Obsession about Hitler in modern society?

Question

I am under the impression that he seems to have a larger than life presence in society. Despite him being dead for over half a century.

He's either called a political genius, a raving loon, a sociopath or an egomaniac. Or any combination of them all. Yet he is talked about, to a much higher extent than even most political figures which are alive right now.

Take for example even wikipedia. He has a whole page dedicated to his religious views. Or also to his diet, and how he was a vegetarian, who didn't drink alcohol or smoke. HIS DIET? Christ, I mean Roosevelt and co, or other important political figures are reduced to one wikipedia page. Hitler gets about 5+, covering every facet of him.

Is the obsession since everyone is scared that someone like him can exist? That they see themselves somewhere in him? Being an artist, who loved animals (passed the first true animal cruelty laws in the world, I'm surprised PETA hasn't given him honorary membership), war veteran etc..

Answer 1

hitler defined evil in the modern world. how can you not expect him to be talked about? if any current political figure did half the c**p hitler did, they'd be talked about too.

edit: good point, I guess he didn't define evil as such. probably all the hate comes from media propaganda of his actions and the fact that he kept recordings etc. of all the bad stuff he did, which other people in similar roles probably would have destroyed.

Answer 2

Hitler is one stupid stupid stupid stupid x infinity guy ! I hate him, I always will ! I just hate what he did to people, racist b*****d !

Answer 3

Adolph Hitler will forever be engrained in our phyche as the most evil genius to walk the planet.  The thing that attracts him the most to the vast majority of people is that he was one of us.  By that I mean, he didn't hail from some planet, he was born of two parents, middle class, in a small Austrian town at the dawn of the 20th century.  At a time in which his whole life would have been ruled and laid out for him by the Imperial World he grew up in.  It is true from birth to about age 33 nothing in this man's life would have prepared him for what laid ahead.  A failure in most everything he had done, up until the time he joined the German Army in World War I, and from that moment on a change had occured and the boy became a man.  

From 1919 to the end of his life in 1945, National Socialist Movement that he had come in contact with and embraced became the stage where all of his early crushed dreams and ambitions were given a new source of life.

Hitler was the lightening rod that attracted other like-minded pan-German thinkers who set about the transformation of a distroyed and defeated post World War I Germany.  

Some may argue this point, but the n**i's did halt the encroachment of Soveit dominated Communism in Central Europe.   At a time when experimentation in radical new political thoughts were gaining a foothold, especially once the economic collapse of the Depression took hold, Hitler's redical ideas in the so called Brown Revolution did not fully agree with the vast majority of the German people.  But through careful manipulation of both the media and support from the industrial base, the n**i's looked like a better and safer choice to rule than any weakened form of Democracy or impending take-over by Communistic sympathizers.

The early struggle to obtain full power was both a costly one, with lives lost on both sides and within the party itself, through political in-fighting.  Hitler was a quick read of both History and Human kind and quickly overcame failure and adapted new philosophies and ways of dealing with new challenges.

With political elections and strong-arm tactics he successfully positioned himself to the second most powerful man in Germany; behind the aging von Hindenburg.   With the death of Hindenburg, Hitler was able to centralize his power and mobilize the people he needed to place him FIRMLY in power.  Once there he set about changing the legal system and all of it's laws to reflect his deepest wishes and desires.

From 1933 to1938 he set about changing Germany in a profound and dramatic way.  Rebuilding the country, rearming it, and placing it on a firm footing at a time when the rest of the world was struggling through the Great Depression.  This remarkable transformation of a previously DEFEATED nation to an overnight superpower began to send out shock waves that were felt in other nations.  So much so that a growing German Bund was taking place on our American shores.  Other nations began to follow, and similar n**i oranizations were springing up in countries like England, Holland, and Belgium.

As far as the Concentration Camps, neither Hitler nor the n**i's invented these.  England did during the Boer War.  Hitler just reinvented them and added a whole new dimention by adding death camps and the elimination of some 50 million people (Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, Soviet POW's, Poles, and Freemasons).

It has been said by many Historians that if Hitler had died before the start of World War II in Europe, September 1, 1939 he might have gone down as one of he greatest statesmen in all of Europe.  

