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I removed this sentence. The Time citation wasn't a laudatory approval; it's clear from the 1938 article that Man of the Year in 1938 was a ranking of power and not of 'good people':
Tempshill 20:53, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Tempshill: you are totally wrong to have taken that out. it doesn't matter whether the times citation was laudatory. the fact is, hitler was verly clearly a dangerous threat to many people, the times citation spotlights the reality of that. the citation can help us understand the larger geopolitical context of elser's goals and actions. you should change the word "popularity" to "attention" or something like that, if you're so afraid that people will think Time commended hitler. 128.119.132.42 22:06, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
In the section Arrest and custody: Since 1969 after a reliable study published by historian Anton Hoch from the important Institute für Zeitgeschichte, it is clear that Elser acted completely by himself. There is no evidence, that anyone else was involved in his plans.
His moral courage was even approved by his murderers. This is the conclusion made by Lothar Gruchmann in the Year 1970 who analysed the hundreds of pages of the protocols concerning Elsers police and judicial interrogations which were accurately filed by the Gestapo.
Today, there is no doubt about Elsers moral integrity. The point is, that the conspiracy theories helped many Germans to hide their shame, because so they could claim, that one person alone would have never been able to kill the dictator, so how could they?
The idea that even the SS played a role in the background can be seen as fully nonsense.
My english is too bad to rectify this in the article. In memory of Georg Elser this should be made clear.
From German Wikipedia: Strafrechtler 18:33, 2 Nov 2005 (CET)
Dear Strafrechtler, if you are German (as I think your user name suggests), you can post your concerns in German on my talk page or send me a user mail message. The last time I looked at the article I didn't see conspiracy theories advocated though they were addressed and maybe not sufficently rebutted. So I wouldn't mind having a look into your concerns. Regards, Str1977 19:02, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Dear Doctor, thanks for your message and your compliments about my language. And thanks for your considerate words despite my revert of your friend 63's edits.
Let me first explain how to communicate on Wikipedia. You can leave messages at an article's or an editor's talk page. All posts should be signed by typing for tildes (~) at the end of your post - this will automatically add your user signature, the date and the time of your post. Through your wiki-linked user name another editor can easily switch to your user/talk page and reply to your posts. Exchanges about articles should be done at the talk page, so that others can read your posts and profit from the content.
Anyway, concerning 63's edits and your comments:
If you (or 63...) have anymore questions, please feel free to post them here on my talk page. Cheers, Str1977 01:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind greetings. Since I know very little about Elser, I will get back to you on your detailed remarks after doing a little research on the topic. I had a big argument with my friend for using my computer to express points of view that do not coincide with my own. Originally he was only to check emails, etc., until he replaced his broken computer. I explicitly told him not to buy anything from my computer, nor to visit "chat rooms" or the like. As a consequence, he will have to make contact with you from another source, as he is "persona non grata", for failing to do so, and is "banned" from using my computer. This is ironic, since he introduced me to Wikipedia in the first place. And yes, we are still friends all the same.
A quick glance at the Elser article however, gives me pause, because it is in fact not scholarly and quite "propagandistic", in my opinion. I will expound on why I think so, after I do some more research on the subject. My friend is the one who wrote some "hyperdulia" on Elser, in order to smoke out the source of what he called "lesser hyperdulia and sympathetic propaganga about Elser". I think he is correct to some extent, that you have interjected many superfluous facts, many that should be documented or removed. This goofy "smoking out of the source", is precisely the kind of mind game that I deplore, when sharing different viewpoints with others. Not only did I tell my friend this, as I'm telling you also, but told him if he looked in the Hitory of the article, he would see the evolution of the article as it has changed. In truth, the article took a very differnt turn when you added a lot of information on September 12, 2005, which can be challenged, as to where this information came from. An example is when you added that Elser was not a Communist. This in contradiction to your earlier comment to me on the talk page, that he was in fact a Communist. Which is it? Have to go now. More later. Dr. Dan 16:12, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Dear Dan,
that explains the over-the-top nature of the hyperdulia edit.
I think my edits on September 12 are quite justified. I removed terms like "anti-fascist" as they are tainted by Communist propaganda and IMHO not appropriate in regard to an opponent to Nazism (which is not Fascism). The rest was merely rewording.
The "though not a Communist" passage I translated from the German wikipedia, even though the previous editors there had tried to paint him all red as well. However, to portray Elser as a Comumunist is untrue.
Elser was not a Communist in the sense that he adhered to Communist ideology or that he wanted to turn Germany into a Soviet-state. Neither was he a member of the KPD, only of the Rotfrontkämpferbund. He voted Communist and he had his reasons for doing so
I object to the allegation that I included "superfluous facts" - they are facts and have some bearing on his personality.
Str1977 16:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
the wiki says that elser had nostradamusian foresight about world war 2. does anyone else think this is silly? the wiki makes it seem like Elser's goal was to stop world war 2 from happening. the argument is quite weak: "due to his knowledge of German Foreign Policy [he attempted to assassinate hitler.]" this is silly. ok, he was appalled at the pogrom, and thought hitler was a dangerous terrible man. but that's entirely different from simply having some magical foresight of ww2 and wanting to stop it. User:128.119.132.42 22:06, 2 December 2005
The current article says nothing of that kind. It only says that Elser considered Hitler a warmongerer after he saw the destruction of the Kristallnacht. And he decided to prevent such a disaster. There's nothing magical about. I don't want to draw any parallels (as they would be preposterous for all the rest), but some people thought, when Bush became president that he would make on Iraq sooner or later. And that's what came to pass. Str1977 23:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I have wanted to cleanup this article for a while, but haven't had the time to do so. It's a mess both from its atrocious grammar and syntax, and its ridiculous propagandistic perpective. I suppose much of the article's problem stems from a poor German translation of its German counterpoint in Wikipedia. I haven't bothered to look, and my German isn't good enough to be certain that this is entirely the case. If I'm correct, however, that may explain its childish and disconnected tone. I like Wikipedia. I like it a lot. I have taken my limited available time when using it, to correct grammar, spelling, remove vandalism, and put it on a more scholarly plane. In otherwords, make it comply with the idea of its being an encyclopedia, and not a springboard for crackpots and propagandists, of any stripe. Looking at the history of the article, it's lamentable that the original, initial entry could not be left alone. It had the facts, and the whole Elser story could be told as in a lexicon, short and sweet. But that was not to be. "Editors" decided that this murderer and thug, and yes Terrorist, needed to somehow be brought forth in a warm and Gemütlickheit format, with nonsense that does not belong in an encyclopedia. I'm not against expanding articles, in fact the more useful and verifiable knowledge that can be brought to the table the better. But at some point, superflous information need not be added. His playing of the double bass for the local choir and also on dancing occasions, would put a tear in Walter Ulbricht's eye. In other words, whether or not Elser's grandmother liked apple strudel, need not be added to this article. And whether Elser was in a "tracht" club , or could play the "cithara", are also not relevant to the historical scope of this article. Stand back from the article, read it and ask yourself, What's really being written here? Unless of course this editor likes apfelstrüdel and is in a "tracht" club him or herself.
Terrorist
If Elser's actions took place in Stockholm yesterday, would anybody in their right mind deny that he was a terrorist? If he missed killing the King of Sweden, or the Prime Minister of Sweden, and killed eight "innocent" people instead, would they object to the term innocent being included in the description of events? I rather think not. So here we go again with the BIG BAD HITLER, and the BIG BAD NAZIS, and apply the old double standard to them. "Terrorist" and "Innocent" out. Why, because the editor doesn't like the terms. So Str1977, what were these eight people guilty of? There was an irrelevant inclusion of Timothy Mcveigh, in the article that was deleted. I don't have a problem with this, but on the other hand, is it right to say Elser was not a terrorist, because he only did it once? Can one say that McVeigh was not a terrorist because he only did it one time? (read above discussion).
