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Talk:Adolf Hitler

you need to talk about henry ford and his relationship with hitler --- A conspiracy theory suggests that the bodies that were allegedly Hitler's and Braun's were actually people employed by the Nazis and Hitler to fake their deaths so they could therefore escape unharmed.

There are conspiracy theories about everything, and unless there is some sort of reason to suppose they have an ounce of truth, I don't think they need be mentioned.

I suspect an earlier draft of this article was written by a non-English speaker, who hadn't fully learned English rules of capitalization, punctuation, and so forth. May I recommend you study any or all of three books to improve your skills? --

Strunk and White, The Elements of Style: a brief book, outlining common English grammar mistakes, recommended to all high school and college students in the United States. Truly one of the classic books about English composition.
Fowler, Modern English Usage, second edition: maybe the greatest guidebook to questions on English language usage; British.
The Chicago Manual of Style: this is perhaps the best-respected source in the United States for questions about punctuation, bibliographies, and other mainly mechanical matters.

--Larry Sanger

I read somewhere that he had a deformed penis from a goat that bit him on the foreskin while he was peeing in its mouth--no joke!

BTW, isn't it pretty well established that around 5.8-6 million jews were exterminated? I don't want to be responsible for messing with that and starting a huge fight over it though.

There are many histories told about Hitler, and I don't know which are true and which are false. They should be represented here anyway.

Was Hitler of partially Jewish origins ? Some people are saying that (iirc) his grandma was a Jew.
Was Hitler a vegetarian ?

And there's immortal question whether his alleged dead body was truly his, but this one doesn't seem to ever end with a conclusion. --Taw

Hitler was indeed a vegetarian. See William Shirer[?]'s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich[?] for both primary and secondary source evidence. Hitler was a huge advocate for animal rights--he considered them to be better than Jews and other "lower races" of humans. Not to cast aspersions on PETA or anything like that. :) --Chuck Kincy[?]

I've heard it (from pro-vegetarian sources) that Hitler was not a vegetarian, but that that he dabbled in vegetarianism and various other "healthy diet" theories of the time, either from some sincere interest or to impress others who took them seriously.

I believe Hitler died in Germany at the end of the war, if he could not be head of state his life would have had no meaning. He was not the type of person that would do well in hiding, he would have surfaced sooner or later. Though his name is now forever linked with evil, it is often forgotten the pre-war achievements of the NSDAP.They turned the German nation from bankruptcy to a world power in a few years, if the holocaust and World war Two hadn't have happened, the nazi movement stand as a good example of national reform. {Ian Cross}

National reforms such as brutal dictatorship, the crushing of all dissent, and the persecution of Jews and other minorities (which had been going on strong long before the Holocaust happened--e.g. the Nuremberg Laws)? Even if World War II and the Holocaust had never happened, we'd still remember Hitler as a cruel and ruthless dictator, and as a bigot. Just not as bad a one. -- SJK

  Good point, however this pattern has been repeated so many times before, as in the US.
 There was genocine of the native Indian population they were put into reservations
 (ghettos) even during the second world war, Negro troops in the US army were segregated,
 used as cannon fodder and did not enjoy the rights of promotion and recognition of their
 white counterparts.They suffered till the middle sixties but, who is to blame of their
 persecution? This one nation under god that thinks it has the right to dictate to the
 world what the moral standards of human rights should be. We can learn from  Hitlers
 Germany if we look beyond the evil and look at what was achieved in the early part of its
 history. (Ian Cross)

Am I the only one who gets chills when they read this? -- Zoe

Does anyone think an extensive discussion of Adolf Hitler's abuse as a child by his father and of the origin of his anti-Semitism would survive?

I've put it in; we'll see. AxelBoldt

Alec Guiness's depiction of Hitler in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) was, to say the least of it, a curiously idiosyncratic take on Hitler's persona.

Not having seen (or heard of) this movie, this comment is, to say the least of it, a bit cryptic. What does it mean? DanKeshet

From the subject page:

Psychoanalytic interpretation II

As I read the above 'psychoanalysis' of Adolf Hitler, I was tempted to update the article and make corrections, but instead decided to leave it untouched and write the following paragraphs separately.

