Moor Larkin

Britain did turn aside when Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia. He may have thought Poland would just be another nibble around the edges of British interests. I wonder if the only reason he may not have wanted war with Britain and Russia was because he thought Britain and Russia were the only European nations likely to be able to defeat him militarily. He seemed to have been determined to expand Germany almost indefinitely,it was only a matter of timing.

TimR

I would not agree that the US was happy to focus on the Pacific theatre of war following Pearl Harbor. The general attitude in the US was moving away from the strict and widespread isolationism of 1939 and 1940, and Pearl Harbor galvanized the nation in regards to the war threat in general. Edward R. Murrow's broadcasts of the Blitz and other reports from London played a considerable role in changing opinion.

I do think that our failure to come to the immediate aid of Britain in 1940 is a historical black mark against us. I had many talks with my grandparents about that; they were very strongly in favor of helping Britain at the time, but the isolationism - the desire to remain separate from Europe - was the dominant view. The coverage of the Blitz made a dramatic difference. My grandmother was born and grew up in England and had been living in the US for several years at the time; she said that the radio broadcasts transformed Americans in a way that no politician could.

As for the specific concerns for people of German descent, that would have been a serious issue in the midwest, but in the nation as a whole, it was really a more basic isolationism ("We just came from Europe to start a new life....") - perhaps not the most noble attitude....

TimR

I would agree that Kursk was the beginning of the end of Nazi Germany as a land force. But I would say that there were four previous events that also serve as turning points.

1) The failure of the Germans to subdue Britain, and Hitler's weird ambivalence about Britain: a combination of envious anglophilia and demented hatred. As a result, he attacked Britain with a bombing campaign that only served to unite Britain, who responded with a display of courage that impressed the world; at the same time, he dithered and failed to follow through with the invasion.

2) The fantastic Napoleonic stupidity of starting the Barbarossa campaign in June, without having conquered Britain - and just in time to reach the outskirts of Moscow as the Russian winter descended on the troops.

3) Pearl Harbor. A war between Germany and the US would only have one possible eventual outcome. In addition, the eventual defeat of Imperial Japan, Germany's primary ally, was assured.

4) The Battle of Stalingrad and the catastrophic losses suffered by both sides. That was the battle that broke the back of the German army and permanently halted their advance. For the first time, the German home front was presented with an unquestionable defeat.

Moor Larkin

Thank your God, or the lucky stars, that evil seems to be a trait largely exhibited by mad people.

TimR

Indeed yes - the madness tends to eventually trip them up - but not before they have done terrible things first.

I do like your avatar. What is it?

batman

From many investigations done by a plethora of psychiatrists it would appear that Hitler wasn't actually 'mad'. He was probably a psychopath, which is a mental disorder rather than a mental illness. These investigations also conclude that his rather weird decision making was the result of advanced Parkinson's Disease. They believe that he knew he would be dead within a few years so wanted to increase the pace of his plans, but that this impatience (coupled with the Parkinson's) caused him to make rash and incomprehensible decisons.

Bats.

Daddy .... the frisbee has gone in the water .... what a finger puppet drama queen I am!

TimR

Well, psychopaths are out of touch with reality. Evil results in a separation from reality. Stupid decisions follow that. For example, Hitler's obsession with killing as many Jews as possible meant that vital material and supplies, as well as soldiers, were taken away from the battle front to keep the trains running. Whether that is both evil and crazy, I suppose can be argued. But it certainly was not shrewd military planning. His megalomania resulted in a plan to invade Russia when his generals were advising against it.

The Parkinson's theory seems highly questionable to me.

batman

I work with psychopaths and they are very much in touch with reality. Psychopaths have no empathy with the feelings of anybody else, therefore have no qualms about committing evil acts. Evil does not necessarily have anything to do with a separation from reality. Evil acts are often committed by people with unimpaired cognitive abilities, this is especially true in the case of psychopaths. What trips them up is arrogance and over-confidence rather than 'madness'. Hitler was an evil bastard, a terrible tactician and a megalomaniac, but this is not 'madness'. The evidence that Hitler did suffer from Parkinson's is strong. Medical reports by his physicians have been discovered and they do indicate that he had the disease.

