“The Banality of Evil”

Adolf Eichmann  

In 1963 Hannah Arendt wrote Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,1 a book from which the term “The Banality of Evil” entered into popular consciousness. Like a lot of such influential works it seemed to have been far more discussed than actually read. I have discussed Hannah Arendt’s works before, in that case it was her Origins of Totalitarianism.2 Here her focus is how one single individual reacted to the stress of being caught up in a totalitarian institutional structure and in this case contact with that institution led to a disastrous erosion of his personal integrity and morality.

Hannah Arendt was struck by the contrast between the pathetic and small man that she saw and heard in the trial in Jerusalem and the monstrousness of the deeds he organized and presided over.

Eichmann was and remained in her eyes a paltry, insignificant, man. A boring small minded bureaucrat, whose imagination was limited and whose obliviousness was positively awesome. Eichmann did not impress her as some sort of paragon of evil. He was simply pathetic.

Arendt for example quotes Eichmann has saying regarding his guilt:

With the killing of Jews I had nothing to do. I never killed a Jew, or a non-Jew, for that matter –I never killed any human being. I never gave an order to kill either a Jew or a non Jew; I just did not do it.3

This helps in Arendt’s eyes set up the image of a small minded petty man whose lack of imagination is and was breathtaking. Of course it is also self-serving nonsense. It ignores basic law in which if for example you give a gun to someone knowing that the person you give it too will kill with it and who they will kill, you are guilty. Certainly in this case helping to round up people so that they can be murdered is murder. The fact that you didn’t pull the trigger is irrelevant to the question of guilt. Eichmann is being a moral retard here.

Eichmann was born in 1906 in a small German town in the Rhineland. To be blunt there is absolutely nothing about his life that sticks out until 1932 when he joined the Nazi party. Before his trial, while he was being questioned Eichmann mentioned that he had several Jewish relatives and friends and on one occasion helped one relative, who was half Jewish according to the Nuremberg laws immigrate to Switzerland and he later helped a Jewish couple emigrate at the request of another relative. Eichmann used those examples to show that he didn’t hate Jews. Of course other Nazi’s could have made the same claim on the same basis. It can be dismissed as self serving and if not that self deceptive.4 it is also ironic that after Eichmann joined the Nazi party he briefly had a Jewish mistress.5

In 1934, in the hope of securing good employment Eichmann joined the S.D., or Security service for the S.S. He swiftly became the S.D. expert of “Jewish Affairs”.6

A detailed outline of his career which was to involve him in one of the greatest crimes in history has he with ruthless efficiency organized the hunting out, deportation to their deaths of millions of men women and children need not be given here.7

A few highlights should be remembered which are pertinent to Hannah Arendt’s interpretation of Eichmann. According to Eichmann on July 31 1941 Eichmann had a meeting with Reinhard Heydrich head of the Reich Security Office and a SS General. According to Eichmann Heydrich told him that “The Fuhrer [Hitler] has ordered the physical extermination of the Jews”.8 Later Eichmann was at the infamous Wannsee meeting that helped plan the full implementation of the “Final Solution”.9

Perhaps the incident that most characterized Eichmann’s whole personality is the process by which in 1944 he negotiated and organized the deportation of the Hungarian Jewish community and the zeal with which he carried it out in the teeth of a rapidly deteriorating military situation.10

During the closing period of the war Eichmann despite Heinrich Himmler’s express order to stop the killings, Eichmann continued to zealously carry out his task.11

Perhaps the most telling indication of Eichmann’s actual state of mind regarding the acts he was involved with is the following quote attributed to him:

I will jump into my grave laughing, because the fact that I have the death of five million Jews [or "enemies of the Reich," as he [Eichmann] always claimed to have said] on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction.12

How Eichmann’s claim, repeated at trial, makes much of difference to the horror of the quote is a mystery. For in the Nazi ethos and world view Jews by definition were enemies of Germany. (Of course given that Eichmann was involved in rounding up Jews for killing during the war those were the only “enemies of the Reich”, he could possibly be referring to.

After the war Eichmann managed to hide and with the aid of various individuals and organizations he was able to escape to Argentina were he was kidnapped by Mossad agents (Israeli Secret Service), taken to Israel, tried in 1961 and executed in 1962.13

Hannah Arendt covered the trial for The New Yorker magazine and she was fascinated by the extraordinary mediocrity of the man.

Hannah Arendt viewed Eichmann has a bureaucrat and in her opinion:

He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never realized what he was doing.14

Further Hannah Arendt says:

Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth, and nothing would have been further from his mind than to determine with Richard III “to prove a villain.” Except for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives at all.15

In Arendt’s opinion Eichmann was the boring faceless mass man who had no real ideas of his own, who could immerse himself into a task and quite forget the consequences and nature of what he was doing. Eichmann raised all sorts of issues for Hannah Arendt because:

The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.16

Hannah Arendt’s view of Eichmann has been criticized for being unconvincing at least in part. It is further thought that in some sense she was fooled by Eichmann into thinking he was just a faceless bureaucrat. It is interesting that Hannah Arendt’s own work provides some of the evidence that Eichmann was anything but a faceless bureaucrat.

For example Hannah Arendt does quote Eichmann’s infamous line about jumping into his grave happy. She however introduces the line with:

Bragging was the vice that was Eichmann’s undoing. It was sheer rodomontade when he told his men during the last days of the war: [then the quote]17

Quite unconvincing. But then Hannah Arendt seems to accept Eichmann’s portrayal of himself as not “really” hating Jews. So of course this comment which if anything indicates hatred must be whisked away with an airy dismissal. Similarly Eichmann’s zeal in continuing his job after Himmler had ordered it stopped is similarly dismissed as indicating a lack of imagination and an eagerness to please the man Eichmann thought has his true leader Adolf Hitler.18

Eichmann during his trial repeatedly stated ad-nauseum that he had no personal hatred of Jews. Not surprisingly given Eichmann’s own behavior the court in Jerusalem didn’t believe him. What is surprising is Hannah Arendt’s willingness to credit this. It is and remains unbelievable. What also is clear is that Hannah Arendt deliberately downplayed / ignored evidence that indicated that Eichmann did in fact hate his victims. For example that quote from Eichmann in which he talked about the “satisfaction” it gave him knowing he had helped to murder five million human beings, indicates not a mindless bureaucratic attitude towards his task but as a fanatic who carried out his task with zeal. Eichmann’s “explanation” that he referred to “enemies of the Reich”, is simply an admission that the quote was accurate, in reflecting his fanaticism, for by definition in the Nazi world view Jews by definition were “enemies of the Reich”, including helpless men, women and children. So Eichmann’s clarification is nothing more than a coded evasion that he probably hoped his Judges would not notice.19

Further the evidence indicated that Eichmann performed his task with zeal and energy. The evidence indicates that Eichmann could not rest until his task was performed.20

As for Eichmann’s defence that he was merely obeying orders it can be dismissed as self serving tripe, so is his absurd declaration that this absolves from feeling any guilt. In his interviews before the trial and during the trial itself Eichmann portrayed himself as a mere conveyor of orders and that as such his mere obedience to orders made him guiltless of any crime. In this carefully constructed mythos Eichmann argued that only those who gave the orders to him were guilty of anything and that he was guilty of nothing. Further there was no question of him even for a moment questioning these orders. In fact Eichmann argued that to do such a thing was simply unthinkable. The implication being that to disobey an order was in his eyes so mortally threatening that it constituted something in his eyes morally unthinkable. Eichmann further took upon himself the attitude that he was the victim of his superiors taking advantage of him. Whining self centeredness seems to have characterized Eichmann during the trial.21

In Eichmann’s presentation of himself he also argued that he was so constricted by his orders that he had little room for maneuver and of course refusing to carry out his orders was of course unthinkable and quitting unthinkable. That would be dereliction of duty, abandoning ones post.22

It was more than anything Eichmann’s continual repetition of this that helped to convince Hannah Arendt that Eichmann was a mindless indeed thoughtless bureaucrat who simply didn’t know what he was doing. It is also a self serving lie. It is absolutely clear that Eichmann knew what he was doing and further that he had an enormous amount of discretion which he exercised with great ruthlessness in the service of violent anti-Semitic notions he had since early on.23

All of this was part of Eichmann’s campaign to show that because he was not motivated by hatred, did not intend to “really” harm his victims, that he was innocent. In other words because his inner state of mind was pure his actual deeds were irrelevant. That this is contemptible is of course obvious. Eichmann was arguing that because he didn’t “really” hate his victims and “really” didn’t intend them harm he was innocent. Rather like a murderer saying since I bore no malice against the person I stabbed knowing full well they would die; I am innocent!

