Hitler was not a vegetarian

by Michael Bluejay • ©2007

Before we see the evidence that Hitler wasn't a vegetarian, it's important to look at where the argument that he was comes from, because it's an argument that's never made honestly. No one who makes that argument ever offers any proof. Rather, they just heard it somewhere and immediately assumed it was true -- much like the idea that Microsoft is conducting an email test and they'll pay you when you forward that message to everyone you know. And yet, if you tell them that Hitler wasn't actually a vegetarian, these same people who instantly believed in Hitler's vegetarianism without question, suddenly demand all manner of proof that he was not.

Why do they require such a high standard of evidence that Hitler was not a vegetarian, when they require no evidence at all that he was? Simple: They want to believe that Hitler was a vegetarian. Many meat-eaters are threatened by vegetarianism because it implies that they're doing something wrong. But armed with the (mistaken) idea that the most infamous butcher ever to live was a veggie, that allows them to easily dismiss the whole concept of vegetarianism in one fell swoop. How convenient. That's why they require no proof when they hear that Hitler was a vegetarian. That idea comforts them, so they're all too happy to latch onto it.

If you think I'm exaggerating about the importance that anti-veggies place on the idea that Hitler was a vegetarian, look at this letter that someone wrote to award-winning author John Robbins, who has written several books promoting a meatless way of eating:

You people who say that we would all be more peaceful if we ate a vegetarian diet always seem to forget that Adolph Hitler was a vegetarian. That pretty well destroys your belief system, doesn't it? (FoodRevolution.org)

My god, take a look at that: It pretty well destroys your belief system?! That's how important Hitler's alleged vegetarianism is to non-veggies.

And this brings up another point: It wouldn't matter even if Hitler had been a vegetarian. That is, it would not "pretty well destroy [our] belief system". Bad people occasionally make good choices. What's so hard to understand about that? Had Hitler actually chosen to be a vegetarian, that would simply have been one of the better choices he made. If Hitler was fond of chess, that wouldn't invalidate chess. In fact, one of the best players in the history of the game, Bobby Fischer, is a raving anti-Semite, but nobody stops playing chess because of that.

And of course, even if Hitler had been vegetarian, likely every single other mass-murderer in history was not. If you were keeping score, that would be, Vegetarian Mass Murderers: 1, and then Non-Vegetarian Mass Murderers: XXXXX.....

And now we come to a curious battle: Hitler vs. Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was a vegetarian only for about a year, from the ages of 16 to 17 (ivu.org, 08016.com), but of course most people don't know that. If a meat-eater is (mistakenly) told that Franklin was a vegetarian, they'll demand to know whether he ever ate meat, and if it's admitted that he did, well, then that's their "Aha!" moment. They'll triumphantly exclaim, "So Franklin wasn't really a vegetarian, was he?!" I'm sad to have witnessed a conversation that actually went that way.

That's important because the same people have much softer criteria for Hitler. Hitler's "vegetarianism" was that doctors tried to put him on a vegetarian diet for health reasons, but he didn't really stick with it. For those desperate to believe that Hitler was a vegetarian, if Hitler ever avoided meat then he was a vegetarian. But the standard for Franklin is different: Franklin has to avoid meat 100% of the time for his entire life otherwise he's not really a vegetarian at all!

Why the inconsistency? Because meat-eaters want to believe that Hitler was a vegetarian and they don't want to believe that Franklin was. It's like if Hitler ever ate a potato then he's a vegetarian while if Franklin ate fish once after sixty years meat-free then he's not.

(To be clear, as we said earlier, Franklin was a vegetarian only for about a year, but most people don't know that. I'm talking about how the standards would be applied for people who don't know.)

So what constitutes being a vegetarian? Most would agree that it's a deliberate decision to not eat meat, for whatever reason. By that criteria Franklin was a vegetarian for a about a year, and for the rest of the time he wasn't. For Hitler, there's no compelling evidence that he stuck with the veggie diet he was prescribed for any appreciable length of time at all.

Below are some articles which give the details.

From John Robbins' Food Revolution:

Robert Payne is widely considered to be Hitler's definitive biographer. In his book, Hitler: The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler, Payne says that Hitler's "vegetarianism" was a "legend" and a "fiction" invented by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda. According to Payne:

"Hitler's asceticism played an important part in the image he projected over Germany. According to the widely believed legend, he neither smoked nor drank, nor did he eat meat or have anything to do with women. Only the first was true. He drank beer and diluted wine frequently, had a special fondness for Bavarian sausages and kept a mistress, Eva Braun… His asceticism was fiction invented by Goebbels to emphasize his total dedication, his self-control, the distance that separated him from other men. By this outward show of asceticism, he could claim that he was dedicated to the service of his people. In fact he was remarkably self-indulgent and possessed none of the instincts of the ascetic." (more...)

