One in five Americans do not think Hitler was all bad: Poll
https://www.newsweek.com/hitler-had-some-good-ideas-american-poll-1980293Open linkView original on lemmy.world870
Comments125https://www.newsweek.com/hitler-had-some-good-ideas-american-poll-1980293Open linkView original on lemmy.world
Judging by the latest election, the number seams a lot higher, more like three in five
One in five do not think Hitler was all bad. Two in five think he was better than a lady who laughs sometimes.
And the idiots that didn't bother to vote, accepted this outcome
My thoughts exactly. Wait though, actually that is the fault of Democrats, somehow. I'll get back to you on how
Fools never see evil until its at their door.
They see the evil but think it will be to their advantage because they aren't like "those people."
Point of vampires is to never invite evil in
Hitler was nothing without the NSDAP and the fascist movement.
There were 915,000 Germans in the Waffen-SS.
In case you don't remember, what we're talking about here:
12 million people EXTERMINATED like they're vermin before we get into leveling cities like bombing of Brittain or finally, the brutal war casualties themselves.
People forgot and got gaslit. They said I was nuts for ranting about forgetting for decades.
Don't gotta burn the books just remove em while arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells....
It's like watching a horror movie. You know the killer is in the basement, yet people go and have a look while the audience knows what's going to happen. A classic fuck around and find out.
Well we now know there are truly people stupid enough to do so.
Well it ain't the token black guy like in the movies. The African Americans largely didn't vote for Trump.
This is how hitler came to power.
I wonder when we're gonna get the Reichstag fire
That was before he was elected, right? So the Reichstag fire was Jan 6. And the Trump history books will say it was Antifa.
I'll be honest, I'm not super familiar on the timeline.
I'm not looking forward to the future though, even less so than before :/
Oh well, we persevere
That's not fair phrasing and will lead to high numbers.
Hitler wasn't "all" bad technically, he was just so bad that the good shouldn't matter at all. Pushing forward technology (VW Beetle, Autobahn) should is no way be justified by genocide (obviously).
A better question would have been something like "do you like Hitler overall?"
The full poll data: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Views_on_Hitler_poll_results.pdf
Do you think of Adolf Hitler as. . . ?
So 12% felt he was at least as good as he was bad, 12% fell into the 'well, even a horrible person can do something right, and 12% were somehow not sure...
This is interesting, thank you for sharing.
I personally would tally this up as "12%" rather than "24%".
Or at least in my opinion, option "D" (bad person that did some good things) is most likely the closest to an objective answer and "E" (completely bad) is a totally acceptable summary. But both D and E both summarize Hitler as bad. The people summarizing him as "balanced" or "good" totaled to 12%.
To be clear, this is still horrific imo.
and 12% not sure aka couldn't really make up their mind if Hitler was bad or not... so ads up to 24%
That's fair, but we don't know why they said they weren't sure. Could be educational issues, memory issues, etc.
Not a good look either way. Wild to me that number is so high.
I mean ... 35% think he's not all bad. That's more than 1 in 5 (20%)
So basically the number is 5%, not 23%
I feel like "equally bad and good" certainly also deserves that label in this case.
Yes a question about Hitler being good overall is far better. Attempting to shove him into an all bad category is just dishonest and allows opponents a free win. The good absolutely should matter, because painting people as all one thing isn't accurate and makes understanding how things happen more difficult.
What a terrible question. He was an awful person but obviously nobody is all bad.
He only has one redeeming quality: killing Hitler.
but also he killed the guy who killed hitler
Yeah, but that can't possibly be true - which we ofc all know it can't be, yet what you said is a very standard thing to say.
(Even "killing Hitler" was at that point of no good consequence - but "he" (?) would have been a hero if he killed Hitler at least one year sooner ... but also max about 22 years earlier ... so he completely missed the window on that "one redeeming quality" as well ... so that whole thing is just a nonsense saying.)
He also prevented his capture and his prosecuting.
"Saved him from prosecution."
(Or a lifetime of cozy government admin job in USA somewhere :D.)
/j
That's for genocidial scientists though!
You are right.
What about for an artists named Aden Missler, has any gov agency have a place for him?
There is literally nothing I can think of that would make him good in any isolated field. For a long time people held the believe that he was pro environment and animal rights. But he also killed his own dog. People also say that he had a special aura around him. That he was very charming. But those people were likely like trump supporters today. My great grandmother actually got to see him before she fled Germany. She said that there was nothing particularly interesting about him except for the way he speaks maybe.