Yes he did enact laws to protect animals, he was also concerned with the environment by enacting laws,  such as placing scrubbers in factory chimneys.  Although the Autobahn was on the drafting board long before Hitler came to power, he did immediately seize upon this idea and carried it to friution.  

The transformations that Hitler had made of a previously defeated country divided and occupied by foreign nations, impressed even Mahatma Gandi, who called Hilter one of the geatest leaders ever.

This may seem like a glorification of Hitler.  I can assure you in no way it is.  This is but a brief 40 year study of the man and the movement that has captivated my attention since childhood.  This madman and all of his followers, I have collected and studied in depth through documents and artifacts in my possession, to help explain the emotional and human charachteristics of an individual that dwells within the phyche of man.  You asked why people studied Hitler:  he is the imbodiement of the darkest side of the thoughts of man and he will be forever studied till the end of tim.

Answer 4

He was a very twisted man who is the standard of modern evil. People wonder how a person could be so cruel and how he ever got as far as he did before he was stopped.

Answer 5

Someone like Hitler more likely would have been seen as 'twice exceptional'; a person who has a mental disability of some kind,like ADHD or dyslexia,but otherwise happens to have a real high I.Q. based on what I've read about him, he seemed to suffer from what is now known as ADHD!  He also dropped out of high school as well,as 1 out of 5 high school dropouts are said to be 'twice or even multi exceptional'. apparently,stupidity and genius can co-exist within the same person.

Answer 6

Why does Hitler get so much attention when he is an ordinary Genocider like all the others, including Joe Sixpack, if he ever got the chance?? The answer is this: Hitler, Jesus, Chamberlain, and Elvis serve roughly similar purposes: to avoid personal responsibility, to avoid the dreaded experience of independent thought, all by setting up a quarantine of "evil" and"good" by personifying and enshrining it. Hating and worshiping helps us avoid recognizing evil in ourselves and helps us avoid guilt for failure to do "good", like the Vatican's failures in WW2. If "good" is on a pedestal, we don't have to reach it, and if evil is in a spitoon, we can spit in it and know there is a place for our phlegm. We can only pick a few objects of worship and hatred because ADHD is only a matter of degree. We all have it. Why Hitler? Because he is causaian and European, and so he failed to meet those standards of daintiness we expect from civilized capitalist democratized free people with indoor plumbing like us. Also, Hitler's times coincided with the advent of mass media to bring the death camps into our living rooms. Sure, Japanese atrocities made the S.S. blush, as even some n***s living in Nanking wrote a letter to Hitler complaining about it, but the Japanese were supposed to be like that. We are compelled to despise Hitler because he is one of us, and betrayed us, so we must disown him though a specific process by which we restrict how we view him. That's too scary, so we in essence, quarantine his evil, as if that will end its spread. That's why Wiki needs 5 pages. Personal- responsibility-avoidance takes lots of paper, not to mention intense grunting and squating. That's why everyone goes berserk with rage when anyone's thinking is compared to Hitler's. That's an invasion of our privacy in a way, as such smearage appears to "spread the virus" and such a "pandemic of evil" is too horrible to contemplate, especially since it is in our midst anyway. For example, Hitler believed that confiscating the means of production from Jews and cleansing others was sound economic policy. But once he passed the point of no return he couldn't let them participate in society because he had messed them up so much, they became a real liability. You can't expect millions of people to just stand around and take it forever. So he tried to deport the Jews as the pre-final solution, but nobody would take them. So he felt that he could blame the rest of the world for leaving him little practical alternatives but to exterminate them, since they "made" him do it. If you go to any prison, you often hear the same logic when speaking of fault and blame for criminal conduct. Most prisons give standardized "moral regeneration" courses that most of our political leaders could certainly benefit from taking. Hiter is how we quarrantine evil so that we can avoid recognizing it in ourselves. That's why it's sacrilige to compare anyone to Hitler, since we quarantined that evil in the 5-page Wiki-Hitler shrine. As long as we keep hating and enshrining Hitler, we can find something to feel superior to, as well as satifsying our morbid curiosity, just as Murder-Inmates are compelled to feel superior to s*x-offenders. We all must keep that flame alive or our entire sense of self worth as Americans will collapse. Just as sure as CEO's must surround themselves with bloods but not crips, or the corporate equivalent. Indeed, if you read the transcript of Herman Georing's Nuremberg testimony about politics and the unpleasantries that are necessary in bringing order into the chaos of Islamic extremism or some other problem (I forget which), it is clearly the same higher moral power invoked at most of the board meetings. I would put Hitler as sort of an "average Joe", where you give him a rigid ruler-swacking Catholic-School start, a messed up family, putting him in a situation where he is in the right place at the right time, has enough prison time to focus his goals, then sees his opening, and finds himself suddenly to be in over his head, with sychophants and attendants squirting him with methamphetamines, you have either Hitler or any of your typical corporate defendants selling coffin nails.

