Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil [Paperback]

 

 

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Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil by Ron Rosenbaum. Highly recommended.

Explaining Hitler is a misleading title, for the focus is primarily on the Jewish academic community's attempts to explain Hitler-to put it in grossly oversimplified terms, this is somewhat like the prey explaining the motivations of the predator. The result is that, while Hitler remains a mystery, the academic and personal biases of the explainers are revealed. To each person's theories and comments Rosenbaum adds his own analysis, finding the flaws with precision.

Hitler explanation ranges from the deeply personal (abusive father, infection by a Jewish prostitute, mother's painful death under the care of a Jewish physician) to the inevitable influence of historical forces (post-war inflation, depression). Rosenbaum discusses the personal in depth, including Hitler's rumored Jewish ancestor and bizarre relationship with his half-niece Geli Raubal, the convolutions each theory takes, and the lack of facts or reliable information to support any of them. For example, Rosenbaum astutely points out the only real "proof" of the abusive father is Hitler's own assertion and sarcastically suggests that there is reason not to trust Hitler's word. One argument that immediately comes to mind that Rosenbaum only briefly alludes to later is that millions of people have abusive fathers, bad experiences with individual members of ethnic and other groups, and so forth, yet do not turn into war criminals responsible for the deaths of millions. In short, these theories might explain Hitler's anti-Semitism, but not the results.

What is disturbing about so many of these explanations (some of which are advocated by such noted people as Simon Wiesenthal, who favors the Jewish prostitute theory), and more sophisticated ones that appear later in the book, such as George Steiner's, is their insistence that a Jew or a group of Jews is responsible. In these theories, a Jewish ancestor, a Jewish prostitute, an Eastern Jew with a different appearance, or the Jewish "blackmail of transcendence" and "addiction to the ideal" is responsible for Hitler-implying Hitler is not responsible at all. Although the egotistical and monomaniacal Claude Lanzmann, maker of the documentary Shoah, is too self-centered and angry to clearly articulate the basis for his belief that Hitler explanation is inherently "obscene," it could be because so much "explanation" has found a way to point a finger at the Jews, directly or indirectly, while minimizing Hitler. Perhaps for that reason, Lanzmann is interested only in how the Holocaust was accomplished, not with the motivations of Hitler or his followers. The major flaw is that Lanzmann has missed the point by dictating that his rule of "There is no why" must apply to all other individuals-and the irony of that.

As Rosenbaum repeatedly points out, no explanations for Hitler are acceptable that excuse him-that look to a bad experience with a Jew rather than to, for example, the influence of anti-Semitism surrounding him in Austria and Germany. Again, however, it can be said that anti-Semitic influence has surrounded many people (as Rosenbaum notes, pre-war France was more anti-Semitic than either Austria or Germany) who have not killed, let alone killed millions.

Rosenbaum's approach is excellent, pairing individuals with complementary or opposing viewpoints, e.g., Lanzmann and Dr. Micheels, the theologian Emil Fackenheim and the atheist historian Yehuda Bauer in "The Temptation to Blame God." Even revisionist David Irving is given a chapter. Rosenbaum saves what seems to be his preference for the last chapter-Lucy Dawidowicz's belief that Hitler decided on The Final Solution as early as 1918, based on what he said and did not say over time, and on the "laughter" that is transferred from the Jewish victims to the Nazi victors. While this does not explain the origins of Hitler's evil, it pinpoints the time frame and removes the notion that he was ambivalent or experienced a sense of moral ambiguity. Dawidowicz's Hitler knows early on what he wants to do and lets insiders in on the "joke" he finds it to be. Presented in this way, Dawidowicz does seem to have come closest to the truth about Hitler. After all, how can one capable of ambivalence ultimately kill millions?

To me, one critical question is not why or how any one man became evil or chose an evil course of action, for the explanation could simply be that the capacity for evil in an individual may be higher than most of us are capable of realising or accepting. That is, everyday evil like John Wayne Gacy's is accomplished in isolation and is therefore limited in scope. The intent and the desired scope given opportunity remain unknowns. The more frightening question is why and how so many chose to follow Hitler. I do not necessarily mean the German people, per se, but the thousands of bureaucrats, managers, and soldiers who physically carried out The Final Solution, knowing exactly what this entailed and what it signified. Hitler seized the opportunity offered by the political and social situation to institutionalize his personal evil. A single man may envision and desire genocide, but it takes followers and believers to carry it out. Explaining Hitler (or Stalin or Genghis Khan) is not enough to explain the scope of this particular human evil. Without followers, there are no leaders. And without followers, millions of Jews (and Cambodians and Indians and so forth) could not have died. The evil that is so hard to face goes well beyond Hitler to a place that no one could truly wish to discover.

Diane L. Schirf, 18 January 2004.

Rosenbaum opened this thoughtful and literate review of the supposed "explanations" for Hitler with a gripping account of a winter journey to Hitler's birthplace in the Austrian hinterland, to glean what can be gleaned from the - largely obliterated - traces of his family and early life. There is effective use of the dangerous iciness of the mountain roads as a metaphor for some of the people and places he encountered there: cold to the bone, dangerous, and frozen in time.

That set-piece opening led to a consideration of some of the "explanations" of Hitler's madness and evil: that Hitler had been abused as a child, that he was genitally deformed, or even that he was born normal but traumatised when his genitals were mutilated by - of all things - a goat. These and some of the other speculations that have been offered - that Hitler was homosexual, that he had caught syphilis from a Jewish prostitute, that he was brainwashed into megalomania by a doctor experimenting with new psychological techniques, and so on - led Rosenbaum to a fascinating discussion of what is involved in even attempting to "explain Hitler".