"Morality" of Tyrannicide
Those who will disagree with me, will say that you can't take Hitler out of the equation. "Sic Semper Tyrannis", they will say. I say, don't forget that America's most famous assassin, John Wilkes Booth, cried out this very slogan after shooting Lincoln. Needless to say there are no monuments to him, and very few articles telling us that he liked to dance or play the harmonica. Which causes me to digress, albeit vulgarly, and say Booth had the "balls" to shoot Lincoln and get the job done. Both Elser, Stauffenberg, and the other " hitler attentat failures" did not, and they killed innocent people. I think a victim or two of Stauffenberg's were actually sympathetic to the July 20 conspiracy. Enough said. Tyranncide is a euphemistic code word for killing someone you disagree with, and then hope enough people agree with you, after the fact. Some people think Hitler was a tyrant, and Stalin was not. Some people think Stalin was a tyrant, and Hitler was not. Some people think they both were tyrants. Some people don't think at all. So much for "tyrannicide, at least for now.
Pending Edit
As I began this discussion, I intend to do a massive edit on this article. It is more because of its childish and nonsensical grammar and style, than because of its propagandistic bent. But I will address that problem too. So a call for help! Before writing this discussion piece, I looked into Elser. I found nothing connecting him to Kristallnacht other than a lame movie by Karl Maria Brandauer. Is this the source for this inclusion, of Kristallnacht, being part of the impetus to his actions? I hope not. What then is the source then, please? Next, what is the source for the remark "as a devout Protestant Christian..."? This was deleted and re-added. The editor says this "fact" is well known and "essential" information. In light of the fact, that he was a member of the communist equivalent to the nazi "stormtroopers", and voted communist, this seems a bit incongruous. I could not find this well known and essential information. Where can I find it? Please don't tell me in the Wikipedia article on Elser, either, ha,ha. Lastly, Elser and this article, are a lot less important to me than might be made out from my comments. My adherence to principles make me to some extent, go against some of my inner feelings about the events of November 8, 1939, but historical objectivity first. One can muse about Opinions over wine, beer, or milk by the fireplace, (or on the Wikipedia discussion page), not in the article. Dr. Dan 00:52, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
What an extraordinary interchange. Word of advice to all: cool it. Dr Dan: get off your high horse about 'checking spelling and grammar'. Your rant is full of mistakes in both categories, as well as containing a German misuse and misspelling. To the others: please don't bait Dr Dan, it'll only make things worse.
The purpose of any encyclopaedia article is to present the facts, and nothing else. I don't know if Elser was devout or not. If you want to include this, add a citation, so we can work out for ourselves whether to rely on it or not. The term 'terrorist' is loaded, especially these days, especially in the US where it has become politically charged in daily discourse. Elser's was an assassination attempt against Hitler. It failed, though there were other casualties. He was arrested, interrogated, imprisoned and ultimately executed on Hitler's direct order. That's it. It is not the encyclopaedia's role to tell us whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, though it may be telling that a contemporary thought it was a good thing or a bad thing.
Can we all behave now, please? 86.129.111.27 14:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Obviously when one disagrees with a different viewpoint, it's easy to dismiss it as a "rant". Probably even more so, when they cannot come up with the necessary proof of the sources being questioned.
I suppose my detractor would prefer incorrect grammar and spelling to remain in Wikipedia's articles? (by the way, no comment from them about the quality of the Elser article)
Sorry, that my German inclusion was not up to your standards. One thing I do agree with, is that the purpose of any encyclopedia article is to present the facts, and nothing else. The Elser article deviates from this principle quite dramatically. And as to Elser's Guru-like "knolwedge" of German foreign policy, and its re-armament program. Please, give us a break. "Nach der Tatsache alle wissen wir Besser". Or, the concept of "the Monday Morning Quarterback," has been applied rather heavily.
Yeah, don't "bait" Dr. Dan. Stop the discussion! On Elser: "He was arrested, interrogated, imprisoned and ultimately executed on Hitler's direct order. That's it." Why discuss it any further? That might improve the article, or correct errors in it. We wouldn't like that, would we? Dr. Dan 15:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Dr. Dan,
I perfectly I agree with you on grammar issues. If you see something wrong in grammar or style, please improve it.
As for rant, I agree that it is no argument. And having experience with ranting editors I can say that your "rant" isn't so bad that your point cannot be understood.
However, as for the content of your "rant" (sorry, if I keep on using it, I mean it tongue-in-cheek, ok?) I have to disagree:
PS. "If thy right hand offends thee, cut it off"(Mt 5,30 - KJV), means that attaing salvation is supreme over anything and that you should be willing to suffer damage or sacrifice even your most prized possessions if it is a hindrance or a seduction. A more modern translation is "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell." (RSV) (Now, the "being maimed" in paradise is of course figurative speech, as I don't think "glorified bodies" can have effective injuries). There were cases in which this verse was followed to literally, most famous in the case of Origen, controversial even during his day. Hope that helps.
Str1977 21:19, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Dear Str1977, Thanks for your comments and opinions. You are a gentleman, and even when we disagree, I like your style and attitude. You say you admire Elser. This seems odd to me. If you go back to your much earlier assessment of right and wrong, you claim even nazis are humans and do not deserve Georg Elsers. I do not admire him, and have hopefully told you why, more than once. By the way I'm aware of the many plots against Hitler, and do not "cavalierly" dismiss Stauffenberg. His lack of courage to shoot Hitler was more based on self preservation, than his needed presence in Berlin. Incidentally having seven fingers and one eye, doesn't necessarily give you more "guts", than having ten and two. But enough of Stauffenberg. He can be discussed at another time on his own page, along with his co-conspirators. As I remember, many of them didn't have a problem with Hitler in July 1940, when the were made Field Marshalls.
Back to Elser, If I challenge the inclusions that he was a "Devout" Protestant Christian, and that Kristallnacht was an impetus to his actions, I'd like the sources for those statements. If you can't produce them, I too as a historian, see a large problem with their presence in the article. You say you are a historian and this is general knowledge. General knowledge to whom and where can it be found?
You say that only my friend questioned GE's supernatural powers. Did you forget the above by- line ELSER'S GOALS. The point made there was rather cavalierly (thought the word cavalierly, would be appreciated by you), tossed aside by you.
Lastly Lincoln, Hitler, Booth, Elser and Mcveigh, are not the same, and the only difference is not the name.(not a poem) I don't feel they are inappropriate analogies to concepts we have discussed. Not any less than your inclusion of Bush and Iraq, anyway. p.s. liked the Origen tip. By the way thanks also for if the right hand offends thee, comments. Do you agree with that? Dr. Dan 23:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I should have to do some digging to provide the references you asked for.
It's late so I want to clarify only one more thing: I didn't meant that your friend alone questioned GE's super powers, but that only your friend claimed super powers for GE (albeit, if I understand it correctly, in irony). The other editor (Elser's goals) slipped trhough my mental fingers and in my mind I linked his comments with yours. So that makes two. Still, IMHO the current wording, to me, don't suggest super powers but only an open eye. Of course things could have turned out differently and he would have been wrong. I remember providing, in an earlier post, the analogy of someone in early 2001 saying that "Bush will wage war on Iraq". Would that person be a clairvoyant, a conspiracy nutter or clear-sighted. Sure, all three options are possible and there are specimen of all three around. And so it was, IMHO, in Hitler's day too. (Disclaimer: In no way shape or form do I want to imply any connection or similiarity between Hitler and Bush and the respective wars. And is meant in earnest!)
Goodnight, Str1977 00:07, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Good Morning! Please keep digging for the requested sources. Since you say that you are a historian and it is "General Knowledge", it shouldn't be all that hard to produce them. I've always thought general knowledge is more like World War I began in 1914, or the capital of France is Paris. Or maybe that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Still waiting. Dr. Dan 05:59, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
To whom it may concern, especially Dr. Dan:
here is a list of books I consulted:
The article is basically correct, but a few minor changes regarding his biography are in order, especially regarding his private life, women & his son (he and the mother split after Manfred's birth), jobs, religion (devout overstates it, but that's a common mistake in the English language). I will see into these changes in a short while.
Str1977 (smile back) 11:19, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
This is not spam. I worked to compile this evidence to counter your claims because I feel its important to set the record straight (against historical revisionism). The following evidence for the record is presented, to refute your claim that "Mein Kampf is devoid of anything Chritian." I have gone through section by section and pulled out only some of the more obvious elements of Hitler's Christianity, as well as provided other evidence. Enjoy. The talk page is not a place for you to start an edit war over your suppression of my right to free speech, here. I suspect you want to supress this evidence because its an effective refutation of your POV. Giovanni33 02:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
In a speech at Koblenz, August 26, 1934, Hitler said: "National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity . . . For their interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of today, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life . . . These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles!"
