<jussi.jalonen@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:10acf913-f527-4f5d-b44d-de3799b6da8b@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
11 heinä, 17:24, "Michele" <nospammiar...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> And there is a very close relation****p between Hitler and Nazism. The
two
> are
> almost undetachable.
Ironically enough, you seem to be echoing Hitler's own views of his
im****tance as the Indispensable Leader and the Man of Destiny. Do you
really want to advance this kind of an argument?
- Well, it depends. Hitler saw himself as indispensable for Germany. I see
him as almost indispensable for his own unique brand of political
philosophy. It's different, don't you think?
As to destiny, no, I don't think that Hitler was unavoidable; while I do
think that given Hitler as we know him in power, the key choices he made
in
OTL are rather unavoidable. It's also different.
- Now, much of the misunderstandings in this thread, to which you seem to
subscribe, depend on the definition of Nazism which we choose to employ.
It is true that all of its ingredients existed already, and indeed, it
would
have been surprising if it could have achieved that popularity if it had
been an entirely new thing. However, none of the many existing rightist,
nationalist, militarist, anti-Semitic etc. movements would have brought
_all_ of those ingredients and more to their extreme lengths, as did
Nazism - and Nazism did because it was Hitler's creation. Because there
was
Hitler. And because Hitler had Hitler's psychology.
If we want, we can call "Nazism" something that isn't exactly the real
thing. We could say that Antonescu, Mussolini or Franco were "Nazis" - a
simplification. Likewise, going back from OTL to alternate history, we can
assume that we can call "Nazi" some other would-be German ruler. But it
would also be a simplification.
- Note by the way how all the bad guys mentioned above, and you can add
Stalin, were nasty dictators, yes, but also pragmatic people (or
op****tunists, in the case of Mussolini). This means that while they had
their preferences and therefore they preferred ideas and therefore their
preferred ideological solutions, they were rather able to disregard
ideological doctrine and theories when it would not have worked in
practice.
But Hitler? No. When the world doesn't adapt itself to the ideological
theory, he goes for the latter anyway.
- So you have a doctrinal body which has been built with contributions by
many people, and to which many people could subscribe more or less, but
one
person is the ultimate ruler of the state, and also the man, of all the
decision-makers in this system, who will be totally unrelenting and
unyielding when it comes to making the compromises that actually governing
a
country always implies. So much so that people did things behind his back
when they knew how he would react to some uncomfortable practical
necessity.
This is also why I believe that once Hitler is in power, some long-term
intentions cannot be averted. He was not a man to change ideas as to his
main driving ambitions, fears and hatreds.
- By way of further comparison, note how a political philosophy,
Communism,
was already existing and robust both in theory and practical applications
before Stalin came to power. Stalin was not another Party apparatchik, and
the end result is that many historians prefer to coin and use a name-based
trademark, Stalinism, not to be mixed up with Communism.
So if you insist, I can even go to the length of saying that OK, "Nazism"
might exist without Hitler; all I have to do is to say that on the
contrary
"Hitlerism" wouldn't, and to apply my stated claims to the latter. With
the
proviso that, as mentioned, Communism had a life of its own before Stalin
and after him. Nazism, much less, before and after Hitler.
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