From the Toronto Vegetarian Association:

While it is true that Hitler's doctors put him on a vegetarian diet to cure him of flatulence and a chronic stomach disorder, his biographers such as Albert Speer, Robert Payne, John Toland, et al, have attested to his liking for ham sausages and other cured meats. Even Spencer says that Hitler was a vegetarian from only 1931 on: "It would be true to say that up to 1931, he preferred a vegetarian diet, but on some occasions would deviate from it." He committed suicide in the bunker when he was 56 in 1945; that would have given him 14 years as a vegetarian, but we have the testimony to the contrary of the woman chef who was his personal cook in Hamburg during the late 1930s - Dione Lucas. In her "Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook," she records that his favorite dish - the one that he customarily requested - was stuffed squab (pigeon). "I do not mean to spoil your appetite for stuffed squab, but you might be interested to know that it was a great favorite with Mr. Hitler, who dined in the hotel often."

From "The Animals' Agenda"

1996 issue, attributed to Roberta Kalechofsky

In their efforts to discredit animal rights activists, supporters of animal research periodically proclaim to the media that Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian and that the Nazis did not engage in animal research.

The implication is that these 'revelations' suggest a sinister similarity between Nazis and animal rights 'zealots' and serve as a warning that animal advocates have an anti-human agenda.

But the real story about Hitler and the Nazis is miles from the myth. One legitimate response to such claims is that it doesn't matter whether Hitler was a vegetarian; as Peter Singer said, "The fact that Hitler had a nose doesn't mean we're going to cut our noses off."

Biographical material about Hitler suggests a contradictoriness in reports about his diet. He is often described as a vegetarian who nevertheless had a special fondness for sausages and caviar, and sometimes ham. One of his biographers, Robert Payne ("The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler) took exception to the view of Hitler as an ascetic, and said it was deliberately fostered by the Nazis to project an image of Hitler as pure and dedicated.

Wrote Payne: "Hitler's asceticism played an important part in the image he projected over Germany. According to the widely believed legend, he neither smoked nor drank, nor did he have anything to do with women.

"Only the first was true. He drank beer and diluted wine frequently, had a special fondness for Bavarian sausages, and kept a mistress... "His asceticism was a fiction invented by (Nazi propagandist Joseph) Goebbels to emphasize his total dedication, his self-control, the distance that separated him from other men..." Biographer John Toland ("Adolf Hitler"), describes Hitler's early student diet as consisting of "milk, sausage, and bread."

Moreover, Hitler never promoted vegetarianism as a public policy for either health or moral reasons. His lack of policies and public support for vegetarianism is significant in a leader who rigorously enforced other health policies, such as anti-smoking and anti-pollution legislation, and pregnancy and birthing measures for women.

The rumor that the Nazis passed an anti-vivisection law is also filled with contradictions. No such law was passed, although the Nazis reported that such a law existed. The Nazis allegedly passed an anti-vivisection bill in 1933.

"Lancet," the prestigious British medical journal, reviewed the Nazis' law in 1934 and warned anti-vivisectionists not to celebrate because the Nazis' law was no different, in effect, from the British law that had been passed in 1876, which restricted some animal research, but hardly eliminated it. An enormous amount of research on animals continued to be carried out by Nazi doctors.

The evidence of Nazi experiments on animals is overwhelming. In "The Dark Face of Science," author John Vyvyan summed it up correctly:

"The experiments made on prisoners were many and diverse, but they had one thing in common: all were in continuation of or complementary to, experiments on animals. "In every instance, this antecedent scientific literature is mentioned in the evidence, and at Buchenvald and Auschwitz concentration camps, human and animal experiments were carried out simultaneously as parts of a single programme."

It is important that the facts be known so that the myths about Hitler and the Nazis cannot be used against the animal rights and vegetarian movements.

Animal rights advocates should not let these false claims appear in the media unchallenged. The record must be set straight.

Roberta Kalechofsky is a writer, publisher, and the president of Jews for Animal Rights

More articles about this topic:

Review of Hitler: Neither vegetarian nor animal lover
Article from the International Vegetarian Union