Ask me about Adolf Hitler.

[A_C_Slater]

The masturbation thing reminded me of another story. Hitler's old friend and for a time roomate claimed that Hitler never masturbated and preffered to preserve his sexual energy for some obscure occult reasons. Anyway that's not the story. Hitler meet Kubizek at an Opera and they became quick friends. Kubizek was a pianist and he was gentle, warm-hearted and submissive, in contrast to his violent, cold hearted and domineering friend.

Kubizek was the the first audience for Hitler's endless monologues. At one point they shared a cheap single room. Kubizek did not want to be deprived of his grand piano, but moving it would have meant nearly filling the entire room. Hitler also did not want to be deprived of his playing and felt it would be a tragedy for Kubizek to let his skills atrophy.

So they moved it into the small room where Kubizek would play for Hitler as he paced up and down the small strip of remaining space delivering his endless monologues.

One day Hitler had the idea that he wanted to remodel Vienna with architecture that was more to his taste. When Kubizek asked him how he would fund such a grandiose plan Hitler replied in full seriousness that he would buy a lottery ticket and fund it with his winnings.

He was completely convinced that it was destined by fate for him to win so he could rebuild Vienna into the perfect city. When he inevitably lost he flew into a rage denouncing the goverment and their deceitful ways with which they exploited the common man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Kubizek

[The once and future king]

Why did Hitler make so many militarily terrible decisions?

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
Why did Hitler make so many militarily terrible decisions?

[/ QUOTE ]


This map shows Germany at the heighth of it's territorial gains. Not shown is large parts of Northern Africa and South Eastern Russia (near Stalingrad) that the Germans controlled.




When the war started going bad after losing the battle of Stalingrad in early 43 almost all of Hitler's generals wanted him to make a tactical withdrawl behind the line of the most eastern river shown on the map (Dnieper) in order to better stabilize the front. I think this is known as a static defense.

But to do so would have been meant admiting that he had "bitten off more than he could chew" and would result in a lose of prestige. He also instintively felt that attack was the best way to deal with any problem. Der Angriff!


I believe one of the French generals from WW1 Foch I believe said 'Attack! Always attack.' Hitler lived by this motto militarily. Even though defensively Germany was inflicting about 2.5 times the amount of casualties upon the Russians than when attacking to retreat behind the Dnieper would still have meant sacrificing large swaths of territory and the resources that lied within.

[MacGuyV]

Why do you think he declared war on the United States?

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
Why do you think he declared war on the United States?

[/ QUOTE ]


He was pretty much honor bound to declare war on them once his Japanese ally had already attacked them. Though he probably shouldn't have ever made an alliance with them in the first place to avoid this very scenario.

He probably felt putting pressure on the Soviet's eastern side outweighed this consideration even though Japan and Russia were not at war until 1945. There still existed the potential that they could have gone to was earlier since Japan was allied with Germany, which meant they would have to keep reinforecments on the Eastern side of the country, just in case.

He also felt confident any attempted landing in the West would be crushed by the Atlantic Wall. If you've ever seen Saving Private Ryan you can imagine how he would believe that. The fortifications were the most intimidating looking things ever.

[FluffyTiger]

AC,

Excellent thread. Lot's of interesting stuff here I haven't heard before

Care to comment on the accuracy of this part of the movie Downfall?

[Toro]

I would be very interested in some detail on how he rose to power. I'm aware that he had thses great oratorical skills but he would have needed help from the powerbrokers of the day and how could they not have known that he was a manical physchopath. Or did he do it all himself?

[The once and future king]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Why did Hitler make so many militarily terrible decisions?

[/ QUOTE ]


This map shows Germany at the heighth of it's territorial gains. Not shown is large parts of Northern Africa and South Eastern Russia (near Stalingrad) that the Germans controlled.




When the war started going bad after losing the battle of Stalingrad in early 43 almost all of Hitler's generals wanted him to make a tactical withdrawl behind the line of the most eastern river shown on the map (Dnieper) in order to better stabilize the front. I think this is known as a static defense.

But to do so would have been meant admiting that he had "bitten off more than he could chew" and would result in a lose of prestige. He also instintively felt that attack was the best way to deal with any problem. Der Angriff!


I believe one of the French generals from WW1 Foch I believe said 'Attack! Always attack.' Hitler lived by this motto militarily. Even though defensively Germany was inflicting about 2.5 times the amount of casualties upon the Russians than when attacking to retreat behind the Dnieper would still have meant sacrificing large swaths of territory and the resources that lied within.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you kidding me?

The German only suffered a debacle at Stalingrad because Hitler refused to let Paulos break out. In fact they should never should have been attacking at Stalingrad in the first place, and the Nazi's sacrificed the whole 6th army because of Hitlers hysterical and irrational obsession with the Symbolic nature of the Citys name.

This is just one of the terrible disasters inflicted on the wermacht by Hitler. Delaying the attack at Kursk for months so they could use the terribly unreliable Panther As and ferdinands, holding up for months the me282 so it could be used as an attack bomber effectively condemning German industry to be bombed into dust, obsession with resource wasting heavy battle tanks like the King Tiger, delaying the development of the worlds first assault rifle, catastrophic hold fast orders on the ost front and seige city tactics. The Ardenne offensive.

This is only a partial list.



Mostly Hitlers Fault.

[britspin]

OP. Interesting thread.

If you want to undertand more about Hitler, I really, really recommend the Ian Kershaw two volume biography, hubris and nemesis. (link to review here.

I'm working from memory here, but I think it clears up a couple of points that your exisiting reading/viewing is struggling with.

I'm thinking specifically of his views on religion/spirituality and how the organisation of Nazi government and politics was built around the nature of Hitler's personality- especially the idea of "working towards the Fuhrer"- where it was the duty of undelrlings to work towards what was thought to be the expectations of Hitler.

Kershaw also goes into great detail on how these two facets of nazism helped combine in pushing Nazi germany over the line seperating totalitarian dictatorship from genocidal totalitarian dictatorship- for example exploring how the initial work on mass executions was done with the mentally ill in a secet programme, many of whose staff later transferred to Auschwitx and so on.

Finally, Kershaw does a very effective job of demolishing a lot of the hero worship/supervillan syndrome that can suround Hitler. You get a real sense of him as a flawed, intense, fraudulent and flaky man, wrapped in his own obsessions and philosophical insanities, not particulalry well read or brilliant in his analysis, and even lazy and disinterested in government.

At the same time you see an incredibly driven, powerful orator whose prejudices and hatred drove him on. A man whose flaws and failings people chose to ignore because it served their own interests to do so- and whose obsessions became so powerful and so all consuming for those who served him that they became the catalysts for the murder of millions.

(Oh, and if you're interested in the pathology of distatorship- Alan Bullock's Htler and Stalin is an exceelent book.)

[ThomasPHoolery]

What are your thoughts on the theory that Hitler and Ludwig Wittgenstein were classmates when they were young and that this had a profound influence on him? Credible?