It is not true that Hitler was abused by his father as a child. He had a more or less normal upbringing. Hitler's father, Alois, was apparently an authoritarian, as many fathers are; but there is no indication that Adolf was abused by his father or that they disliked each other.

As for Hitler's 'Jewish' blood, this has been subject to intensive investigation and it has been found that this was bogus and fabrication, probably by some Jews, with the intention of suggesting that only a person with very strange and deep-rooted psychological problems would develop a dislike for the Jews. The fact is that Hitler and his family lived in the small village of Braunau Im Inn. It was a farming area. The Jews in Europe never lived in such areas. They lived in big cities and they never were involved in farming. They lived in places like Berlin and Vienna, not in some remote farming village like Braunau Im Inn. Werner Maser's investigations have thoroughly dispelled persistent speculations regarding Jewish ancestory of Adolf Hitler. Those who fabricated this story, were saying that there was a Jewish family by the name of "Frankenburger" who lived in Braunau Im Inn, and Hitler's grandmother worked for them as a housemaid and she was probably made pregnant by one of the family's sons, and the illegitimate son was Alois Hitler (Adolf Hitler's father). There is not a single shred of evidence for this story.

For the record, the contributor (/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=63.205.228.14) of the above text changed (/w/wiki.phtml?title=List_of_famous_Germans&diff=219927&oldid=219909) the description of der Fuehrer in List of famous Germans from "dictator and war criminal" to "greatest leader any nation ever had". --Brion

I was of the understanding that Hitler did attend a Jewish synagogue as a child and in part this was to blame for his anti-semitism. Later, he was not accepted to a Jewish Art School and this led to his connecting Judaism and Capitalism.

This seems unlikely--I'd really want support beyond what sounds like your thinking you remember this.

Oh, and could you please sign your comments? (three tildes in a row will add your username automatically) Vicki Rosenzweig

I have never heard of this either. "Outrageous claims require exceptional evidence." So we leave it out for now. AxelBoldt 21:30 Oct 20, 2002 (UTC)

What is outrageous about the fac tthat Hitler went to a Jewish synagogue and applied to art school? --Lir

What is "outrageous" is that you are calling it a "fact", while most (all?) other people here are under the impression that it is not true. Therefore, the burden is on you to produce evidence for this new "fact" that you are introducing and asking that other people accept. That's just how conversation works... --Brion 00:05 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

His fixation on Jews is hard to fathom. The only thing I can think of, other than that is was part of the German zeitgeist, is that because of the lack of discrimination in Vienna many Jews occupied prominent positions, being for example about 80% of those in the professions there. So probably Jews did play an important role in the art scene there. As far as attending a synagogue that is surely false. Where he lived as a child there were almost no Jews. Fredbauder 04:23 Oct 21, 2002 (UTC)f

Lir, if you have evidence that Hitler was not a compelling orator (to those susesptible to his talents) please state it. Fredbauder 11:43 Oct 21, 2002 (UTC)

Whether he was compelling or not is an opinion. Should you feel that he was the world's greatest orator you may include a section called, "Why Hitler was the world's greatest orator" and write an argument there.Lir 23:58 Oct 22, 2002 (UTC)

I'm no Hitler expert, but I think it's fair to say that he is widely regarded as a great orator. Would something like "Widely regarded as a great orator and skillful propagandist..." be acceptable? --Camembert

absolutely. the historical footage of him with his acting teacher befofe giving a speech are ...well...genius. I'm sure Reagan[?] took lessons ;)--dgd

Well, I've put it in; hopefully it will stick. --Camembert

widely regarded works. Lir 00:53 Oct 23, 2002 (UTC)

The following was placed in the article by 63.205.228.14. I (Camembert) have moved it here:

I know this paragraph will be removed soon, but I would like to mention:

I contribute to Wikipedia as much as I can. It saddens me to see people allow their personal feelings alter facts. Let's maintain Wikipedia with academic and intellectual honesty and spirit for the benefit of all of us.

