Counter-Currents
550 words
Andrey Vlasov
Translated by Guillaume Durocher
Translator’s Note:
This article is drawn from Dominique Venner’s history of the twentieth century, Le Siècle de 1914 (Paris: Pygmalion, 2006), 318-20, under the heading “Les plans de Hitler pour l’Europe soumise.” The title is editorial.
Could the Reich’s new weapons, notably the extraordinary Me 262 fighter-bombers, reverse the trend [of the war]? A largely pointless question given that we know the answer. In fact, the only new weapon Hitler could have used was the “European revolution,” the liberation of the peoples, notably of Russians and Ukrainians, and not their subjugation. But Hitler was not a European revolutionary, he was a pan-Germanist and a blinkered racist. By refusing to play the card of nationalism, he deprived himself of his only real asset in reversing the course of the war. Later, Marshal [Erich] von Manstein would write: “We lost the war the day we entered Kiev, by refusing to raise the Ukrainian flag over the Lavra.”[1] Attempts as promising as that of the Vlasov army were blocked by Hitler: “It constituted a rejection of his entire policy,” wrote Manstein. “The Führer wanted to establish a German domination over the spaces of the East and to definitively destroy Russian power, whatever its regime . . .” A deadly blindness.
In the summer of 1942, after the spectacular relaunching of operations in Russia at the end of the previous winter, German power reached from North Cape to the southern shores of the Mediterranean where Rommel’s Afrika Korps operated. From the west to the east, it reached from the Atlantic through the Volga up to the Caucasus. Even though Bolshevik Russia was not defeated, Hitler seemed to have managed to establish his empire over the larger part of Europe. His propaganda developed two themes, the offensive one of the “new Europe” destined to counter Anglo-Saxon capitalism and Bolshevism, and the defensive theme, against the same, of “fortress Europe.”
After the victorious campaigns of 1940, several plans were established by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a view of defining the “new European order” and better still the Greater German Reich of the future.
These plans never got past the drawing board, Hitler having decided to commit to nothing before a decisive victory over Soviet Russia and England. Any projects to organize Europe were stalled by three obstacles stemming from Hitler’s ideology and personality. One was the figure’s mix of extreme racism and nationalism, the other to his exclusively domineering idea of relations with other peoples, finally, the third was related to the Hitlerian idea of living space.
[. . .] Having kept the memory of the collapse of the Habsburg Empire in 1918, he feared that granting the slightest autonomy would lead eventual allies to turn their weapons against the Reich. He conceived of relations with other peoples only in terms of domination and submission. [. . .]
Convinced of the inferiority of Slavic peoples, conceiving Ukraine and Russia as mere future colonies whose populations, if ever they were spared, would be reduced to a kind of serfdom, Hitler never imagined entering Russia as a liberator. And yet that was how his troops were first welcomed. The peasants which had welcomed them by offering bread, salt, and flowers, would soon be disillusioned. Nothing better shows Hitler’s blindness than the tragic story of General [Andrey] Vlasov.
Note
1. Erich von Manstein, Victoires perdues (Paris: Plon, 1958).
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65 comments
I think J. F. C. Fuller made a similar assessment of Hitler’s eastern policy in The Generalship of Alexander the Great and doubtless other works. I could transcribe or summarise the relevant parts of Fuller’s book soon: there’s a copy at a library I’ll be visiting later this week.
Good. The sooner the “movement” gets over the cult of Saint Adolf, the better.
Just like not all Marxists are Stalinists, not all National Socialists must be Hitlerians. Granted, Hitler’s influence over National Socialist ideology was considerable, and Stalin’s over Marxism small to non-existent. Even so, the core of National Socialism is independent of the faults described in this essay, faults which still haunt the “movement” today.
“Saint” Adolf’s main fault from a WN perspective was that he was no WN at all, but a German supremacist. He considered the Slavic peoples as “racially inferior” (“Untermenschen”) and wanted to establish a Great Germanic Reich (“Lebensraum”) at their cost in the East. That is why he refused the help of such men like Vlasov. Accepting help from Slavic “Untermenschen” would mean accepting them as equals and of course respecting their rights after the battle was won. But that was never the Führer’s intention. Hitler could have won the battle if he had accepted all the peoples of Eastern Europe as equals and promised them freedom instead of slavery. In this way he would also get support from a considerable part of the Russian population who were tired of Stalin’s oppression.
Pious worshippers of “Saint” Adolf always mention Hitler’s personal integrity (true), his sincere wish for peace with France and Britain (true), his reasonable wish for reunification with ethnic Gremans separated from Germany by the injust Versailles treaty (true), the fact that his war against Russia was a preventive strike since Stalin planned an invasion (possibly true), but fail to mention that his ultimate plan for the East was racist colonization. No matter how many admirable elements the Third Reich had, it was not WN and therefore cannot be our principal inspiration.
One of the lies told about the National Socialist regime is that they regarded Slavs as “Untermenschen”. The more grotesque, and related, fantasy is that they wanted to “exterminate all Slavs”.
I challenge you to find any German primary source from 1933-1945 that calls the Slavs “Untermenschen”. As for “exterminating all Slavs”, this is just pure fantasy on the order of the gas chamber myth.
Lebensraum is a misunderstood idea, and seems to refer to strengthening, bolstering, encouraging the already-existing German presence in the east (which was wiped out by Stalin in 1945). Hitler knew Europe was threatened by the USSR in general, and the millions of Germans within it were likewise doomed. There were ten million Germans in Europe east of Germany’s border. Europe would benefit enormously, they reasoned, from freeing up that land under German leadership.