The question is still to vague. Obviously all of his politics were the worst. But the way it's phrased, you'd kinda have to agree he wasn't ALL bad if, for example, he made a pretty tasty pasta sauce. Like. Not that it'd be relevant. It's the vagueness of the question that I'm critiquing. Maybe I'm just having an autism moment.
Nah, it's deliberately formulated so it can be pulled out of context, misrepresented and cause outrage. And it works.
Depends on how pedantic one wants to be.
No it doesn’t.
Well I can't think of any good qualities that actually mattered.
That’s the point. He was objectively all bad.
The more nuanced data: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Views_on_Hitler_poll_results.pdf
I was hoping that the 'not all bad' would be almost all of it. Unfortunately while it was half of it, a full half said Hitler was as good a guy as he was a bad guy, with an equal number responding unsure, which is likely leaning toward I don't want to give a socially unacceptable answer.
He was vegetarian (loaded topic, I know but probably gets more support than 20%) and loved dogs, for example.
He wasn't, it's well documented he wasn't vegetarian this was spread as anti vegetarian propegand.
Oh yeah? Care to share some links for that claim? Since Wikipedia has a whole article about Hitler being vegetarian. Apparently, he wasn't super strict about it but he identified as one and the article also quotes newspaper articles of the time. I'd assume "anti-vegetarian propaganda" is a more modern thing.
https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/myth-check-was-hitler-a-vegetarian/ Yeah you're right later in life he identifies as one however still ate meat his chef fed him so the claim is dubious at best and may have been propergander for the war effort.
He did eat less meat because the doctor told him to. For his health.
Even without or beyond judging the person, it's the actions, results, and consequences of those actions too.
Which is even more complex, but important for understanding the context.
But it's def really important to avoid black & white (wrongful) memefication, bcs suddenly the memetic value (the "idea" that the image of Hitler represents to masses on average) is vastly corrupted & serves other purposes.
I sometimes fear that
people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
worn by grotesques and monsters
as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.
Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honour,
make you feel proud,
protect your house,
give you a job,
clean up the neighbourhood,
remind you of how great you once were,
clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you...
It doesn't walk in saying,
"Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution."
--Michael Rosen.
Yeah but evidently it does, and people still choose it.
American fascism certainly does say those things, but it's always other peoples' faces the leopards will be eating.
Never all the people.
Ok, I get it, but we really should avoid looking at things/people like Adolfy as black or white - that just makes it a meme & loses actual historical/lecture value.
With Hitler being a one-dimensional idea/meme/brand instead of a human (supported by humans with rational human causes) I'm afraid we are doomed to repeat the same cycle of mistakes.
What I'm saying is that instead of education we have strong propaganda (after a specific date) that taught us this Hitler brand was just & only bad, like it was a spontaneous event. Instead of a full person & a nation (again full of actual people) with voting rights in irl situations.
And propaganda isn't free, it's financially fueled, which means it wants something in return.
Monsters are humans. We need to remember that, despite what we are preached.
We've got to stop talking about "if" and "when."
It's NOW. This is happening. We are watching the rise of the next Hitler, now, live, today. This isn't hypothetical anymore - yesterday just gave them carte blanche to go full stormtroopers.
At this point, all of our conversations need to be about how we stay safe in the wake.
We got to stop talking about NOW as if its only just started. Weve been building and locking people in concentration camps for decades.
We have been massacring civilians for decades. We have been profiting off of a genocide for over a year.
We know, they just voted for him.
More than one in five apparently.
What was the voter turn out percent? 10%? 5%?
Voter turnout hit an estimated 71% for the November 5, 2024 General Election.
So 3 in 10 people are alright with this, and a few more are psyched about it
Source?
I mean I looked up the official results of the election on google and if that's not good enough for you then too bad.
Definitely a lot more than that based on this election.
well, one thing i'll say in his favour: he did kill hitler.
(credit: jimmy carr)
Is that really a Jimmy Carr joke? Pretty sure that's just something every school kid has heard
you may be right, but i first heard jimmy carr say it on an episode of qi.
But he killed the guy who killed Hitler.
That reminds me to rewatch Danger 5.
"Your mission... yada yada, and as always; Kill Hitler!"