Eichmann’s statement above that he never killed anyone is of course an evasion and a deliberate self serving lie. He organized the rounding up of people so they could be murdered and he full well knew it. Just like someone who arranges for someone to be a spot X so they can be killed is a murderer, so is Eichmann. The fact that he didn’t personally kill someone is irrelevant to the issue of his guilt. As for all this showing Eichmann’s lack of imagination. I don’t think so. It shows instead Eichmann’s cunning, his desperate attempt to avoid taking responsibility in a court of law. This is the tactic of a petty murderer trying to avoid taking responsibility for his acts. In Eichmann’s case this also involved arguing that his inner “purity” of motive that was abused by his superiors made him innocent regardless of his deeds. It was and remains pathetic.

As for the superior orders defence considering how he disobeyed Himmler’s orders to stop in the fall of 1944 that can be dismissed as a self serving lie also. The fact that he carried out his task with zeal and a lot of discretion, to say nothing of gratuitous cruelty indicates he wanted and desired to carry out his orders. His claim that it was simply unthinkable not to carry out his orders is again a self serving attempt to hide the fact he approved of what was done and carried it out to the best of his ability. Also his pose as a victim was also just that at pose and a lie and an excuse for him to feel sorry for himself. If he had been truly opposed to these orders, as he claimed he would have found a thousand bureaucratic ways to sabotage them not carry them out with zeal. It was not lack of imagination that stopped him from doing so but simple desire to carry out his orders. The experience of numerous European countries during World War II in which their bureaucratic machines slowed down and sabotaged the Final Solution indicates what he could have done if he had “really” opposed it. Finally he could have quit at anytime. He choose not to do so not because it was unthinkable but because he wanted to continue his task.24

It appears that the pathetic gyrations and rationalizations of Eichmann convinced Hannah Arendt that Eichmann was indeed a thoughtless, unimaginative bureaucrat who bore no ill will against his victims. Thus it seems that Eichmann did indeed “fool” Hannah Arendt into thinking that he was “banal” and “ordinary”. In Eichmann Hannah Arendt saw not an ogre of horror but an unthinking everyman for whom her contempt was unbounded.

But if Eichmann “fooled” Hannah Arendt he outsmarted himself. For she concluded that the death sentence was just.

Why? Let me quote Hannah Arendt who is here delivering what she suggests as a verdict for the court:

“We are concerned here only with what you did, and not with the possible non criminal nature of your inner life and of your motives or with the criminal potentialities of those around you. You told your story in terms of a hard-luck story, and, knowing the circumstances, we are, up to a point, willing to grant you that under more favorable circumstances it is highly unlikely that you would ever have come before us or before any other criminal court. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that it was nothing more than misfortune that made you a willing instrument in the organization of mass murder; there still remains the fact that you have carried out, and therefore actively supported, a policy of mass murder. For politics is not like the nursery; in politics obedience and Support are the same. And just as you supported and carried out a policy of not wanting to share the earth with the Jewish people and the people of a number of other nations - as though you and your superiors had any right to determine who should and who should not inhabit the world - we find that no one, that is, no member of the human race, can be expected to want to share the earth with you. This is the reason, and the only reason, you must hang."25

Hannah Arendt argues that Eichmann’s (alleged) lack of base motives, his lack of hatred for his victims, his very ordinariness make him if anything more guilty and responsible and hence the death penalty even more appropriate.

Further Hannah Arendt argues that death is appropriate not because Eichmann deserves death - after all considering the scope and scale of his crime his personal death is ludicrously insignificant as a punishment – but because his presence among us is so defiling and polluting that he must be removed by death from among us.

If in Eichmann’s case the evil he personified is less banal than Hannah Arendt thought there still remains on earth far too many individuals who are in spirit and deed like Adolf Eichmann.

 

Hannah Arendt

 

1. Arendt, Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, rev’d edition, Penguin Books, London, 1965.

2. Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New edition, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1973.

3. Arendt, 1965, p. 22.

4. IBID, pp. 27-32.

5. IBID, p. 30.

6. IBID, pp. 36-39.

7. See Wikipedia, Adolf Eichmann Here, and Arendt, 1965, pp. 151-219.

8. Arendt, 1965, p. 83.

9. IBID, pp. 112-124.

10. Adolf Eichmann and Arendt, 1965, pp. 194-202.

11. IBID, Arendt, 1965, pp. 145-147.

12, IBID, pp. 46, a slightly different version is available from Adolf Eichmann. It goes:

I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction.

13. Arendt, 1965, pp. 234-243, Adolf Eichmann.

14. Arendt, 1965, p. 287.

15. IBID.

16. IBID, p.276.

17. IBID, p. 46.

18. IBID, pp. 194-204.

19. For the Nazi world view regarding Jews see Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Vintage Books, New York, 1997, pp. 80-128, Jackel, Eberhard, Hitler’s World View, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MASS, 1972, pp. 47-66, Herf, Jeffrey, The Jewish Enemy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MASS, 2006, pp. 50-91, Dawidowicz, Lucy S., The War Against the Jews, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1975, pp. 3-22, Weiss, John, Ideology of Death, Elephant Paperbacks, Chicago, 1996, pp. 271-287, 325-341.

20. See Adolf Eichmann, Lozowick, Yaacov, Malicious Clerks, in Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem, Ed. Aschheim, Steve E., University of California Press, Berkeley CA, 2001, pp. 214-225, Cohen, Richard I, A Generation’s Response to Eichmann in Jerusalem, in Aschheim, pp. 253-277, at 266.

21. Arendt, 1965, pp. 135-150.

22. IBID.

23. Footnote 20, see also Arendt, 1965, pp. 195-205. Regarding Eichmann’s anti-Semitism he had been a member of an anti-Semitic fraternity in 1930 and further in the mid 1930’s had authored viciously anti-Semitic reports as part of his job full of standard Nazi propaganda. See Lozowick.

24. Footnote 20, Arendt, 1965, pp. 162-180.

25. Arendt, 1965, pp. 278-279.

Pierre Cloutier

Moral Cretinism Part IILying and Murder 

In a past posting I discussed a morally repugnant piece of garbage that sought to excuse the Khmer Rouge. Well I’ve just found a piece of crud that in some respects outdoes that bit of slime ball idiocy.

It comes from the website Answers in Genesis or AIG for short.1 In this piece a Mr. Bodie Hodge answers the question about whether or not it is ever right to lie.2 Mr. Hodge makes a complete hash of it.

Below I will quote the full E-Mail exchange with my comments concerning Mr. Hodge’s morally cretinist views.

You, know I almost hate to do this because I know how much email you guys handle. . . But I want to respond to Bodie Hodge’s “contradictions” article on Rahab’s “lie”. Bodie is almost always right on the mark and is probably my favourite feedback man, but in this case I have to take exception to his saying that it is always wrong to lie . . . The ninth commandment says we should never bear false witness against our neighbour (or anyone). But if the Nazis are looking for Jews, and you know where they are, it would not be wrong to lie, in order to protect them, nor would this be bearing false witness “against” someone . . . I think in the same way the Israeli midwives lied to the Egyptians about the birthing of male babies in Moses’s day . . . I know its a rare exception, but there may be other circumstances when it might be appropriate to “lie”, although obviously, 99% percent of the time it would be wrong . . . Keep up the good work, all of you, your ministry is the most awesome in the world, just blows me away. M.H.3

Scene from the movie Sophie's Choice

Now Mr/s M.H., is of course giving to moral absolutists an extreme example just to see if they are willing to bend their un-bendable moral absolutism in order to do good. Or even to realize that this is a morally difficult situation and sometimes you have to commit one sin to avoid a greater one and/or to do good. Of course being a Fundamentalist moral cretin our analyst fails spectacularly.

Thank you for contacting Answers in Genesis and thanks for the comments. I know this can be a touchy subject, but please bear with me as I try to explain. Keep in mind that I, too, am not perfect but will try to answer as scripturally as possible. (Also, sorry for the length—but this feedback will allow me the breadth that I did not have with the contradiction article on Rahab on the website.)4

To refine Mr. Hodge’s position. Scripturally means to him sections of the Bible I like, interpreted the way I like. Further Mr. Hodge elevates the detailed word of the Bible above mere human considerations and that includes other people’s lives and of course this is a form of idolatry. And of course he forgets that bit about the word kills but the spirit gives life.

Righteous Lies?

Bearing false witness is a lie, and in Hebrew the word for false in Exodus 20:16 is sheqer, which literally means “lie.” It is derived from the Hebrew word shaqar, which means “deal falsely, be false, trick, and cheat.” There are many verses in the Bible that reaffirm the Ninth Commandment, and a couple are:5

Well first of all a word is interpreted in context with other words, and the text does say bear false witness. It seems clear that it is referring to judicial and judicial like proceedings and is not intended to be a blanket prohibition of all lying regardless of circumstances or situations. So it seems that the commandment against bearing false witness does not ban lying in all situations. It is of interest that Mr. Hodge ignores context in order to get the result he wants.

Leviticus 19:11
You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another.

1John 2:21
I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.