” his ultimate plan for the East was racist colonization”
Why give liberals legitimacy by adopting their language in discourse? German imperalism or German colinization would be more accurate, espically when the heridiatry difference is just ethnicity rather than race.
A relevant book:
http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-War-Military-Strategy-1940-1945/dp/1854094726
An important lesson on the threat petty nationalism has on the greater security of European peoples. Thanks for this enlightening reminder.
I cannot criticize Hitler for what he should have done. Hindsight is always 20/20! Remember Germany was fighting the whole world, it is easy to quarterback after 70 years.
His wrong attitude (considering Slavs as racially inferior) was not caused by the political and military situation during the war, but was formed long before it.
Is this whole book by Dominique Venner going to be available in translation sometime? Unfortunately, I couldn’t read it in French without missing much.
The analysis so far is very trenchant, significant.
A very good and succinct assessment, Hitler did the opposite of what Alexander the Great did with predictable results. How naive was he to think that 1 Nation could fight the rest of the World? German soldiers where in fact received quite well at first if only they where allowed to ally them selves more with locals instead of acting with arrogance and hubris things might have turned very much differently.
The Germans had allies: Italy, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Japan. Other countries remained neutral, such as Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. Germany was not fighting the whole world.
A bit more complicated than that. The war was systematically worked for in particular by Britain. Why else would a quite unimportant local conflict with justified ends-the righting of a scandalous injustice wrought by the Versailles Dictate- lead to a world war? That was certainly not Germany’s intent, but from the viewpoint of other powers, particularly Britain and France, the crushing of Germany must have made the risk of a world conflagration worthwhile. Once the war had started, it led in a sort of automatic way to larger and larger involvements not intended by Germany; there is the Balkan involvement caused by Italy; North Africa, caused by Italy; Norway and Denmark; caused by Britain and France; finally France caused by the refusal to cease hostilities by Britain and France. It was not Germany’s intent to be at war with the world; rather, the world was made to wage war on germany, in the end more than 50 countries had declared war on germany, instigated by Britain London and Washington.
You are, however, correct with the other point: Some of the local German political leaders committed terrible blunders. This was by Erich Koch in the Ukraine and Josef Terboven in Norway.
Why Hitler did not recall these people is unknown to me. They mad enemies out of potential friends.
I may add that Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin and de Gaulle also committed terrible blunders, and that after the war had ended, as they have laid the foundation for centuries of ill feeling amongst the nations, in addition to causing the crisis now picking up momentum and possibly leading to the disappearance of the European world as a historical entity.
Hitler acted in an emergency situation created first by Versailles Dictate, written by political and human simpletons, then by the increasing pressure by these same forces to prevent a vigorous, but justified revision of this very same Versailles Dictate, finally in the war, which, I believe he did not expect to spiral out of bounds beyond the Polish-German sphere, with all the potential for making big mistakes, but especially Churchill and Roosevelt acted out of political adventurism they could just as well have avoided. That’s a much bigger blunder, in my opinion.
Shades of Richelieu who with my limited understanding of Christendom at that time financed Protestant powers against his own Catholic faith for the glory of France. Qui?
Is the only proof of this “him wanting to turn Eastern Europeans into slaves” from hitlers table talks? I’ve never heard any speech of his mention this. And the Germans needed more land anyway! They were, and are today the most crammed, packed country in Europe. Poland today, as it was probably back then, has half as many people as germany but the same amount of land per square mile. I want even talk about how hardly the population density is in Russia.
This is a poorly informed comment (the UK’s population density is greater than Germany’s, and was even more so mid-century, and “land per square mile” speaks for itself), but for all of Hitler’s faults, I regard the drive to the east as among the least of them.
For starters, the Drang nach Osten concept didn’t even originate with the Nazis. It had been a commonly shared desire by German nationalists for over fifty years, and was an important but unremarkable objective in the First World War – which was very nearly realized.
Secondly, while it’s difficult to imagine any Slav being comfortable with the idea, the fact is that’s just the way the game was played in those days. Russians who complain incessantly about German territorial war aims are breathtaking hypocrites: what makes it permissible for Russians to rule over Poles and Azeris (to name only two), but the height of infamy for Germans to rule over Russians?
If the conquest of Slavic lands is to be condemned, it must be for what the Nazis had in store for the people who inhabited them, not for the conquest itself. And in this respect, although the evidence isn’t conclusive, I for one believe Nazi infamy is well-earned. Beyond the Table Talks, Slavs were commonly regarded by western Europeans in general (not just Nazis or Germans) as living at a low cultural level. Being ruled by people inclined to care deeply about such things, with an overwhelming tendency to explain cultural phenomena in strictly racial terms, would not have been pretty. Simply put, the Nazis embarked on a mission to vanquish and extirpate, not to civilize. Their failings haunt racialism to this day.
The Drang nach Osten was not a strategy of conquest, but rather a German affinity for the East. In the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk there was a chance to penetrate deeply into Slavic land, yet it gave statehood to the Baltic States, Finland and Poland.
In my opinion, Germany was always a quite sane political unit that did not desire to expand its territory and with quite remarkable results. There could be various nationalites in the German Reich without losing their ethnic-racial essence. Hence, Czechs were in Germany for a thousand years, and still spoke Czech, the Sorbs still live in Germany in a region in Saxony and they still do speak Sorbic. And it was the German people who kept out the Huns, the Mongols, the Sarazenes, the Turks from Europe.