Then you're part of the 23%. This poll is bullshit
Dean Winchester killed Hitler.
Kind of a loaded question to include the word "all" but I understand the lack of faith or respect for the USA right about now.
Well now he's going to be president.
Related: we've all heard the stories of a time traveler going back to kill Hitler before his rise to power. One common theme in almost all those stories is that the attempt fails, that's why history is as we remember. This morning has me thinking that maybe time travel was involved in a couple of Trump assassination attempts.
They did get Jenkins tho!
The only conclusion you can make is that Hitler is VERY good at killing time travelers.
That's a nice thought on a spectacularly shit day. I hope Alt me is still BBQing with my neighbours like it's 2016.
He wasn't "all bad", he apparently was very good with animals, like his dog Blondie. He was a vegetarian. And that's probably everything which wasn't bad. For the rest it's all completely fucked up bad. No doubt about it.
Oh and I just remembered he was very good at giving directions. "were do I need to go?" "Take the third reich"
I don't think he was vegetarian for animals. He did it for his health. Something Stallen should have done.
I thought I heard it was because of his love for animals. I googled and found This wiki page about it. TL:DR is it's not completely clear whether it's because of health reasons or because he's against animal abuse.
Humans are animals. Its obvious he was not against animal abuse
Apparently Hitler had a dog. So maybe reexamine your beliefs if you think dogs are good judges of character lol.
I mean he did kill Hitler, that's got to count for something.
Obviously, Hitler even gave credit to Jim Crow policies as being an inspiration for his generic policies.
The dixiecrats aren't ashamed of that, game recognizes game.
I'm completely against his policies and actions for obvious reasons. I hate Nazis.
Still, I could probably be convinced to say that he wasn't 100% bad in every possible way.
Even the most evil people are complex human beings. There may be something good inside them at some point to some person, etc.
"All" is a very powerful word.
While I agree with the sentiment, I don't think 1 in 5 thought : "well, he's kind with his dog and an OK painter, I can't in good faith say he's completely bad"
I definitely agree with you on that.
I do
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Views_on_Hitler_poll_results.pdf
12% had the rather less ambiguous responses of 'he was at least as good as he was bad'. While 12% of folks were of the maybe defensible technicality of 'well, even the worst person occasionally will do the right thing', another 12% responded as 'unsure', which I would suspect would lean toward "I don't want to admit a socially unacceptable answer".
i'd lean towards "i don't know enough about the facts to make a definitive statement"
public education isn't great and even good public education rarely dives deeply in the life of Adolf Hitler beyond the obvious "he was a megalomaniac dictator who killed Jews and wanted to take over the world"
Hitler became Hitler because of his life experiences. He served in the German military during WW1, he was homeless in Vienna, he grew up poor with a sick mother. These events, along with the movements of the then-current cultural zietgiest, radicalized him in certain directions. It's a complex story that is hard to break down into simplistic moral platitudes of "good person" or "bad person"
I understand there's generally nuance and all for various folks villified through history, but given the last decade of his life, his story became one of the easiest in history to break down into "bad person" without oversimplification or any vaguely acceptable case of moral relativism. More context is informative as a key part of learning of history, but it doesn't ultimately impact ability to simplify it to "bad person"
i dont want to sound like a moral relativist and i'm hesitant to respond because i also don't want to be a hitler apologist
but I think it's really hard to categorize a person into a "totally bad" position. for example, Hitler had a big ego but he probably genuinely wanted the best for Germany. He cared for animals, was a vegetarian (for the most part, especially in later years of life) and advocated for animal cruelty laws.
if he genuinely believed that eliminating the jews was necessary in order to secure the autonomy of the German people, does that make him a bad person? To a Nazi, the Jew is an evil parasite on society that needs to be eliminated for the good of the entire population.
now please understand I'm speaking from their perspective not saying it is correct
but this type of anti-semitic ideology did not spring up spontaneously in the 1930s but was something deep that developed over the course of hundreds of years and ultimately culminated in the genocide we saw
but if for example, we took everyone in this thread and raised them in 1890s Germany- how many of them would believe in tolerance and racial equality? I'd honestly be surprised if there was a single person
I don't know. I understand there are good things and bad things. but the difference between good and bad people is more complicated. bad people i typically relegate to those individuals that get pleasure of out cruelty or suffering
I completely agree. This poll was terrible.
Or ignorance
What a bullshit poll. So basically anyone who recognizes he cared for a dog is seen as liking Hitler.
