Has historian finally discovered real reason for Hitler's obsessive hatred of Jews?

By Allan Hall
Last updated at 2:35 PM on 19th June 2009

Adolf Hitler's obsessive hatred for Jews was sparked by his experiences after World War One, according to a new book.

Respected historian Ralf-George Reuth argues the dictator blamed them for both the Russian revolution and the collapse of the German economy.

The claim is a stark contrast to previous theories that Hitler's anti-Semitism was spawned on the back streets of Vienna when he was a down-and-out in the lead up to 1914.

Historians have even speculated that he was partly-Jewish himself or even that his mother died at the hands of an inept Jewish physician.

'Hitlers Jewish Hatred; Cliché and Realitydraws on numerous archives to pinpoint the reasons behind the Holocaust, which claimed six million lives.

Reuth argues that what was probably lower middle-class bigotry shared by many at the time, morphed into murderous hatred for Hitler after 1919.

At the time almost half of all German private banks were Jewish owned, the stock exchange dominated by Jewish stockbrokers, almost half of the nations newspapers were Jewish run as were 80 per cent of chain stores.

It became fashionable to decry the loss of the war on Jewish financiers.

But Hitler, according to Reuth, also blamed Jews for the Russian revolution, citing Leon Trotskys faith, as well as that of Marx whose theories he followed and even Lenin, who was one-quarter Jewish.

When a Soviet republic was declared briefly in Munich that year, argues Reuth, the die was cast for Hitler to demonise the Jews as bearing responsibility for the worlds ills.

'With World War One lost and Germany in financial ruin, with revolution threatening, he came to see the Jews as solely responsible for stock-exchange capitalism, which caused acute poverty and suffering when it faltered, and Bolshevism,' said Reuth.

'These two events were pivotal in shaping his views of Jews and his subsequent plan to murder them all.

'He bought into the rumours and the whispers that blamed Jewish capitalists for stabbing Germany in the back.

'Then he saw that many Jews played prominent roles in the brief Soviet republic founded in Munich in 1919, against everything Hitler the nationalist stood for.

'The two events, together with the Russian revolution, coalesced to turn them, in his mind, into scapegoats for everything.

'But it was only after World War One, not before. I show that he had many Jewish acquaintances in Vienna, despite his writing in Mein Kampf that he was sickened by the sight of the Jews he saw there.'

Reuth draws on a wealth of archival material showing how Hitler fed off the intellectuals of the day to shape his belief.

He quotes Nobel prize-winning novelist Thomas Mann who wrote in 1919 that he equated the Bolshevik revolution in Russia with the Jews.

Ernst Nolte, a Berlin historian, expounded this theory over 20 years ago in a paper that was not given much credit at the time.

Reuth is a distinguished Nazi-era biographer who wrote an acclaimed book about Third Reich propaganda master Josef Goebbels.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1194194/Has-historian-finally-real-reason-Hitlers-obsessive-hatred-Jews.html

So it wasn't a hate crime?

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Greek Resistance

I think it was, he still hated them and blamed all of them for something probably the minority did.

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There is some debate as to whether Hitler was sincerely rabidly anti-semitic or was merely using the Jews as convenient scapegoat. From what I have read (I suspect a substantial amount over the years) on the subject, I suspect he was less rabidly anti-semitic than most other top Nazi's in beginning and over time drank too much of his own Kool-Aid and eventually became as dedicated an anti-semite as there ever was.

However since hate crime is typically defined as...(from wikipedia)

Hate crimes (also known as bias-motivated crimes) occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, or political affiliation.[1]

Whether the crimes are driven by hatred, malice or merely expediency would, logically, most likely be mostly irrelevant in defining a mass criminal action against a social group...at least that seems to be the current thinking in most judiciaries. But I am not a lawyer, so that just my thinking/observations.

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"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw

Definitely, yes. But Hitler's racism had some powerful roots in social-darwinism.

Hitler was a product of the times, but Turks were the biggist racists and genociders against, Armenians and Greeks. Way before Hitler. Germany used the Turkish tactics against the Jews and others!There was a Great documentary in the Miliatary channel on WWI on how Talet Pasha and his boys carried out the Armenian Genocide. Basically marching them to death through the anatolian wastelands. Today Turkey denies this while Germany lived up to it.

Hitler hated Slavs and Jews to him were merely another form of Slav. He was a nut case that took power of a great national power, like Stalin.

Siege of Tobruk - One German POW said: "I cannot understand you Australians. In Poland, France, and Belgium, once the tanks got through the soldiers took it for granted that they were beaten. But you are like demons. The tanks break through and your infantry still keep fighting." Rommel wrote of seeing "a batch of some fifty or sixty Australian prisoners ... marched off close behind usimmensely big and powerful men, who without question represented an elite formation of the British Empire, a fact that was also evident in battle."


"As a Internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Stalin was as worse as Hitler, if not more.




colours of Kaziranga

"Hitler was a product of the times, but Turks were the biggist racists and genociders against, Armenians and Greeks. "

Measured by the fact we still talk of these...tribes, I suppose describes it best, means they were unsuccessful unlike 100s or 1000s of others throughout human history. Genocide has been a constant, if unpleasant companion to human society throughout it's history.

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"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
George Bernard Shaw