Rosenbaum noted that many of the attempts at explaining Hitler tend, deliberately or not, to reduce the focus on his evil. To understand is to forgive, at least a little, and risks reducing Hitler to a victim, whether of other people or of circumstances. Worse, many of the proffered explanations put the blame on Jews, for example Weisenthal's notion of the (probably imaginary) Jewish prostitute who gave Hitler the clap.

Rosenbaum then examined some of the people who have made a career, or a business, of "explaining Hitler", beginning with engaging portraits of the old school historians Trevor-Roper and Bullock, two wise and wily old dons from an intellectual and academic world that has since largely - regrettably - vanished. This was followed by portraits of Claude Lanzmann, who came to feel he owned the Holocaust, and of David Irving, who tried to minimise it and deny Hitler's guilt, whose treatment is less affectionate. For these sections alone, and for the fascinating material on those journalists, Hitler's contemporaries, who tried to warn Germany and the world what Hitler was, and paid for their courage with their lives, this book deserves classic status.

But the book loses momentum and coherence somewhere past the half-way point. The editing is partly at fault, but worse, Rosenbaum's critical reasoning and crap-detecting seem to flag. He settles, finally, for Lucy Davidowicz's idea that Hitler had planned the Holocaust as early as 1918, based on isolated lines from Hitler speeches, such as, "they [the Jews] are not laughing now." It was a pity to see Rosenbaum apply critical reading for most of the book only to let his guard down completely for something as flimsy as this. The words Davidowicz cited do not say what she claims they say.

Previously Rosenbaum had challenged people who backed their claims with rhetoric rather than evidence, insisting on precision on what words were said, what they meant, who said them, and when. Davidowicz's claims are not only contradicted by almost all recent work on the Holocaust (as an atrocity that evolved over time and took its final form after the war had commenced), they are not even supported by her own citations. And Davidowicz's "explanation" would explain nothing even if it were true. She offered a fanciful and unconvincing answer to the question "when?", but the real question is not "when" but "why?"

However Rosenbaum's earlier chapters more than justify buying and keeping this book. The most reasonable conclusion, taking Rosenbaum into account, is that we will never know the cause of Hitler's madness and evil, but this is not the real issue. Ultimately Hitler was a squalid psychopath, in the same broad category as, say, Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer. He was intelligent, with the ability to charm and impress people when he needed, and murderously mad. Any alternative-history version of Hitler's life would probably have finished with him as a mass murderer: but he should have been another lone killer with a grisly basement and victims numbering in the tens, or fewer, not a head of state with victims in the tens of millions.

So although "why?" is the right question, we should perhaps not direct it at Hitler, but at the forces that put him in a position of power. That means looking at the political, military and business figures, who were basically sane, and evil only on a normal human scale, who actually did the deals that made Hitler the German Chancellor against the wishes of the majority of the German electorate. And even after Hitler was in power, there was a long period after it was quite clear - "crystal" clear - what he was, when it was still possible to remove him, had the will been there.

That group, who nurtured a rootless psychopath and put him into power for their own varied purposes, and who kept him there until he destroyed them too: perhaps it's the people like Papen, Hugenberg, Hindenberg and others, who have not yet received their share of historical scrutiny, or of humanity's hatred, ridicule and contempt. I suspect that this group is the best place to look for meaningful answers, not only to the question, "how?", but also to that most anguished of questions: "why?"

(People sometimes defame democracy by claiming that Hitler came to power by democratic means. In fact the Nazis never won an election, and had lost ground in the election before Hitler was appointed Chancellor. Hitler was installed into power in a betrayal of the voters, and thereafter there were no elections.)

Though "Explaining Hitler" ends disappointingly, it still offers some fascinating portraits of heroes and villains, historians and pseudo-historians, and a great deal of interesting and insightful writing. Though I don't always agree with his conclusions, it is never less than a pleasure to read Rosenbaum thinking aloud. Strongly recommended.


Laon

This book examines the various schools of thought regarding Hitler and the Holocaust and the author did a wonderful job of researching and interviewing many of the scholars on the topic who have in turn influenced our understanding and perceptions of what happened and why. The questions may ultimately not have definitive answers but reading this and having Rosenbaum guide us through the various viewpoints is a worthwhile exercise in intellectual and philosophical investigation. The question of whether Hitler was essential to the Holocaust or if in his absence someone else would have set the same events into motion is one example of an unanswerable question that gets considered.

The questions surrounding the origins of Hitler's anti-semitism are also explored in detail.

There are scholars quoted who adamantly believe that any attempt to understand is misguided because understanding Hitler's motivations is considered by them to be the first step toward rationalization and diminishing the horror of the Holocaust to just a human crime on a larger scale.

This is not a biography of Hitler although many critical episodes in his life are referenced. Instead this is a fascinating look at how different perspectives on the nature of Hitler's evil have developed and how in the end there is no comprehensive answer as to the how and why of the suffering he unleashed. THere is a quote used from Primo Levi's book Survival in Auschwitz. Levi suffering from thirst reaches for an icycle. An SS guard knocks it away and Levi asks "why ?' The response.."there is no why here". I think that story captures some of the spirit of Rosenbaum's book.

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