Related to the above, the "Religion" article in The Oxford Companion to World War II notes that early on in his career, Hitler sponsored something called "practical Christianity," and that "German Christians emerged who claimed to be able to synthesize the best of National Socialism [Nazism] and the best of Christianity. Many Christians seemed to be able to reconcile themselves to at least certain aspects of anti-Semitic legislation. Those who could not . . . often ended up in concentration camps . . . Many anguished Christians serving in the Wehrmacht began to feel a little more comfortable about supporting a war that now included the overthrow of godless communism."
Getting back to quotes, on October 24, 1933, in a speech in Berlin, Hitler said: "We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: "I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work." In 1938, he quoted those same words in a Reichstag speech.
In a speech delivered April 12, 1922, published in "My New Order," and quoted in Freethought Today (April 1990), Hitler said: My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice . . . And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited.""
I could probably find more speeches in which Hitler claims himself to be a Christian, but I think the point has been made.
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith. . . we need believing people." (From Hitler's speech, April 26, 1933, during negotiations which led to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933.)
Hitler was baptized a Catholic, attended a monastery school early in life, and was a communicant and altar boy as a youth. During his years as Chancellor and then dictator of Nazi Germany, he was never excommunicated or condemned, even though the Vatican knew much of his policies and activities. The only major complaints from Rome regarded interference in Church matters. And those were largely silenced by the 1933 Concordat with the Vatican, under Pope Pius XII, which to Hitler meant that the Catholic Church recognized the Nazi state. The Nazi military wore belt buckles on which was the legend Gott Mit Uns ("God with us"), and much of his political philosophy was adapted from the Bible. Hitler would not have been successful without the support of German Christians.
The historical record shows that Hitler believed in God and was convinced he was carrying out God's will. Growing up in this environment, he surely learned something of the centuries of discrimination and persecution the Church had supported against Jews in Europe.
Former Jesuit theologian Peter de Rosa describes the groundwork Catholic theology laid for Hitler and the Nazis: "[Catholicism’s] disastrous theology had prepared the way for Hitler and his ‘final solution.’ [The Church published] over a hundred anti-Semitic documents. Not one conciliar decree, not one papal encyclical, bull, or pastoral directive suggest that Jesus’ command, ‘love your neighbor as yourself,' applied to Jews."
Not surprisingly, then, Hitler wrote in his book, Mein Kampf: ". . . I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work." He made essentially the same claim in a speech before the Reichstag in 1938.
Hitler considered himself a Catholic until the day he died. In 1941 he told Gerhard Engel, one of his generals: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." In fact, Hitler was never excommunicated from the Catholic Church, and Mein Kampf was not placed on the Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
Hitler's biographer John Toland explains Catholicism's influence on the Holocaust. He says of Hitler: "Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of god. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of god. . .."
The Protestant influence on Nazi Germany was no better, because Hitler is said to have admired the founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther, more than any other German. Among Luther's many denunciations of the Jews, there are such religious sentiments as: "The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows seven times higher than ordinary thieves," and "We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them."
When Hitler was asked in 1933 what he planned to do about the Jews, he said he would do what Christians had been preaching for centuries.
Christians constituted a wellspring of support for Hitler. Steve Allen notes that in the 1930s, Nazi Germany "was the most church-affiliated nation in Europe. The German people were almost entirely Catholic and Lutheran. Despite such factors they launched the Holocaust and World War II." Charles Kimball likewise says the Holocaust "would not have happened without the active participation of, sympathetic support of, and relative indifference exhibited by large numbers of Christians."
Also in pre-World War II Germany, corporal punishment was used in the schools and schoolchildren were required to start their days with prayer. Today's advocates of spanking and school prayer should consider that those practices, although supported by religion, proved ineffective in promoting high ethical standards and good behavior among German youth. Further, Nazi Germany's soldiers wore belt buckles inscribed "Gott mit uns" ("God is with us"). Like many tyrants both past and present, Hitler used the mantle of religion to justify and further his selfish, hateful, and destructive philosophy. By conditioning people to blindly accept the pronouncements of authorities, instead of teaching them to think for themselves, religions often make it easy for such evil dictators and demagogues to succeed.
From the Mein Kampf Volume 1, Chapter 2, Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna
I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought. At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Social Party. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) (Note: Karl Lueger (1844-1910) belonged as a member of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party, he became mayor of Vienna and kept his post until his death.)
The man and the movement seemed 'reactionary' in my eyes. My common sense of justice, however, forced me to change this judgment in proportion as I had occasion to become acquainted with the man and his work; and slowly my fair judgment turned to unconcealed admiration. Today, more than ever, I regard this man as the greatest German mayor of all times. -Adolf Hitler speaking about Dr. Karl Lueger (Mein Kampf)
How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude toward the Christian Social movement! My views with regard to anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest transformation of all. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: *by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.* -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Volume 1, Chapter 3 General Political Considerations Based on My Vienna Period
the unprecedented rise of the Christian Social Party... was to assume the deepest significance for me as a classical object of study. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Even less could I understand how the Christian Social Party at this same period could achieve such immense power. At that time it had just reached the apogee of its glory. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
The anti-Semitism of the new movement [Christian Social movement] was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have been ranked among the great minds of our people. -Adolf Hitler speaking about the leader of the Christian Social movement (Mein Kampf)
In nearly all the matters in which the Pan-German movement was wanting, the attitude of the Christian Social Party was correct and well-planned. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
It [Christian Social Party] recognized the value of large-scale propaganda and was a virtuoso in influencing the psychological instincts of the broad masses of its adherents. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have been ranked among the great minds of our people. -Adolf Hitler speaking about the leader of the Christian Social movement (Mein Kampf)
Volume 1, Chapter 6, War Propaganda Certainly we don't have to discuss these matters with the Jews, the most modern inventors of this cultural perfume. Their whole existence is an embodied protest against the aesthetics of the Lord's image. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
...we must pray to the Almighty not to refuse His blessing to this change and not to abandon our people in the times to come. -Hitler recalling a priest's speech after the defeat of WWI (Mein Kampf)
Volume 1, Chapter 8, The Beginning of My Political Activity To them belong, not only the truly great statesmen, but all other great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great stands Martin Luther as well as Richard Wagner. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Volume 1, Chapter 11, Nation and Race
Here, of course, we encounter the objection of the modern pacifist, as truly Jewish in its effrontery as it is stupid! 'Man's role is to overcome Nature!' -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) (Man's dominion over earth appears in Genesis 1:26) ...the fall of man in paradise has always been followed by his expulsion. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) (See Genesis Chapter 3) ...that is why the prophet seldom has any honor in his own country. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) ("For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country." John 4:44) Volume 2, Chapter 1, Philosophy and Party Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Volume 2, Chapter 5, Philosophy and Organization
Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? ...Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas... it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Volume 2, Chapter 10, Federalism as a Mask
The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making *people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated.* For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
In the ranks of the movement [National Socialist movement], *the most devout Protestant* could sit beside *the most devout Catholic,* without coming into the slightest conflict with his religious convictions. The mighty common struggle which both carried on against the destroyer of Aryan humanity had, on the contrary, taught them mutually to respect and esteem one another. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he [Hitler] was sent to us by God to save Germany. -Hermann Goering
I swear before God this holy oath, that I shall give absolute confidence to the Fuehrer of the German Reich and people.
-Heinrich Himmler (reminding his hearers about the oath taken by all SS men as well as by the military forces) (The mass murderer Himmler got brought up as a devout Catholic, like young Hitler, and he was careful to attend mass regularly.)
You *Einsatztruppen* (task forces) are called upon to fulfill a repulsive duty. But you are soldiers who have to carry out every order unconditionally. You have a responsibility before God and Hitler for everything that is happening. I myself hate this bloody business and I have been moved to the depths of my soul. But I am obeying the highest law by doing my duty. Man must defend himself against bedbugs and rats-- against vermin. -Heinrich Himmler (in a speech to the SS guards)
Julius Streicher, the ninth child of a Roman Catholic primary school teacher, also became a school teacher in Nuremberg. When Hitler got released from prison in December 1924, Streicher hailed Hitler's return to politics as a "gift of God," a judgement the Fuehrer never forgot. Streicher held an enthusiam about allegations that the Jews murdered non-Jews in order to obtain blood for the feast of Passover. He charged that Jews hated Christianity and mankind in general. Streicher went to grotesque lengths in his attacks on Jews claiming the discovery that "Christ was not a Jew but an Aryan."