The devil is the father of lies (John 8:44), and one lie to God the Holy Spirit was worthy of instant death for Ananias (Acts 5:3–5). Paul points out that even if he were to lie for the glory of God, he would be deemed a sinner for such an act:

Romans 3:7
For if the truth of God has increased through my lie to His glory, thy am I also still judged as a sinner?6

Note that Mr. Hodge then cherry picks appropriate quotations to back up the view that he is obviously taking that lying is indeed a heinous sin. I note he selects passages which in his opinion support an absolutist interpretation of the prohibition against lying. It is of interest that Rabbi’s of the rabbinical age that began before Jesus and lasted until 500 C.E., argued the notion that in order to save a life you could break many of the Mosaic laws. Because some divine commands, like the duty to preserve innocent life have priority over others.

It is of interest that he quotes the Bible about the Devil being the father of lies, which is fascinating, so lying to save someone, can only be prompted by the Devil. How fascinating.

This all of course assumes that Mr. Hodge is quoting the passages properly and in context, an assumption that may not be accurate.

In light of such passages, does a “righteous lie” really exist? The most common example sent to me was envisioning the Holocaust and being placed in the position of lying to potentially protect someone’s life. Like most, if placed in such a difficult situation, it would be very difficult. In fact, I could never be sure what I would do, especially if it were a loved one.7

A bit of dawn breaks in Mr. Hodge’s head. He admits that he would not know what to do and that he would be sorely tempted to lie. However this dawn is only temporary and Mr. Hodge reverts back to mindless obedience to the literal word.

But consider for a moment that we are all already sentenced to die because we are sinners (Romans 5:12). It is going to happen regardless. If a lie helps keep someone alive for a matter of moments compared to eternity, was the lie, which is high treason against the Creator, worth it?8

So Mr. Hodge elevates lying to “high treason” against God. Wow! Is this any lie? Well it appears to be the case with Mr. Hodge. So is Mr. Hodge really saying that lying to save an innocent life is punishable by eternal damnation? In effect Mr. Hodge is saying that being a murderer / accessory to murder is a lesser sin than lying! So helping to murder an innocent human being despite its violation of so many passages in the Bible, i.e., “thou shall NOT kill". (Here in the King James Bible sense of murder) is nothing compared to a lie. And note Mr. Hodge does not even talk about graduations of lies. Does lying like when you told some body she looked good in that dress when they did not a lie that will damn you for eternity? Well it appears from Mr. Hodge that yes it does.

I further note that this turns God into a monster obsessed with a rule that is in the circumstances utterly trivial.

But then we here the real reason why you should not lie. It does not make any difference because you’re going to die anyway and compared to eternity it is trivial. So by this calculus murder is trivial, after all death is going to happen anyway. So why pray tell live at all! In other words other people’s lives don’t matter very much. Our Mr. Hodge is not finished however.

It would be like sitting in a cell on death row and when the guards come to take your roommate to the electric chair, you lie to the guards and say you don’t know where the person went—while your roommate is hiding under their covers on the bed. Does it really help? Since we are all sinners (Romans 3:23), death is coming for us, and there is an appointed time (Ecclesiastes 3:2).9

Well Mr. Hodge the analogy is bad. First of all the people we are lying to protect are INNOCENT. Secondly if we lie they have a better chance of surviving. Third the authorities (Nazis') in this case are violating every commandment in the book including thou shall not kill. The fact is the Nazis' can not be sure, unlike the inmate in this case that there is anyone there and it is possible for you to save them by lying and you would almost certainly get them killed by telling the truth. The appointed time stuff is interesting is Mr. Hodge stating that God decided when the innocents who were murdered in the Holocaust died it was their “appointed time”? If so then Mr. Hodge is saying God is responsible for their deaths. Once again God the monster.

Proverbs 12:19
The truthful lip shall be established forever, but a lying tongue is but for a moment. Is it worth sinning against God to try to buy a moment of time next to eternity—intentionally lying is foolish and would only harm the extent of your own life (Ecclesiastes 7:17). Let’s look further at Scripture for an example of a situation where a lie could have saved a life.10

Once again Mr. Hodge states that intentionally lying is wicked because it is foolish. Let me get this, lying to save an innocent party from wrongful death etc., is foolish but telling the truth and being an accessory to murder is wise!? But then we see the secret meaning Mr. Hodge’s vomits. Mr. Hodge states that it would harm the extent of your own life. In other words God is such an anal retentive asshole that he would damn you for saving an innocent by lying. However if you tell the truth and are an accessory to murder he will reward you with eternal joy in heaven. Besides what is an innocent being murdered anyway compared to your eternal bliss in heaven? They would eventually die anyway?!

The self centered moralistic idiocy of this to elevate one owns sense of “proper” moral behavior over the lives of others beggars belief.

It is of interest to note that Mr. Hodge seems to think truth all the time is a good thing because in the end it pays well.

Stephen

Stephen in Acts 6–7 preached Christ, and men came against him. This culminated with a question by the high priest in Acts 7:1who said: “Are these things so?” At this point, Stephen could have done a “righteous lie” to save his life so that he could have many more years to preach the gospel. However, Stephen laid a long and appropriate foundation for Christ—then preached Christ. And they killed him.

But this event triggered a persecution that sent the gospel to the Gentiles (Acts 11:19) and peaked with Paul (who consented to Stephen’s death) coming to Christ and taking the message to the Gentiles and writing several books of the New Testament. The Lord had a greater purpose for Stephen—even though it cost him his life. Keep in mind, however, that this, and other examples, are about the person in question—not another.11

Aside from the fact that Stephen’s hypothetical lie was to save himself not others and so doesn’t meet the situation described at all. The other problem is that given that human beings want to go on living and who in their right mind would blame Stephen for lying to save himself. That he did not shows enormous courage and faith. Since God is supposed to be forgiving I rather suspect he would forgive a lie designed to save one’s own life.

Of course the question in the Nazi hypothetical is aside from the considerable courage required to hide these people, remember hiding someone is a form of deception, it requires considerable courage to lie, deceive etc., to keep those people safe.

Do We Know What God Had in Mind?

I often wonder if a Nazi soldier asked if someone was there hiding and they told the truth before God, could the Lord have in mind a greater purpose? Could God have used that person to free a great many people who ultimately died in the Holocaust? Or have done something to stop the war earlier? Or cause a great number of Jews and Nazi’s to come to know Christ? It is possible, but we simply cannot know. And one should not dwell too long on “what ifs” anyway.12

The question is not what God had in mind but what these men had in mind. What they had in mind was rounding up these innocent, (yes I’m overusing the word); people in order to kill them. Given that that was their objective lying to stop them carrying it out seems reasonable. As for what God had in mind!? What the hell are you implying? Are you saying that somehow the Holocaust was part of God’s plan?!

This paragraph is utterly revolting. Mr. Hodge seems to be implying that by telling the truth in this hypothetical situation that somehow this is part of God’s plan to save souls. That this is a greater purpose. No doubt the Holocaust was also part of God’s “greater purpose”. What a monstrous conception of God.

But then the great purpose is to get more people to “know Christ”, little matters like saving their lives are nothing compared to that.

The implication seems to be that by telling the truth and helping to murder these innocents these people find Christ and are saved and are rewarded with an eternity of bliss. No doubt those innocents who are murdered and do not find Christ get an eternity of suffering in hell.

It is also of interest that Mr. Hodge seems to not realize that by lying, hopefully successfully, these liars help prevent the Nazi soldiers involved of being guilty of murder. But then what their doing is nothing compared to lying according to Mr. Hodge.

No doubt, there is great value in the truth (John 8:32). As fallible, sinful human beings, our imperfect thoughts may not be able to comprehend what God has in mind, and we need to strive to trust God when He speaks on this subject, regardless how hard it may be. We need to place our faith fully in Christ and trust in God in all things—and not lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5).

I’m not saying this to be “preachy,” because I really don’t know what I would do in such a situation. However, I would pray that the Lord would grant me the wisdom to know what to say and how to say it—but more preferably—how to avoid being in that situation in the first place.13

So we should just trust God and avoid using our god given brains. This is known as abdication of responsibility. It is also called cowardice.

Mr. Hodge then again admits he would not know what to do in this situation. Again admitting he might do the right thing and lie his head off. He would of course pray about saying the right thing. Why pray, THE RIGHT THING TO DO IS TO LIE!!! But then the cowardice comes in, Mr. Hodge would try to avoid getting in that situation. Just how would he do it?

I would suspect he would simply refuse to help so he would not have to lie. He would refuse to help innocent people because he just cannot lie even to save their lives. Well if that is the case he should definitely refuse to help them if he lacks the moral courage to lie to save them and would prefer to sacrifice their lives on the altar of his “moral” code.

The fact is by agreeing to hide them the person doing so is agreeing to do what is necessary to keep them safe and this includes an enormous amount of deception and yes, lying. Further Mr. Hodge conveniently forgets that by refusing to obey the Nazi rules against sheltering Jews, the hiders were disobeying Paul’s injunction that the authorities are ordained by God and should be obeyed. If Mr. Hodge cannot do any of this he should not be hiding these people at all.

If Forced into This Situation . . . What Then?

