Was Hitler Brilliant ?

[trumad]

I know it's rather tasteless to even think about it.... But in terms of doing what he did in Germany at the very beginning, it seems to me the guy had to have some brilliance....

[EdwardM]

1. No, only an idiot would attack Soviet Russia.

If he was brilliant, he wouldn't have had to kill himself in a underground fortress.

[shadowknows69]

22. He wasn't brilliant enough to learn that from Napolean

Not a hugely intelligent strategic move having two active offensives going on.

[ecstatic]

2. No, all he did was capitalize on a poor economy and festering hatred

People were frustrated at that time. They picked several groups to blame. In fact, the same thing could happen here if we're not careful.

[trumad]

5. Would you call it brilliant manipulation?

[nealmhughes]

12. Indeed, were he a "genius," it was a genius of exploitation and of convincing

enough of the masses that his plan was bound to succeed and give Germany its "righful place in the sun", the same as the Kaiser had promised.

[unblock]

3. i don't think anyone really questions his genius

it's his ethics that were horrendous.

one way or another, anyone has to have SOME kind of genius in order to rise to the top of an organization, even if it's done by corrupting it.

a very sick, sick, sick genius, but certainly a genius in his ability to gain and keep power.

[Joe Chi Minh]

23. I disagree unless you consider pandering to the greed

of the powerful and exploiting it, as genius. I would consider such an application of the word genius to void it of the special cachet it has in our minds.

Mind you, though we normally consider it as a "low cunning", a certain aptitude for intuitive insights, even of such a degraded nature as that of dictator, would probably be closer to the meaning of the word than a very high IQ, with which it is normally identified by the media.

The Fine Arts are a whole 'nother ball-game, of course. Not necessarily associated at all in the artists' thought processes, with the wisdom of consistently sound assumptions underpinning a coherent world view.

[MethuenProgressive]

4. No - a brilliant person wouldn't have thought like Hitler did.

The idea to take over the world and kill everyone you hate isn't "brilliant."

[trumad]

7. Maybe brillant isn't the word I should have used....

"smart"? "Cunning"?

[zanne]

6. Sometimes evil masquerades as genius. nt

[trumad]

8. Yes...but there have been evil genius's

[Joe Chi Minh]

69. Stalin - not perfect, of course, in his judgements -- was nevertheless

exceptionally shrewd; that smartness and cunning you allude to, Trumad, in Hitler, but not found in him other than in the form of a cunning of a very low inconsistent order. He was more like Kitchener in that sense, who was apparently capable of the odd, very rare flash of brillliance. Hitler undoubtedly had insights into the politics of power, though they were astute rather than brilliant. The role played by his wealthy supporters, however, cannot be overstated.

However, unlike Margaret Thatcher, Hitler eventually put in place a reign of terror, even over those who had thought they could cast him aside at their pleasure. The cypher-like, puppet-on-string role Thatcher played could not have been more dramatically illustrated than it was, when she was summarily dismissed by the "men in grey suits", and was clearly totally baffled since, right up to the last she had believed the line peddled by her remaining psycho followers, that she was a virtual reincarnation of Churchill. This rump Tory riff-raff still peddle that line and believe it in their impoverished wee hearts. (Incidentally, where are those "men in grey suits" EVER, when you REALLY need them!

Perhaps thinking of Kitchener's insight - against the universally-received wisdom - that, far from the war ending by Christmas, it would be a long hard struggle, Lloyd George once said of him, "He was like one of those great lighthouses which, for a brief moment, lights up the whole landscape and then immediately plunges it back into deepest darkness. Stalin's shrewdness was immeasurably more subtle and consistent.

[Ian David]

9. Hitler celebrated Christmas

Hitler celebrated Christmas
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=97928&mesg_id=97928

[selfdestructive]

27. LOL

oh no you didn't. intentional or not, this post made me laugh madly...

[11 Bravo]

37. Welcome to DU!

You're going to love it here!

:toast: :hi: :toast:

[selfdestructive]

46. thanks!

:)

[Joe Chi Minh]

74. Like Reagan, Thatcher and Cherie Blair (who is also a Catholic), Hitler was

a New Ager. Christmas would have been just an agreeable cultural oddity he enjoyed.