If the danger of the reproduction of that curse of God in the Jewish blood is finally to come to an end, then there is only one way-- the extermination of that people whose father is the devil... -Julius Streicher (in an article in the newspaper *Der Stu:mer*) Only the Jews, he shouted, had remained victorious after the dreadful days of World War I. These were the people, he charged, of whom Christ said, "Its father is the devil." -Julius Streicher
(See John 8:44, for Christ's accusation of father the devil) Germans must fight Jews, that organized body of world criminals against whom Christ, the greatest anti-Semite of all time, had fought. -Julius Streicher
The pious Catholic parents of Joseph Goebbels raised him and his two brothers in that faith. He spoke of Hitler as "either Christ or St. John." "Hitler, I love you!" he wrote in his diary. A Jew is for me an object of disgust. I feel like vomiting when I see one. Christ could not possibly have been a Jew. It is not necessary to prove that scientifically-- it is a fact. -Joseph Goebbels (in his attempt to win the eternal gratitude of Hitler)
In his Nuremberg cell, Rudolf Hoess told psychologist G.M. Gilbert how he got brought up in a rigorous Catholic tradition: My father was really a bigot. He was very strict and fanatical. I learned that my father took a religious oath at the time of the birth of my younger sister, dedicating me to God and the priesthood, and after that leading a Joseph married life [celibacy]. He directed my entire youthful education toward the goal of making me a priest. I had to pray and go to church endlessly, do penance over the slightest misdeed-- praying as punishment for any little unkindness to my sister, or something like that. When asked if his father ever beat him, Hoess replied that he was only punished by prayer. "The thing that made me so stubborn and probably made me later on cut off from people was his way of making me feel that I had wronged him personally, and that, since I was spiritually a minor, he was responsible to God for my sins.
Alfred Rosenberg stands as the major reason why so many American Christians think Nazism represented Nordic pagan beliefs instead of Nazi Christianity. Hitler chose Rosenberg to create a 'religion of the Blood' knowing that any form of propaganda could prove useful. However, Hitler also attempted to establish a Reich Christian Church for the future of Germany. Hitler, himself, did not believe in pagan cults. Rosenberg charged that the true picture of Jesus had been distorted by fanatics like Matthew, by materialistic rabbis like Paul, by African jurists like Tertullian, and the mongrel half-breeds like St. Augustine. The real Christ, wrote Rosenberg, was an Amorite Nordic, aggressive, courageous, "a man of true Nordic character," a revolutionary who opposed the Jewish and Roman systems with sword in hand, bringing not peace but war (see Matthew 10:34-37). Rosenberg later went on to say that he favored a "positive Christianity," which would purify the Nordic race, re-establish the old pagan virtues, and substitute the fiery spirit of the hero for the crucifixion.
Volume 1, Chapter 12 The First Period of Development of the Nationalist Social German Worker's Party
The characteristic thing about these people is that they rave about old Germanic heroism, about dim prehistory, stone axes, spear and shield, but in reality are the greatest cowards that can be imagined. For the same people who brandish scholarly imitations of old German tin swords, and wear a dressed bearskin with bull's horns over their heads, preach for the present nothing but struggle with spiritual weapons, and run away as fast as they can from every Communist blackjack. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
(The above statement refutes the common impression that Hitler admired ancient Nordic customs.)
http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/hitler/hitler1.htm http://www.nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm http://www.remember.org/6/hitler-and-religion.html http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/john_murphy/religionofhitler.html http://www.nobeliefs.com/HitlerSources.htm http://www.nobeliefs.com/hitlerchristian.htm
Helmreich, Ernst Christian, "The German Churches Under Hitler," Wayne State University Press, 1979 Hitler, Adolf, "Mein Kampf," translated by Ralph Manheim, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1971 Scholder, Klaus, "The Churches and the Third Reich, Vol 1" Fortress Press, 1977 Scholder, Klaus, "The Churches and the Third Reich, Vol 2" Fortress Press, 1977 Toland, John, "Adolf Hitler," Anchor Books Doubleday, 1976 Macfarland, Charles S., "The New Church and the New Germany," Macmillan Co. Giovanni33 02:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I certainly won't "enjoy" a misguided compilation (based on low level internet websites) of occurences in which Hitler proved that he could talk Christian language (well, it was more common in these days). That still doesn't make him a Christian in any meaningful sense. Also note, that in quite a substantial number of your points, Hitler doesn't even speak as a Christian. "The Allmighty" is not specifically Christian, lauding words for Lueger are not Christian (Lueger was a Christian, yes, but that doesn't make all his supporters - and whether Hitler was one is another issue - Christians). Str1977 (smile back) 10:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Giovanni33 12:51, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I will let my changes speak for themselves, and will gladly respond to any points of contention here regarding them. Basically the article was a little short so I added some more detail. I also made changes where generality could be replaced with specifics, or more precise terms. I also tried to remove any POV insinuations, while keeping the same factual content. Overall the article was accurate, and I was happy to not see any of the conspiracies theories. Giovanni33 23:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you on the conspiracy theories. As for your edits, I integrated them into my overhaul (which is still thin on Elser's pre-assassin biography), but I couldn't retain "Fascist" in "Fascist claims" in this context, as Elser did not deplore the political orientation of the government (which still would be better called Nazi) but the total-totalitarian nature of the claims in regard to education and schools. If you don't like totalitarian because it might suggest an adherence to the "theory of tolitarianism", then think of a better word along the lines of total, all encompassing, comprehensive. Fascist doesn't work here at all. Str1977 (smile back) 01:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Now it is you who is conflating Fascism with other systems - as other systems also restrict freedom, so these must be fascist as well. You still don't see the point: this is not about Fascism, but about Elser and what he actually opposed. I don't say that anti-fascists are Commies but that the term has been embraced to death by Communists. I would have no objection against calling him an anti-Nazi, as this term hasn't been misused (it didn't fit the Communist aims, hence they settled for Fascist). He was an opponent of Nazism, which you and others classify as Fascism - but he still didn't oppose an umbrella term but an actual movement, namely Nazism. However, I would oppose the insertion of Nazi in the passage we are talking about as being non-descriptive "he opposed the nazi claims of Nazi education and propaganda", apart from saying one thing twice. Str1977 (smile back) 15:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Giovanni, please don't keep clogging up talk pages and Wikipedia server space with these long, off-topic posts. And since you're bound to disagree about it being off topic, then please don't keep clogging up talk pages and Wikipedia server space with these long posts. It's disruptive, and you've already been blocked twice for misuse of talk pages. Str, as a historian, may have been interested enough to read that whole "evidence for the record" post; I wasn't. Imagine if I started filling talk pages with whole chapters from the Bible. In fact, I know a Wikipedian who did fill talk pages with long quotations, trying to prove his point, and another Wikipedian moved them all to the bottom of the page with an edit summary "creating a sandbox for the kids to play in while the adults work on the article". On another occasion, following a series of long posts like yours, a Wikipedian wrote something like, "Cripes, XXX has just vomited another long rant on this page. Can't we start deleting his crap on sight? Give him a subpage to rant on, so that we can work on the article?" You can rest assured that none of your Christian opponents, whom you seem to have followed to this page, will attack your dignity in such an unkind manner. I deplored such behaviour when I saw it on other pages. But removal of posts that clearly go against the intended use of talk pages is often done, by ordinary users, by administrators, ArbCom members, and bureaucrats, though repeated removals or replacements could lead to a 3RR block. It's a bit disturbing to see someone so determined to "get the last word". That's not what the Wikipedia talk pages are for. If you really must follow Str from one article to the next, please try at least to focus on article content and not on editor personalities. By the way, I'm not going to report your recent 3RR violation either, or at least, not unless you persist. AnnH ♫ 13:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I removed this sentence. The Time citation wasn't a laudatory approval; it's clear from the 1938 article that Man of the Year in 1938 was a ranking of power and not of 'good people':
Tempshill 20:53, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Tempshill: you are totally wrong to have taken that out. it doesn't matter whether the times citation was laudatory. the fact is, hitler was verly clearly a dangerous threat to many people, the times citation spotlights the reality of that. the citation can help us understand the larger geopolitical context of elser's goals and actions. you should change the word "popularity" to "attention" or something like that, if you're so afraid that people will think Time commended hitler. 128.119.132.42 22:06, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
In the section Arrest and custody: Since 1969 after a reliable study published by historian Anton Hoch from the important Institute für Zeitgeschichte, it is clear that Elser acted completely by himself. There is no evidence, that anyone else was involved in his plans.