The 14 Points of Wilson also proclaimed national self-determination, which, as good as it looks on paper, promoted a rigorous nationalism if not chauvinism in Europe and it was not to be applied to Germany. I see therefore a Drang nach Deutschland as a contrast to the Drang nach Osten.
Irving – hardly an anti-Hitler mainstream historian – and one with access to many primary documents, writes honestly about German war plans and their outcome in “Hitler’s War.” This has been documented many times. Hitler also called Vlasov a “swine” for “betraying” Stalin (!) (what idiocy!), and leading Nazis like Hitler and Himmler had no willingness to give up their ambitions. When the Germans entered Ukraine they were hailed as liberators. After some experience with Koch, they became partisans. Why?
On the enemy side “one loves treason but not the traitor”; perhaps that’s the origin or Hitler’s remark about Vlassov. Hitler seems to have largely left the political sphere in the war and become a military leader; that would explain why he made short-sighted decisions, postponed solutions, e.g. in France.
But wasn’t Koch courtmartialed? Wan’t he arrested, investigated, prosecuted, tried, and executed by SS in due correspondence to his crimes of abusing authority, illegal extortion and torturing of camp inmates? Wan’t that very fact a proof of the legitimacy and decency of the NS German regime, even in the height of the war time?
Riki-Eiki, you are inventing history here. Look up Koch and you will see that he was never court-martialed, arrested, or punished in any way by Third Reich authorities for what he did.
I mean the director of the Buchenwald concentration camp, Karl Koch, who was arrested, prosecuted, and executed by SS authority in 1944 for his criminal misdeeds. This fact certainly speaks about the moral integrity, justice and fairness of the German system even during the War.
I think a lot of people have said that the Russians are in some ways dysfunctional as a people and possibly not capable of self-rule. Donald S. Day and Curt Doolittle are two guys I’ve read recently who say that sort of thing. It has nothing to do with IQ. Likely some of the harshness of German rule in the East can be attributed to the fact that the Nazi Empire was always resource poor-they never had anything remotely comparable to the Midwestern Breadbasket or the Texas oil fields.
Translator of a recent Russian book on race says that German anthropologists/race scientists of the NS era didn’t consider Russians to be racially inferior:
http://americanfreepress.net/audio-interview-obvious-racial-differences-explored/
Of course they didn’t — A least no more than Americans or British did at they time. It’s not to say there was no hostility. Reality is never as simple or stark as polemicists make it.
This wrong – wrong – wrong idea of “Genocidal Germans tried to kill all Slav Untermenschen” idea has to be discarded, as a fantasy, as a holdover of the blackest of war propaganda and postwar second-string political propaganda. (The first-string pseudo-historical political propaganda continues to be blared at us by our Hollywood cultural masters near daily.)
I got the Strasser letter a few days ago from Hoffman. It looked interesting, but I am not willing to pay all that money for a little letter. The letter prior to the Strasser letter was about debunking Captain Ramsey and claims he made in “The Nameless War”– that would have been interesting. Hoffman is too christian for me, and a little out there on some subjects, but I do have a few of his books.
It’s inconceivable that a higher people should painfully exist on a soil too narrow for it, whilst amorphous masses, which contribute nothing to civilisation, occupy infinite tracts of a soil that is one of the richest in the world. We painfully wrest a few metres from the sea, we torment ourselves cultivating marshes—and in the Ukraine an inexhaustibly fertile soil, with a thickness, in places, often metres of humus, lies waiting for us.
We must create conditions for our people that favour its multiplication, and we must at the same time build a dike against the Russian flood. If this war had not taken place, the Reich would scarcely have increased its population during the next ten years, but the Russian population would have grown vigorously.
If to-day you do harm to the Russians, it is so as to avoid giving them the opportunity of doing harm to us. God does not act differently. He suddenly hurls the masses of humanity on to the earth, and he leaves it to each one to work out his own salvation. Men dispossess one another, and one perceives that, at the end of it all, it is always the stronger who triumphs. Is that not the most reasonable order of things?
If it were otherwise, nothing good would ever have existed. If we did not respect the laws of nature, imposing our will by the right of the stronger, a day would come when the wild animals would once again devour us—then the insects would eat the wild animals, and finally nothing would exist on earth but the microbes.
https://chechar.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/uncle-adolfs-table-talk-19/
To defend empire is to declare to your neighbors that you intend to be a murderer and a thief. Social Darwinism is just a rationalization for crime, But of course people seldom appeal to Social Darwinism when they lose a battle.
That’s not necessarily true. Or if it is true, it needs to be balanced against the benefit that empire can bring. To my way of thinking, if the benefits exceed the crimes, I think it’s quite defensible. I would certainly defend the Roman empire, Alexander’s short-lived empire, the various Chinese empires, and perhaps even the Persian empire on these grounds. And bear in mind that these empires were hardly even trying to benefit their subjects. Imagine what could be accomplished by an empire that made civilizational uplift its raison d’etre.
None of that is to say I think empire is the best way forward today, but I would surely regard it as preferable to the idiocy of petty nationalism.
So what are you saying then? Are you glad that the Germans lost the war because they had territorial aspirations in Eastern Europe? Do you prefer what we got with their defeat? Is Europe better off today then if Germany would have become a much larger country at the expense of the Slavs?
Americans had a right to a Manifest Destiny, why not germans?
