I have read speculation that if Hitler's artwork had been praised instead of panned by critics, we never would have had Hitler the politician. He would have lived and died an artist.
They may have a point. But that assumption treats everything as if it only happened because of Adolf Hitler — as if none of it would have happened without him. In reality, the Nazi Party existed before he even joined, and German society was already ripe for exploitation. People blamed revolutionaries for pushing Germany to the brink of famine, and many of those revolutionaries were Jewish Germans with higher-than-average incomes, so they were affected far less than the men and women struggling in the streets — at least, that was the impression many Germans had. Hitler was repeating what he learned, not creating something out of thin air.
Today, I’ll be publishing a post about scapegoating Hitler between 12 and 1 p.m. EST. You may be interested.
I didn’t know about it. It looks like Hannah Arendt used the phrase to point out that some of the Holocaust wasn’t driven by a wild, hate-filled mastermind but by ordinary functionaries who followed orders without thinking.
To me, it feels like what was done was temporarily seen as part of national identity, not something you chose to do or not to do.
I have read speculation that if Hitler's artwork had been praised instead of panned by critics, we never would have had Hitler the politician. He would have lived and died an artist.
They may have a point. But that assumption treats everything as if it only happened because of Adolf Hitler — as if none of it would have happened without him. In reality, the Nazi Party existed before he even joined, and German society was already ripe for exploitation. People blamed revolutionaries for pushing Germany to the brink of famine, and many of those revolutionaries were Jewish Germans with higher-than-average incomes, so they were affected far less than the men and women struggling in the streets — at least, that was the impression many Germans had. Hitler was repeating what he learned, not creating something out of thin air.
Today, I’ll be publishing a post about scapegoating Hitler between 12 and 1 p.m. EST. You may be interested.
Who coined the Phrase, the banality of evil?
I didn’t know about it. It looks like Hannah Arendt used the phrase to point out that some of the Holocaust wasn’t driven by a wild, hate-filled mastermind but by ordinary functionaries who followed orders without thinking.
To me, it feels like what was done was temporarily seen as part of national identity, not something you chose to do or not to do.