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posted by martyb on Monday October 10 2016, @07:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the Wer-hat-das-geschrieben? dept.

A biography of Adolf Hitler published two years before his autobiography Mein Kampf may also have been written by Hitler:

In the early fall of 1923, when Adolf Hitler was still mostly known for his frenzied speeches at Munich beer halls, a slim biography was published that lauded him as the savior of the German nation and even compared him to Jesus. The book, "Adolf Hitler: His Life and His Speeches," was credited to Baron Adolf Victor von Koerber, a German aristocrat and war hero. Scholars have said that Hitler sought Mr. von Koerber out for the biography because he needed a conservative figure without links to the Nazi Party to help legitimize him as a leader.

However, new research says Hitler penned the work himself. This suggests that Hitler had designs on taking power earlier than many historians have previously thought and manipulated public opinion to get there.

"Adolf Hitler: His Life and His Speeches" was published two years before "Mein Kampf," the autobiography and manifesto that historians consider the moment Hitler went from political propagandist to leader in waiting. The von Koerber biography was published shortly before Hitler helped lead a bungled coup in Munich known as the Beer Hall Putsch.

"It's 1923, and Hitler suddenly decides he needs to boost his national profile," said Thomas Weber, a professor of history and international affairs at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, who uncovered documents in Mr. von Koerber's archival papers that he argues reveals Hitler as the biography's true author. The documents included a sworn statement by the publisher's widow.

Dusty old Godwin meme.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday October 11 2016, @12:52AM

    by edIII (791) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @12:52AM (#412730)

    I think "like Hitler" was a term tossed around too cavalierly and without much care as to the facts. Similar with labeling something fascist. It turned into more of an insult, than a serious observation.

    That being said, Trump is literally Hitler. Unlike all of the other elections I'm sure, this particular election and time period has a lot of uncomfortable similarities with World War II Germany. Not to mention the things that Trump/Hitler *says*. I don't buy any of this "don't take him seriously" bullshit like we need to treat him as if he is still on TV. These are serious matters, and his words need to be taken seriously.

    George Takai didn't outright call him Hitler (to my knowledge), but he did immediately start reminding the rest of America that talk like this led to the Japanese interment camps that he lived in as a child. If Trump/Hitler had absolutely no connections or similarities with the Nazi's and Hitler, then why are white nationalists celebrating as if Jesus came back with a "kill the niggers" tattoo? I hear what you're saying, but then again, white supremacists weren't pouring from everywhere to support Republican candidates in the past. They notice the similarities too.

    Name calling isn't that useful, and you have a point that is well made. However, likening Trump to Hitler isn't name calling, and it isn't a baseless character attack. Trump and Hitler have a LOT in common, more so than Hillary and Hitler do, that's for sure. Forget about the names, and just listen to Trump *speak*. It's truly as if Hitler is speaking hate through his lips.

    For the record, both parties can burn in the lowest levels of Hell, as BOTH parties have fundamentally betrayed America. Trump has hijacked the Republican party (well destroyed it is more accurate) and Bernie has all but hijacked the Democratic party which has largely become Progressive. So I can't argue with you about the Democratic message being ridiculous since both Democrats and Republicans have been ridiculous for years.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday October 11 2016, @10:11AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 11 2016, @10:11AM (#412875) Journal

    I think "like Hitler" was a term tossed around too cavalierly and without much care as to the facts.

    [...]

    That being said, Trump is literally Hitler.

    You show us how it's done. LOL. It's like you've never seen a hardcore populist politician before.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:43PM

      by edIII (791) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:43PM (#413023)

      No, you dipshit.

      I haven't heard a politician make the statements that Trump has made, that are eerily reminiscent of the nationalist sentiments in World War II Germany. If you really think that there are no parallels right now to Nazi Germany, you have your head stuck in the sand.

      Unlike character attacks, which is what Hitler attribution was before, Trump acts and speaks like Hitler did. I couldn't actually call Bush "Hitler II", neither was Reagan, and the older Bush was certainly not like Hitler either. Trump? He makes the same fucking statements, is toxic against due process and civil rights in the same way, etc.

      How about you spend a moment and argue about how Trump isn't like Hitler? We're listening.

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      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday October 11 2016, @07:32PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 11 2016, @07:32PM (#413072) Journal

        I haven't heard a politician make the statements that Trump has made, that are eerily reminiscent of the nationalist sentiments in World War II Germany.

        It's a free country. You want to say that Trump sounds eerily reminiscent of Bambi the deer, then go for it. But what you are neglecting here is that words aren't relevant. It's normal, vaguely appealing nationalist populism. The need is the same, to get elected. I could similarly note that vegetarians practice a diet eerily reminiscent of Hitler's with equal consequence. Guess we better not elect a vegetarian before they kill six million Jews, eh?

        What mattered is action. First, prior to elections Hitler had engaged in considerable, deadly violence with his rivals, particularly the Communists, that was so severe, that the German government had by the time of Hitler's election to Chancellor, already used it as a pretext to shut down the Free State of Prussia, which was by itself, more than half of Germany by population and land area. In addition, Hitler had already attempted to overthrow the state government of Munich. How many states has Trump shut down? How many riots have his supporters caused? How many coups has Trump attempted to engineer?

        Second, the end of the Wiemar Republic was at hand, but it was far from solely the fault of Hitler. As I noted above, they destroyed the biggest obstacle to tyranny when they took down Prussia. Aside from being a convenient scapegoat, Hitler didn't have anything to do with the end of Prussia's state government. Someone was going to be head of a tyranny in Germany and Hitler managed to be the one, but it wasn't a sure thing for Hitler until the Night of the Long Knives [wikipedia.org] when most of Hitler's rivals ended up dead or arrested.