They are more like some of the more eclectic worshippers in Haiti and in some particularly poor countries in South America. Chesterton once observed that people who don't believe in God, don't believe in nothing, they believe in everything. It also seems to apply to people in the West who do believe strongly at some level, but not so strongly that they don't want to cover other angles and possibilities.

They want more tangible proof of the supernatural, but eschew the necessary kind of commitment and self-denial entailed. St Paul of the Cross dreaded powerful theophanies, because they inevitably presaged dreadful sufferings on his part.

[smalll]

83. Interesting - I know Hitler and Cherie are "New Agers" -

and I guess Reagan was as well, or at least Reagan & Nancy what with their reliance on astrology. But I've never heard Thatcher was. What makes you think that about her?

[Joe Chi Minh]

84. Well, it featured a few times in the newspapers here, unless my

memory is playing me false.

But I don't think so. Anything to do with that woman that might interest me, leaves an indelible mark in my memory, and I don't think I'd be likely to imagine reading things about her with such certainty.

It doesn't mean I couldn't be wrong, but I'd very surprised, because I don't tend to do that. In my mind, I even have a little black book of Thatcher supporters. Nothing sinister, but such an allegiance speaks volumes to me about their character.

It's a bit like the first answer that comes to your mind in a TV quiz usually being the correct one. Even though you don't know what recesses of memory it's been dredged up from. But in this case, much stronger. It's not the sort of trait that leaves much room for ambiguity, it seems to me.

Of course, it's sad in a way that as the PM, at the time, she's naturally singled out as the person mainly responsible for the ensuing vandalism and chaos, ever since she came to power, when she had so many enablers who still remain devotees.

I actually think Blair's character is much worse, strange as that may sound. She was a grotesque parody of a Little Englander, but Blair is just a cypher for whatever the powerful corporatist wheelers and dealers want him to be. A bizarre, almost spooky kind of phenomenon.

[cobaindrain]

10. not brilliant, just obsessive and motivated, moreso than the average person

He was driven and fanatical...he used his fanaticism to commit heinous crimes (which he viewed as noble, necessary acts) He had an ideology drilled into his head and he followed it. Somebody to rise to his stature, from being a nobody...you have to have the right political climate (turmoil) and a certain kind of person who can capture the publics attention and "restore order" so to speak.

[Cleita]

47. Sorry, but he drilled the ideology into his head. No one else did.

He exposed himself to the writings of a lot of the going intellectuals of the day but cherry picked what he liked forming his own philosophy. No one drilled it into him.

[Joe Chi Minh]

75. Yes, our instinct is always to prefer order to chaos - until things get .

really nasty. Then we just feel utterly lost, with nowhere to go.

[twilight_sailing]

11. Only in a Karl Rove

kind of way.

Anybody can think of dirty tricks. It just takes a sociopath or a zealot to carry out such evil plans.

[originalpckelly]

13. Actually, he was a complete idiot...

Who would open a two front war and hobble technological development which would have won them the war? (They had stealth airplanes and jets.)

All of the military victories of Germany in the early part of WWII were not Hitler's but Goering's. Quite frankly Hitler was a total idiot. He didn't even make to the last year of high school.

Add to that brutality and inhumanity, and you have Hitler.

[rockymountaindem]

14. Hardly

People seem to forget that the German economy was a gigantic engine of growth during the pre WWI period and that it retained a great deal of its entrepenurial and productive potential even through the hard times of the 1920s and 1930s. The continual uncertainty about reparations payments during the 20s, combined with the coming of the international Great Depression in 1929 really put the squeeze on the German economy. By the time Hitler came to power in 1933, and by 1936 Germany was well on the road to recovery. This can be attributed to two factors. Firstly, the gradual end of the Great Depression (don't be fooled by the American experience. The severity of the Depression was much more pronounced in the US than in most other parts of the world. We were one of the last countries to emerge from it). Secondly, the outright rejection of any reparations stemming from WWI. This eliminated a lot of uncertainty, but it cannot be blamed/credited to Hitler alone. For, if the Allies had wanted, they could still have blockaded Germany by sea and occupied the Rhine. Not only was Hitler's rejection of payments a big step forward for the German economy, but even more importantly was the decision of Britain and France to relent on their demands for payment. The removal of these two obstacles to Germany's massive economic potential did far more for the German economy than any plans originating from Hitler's nasty cabal.