Let’s consider again the Nazi-Holocaust situation: there seems to be a conflict in the situation to lie before God to try to save someone else’s life. The result is often called the “greater good” or “lesser of two evils.”

I’ve been told in the past that the lesser of these two evils would be to lie to save a life—hence the common phrase “a righteous lie.” This is often justified by appealing to the command to love our neighbor (Romans 13:9).

But how does God view this, remembering that God is a discerner of our motives. To God, a lie for selfish motive was worthy of death to Ananias. But, in fact, just one sin is worthy of death (Genesis 2:17). (This should be a reminder that we should continually praise God for His grace that is bestowed upon us). But let’s look at Scripture again. The two greatest commandments are:

Mark 12:28–31
Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first1 commandment of all?” Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Jesus tells us that all the commandments can be summed up into these two statements. But of these two, the first is to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. So, this would trump the second. Our actions toward God should trump our actions toward men. Peter also affirmed this:

Acts 5:29
But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey God rather than men.” If we love God, we should obey Him (John 14:15). To love God first means to obey Him first—before looking at our neighbor. So, is the greater good trusting God when He says not to lie or trusting in our fallible, sinful minds about the uncertain future?14

The moral cretinism is now full blown. After mentioning the very obvious lesser of two evils argument Mr. Hodge engages in some really twisted scripture pulling to justify his stance of truth telling at all costs; including the lives of innocent people.

Of course Mr. Hodge’s quote about one sin is worthy of death is of course to imply that lying to the Nazis about innocent people being hidden by you is a crime worthy of death, i.e., eternal punishment. Of course being guilty of murder by telling the truth is of little consequence. Opps! Hold it. God frowns upon murder. What about “thy brother’s blood cries out from the earth”. It is that which I think God will reproach these truth tellers for at judgment. I further note that God condemned Cain for murdering his brother not for Cain lying about knowing where his brother was.

Firstly Jesus’ commandment about is about loving God and part of the proof of loving God is loving your neighbour, how does it show love of God to condemn your neighbour to death?

Then Mr. Hodge goes into a favorite Fundamentalist mantra; obedience. Yep we should obey God and never argue or disagree with him but like mindless automatons obey him. Or at least Mr. Hodge’s version of him. But in the end blind obedience to God and some, in the circumstances, trivial rule trumps simple human decency. We owe absolute obedience to God. Yet just how are being obedient to God if we by not lying treat our neighbour badly. Condemn them. Damn them. In this twisted case our selfish need to please God, in the way Mr. Hodge thinks God should be pleased, trumps our duty to our neighbour. Just how God is going to be impressed by that is beyond me. Further obedience to God requires that we obey a sinful, genocidal regime and cooperate in sending innocent (there’s that word again) people to their deaths. It in other words requires and mandates obedience to the orders of a thoroughly vile regime. This is called capitulation to evil.

Consider this carefully. In the situation of a Nazi beating on the door, we have assumed a lie would save a life, but really we don’t know. So, one would be opting to lie and disobey God without the certainty of saving a life—keeping in mind that all are ultimately condemned to die physically. Besides, whether one lied or not may not have stopped the Nazi solders from searching the house anyway.

As Christians, we need to keep in mind that Jesus Christ reigns. All authority has been given to Him (Matthew 28:18), and He sits on the throne of God at the right hand of the Father (Acts 2:33; Hebrews 8:1). Nothing can happen without His say. Even Satan could not touch Peter without Christ’s approval (Luke 22:31). Regardless, if one were to lie or not, Jesus Christ is in control of timing every person’s life and able to discern our motives. It is not for us to worry over what might become, but rather to place our faith and obedience in Christ and to let Him do the reigning. For we do not know the future, whereas God has been telling the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10).15

Now starts the weaselling and sophistical attempts to evade the consequences of telling the truth in this case.

Mr. Hodge weasels quite grotesquely. He argues that we don’t know for sure that it would save a life. Really! The great majority of Jews who were caught by the Nazis were murdered. The majority of survivors were those who had fled or were hidden. Those who survived the camps were the young and the fit, (and only a minority of those) at least when they entered the camps. The elderly, very young, infirm, pregnant women etc., were first on the list to be murdered. So it was an extremely good bet that they would die.

Besides does one need the certainty of saving someone? No of course not. Telling the truth would have in the circumstances the near certainty of getting them killed lying at least as the chance of saving them. So of course you lie.

But of course Mr. Hodge evades accepting responsibility by saying you can’t be sure they would die. That is crap it would be in the circumstances virtually certain. So guess what you would be responsible for not lying and sealing their fate.

Of course even if one puts aside the issue of death. There is the fact that telling the truth, assuming it doesn’t get them killed, would condemn these innocents (yes that word again) to terrible, undeserved suffering which if you lie you have a chance of preventing them from enduring.

There is more crap about lying possibly not preventing the search. So what! Lying has a hell of lot better chance of preventing the search than not lying. Mr. Hodge continues to try to evade the issue that telling the truth might get someone killed by postulating a hypothetical.

As for the nonsense about we all die eventually anyway. What an inhuman evil way to conceptualize death, and human suffering, but then it always easier when someone else is suffering and dying. It is of note that our author states that God (Jesus Christ) is in control of the “timing” of everyone’s life. This of course means that God is responsible for the Holocaust and we should not thwart God’s ordained times for people, even if they are innocents, (yeah once again that word), to die.

We should not worry about what might happen in the future to those innocent (yet again) people for ours is not the future to see que sera, sera! This is pure abdication of responsibility for other people. I wonder does Mr. Hodge plan at all for his future? If he does, does he realize that he is not placing his faith in God and letting God reign?

Of course God gave us brains and not to think about the future and the consequences of our acts is simple cowardice. What Mr, Hodge is considering is an act of incredible hubris, that of putting a very narrow conception of “morals” above others. The arrogance is breathtaking.

Mr. Hodge also never considers the possibility of refusing to answer the question at all and therefore avoiding lying. But then I strongly suspect there is an element of obeying authority even if they are Nazis in his analysis.

Of course the problem with saying nothing is that it would almost certainly be interpreted as an admission that you are hiding someone. And that would doom the people you are trying to save as much as a yes.

As for trusting in God is it not remarkable that Mr. Hodge is writing for a blog, (AIG) that is actively trying to get Creationism taught in schools. Just why are they not trusting to God and letting God reign? Why are they actively doing anything at all? Not a lot of faith in God it seems.

Wow, you put a lot of work in to that answer Bodie, and from a biblical basis too. I agree with you 100% about lying to protect yourself, that could be interpreted as mere cowardice, and I think most of your biblical examples dealt with that. However there is a scripture in Exodus ch.1 vs. 15–22, in which the Jewish midwives are told to kill all the male babies they delivered but refused to do so. When asked why they hadn’t destroyed the babies, they told the Egyptians the Hebrew women simply gave birth faster than the Egyptian women, and had the babies before the midwives got there. Vs.17 however says that the Jewish midwives saved the male children alive, so here they are lying not only to save the male babies but probably to escape punishment from the Egyptians. Vs. 20 says that God dealt well with the midwives for doing this. I think this is one of the rare examples or cases where lying would truly not be offensive to our Creator. At any rate, I think this scripture shows that not all lies are equal, at least to my mind. In that most lies are done for self advancement, self protection, greed, etc., but some are done at least with the intention of protecting others, their reputations or physical selves. I can’t fault your stance though, your conscience and the Word must be your guide. Keep up the good work.—M.H.

Ms/r M.H., is in my opinion being very kind to Mr. Hodge, who deserves nothing but contempt. But he raises an interesting example from scripture of lying for a good cause.

I looked up the passage about the midwives, and I, personally, don’t believe they lied. Scripture doesn’t really say they did. Please see the context:

Exodus 1:15–22
Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; and he said, “When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?” And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.” Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was, because the midwives feared God that He provided households for them. So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.” Naturally, their fear of God led them to refuse the order to murder. It makes more sense to me that they could have informed the Hebrew wives what the Pharaoh had commanded, and, thus, many of the Israelite women were giving birth before the midwives would arrive so they would not be in a position of killing the child. Perhaps the midwives took their time to arrive as well. That would allow the children to survive and the midwives to speak the truth to Pharaoh. What would make pregnant mothers more vigorous or lively to have the child born? Make them aware that if they do not give birth quickly their child’s life may be in danger. There are any number of ways the mothers and midwives could have avoided it.

With humbleness in Christ, Bodie16

What a convoluted stew of crap. Mr. Hodge is desperately trying to save his (im)moral position regarding lying so he comes up with this absurd piece of drivel. And we get the usual false humility that ill conceals a Everest of pride and conceit.

The text clearly says that the midwives “saved the male children alive” this seems to imply that the midwives performed their duties has midwives and lied about it to Pharaoh. This common sense explanation makes sense unlike Mr. Hodge’s absurd distortions and fantasizing.

But then it appears that to Mr. Hodge lying is a worst sin than participating in murder.

