Hitler, Evolution, and Christianity

I've been looking through Hitler's second book, the one that remained unpublished for so many years. It's got plenty of pseudo-Darwinian stuff. I want to study it more closely, but here's a couple of examples: He's blending his idea about "living space" in with the "survival of the fittest." "Hitler's Second Book: The Unpublished Sequel to Mein Kampf,"
trans. Krista Smith, Enigma Books, 2003.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 06-08-2005 07:41 AMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 06-08-2005 07:43 AMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 06-08-2005 07:44 AM

After some study, I submit the following summary of Hitler's world view:Life on earth is set up in such a way that each individual and each group of individuals must struggle against each other in order to survive. In the evolution of humanity, distinct races have formed in different parts of the globe. The banding together of individuals of the same race into tribes helps that tribe to survive.What matters is the inner strength of a people, not its material wealth. The more materialistic a people are, the worse they are.
The tribe with the best quality of human beings will, through natural selection, dominate, enslave, or destroy the lesser tribes. It is natural for the superior tribe to do this, and being natural, it is also morally correct.The way a tribe survives is to have living space, land on which to populate and grow food. So the struggle among tribes is always the struggle for more land. Hence, war between tribes is inevitable.A successful tribe will increase its population to the point that more land is necessary. Any attempt to limit the growth of population artifically is unnatural and detrimental to that race, for a tribe will suffer if its numbers decrease. The superior tribe is made up of the Aryan race, who are the makers of high culture.There is another tribe, the Jews, which is unlike any other tribe in that it has no land of its own. The Jews, though a unified tribe, are scattered into various other tribes, and therefore are by their very nature parasitic. The Jews have various strategies for survival, but one of their main strategies is the bastardization of other tribes while keeping their own tribe pure. They do this through the support of internationalist causes, chiefly Marxism and the idea of the "equality of man." The Jews are not a religious tribe. They are a racial tribe.A superior tribe must never mix its blood with an inferior tribe, since the inevitable result will be a weakened race.There is no such thing as "conquering nature." This is a perverse Jewish idea. One must live according to nature. This is what God wants us to do.To live according to nature is to breed only with one's own people, one's own race. This is seen in the animal world, where each species has its own gene pool.What I conclude from this:1. There is a strain of pseudo-Darwinism running through this "world view." I am not sure where Christianity fits in.
2. This tells us that scientific ideas, misunderstood or willfully misused, can be dangerous. They are especially dangerous because scientific ideas, being scientific, have prestige. Therein lies the danger.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 06-09-2005 10:29 PMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 06-09-2005 10:35 PM

Of course. But the influence of such ideas depends on their prestige.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the first half of the 20th century, science was king. Its spectacular accomplishments gave it such prestige that everyone was thinking in scientific, or rather pseudo-scientific, terms. This includes Nazism but also communism. Probably the area in which it was most impressive to the masses of people was medicine, where for the first time one could actually cure a disease. Medical doctors were put on a pedestal.And then what happened? Science got misused. Ideas from science entered into fields that had nothing to do with the original scientific idea--psychology, for example. It got mixed up with politics.As a result of this misuse, there was a backlash.Now medical doctors are sued right and left. They have almost gained the reputation of lawyers (not quite).There is also, of course, the effect on the imagination of the mushroom cloud.The backlash led to fundamentalism--and creationism.

Good point.I'm interested in that question myself but don't have enough info. yet to come to any conclusion.The above remarks I made about the 20th century were very speculative, obviously.

There was nothing logical about Hitler's pseudo-Darwinian notions.He spoke of "races" as though they were species, and we all know what the result was of that kind of thinking.By the way, since I've been reading this Nazi stuff, a question has entered my mind that maybe somebody out there can answer:From a scientific point of view, what is the status of this categorization of humans according to race?

Thanks, Crashfrog.I was thinking that.

It's not obvious at all that Hitler was "godless." Hitler professes his belief in God over and over in Mein Kampf. He says that in killing the Jews he will be doing the work of the Lord.

Just one additional question, Crashfrog or anybody who knows. What would be the scientifc definition of "race"?

Oh.

Are there "races" within other species?

I was thinking of "variants" within a species, such as in the butterfly family. I was wondering if that was the same thing as race.

Hitler professed to believe in God. So either he is lying or he really did believe in God. In order to prove he is lying, you will need some textual evidence. Many Christians have been responsible for many killings and torturings. They did it, presumably, because they thought they were doing the right thing.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 06-11-2005 07:27 PM

I agree. But I do think Hitler used some of Nietzsche's ideas and perverted them, just as he did with Darwinism.And Nietzsche does seem rather aggressive and belligerent at times.

Of the professional historians I have studied so far, most mention the pseudo-Darwinian influence. I haven't found any that mention the Christian influence on Hitler's or Nazism's philosophy.Here's an example, speaking of Hitler's philosophy:"the social Darwinistic view of history as a struggle between individual races with victory going to the strongest, fittest and most ruthless--seems to have occupied its place at the centre of this world-view by 1914-18 at the latest" (21).Ian Kershaw, "Hitler." Longman, 1991.Now I see a lot of websites devoted to proclaiming Hitler's Christianity--by a bunch of amateurs, I suspect.