This part about Hitler's "psychoanalysis" is misinformation. Respected academician Werner Maser completely dispelled the rumours about Hitler's "Jewish blood" (which was the bogus Farankenberger family story) and academic community has known this for a long time.

Also, it is not true that Hitler was abused by his father, as this article indicates. In fact, Hitler had respect for his father. If the author of this article is trying to suggest that it takes a highly unusual and complex psychological background to result in anti-semitism, he or she will have to come up with similar stories about millions of other anti-semites who lived then, and probably live now.

Are you claiming that Maser proved that Hitler did indeed not have Jewish ancestry, or that Hitler was never aware of rumours about his Jewish ancestry? Only the latter would contradict Miller's analysis.

What is your reference for saying that Hitler was not abused by his father and respected him? The evidence for his abuse is given in Alice Miller's book.

I don't think anybody tries to suggest anything about anti-semitism in general in the psychoanalytic paragraph. AxelBoldt 21:06 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, I am saying that it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt (and accepted by the academic community) that the speculation about Hitler's so-called Jewish blood has been false. The whole speculation about his Jewish blood was based on a fabricated story that there was a wealthy Jewish family by the name of Frankenberger who lived in Braunau am Inn; and that Hitler's grandmother at one point was allegedly a part-time housemaid for this family. The story then goes on to say the family had a 19-year-old son who 'probably' was the real father of Alois (Hitler's father) and therefore, Hitler's parental grandfather was a Jew.

Werner Maser cogently demonstrated (not just by logic but also by records) that there was never ever any such Jewish family with a 'big house' in that tiny farming community of Branau am Inn or the vicinity. Furthermore, why would a wealthy Jewish family live in such a remote area, away from the big cities and their fellow Jews? Branau am Inn wasn't even a small city, it was a village; and in general, all of that area was just more or less a farming community. Would a prominent Jewish family (or any Jewish family, for that matter) live in such an area at that time? Much less in a mansion? The facts and patterns of Jewish lifestyles and practices in Europe at that time contradict this. But any way, Maser demonstrated his refutation based on actual records and investigation, not just on the basis of "this simply doesn't make sense."

As for my reference about Hitler not being abused by his father, my reference is Das Grosse Lexikon des Dritten Reiches by C. Zentner and F. Bedürftig. It is comprehensive, unbiased and widely respected by the academic community. It has been a standard fixture of the bookshelves of serious academicians and researchers in this subject area for a long time.

Regards, Keyvan.

"Widely regarded as a great orator and skillful propagandist" skillful propagandist seems OK Great orator well hitler was a good orator and possibly a very good orator. But but great seems to have some postive connonation caan we find something more neutral ? Brilliant might be better ? Well English is not my native language thus great can be more neutral than I believe. Ericd 15:45 Feb 7, 2003 (UTC)

Maybe "skillful orator and propagandist"? AxelBoldt 21:06 Feb 9, 2003 (UTC)

- Please, read Mein Kampf before you judge Hitler. I see a lot of LIES here.

" 07:24 May 3, 2003 . . Zoe (Reverted to last edit)" - Why reverted? Not the article about modern Germany describes this period, but German Empire and Nazi Germany and so on do it.

A great orator is a great orater. No two ways about it. It doesn't matter if he was St Peter or the worst human being to live since ... er ... Hitler. Our first duty is to tell the truth. Opinions belong on talk pages. Tannin 09:24 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

Tannin, Hitler was most certainly not "elected" Chancellor. Nor were any of his predecessors as Chancellor of the Weimar Republic. He was appointed by the President. So, yes, let's let the facts speak for themselves. But we should be sure we actually know the facts first. john 09:57 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

Ahh, I thought some bar-room lawyer would bring that point up. (I mean no disrespect to you here, John, but that is the reality: it's a misleading legalisim to say that Hitler was not elected by the people of Germany.) If you want to apply the strict letter of the law, then by all means. Go right ahead. While you are at it, you had better correct every one of the Prime Minister of Australia entries too - for Australian Prime Ministers are not elected either, but appointed by the Governer General. And you had better do the same for every Prime Minister of New Zealand too. And the United KingdomAnd, in fact about half or two-thirds of all the heads of government in the entire world. Ask JTD. He has a phD in this area.