I will quote The Unabomber, I think it proves my point:
Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image
of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals), or otherwise
inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups arc inferior. They would never admit it
to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups
as inferior that they identify with their problems, (Wc do not suggest that women, Indians,
etc., are inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology).
Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They
hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hale white mates, they hate rationality. The
reasons that leftists give for haling the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real
motives. They say they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric
and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures,
the leftist Finds excuses for them, or at best he grudgingly admits that they exist; whereas lie
enthusiastically points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in
Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating
America and the West, lie hales America ami the West because they are strong and successful.
Best Regards!
Yes, it’s all so clear now. I hate murderers and thieves because they are so much better than me. Thank you for this insight.
That’s moral universalism, which can only lead to Whites to giving up everything they have conquered, both from self generated guilt and the internalized shame inflicted upon them by empowered minorities who know about White weakness.
Yes, the Slavs should have been treated better – because they’re White.
Reading recently Rosenberg’s book Letzte Aufzeichnungen one should gain an adequate insight into the official policy of NS intentions in the East; it appears that there were firstly no firm plans for the future during the war and secondly different factions. Rosenberg seems to have both appreciated the Slavs and seen a future with them, not without them. Erich Koch, Reichskommissar for the Ukraine seems to have felt contempt for the Slavs and done about everything to estrange them. The Rosenberg and Koch people appear to have worked in different directions, without being able to influence either’s direction.
This may be contratsed with the resolution of the Pan-Slavic Congress of 1848 which put the Western border of the Slavic Living Space at the Oder, a demand heard from Poles again and again and immediately after the First War. This expansion of Polish-Slavic Living Space implied depopulation of Germans and enlargement of Polish Living Space to the West. Indeed, this is what happened after the Second War, that Poles, Russians and Czechs combined diminished German Living Space by nearly 50 %, writing History, in Benes’s words, with blood.
I think any outrage about Hitler talking about Living Space in the east has to be properly contrasted with the same talk by Slavs about Living Space in the West, and plans by Morgenthau, Kaufman and remarks by Churchill about empty spaces, either in Eastern Germany or in Central Europe.
Discussions with a base tenor of outrage about National Socialism and Hitler tend to leave out important considerations, including historical maps which show that Germany ‘s size has been continuously diminished since the early Middle Ages to the benefit of surrounding countries.
In looking back it becomes ever-clearer to me that in August 1939 when England-Poland refused to settle the last remnant from the Versailles Dictate in the Korridor and in Danzig, the future decline of Europe was agreed upon.
That wasn’t Hitler’s fault.
Good points. We must also remember Hitler’s years in Vienna watching the Slavs do everything they could to drag down the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Either rightly or wrongly, this permanently turned Hitler against them. And when the Poles began to slaughter German citizens, tragedy on a mass scale was inevitable.
Should we condemn the Poles, Czechs, Russians, as genocidal monsters for this, like some want to condemn the Germans? The difference is that the Germans are condemned for what is hazily alleged about their alleged plans and for which no real evidence exists. I reject this as deficient thinking, especially if we do the latter without the former.
It is , of course, easier — always has been and will be — to call one side evil and one side noble, but maybe even easier to just not mention the other side — To not give the other side “agency” as some like to put it today — Only the ones we want to condemn are given agency…and are evil. The others do not “do,” but only have things “done unto them,” and we hazily alleged the former is bad, and the latter, righteous.
This kind of stark thinking makes us feel good, like a rush of sugar to our moral center. Logical rigor calls for a reexamination.
Walter, you are leaving out the fact that Rosenberg was essentially isolated by the party. The more benevolent visions regarding how the Third Reich should treat Slavs held by Rosenberg were held only by a minority of the Third Reich leadership, and certainly not by Hitler. This is explained by Rosenberg in his Memoirs. So, it is unlikely that Rosenberg would have been the one determining official NS policy in the east.
I wanted to make the point that there was not a monolithic mode of thinking.
There is in fact no significant author related to what is called the ‘new right’ who WASN’T critical of Hitler’s policies.
Where did you get this idea?
If Hitler was “Convinced of the inferiority of Slavic peoples” how come did he deem for some of them “highly desirable, from the ethnical point of view, that they should be Germanised” ?
“In Forster’s opinion, if any Pole desired to acquire German nationality, the decision should depend upon the general impression made by the candidate. Even in cases where it was not possible to trace exactly the antecedents of the individual, there were nevertheless certain ethnical characteristics, which, taken in conjunction with character and standard of intelligence, gave sure guidance. According to Forster, it would appear that Professor Günther, a specialist in these matters, was quite right when he asserts, after a tour of ten-odd days through the province of Danzig, that four-fifths of the Poles living in the north of that province could be Germanised.
The views of Gauleiter Forster met with strong opposition, especially from Reichsleiter Bormann. The latter admitted the necessarily empirical character of some of the decisions to be taken, but maintained that, as regards the Poles, care should be exercised not to Germanise them on too wide a scale, for fear they might inoculate the German population with too strong a dose of their blood, which could have dangerous consequences.
At this point the Fuehrer spoke again: It is not possible to generalise on the extent to which the Slav races are susceptible to the Germanic imprint. In point of fact, Tsarist Russia, within the framework of her pan-Slav policy, propagated the qualification Slav and imposed it on a large diversity of people, who had no connection with the Slavonic race. For example, to label the Bulgarians as Slavs is pure nonsense; originally they were Turkomans.
