Q&A: The Nazi Madness.
The Nazi Madness.
Question
Hello and many greetings to the Rabbi.
For some time I’ve been troubled by the question of how Hitler managed to sweep along an entire educated nation full of cynical geniuses—how he managed to get them to believe in a childish theory, to the point that they were willing to fight for it with utter devotion until the bitter end, and to murder millions of people systematically and brutally. Even when the Russians were surrounding Berlin, the Germans did not think of surrendering (at least most of them; already from 1944 there was a wave of assassination attempts against Hitler).
The humiliation of World War I was indeed one of the catalysts, but that seems far too weak an excuse. Even if the Nazis rose to power because of it, that still doesn’t explain the Germans’ devotion to the goal throughout the entire war.
Does the Rabbi have any lead?
Answer
There is extensive literature on this, including discussions of the Germans’ cultural background (including their children’s stories—the Brothers Grimm, for example). There is a very strong and violent mythical and pagan element there, and their race theory fit onto that quite naturally. By the way, the fact that you think their theory has no substance does not make it stupid or something that smart people cannot adopt. For example, there are many who think that we are inherently a chosen people (including very intelligent people), and although the whole world laughs at this, it doesn’t really bother them. They will bring proof from the dominance of Jews in various fields, and the Germans could claim the same thing as well in light of their achievements in various areas.
Discussion on Answer
According to the Maharal, the Jewish people are not part of natural reality—or in our language, the present—but rather belong to what comes after nature, that is, the future, what the Sages call the World to Come. According to this, our existence in the present is not self-evident, and were it not for the Holy One’s promise to Abraham, “I am your shield,” it is not clear how we would enter this adventure. And for that reason we conclude the blessing with “Shield of Abraham.”
The Nazis were satanic, but they noticed something: Jewish existence is not natural. The question of why the Holy One’s protection did not apply during the Holocaust is another question. There is a claim that the Name of God that protects us, as explained explicitly in Yoma 69b, moves to the Land of Israel at the beginning of the ingathering of the exiles, and it stops protecting Jews in the Diaspora, but I need to find the source.
First of all, let’s start with the fact that God saved lots of Jews in the Diaspora, …
and it is also written, “In every place where I cause My name to be mentioned I will come to you and bless you…” so that includes outside the Land.
The Holocaust, like any other disaster, came to signal to us that we are not okay and that we have things to correct..
I just remembered: think about how intelligent atheists raise infantile arguments with absolute confidence and with contempt for any other argument. That is the nature of sectarian thinking, when a person is locked in among people who think like him and is unwilling to hear other arguments. When you shut people inside a bubble, they arrive at stupid conclusions with complete confidence.