Why was Hitler REALLY hating Jews?

[Buffett and Colbert]

Have you read Mein Kampf?

I read the first fifty pages or so before getting bored out of my wits.

I saved it for another day.

I finished it and I must say I'm surprised that such an evident case of delirium has had so much influence over so many people. Even intelligent people, I mean.
Really, it's just an amount of insane ramblings linked by faulty logic.

I gathered as much so I wasn't quite as perturbed by the fact I didn't want to finish it then.

[Risottia]

Have you read Mein Kampf?

I read the first fifty pages or so before getting bored out of my wits.

I saved it for another day.

I finished it and I must say I'm surprised that such an evident case of delirium has had so much influence over so many people. Even intelligent people, I mean.
Really, it's just an amount of insane ramblings linked by faulty logic.

I gathered as much so I wasn't quite as perturbed by the fact I didn't want to finish it then.

Yep. Save perturbations for something else.

[Katganistan]

I don't especially care why Hitler hated the Jews. Plenty of people hate the Jews. Hitler had millions of them killed.

This.

Also to the OP -- he was not crazy, there were psychiatric reasons? Um, isn't that a bit oxymoronic?

I always hated that term, Anti-Semite. I mean, Arabs hate Jews as much as anyone else, and they're semitic.

I don't know very many ethnic Arabs that speak Hebrew.

Jews were viewed as subhuman because of the various, well documented, they have committed through out history. Along with their documented tendency to be underhanded back stabbers. If one takes an unbiased look at the past and current events, they can see where these people were coming from. A Jew isn't a bad thing, Allanea counts as a Jewish person that is also a somewhat normal guy that I wouldn't want to see gassed. A Zionist, on the other hand, deserves a spot in a mass grave.

Sources?

If you don't know the difference, you should do the research. It's neat :3

You doing yours would be a pleasure.

Ever read the bible? I have and it's full of them. The campaign Joshua undertook after Moses led the Jews from Egypt is another one. Wiping out entire societies because they happened to be on trading routes.

The bible would be the primary reason an observant Christian society would dislike the Jews. They killed Jesus, amongst many other things. And no, I won't find sources for you. You need to learn these things on your own.

Though, I will get you a detailed definition of semite, according to wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic

Begin the quest to enlightenment, my friend.

Since when is the Bible a credible source of history? Answer: it's NOT.

Who cares why, the fact is he killed MANY, MANY Jews.

He also killed Gypsies

The Nazi government was responsible for the deaths of six million Jews. A bunch of gypsies, gays and pacifists. And twenty million Russians. Hitler, except for maybe World War One, never personally killed anyone.

Yes, but he was in charge of the whole thing, now wasn't he?

What a lovely world it must be when setting up the whole situation, being updated by your underlings, and giving the orders make one not responsible.

As per your earlier comment about not feeling sorry for them because they are a specific group: they were a specific group he targeted, along with six million other gypsies, homosexuals, mentally retarded, physically handicapped, political prisoners etc -- but of that roughly 12 million, they were half -- a significant percentage. To not recognize that they were particularly singled out for extermination sounds rather apologist to me.

Ever read the bible? I have and it's full of them. The campaign Joshua undertook after Moses led the Jews from Egypt is another one. Wiping out entire societies because they happened to be on trading routes.

You can't prove the Bible is in any way correct. Sorry, try again.

The bible would be the primary reason an observant Christian society would dislike the Jews. They killed Jesus, amongst many other things. And no, I won't find sources for you. You need to learn these things on your own.

The Jews... killed Jesus... hmm, that's a new interpretation.

Though, I will get you a detailed definition of semite, according to wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic
Begin the quest to enlightenment, my friend.

It's only allusion to the Arabic people is the Arabic language. Not very persuading.

The Romans killed Jesus at the behest of the Pharisees, but remember, Hitler didn't kill anyone either.
There is a distinct lack of responsibility for those in authority in Auman's argument thus far.

Why do we even care, Hitler wasn't the First Germanic Person to hate jews and the Holocaust wasn't the first Massacre of European Jews at the hands of Mostly German(ic) people. The Jews were blamed for the "Black Death" and killed in mass numbers... Burned alive even, and That started in Germanic States. At least the Nazis typically killed them before putting them in the furnaces. I believe burning to death to be the worst death possible. Or we could talk about the Roman Persecution and Slaughter of the Jews.