Strangely people like Mr. Hodge have no problems with killing in war or killing in self defence, this despite the fact that the Bible condemns killing or at least murder. It seems never to occur to him that protecting one self or others may justify lying as it does killing in self defence etc. But then others have thought like Mr. Hodges. Immanuel Kant for one.

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was famous for his categorical imperative that it was always wrong to lie even to a murderer looking for a victim. This is quite accurately characterized as stunningly inhuman and frankly evil. The convoluted philosophical nostrums that Kant engaged in to justify this repellent stew boil down to the notion that lying is so evil that enabling murder is just not as wicked. Of course only someone living in a provincial backwater like Königsberg, obsessed with philosophical minutia, and little understanding of real life could possibly have advanced such a repellent and evil notion. But then to Kant his philosophical abstractions were more important than real people.17

In the case of Mr. Hodge we have a similar idea, in this case his inhuman, evil idea of what God demands trumps human decency. Mr. Hodge seems to hope he would have the courage to tell the truth and thus be a murderer, or at least an accessory to attempted murder, thus earn his reward in heaven. Well I hope he never has anyone taking refugee with him.

In Erasmus' Praise of Folly he ridicules some of the Scolastics for thinking that it is:

...better to let the whole world perish down to the last crumb and stich, as they say, than to tell a single tiny insignifigant lie.18

Erasmus viewed views as such no-nothing nonsense. As the commentary of the above noted passage says:

That a lie may not be told to save the world from destruction admirabily illustrates the way the scholastics derived moral norms from absract principles rather than human needs. Lies are intrinsically evil. The end does not justify the means, and no extrinsic end can therefore justify a lie. The application of abstract principle is logical, but the resulting norm takes no account of charity or compassion.19

Thus Mr. Hodge like Kantshows a stunning lack of compassion and basic humanity, but like the scholastics their principles trumped human decency.

I do not know what I would do in a similar situation. I would hope I would hide these people and, yes, lie through my teeth to keep them safe.

1. Answers in Genesis, Here

2. Hodge, Bodie, Feedback: A Righteous Lie, in Answers in Genesis, Here.

3. IBID.

4. IBID.

5. IBID.

6. IBID.

7. IBID.

8. IBID.

9. IBID.

10. IBID.

11. IBID.

12. IBID.

13. IBID.

14. IBID.

15. IBID.

16. IBID.

17. Kant, Immanuel, On a Supposed Right to tell Lies from Benevolent Motives, in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Other Works on the Theory of Ethics, Kongmans, Green and Co, London, 1898, can be found at Online Library of Liberty, Here.

Here is a sample of Kant’s reasoning:

If, then, we define a lie merely as an intentionally false declaration towards another man, we need not add that it must injure another; as the jurists think proper to put in their definition (mendacium est falsiloquium in præjudicium alterius). For it always injures another; if not another individual, yet mankind generally, since it vitiates the source of justice. This benevolent lie may, however, by accident (casus) become punishable even by civil laws; and that which escapes liability to punishment only by accident may be condemned as a wrong even by external laws. For instance, if you have by a lie hindered a man who is even now planning a murder, you are legally responsible for all the consequences. But if you have strictly adhered to the truth, public justice can find no fault with you, be the unforeseen consequence what it may. It is possible that whilst you have honestly answered Yes to the murderer’s question, whether his intended victim is in the house, the latter may have gone out nobserved, and so not have come in the way of the murderer, and the deed therefore have not been done; whereas, if you lied and said he was not in the house, and he had really gone out (though unknown to you) so that the murderer met him as he went, and executed his purpose on him, then you might with justice be accused as the cause of his death. For, if you had spoken the truth as well as you knew it, perhaps the murderer while seeking for his enemy in the house might have been caught by neighbours coming up and the deed been prevented. Whoever then tells a lie, however good his intentions may be, must answer for the consequences of it, even before the civil tribunal, and must pay the penalty for them, however unforeseen they may have been; because truthfulness is a duty that must be regarded as the basis of all duties founded on contract, the laws of which would be rendered uncertain and useless if even the least exception to them were admitted.

To be truthful (honest) in all declarations is therefore a sacred unconditional command of reason, and not to be limited by any expediency.

The above reasoning is sublime in its idiocy. Note Kant very carefully avoids dealing with the issue of what happens if you answer yes and the murderer comes in and kills the person. Or if the person is cowering in a corner within your line of sight. So you know he is in the house. I note that Kant stupidly states that you are responsible if you lie to a murderer but are not responsible if you tell the truth and the murderer kills that person because you told the truth. The convoluted hypotheticals of Kant about the person not being there if you tell the truth, blah, blah, are evasions of the issue. We can speculate all we like. The bottom line is protecting that person from being murdered.

To state that being truthful is an unconditional duty not limited by any sort of expediency is simply evil. But then Kant believes that lying is a greater sin than being an accessory to murder. To call Kant’s position disgusting, immoral, evil etc., is to state the unvarnished truth.

18. Erasmus, Praise of Folly, Penguin Books, London, 1971, p. 156.

19. IBID, p. 156 Note 102.

Pierre Cloutier

J.F.C. Fuller, the Origins of the Second World War and Anti-Semitism.

J.F.C. Fuller

The brilliant military theorist and historian J. F. C. Fuller in his book A Military History of the Western World, v. 3, discusses the origins of the Second World War it is shall we say more than a bit of a mess.

Fuller is far too honest an historian to actually out right lie but he does have a curious habit of putting in interpretations that are belied / undermined by the facts he records. The origins of the Second World War are a case in point.1

Now its important to know in order to understand what Fuller writes to know that he was a member of Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BU), for a time between the Wars and was still a member when war broke out.2 Fuller fails to mention this in his book or to mention that he was a guest of honour at Hitler’s 50th Birthday celebrations.3 From his book it appears he learned something about the bestiality of the Nazi regime but, alas, not enough. Before Fuller became involved in military affairs he was involved with the British mystic and all round weirdo Aleister Crowley. Which may explain some of Fuller’s later enthusiasms?

For example Fuller describes Hitler’s ideas has a struggle between ideas of “Heroic” man against ideas of “Economic” man, i.e., Capitalism and Marxism. I find this dichotomy fascinating although it is portended by Fuller’s discussion of the battle of Vittorio-Veneto has one of his decisive battles. It is also discussed in my opinion in a way to avoid the dreaded word “Fascist”, which is exactly what the so-called “Heroic” man idea really was.4

In retrospect Fuller describes Hitler as a “…Jekyll and Hyde, at one moment a normal human being and at another an inspired paranoic.”5 character. When Fuller knew Hitler in the 1930’s he seemed to have missed the “Hyde”, “paranoiac” bits.

Of Course Fuller quotes Churchill’s infamous statement, “If our country were defeated. I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among nations”.6 Its of interest that Fuller does not give a page number for this quote or give a full reference, i.e., publisher, place of publication etc. Since however I have read about this quote in other writings I believe it is genuine. Fuller forgets that Churchill did not hold this opinion very long.

Briefly Fuller gives Hitler’s aims as follows:

Hitler’s goal was Napoleonic: to establish a German Continental System under the aegis of Germany. Also his means were not far removed from those of the great emperor: to liberate Germany from the shackles of international loan-capitalism, to unite all Germanic peoples into the Third Reich, and to establish in eastern Europe what he called the German Lebensraum (living space) which he considered as essential to the economic security of Germany as Napoleon had considered the Confederation of the Rhine essential to the strategic security of France.7

Where to begin? First Hitler was perfectly willing to live with “international loan- capitalism” whatever that is. So long as he controlled it; or it did his bidding. But then “international loan-capitalism” was often in Nazi propaganda nothing but a code word for “Jew”. The only “international loan-capitalism” Hitler wanted to get rid of was the “Jewish” part. Given what Fuller says later I strongly suspect that after the war Fuller decided to use code words to convey his real meaning in this case “Jewish”. Thus does Fuller begin to use the propaganda of the Third Reich.8

The phrase about uniting all Germanic peoples manages to avoid dealing with the fact that this would involve war, after all the Netherlands, Belgium, (the Flemish part), Luxemburg and Alsace-Lorraine and the German part of Switzerland were all inhabited by "Germanic" peoples. Just how were those various countries to be acquired except by war. Especially since in none of those cases did the peoples want to be part of Germany. I could of course add Norway, Sweden Denmark and England as “Germanic” countries. By endeavoring to unite all Germans Hitler was posing a threat to his neighbours.

The comparison of Hitler’s Lebensraum with Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine is ludicrous. The intent of the expansion to the east was to displace the people there by mass murder, mass expulsion and turning the entire remaining population into a subject “inferior” population slated for eventual disappearance. Further such an aim could only mean war because just how else were the populations of the east to be destroyed? Further German domination of Eastern Europe would mean the complete obliteration of the balance of power in Europe. Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine by comparison was utterly benevolent. But it’s obvious by making the comparison Fuller is seeking to make Hitler appear no more inhuman than Napoleon. An insult to the Emperor I think.