Hitler exploited the situation into which he had arisen and managed to grab the credit for exogenous events. He was not a genius, but rather someone who managed to be in the right place at the right time. This was not always the case for him, though. Witness the Beer Hall Putch. However during the years 1933-1937, it definately was.

[acmejack]

17. He who is the victor...

writes the history. I would certainly think it could be said that he was, in a perverse sort of way. I would certainly agree with the last para in rockymountaindem's post.

edit for that pesky omitted word

[Mojambo]

15. He was effective. n/t

[Joe Chi Minh]

78. .... at reducing Germany to rubble, sending millions of his fellow-countrymen to an

early and painful grave, and leaving all the many decent German people with a feeling of lasting shame that their grandchildren may still feel.

Even though, until he'd wrested power, Hitler was never supported by a majority of the German electorate, wherever they go in Europe, the natives will politely enquire, "Are you Swiss?" "Austrian?" or "Dutch?" as the case may be. They tend not to ask them if they are German.

I read in a newspaper a couple of years ago that a survey carried out on the opinions of young Germans found that they were the least happy young people in Europe with their nationality.

Yep, Hitler sure knew how to build up his country. If the Allies had not been merciful, they might have wiped them all off the face of the earth. But, heck, our leaders were substantially complicit until it was too late, anyway. Hence, also, I think the relative mercy shown to our pro-Communist Russian traitors.

[Cleita]

16. No. If you every read "Mein Kampf" you would see how dumb he

really was. It's sort of like reading the PNAC website. You just start scratching your head because of the poor reasoning and lack of depth of knowledge for much of what either says. Both are really playbooks like for sports or a game. However, the players and rules aren't cut and dried like in a game, so this is where their limited intellect comes out. They don't see it.

However, Hitler was cunning, could be charming, and surrounded himself with better educated sycophants who threw in with his camp for their own personal enrichment and power trips. I think this is why he rose to power and stayed there as long as he did. Dim son really has followed in his footsteps that way, but Dim son didn't even write a book like Hitler or had any input into the PNAC website.

[cobaindrain]

18. he did

"A Charge To Keep" or whatever it was called, somebody wrote it for him and it was thrown together before the 2000 election.

[Cleita]

26. Never heard of it. Are you sure it wasn't all blank pages?

:rofl:

[hsher]

57. If Hitler rose today, Mein Kampf would be a hate blog

He'd be allied with the 88 Klub, the German government would look into him, and bang, he'd be stopped at the gate, arrested and institutionalized before getting in range of actually harming anybody. Who says we live in lesser times? :)

Edited to add: or, he might be a German RW television pundit.

[Cleita]

59. Or a minister for the Church of the Aryan Nation.

But those guys like Hitler and swastikas. I often wanted to walk up to one of them and start speaking German. I was curious if they would call me an illegal alien.

[hsher]

60. Only if you don't look Aryan, I bet

If you happen to be blonde and fair, though, if you walked up and spoke German to them, they'd fall on all fours worshipping you. Not that they'd understand a single word you said. :(

[Cleita]

61. Well, I'm Hispanic so it could throw them off.

:-)

[hsher]

65. Sure could!

Stay away from them, though, Cleita. Seriously stay away from them. There is NOTHING good about those people, and they can't stand folks like you and me AT ALL. Be safe. Don't be tempted.

[Cleita]

79. I used to live up in Idaho. I know they are nothing better than

gang bangers. Although they profess to be a Church (Church of the Aryan Nation) they are nothing but small time hoods. Most crime in that area, Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho and Western Montana can be traced back to their compounds. They don't accept the American government as their government, a convenient concept so that they can break the law.

I did give them wide berth every time I saw them in the shopping malls proselytizing. I was dancing in the streets when the Southern Poverty Center finally uprooted them in Couer d'Alene after they sent their dogs to attack some Native American women who were walking on the road outside of their compound there.

I would really like our Homeland Security to go after these guys instead of every person with a Middle Eastern name. Of course Homeland Security is probably made up of many of them.

[hsher]

81. That is chilling

I too wish Homeland Security would see them as the real threats. But again you're right HS is made up of a lot of them, too. One funny note: I'd like to see them try the dog-siccing on Native Americans thing down here where I am in New Mexico. The Latino and Native American populations here, after hearing that, would band together, rally up and find them, pounce their compound and make every last one of them, in ten minutes flat or less, wish they had never been born on this earth.