        To say that Trump sounds like Hitler (without I note ever presenting here the slightest justification for your opinion, aside from commenting on Japanese internment camps, which was an FDR thing not a Hitler thing) and hence, by implication, claim that he'll act like Hitler is fraudulent. Sure, both he and Hitler are rhetorically speaking covering the same populist ground and appealing to similar groups of people. They both are acting cynical and saying what a good portion of the voting public wants to hear. But there's no reason, aside from dishonest propaganda or perhaps mindless hysteria, to claim or imply that sounding similar means they'll act similar in office.

        There are good reasons to not vote for Trump. But saying it's because he sounds like Hitler, is not one of them.

        I have to say here, I'm not surprised that the sort of people, such as yourself, who attempt to browbeat me at every turn with morality, would turn around and casually commit such skullduggery. The stench of hypocrisy is strong on you and always has been.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:19PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:19PM (#412940)

    Not to mention the things that Trump/Hitler *says*.

    OK, how so? I assume you've read Mein Kampf as I have (it was for "holocaust class" in senior year of college, they always pick something depressing (why?) and cover all the liberal arts angles of it, because in theory a senior has the full range of liberal arts education, and our year was the holocaust... so MK was on the reading list)

    So Hitler didn't like the Jews very much. Trump of course has one of his kids married to a jew, done business for decades with others... I'm just saying if you think investing in crematoria is a wise financial investment, you're likely to be horribly disappointed after the trump victory. The odds of him cooking up his own kids and grandkids are kinda low.

    So Hitler wanted a final world war against communism and as a side dish figured as Russia was industrializing, Germany needs to invade Russia before they dominate and are unstoppable, in which he was basically correct and we fought on the wrong side (in this specific aspect). Um I think you're talking about crazy hillary and obama here, continually poking the Russian bear. Eventually the bear is gonna get pissed off and rightly so. We really do have amateur hour in charge now and its going to get us all killed unless they're replaced by professionals like Trump, or frankly anyone else. Meanwhile one complaint against trump is he's too buddy buddy with Putin and Russia in general. Or maybe you're imagining things and think Trump has been running on invading Cuba and North Korea as primary campaign planks. Yeah I could see crazy hillary getting us in a nuclear war with Russia or maybe next time Bill rapes yet another woman in order to distract us she might try some kind of "second bay of pigs" thing in Cuba, but I think Trump's about the least likely politician on the planet to start a final world war against the commies or against the Russians.

    Another big theme of M.K. is Germany needed/wanted land and felt large chunks of neighboring countries like Austria and Poland were ethnically German enough that Germany should own them rather than being separately operated and its only an accident of history that they're not greater germany at this instant. I suppose the USA analogy is Canada is basically a maple syrup flavored New England with a better health care system, so we should take over. Even crazy people aren't claiming Trump is going to send tanks across the border to take over Canada to get us some more farm land and unite our ethnically similar peoples. I'd even throw the opposition a bone and say with the illegal alien invasion there's not a hell of a lot of difference between Mexico and New Mexico so if Trump were Hitler we'd be planning on taking over Mexico. Which as a failed narco state on our border we probably SHOULD do... however rather than rolling the tanks and saddling up the cavalry he wants to play pure defense mode and put up a nice boring static wall. Which has worked pretty well in Hungary and on the southern border of Mexico so its probably all we need.

    So... what exactly is there in MK or any other biography of Hitler that's even remotely similar to Mr Trump? Beyond the traditional "all republican candidates are literally Hitler" as has been tradition for decades?

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday October 11 2016, @06:07PM

      by edIII (791) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @06:07PM (#413036)

      So Hitler didn't like the Jews very much. Trump of course has one of his kids married to a jew, done business for decades with others... I'm just saying if you think investing in crematoria is a wise financial investment, you're likely to be horribly disappointed after the trump victory. The odds of him cooking up his own kids and grandkids are kinda low.

      Jews are irrelevant here though, it's the nationalism that matters. Replace Jew with Muslim/Mexican.

      So... what exactly is there in MK or any other biography of Hitler that's even remotely similar to Mr Trump? Beyond the traditional "all republican candidates are literally Hitler" as has been tradition for decades?

      Trump has a lot in common with Hitler. For one, he doesn't recognize or grant human dignity and compassion to basically anybody other than white males (to them he is just an asshole). You cannot argue that he is good for women, but we are talking about Hitler so we can constrain it to civil rights largely. His talk about eliminating freedom of expression, outlawing specific knowledge (Anarchist's cookbook), and modifying due process. Contrast that Ronald Reagan for a moment, who was such a class act that you couldn't attribute Hitler to him on his worst day. Even in the light of history, Reagan may not have been the best president we've had, but he was no Hitler. Bush II comes close, but only in terms of the mass surveillance state, not statements he's made about entire peoples.

      When it comes to Muslims specifically, Trump is talking about internment camps and treats American Muslims as if they are criminals themselves, and has directly accused American Muslims as being responsible and part of the problem. See his islamaphobic double down answer about how he would protect American Muslims against islamaphobia.

      I'm in agreement with you about how the Democratic party abused this characterization for years, but now about how Trump doesn't deserve it. He completely deserves it, and the parallels to Nazi Germany right now are numerous and frightening, and to be fair, Trump only plays a part of it. It's a part he is playing well though.

      Where are all the good traits that Trump possesses that should distance himself from the Hitler characterization? Don't bother, he doesn't have any. He's an arrogant and brutish entitled child that has redefined narcissism while being a fraudulent charlatan that refuses to release his taxes or illuminate his conflicts of interest. Kind of hard to defend him, even playing Devil's advocate.

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