British policy for centuries had been to oppose the rise to continental dominance of any continental power, so to preserve the balance of power. Hitler’s aims clearly would violate that policy and so would make war against Britain inevitable. This paragraph by Fuller is also of interest because Fuller subsequently “forgets” it.

Fuller than goes into a series of rather bizarre statements. For example concerning the “gold standard”. Fuller’s idea is that Hitler rejected the gold standard and based the value of German currency on production not on the fictitious value of gold.9 Fuller then makes a series of statements of Hitler’s plans regarding German finances. Hitler plan was to 1, Refuse interest bearing foreign loans, 2, obtain imports by direct goods exchange, 3, put a stop to freedom of the exchanges and limit the ability to transfer private fortunes, 4 create money when men and material where available.10.

Fuller concludes:

Because the life of international finance depended upon the issue of interest-bearing loans to nations in economic distress, Hitler’s economics spelt its ruination. If he was allowed to succeed, other nations would certainly follow his example, and should a time come when all non-gold-holding governments exchanged goods for goods, not only would borrowing cease and gold lose its power, but the money-lenders would have to close shop.11

"Money-lenders" - just what might that be code for? Fuller then says that because of this threat and the brutality of the Hitler regime towards German Jews:

… six months after Hitler became Chancellor, Samuel Untermyer, a wealthy New York attorney, threw down the challenge. He proclaimed a “holy war” against National Socialism and called for a economic boycott of German goods, shipping and services.12

Well where to start with this farrago of nonsense? Firstly Fuller “forgets” his comments about Hitler’s aims of uniting all the “Germanic” peoples and his quest for “living space”, either aim meant Hitler intended a to fight a war. Both together were quite ambitious and highly dangerous to other European powers. Secondly his comments ignore what we do now know about Hitler’s economic policies and aims.

Bluntly from his accession to power in 1933 Hitler was gearing the German economy for war. His barter system, and aukratic intentions were designed with that in mind. The militarization of German society and economy during the period 1933-1939 where amazing and vast. To quote.

The military budget expanded rapidly, taking 17 percent of GNP in 1938-39. In the last peacetime year 52 pefennigs out of every mark the German government spent went on defence. These were not remotely moderate proportions. In 1913, at the height of the re-1914 arms race, the German government spent an estimated 3 percent of GNP, and devoted 24 percent of a much smaller state budget to defence purposes.13

Further Hitler’s “barter” and other methods were designed to conserve German foreign currency and gold reserves and designed quite deliberately to exploit and use other countries economies for German benefit. Particularly interesting in this regard is the way early Nazi fiscal policy screwed American investors who had invested billions of dollars in the German economy in the 1920’s and in effect expropriated them. Considering that these people had a powerful vested interest in the German economy doing well antagonizing them seemed rather pointless.14 And of course during the Nazi years all sort of American businesses did business in and with Germany so that business antagonism in America against Nazi Germany was always pretty muted and countered by significant American business interest in doing business with Nazi Germany.

Of course it should not escape attention that the man Fuller has declare “holy war” on Germany has a Jewish name to say nothing of the obvious coded reference to Jews in the term “money-lenders”. It does appear Fuller buys into the whole Nazi propaganda fantasy of “International Jewry” plunging the nations into war.

The evidence indicates quite conclusively that Hitler wanted war and was planning for it right from the day he took power. That was and remains the main cause of World War Two.15

Then Fuller allows for a reality to intrude for he says.

Besides this cause of war, [attacks against Hitler’s “barter” system] between 1933 and 1939 others helped to inflame the international situation, and of these the most important was the violence with which Hitler set out to carry out his program of German regeneration.16

The implication is obviously that all these efforts were “secondary” the main one being a war between two economic systems. Which exists largely in Fuller’s own head. Still Fuller is honest enough to record the facts. What follows is an accurate review of the facts and events, but with a twist. There is a distinct bias in his recording of events.

Rather surprisingly Fuller ignores here the rather obvious economic contest between Capitalism and Communism, which fits vastly better his idea of a economic battle between two systems. The point of fact is that Hitler’s challenge to international Capitalism was rather minor if that. Certainly Capitalists found Nazi Germany vastly more congenial than Communist Russia and American etc., business people and financiers continued to do business with Nazi Germany through out the 30’s even though trade contracted.17

To get back to Fuller’s overview of events leading up to the Second World War. Fuller repeats the old chestnut that League of Nation sanctions supported by Britain and France over the Abyssinian crisis threw Mussolini in with Hitler. This is a gross over simplification. Aside from a common implied view that the concerns of the Ethiopians did not and should not have mattered. This ignores the fact that the sanctions were deliberately ineffectual, that France and Britain and France recognized the conquest of Ethiopia a few years later and most importantly Mussolini had ambitions in Africa and the Mediterranean which France and Britain blocked. Mussolini wanted most of North Africa and to become the great naval power in the Mediterranean. The chances were zero that France and Britain would ever acquiesce to that. So Mussolini would naturally have tended to ally himself with a Germany that would allow him to try to carry out such fanciful dreams. Finally to be utterly blunt Germany treated its new ally very badly almost from the very beginning but Mussolini kept with it to the bitter end. Both France and Britain in a bid to win him over treated Mussolini much better, but since they could not satisfy Mussolini’s ambitions in the Mediterranean or North Africa he stuck with Hitler.18

Fuller than goes into a look at the Spanish Civil War and the Sudeten Crisis with a rather obvious bias. Czechoslovakia as a “pistol pointed at Germany”.19 There is further stuff about Bombing Germany from bohemian airfields. Fuller neglects to mention that the agitation in the Sudetenland was deliberately manufactured by Hitler. Neither does he mention that Hitler wanted a war against Czechoslovakia and was positively cress fallen and upset when it became clear his Generals weren’t eager for a war so that he accepted Chamberlain’s offer of mediation. This mediation amounted to imposing a settlement on Czechoslovakia without its participation. Fuller seems to argue that avoiding war was a good idea at this time because of lack of preparedness on the part of the Allied powers. Well we now know how poorly prepared Germany was at the time for a two front war. It would probably have been best that if war came it came then than a year later.20

Throughout Fuller ignores that if people were out to get Hitler why did they not stop him earlier, why for example were these groups of international financiers utterly unable to get France to march into the Rhineland in 1936 when Hitler occupied it. At little cost “International Finance” could have destroyed Hitler then and there and put a end to the alleged threat of “barter”. But then it is clear that such a contest only exists in Fuller’s mind.

Fuller than mentions the “violent propaganda against Hitler”21. Of course the possibility that bad press about Nazi Germany may have been a understandable reaction to Nazi brutality and acts and that much or most of this “propaganda” entirely accurate is not a thought Fuller entertains for a moment. Of course Fuller does not mention the violent, hysterical propaganda of the Third Reich, against one enemy or another, Czechs, Poles and of course the hysterical manic, anti-semitic propaganda of the regime.22 Instead Fuller says the following:

Foreign affairs lost all objectivity and became wrapped in explosive animosity which so perturbed Dr. Goebbels, the German Minister of Propaganda, that he appealed to the American Ambassador in Berlin, who replied that the “most crucial thing that stood between any betterment of American press relationships was the Jewish question”.23

Poor Dr. Goebbels, who shortly afterwards was to organize with Hitler “Crystal Night” and to take an active part in the Holocaust. My heart bleeds for him. Of course it is of interest that Fuller does not give a citation for this quote so is it in fact an actual quote or made up or a bit of Nazi propaganda designed to show how powerful the Jews are and how they control the American Media? I frankly suspect the Fuller’s intention is to set up in the readers mind the idea of unfair Jewish controlled American media attacks against Germany. Of course Fuller never bothers to mention how if Jewish influence is so great how come restrictions on the numbers of Jewish refuges entering the United States were so severe.

Now comes Fuller’s piece de resistance the so called Potocki Report and it is clear that Fuller approves of this Report for he says:

The situation as it was at the end of the year is so illuminatingly described by the Polish Ambassador at Washington, Count Jerzy Potocki, in a report to the Polish foreign Office, dated January 12, 1939, that we will quote from it fully:24

What follows is a flood of anti-semitic propaganda and hysteria. Let me quote a few samples:

Above all, propaganda here is entirely in Jewish hands…

…their [Jewish] propaganda is so effective that people have no real knowledge of the true state of affairs in Europe…

…people are given the impression that Soviet Russia is part of the Democratic group of countries…

He had [Roosevelt] had a two fold purpose in mind: firstly, he wanted to divert American public opinion from difficult and complicated domestic problems ….

Secondly by creating a war panic …he [Roosevelt] wanted to induce Americans to endorse his huge program of armaments…

In this campaign of hatred individual Jewish intellectuals such as [follows a list] …have taken a prominent part in this campaign of hatred.

