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I agree with much of Jim Slater's latest posting, which attempted to explain his first one, where he suggested that Hitler suffered from syphilis. What I did find problematic in the first posting was the intimation that Hitler's supposed syphilis somehow had anything to do with his infamous deeds. I found this problematic for two reasons: 1) Hitler didn't have syphilis: hence the assertion that he did is bad history. I ask Jim Slater to produce for us one reference of this condition. Should he prove correct in this assertion, my only request at that point will be for some whipped cream to accompany my humble pie. 2) Even if Hitler had had syphilis, to make an argument about causation using this represents what is wrong with "pycho-history", the attempt to explain away "evil" in history through the personal idiosyncracies of one individual. Hence the old tale of Napoleon's one-inch penis giving rise to his over-compensating tendencies to world conquest. Napoleon may indeed have had this condition, but how far does it go towards explaining his behavior, or the behavior of the nation which he ruled? Allow me to suggest that it doesn't take us very far at all. By extension, any attempt to explain Hitler, or the mass movement which he led, using notions of personal idiosyncracy is to ignore the social dimensions of that movement, and precludes the need to explore questions of consent, resistance or acquiescence in German society. To repeat: I found Jim Slater's latest response far less problematic, and agree that Hitler's behavior near the end of the war seems to beg explaination. But then so does the behavior of everyone who continued along his path. While more and more people attempted to thwart Hitler's wishes near the end, many continued to follow. We require something more than personality quirk to explain this. I believe the answer is to be found in ideological drive. More and more scholars of Nazism are coming to appreciate that the Nazi's ideological drive is to be taken seriously, and indeed is the only thing that can really account for the perpetuation of genocide against economic or rationalistic considerations, which would have all pressed for the end of genocide. This is what Nazism was ALWAYS about: the "primacy of politics", as Tim Mason put it. In other words, the primacy of the ideological vision, and the utilization of all economic or "rationalistic" factors toward the goal of realizing that vision. The traditional view of Nazi ideology as a "smoke-screen", or of Hitler as an "opportunist" without real convictions has slowly but surely been overturned. The fact that Hitler had convictions, to which he adhered right to the bitter end, is precisely what made him such a lethal man. It is this, I believe, and not a possible mental "deterioration" in a physiological sense, which explains the increasingly "strange" behavior of all committed Nazis as the war neared its end. Of course "fanaticism", the other possibility laid out by Jim Slater, suggests this totality of commitment (and might also explain the PERCEPTION of mental deterioration). Richard Steigmann-Gall University of Toronto
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