Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site ihuxf.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!ihuxf!russ From: russ@ihuxf.UUCP (Russell Spence) Newsgroups: net.religion,net.politics Subject: Re: Don Black, Nazis, and the amazing disappearing Holocaust Message-ID: <2581@ihuxf.UUCP> Date: Mon, 1-Apr-85 19:39:59 EST Article-I.D.: ihuxf.2581 Posted: Mon Apr 1 19:39:59 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 2-Apr-85 07:34:28 EST References: <2580@ihuxf.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 51 Xref: watmath net.religion:6432 net.politics:8324 I have received a few person attacks and some questions regarding my posting about Nazis. I would like to bring up a few questions and maybe clarify some of my feelings. My knowledge of Nazism comes from reading Mein Kampf and general knowledge obtained from several sources. I felt that reading Mein Kampf was most valuable for understanding the Nazis because it expresses Hitler's own feelings about his goals written in his own hand. Thus his opinions are not distorted by someone who may have pre-judged him. On the other hand, one must realize that Hitler also makes gross generalizations and sometimes miss-represents facts. If you are aware that this is happening, hopefully you can try to read past that and try to see what he his really saying. I am certainly not an expert on Nazism, but I have formed some tentative opinions and have some thoughts on the matter. The Holocaust was not wrong from the Nazi point of view and according to their moral standards (which is not to say that some individuals who were Nazis didn't find it morally unacceptable). This point seems obvious to me from the fact that they did it and many of them do not seem to feel guilty about it. Of course, some did feel guilty about it, but it is hard to tell whether this is genuine or not is affected by the fact they the Nazis lost the war and individual people want to save their own skins (and possibly even make a buck (nobody today wants to buy a book by a proud Nazi)). The fact that they actually committed the Holocaust also shows how committed they were to their ideals (whether right or wrong). This is why I feel that Don Black, Zundle and their kind are doing a disservice to the Nazis when denying the Holocaust. I do not think that Hitler would hesitate to call them weaklings. I think that to judge the Nazis based on their actions is taking a close minded attitude which will get in the way of understanding their ideals. The value of looking back at the Nazis is to understand their ideas and judge them for yourself. I don't feel good about letting ANYONE make moral judgements for me. I am interested in the Nazis and am making an attempt to understand them. I'm not interested in talking to people who aren't willing to accept this basic idea, because they are using the Nazis as a scapegoat just as much as they blame the Nazis for using the Jews. If someone wants to DISCUSS some issues of Nazism, how about answering this question, am I right in my assumption that the whole struggle between the Nazis and the Marxists (which the Nazis assert are very closely tied with the Jews) is the struggle between the ideas that men are equal (Marxist) and that men are not equal (Nazi)? ------ Will YOU recognize Nazism when it rears it head again? -- Russell Spence ihnp4!ihuxf!russ AT&T Technologies Naperville, IL