Answer 7

Well, I won't go in depth about it, because I'm no Hitler expert.

But I think one of the reasons that there seems to be an "obsession" with him in modern society is because of how convincing he was, even though we know he was evil - I read everything that you wrote about all the other evil people and things that happened before him, like the English concentration camps, I'm just saying that he was evil all the same.

I think that people are kind of in shock...because he was such a motivational person, despite his intentions and goals.

I hate the guy, but that is why I think that today's society focuses alot of attention to him...what he did to people -- not just Jews, to everyone else, to the Germans, the rest of Europe.  He managed to create this huge alliance that carried out his deeds for him, what's more in a modern era of history.

Just the height of his power - take into consideration your own example of the Boer war.  How many people on the streets know about the Boer war?  How many people know about the Titanic, but not about the Olympic, which I think is just as magnificent as the Titanic?

The impression that Hitler left on people carried out into today, I think.  Just the fact that he could be something like a vegetarian, which most people associate with "good," would obviously inspire awe - not awe in the sense of agreement, awe in the sense of pure amazement that he could do so many bad things.

Answer 8

First I think you are right on target with many of your suggestions and points about standards of evil.  

To keep this short, what did Hitler really think about that was so drastic and different than many of the intellectuals of his time?  His ideas on race were relatively standard for the time, and were at least more apt to recognize attributes in other races when he perceived them to exsist.  Unlike Wilson, Churchill, or many other men who could not even fathom another culture being anything period.  One only needs to look at Churchill's view on the aborigines and you would wonder if Hitler had not written it.

Politically, Hitler's idea of Lebensraum was based on his understanding of the conquest of the American west by his own admission.  How was the way he viewed the Slavs any different than the way we viewed Blacks, Native Americans, or Asians?

Hitler was an above average guy who's willpower lead him to act on the principals and ideas numerous of his colleagues around the world were keen on doing themselves if they could muster up the courage of their convictions.  One only needs to look at the age to see that a Hitler was bound to show up somewhere, it was only a drag for the French and British that he showed up in their stronger neighbor Germany.

Finally, without prejudice, it is obvious that had Hitler not tried to exclude Jewish people and the elites who catered to them from the German and later European economies, he would be remembered as a simple adversary not the evil of the world.  Had he been keen on kicking out or even killing all colored folks in Europe, would he have been considered such an abomination?

No, he would have been worthy of leadership in every industrialized nation.

Answer 9

Hitler addressed the cries of the German people who were impoverished by the terms of the the Treaty of Versailles.  He provided hope to a nation of intelligent people.  But, Hitler did not see his role as nation's leader out of an economic h**l.  So, he added rule on rule inexorably directed toward a slaughter of the Jewish population.  I swear to you that a leader will have rise in this country to save the people from the Green movement that blocks all efforts to provide energy sufficiency and independence.  The Green movement is the oppressor of the people of this great nation.  There will be a second civil war.

Answer 10

>Concentration camps are an English invention from the Boer war, where the English murdered tens of thousands of Boers in them <btw British>

Conveniently forgetting the US internment camps of the Philippine-American War and Native American’s reservations, and the Spanish camps in Cuba.

btw he was a vegetarian whose personal chef said his favourite dish was sausage. Wikipedia is not the best resource for research.