The same applies to the Czechs. It is enough for a Czech to grow a moustache for anyone to see, from the way the thing droops, that his origin is Mongolian. Among the so-called Slavs of the South the Dinars are predominant. Turning to the Croats, I must say I think it is highly desirable, from the ethnical point of view, that they should be Germanised. There are, however, political reasons which completely preclude any such measures.
There is one cardinal principle. This question of the Germanisation of certain peoples must not be examined in the light of abstract ideas and theory. We must examine each particular case. The only problem is to make sure whether the off-spring of any race will mingle well with the German population and will improve it, or whether, on the contrary (as is the case when Jew blood is mixed with German blood), negative results will arise.”
https://chechar.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/uncle-adolfs-table-talk-130/
Basically, Germanization = selective genocide by assimilation.
Obviously, that’s not Borman’s definitition of Germanisation : “care should be exercised not to Germanise them on too wide a scale, for fear they might inoculate the German population with too strong a dose of their blood”. How could they dead people “inoculate the German population with too strong a dose of their blood” ?
Applying 21st century White Nationalist morality to Hitler is like applying 21st century Liberal morality to Andrew Jackson (or whoever they’re complaining about nowadays).
Hitler’s people were not Whites, but Germans and his primary duty was to them. If zero sum interactions with other groups were required in order to make the Germans great, then it was his duty to undertake those interactions.
Transferring your allegiance from your actual tribe to a broader category (race, species) prematurely, when it will not be reciprocated, puts you at risk of cuckoldry. If anything Hitler was too lenient with the British, due to his feelings towards them.
Hitler lived and died in a white dominated world, where conflict between whites was the norm. Conflict is natural to our species and if a white world ever arose again, we could expect conflict between whites to resume.
If, in the 21st century, we think of our people as whites, rather than Germans, Americans, British, etc., it is because our people have fallen so far that whites must hang together or they will surely hang separately.
But at the time of Hitler’s suicide, whites still dominated the world, and all that we’ve lost since then is the responsibility of the allied nations who inherited control of that world.
Ironically, Hitler may still save us in the end, because he showed us that our decline wasn’t the result of some inevitable historical process, but an intentional result that certain people wanted very much to achieve. And it didn’t have to be this way.
A fair, cogent, perceptive, and trenchant argument. Completely agreed!
I think this is a good post. If there was a thumbs up function on here I’d give you one.
Bulk,
Very good comment to which I can add this:
We might today forget that up to ten million Germans, 10-15% of Germans in Europe at the time, lived outside the borders of Germany to the east, with many even deep inside Red Russia. Hitler’s concern with the east was not some kind of wild idea — like, say,an elaborate plan to invade Sri Lanka and colonize it — it was an ongoing, characteristic concern, obsession we might say, with the fate of the Germans across Europe, and an unapologetic, vigorous, and certainly aggressive advocacy for their interests.
The Germans of that era viewed themselves as the leaders of Europe, and even greatly weakened and politically emasculated it is a position, ironically, they are in again today! (Unfortunately, today’s pathetic leadership class of Germany dreams of pushing millions of Muslims on the rest of Europe rather than of encouraging Germans to go east.)
What you speak of is not “White Nationalist morality”. By the 18th century Europeans developed a code for how to wage war in a civilized manner. In other words, they decided they would not massacre and cheat each other as they had done in the Middle Ages or during the wars between Catholics and Protestants. Thus, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries one sees a significant reduction in the brutality committed in war between Europeans. Albeit this code was practiced somewhat imperfectly and did not eliminate wrongdoing entirely, throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and even in WW1 one does not actually see the level of brutality practiced by the Third Reich in WW2. So yes, Hitler is at fault for his policies even by the standards of his own time period.
“throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and even in WW1 one does not actually see the level of brutality practiced by the Third Reich in WW2. So yes, Hitler is at fault for his policies even by the standards of his own time period.”
Try replacing “the Third Reich” with “the allies”, and “Hitler” with “Churchill, FDR, and Stalin”, and you get a much more factually accurate and correctly-proportioned picture. It is the allies and their leaders, not the Third Reich and Hitler, who started the practices of barbaric brutality in WWII, carried them on the longest, and pushed them to the most horrendous extremity.
Riki-Eiki, nobody is saying that Churchill, FDR, and Stalin were innocent. They were all butchers too, and I think anybody here would be willing to admit that. But I fail to see how one wrong rights another, which is essentially what your defense of Hitler amounts to here.
“But I fail to see how one wrong rights another, which is essentially what your defense of Hitler amounts to here.”
You utterly misread me and missed my central point even though I have clearly and repeatedly stated it in my several previous entries. You seemed to have a penchant for moral cleanliness, which is fine and understandable, even respectable, but please do not let it interfere with the reasoning here on this topic as it will only damage the logic, confuse the picture, and befuddle readers. As a matter of fact, I’ve never said Hitler was impeccable and his record squeaky clean. I did claim he erred, sometimes grievously, and made mistakes and had personal flaws and limitations. The gist of my assertion is that all the problems of Hitler were nothing compared to the vice, the iniquity, and the turpitude and ultimate evilness of allied leaders like Churchill, FDR and Stalin, and Hitler’s wartime policies and tactics, with all their warts and excesses, paled in contrast to those of the allies in terms of the degree and duration of viciousness and brutality. Moreover, for all the errors and mistakes and drawbacks and shortcomings and weaknesses of Hitler, he still represents the best hope and the nearest total success of White European peoples in the heroic struggle to shatter the yoke of the virulent usury and tyranny of the international Jewry in the last several centuries. My defense of Hitler did not go along with the “one wrong rights another” theory as you alleged, but only intended to lead to a sensible and rational argument about matters of proportion, comparison and subsequent scientific conclusion on the issue of a fair and rightful assessment of Hitler’s historical status and importance.