Bats.

Daddy .... the frisbee has gone in the water .... what a finger puppet drama queen I am!

TimR

Good discussion Bats (I wish I was not at work, though - it's hard to concentrate.....)

I do see what you are saying. But surely someone who has no empathy - no conscience - is separated from the moral and spiritual reality of those around them?

You are interepreting it in terms of cognitive ability. I was no clear enough in my definition.

But I do take your point: that madness does mean a that the individual's cognitive abilities must be impaired, and that was not true in regards to Hitler. However, paranoia and narcissism - if taken far enough - will result in the breakdown of cognitive functioning as it certainly did in the case of Hitler at the end: gobbling cream cakes, munching pills and screaming about Götterdämmerung in the bunker.

batman

I agree with you here Tim, psychopaths rarely have any interest in spirituality and are usually devoid of any concept of accepted morality. Also, as you say, if a serious disorder is left unchecked the person can develop psychotic symptoms such as Hitler exhibited in his final days. The old cliche of there being a fine line between sanity and madness is very true.

I am at work too, I can see a couple of psychopaths from where I am sitting .

Bats.

Daddy .... the frisbee has gone in the water .... what a finger puppet drama queen I am!

Moor Larkin

Didn't Hitler 'go insane' simply because he couldn't take losing whereas Stalin never 'lost' and retained an aura of sanity until the day he died. But were they not both chronically mad (as opposed to insane)?



mad (md)
adj. mad·der, mad·dest
1. Angry; resentful. See Synonyms at angry.
2. Suffering from a disorder of the mind; insane.
3. Temporarily or apparently deranged by violent sensations, emotions, or ideas:
4. Lacking restraint or reason; foolish:
5. Feeling or showing strong liking or enthusiasm:
6. Marked by extreme excitement, confusion, or agitation; frantic:
7. Boisterously gay; hilarious:
8. Affected by rabies; rabid.

batman

I would place Stalin and Hitler in the same category, psychopaths. There are many theories as to why Hitler's mental health deteriorated, the psychopathy becoming so severe he became psychotic, a huge ingestion of drugs, Parkinson's disease and, as you said, possibly his inability to cope with the destruction of his 'empire'. Stalin, from what I have read, appears to have been a more controlled and less histrionic personality than Hitler and certainly didn't have to contend with the amount of negatives encountered by the Fuhrer. Another factor in his longevity as Head of State was Stalin's rampant paranoia causing him to get rid of opponents at the drop of a fur hat. However, Stalin's physical and mental health detriorated rapidly during the last couple of years of his life, apparently due to an inrease in his paranoia and a cocktail of alcohol and drugs.



Bats.

Daddy .... the frisbee has gone in the water .... what a finger puppet drama queen I am!

Redstar

Stalingrad was the turning point a whole German army was obliterated, Kursk sealed the Nazis fate.

Aaryk Noctivagus

Wasn't the Battle of Britain the first fight Hitler's Germany lost in their campaign? I don't know about it being THE turning point (because I think there were many)... but that must have had a significant impact upon Adolf's state of mind.

Moor Larkin

He never really lost though, it was more that he just stopped trying to win. He was frustrated, rather than beaten, by the Few and Britain was merely harrying his army in N. Africa. His lunge into Russia in 1941 seems beyond all reason and the fact that his systematic genocide began around the same time must be significant.

There are humungous books about all this but it does seem that war and the military machine became Hitler's entire reason for being. He had Britain and Russia bottled up in 1940; he seemed unable to curb his urges and just consolidate. Deputy Hess' bizarre flight to Britain to try and spark some negotiation seems to suggest people around Hitler could see it was the time to stop - from a rational perspective.