Why are you arguing for one rule for Hitler, and a different rule for the rest of the world? Tannin 10:06 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't say that Gladstone was "elected Prime Minister" either. As that would be nonsense. More recent Prime Ministers, well, that's a tougher issue, but even so I would try to avoid that phrase. In any event, Hitler's appointment was nothing like the appointment of, say, Tony Blair. Hitler was appointed Prime Minister in January 1933. The last elections had been held several months earlier (in November, I think). They had done worse in those elections than they had in the previous elections in July 1932. Hitler was never elected to the leadership by the people of Germany. Even in the March 1933 elections, the Nazis didn't get a majority, and when he came to power, his coalition with the Nationalists did not command a majority of the Reichstag. He came to power due to machinations among various right wing figures, who thought they could control him. His party was certainly popular, and it had become the largest party in the Reichstag. But to say that he was "elected chancellor" is simply nonsense. john 10:12 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

Noting: On the Tony Blair page, it says he "became" Prime Minister in 1997. Not that he was "elected". Considering that Tony Blair came a hell of a lot closer to being "elected" Prime Minister than Mr. Schickelgruber, I think this suggests that the term "elected Prime Minister" is simply wrong. john 10:15 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

When you go to an election and wind up commanding the support of the largest single party in the parliament, and the Head of State make you Prime Minister (or whatever the office happens to be called in your country), that is usually considered being "elected".

In the ordinary course of events, Hitler would have been a certainty for the top job: the fact that it took a good deal of manipulation and behind-the-scenes negotiation for him to wind up with the job that was rightfully his in the first place is immaterial. (I say "rightfully" in the sense of "having the numbers", of course, not in the sense that Hitler was a good man, or any other nonsese like that.) I have no particular attachment to the word "elected". As you say, it is not strictly correct. It is, however, a great deal closer to the truth than "he was appointed" - the phrase I replaced; a phrase which entirely failed to convey the vital information that Hiter and his party came to power on the back of a popular vote - i.e., by more-or-less legitimate, democratic means.

Quite aside from the mattter of accuracy of language and avoiding bias, this is (I believe) an important matter to make clear. Far, far too many people in Western countries think that Hitler was just some vague sort of tin-pot dictator that made it into the big league. The (largely unspoken) conclusion, of course, is that "oh, it couldn't happen here: we have a democracy". I think that we have an obligation not to pretend that Hitler was just somehow "appointed", as if by magic, to the top job. Tannin 10:33 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

I agree with Tannin. The US president is not directly elected by the population either and yet the leaders of both the UK and the US are thought of as "elected leaders". To say otherwise is pure symantics. --mav 10:41 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

(de-indenting for this) It is not pure semantics; you cannot compare the Weimar Republic of 1932/1933 to the U.S. and U.K of today. Here is my ?0.02 on the subject of "appointed" vs. "elected". I have consistently used "Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler by Paul von Hindenburg on January 30, 1933", and let me explain why I believe this is correct.

Here are some events leading to "1933":

