Nazis and the Nature of Evil

[Yukaphile]

What's harder for me to comprehend is the idiots who like to defend people like that, reverse the roles to treat an offender like a victim and a victim like an offender, or add shades of "grey," make a victim seem less like a victim and make an offender seem less like an offender, or worse yet, treat them both as "victims." People may call that nuance, but I call it a political agenda.

[Admiral X]

It's really interesting that we consider Hitler to be worst person in history over every other historical person who is also considered "evil". Maybe it's because Hitler lived during 20th century and during his reign he and other Nazis were horrible people as well as had started WWII. So that it's still relatively recent with there still being some people alive that were already around back then as well that time being well known to even those of us that had been born decades later and even to Americans that usually only care about they own country's history thanks to them having had major part to play and Hollywood still making movies about that time. Then again Stalin was also equally bad but we don't regard him as bad as Hitler because he was on side of winners with his Soviet Union having had played major part in ending WWII destroying Hitler's Third Reich.

I find it pretty interesting too considering the 20th century also gave us monsters like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pal Pot. And while he's largely become a joke, Mussolini was pretty evil, too, and for as bad as Franco was, people seem to have largely forgotten about him. The Japanese leaders weren't exactly nice guys either, but the atrocities they committed seem to also have been largely forgotten about, and the rest of the world doesn't even have the same excuse modern Japan has with the government actively trying to sweep it under the rug.

[Yukaphile]

Hitler is a convenient political target. And a great way to keep spreading Allied propaganda that frankly should be dead by now.

[Riedquat]

no, I comprehend evil individuals what I can't comprehend is someone doing truly evil things like serial murder or rape and also having any good traits in their personalities.

Because no-one is completely one dimensional. It's easy enough to imagine someone liking one person and not liking another because all of us are like that. Massively exaggerating one side of that doesn't push the other one out of existence. People don't have a good and bad balance that adds up to the same for everyone, just distributed differently.

[Mecha82]

Hitler is a convenient political target. And a great way to keep spreading Allied propaganda that frankly should be dead by now.

To be honest I don't get your logic of defending Hitler and Nazis that were horrible people or why you are defending them at all. And I am Finnish and Finland was allies with Nazi Germany during WWII.

[Yukaphile]

I don't defend the political power structure of those in charge so much as the unarmed civilian populations. Millions of them we demonize as "collectively guilty" and try and misrepresent so many different ways to suit a political agenda for the here and now. Especially those who were the most helpless and had the least advantages back then, like women as well as ethnic minorities. Not just there, but here, and in other Western countries. I also know the Nazi leadership was pure evil, but then, that's been said for seven decades. They've become the very definition of what we think cartoon supervillains are, and our entertainment and media plays this out. I think the Soviets were worse and in fact, a lot of their crimes were overshadowed by the Holocaust because we shamed the victims into silence as we brutalized them. They should not have been kept silent when Soviet crimes claimed both civilians and Holocaust victims equally. How would people today feel if the Holocaust was kept silent, covered up? Imagine something on par and worse than that being kept quiet? And when it comes out, the guilty party just reacts with thin-skinned outrage and doesn't even so much as apologize or teach it in their museums, classrooms, and universities or even attempt to reform the problems that led to that in the first place? There you go. It's such a massive injustice, I can't even comprehend it. It's deplorable.

Honestly, there is too much damned bleed-over from the crimes of the state leadership onto the average civilian. Even if they supported the corrupt government with 100% of their hearts, unless they had any power and thus had a direct hand in the evil going on, they should not be blamed. A decade and a half of brainwashing can take its toll. And most average civilians, especially the women and children, did NOT have that power. And they were the ones to suffer the most. They need the most defense, imo, because when you look at Soviet crimes against ethnic minorities that suffered at the hands of the Nazi leadership, they get instant sympathy, even if they could've been somebody who was brainwashed to the same level as Germanic white women and supported the government unconditionally. But there is a huge double standard when it comes to those Germanic white women, in that it is way too easy to dismiss them as "collectively guilty" (even if they're not engaged in criminal or immoral acts) or how they got what they deserved or that it didn't hurt them as bad as we think it did. These are all things I've seen said, and it's sickening.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

no, I comprehend evil individuals what I can't comprehend is someone doing truly evil things like serial murder or rape and also having any good traits in their personalities.

Because no-one is completely one dimensional. It's easy enough to imagine someone liking one person and not liking another because all of us are like that. Massively exaggerating one side of that doesn't push the other one out of existence. People don't have a good and bad balance that adds up to the same for everyone, just distributed differently.

I still honestly can't picture that. and there is a difference between "hating" someone wile liking others in the colocual sense and hating someone to the point of wanting to torture and kill them. I really cannot imagine what it's like in the mind of someone like Hitler because for me, I literally have a headache at the mere thought of doing something immoral and someone who does those horrible †hings with a clear conscience clearly does not have one in the first place.

[Yukaphile]

It gets pretty bad, DBF. Some people literally look at these monsters, and shrug and blame it on "the tragedy of war" rather than some truly nasty people who feel shit on acting out. The big problem here is that I don't think they ever looked back at their crimes with regret, or if they did, it's in a convenient coward's way. If it takes you several decades to start to reevaluate your behavior as bad, mass looting and rape and murder of women and children, then you're an utter failure of a human being regardless of whether you've fought in a war. War trauma also takes the forms of nightmares and triggers. Doubt these pig-men eve went through that. Trauma is for the victims. No, these were some decidedly deadly and very dangerous hardcore psychotics. They don't need sympathy. There is already too damned much of that in the world.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

also, I keep bringing up Albert Fish. that latter he sent to his victim's family read like an r ratted parody of Saturday morning cartoon villains. so, tell me again how mustache twirling pure evil villains don't exist in real life?

[Yukaphile]

They do. But they are few and far between. As I said, even those Soviet rapists, looters, and murderers (not the typical war killers, but child shooters, and the kind of men who'd shoot the woman they just got done violating) pet their horses and treated them well, and seemed to have respect for each other. Haven't you ever heard of the Egyptian belief in the balance of the heart? Some have more light than darkness in it, while others have almost all darkness.