Okay, so here's the deal. Tonight, after posting the Romney 47% video on Facebook, I suddenly get an e-mail from a right-wing friend. (Yeah, I have some of those. I even have a friend who's a Paulite...and a lot of fun to debate.) As this particular friend never e-mails, I suspect it is in response to the post.
It's one of those thinly disguised "You're gonna think it's Obama but...on no...it's Hitler!" shock ending things. You know, the shocking Hitler reveal that was already not especially shocking when Rod Serling did it around 1960 on the Twilight Zone.
Now my first instinct was just to ignore it...but hey, I'm feeling pretty froggy these days. And since screaming isn't really my style I thought it might be fun to take it apart point-by-pointy-headed-point. Original e-mail in bold. My responses not. Since if I did it the other way around all that bold would make your head hurt.
So stick around after the squiggle if you like, but first a word from our sponsor:
Subject: I wrote a book about my struggles
I wrote a book about my struggles.
Many writers have written books about their struggles, though of course Hitler specifically named his My Struggle. His book, which I had the misfortune of reading for school, is an extremely ugly volume filled with racism and thinly veiled threats about his plans for the Jews. Very few books ever written compare to it...thankfully.
I was born in one country, raised in another.
German history is complicated. A number of German principalities united to form modern Germany in 1871, though they had previously been sort of a confederation. Bismarck, who masterminded the unification, worked to exclude Austria, the largest and most powerful German state, in order to bolster the power of Prussia in the new Germany.
Hitler was born in Austria and moved with his family to Germany...specifically Bavaria...when he was three, though he did not become a German citizen until 1925. However, to a degree all Austrians would have thought of themselves as German.
My father was born in another country.
Hitler's father was born and raised in Austria. Hitler was born in Austria and primarily raised in Germany.
I was not his only child.
Hitler was the fourth of six children. All of his older siblings died as infants, before his was born. One of the younger died when he was 11.
He fathered several children with numerous women.
There is no record of Hitler's father, Alois, fathering children by any women other than Adolf's mother. However, Alois himself was illegitimate so that may be where this confusion comes from.
I became very close to my mother, as my father showed no interest in me.
Hitler fought a great deal with his father, over his schooling and his lack of interest in following his father's path and making a career in the Customs Bureau. A turbulent relationship is hardly the same as no interest. There exists no particular evidence that Hitler felt especially close to his mother, but who knows?
My mother died at an early age from cancer.
Hitler was 18 when his mother died of breast cancer. She was 47. His father had died 4 years earlier.
Although my father deserted me and my mother raised me, I later wrote a book idolizing my father, not my mother.
Hitler was raised by both parents...at least until his father's death, which is not exactly the same as desertion. The only book Hitler ever wrote hardly touched upon his youth and certainly did not idolize his father...just Hitler's own political beliefs.
Later in life, questions arose over my real name.
Hitler's father Alois was, as mentioned, illegitimate and not acknowledged by his father. Thus he bore his mother's surname, Schicklgruber...a name which became the butt of jokes here in the States. She eventually married a man named Heidler, who was likely Alois father though that is not entirely certain. Alois did not adopt the surname Heidler till he was nearly 40. Though the name went through several spelling variations before settling into the now common form that was not unusual in that era. (My own surname, in the earliest version I've seen, was Lorincz and there were half a dozen more.)
Adolf, however, was born and died as Adolf Hitler without dispute.
My birth records were sketchy. No one was able to produce a legitimate, reliable birth certificate.
Adolf's birth records are pretty solid, particularly for the time. Alois are sketchier, but actually pretty well documented.
I grew up practicing one faith but converted to Christianity, as it was widely accepted in my new country, but I practiced non-traditional beliefs and didn't follow Christianity, except in the public eye under scrutiny.
Adolf grew up Protestant and never abandoned those beliefs...though how a man who claims faith in God could commit such crimes is beyond me. Most of Germany was largely Protestant though Bavaria was majority Catholic. Hitler had a very contentious relationship with the Catholic Church as Chancellor. He thought the Catholic Church anti-German.
I worked and lived among lower-class people as a young adult, disguising myself as someone who really cared about them.