Reichstag general elections on Sept. 14, 1930 yield 18,3 % of the vote for the NSDAP.
On May 30, 1932, Reichskanzler Brüning steps down after no longer having Paul von Hindenburg's confidence. Five weeks earlier, Hindeburg had been reelected Reichspräsident with Brüning's active support. (The Reichspräsident was directly elected by the people, the Reichskanzler was not.) Franz von Papen is appointed new Reichskanzler.
Reichstag general elections on July 31, 1932 yield 37,2 % of the vote for the NSDAP. Hitler now demands to be appointed Reichskanzler; Hindenburg rejects this on August 13, 1932. But there is no majority in the Reichstag for any other government; as a result, the Reichstag is dissolved and elections take place once more.
The November 6, 1932 elections yield 33,0 % for the NSDAP: it has lost over four percent. Note, these are the last elections before Hitler's appointment as Reichskanzler.
Franz von Papen steps down (can't find what date right now); General von Schleicher becomes Reichskanzler on December 3, 1932. His audacious plan is to find a majority in the Reichstag by uniting the trade unionist left wings in the various parties, including that of the NSDAP led by Gregor Strasser. This didn't work.
On January 4, 1933, Hitler meets with von Papen at the house of the Cologne banker Kurt von Schroeder. They agree on forming a joint government; besides Hitler, only two other NSDAP members (Frick as minister of the interior and Göring as Commissary for Prussia) shall be part of the Reich government. Hitler was to become Reichskanzler and von Papen Vice Chancellor. The new cabinet includes the influential media mogul Hugenberg, who was chairman of the (also right-wing) DNVP party at the time.
Hindenburg was not aware of this meeting and, when presented with the results, appoints Hitler.
The next Reichstag elections take place March 5, 1933, where, despite general terrorization of the voters by the SA, the NSDAP "only" yielded 43,9 %. See Gleichschaltung.

There was therefore no election directly prior to the appointment of Hitler that would justify saying that Hitler was "elected". Instead, the NSDAP had lost votes in the November 6, 1932 election compared to the earlier July 31 one. Speaking of "electing" the Reichskanzler would also give the misleading impression that the Reichstag had much significance at all any more in the last three years of the Weimar Republic; instead, government was executed by the Reichskanzler with the help of the Reichspräsident, who issued presidential decrees based on the emergence article 48 subsection 2 of the Weimar constitution, because the Reichstag had an overwhelming majority of both left-wing and right-wing parties and a "center" government no longer had a majority.

I can write up something for the Weimar Republic article (including the results of the other parties) that clarifies this so nobody gets confused, and this should be pointed to from the Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany articles then. But please don't say that Hitler was "elected". As a last note, all the German history books that I could find speak of Ernennung (appointment) as well. Thank you for your attention. :-) Djmutex 16:35 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

BTW, thanks for the "bar-room lawyer". That really got me started. :-) Djmutex 16:41 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

Essentially, I don't care much either way, but the debate is really one of how multiparty systems work when a coalition government is needed. From what you are saying, it would seem that election requires obtaining an absolute majority. In the case of coalition governments. it is normally given to the candidate with the largest percentage or the winner is chosen by a "neutral" party, who decides who has the best chance of forming a government. A system similar to the Weimar form of government in that sense is Israel, where no prime minister has ever won a majority of seats in parliament for his or her party. The president, which is otherwise a largely ceremonial role, traditionally charged the candidate with the most votes to attempt to form a government. On the other hand, until recently the president had the prerogative to select another candidate who was deemed better able to make a government. While this was never used, it was almost used after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, when Netanyahu defeated Shimon Peres by less than 1 percent of the vote. Nevertheless, and without getting into a discussion about Israel democracy, the prime minister is always considered elected. Still, I can handle appointed as long as all the information leading to why Hindenburg selected Hitler is given. Danny

(I indented your comment above) I guess an NPOV summary of the above could be phrased as "Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler by Hindenburg after the NSDAP had yielded the largest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag elections of 1932". That includes the popular vote and still satifies the bar-room lawyer in me. :-) Djmutex 17:00 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

Mate, I'm a bit of a bar-room lawyer myself. (In case no-one has noticed yet!) Your formulation just above is excellent. Tannin

I'm glad we agree. :-) I'll fix things up on various pages then. Djmutex 17:08 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

Oh God, the dreaded election/selection debate. It had to come, I suppose. FTR this is a debate that goes on all the time in political science, and there is no one right answer. But a growing number of academics are following a policy of absolute accuracy, becuase otherwise major problems occur, albeit in a small number of cases.

