Ron Rosenbaum on Hitler, Hollywood, and Quantifying Evil

[applegrove]

Ron Rosenbaum on Hitler, Hollywood, and Quantifying Evil

by William O'Connor at the Daily Beast

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/26/ron-rosenbaum-on-hitler-hollywood-and-quantifying-evil.html

"SNIP..........................




Although to some, like Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff, it was the mid-level guys who committed evil acts and knew it. Which runs counter to the Hannah Arendt “banality of evil” theory.

I don’t disagree that there is such a thing as “banality of evil,” I just think that Hannah Arendt was mistaken in finding it in Adolf Eichmann, who boasted to one of his comrades that he would leap into the grave happily with five million Jews on his conscience. He was a feral, mass-murdering killer who even after the war was basically over wanted to make sure that the remaining Jews were murdered or shipped off to death. There was nothing banal about him.

On the other hand, there is a question of to what extent people who claim they follow orders are evil. I think that needs to be scrutinized carefully on an individual basis.

You also argue forcefully against the Hitler-as-Machiavelli argument—that he killed Jews for political reasons.

That was the big debate I came upon when I went over to England and talked with Trevor-Roper one day, and then Alan Bullock, who was one of the historians of Hitler to weigh in. After Trevor-Roper told me Hitler was a true believer, he thought he was doing good, I went up to Oxford to see Bullock. Bullock revealed he had changed his mind. He had initially believed that Hitler was just a cynic, a Machiavellian manipulator, an opportunist who didn’t even believe in his own anti-Semitism but used it to whip up crowds and get power. But Bullock told me that in the intervening years he had come to be swayed more by Trevor-Roper’s position that Hitler did consider himself on a divine mission. The way Bullock put that was memorable: “Yes, Hitler was an actor. But, he was actor who become possessed of his own act.” Bullock then laid out for me the ways in which, from the time Hitler became possessed by his own act with his early victories, that that was the reason that Hitler lost the war. He was so possessed by his own destiny he would never allow his armies even a tactical retreat, which turned out to be disastrous.



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[yurbud]

1. much the way our politicians actually believe they are fighting wars for national security

when it's really about the security of ever larger profits for a very few.