His moral courage was even approved by his murderers. This is the conclusion made by Lothar Gruchmann in the Year 1970 who analysed the hundreds of pages of the protocols concerning Elsers police and judicial interrogations which were accurately filed by the Gestapo.
Today, there is no doubt about Elsers moral integrity. The point is, that the conspiracy theories helped many Germans to hide their shame, because so they could claim, that one person alone would have never been able to kill the dictator, so how could they?
The idea that even the SS played a role in the background can be seen as fully nonsense.
My english is too bad to rectify this in the article. In memory of Georg Elser this should be made clear.
From German Wikipedia: Strafrechtler 18:33, 2 Nov 2005 (CET)
Dear Strafrechtler, if you are German (as I think your user name suggests), you can post your concerns in German on my talk page or send me a user mail message. The last time I looked at the article I didn't see conspiracy theories advocated though they were addressed and maybe not sufficently rebutted. So I wouldn't mind having a look into your concerns. Regards, Str1977 19:02, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Dear Doctor, thanks for your message and your compliments about my language. And thanks for your considerate words despite my revert of your friend 63's edits.
Let me first explain how to communicate on Wikipedia. You can leave messages at an article's or an editor's talk page. All posts should be signed by typing for tildes (~) at the end of your post - this will automatically add your user signature, the date and the time of your post. Through your wiki-linked user name another editor can easily switch to your user/talk page and reply to your posts. Exchanges about articles should be done at the talk page, so that others can read your posts and profit from the content.
Anyway, concerning 63's edits and your comments:
If you (or 63...) have anymore questions, please feel free to post them here on my talk page. Cheers, Str1977 01:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind greetings. Since I know very little about Elser, I will get back to you on your detailed remarks after doing a little research on the topic. I had a big argument with my friend for using my computer to express points of view that do not coincide with my own. Originally he was only to check emails, etc., until he replaced his broken computer. I explicitly told him not to buy anything from my computer, nor to visit "chat rooms" or the like. As a consequence, he will have to make contact with you from another source, as he is "persona non grata", for failing to do so, and is "banned" from using my computer. This is ironic, since he introduced me to Wikipedia in the first place. And yes, we are still friends all the same.
A quick glance at the Elser article however, gives me pause, because it is in fact not scholarly and quite "propagandistic", in my opinion. I will expound on why I think so, after I do some more research on the subject. My friend is the one who wrote some "hyperdulia" on Elser, in order to smoke out the source of what he called "lesser hyperdulia and sympathetic propaganga about Elser". I think he is correct to some extent, that you have interjected many superfluous facts, many that should be documented or removed. This goofy "smoking out of the source", is precisely the kind of mind game that I deplore, when sharing different viewpoints with others. Not only did I tell my friend this, as I'm telling you also, but told him if he looked in the Hitory of the article, he would see the evolution of the article as it has changed. In truth, the article took a very differnt turn when you added a lot of information on September 12, 2005, which can be challenged, as to where this information came from. An example is when you added that Elser was not a Communist. This in contradiction to your earlier comment to me on the talk page, that he was in fact a Communist. Which is it? Have to go now. More later. Dr. Dan 16:12, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Dear Dan,
that explains the over-the-top nature of the hyperdulia edit.
I think my edits on September 12 are quite justified. I removed terms like "anti-fascist" as they are tainted by Communist propaganda and IMHO not appropriate in regard to an opponent to Nazism (which is not Fascism). The rest was merely rewording.
The "though not a Communist" passage I translated from the German wikipedia, even though the previous editors there had tried to paint him all red as well. However, to portray Elser as a Comumunist is untrue.
Elser was not a Communist in the sense that he adhered to Communist ideology or that he wanted to turn Germany into a Soviet-state. Neither was he a member of the KPD, only of the Rotfrontkämpferbund. He voted Communist and he had his reasons for doing so
I object to the allegation that I included "superfluous facts" - they are facts and have some bearing on his personality.
Str1977 16:30, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
the wiki says that elser had nostradamusian foresight about world war 2. does anyone else think this is silly? the wiki makes it seem like Elser's goal was to stop world war 2 from happening. the argument is quite weak: "due to his knowledge of German Foreign Policy [he attempted to assassinate hitler.]" this is silly. ok, he was appalled at the pogrom, and thought hitler was a dangerous terrible man. but that's entirely different from simply having some magical foresight of ww2 and wanting to stop it. User:128.119.132.42 22:06, 2 December 2005
The current article says nothing of that kind. It only says that Elser considered Hitler a warmongerer after he saw the destruction of the Kristallnacht. And he decided to prevent such a disaster. There's nothing magical about. I don't want to draw any parallels (as they would be preposterous for all the rest), but some people thought, when Bush became president that he would make on Iraq sooner or later. And that's what came to pass. Str1977 23:00, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I have wanted to cleanup this article for a while, but haven't had the time to do so. It's a mess both from its atrocious grammar and syntax, and its ridiculous propagandistic perpective. I suppose much of the article's problem stems from a poor German translation of its German counterpoint in Wikipedia. I haven't bothered to look, and my German isn't good enough to be certain that this is entirely the case. If I'm correct, however, that may explain its childish and disconnected tone. I like Wikipedia. I like it a lot. I have taken my limited available time when using it, to correct grammar, spelling, remove vandalism, and put it on a more scholarly plane. In otherwords, make it comply with the idea of its being an encyclopedia, and not a springboard for crackpots and propagandists, of any stripe. Looking at the history of the article, it's lamentable that the original, initial entry could not be left alone. It had the facts, and the whole Elser story could be told as in a lexicon, short and sweet. But that was not to be. "Editors" decided that this murderer and thug, and yes Terrorist, needed to somehow be brought forth in a warm and Gemütlickheit format, with nonsense that does not belong in an encyclopedia. I'm not against expanding articles, in fact the more useful and verifiable knowledge that can be brought to the table the better. But at some point, superflous information need not be added. His playing of the double bass for the local choir and also on dancing occasions, would put a tear in Walter Ulbricht's eye. In other words, whether or not Elser's grandmother liked apple strudel, need not be added to this article. And whether Elser was in a "tracht" club , or could play the "cithara", are also not relevant to the historical scope of this article. Stand back from the article, read it and ask yourself, What's really being written here? Unless of course this editor likes apfelstrüdel and is in a "tracht" club him or herself.
Terrorist
If Elser's actions took place in Stockholm yesterday, would anybody in their right mind deny that he was a terrorist? If he missed killing the King of Sweden, or the Prime Minister of Sweden, and killed eight "innocent" people instead, would they object to the term innocent being included in the description of events? I rather think not. So here we go again with the BIG BAD HITLER, and the BIG BAD NAZIS, and apply the old double standard to them. "Terrorist" and "Innocent" out. Why, because the editor doesn't like the terms. So Str1977, what were these eight people guilty of? There was an irrelevant inclusion of Timothy Mcveigh, in the article that was deleted. I don't have a problem with this, but on the other hand, is it right to say Elser was not a terrorist, because he only did it once? Can one say that McVeigh was not a terrorist because he only did it one time? (read above discussion).
"Morality" of Tyrannicide
Those who will disagree with me, will say that you can't take Hitler out of the equation. "Sic Semper Tyrannis", they will say. I say, don't forget that America's most famous assassin, John Wilkes Booth, cried out this very slogan after shooting Lincoln. Needless to say there are no monuments to him, and very few articles telling us that he liked to dance or play the harmonica. Which causes me to digress, albeit vulgarly, and say Booth had the "balls" to shoot Lincoln and get the job done. Both Elser, Stauffenberg, and the other " hitler attentat failures" did not, and they killed innocent people. I think a victim or two of Stauffenberg's were actually sympathetic to the July 20 conspiracy. Enough said. Tyranncide is a euphemistic code word for killing someone you disagree with, and then hope enough people agree with you, after the fact. Some people think Hitler was a tyrant, and Stalin was not. Some people think Stalin was a tyrant, and Hitler was not. Some people think they both were tyrants. Some people don't think at all. So much for "tyrannicide, at least for now.
