- It is a truism of history that Adolf Hitler was the most
evil of all anti-semites. It is a message of history so firmly established
by the post-World War Two era that no one doubts it. And yet, as Hitler's
youthful collaborator and later antagonist, Reinhold Hanisch noted, if
Hitler was an anti-semite, it came only much later in life-and may even
have been an act necessitated by politics.
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- When Hitler went to Vienna in 1909 to become an artist,
he stayed at the Ratzner men's hotel. There he quickly became friends with
two Jews, Siegfried Loffner and Joseph Neumann. Neumann, a trained copper
polisher, frequently engaged Hitler in long conversations on Theodore Herzl's
Zionism. (Herzl was a Viennese Jewish journalist.) Hitler was favorably
impressed by Jewish racial solidarity and remarked that it was a pity that
Germans were not equally race conscious. It would appear, then, that Hitler
used Zionism as a model for his later National Socialist movement. In 1913
young Hitler made a third Jewish acquaintance at the hotel, Rudolf Redlich
from Moravia. When Hitler had a falling out with Reinhold Hanisch, it was
the Jew, Siegfried Loffner, who reported Hanisch to the police as having
defrauded Hitler.
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- Hitler is known to have been on very good terms with
many Viennese Jewish families in this period, attending music concerts
in their homes. More importantly, it was Viennese Jews who provided the
bulk of Hitler's income during this important early period. It was the
Jewish art dealers Morgenstern, Altenberg and Landsberger who sold Hitler's
paintings to rich Viennese Jews, like the lawyer Dr. Joseph Feingold. According
to Hitler's later testimony, without Morgenstern, his financial angel,
Hitler would have been in dire straits during this period. Hitler was not
noted by anyone to have had an anti-Jewish bias at the very time in his
life when he was most closely associating with Jews, both personally and
financially.
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- Hitler's anti-semitism surfaced only in the aftermath
of Germany's defeat in the First World War. Before going any further,
it is necessary to note that Hitler's newly found anti-semitism was a product
of its era. And it did have factual support. Jews were deeply involved
in communist revolutions in Germany, Hungary and Russia. These facts were
noted by Winston Churchill in England and the State Department
in America, as well. Jews from foreign countries bought up German businesses
and real estate while ordinary Germans were devastated by the post-war
inflation. This is what caused Hitler's anti-semitism, not his personal
relations with Jews which had always been good.
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- When Hitler came to power, he was the moderating force
among the more radical National Socialists. Hitler promulgated the Nuremberg
race laws in 1935 but he made numerous exceptions for the so-called mischlinge,
or products of mixed Jewish-gentile marriages. Numerous Jews of partial
gentile descent were made "honorary Aryans" and allowed to serve
in the Wehrmacht. More than this, there were many high Nazi officials of
part-Jewish descent. Herman Goering had a half-brother who was
a half-Jew, Albert Goering. Reinhard Heydrich, of Czechoslovakian
fame, reputedly had a Jewish actor father. The Fuhrer's favorite photographer
was the part-Jew Heinrich Hoffman. In the arts Adolf Hitler proved himself
particularly indulgent.
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- He allowed favored Jews to participate in German cultural
life while ruthlessly purging the majority. Thus, while Erich Leinsdorf
and Eric Korngold were fleeing to Hollywood, Franz Lehar was allowed to
remain wed to Lizzie Leon, daughter of the Viennnese Jewish librettist,
Victor Leon. Hitler sponsored the career of the part-Jewish soprano Margarete
Slezak at the Berlin opera. (The part-Jewish Austrian tenor, Leo Slezak,
was a huge admirer of Hitler's policies.) Hitler even had a regular visitor
at the Berghoff, a Jewish mother and her child.
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- Adolf Hitler, as a mature statesman, was hardly a friend
of the Jews. He may not have murdered six million of them in non-existent
"gas chambers" but he did deprive them of their influence and
power. His policies were based on political factors and not on personal
animosities. Those who look for the "secret" of Adolf Hitler's
anti-Jewish outlook min personality disorders deceive themselves. Hitler's
record shows quite clearly that he interacted very intimately with Jews
on a personal level. His policies arose from the organized Jewish political
malignancies which have plagued the world for centuries.
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- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RePortersNoteBook/message/797
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