Anyone who said otherwise doesn't understand spectrums and is generally using black and white thinking, a sign of mental illness
That's a pretty wild interpretation of the question. It seems pretty clear the question is asking about opinion of his public acts.
How is thst clear???
Because being nice to a dog is not comparable with murdering 17 million people.
Do you know the definition of "all"?
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/50864-two-thirds-of-americans-say-hitler-was-completely-bad
There's no mention of "all bad" in the actual poll or YouGov analysis. That's just something that website added to drive traffic.
After last night, you don't have to prove we're dumb bastards to me.
He did promise the masses a family land and a job. The same thing that every politician ever has promised.
This is what happens when you start to dismantle the education system. We can thank Reagan and the Bushes for that.
It has just happened. The liberty aura surrounding America has been broken.
That's pretty surprising, you'd think when they were fighting him they'd hate him most
Putin.
That's crazy wtf.
I will do you one better. There are people thinking Stalin was not all that bad.
I’ll up arrow you for being brave
People say the same about Mao and Hideki Tojo
For USSR we are Lenin Trotsky supporters here
Sure, Hitler passed some of the first anti-smoking laws.
That doesn’t excuse all the other awful awful things he did.
Also his anti smoking laws failed as the war went on longer and longer.
That's better than expected. Or is it that low because the rest thinks he was actually great?
Pretty sure this election proves it's way more than one in five.
He wasn't. He killed Hitler after all
I mean he was right about some things. Course extremely few people are wrong about those things but every now and then simple arithmetic trips people up
He lost the war, and died committing suicide in a bunker as his capital city was under siege being demolished.
Seems like we could just focus on those facts to show how going like Hitler ends up.
1 in 5 cant see that far behind them.
They're about to find out.
Most will be too uneducated to comprehend.
Yikes. Very troubling.
He did great things.
The problem is that he only did them for people he liked. And he did TERRIBLE things to the people he didn't like.
Skip to the part where the he knew he was going to lose. He gave jack shit about" his" people. He didn't even care in 42 when the German army was surrounded in Stalingrad. No he thought only about himself and how to become a god and emperor. In fact he hated people in general. He had more love for his dog than an average person.
I would not be suprise if Herr Trumpf will have the same ideals. These could be the start of dark times for humanity. And I hope I am wrong.
Ummm I found the one in five... What "great" things are those?
education, housing, infrastructure, healthcare, etc. Again, only for people that he considered worthy.
I'm Jewish BTW. I don't support Hitler. But you'd have to be ignorant of history not to realize that he did great things for so-called "aryans".
Its important to remember as we see the rise of fascism in many countries right now. We need social programs that benefit all people, not just what your local authoritarian claims to be the "right" citizens
I'm not sure how true that is in terms of housing, healthcare, etc. Do you have any sources?
He did claim to have ended the Great Depression in Germany. While people have pointed to projects like the Autobahn, these projects only had a modest effect on unemployment.
What really brought down unemployment was massive deficit spending on expanding the army / rearmament and combined with conscription.
In addition, women, Jews, etc. were forced out of the workforce.
The problem was this was unsustainable. Nazi Germany began WW2 with a debt to GDP ratio greater than what the USA ended the war with.
It narrowly avoided a balance of payments crisis in 1934.
If it hadn't invaded much of Europe and looted it's wealth, the economy would have collapsed.
Source: Wages of Destruction: The making and breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze.
You're talking about the economy. I didn't say anything about the economy. I'm talking about social services
I know.
I asked if there were sources on his improvement of social services?
I know the Nazis did cut back on Weimar Republic era house building subsidies.
The common claim is they improved the economy, which I addressed above.
When you look into Hitler with a kind of Devil's Advocate-ish no pre-bias approach, certainly some good ideas. Was for workers, abortion, prostitution, national healthcare, good minimum wages, women's rights,... But there's just some... just a few... a handful, if you will, that were maybe...maaaybe what could be considered psychopathic monstrously batshit insane ideas.
But, hey, plenty of people love the Christian god, and Hitler is somewhere between that guy and a Powerpuff girl, so no surprises for me.
The power of charisma over those apathetic to self-thinking.
Edit: Apparently we have a lot of God-fearing neo-Nazis here! Sorry, it was a joke, I'll just leave. No need to try track me down.
hides under the floorboards They'll never look here!