No I in fact do understand your point, Riki-Eiki. Yes, Hitler was just a human capable of erring like any other human and yes things would have been better had he emerged victorious, etc., etc. I agree with all that. But my point is this: Some of his mistakes literally seem to go against common sense. Meaning that they were not things one can only see are wrong from hindsight, but which should have been obvious even before Hitler made them. Take for example the way he oppressed certain Slavs who welcomed him as a savior, the Ukrainians and certain Russians in particular. Out of all the major leaders in WW2, Hitler seems to be the only one stupid enough to persecute people who he could have allied with and used to help him in the war effort. And when we look and see that people under his command, like Alfred Rosenberg, knew better and advised better, we must think that perhaps things would have gone different if someone other than Hitler was at the helm. Yes, Hitler was only a human with flaws, but that argument only goes so far when we see that there were other humans with less flaws who would have made better choices.
Yes, Lucian, I saw your point which was politely, clearly, and reasonably presented. However, I still want to emphasize mine which I still don’t think was understood by you well enough, that is Hitler, warts and all, still represents the best hope and savior of White Nationalist cause and interest. Hitler’s talents, abilities, skills and accomplishments still far exceeded and eclipsed his mistakes and shortcomings. He is still the genius who have brought the German people and White nations at large to the full awakening of their racial heritage and pride and led them in an gigantic and unparalleled effort and heroic march against their ruthless oppressors to the place one step short of the finish line before being struck down by the combined forces and resources of three Jew-led world empires. You may argue, and I tend to agree with some reservations, that someone else at helm might have improved the war effort for Germany without making the seemingly obvious blunders Hitler has made, but someone else might not have been able to gone thus far than Hitler before war even started, I mean someone else might not have been able to take power in a war devastated and demoralized Germany ruled by hostile alien elites in the first place, revived its economy and morality almost single-handedly and miraculously, freed it from the yoke of international usury, and survived all the subversion and machinations of diabolic enemies domestic and abroad. All judged, Hitler is still our greatest hero and our greatest leader overall in the last several centuries at least. Again, it’s a matter of proportionality in judging Hitler by taking all his attainments and failures into account and stacking them up against each other to make a comprehensive and balanced conclusion on Hitler’s historical status and legacy.
I see all the Hitler apologists are out in force (*). Yes, Whites have fallen down from the White-dominated world of Hitler’s time. But Adolf (and Winston and Franklin and Benito and all the rest) have a lot to answer for, for that. Stoddard in Rising Tide of Color cogently observed the damage done to the White World Position by WWI, and predicted that another such war would destroy us. He was right. Maybe Adolf should have spent more time reading Stoddard and less reading Grant, Chamberlain, Guenther, and Ostara.
*As a sound evaluation of the “quality” of the “movement” observe which posts here get the most comments. Le Brun’s fine essays (and sometimes I disagree with them, but they are still thought-provoking) lead to few comments, but let someone criticize Saint Adolf, or let there will something about Alex Jones, or Greg asking about Armenians, and all the mouths start foaming.
Hey, guys, I do agree with your take on the status of Hitler more or less, but I also do believe you are being too harsh and nitpicking on Him. I personally don’t think Hitler’s “Sainthood” should be besmirched, smudged, or diminished in spite of the mistakes he had admittedly committed. Hitler was not God but only a walking, breathing human being, a mortal. After all, we mortals erred, and sometimes grievously, as Hitler did. But unless no mortal whoever deserved the title “Saint” and was ever bestowed upon with it in the past (which I believe was not the case), which means if there was even one Western man in the contemporary world history who deserved to receive the title “Saint” (one needs not be perfect or impeccable to get that high honor), Adolf Hitler should be the man, who represented the best hope of, historically and factually, and gave the White European people the best shot and the nearest success in empowering, strengthening, safeguarding, and advancing the existential interest and long term well-being of the White race, as thus observed and agreed by man no lesser than Dr. William Pierce himself.
Of course Hitler made serious mistakes and misperceptions in regard to his approach and understanding of the Slav people which cost his cause dearly. This is his flaw, his shortcoming and his limits, but hardly unique among other great nationalist minds of the more civilized and advanced Western European nations of his time. And it shall also be observed and noted objectively and accurately that Hitler had always been kind and understanding and inclusive in his view toward other non-German European White peoples apart from the Slavs, be them English, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Irish, and French, Italian, Spanish, and to a slighter degree, even Czech, Rumanian, and Bulgarian, as demonstrated in the largely peaceful, civilized, and benign occupation policies directed at the above mentioned countries or in his words and speeches about the aforementioned nations and his long term plan of a pan-European federation with Germany at the helm. This means Hitler could be well considered as a guardian of the German interest in particular and the White European interest in general (excluding the Russian).
However, even when coming to the Russian question, it is believed that Hitler’s view and stance toward the Russian nation did change and evolve gradually to become more understanding and receptive. Hence in my humble opinion, Hitler, for all his flaws and limitations as a mortal, is still the most honest, honorable, truthful, and distinguished White leader in Western history and his status cannot be easily reduced or replaced. If Hitler was not a saint, then nobody was. 88.