Pending Edit
As I began this discussion, I intend to do a massive edit on this article. It is more because of its childish and nonsensical grammar and style, than because of its propagandistic bent. But I will address that problem too. So a call for help! Before writing this discussion piece, I looked into Elser. I found nothing connecting him to Kristallnacht other than a lame movie by Karl Maria Brandauer. Is this the source for this inclusion, of Kristallnacht, being part of the impetus to his actions? I hope not. What then is the source then, please? Next, what is the source for the remark "as a devout Protestant Christian..."? This was deleted and re-added. The editor says this "fact" is well known and "essential" information. In light of the fact, that he was a member of the communist equivalent to the nazi "stormtroopers", and voted communist, this seems a bit incongruous. I could not find this well known and essential information. Where can I find it? Please don't tell me in the Wikipedia article on Elser, either, ha,ha. Lastly, Elser and this article, are a lot less important to me than might be made out from my comments. My adherence to principles make me to some extent, go against some of my inner feelings about the events of November 8, 1939, but historical objectivity first. One can muse about Opinions over wine, beer, or milk by the fireplace, (or on the Wikipedia discussion page), not in the article. Dr. Dan 00:52, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
What an extraordinary interchange. Word of advice to all: cool it. Dr Dan: get off your high horse about 'checking spelling and grammar'. Your rant is full of mistakes in both categories, as well as containing a German misuse and misspelling. To the others: please don't bait Dr Dan, it'll only make things worse.
The purpose of any encyclopaedia article is to present the facts, and nothing else. I don't know if Elser was devout or not. If you want to include this, add a citation, so we can work out for ourselves whether to rely on it or not. The term 'terrorist' is loaded, especially these days, especially in the US where it has become politically charged in daily discourse. Elser's was an assassination attempt against Hitler. It failed, though there were other casualties. He was arrested, interrogated, imprisoned and ultimately executed on Hitler's direct order. That's it. It is not the encyclopaedia's role to tell us whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, though it may be telling that a contemporary thought it was a good thing or a bad thing.
Can we all behave now, please? 86.129.111.27 14:13, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Obviously when one disagrees with a different viewpoint, it's easy to dismiss it as a "rant". Probably even more so, when they cannot come up with the necessary proof of the sources being questioned.
I suppose my detractor would prefer incorrect grammar and spelling to remain in Wikipedia's articles? (by the way, no comment from them about the quality of the Elser article)
Sorry, that my German inclusion was not up to your standards. One thing I do agree with, is that the purpose of any encyclopedia article is to present the facts, and nothing else. The Elser article deviates from this principle quite dramatically. And as to Elser's Guru-like "knolwedge" of German foreign policy, and its re-armament program. Please, give us a break. "Nach der Tatsache alle wissen wir Besser". Or, the concept of "the Monday Morning Quarterback," has been applied rather heavily.
Yeah, don't "bait" Dr. Dan. Stop the discussion! On Elser: "He was arrested, interrogated, imprisoned and ultimately executed on Hitler's direct order. That's it." Why discuss it any further? That might improve the article, or correct errors in it. We wouldn't like that, would we? Dr. Dan 15:54, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Dr. Dan,
I perfectly I agree with you on grammar issues. If you see something wrong in grammar or style, please improve it.
As for rant, I agree that it is no argument. And having experience with ranting editors I can say that your "rant" isn't so bad that your point cannot be understood.
However, as for the content of your "rant" (sorry, if I keep on using it, I mean it tongue-in-cheek, ok?) I have to disagree:
PS. "If thy right hand offends thee, cut it off"(Mt 5,30 - KJV), means that attaing salvation is supreme over anything and that you should be willing to suffer damage or sacrifice even your most prized possessions if it is a hindrance or a seduction. A more modern translation is "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell." (RSV) (Now, the "being maimed" in paradise is of course figurative speech, as I don't think "glorified bodies" can have effective injuries). There were cases in which this verse was followed to literally, most famous in the case of Origen, controversial even during his day. Hope that helps.
Str1977 21:19, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Dear Str1977, Thanks for your comments and opinions. You are a gentleman, and even when we disagree, I like your style and attitude. You say you admire Elser. This seems odd to me. If you go back to your much earlier assessment of right and wrong, you claim even nazis are humans and do not deserve Georg Elsers. I do not admire him, and have hopefully told you why, more than once. By the way I'm aware of the many plots against Hitler, and do not "cavalierly" dismiss Stauffenberg. His lack of courage to shoot Hitler was more based on self preservation, than his needed presence in Berlin. Incidentally having seven fingers and one eye, doesn't necessarily give you more "guts", than having ten and two. But enough of Stauffenberg. He can be discussed at another time on his own page, along with his co-conspirators. As I remember, many of them didn't have a problem with Hitler in July 1940, when the were made Field Marshalls.
Back to Elser, If I challenge the inclusions that he was a "Devout" Protestant Christian, and that Kristallnacht was an impetus to his actions, I'd like the sources for those statements. If you can't produce them, I too as a historian, see a large problem with their presence in the article. You say you are a historian and this is general knowledge. General knowledge to whom and where can it be found?
You say that only my friend questioned GE's supernatural powers. Did you forget the above by- line ELSER'S GOALS. The point made there was rather cavalierly (thought the word cavalierly, would be appreciated by you), tossed aside by you.
Lastly Lincoln, Hitler, Booth, Elser and Mcveigh, are not the same, and the only difference is not the name.(not a poem) I don't feel they are inappropriate analogies to concepts we have discussed. Not any less than your inclusion of Bush and Iraq, anyway. p.s. liked the Origen tip. By the way thanks also for if the right hand offends thee, comments. Do you agree with that? Dr. Dan 23:55, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
I should have to do some digging to provide the references you asked for.
It's late so I want to clarify only one more thing: I didn't meant that your friend alone questioned GE's super powers, but that only your friend claimed super powers for GE (albeit, if I understand it correctly, in irony). The other editor (Elser's goals) slipped trhough my mental fingers and in my mind I linked his comments with yours. So that makes two. Still, IMHO the current wording, to me, don't suggest super powers but only an open eye. Of course things could have turned out differently and he would have been wrong. I remember providing, in an earlier post, the analogy of someone in early 2001 saying that "Bush will wage war on Iraq". Would that person be a clairvoyant, a conspiracy nutter or clear-sighted. Sure, all three options are possible and there are specimen of all three around. And so it was, IMHO, in Hitler's day too. (Disclaimer: In no way shape or form do I want to imply any connection or similiarity between Hitler and Bush and the respective wars. And is meant in earnest!)
Goodnight, Str1977 00:07, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
Good Morning! Please keep digging for the requested sources. Since you say that you are a historian and it is "General Knowledge", it shouldn't be all that hard to produce them. I've always thought general knowledge is more like World War I began in 1914, or the capital of France is Paris. Or maybe that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Still waiting. Dr. Dan 05:59, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
To whom it may concern, especially Dr. Dan:
here is a list of books I consulted:
The article is basically correct, but a few minor changes regarding his biography are in order, especially regarding his private life, women & his son (he and the mother split after Manfred's birth), jobs, religion (devout overstates it, but that's a common mistake in the English language). I will see into these changes in a short while.
Str1977 (smile back) 11:19, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
This is not spam. I worked to compile this evidence to counter your claims because I feel its important to set the record straight (against historical revisionism). The following evidence for the record is presented, to refute your claim that "Mein Kampf is devoid of anything Chritian." I have gone through section by section and pulled out only some of the more obvious elements of Hitler's Christianity, as well as provided other evidence. Enjoy. The talk page is not a place for you to start an edit war over your suppression of my right to free speech, here. I suspect you want to supress this evidence because its an effective refutation of your POV. Giovanni33 02:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
In a speech at Koblenz, August 26, 1934, Hitler said: "National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity . . . For their interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of today, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life . . . These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles!"