Answer 11

you have a very good point.  in the end, Hitler did not get his "1000 year Reich" in physical form, but i think he certainly got it in verbal form. i think even 1000 years from now people will still be talking about n**i Germany, and even more so, people will be talking about Hitler

Answer 12

I think our fascination with Hitler has something to do with the fact that in modern times he was able to twist religion and birthright and brainwash a nation. He was able to feed off Germany's poor situation and rise them up with bullshit. And it worked. I mean what he did with Hitler's youth was genius. You can't deny it. But it is so interesting to see how there is a thin line between genius and insanity. And Hitler crossed that line carrying the population of Germany with him. Killing MILLIONS. All under the nose of the rest of the world only 65 years ago. That's something not to be obsessed about, but it is in incredible portrait of human behavior.

Answer 13

I think the interest in Hitler's personal life comes from the inquiry of his mindset.  He did influence this world greatly, and in the Confucian tradition, many people want to learn from the past to make the future a better one.  Since Hitler committed such largescale atrocities, you could expect that he'd be prominent in being a studied historical figure.

Answer 14

What do you expect from a guy who started as a postcard salesman a century ago in Vienna, Austria and had periods as a homeless bum then. Moved to Kaiser's Germany and fought in World War I. The war over with Germany defeated. Good in speeches. Called a "loser" and a crazy guy. Led a German n**i Party. Reach the highest power of that defeated Germany. Establish a brutal and dehumanizing dictadorship. Rearm. Breaks peace treaties. Start a criminal war by invading Poland. Surrounded by real crazies [Goebbels, Goering and Himmler, plus others] convinced the German population he is fighting for them, and they believe him. Start an annihilating persecution of Jews and others. Start concentration camps to get rid of them. War becomes global and apocaliptical. n**i Germans turn brutal in that war with mass murders and bombings under Hitler. Allies desperate, decided to "play rough too" with Hitler. Firebombed the country while millions on both sides die in a war that doesn't make sense. And finally defeating him with the armies of three countries [USA, Britain and Soviet Russia] entering Germany and devastated the country. And he commits suicide?  This guy obviously was not normal and logical as we can see.  And also changed to course of history. Europe and Germany are no longer superpowers, but USA and Soviet Russia for the next four decades became superpowers [USA still is, but it is finally declining].. Hey, I can understand why people are so obsessed with this guy. He was so crazy that many of  us really can't believe what he had done. Oh, I almost forgot: he was able to kill 6 milllions of Jews, besides the tens of millions killed on both sides of the war he created. I understand this maniac.

P.D.: What use in hating him? He did what he did, unfortunately. And we are the inheritors of his madness. You can't changed what happened. We will have to live with it and get going with our lives. Besides being the most hated he is also the most controversial historical figure. More so than Napoleon or Martin Luther, the German reformer. Anyway he is dead. "Those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it" George Santayana

Answer 15

Because ever since, there has not been a leader quite like him. He was ruthless, ambitious, arrogant, a sociopath, destructive, racist, and a megalomaniac, but not at all stupid.

I am fascinated by him for one reason - the awesome charisma and presence the man had.  He ruled like no other modern ruler has.  By the power of his voice and rhetoric he moved a people to believe in themselves again. Jobs were numerous, public projects were carried out, and people weren't hungry. The German People were tired of being tired. He gave them a reason to get up in the morning.

But, and this is a big BUT, they all supported him BLINDLY. They allowed him to become the monster he is known as today. He played the German people and when they realized it, he'd already had them where he wanted them. Then, after utterly destroying everything they had worked for over the  years, and realizing  his doom was eminent, forsook them.

So I guess my answer is  - Because people want to know HOW and WHY he was able to get that powerful. As they say, if we forget about the past, we are doomed to repeat it.

Answer 16

Europe is generally thought of as a mix of many powerful societies and spheres of influence. Yet when you think of most of that being in the control of one man and of one country in a modern age it is amazing like the Roman Empire. Stalin probably did worse than Hitler but Stalin wasn't our enemy and thus propaganda wasn't directed at him but at communism, but mostly at Hitler.Hitler is the most recent Napoleon type figure in the 1800s the Napoleonic wars was "The Great War" Hitler is like Napoleon but did something (Holocaust) that can be used against him to mar his portrayl as a heartless tyrant instead of a Napoleon type figure that built the German people up and just wanted war.