Example No 1: Was Albert Reynolds, Irish taoiseach in 1992, elected? Yes he got into power after an election, with is the popularly presumed criteria. But most voters in the preceding general election voted against him and were physically sick when the Irish Labour Party, who mopped up vast numbers of votes because of its anti-Albert stance, then went into a coalition with him and put him back in power.
Example No. 2: His successor in 1994, John Bruton, became the first Irish opposition leader to form a government without a general election. (He had been the expected victor in 1992 until Albert came back from the political dead, when Labour chose him over Bruton.) So, was Albert, who lost a general election but by a post election deal gained power, an elected leader?

What Bruton, who won a general election but got shafted and sent to the opposition and then came back, an elected leader?

Example No. 3: Both Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair achieved landslides in general elections that were not representative of the popular vote but a product of the electoral system. In any proportional system, they would have struggled to achieve any majority. But the quirky nature of the unproportional First Past the Post produced what were electoral 'quirks' that delivered a phoney majority, just as in the mid 1980s, it gave the SDP-Liberal Alliance a tiny handful of seats even though it had 25% of the popular vote. So if Thatcher and Blair were victors because of the British electoral system, not actual votes, can they really be called 'elected'?
Example No. 4: If John Major had lost the 1992 general election, would he have been described as 'elected', given that he was appointed by the Queen in exactly the same way as each of her prime ministers (ie, was commissioned to form a government and did so) but never won a general election? Ditto with John Bruton who was nominated by the Dáil and appointed by the President in 1994 and who went on to lose the 1997 general election. Was John an 'elected' prime minister?
Example No 5: Malcolm Frazer was appointed Australian PM by Governor-General Sir John Kerr in 1975. He did win the subsequent general election, but what if he had lost it? Would be be described as an 'elected' prime minister?
Example No. 6: Winston Churchill was appointed prime minister by King George VI in 1940 when Neville Chamberlain resigned after discovering he was dying of cancer. Churchill went on to lose the 1945 general election. Could Churchill in his role as a war leader be described as 'elected'? Similarly what of David Lloyd George from 1916 to 1918? What of Alec Douglas-Home, who succeeded Macmillan and lost the next general election to Labour's Harold Wilson?
Example No. 7: George W. Bush lost the popular vote and so, if you define elected as been chosen by the people, does not deserve the word 'elected' (just the Reynolds). But he won power through the Electoral College, just as Reynolds did, both of whom won in the technically correct way (in the Electoral College, the Dáil) but lacked the presumption that is normally behind it, namely that the EC or the Dáil is simply reflecting and rubberstamping the decision of the people. In these two instances, they in effect overuled the people's will as expressed in the election.
Example No. 8: How does the electoral system and methodology impact on deciding who was elected? Was Bertie Ahern more 'elected' than Tony Blair because while the former was chosen using a proper representative Proportional Representation using a Single Transferable Vote that basically gave you in seat terms the proportion you deserve based on votes, while Blair was 'elected' using the quirky and frequently bizarre First Past the Post system (in which you can get 32% and get 5% of the seats, 33% and get 45% of the seats - around that percentage 'strange' things happen!!!) If you go by accuracy, does that mean Bertie Ahern is more 'elected' than Tony Blair, who is more 'elected' than George Bush, who is more elected than Saddam Hussein, who is more elected than . . . etc etc.

So how do we describe these and other examples? Do we create a sliding scale of elected, semi-elected, 10% elected, 20% elected, almost elected, prime ministers? Is Churchill slightly more 'elected' that Douglas-Home, because he unlike DH actually did win an election, albeit later? But Lloyd George more elected than Churchill because he won his first election? If Blair wins more seats on Thatcher but on a lower percentage, which is more elected? Is Bruton Ireland's first 'unelected' taoiseach? Or is Reynolds? Is George W. Bush more or less 'elected' than Bill Clinton or Richard Nixon?

In the case of Hitler, it is 100% wrong to say he was an elected leader. He got power through the back door, through a deal arranged by political opponents with Hindenburg's connivance in which they put Hitler in power in the mistaken belief that they could control him.

