[UA] Hitler the Archetype

[Timothy Toner]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cassady Toles" <Con_Job at excite.com>
To: <ua at lists.uchicago.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: [UA] Hitler the Archetype


> I don't buy Hitler as the conquerer, the warmonger, or even the genocide,
> and I am Jewish.  Hitler was the demagogue.  I'm willing to say that he
> ousted the old demagogue, but, really hitler was a man who was really good
> at telling people what they wanted to hear.
>

The only problem I have with this excellent analysis is that if this is so,
Hitler picked a damn peculiar time to Ascend.  Rather than being taken at
the height of his demagogue-ry, he was instead snatched at what must have
been a low ebb, when the world was just discovering the extent of the
atrocities perpetrated not only against Jews, Rom, homosexuals, and
Jehovah's Witnesses, but also all the other 'slave races', who would be
spared if only to serve.  I could imagine Germany awakening to the
realization that Hitler was a Demagogue with a capital D (which is never a
good thing when the faithful can so easily pigeonhole you), but it just
doesn't track.  Think of it this way--from 1930 to 1945, Hitler was a lot of
things to a lot of people:  savior, tyrant, visionary, monster, lazy bastard
(he regularly slept until noon).  At the end, though, his aspects diluted to
a single reality, as the Germans could no longer hide from the truths, and
the world was beginning to discover the depravity.  At that moment, at his
moment of greatest failure, when the Godless Heathen Commies are banging
down the door, he becomes...something.  The perfect something.
Self-loather?  Maybe.  I like the idea, but I think it's a little too pat.
But Demagogue?  Nah.


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