Hitler could have earned his political “Sainthood” if he had confined his reforms ( many splendid indeed!) to Germany and had not tried to colonize Russia.
Trying to advance one branch of the white race at the cost of another one is not “advancing the existential interest and long term well-being of the white race” as you frame it.
It is exactly because of Hitler that any reasonable endeavor to secure the interests of the white race is deligitimized as “white supremacism” and “Nazism” and WN have the greatest difficulty to acquit themselves from that. All thanks to “Saint” Hitler.
Your view: “Trying to advance one branch of the white race at the cost of another one is not “advancing the existential interest and long term well-being of the white race” as you frame it.”
My take: As I have already explicated, Hitler did despise and distaste Russians and Slavs for the most par of his life, partly due to his own personal observations and experiences, partly due to his somehow blinkered shortsightedness as his historical limitations. After, He is not God but a walking, breathing human being. But Hitler did care about, wish no harm but only good intentions to help other non-German Europeans, admittedly to a slighter degree than his own German kins, as demonstrated in both his words and actions as I have already argued in my previous post. This is enough to name Him a Saint, at least a Saint for the big majority of White European nations if any one in the glorious historical cause of great struggle and stride of the White European People ever deserved this title. Again, Hitler was not utterly impeccable, infallible, omnipotent or omniscient, so what? He is just a man, the greatest son of the Europe, tha’t enough for all of us to revere, admire, and adore him on the basis of recognizing both his great personal virtues, unrivalled talents, and his unparalleled historical achievements to be forever loved and commemorated, as well as his faults and flaws to be learnt as valuable lessons.
Your view: “It is exactly because of Hitler that any reasonable endeavor to secure the interests of the white race is deligitimized as “white supremacism” and “Nazism” and WN have the greatest difficulty to acquit themselves from that. All thanks to “Saint” Hitler.”
My take: Old and shopworn plattitude of blaming for Hitler for the dreadful and abject failures of White Nationalist cause of post-war era at the hand of our pathetically inept, incompetent and spineless leaders. It must be pointed out all such failures should fairly and squarely lie in the miserably impotent and irresolute and easily infiltrated and bought off “movement” and its “leaders” but not put on the shoulder of Hitler. It also must be noted that our avowed and sworn arch-enemy i.e. the international Jewry were ultimate fiendish and cunning resourceful devil who could always concoct and devise all kinds of “excuses” and “pretense” to revile and defile and deligitimize the WN cause no matter how squeaky clean our history has been and even if the man named Adolf Hitler has never been born into this world in the first place. It is our duty and mission not to let them derail our cause with the name of Hitler or without it. If we have failed, and failed repeatedly and dismally, it is only because our post-war leaders, leaders either claiming or not claiming to be flag-carrier of Hitler’s cause, were too incapable, soft, and lack the guts and gumption and the political shrewdness, the perseverance and tenacity, the courage and sacrificial martyr spirit, and the organizational and mobilizing ability and qaulity indispensable to real leaders as Hitler and his closest and most talented comrades. It is also because our people, our masses of White men and women were not awakened enough to the stark reality of our existential danger and the evilness of our enemy, and were not taught or learnt to be sober-minded and clear-eyes enough to the real European and world history and the rightful nature of Hitler and his heroic struggle.
The solidified spell has yet to be broken, and the erroneous myths and lies remain to be rejected and smashed, and doing that is the very duty of our generation, of you and me. Ignoring or refusing to see that is a pathetic misperception, a wornheaded misplacement of culpability, and pure and unadulterated self-delusion and self-defeatism. Come on, comrades, do our work and fulfill our solemn duty to disperse the dark clouds shrounding the truths so that the truths will shine again and our people wake up!
Riki-Eiki, there is so much more wrongdoing that Hitler committed which goes far beyond just “hating Slavs.” Look at some of his pre-war attitudes and activities regarding neighboring countries. Look at some of Hitler’s mistreatment of fellow nationalists and “Fascists” in other nations which he conquered, ones he could have cooperated with had he only been a believer in national/local autonomy rather than a strict German supremacist as he was. And on top of all that there is the anti-Slavic attitudes. But it is not just “distaste” one sees in Hitler’s attitudes, as that would have been forgivable. But there is more than that (I point to Hitler’s table talk from 1941-44 if you want to see examples), there is a kind barbarism in his attitudes that is unacceptable to display towards any group of humans whatsoever, let alone fellow Europeans. The man does not deserve to be called a saint.
if one attempts conquest of another and justifies the action by saying “might makes right”, but the other beats him, not only can he make no complaint, he must concede that he was rightly beaten.
for to say “might makes right” is equivalent to saying “there is no right” because if “right” means anything, it must mean “right” is no respecter of “might”.
someone making an argument “might makes right” or equivalent to justify some action, is by logic compelled to say, “i have no right, but i go ahead anyway”.
“Might is right” is the Law of the Jungle. Applied to the human sphere it means degrading human beings to predator animals.
Those who profess the Might is Right idea only do so as long as they are winning the battle. When they lose and the other side commits all kinds of crimes on them, they suddenly invoke “morality”, thus contradicting themselves.
Those very same Hitler enthusiasts who justify Hitler’s plans for colonization of Russia based on the Might is Right idea, loudly complain about the Allied war crimes of bombing Dresden and other German cities and the mass raping of |German women by the Russians, while according to the Might is Right idea that would be entirely justified.