And yet we Praise the Roman Culture for all these advances we have in society... But We never give thanks to Nazis for all kinds of things they did for us. There was a woman removed from a talk-show in Germany because she simply said "Hitler built the Autobahn" and now there is a german joke "Autobahn, That will never do". You can't say anything Positive about the NSDAP in Germany at all (Germany which has little almost no freedom of speech these days). There are Medical Advancements through the Human testing that were made..... that could never have been made in any other way, And today we don't have the stones for Human Testing or Cloning. The Autobahn.... Will conceived under the Weimar, Hilter saw the Importance of this strategically for both military and economic purposes (Something that Eisenhower copied in his presidency of the USA). Jet aircraft? V2 Rockets that were the basis for both the American and Russian space programs?

Yes, because sticking people into chambers and evacuating all the air in it just to see how long it would take them to die was as purely ethical as starving people, working them to death, destroying families, stealing their land, their wealth, even their gold teeth, turning them into lampshades....

Your argument disgusts me. There is little positive to say about a rabidly ethnocentric society that decided to get ahead through murder, torture and theft. The fact that most Germans today are disgusted by it should be a clue that it's not, even in their estimation, acceptable behavior.

id like a body count on that 6 million number. Oh wait.. you cant count ashes. where does that number come from anyways.

Yes, we know what you're about. But to answer your childish sneering insinuations, where did the six million people who inhabited German-occupied Europe go? To Moonbase Alpha?

[Icezealand]

You are all terrible. Making Hitler out to be a psychopath. Here is a full recount of history:

Adolf and Josef were friends for a long time. On his 19th birthday, Adolf made a glorious banner to hang over the table that held his delicious cake. Josef was impressed with the banner, and told Adolf he should apply to one of Germany's many prestigious art schools. He did, submitting a work based on what some would call a "cute puppy", but soon would realize he failed the art test shamefully. Three years later, Adolf met the Dean of Admissions of the art school face to face. He had a large nose. When he asked him why his art test was dejected, he said "because your puppy's nose wasn't wet enough". Adolf repeated this sentence while holding a fixed glare three times, before pulling out his boot knife and slashing him across the neck. The man died on the scene after a long battle with paramedics hired by NBC. Adolf sprinted to the art school and met the school's dean, who had a similar appearance. He demanded to know what he was. The dean said "a dean". He demanded again. The dean said quizzically "a jewish person?" Adolf pulled out his boot knife again and prepared to destroy the man that rejected him. The dean quickly said with what would soon become his last words, "all of this...for a banner that hung over a cake?" Adolf replied, "the cake was a lie," before fatally stabbing the man 37 times. He called his friend Josef on his T-Mobile Sidekick and told him: "The war has just begun."

Now you know.

[Crotheny]

I have no particular expertise in World War II or post World War I Germany, or in Hitler in particular. I have, however, studied German relations with the Jews, particularly in the period of Martin Luther. I wrote a published college dissertation on Luther and the Jews. Do note that this by no means suggests that what I wrote was correct or even likely. All it suggests is that it was researched and sourced enough to create an academic plausibility of truthfulness. I think that Luther's relation with the Jews sheds light on Hitler's.

Most importantly, as others have pointed out, there was a long and documented history of hatred of the Jews in Germany and other parts of Europe. In fact, you can probably find examples in almost any country in Europe. A large part of that hatred was caused by financial issues. Christians were not, doctrinally speaking, permitted to loan money in exchange for any amount of interest. (See Aquinas' Summa Theologiae) Anyone with a basic background in economics will tell you, then, that there is absolutely no motivation to lend money when you cannot get any interest on that loan, because inflation renders that investment a negative value investment. Thus, when governments needed money, they had no choice but to turn to the Jews, as the Jews had no problem lending money for interest. Of course, economics tells us that an economy needs money flowing through it to expand and strengthen. For example, the English government for centuries was absolutely dependent on the Jews to finance their wars. In a history not dissimilar to Germany's, the English monarchies had a long history of bringing in the Jews when their economy was struggling, borrowing money, building the economy, and then throwing out the Jews when the economy appeared strong. Then, without further influx of money, the economy would stagger, then collapse, and the Jews would be brought in again. Rinse and repeat. For an interesting look at the Jews in England from a literary perspective, read Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. As I said, Germany had a similar history of depending on the Jews to strengthen their economy, and then throwing them out when the economy strengthened.