They call us mud people. Ooh. That's so original. Some big thinkers we got there.

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. No. He really was a moron. He had the low cunning all dictators have.

But, otherwise, most of his apparent success, inevitably short-term, was because he was viewed as a useful tool by the industrialists, professionals (lawyers and doctors were among his most rabid supporters) and other monied people in Germany, Europe and in fact throughout the rest of the Anglo-Saxon world. Many ordinary German manual workers could see that it would all end in tears. Hitler was simply a driven psychopath in the right place at the right time for short-term success, followed by unimaginable catastrophe. Since WWI, the far right has been, virtually by definition, infinitely stupid, finally by their cynicism obtaining political power, then leading the world into war and economic ruin.

Germany's cities and towns were extensively reduced to rubble; even with the help of the Allies, including the Russians, millions died of starvation, and in their push from the East I think a quarter of a million German women were raped by the incoming Russians -not on a freelance basis, as some of the French and doubtless other foreign troops did, but as a matter of policy. Nor were they one-off encounters, but regular and habitual over a period of time.

He viewed the reluctance among the rest of the countries of European after WWI for more bloodshed and waste, which would inevitably be incurred by another world war in Europe, as a sign of weakness and exploited it to the full. You may consider that brilliant, but to me it's just what psychopaths do best, cut corners without giving the least thought to any concept of morality. So 'blitzkieg' (originally conceived by an Englishman, Liddell Hart, and seriously studied by German generals, unlike our own) was always going to be incredibly effective in the short term).

Germany's wartime economy was non-existent as an adult concept, relying as it did on foreign conquests.

His generals had forgotten more about military strategy than he'd ever learnt, but he respected his experts only erratically, and in key decisions, sometimes overruled them, leading to great, but needless loss of life of great numbers of his compatriots.

Nor does his "scorched earth" policy strike me as having been either brilliant or patriotic in its conception.

[mitchum]

42. Great post

Very insightful and well stated.
Well done

[Joe Chi Minh]

66. Thanks.

[WinkyDink]

20. There is no evidence of anything but a mediocre intellect.

He was ruthless and cunning,however.

[Solly Mack]

21. He surrounded himself with smart people

I couldn't resist


Hitler knew how to manipulate and he had to understand people to do it as well as he did. It's one thing to understand a person can be manipulated by their prejudices ...it's quite another to pull it off so effectively.

People tend to think of being brilliant in terms of something positive - because being intelligent is supposed to be a good thing. So being brilliant should be an even better thing.

However, the truth doesn't support that warm fuzzy need...a lot of truly bad people were brilliant.

It's easier and more comforting to think of "evil" in terms of incompetent, stupid, insane - all negatives - than it is to lump evil and brilliant together

So was Hitler brilliant?

I think he was a brilliant manipulator - owing that there are all kinds of brilliance. (in music, artist, writers, scholars, legal minds, chess players, etc. ... people such as Einstein... and even tyrants and madmen)

[Cleita]

28. Yes, but before he became the voice of the Nazi party,

people didn't like him. His regiment or whatever they called it then in the Bavarian army in WWI called him a black dove meaning, he didn't fit in with the rest of the men and wasn't included in their camaraderie.

However, he was able to get people with ambitions to overthrow the Weimar Republic to join his club because they saw something in it for them and appreciated the fact that he could perform well as an orator, raising the rabble so to speak.

[Solly Mack]

32. True- his fellow soldiers didn't think much of him

But I don't equate being brilliant at something with being intelligent all-around. Nor do I think brilliance and education go hand in hand. People can be brilliant, naturally - and not be educated formally.


So I do find his abilities at manipulation - primarily through his oratory skills - to have been a form of brilliance.

[11 Bravo]

24. Yeah, that whole "Russian front" thing was pure genius.

Here's the bottom line. Hitler was insane. I'm talking bat-shit, Katherine Harris insane. Insane does not mean stupid. Many individuals who are clinically insane have other gifts. Hitler's gift was demagoguery spiced with xenophobia.. He may have been the best who ever lived at it. But he's dead now, so fuck him, and may he rot in Hell.

[Nimrod2005]

25. Yes of course he was...

[Phredicles]

29. Do the math: When he started, Germany was one country,

and when he was done, it was two smaller, subservient, far less respected countries.

