[UA] Adolf in the IC

[Timothy Toner]

Hitler in the IC?  Sigh.  There's a bit in Statosphere about some people
being just TOO famous to Ascend.  Still, I think that if anyone's life
embodies the creating of a new facet of humanity, it's him.  I recall
reading a powerful article written around the False Milennium, explaining
why we shouldn't pick Hitler as the most influential man of the 20th
century.  It all comes down to legacy--do we want this awful little
boogeyman to haunt our dreams for the next hundred years?  Should we throw
up our hands in defeat, saying, "Yep, this is the best we could do in 100
years.  It sucks, but whadayagonnado?"  Or should we instead admire the
quieter moments in history, and the people who brought them about?
Shouldn't we see that murder and carnage are abberations, and not a true
testament of what it is to be human, and what ought to influence us as we
look back?  They picked Einstein instead, and I said, "Good for them."

But Hitler, more than anyone else, is a poster child for ascension.  SO much
faith.  So much devotion.  So much hatred, focused through him and at him.
He became in every way a cariacature long before he died.  He had his human
qualities burned away by propaganda machines on both sides of the conflict.
The question, then, is which side proved to be the more passionate--those
who saw him as the greatest leader ever, or those who spat his name and
called him a butcher?  Given the incidents leading up to his 'disappearance'
(liberation of the camps, seizing of German soil not captured in WWI), I
think it's safe to say that he found himself ascending in a form quite
contrary to his personal vision of himself. amd that small bit of
consolation is all the hell he'll need to feel.  For a man like Hitler to
spend the rest of eternity witnessing humanity remembering him not as a
stalward foe of godless Communism, or as someone who only wanted what was
best for the common man but rather to have the albatross of six million jews
dangled about his neck would be a bitter pill indeed.  I watched the end of
Conspiracy the other day, when Eichmann is told the cautionary tale about
not becoming so obsessed with the enemy that, when they are at last
defeated, you lose all purpose altogether.  He gets to watch as his legacy
is reduced to that and ashes, as those who draw power from his example come
not from the Germanic states which would have saved the world, but rather
hellholes and back-water nations.  His devotees are not blonde haired and
blue eyed, but more than likely the very mongrel races he despised so.  I
doubt the universe is so fair, but for me, that's the second best hell I can
imagine for him.*

Tim

* The best hell for Mrs. Schickelgruber's favorite boy was pointed out to me
by a fellow who had an interesting take on all things religious.  We were
discussing heaven and hell, and how we really couldn't know if anyone ended
up in a particular place.  A few of us rolled our eyes.  Surely there were
some "straight to hell!" types, specifically A. Hitler.  "No," my sage-like
friend pointed out.  "Hell's too good.  What needs to happen is for him to
appear near heaven, with the Pearly Gates just visible on the Horizon.
Immediately in from of him, however, is a shade of one of the victims of the
Holocaust, still gaunt, still diseased.  Herr Hitler cannot move.  The
emaciated form reaches out two skeletal hands, and...embraces him.  'I
forgive you,' he sighs, then pulls back with an enormously toothy grin, and
vanishes.  Before he can take another step, another victim walks up and hugs
him.  Two down, 5,999,998 to go.  Oh, and if he doesn't accept their
forgiveness, well, they just pop back in at the end of the line, and they
try again."

I kinda like that one.  But annihilation's good, too.

PS:  What's also interesting to consider is what happened to the fellow he
displaced?  Obviously Genocide's been around for a while.  Both Hitler and
Stalin felt that their atrocities would be largely ignored by the world, as
they were in Armenia not so long before the war.  Stalin once said, "A
single death is a tragedy.  A million deaths is a statistic."  If there was
a mad-dog genocidal bastard that already ascended, what happened once he
exited the House?  Hey, does anyone know what Nelson Mandela was doing
before the war?


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