As I mentioned, because of numerous problems (of which only a small number are mentioned above) many academics are now following a strict literal interpretation of the law in describing how someone comes to power. So unless someone is 100% directly elected by a body (eg, the US electoral college, the electorate), the word 'elected' is not used. Instead the word 'selected' is increasingly preferred. Where possible, a literal description of how they came to power is used. So one doesn't say 'x' was elected taoiseach but x' was appointed taoiseach on the nomination of the Dáil' . 'Blair was appointed prime minister after a landslide in the general election.' 'Reynolds was appointed taoiseach on the Dáil's nomination, after Labour had decided to support him after five years of crusading against him.' 'George W. Bush was elected by the Electoral College to be president, even though his opponent received more popular votes; because the nature of those votes and their location delivered less electoral college votes to Gore.' 'Hitler was appointed chancellor by Hindenburg following a deal worked out by senior non-nazi politicians, who were convinced they could control the former Austrian corporal. Hindenburg, though fiercely anti-nazi, and who had defeated Hitler in the 1932 presidential election, reluctantly agreed that, with nazi popular support on the wane, Hitler could now be controlled as chancellor and so gave him the job.'

On balance, therefore, I avoid saying someone was elected unless it is a historic fact that they were directedly so, by some body, whether the electorate, parliament or an electoral college. If they weren't, the word is not used. So I never ever write that a UK PM is elected, an Irish taoiseach is elected, a PM of Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc are elected. PMs for a couple of years in Israel were elected by the people. That has since been reverted to appointment by the president. So only those PMs who were elected are described as such. The rest are described as appointed or selected. And Hitler initially was not elected to office, and to use the word misleads by suggesting that

Hitler had sufficient support in 1932 to win a national election; he didn't. His support was in decline;
The electorate were responsible for bringing Hitler to power. They weren't, it was the President and the political elite who say the decline in nazi support and presumed that now was the time to offer Hitler power, he seeing it as his one and only chance for power, and thus doing whatever the political 'big boys' wanted to get a chance to be chancellor.

Crucially, Hitler used power as the appointed chancellor to win subsequent election, he did not win election and then get his hands on power. It may seem a technical point, but it is crucial in understanding the methodology by which nazism took power in Germany.

Against the odds, Wiki has managed to get the nomenclature of England/Great Britain/United Kingdom right (which most sourcebooks don't). We have struggled with royal names, with titles, with definitions of all sorts including most recently 'Communist state'. We should try to get this one right too. The more accurate we are, the better it will be of our credibility as a sourcebook. Many encyclopædias make a balls of this area. It would nice if wiki on this issue could take on the big encyclopædias and beat them by getting the facts 100% right. ÉÍREman 20:53 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

A quick note to JTDirl. The new law in Israel, which cancelled the electoral reform bill and direct election of the prime minister, requires the president for the first time to appoint the candidate whose party received the most votes. The prerogative to select another candidate to form a coalition is only given to the president of the initial candidate fails to form a coalition in a given amount of time. Danny

(I added a bar above your comment) Thanks for the information... if I understand you correctly, you are not objecting to the phrasing "Hitler was appointed Reichskanzler by Hindenburg after the NSDAP had yielded the largest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag elections of 1932", so I can continue rephrasing this on some pages now that the server is back online. Djmutex 21:00 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

If I understand the above exchange correctly, JTDIRL and Djmutex basically agree on what happened. The phrasing Djmutex suggests seems sensible. But I have a suggestion: assuming everyone agrees on the phrasing, I think some of the historical facts brought out in the above discussion, both as to the Weimar constitution and as to the specific politics that led to Hitler's selection, need to be incoprorated into the article. As far as I can tell, the folowing paragraph is doing most of the work:

In the midst of severe economic crisis, Hitler became Chancellor of the Weimar Republic in January 1933 due to intrigues between various right wing figures in the entourage of President Hindenburg, including former Chancellor Franz von Papen, and the right wing German National People's Party (DNVP), led by Alfred Hugenburg. Papen and Hugenburg had hoped to use Hitler's popularity to secure power.