Yeah, that's brilliant.:sarcasm:

[ck4829]

30. No. He tried to attack Russia and his eugenics plan involved the spreading of recessive Traits

He knows neither military matters nor those of science, I'd say that he was PDD (Pretty Darn Dumb).

[and-justice-for-all]

31. Yes, I think so....

In a wicked sence...He had to be rather, manipulative and able to move an entire nation to his agenda. BushCo has used Hitlarian Tactics, to say Bush has not is to be delusiional and blind.

And contrary to popular belief, Hitler was never excommunicated from the Catholic Church. He was no Atheist, or he could have been and used Religion as the way to condition the masses to his movement of Global Domination and irradication of the Jews. I will say that his moral character was not present because of he was not "one with the lord"; he still would have been the same person without religious conditioning.

"(Religion) With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion" - Steven Weinberg

The same could be said about BushCo, after it was revealed that behind the backs of their "base" several of Bushies cronies would speak of the religious right leaders as "nuts" and other slurrs. Manipulation of a cast of people that make up over half the nations population, is not an accident, but part of the plan. People who are lost in a mass delusion can be easily swayed with the use of their own belief system, it does not take much convience the already conditioned sheeples to join your club. Now, not only does BushCo have blood on their hands, but so does those who elected them to the Hill, they are all responsible.

[BlooInBloo]

33. Exploting poverty, bigotry, and stupidity = brilliant?

Well shit - I sure made the wrong choice with philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and history.

More directly: The notion that exploiting poverty, bigotry, and stupidity earns one the "brilliant" appellation is asinine. By that standard, for example, gw would be brilliant. They were both smashingly successful (for a time, naturally). But then, neither does smashing success make one brilliant.

:rofl:

[MrSlayer]

34. Certainly.

You don't do what he did without being highly intelligent. He was two weeks from winning it all when the Russian winter came down on the wehrmacht. If he didn't have to save Mussolini in Yugoslavia, which delayed his attack on Russia, he would have won it. He was as smart as he was evil.

[Cleita]

35. Duh! All his generals told him to pull out of Russia but he wouldn't.

He made them stay to the last man and lost. That isn't a very smart person to me. * is doing the same in Iraq. The gig is over but he's "gonna stay the course" until there are no Americans left to come home.

[MrSlayer]

44. I never said he was sane, just that he was smart.

That was insanity. Toward the end he was quite out of his mind. He still could have won had he not been delayed in Yugoslavia, they were that close to taking Stalingrad when the winter hit.

[Joe Chi Minh]

77. Insanity and smartness don't go together - by definition.

[lonestarnot]

36. He was a brilliant orator who could stir up the masses with false hope and

promises. But he was also up to nothing but nutfuckery bout the same as modern day bushitler in the nutfuckery department.

[Cleita]

38. I think Rush Limbaugh could be a good present day comparison.

I know Rush isn't President but I'm pretty sure his air wave bluster got * a lot of votes. Hitler also did a lot of radio addresses as well.

[lonestarnot]

40. Yes you are right Rush Limpdick would be a good comparison, radio and

all.

[lonestarnot]

41. self delete... carry on.

:patriot:

[smalll]

82. You have it -

His only brilliance was his oratory. He failed or was mediocre at everything else. And I limit his prowess to oratory alone - it was others around him mostly who created the surrounding brilliance of Nazi propaganda, men like Hess, or even women like Leni Reifenstahl(sp?).

Hitler was a failed, disorganized, petty man who had a hard time waking up at noon. Pretty lazy - it is written that when he was at his house in the mountains at Berchtesgarten, he had a habit of taking a walk DOWN the mountain - but NEVER up (he'd have a car drive him back up the hill.)

But his oratorical performances were brillant. And it wasn't just all loud bombast. I've read that most of the time at least during his rise to power, he would start off quietly, hesitantly, even tell a few jokes, then slowly build up to his fury.

He was able to speak directly to the German mass man of the time -- who was filled, after World War I and the crises of the Weimar Republic, with a lot of insecurity, shame, sadness and confusion. Hitler emoted those things it seems, but of course through the power of nationalism which still lived in some way in most German hearts, tied to still-surviving 19th century romanticism, he was able to provide a satisfying catharsis and make people believe in grandeur power victory and certainty again.