Hitler was lower-class people, economically speaking. He worked as a laborer. It was in Vienna, as a young adult, that his views about immigrants and ethnic minorities began to manifest, at least publicly.
That was before I decided it was time to get serious about my life and embarked on a new career.
Hitler tried to stay in the army after WW1 before becoming involved in politics. His introduction to Nazism actually came when he was assigned as an intelligence office to infiltrate the German Workers Party, the forerunner of the Nazi party. He was attracted by the party's nationalism and antisemitism.
I wrote a book about my struggles growing up. It was clear to those who read my memoirs, that I had difficulties accepting that my father abandoned me as a child.
Well, yeah, I guess it would be hard to accept that his father abandoned him as a child...because he didn't!
I became active in local politics in my 30s. Then, with help behind the scenes, I literally burst onto the scene as a candidate for national office in my 40s.
I wouldn't say that he was ever exactly active in "local" politics...it was always national. He literally burst onto the scene in 1923 at the age of 34 when he tried to overthrow the German government in the Beer Hall Putsch.
They said I had a golden tongue and could talk anyone into anything. I had a virtually non-existent resume, little work history and no experience in leading a single organization. Yet I was a powerful speaker, and citizens were drawn to me as though I were a magnet and they were small roofing tacks.
Yes, he was a naturally magnetic speaker. A decent military record, though as a corporal he would not have been in charge of much. He did of course lead the Nazi party as it grew powerful enough to overtake the government.
At first, my political campaign focused on my country's foreign policy. I was very critical of my country in the last war and seized every opportunity to bash my country.
He was critical of the Jews and the Jew bankers, who he claimed betrayed Germany and sold them out when victory was at hand.
But what launched my rise to national prominence were my views on the country's economy. I pretended to have a really good plan on how we could do better, and every poor person would be fed and housed for free. I knew which group was responsible for getting us into this mess. It was the free market, banks and corporations.
Again, it was the Jews. He blamed the Jews. For everything under the sun, he blamed the Jews.
I decided to start making citizens hate them; and, if they became envious of others who did well, the plan was clinched tight.
If by "them" you mean the Jews...
I called mine "A People's Campaign.” That sounded good to all people. I was the surprise candidate because I emerged from outside the traditional path of politics and was able to gain widespread popular support.
Depends on your definition of widespread support. The Nazis never took a majority in any national election. Their high-water mark was 43% after the Reichstag fire...and to accomplish that took massive vote suppression and wide-spread fraud. Of course, after seizing power they stopped holding elections.
I knew that if I merely offered the people "hope", together we could change our country and the world. So, I started to make my speeches sound like they were on behalf of the downtrodden, poor, ignorant to include "persecuted minorities."
Actually, one of Hitler's neat tricks was to actually paint the majority as some sort of downtrodden minority. It would be as if an American candidate tried to argue that white people are persecuted and discriminated against...but who would be delusional enough to do that?
My true views were not widely known, and I kept them unknown until after I became my nation's leader. I had to carefully guard reality, as anybody could have easily found out what I really believed if they had simply read my writings and examined those people I associated with. I'm glad they didn't.
Huh? He kept his views unknown by writing a book that revealed all his views? That doesn't even make sense, but his views were well known and no effort was made to disguise them.
Then I became the most powerful man in the world. And then the world learned the truth. Who am I...ADOLPH HITLER!
Well, if you say so...but if you are Adolf Hitler then why is pretty much every single verifiable fact about you that is printed here wrong? I'm so confused...
If you were thinking of SOMEONE ELSE, you should be scared ... very scared!
Why would I be thinking of someone else? I can't come up with anybody else this shaky collection of facts fits either...and I certainly can't imagine why anyone would compare anyone to Hitler. (Well, maybe Stalin or Mao or Pol Pot...but man, you've got to have a LOT of blood on your hands to earn a comparison to Hitler.)
Honestly, my dead Jewish relatives in Hungary...and yes, I did still have some remaining there in the 1940s, at least one sister of my great-grandmother, who of course had a family of her own...would probably be extremely offended by something like that. Though I'm not especially Jewish myself I might be too.
There is only one Hitler and it is not a comparison to be tossed around lightly.
Peace out.