I have no objection to the wording, only to the level of detail. Everyone on this talk page seems to agree that how, exactly, Hitler rose to power in a democratic country is an important matter. I wish the article itself had some of the detail of this talk page. Slrubenstein

I have just rewritten the final section of Weimar Republic with the events outlined above (with a little more wording). I believe that these events should be there and not here with Adolf Hitler; Weimar Republic is presently the most complete article about the history of the time (although it needs more work), and most people see the formal end of it with the appointment of Hitler as Reichskanzler. I believe that the Hitler page should instead focus on issues other than the collapse of the Republic, which really doesn't belong here. This should have the events in his personal life and should, as far as those overlap with the history of Weimar, point to there. Djmutex 22:11 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

It should be noted that, according to modern research, Hitler was gay and had a sexual relationship with some soldiers during World War I.

What research? A good cite will be needed for this. --mav

See http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,564899,00

Though I am not supporting this theory, there is a book, The Hidden Hitler (2001), (ISBN 0-465-04308-9) by Lothar Machtan that supports this. I have the book but I haven't read it yet and I am not prepared to comment on its arguments. Danny

If this is mentioned at all, it shouldn't be where it was edited in by someone anonymous, but instead in the (mostly nonfactual) psychologial section below. This now sounds as if Hitler was sexually involved with all of his comrades in World War I, and then they all became Nazis. If you ask me, NPOV would dictate to say "Some scholars claim that Hitler was gay." I doubt this is widely accepted. I also think I saw that Machtan guy on TV a while ago, and it sounded as if he was trying to reduce the failure of the Weimar republic to this one cause. As a famous German journalist once said, the only thing in the world that has a single cause is pregnancy. Djmutex 23:09 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

Personally, I'd like to get rid of the entire psychology section, since it is entirely speculative. Danny

Passage moved to the indicated section and NPOVed. I wouldn't shed a tear if the whole section were removed. IMO "outing" like this is highly offensive because implicit in this type of charge is the POV the being a homosexual is somehow deviant and wrong. --mav

I agree. The section should at least be moved to Sensational psychological babble about Hitler[?] or something of that sort. Djmutex 23:21 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

I disagree, as the fact is not unimportant and may explain the death of Röhm. It should also be noted that "Hitler himself never condemned homosexuality, but he allowed the persecution of gays in order to disguise his own true colours," as Machtan says.

I just read the chapter. The passage, based on an interview with Thomas Mend, who served with Hitler, is not very convincing: "We noticed that he never looked at women. We suspected him of homosexuality," and the Schmidt case are just a lot of speculation by someone who hated Hitler and wanted to make him look bad. Danny

Getting back to the election vs. selection crisis, I just wanted to correct whoever it was (probably Tannin), who said that Hitler had somehow been denied the just reward of being made Chancellor after the Nazis got the most votes in the election. In a multi-party system like Weimar Germany, there was no particular presumption that the party with the most seats got to try to form a government. Before 1932, the Social Democrats had always had the most seats in the Reichstag in every single election. Nevertheless, they only led governments in 1919-1920 and 1928-1930. The person to be appointed had to be someone who could be expected to have majority support in the Reichstag, or at least, to be passively tolerated by a majority. For much of the history of Weimar, the SPD refused to participate in government, so the centrist parties either had to ally with the right (the DNVP), or else form minority governments with tacit SPD support. Hitler's predecessors in power, Papen and Schleicher, had practically no support in the Reichstag at all (besides the DNVP, in at least the former case). But Hitler would not have had majority support either. The Communists and Social Democrats were inalterably opposed, and so, to a lesser extent, where the Centrists and whatever remnant was left of the Democrats (almost nobody, I think). Even with support from the Nationalists and the People's Party, Hitler could not have commanded a majority with either the July 1932 or November 1932 Reichstags. In fact, nobody at all could have, unless either the Communists or the Nazis could be persuaded to tolerate. But, in any event, the solution we've mostly agreed to seems about right to me. I'd just like to add that we shouldn't be wary of saying the actual factually correct statement (that Hitler was appointed) for fear that it is somehow unfair to Hitler, because he got a lot of votes in some elections that were held a few months before. john 23:49 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

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