Luther, as some of you might know, is considered to be a fairly major anti-Semite (I use the term here to refer to Jews as a convenience, even though, as has been argued already on this thread, Semite refers to other groups in addition to the Jews). But actually, he started off his religious career speaking very highly of the Jews. As popular sentiment turned against the Jews, as it frequently did as the economy strengthened and German borrowers grew disinterested in paying back the money they borrowed from the Jewish lenders, Luther turned against the Jews as well. As the economy began to struggle, Luther's thoughts on the Jews grew more positive. He encouraged their return to Germany, he encouraged better treatment, and definitely encouraged lending. But, as history tells us, the economy strengthened and treatment of the Jews turned negative. This culminated in Luther writing On the Jews and their Lies, which is one of the more famous works of anti-Semitism in history. But Luther's hatred was primarily political. His personal correspondence never indicated a real dislike of the Jews. But, like Hitler, he knew it was a sure fire way of getting political (and in Luther's case, religious) support. The fact is that the economy of Germany, like so many other European economies at the time, was dependent on the Jews. But as the economy collapsed, typically due to the exiling or limiting of Jewish debt collection rights, the people became jealous of the Jews. Even without being repaid, the Jews, as a whole, had more money than the average German. Certainly, there were poor Jews. And most were not inordinately wealthy, but rather the equivalent of middle class. But they were better off than most Germans.

Someone earlier cited the Bible as evidence of why Hitler or the Germans hated the Jews. Although it would be a mistake to assume the factual validity of pretty much anything in the Bible (or any other religious text), the Bible certainly played a role in developing that hatred. According the Bible, the Jews were dirty people, greedy people, people responsible for the death of Jesus. It's pretty easy, I think, to develop a hatred of a group of people that were eating while you were starving, that were clothed while you were wearing rags, and that murdered your God. Luther played into that hatred to a lesser extent. Hitler, however, played into that hatred to a huge extent. He effectively built his regime around it.

I'm not sure there is any validity to arguments that Hitler hated the Jews because "Hitler's father (or grandfather) was Jewish," "Hitler's doctor was Jewish," or "that art professor was Jewish." Most likely, he no more hated the Jews than did Luther. As an intelligent man, Hitler saw the Jews as the perfect method of building power. The Germany economy was in tatters. They had been humiliated in the first World War. They were desperate for someone other than themselves to blame. As governments had been doing for centuries, the Germany government turned to the Jews. Only this time, as Hitler's power soared in Germany and throughout Europe and the world, his mistreatment of the Jews soared. He created the idea of superior and inferior races. Is it so shocking that the German people wanted to believe it? All the stories of Hitler's parentage or history otherwise with the Jews, I think, is a method of understanding how someone could perpetrate something so horrible. But the real answer, in my opinion, is simply that it was a political method of attaining absolute power. Hitler's (and his government's) anti-Semitic rhetoric was propaganda, nothing more. I've never seen any reason to suspect that Hitler actually believed it.

As a final, and somewhat separate, note, I have always been interested in the idea that the Jews killed Jesus. Obviously, very few people claim that they personally murdered him. But I have always wondered how anyone could think that the Jews influenced or persuaded the Roman government to kill Jesus. Such a belief is simply illogical, if you have any real understanding of how the Jews lived under the Romans. The Romans did not like the Jews. They did not fear them. They tolerated them. But the Romans frequently looked for a reason to agitate the Jews in order to incite a rebellion which the Romans could subsequently squash and establish an even firmer hold over the Jews. It does not stand to reason, then, that the Jews could persuade the Romans to do anything. If the Jews wanted Jesus dead, threatening a rebellion wouldn't persuade the Romans. The Jews had no military power, the Romans had seemingly endless power. The Romans had no desire to keep the Jews happy. If anything, history tells us that they enjoyed angering Jews. So how the heck did the Jews convince Pilate, a Roman official, to murder Jesus? It simply doesn't add up. Further, there is no historical evidence to suggest that the Jews even disliked Jesus. Because, as most people not overly influenced by the Bible know, Jesus didn't say most of what he was quoted as saying in the Bible. The views, what little we actually know of them, were radical, yes, but hardly revolutionary. The Jews basically looked at him as a somewhat crazy Rabbi. But certainly not someone to fear or want dead. So, aside from the fact that they logically could not persuade or threaten the Roman government to murder someone, there is little reason to think the Jews actually wanted Jesus dead. Jesus was a Jew. Most of his followers, including the majority of the Apostles, were Jewish. His success, given the actual moderation of his message, did not threaten to harm the Jews. Rather, if he was successful, would likely benefit the Jews, by strengthening their numbers, motivating those numbers to act. Thus, Jesus was more of a threat to the Romans than the Jews.

Anyway, in short answer to this thread's original question, I doubt Hitler had much personal hatred for the Jews. I believe, and I think history suggests, that his hatred was political in nature. The German people had a history (like so many other peoples) of hating the Jews. They were struggling, economically depressed, starving. The Jews, meanwhile, thrived. As history repeats itself, sentiment turned against the Jews. Hitler exacerbated that sentiment, turned it into an all-consuming hatred that led to the holocaust.