack on Russia was approximately the same as Napoleon's attack. I'm sure there's a free copy of Napoleon's maxims on Google books. You'll see why Hitler kept getting beat with over extended supply lines both in North Africa and the Eastern front. He thought it was positive EV to let his soldier stand their ground because the gains in morale would be bigger than any tactical advantage gained by retreating and then waiting for the Allies to attack and overextend their own supply lines.

Another proof that Hitler sucked as a commander was that he didn't pursue the British on Dunkirk. Those were the same guys that held Britain throughout the war and came back years later with the Americans on D-Day. Hitler's excuse was that they had gained too much ground too soon during the invasion. He also claimed to know the terrain because he served their during World War I. Almost any expert knows the German messed up in Dunkirk.