This particular group of people [Jewish of course] …are, in point of fact, linked with international Jewry by ties incapable of being torn asunder. For international Jewry –so intimately concerned with the interests of its own race- President Roosevelt’s “ideal” role as a champion of human rights was indeed a godsend. In this way Jewry was not only able to establish a dangerous centre in the New World for the dissemination of hatred and enmity, but it also succeeded in dividing the world into two warlike camps. The whole problem is being tackled in a most mysterious manner. Roosevelt has been given the power to enable him to enliven American foreign policy and at the same time to create huge reserves in armaments for a future war which the Jews are deliberately heading for.25

Just why should we take this “illuminating” document seriously? It contains all the usual riffs of anti-semitic propaganda. The vast “Jewish” conspiracy, media controlled by Jews, a campaign of hatred against poor Germany. In fact its similarity to Nazi Propaganda is so great that perhaps we should check the source. We check and we find the source is the German White Paper, of justification for their attack on Poland. Fuller buries it in a footnote in small script at the bottom of the page hoping, I guess, people won’t notice. In other words the source is piece of Nazi propaganda!26 The authenticity of the piece is dubious to put it mildly and apparently Count Potocki denied writing it. It supposedly was found in the ruins of a bombed out building in Warsaw by the Nazi in October 1939.27 It’s all rather dubious.

Even assuming it’s for real. It’s a collection of anti-semitic garbage.28 The campaign of hatred for example, do I have to mention the extreme hateful Nazi anti-Semitic campaigns. Projection anyone! Further does it have to be mentioned that Germany attacked Poland and that Germany declared war on America in 1941. So much for “International Jewry” arranging the war.

It’s rather obvious that by quoting this alleged document Fuller can give space to anti-semitic ravings while denying that these are his own ideas.

Fuller can’t deny Hitler’s aggressive moves regarding Poland or Hitler’s attack. Fuller could acknowledge the flood of vicious anti-polish propaganda that flooded the Nazi press before the outbreak of war. But Fuller says:

That by now had been decided on by others besides Hitler is clear:…29

Fuller then refers to an interview Karl von Weigand, an American journalist, had with an American official in Paris supposedly stating that the Americans were planning to enter the war after Britain and France.30 I will note that Fuller does not give a source for this quote. Fuller than quotes from The White House Papers of Harry Hopkins, the following:

…Winston Churchill told Bernard Baruch: “War is coming very soon. We will be in it and you (the United States) will be in it. You (Baruch) will be running the show over there, but I will be on the sidelines over here.”31

It is fascinating that despite the fact Fuller gives the source he neglects to give a page number. But the insinuation is clear that Jews run the United States.

Fuller than mentions the Nazi-Soviet pact, while of course neglecting to mention that if Jews controlled Russia how did that happen?

Then Fuller mentions Hitler’s attack on Poland and makes a reference to Hitler agreeing not to bomb unfortified cities. How nice of him. Fuller of course neglects to mention the savagery and brutality of the German invasion, i.e., lots of German atrocities has deliberate policy, or that this promise was widely breached.32

Fuller then at the end quotes Goring saying “If We lose this war, then God have mercy on us.”33 Quite designed to make the Nazi Leadership look more human, unfortunately it appears that this quote is a myth because Paul Schmidt’s entire account of these events is likely complete fiction.34

It is worth mentioning that in regards to the Potocki document that in the footnote35 giving the reference, (German White Paper a Nazi propaganda document) Fuller than states as follows after giving the reference:

Addressing the Reichstag on January 30, 1939, Hitler said: “ I want to-day once again to make a prophecy: If the international Jewish financers within and without Europe succeed once more in hurling the people into a world war, the result will be, not the Bolshevization of the World and the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” This was to be only too true, for according to Goebbels: “About 60 percent. Of them will have to be liquidated; only 40 per cent. Can be used for forced labour” (Diaries, p. 103)36

Read in with the Potocki document that Fuller quotes it appears that he is not too subtlety blaming “Jewish” financiers for the Holocaust by starting World War II and Hitler’s infamous act has retaliation for that. Of course it is nonsense. Hitler intended war from the get go and he was making threats to mass murder Jews for years.37 Hitler was projecting his aims and desires on others. Also does it really need mentioning that Hitler attacked Poland and that Hitler therefore deliberately started the war. I further note that Dr. Goebbels comments don’t go well with Fuller’s implication that of Goebbels the poor man having to deal with an unfair American media. But then Fuller does put the comment in a footnote where it is more likely a reader will overlook it. For all those Holocaust deniers who have used Fuller’s work it is of interest that he was no Holocaust denier.

In a later book The Conduct of War: 17 89 – 1961,38 Fuller goes over the Causes of World War II again. The differences are interesting Hitler is noticeably more prominent and so is the odiousness of the Nazi regime. Greater emphasis is given to Nazi policies and aims in causing the war. There is a few pages on the so-called conflict over different economic systems i.e., Loan Capitalism v. Barter but it is less prominent. The Potocki document is absent and so largely are Jews as being involved in causing the war.39. It is indeed a change. Perhaps Fuller learned something in the meantime?

Fuller also refers to the expulsion of 15 million Germans of which 6 million were unaccounted for.40 The similarity of the 6 million figure here with the 6 million figure usually given for the dead of the Holocaust is not likely coincidental. Further Fuller waxes quite eloquent about German suffering after the war and is very indignant.41 About the mass death of the Holocaust Fuller is silent.

In an abridgement of Fuller’s three volume A Military History of the Western World,42 John Terraine the editor criticizes Fuller at various points; for example Fuller’s views of the causes of World War I. Terraine disagrees with Fuller’s contention that the causes of the war were Economic.43 It’s a little strange that although the entire section in which Fuller gives his version of the causes of World War II are printed in full in this abridgement,44 there is no criticism by Terraine. Thus allowing Fuller’s anti-semitic insinuations to go unchallenged.

None of this means that Fuller’s books are useless in fact they are insightful and frequently brilliant. Its just that here Fuller allows a rather ugly bias to distort his work fortunately its more like an occasional undigested lump than something that permeates the whole work even in the sections on the Second World War. Unfortunately Fuller’s words especially his use of the Potocki document have been used by various Neo-Nazi groups.45 It’s all rather sad.

1. Fuller, J. F. C., A Military History of the Western World, v. 3, Da Capo Press, New York, 1956, pp. 364-376.

2. See Answers.com, Here and Wikipedia, Here

3. IBID. Wikipedia.

4. Footnote 1, pp. 300-330.

5. IBID. pp. 367-368.

6. IBID. p. 368 quoting Churchill’s book Step by Step.

7. IBID. p. 368.

8. See Herf, Jeffrey, The Jewish Enemy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MASS, 2006, pp. 50-91. For the similarities between Fuller’s views of the causes of World War II and Nazi anti-semitic propaganda.

9. It is of interest that here Fuller quotes Hitler but the footnote to the comment refers to a statement by Churchill and nowhere does it provide a citation for Hitler’s comment. Fuller, 1956, p. 368 & Footnote 1 on that page.

10. IBID. pp. 368-369.

11. IBID. p. 369.

12. IBID. p. 369. Fuller gives no source for this comment.

13. Overy, Richard, Misjudging Hitler, The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered, 2nd Edition, Gordon Martel, Routledge, New York, 1999, pp. 93-115, at. 109.

14. See Tooze, Adam, The Wages of Destruction, Penguin Books, London, 2006, pp. 67-134.

15. See Evans, Richard J., The Third Reich in Power, Penguin Books, London, 2005, pp. 612-664. Tooze, pp. 203-243.

16. Fuller, 1956, pp. 370.

17. See Tooze, pp. 87-88.

18. Fuller, 1956, p. 371. For an overview of the Abyssinian Crisis and its role in the road to war see. Sullivan, Brian R., More than meets the eye: The Ethiopian War and the Origins of the Second World War, The Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered, 2nd Edition, Ed. Martel, Gordon, Routledge, London, 1999, pp. 178-203.

19. Fuller, 1956, p. 372.

20. See Shirer, William L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Simon and Shuster, New York, 1960, pp. 357-427, Watt, Donald Cameron, How War Came, Mandarin, London, 1990, pp. 26-31.

21 Fuller, 1956, p. 372.

22. Evans, pp. 208, 539, 549, 589, 668, 709. See Herf also.

23. Fuller, 1956, p 372.

24. Fuller, 1956, p. 372.

25. Fuller, 1956, pp. 372-374. quoting the Potocki document.

26. Fuller, 1956, p. 374 Footnote 1

27. See Randi Forum, Here

28. See Herf for a myriad of examples especially pp. 50-137.

29, Fuller 1956, p. 375.

30. Fuller, 1956, p. 375. Karl von Weigand was born in Germany and had known Hitler since 1921. He worked as a foreign correspondent for the vehemently isolationist anti-Roosevelt Hearst papers as a foreign correspondent. See also Lucas, John, American Heritage, Here See also Time Obituary Here

31. Fuller, 1956, p. 375. Bernard Baruch was subject to vicious Nazi propaganda attacks as part of the alleged “Jewish” cabal that controlled the United States. See Herf, pp. 128-130, 163-164.