Related to the above, the "Religion" article in The Oxford Companion to World War II notes that early on in his career, Hitler sponsored something called "practical Christianity," and that "German Christians emerged who claimed to be able to synthesize the best of National Socialism [Nazism] and the best of Christianity. Many Christians seemed to be able to reconcile themselves to at least certain aspects of anti-Semitic legislation. Those who could not . . . often ended up in concentration camps . . . Many anguished Christians serving in the Wehrmacht began to feel a little more comfortable about supporting a war that now included the overthrow of godless communism."
Getting back to quotes, on October 24, 1933, in a speech in Berlin, Hitler said: "We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: "I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work." In 1938, he quoted those same words in a Reichstag speech.
In a speech delivered April 12, 1922, published in "My New Order," and quoted in Freethought Today (April 1990), Hitler said: My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice . . . And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited.""
I could probably find more speeches in which Hitler claims himself to be a Christian, but I think the point has been made.
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith. . . we need believing people." (From Hitler's speech, April 26, 1933, during negotiations which led to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933.)
Hitler was baptized a Catholic, attended a monastery school early in life, and was a communicant and altar boy as a youth. During his years as Chancellor and then dictator of Nazi Germany, he was never excommunicated or condemned, even though the Vatican knew much of his policies and activities. The only major complaints from Rome regarded interference in Church matters. And those were largely silenced by the 1933 Concordat with the Vatican, under Pope Pius XII, which to Hitler meant that the Catholic Church recognized the Nazi state. The Nazi military wore belt buckles on which was the legend Gott Mit Uns ("God with us"), and much of his political philosophy was adapted from the Bible. Hitler would not have been successful without the support of German Christians.
The historical record shows that Hitler believed in God and was convinced he was carrying out God's will. Growing up in this environment, he surely learned something of the centuries of discrimination and persecution the Church had supported against Jews in Europe.
Former Jesuit theologian Peter de Rosa describes the groundwork Catholic theology laid for Hitler and the Nazis: "[Catholicism’s] disastrous theology had prepared the way for Hitler and his ‘final solution.’ [The Church published] over a hundred anti-Semitic documents. Not one conciliar decree, not one papal encyclical, bull, or pastoral directive suggest that Jesus’ command, ‘love your neighbor as yourself,' applied to Jews."
Not surprisingly, then, Hitler wrote in his book, Mein Kampf: ". . . I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord's work." He made essentially the same claim in a speech before the Reichstag in 1938.
Hitler considered himself a Catholic until the day he died. In 1941 he told Gerhard Engel, one of his generals: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." In fact, Hitler was never excommunicated from the Catholic Church, and Mein Kampf was not placed on the Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
Hitler's biographer John Toland explains Catholicism's influence on the Holocaust. He says of Hitler: "Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jew was the killer of god. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of god. . .."
The Protestant influence on Nazi Germany was no better, because Hitler is said to have admired the founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther, more than any other German. Among Luther's many denunciations of the Jews, there are such religious sentiments as: "The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows seven times higher than ordinary thieves," and "We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them."
When Hitler was asked in 1933 what he planned to do about the Jews, he said he would do what Christians had been preaching for centuries.
Christians constituted a wellspring of support for Hitler. Steve Allen notes that in the 1930s, Nazi Germany "was the most church-affiliated nation in Europe. The German people were almost entirely Catholic and Lutheran. Despite such factors they launched the Holocaust and World War II." Charles Kimball likewise says the Holocaust "would not have happened without the active participation of, sympathetic support of, and relative indifference exhibited by large numbers of Christians."
Also in pre-World War II Germany, corporal punishment was used in the schools and schoolchildren were required to start their days with prayer. Today's advocates of spanking and school prayer should consider that those practices, although supported by religion, proved ineffective in promoting high ethical standards and good behavior among German youth. Further, Nazi Germany's soldiers wore belt buckles inscribed "Gott mit uns" ("God is with us"). Like many tyrants both past and present, Hitler used the mantle of religion to justify and further his selfish, hateful, and destructive philosophy. By conditioning people to blindly accept the pronouncements of authorities, instead of teaching them to think for themselves, religions often make it easy for such evil dictators and demagogues to succeed.
From the Mein Kampf Volume 1, Chapter 2, Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna
I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought. At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Social Party. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) (Note: Karl Lueger (1844-1910) belonged as a member of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party, he became mayor of Vienna and kept his post until his death.)
The man and the movement seemed 'reactionary' in my eyes. My common sense of justice, however, forced me to change this judgment in proportion as I had occasion to become acquainted with the man and his work; and slowly my fair judgment turned to unconcealed admiration. Today, more than ever, I regard this man as the greatest German mayor of all times. -Adolf Hitler speaking about Dr. Karl Lueger (Mein Kampf)
How many of my basic principles were upset by this change in my attitude toward the Christian Social movement! My views with regard to anti-Semitism thus succumbed to the passage of time, and this was my greatest transformation of all. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: *by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.* -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Volume 1, Chapter 3 General Political Considerations Based on My Vienna Period
the unprecedented rise of the Christian Social Party... was to assume the deepest significance for me as a classical object of study. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Even less could I understand how the Christian Social Party at this same period could achieve such immense power. At that time it had just reached the apogee of its glory. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
The anti-Semitism of the new movement [Christian Social movement] was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have been ranked among the great minds of our people. -Adolf Hitler speaking about the leader of the Christian Social movement (Mein Kampf)
In nearly all the matters in which the Pan-German movement was wanting, the attitude of the Christian Social Party was correct and well-planned. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
It [Christian Social Party] recognized the value of large-scale propaganda and was a virtuoso in influencing the psychological instincts of the broad masses of its adherents. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have been ranked among the great minds of our people. -Adolf Hitler speaking about the leader of the Christian Social movement (Mein Kampf)
Volume 1, Chapter 6, War Propaganda Certainly we don't have to discuss these matters with the Jews, the most modern inventors of this cultural perfume. Their whole existence is an embodied protest against the aesthetics of the Lord's image. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
...we must pray to the Almighty not to refuse His blessing to this change and not to abandon our people in the times to come. -Hitler recalling a priest's speech after the defeat of WWI (Mein Kampf)
Volume 1, Chapter 8, The Beginning of My Political Activity To them belong, not only the truly great statesmen, but all other great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great stands Martin Luther as well as Richard Wagner. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Volume 1, Chapter 11, Nation and Race
Here, of course, we encounter the objection of the modern pacifist, as truly Jewish in its effrontery as it is stupid! 'Man's role is to overcome Nature!' -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) (Man's dominion over earth appears in Genesis 1:26) ...the fall of man in paradise has always been followed by his expulsion. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) (See Genesis Chapter 3) ...that is why the prophet seldom has any honor in his own country. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) ("For Jesus himself testified, that a prophet hath no honour in his own country." John 4:44) Volume 2, Chapter 1, Philosophy and Party Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Volume 2, Chapter 5, Philosophy and Organization
Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? ...Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas... it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
Volume 2, Chapter 10, Federalism as a Mask
The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making *people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated.* For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
In the ranks of the movement [National Socialist movement], *the most devout Protestant* could sit beside *the most devout Catholic,* without coming into the slightest conflict with his religious convictions. The mighty common struggle which both carried on against the destroyer of Aryan humanity had, on the contrary, taught them mutually to respect and esteem one another. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he [Hitler] was sent to us by God to save Germany. -Hermann Goering
I swear before God this holy oath, that I shall give absolute confidence to the Fuehrer of the German Reich and people.
-Heinrich Himmler (reminding his hearers about the oath taken by all SS men as well as by the military forces) (The mass murderer Himmler got brought up as a devout Catholic, like young Hitler, and he was careful to attend mass regularly.)