It is impossible for human beings to try to live according to an animal morality without running into contradictions. Being human means being moral. There is no ecscape from that.
Germans already had settlements in Russia going back centuries, and had been invited by the czar. Hitler advocating for those Germans’ interests and calling for the expansion of those communities with new German emigrants from the homeland is no different than what White Americans would’ve done and did do for colonies of White Americans a thousand kilometers away from the political border of the USA at any time. The comparison to Texas occurs to me.
The crucial difference is that the territory of what would become the United States was not only far bigger than European Russia but also far sparser populated. The indigenous population of North America at that time is estimated at 2 to 3 million. The population of Russia in 1939 was 168,5 million, which would pose a demographic problem that needed a “solution”.
You said: “Those very same Hitler enthusiasts who justify Hitler’s plans for colonization of Russia based on the Might is Right idea, loudly complain about the Allied war crimes of bombing Dresden and other German cities and the mass raping of |German women by the Russians, while according to the Might is Right idea that would be entirely justified.”
My opinion: Yours is a gross mixing and confusing of matters of totally different proportions. First, your so-called Hitler’s plan for colonization of Russia is factually dubious and doubtful. It is beleived at least that Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union was more of a geopolitical concern than the “racial conquest” many Hitler’s detractors alleged. Hitler was well aware that Stalin was preparing actively an aggressive war against not only Germany but the entire central and western Europe, and he simply preempted Stalin and beat him at the punch.
Secondly, it is admittedly a fact that Hitler disliked, looked down upon, and was wary of the Slavs due to his own early personal observation of the latter’s subversive activities in the former Austrian-Hungarian Empire as well as other relevant historical events and experiences which formed his historical thinking and worldview in regard to the characters and roles of the Slavs. So this prejudice of Hitler against Slavs was not completely unreasonable or baseless despite its defects and limitations.
Thirdly, how dare you put the unrealized and tentative Hitler’s plan for colonization of Russia within the same context of the allied real and stark crimes of firebombing German cities, wantonly killing German civilians and destroying historical relics and the mass raping and murdering of Soviet troops of German women and children with a dear indication of the two being the same in nature?! Even if we admitted Hitler did have a plan for colonization of Russia and itsd people which is still debatable, for the sake of argument, I for one strongly believe Hitler’s plan was only intended to downgrade Russia’s status and take ample use of its vast land and resources for incoming German immigrants, and exploit Russians as subordinate labor force (still need to feed and shelter them and perhaps Germanize and/or promote many of their elites to be included into the big pan-European family especially considering the gradual transformation of Hitler’s thoughts on Slavs later time), it would never sink so low as to comprise depravities like genocide, mass raping, or cruel and diabolic ways of indescriminate massacre of Russians judged from Hitler’s consistent and clean ethical and humanistic character.
Hitler is first and foremost a humanic person, an artist, and a carer and defender of German and European peoples. He lost the wat not because he was too hard and demonic, but too soft-hearted, well-intended, and idealistical. Please don’t fall into the spell of vilifying brainwashing of post-war propaganda!
Alright then, let’s compare the outcome of Hitler’s war in the East with the victims caused by the Allies. The casualties on the Russian side were :
Militairy deaths : 8,6-10,9 million.
Civilian deaths due to militairy actions and crimes against humanity : 7,4-9,5 million.
Civilian deaths due to militairy related famine and disease : ca. 8,6 million.
The casualties on the German side were :
Militairy deaths : 4,4-5,3 million.
Civilian deaths due to military actions and crimes against humanity : 1,45-3 million.
Source : Wikipedia : World War II Casualties.
So which side suffered more?
With no attempt of offense, but I simply can’t help thinking if you are harboring ulterior motives and intending to deceive and confuse. Did you reckon you could trot out a set of blind and loose numbers and expect to use them to convince anybody? Sorry, but I saw no point of persuasiveness in the numbers you employed for the effect of contrast, and your attempted argument with those numbers simply does not add up because you either forgot to mention or purposely avoided to bring up the historical fact that large numbers of soviet military men. and even larger numbers of Soviet civilians who lost their lives in the Russo-German War were not killed by the invading German troops or those of its allies but by their own countrymen i.e. Soviet communist thugs and goons, the cold-blooded henchmen of Stalin’s regime from NKVD and other military-secret police organizations for the purpose of prodding and goading them to die as cannon fodders or human mine sweepers in battles or used as propaganda tools to smear and blame the Germans. These situations have been amply recorded in Suvorov’s books and other historical documents.
” It is enough for a Czech to grow a moustache for anyone to see, from the way the thing droops, that his origin is Mongolian.”
Well, it is good to see “racial science” and “racial history” in the “movement” was not much different for Hitler and other NS Germans as it is today. Most certainly, the droop in Czech moustaches is an observation worthy of any individual deemed the greatest man in history.
I really appreciate that you guys are exercising critical thinking. I agree with the idea that we shouldn’t be afraid of the truth. If something is right, the evidence will point us in that direction. If beliefs are wrong, then the sooner we are disabused of our notions, the better.
I don’t think you can argue without the frame of mind that Germany was getting boxed into a corner beginning in 1933. If you are trapped in an impossible situation, you might be forced to strike back. Hitler’s commentary being referred to may be more about justifying the seizing of opportunities that presented themselves in the course of the war.
Also I think it would have been better for Europe to move eastward rather than Asia to move westward, as was the result of the war.
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