32. Fuller, 1956, p. 375. For Poland see Megargee, Geoffrey, War of Annihilation, Rowman & Littlefield Pub. Inc., New York, 2006, pp. 10-18.

33. Fuller, 1956, p. 376.

34. See Weinburg, Gerhard L., Germany Hitler & World War II, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995, p. 91.

35. Fuller, 1956, p. 374.

36. Fuller, 1956, p. 374.

37. Dawidowicz, Lucy S., War Against the Jews, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1975, pp. 156-166.

38. Fuller, J.F.C., The Conduct of War: 1789 – 1861, Da Capo Press, New Brunswick NJ, 1961.

39. IBID. pp. 225-247.

40. IBID. p. 307. This figure is almost certainly a wild exaggeration.

41. IBID. p. 303-309.

42. Fuller, J.F.C., The Decisive Battles of the Western World, v. 1 & v. 2, Editor John Terraine, Paladin Books, London, 1970.

43. see IBID. v. 2, Editor’s Note 4, pp. 287-288.

44. IBID., v. 2, pp. 431-443.

45. See Storm Front, Here

Pierre Cloutier

George Steiner and Hitler
 

 George Steiner

One of the pre-eminent Literary critic cum philosopher is the polymath George Steiner. As a literary critic he is extraordinary as a philosophical commentator on history he occasionally leaves much to be desired.

In the late 1970's George Steiner published the short novel The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. The novel brought together various thoughts that George Steiner had been percolating on for quite some time. It was eventually turned into a play.

In this novel Israeli commandos abduct Adolf Hitler and they are taking him to be tried amid difficult physical conditions. In the end Adolf Hitler gives a long soliloquy, and then the helicopter arrives.

The amusing thing is that George Steiner puts into the mouth of Hitler his own thoughts, rather transgressive of him.

What is remarkable is the intellectual poverty of Hitler's ideas in the novel. Of course the real Hitler would have have ranted out an hysterical anti-Semitic screed not the 3rd rate philosophizing of George Steiner.

In Hitler's screed, since repeated in numerous publications by Steiner, we have the standard "correct" posture of blaming the victim.

We have:

a), Hitler got his racist mind set and exterminatory ideas from the Jewish idea of the "chosen" people and his exterminatory ideas from the Old Testament, (unpleasant passages from the Books of Numbers, Joshua, Judges).

In other words Hitler's racism is a parody of Jewish. To quote the play "a Hungary Imitation". Further Hitler claims that he was carrying out the universal wishes of the whole world.

b), "The blackmail of transcendence", supposedly the Ten commandments of Moses, Sermon on the Mount of Jesus, the Social justice of Karl Marx. Supposedly the tortures of that are very bad. Hitler says "What were the camps compared to that?".

c), Hitler claims to be some sort of dark Messiah whose horrible acts enabled the Jews to re-establish Israel.

d), Steiner has claimed that since Kafka in his fiction in some ways pre-figured totalitarian terror he was in some sense "responsible", because it was suddenly there as a "possibility". Somehow Steiner blames Kafka for the death camps for conceiving of something like them in fiction.

e), In a interview Steiner has claimed, as a possibility, that since the Jews were the occasion for unimaginable bestiality it would have been better if they had never existed.

f) Steiner believes that the tortures of conscience "over the long run" are worst than the tortures of the camps.

Steiner has claimed that "I have demanded an answer [to those questions] and never got one".

To get to the last point first Steiner has been answered but has chosen to ignore the answers.

To go through the points.

a), One of the sources of Hitler's ideas was the semi racism of antiquity, has abundantly illustrated by comments concerning non-Greeks, non-Romans and foreigners in antiquity. Included in this could easily be the frequent exterminatory military campaigns of the Romans. But then Steiner greatly admires Greco-Roman civilization and avoids asking hard questions of it including it has a source of Racism. I note he does not refer to Plato and his myth of the four metals; breeding the master race from the Republic of Plato. Steiner prefers not to look and put the blame elsewhere. Aside from speculation Steiner gives no evidence concerning this alleged influence. Steiner further ignores the influence of Enlightenment Philosophers, who were frequently anti-Judaic and based their "racist" theories concerning humanity on their reading and interpretation of Classical learning. Regarding the passages from various books of the Bible, the irony is that many of the atrocities mentioned apparently never happened, unlike the rather frequent Roman atrocities. (The destruction of Carthage for example).

I could also point out the rather fundamental difference between the Judaic concept of "Chosen" and a "racist" one. Quite simply one could convert to Judaism. The idea of an "innate" essence corresponding to "race" can all to easily be seen in certain Greco-Roman attitudes. (for Example Plato, Greek attitudes towards barbarians etc.) As for the concept of "Choseness" what is remarkable is the tendency for so many to talk has if the concept is unusual. It is not. From the Chinese to the Romans, Greeks etc., the idea that my group is "chosen" is omnipresent. Certainly the human habit of naming themselves variations of "human", implying of course that others are not quite "human" bespeaks of a common if not universal characteristic.

Steiner's Hitler is quite wrong in asserting that "Mankind" secretly desired to destroy the Jews. After all Anti-Semitism is basically a western phenomena, (only recently spreading to Islam). The majority of "Mankind", has been quite non-affected. But then by universalizing Anti-Semitism Steiner can elide the issue of Christian responsibility.

b), "The blackmail of transcendence", this is really absurd. It goes back to St. Paul's notion that Christ came in part to liberate man from the burden of the "law". The "law" because of its "impossible" demands was a barrier between man and God dooming man to eternal hellfire because of inability to satisfy the demands of a remorseless deity. What is striking about this notion is its falsity. The actual demands of God in the Old Testament are not that every ritual rule had to be observed. Although given the immense network of custom we live in and have always lived in, why these "demands" were especially unbearable is beyond me. The Prophet Micah put it simply "This and this alone the Lord doth demand, that thou love mercy and walk humbly with thy God".

As for blackmail, are Mose's / Jesus' demands anymore impossible than those of Confucius, the Buddha, and that of hundreds of other religious teachers and philosophers? Just what was so irksome about these? Steiner just assumes irksomeness based, in my opinion, on a Christian tradition concerning Judaism. One response to Steiner has been to merely note that the demand are quite realizable and not irksome. Further the Christian tradition, (not shared by all Christians then or now), that assumed the irredeemably sinful nature of man, such that he could never satisfy God, which arose after Jesus and owes a lot to Pagan philosophical concepts concerning the divine is the one that set up a "blackmail of transcendence". I note that no one seems to be filled with a desire to exterminate Christians to deal with this blackmail. But then Steiner seems to be anxious to not deal with the Christian roots of anti-semitism and get Christianity off the hook.

Steiner seems to believe that the tortures of conscience are worst than actual torture. There speaks a mind innocent of reality, and one not interested in listening to the actually tortured.

c), Hitler has a "dark Messiah", is simply Steiner trying to "epater le Bourgeoise". It is trite and silly. Intellectually it is repulsive. The fact Hitler is no more responsible for Israel than a rapist is for his victim marrying her rescuer.

d), Steiner once again goes to silly street. Kafka was writing fiction, which can be demonstrated rather easily. Practically nobody read Kafka until after the Second World War. Besides it can be demonstrated that the concentration camp "universe", predated him. To give a few examples, The Boer War camps, the Belgian Congo camps, (also mass extermination), the South West Africa camps, (German colony along with Genocidal slaughter and murder), the Soviet concentration camp system. I could go on. The fact is Hitler didn't need Kafka and even before Kafka wrote, in real terms the murderous concentration camp existed and was well known in Europe. Aside from the fact how little known writer had this amount of influence despite the fact virtually no one read him until after 1945 is a bit mysterious.

e), No doubt if a woman was raped it would have been better if she had never lived because she was raped. This is simply contemptible. That Steiner thinks this morally repellent dross, which significantly ignores the perpetrator and blames the victim simply for existing is worth a hearing is beyond me. The Nazi sentenced the Jews to death for existing. Steiner thinks that it is worth serious thought that since Jews were the occasion for a unimaginable bestiality, i.e., for being a victim, for that reason non-existence might have been a good thing. In other words non-existence for being.

f), This is false and only a naive innocent could think this. Only someone who does not hear the testimony of terror from survivors could spout this gibberish. I rather doubt that Steiner is terribly interested in hearing this testimony. I would also like to hear about the evidence Steiner has for this assertion, otherwise it is just a flaky opinion. This is all for Steiner for the time being.
 

Bibliography
 

Steiner, George, The Portage to San Cristobal of A. H, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999, (Original publication 1979).
 

Rosenbaum, Ron, Explaining Hitler, Chapter 17. George Steiner: Singling out the Jewish "Invention of Conscience", Random house Inc., New York, 1998, pp. 300-318.
 

Maccoby, Hyman, George Steiner's "Hitler", Encounter, vol. 58, No. 5, May 1982, pp. 27-34.
 

Sagiv, Assaf, George Steiner's Jewish Problem, Azure, Summer 5763 / 2003, pp. 130-154.

Pierre Cloutier