You *Einsatztruppen* (task forces) are called upon to fulfill a repulsive duty. But you are soldiers who have to carry out every order unconditionally. You have a responsibility before God and Hitler for everything that is happening. I myself hate this bloody business and I have been moved to the depths of my soul. But I am obeying the highest law by doing my duty. Man must defend himself against bedbugs and rats-- against vermin. -Heinrich Himmler (in a speech to the SS guards)
Julius Streicher, the ninth child of a Roman Catholic primary school teacher, also became a school teacher in Nuremberg. When Hitler got released from prison in December 1924, Streicher hailed Hitler's return to politics as a "gift of God," a judgement the Fuehrer never forgot. Streicher held an enthusiam about allegations that the Jews murdered non-Jews in order to obtain blood for the feast of Passover. He charged that Jews hated Christianity and mankind in general. Streicher went to grotesque lengths in his attacks on Jews claiming the discovery that "Christ was not a Jew but an Aryan."
If the danger of the reproduction of that curse of God in the Jewish blood is finally to come to an end, then there is only one way-- the extermination of that people whose father is the devil... -Julius Streicher (in an article in the newspaper *Der Stu:mer*) Only the Jews, he shouted, had remained victorious after the dreadful days of World War I. These were the people, he charged, of whom Christ said, "Its father is the devil." -Julius Streicher
(See John 8:44, for Christ's accusation of father the devil) Germans must fight Jews, that organized body of world criminals against whom Christ, the greatest anti-Semite of all time, had fought. -Julius Streicher
The pious Catholic parents of Joseph Goebbels raised him and his two brothers in that faith. He spoke of Hitler as "either Christ or St. John." "Hitler, I love you!" he wrote in his diary. A Jew is for me an object of disgust. I feel like vomiting when I see one. Christ could not possibly have been a Jew. It is not necessary to prove that scientifically-- it is a fact. -Joseph Goebbels (in his attempt to win the eternal gratitude of Hitler)
In his Nuremberg cell, Rudolf Hoess told psychologist G.M. Gilbert how he got brought up in a rigorous Catholic tradition: My father was really a bigot. He was very strict and fanatical. I learned that my father took a religious oath at the time of the birth of my younger sister, dedicating me to God and the priesthood, and after that leading a Joseph married life [celibacy]. He directed my entire youthful education toward the goal of making me a priest. I had to pray and go to church endlessly, do penance over the slightest misdeed-- praying as punishment for any little unkindness to my sister, or something like that. When asked if his father ever beat him, Hoess replied that he was only punished by prayer. "The thing that made me so stubborn and probably made me later on cut off from people was his way of making me feel that I had wronged him personally, and that, since I was spiritually a minor, he was responsible to God for my sins.
Alfred Rosenberg stands as the major reason why so many American Christians think Nazism represented Nordic pagan beliefs instead of Nazi Christianity. Hitler chose Rosenberg to create a 'religion of the Blood' knowing that any form of propaganda could prove useful. However, Hitler also attempted to establish a Reich Christian Church for the future of Germany. Hitler, himself, did not believe in pagan cults. Rosenberg charged that the true picture of Jesus had been distorted by fanatics like Matthew, by materialistic rabbis like Paul, by African jurists like Tertullian, and the mongrel half-breeds like St. Augustine. The real Christ, wrote Rosenberg, was an Amorite Nordic, aggressive, courageous, "a man of true Nordic character," a revolutionary who opposed the Jewish and Roman systems with sword in hand, bringing not peace but war (see Matthew 10:34-37). Rosenberg later went on to say that he favored a "positive Christianity," which would purify the Nordic race, re-establish the old pagan virtues, and substitute the fiery spirit of the hero for the crucifixion.
Volume 1, Chapter 12 The First Period of Development of the Nationalist Social German Worker's Party
The characteristic thing about these people is that they rave about old Germanic heroism, about dim prehistory, stone axes, spear and shield, but in reality are the greatest cowards that can be imagined. For the same people who brandish scholarly imitations of old German tin swords, and wear a dressed bearskin with bull's horns over their heads, preach for the present nothing but struggle with spiritual weapons, and run away as fast as they can from every Communist blackjack. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)
(The above statement refutes the common impression that Hitler admired ancient Nordic customs.)
http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/hitler/hitler1.htm http://www.nobeliefs.com/hitler.htm http://www.remember.org/6/hitler-and-religion.html http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/john_murphy/religionofhitler.html http://www.nobeliefs.com/HitlerSources.htm http://www.nobeliefs.com/hitlerchristian.htm
Helmreich, Ernst Christian, "The German Churches Under Hitler," Wayne State University Press, 1979 Hitler, Adolf, "Mein Kampf," translated by Ralph Manheim, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1971 Scholder, Klaus, "The Churches and the Third Reich, Vol 1" Fortress Press, 1977 Scholder, Klaus, "The Churches and the Third Reich, Vol 2" Fortress Press, 1977 Toland, John, "Adolf Hitler," Anchor Books Doubleday, 1976 Macfarland, Charles S., "The New Church and the New Germany," Macmillan Co. Giovanni33 02:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I certainly won't "enjoy" a misguided compilation (based on low level internet websites) of occurences in which Hitler proved that he could talk Christian language (well, it was more common in these days). That still doesn't make him a Christian in any meaningful sense. Also note, that in quite a substantial number of your points, Hitler doesn't even speak as a Christian. "The Allmighty" is not specifically Christian, lauding words for Lueger are not Christian (Lueger was a Christian, yes, but that doesn't make all his supporters - and whether Hitler was one is another issue - Christians). Str1977 (smile back) 10:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Giovanni33 12:51, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I will let my changes speak for themselves, and will gladly respond to any points of contention here regarding them. Basically the article was a little short so I added some more detail. I also made changes where generality could be replaced with specifics, or more precise terms. I also tried to remove any POV insinuations, while keeping the same factual content. Overall the article was accurate, and I was happy to not see any of the conspiracies theories. Giovanni33 23:46, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you on the conspiracy theories. As for your edits, I integrated them into my overhaul (which is still thin on Elser's pre-assassin biography), but I couldn't retain "Fascist" in "Fascist claims" in this context, as Elser did not deplore the political orientation of the government (which still would be better called Nazi) but the total-totalitarian nature of the claims in regard to education and schools. If you don't like totalitarian because it might suggest an adherence to the "theory of tolitarianism", then think of a better word along the lines of total, all encompassing, comprehensive. Fascist doesn't work here at all. Str1977 (smile back) 01:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Now it is you who is conflating Fascism with other systems - as other systems also restrict freedom, so these must be fascist as well. You still don't see the point: this is not about Fascism, but about Elser and what he actually opposed. I don't say that anti-fascists are Commies but that the term has been embraced to death by Communists. I would have no objection against calling him an anti-Nazi, as this term hasn't been misused (it didn't fit the Communist aims, hence they settled for Fascist). He was an opponent of Nazism, which you and others classify as Fascism - but he still didn't oppose an umbrella term but an actual movement, namely Nazism. However, I would oppose the insertion of Nazi in the passage we are talking about as being non-descriptive "he opposed the nazi claims of Nazi education and propaganda", apart from saying one thing twice. Str1977 (smile back) 15:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
Giovanni, please don't keep clogging up talk pages and Wikipedia server space with these long, off-topic posts. And since you're bound to disagree about it being off topic, then please don't keep clogging up talk pages and Wikipedia server space with these long posts. It's disruptive, and you've already been blocked twice for misuse of talk pages. Str, as a historian, may have been interested enough to read that whole "evidence for the record" post; I wasn't. Imagine if I started filling talk pages with whole chapters from the Bible. In fact, I know a Wikipedian who did fill talk pages with long quotations, trying to prove his point, and another Wikipedian moved them all to the bottom of the page with an edit summary "creating a sandbox for the kids to play in while the adults work on the article". On another occasion, following a series of long posts like yours, a Wikipedian wrote something like, "Cripes, XXX has just vomited another long rant on this page. Can't we start deleting his crap on sight? Give him a subpage to rant on, so that we can work on the article?" You can rest assured that none of your Christian opponents, whom you seem to have followed to this page, will attack your dignity in such an unkind manner. I deplored such behaviour when I saw it on other pages. But removal of posts that clearly go against the intended use of talk pages is often done, by ordinary users, by administrators, ArbCom members, and bureaucrats, though repeated removals or replacements could lead to a 3RR block. It's a bit disturbing to see someone so determined to "get the last word". That's not what the Wikipedia talk pages are for. If you really must follow Str from one article to the next, please try at least to focus on article content and not on editor personalities. By the way, I'm not going to report your recent 3RR violation either, or at least, not unless you persist. AnnH ♫ 13:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)