re: Nazi Heinrich Himmler switches between man and monster in newly discovered diary

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Nah... we just went underground

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Shhhhhhhhh!

You're going to get your occult card revoked again.

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Deputy Führer

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You're correct of course - Hess is the only person to hold the office in the Third Reich - he was not replaced after his flight to Scotland. I can't explain why I typed Reichfuhrer or whatever, other than it sounds more "German."

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Goering (Reichsmarshall).

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And vice-chancellor. By influence, Goering was #2 for much of the Nazi era - but, after the invasion of Poland, Hitler promoted Hess to the #2 spot. Of course, to keep the dogs competing for his attention, he deliberately kept his intentions vague. Hitler didn't trust Goering. Goebbels thought of himself as second in command (on a good day, the de facto leader of the Third Reich) - and at the end, when Goering, Himmler and others were unreliable and unavailable, even Bormann (who replaced Hess as Hitler's private secretary) slipped into one of those "arguable" spots - since he was always present.

ETA: Something we forget about Hess, too, is that he held the #2 spot in the SS (well, #3 if you count Hitler, then Himmler) - interesting for someone considered "less" Nazi among the Nazi elite.

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I have heard of holocaust deniers before but never actual ran into one - even over the internet. Wow.

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A guy from Turkey that was in engineering school with us denied it. Claimed Hitler was a great man.... Middle easterners definitely were taught a different point of view concerning the second world war. Especially when it comes to the atrocities committed by the Nazis.

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The reality is that he WAS a man. It's easy to portray the nazis, especially the leadership, as uncaring, unthinking monsters...but they were just people going through their lives.

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Yeah, but it involves genocide. Plus they hired monsters like Josef Mengele to implement their policies, so I do think most of the leadership of the Nazi party was evil.

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Yeah, but it involves genocide. Plus they hired monsters like Josef Mengele to implement their policies, so I do think most of the leadership of the Nazi party was evil

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The notion that people like Mengele were high ranking figures in Nazi circles or were well known by leading figures or hand selected to carry out work in the camps is a myth.

Mengele was a medical officer in the SS on the Eastern Front and was sent to Auschwitz after being wounded. His activities at Auschwitz, whatever they were, outside of his official duties were of his own. Believe it or not, as policy, cruelty, sadism, and personal profit at the expense of prisoners was forbidden. Of course it took place anyhow as cruelty and corruption cannot be prevented in such circumstances. Himmler actually ordered SS Judge Dr. Konrad Morgen to launch an internal investigation of improprieties taking place throughout the camp system as reports of cruelty and theft of property (which was deemed to belong to the state) were rampant.

This actually resulted in a number of indictments, convictions, and death sentences handed out to camp officials and lead to Morgen's uncovering of the genocide taking place at a few "bizarre" camps in Poland. It's important to recognize that the death camp process was kept very secretive and cloaked in ambiguous language.

It's a difficult concept for many to internalize, but as Himmler's Posen speech clearly demonstrates, the idea was that the SS was being handed an incredibly difficult but necessary task that necessitated order and discipline. Sadism was strictly forbidden. They did not see themselves as barbarians, the opposite really. It's a paradoxical concept but the genocide of the Jews was supposed to unfold in a pitiless, yet business like fashion. Germans were actually removed from the killing process at the camps in as great a degree as practicable, using foreign eastern collaborators and even inmates themselves.

The Nazi leadership and their bureacrats weren't cartoon villains. This is one of the fundamental premises of Hannah Arendt's notion of the "banality of evil" uncovered in her study of Eichmann and the machinations of Nazi systematic killings. This is another concept that appears incredibly difficult for many people to grasp or accept.

ChewyDante, there is a book out there, in most book stores, titled "Auschiwtz. It is the complete history of the camp. Its pages are filled with accounts from everyone involved in the camp, including numerous accounts by SS members. From account after account from survivors, it is more than clear that the SS was not "actually removed from the killing process at the camps in as great a degree as possible." "Sadism was strictly forbidden"? Read the history of Sobibor. Triblenka. Dachau. When it happened time after time in camp after camp for yrs, I am not sure where this policy you reference actually came from. But it was the German SS who were witnessed throwing live children into the ovens, the burning fires, smashing babies' heads against brick wall by swinging them by their feet. Himmler himself directed the SS to train their dogs to "tear human beings apart". etc etc etc