His oratory was Shakesperean, IMHO. If he had been an English-speaking man rather than a German, I would have liked to have seen him go into acting. I bet he could have done a great Lear. Perhaps too over-the-top for contemporary tastes, but it would have been something!

[Selatius]

39. He was brilliant at stoking the fires of nationalism in a nation ruined by war and inflation

He painted convenient scapegoats for the common people to rally against, and he rebuilt Germany's smashed military and rebuilt German industry in preparation for war in association with bankers and industrialists of the era. He made many Germans feel good about being German again, not something with which to be ashamed and humiliated. He made them feel that it was their destiny to be a world power, to stand toe-to-toe with other world powers. That is why he and the National Socialists entered parliament and won several key positions in the government.

[baldguy]

43. You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!

The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!



Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

[William769]

45. Look how he ended up.

That should answer your question.

[mentalsolstice]

48. Perhaps brilliantly insane? n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

49. He was a "brilliant" politician playing to the people's fears.

Germany was on the verge of civil war. The Social Democratic government had enlisted the right wing "Freikorps" to crush the left wing revolution of the Bolsheviks which many Germans saw as a threat from the working class.

The Versailles Treaty which ended WWI imposed heavy reparations on Germany which the government tried to pay off by allowing massive hyper-inflation which impoverished the middle class. Then came the depression which made things even worse. The Social-Democratic government was blamed (with good reason) and the "moderate" parties dismissed Hitler as a
flash in the pan aberration. The capitalists backed him in fear of the Bolsheviks and thought they could control him if he came to power. The military was eager to rebuild and had visions of being the "real" power if he succeeded. The German people saw him as a "strong" leader who would curb the power of the "Jewish Capitalists" and save them from the "Jewish Bolsheviks".

Hitler wasn't "brilliant", he was lucky..at first.

Militarily he made monumental blunders. Allowing the Brits to escape from Dunkirk was just the beginning. He had some brilliant generals who were able to achieve great tactical victories, but were smart enough to see that strategically they were doomed. Hitler dismissed the best generals when they faced inevitable defeats by overpowering force and tried to convince him to make peace. He took over from the generals and tried to run the war as a sort of "do or die" effort. He was a rank amateur. After Stalingrad it was just a matter of time and massive bloodshed until he had his glorious "Gotterdamerung" outside the bunker.

He was, at best, a petit bourgeois mediocrity obsessed with his own imagined greatness with a talent for playing off his enemies against each other politically and diplomatically. A politician in the fullest and worst sense of the word.

He was made for Mencken's quote about politics:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken

[bridgit]

50. not nearly so brilliant as he was cunning like an animal...

[alcibiades_mystery]

51. Hitler was a brilliant rhetor

That's more or less undeniable. He had an intuitive feel for language and rhetoric. He knew how to read crowd situations and audiences. I'm not sure you could find anyone who studies speech or rhetoric for a living to deny that. Many of the techniques developed by the Nazis in propaganda have since become the norm in public relations. Hitler pioneered the airplane campaign stop, for instance, and the Nazi propaganda apparatus developed a number of demographic techniques still used in marketing. Hitler (and particularly Goebbels) also understood quite a bit about the interconnection of war and film (see Paul Virilio's brilliant War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception. For instance, the entire notion of "embedded media" that made such a hullabaloo in the Iraq invasion was actually pioneered by the Nazis on the Eastern Front, primarily at Goebbels urging, but with Hitler's implicit desires in mind.

(The same can be said of counter-insurgency strategy. The entire doctrine of counter-insurgency was developed not in Vietnam, as the historically myopic think, or even during the so-called War of the Running Dogs - the British fight with the Malaysian Communists - but rather in the Balkans and Greece, by the Wehrmacht. The Phoenix Program in Vietnam was directly modelled after Wehrmacht techniques in the Balkans. That's also pretty much undisputed by experts)

[silverojo]

52. He was a genius at dealing with people

That's why they so readily bought his B.S. Intelligence comes in many varieties. His was in the realm that, today, is called "social intelligence".

[trumad]

53. Wow--- That's why I love DU

It's loaded with er "brilliant" people...and I mean that.

Great posts and thanks

[demosincebirth]

54. If he was brilliant he would have risen higher than a corporal in

the Austrian Army during WW1

[Imagevision]

55. How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html

When you Google Prescott Bush and Hitler:
http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm

[Greyhound]

62. Thanks this link is great. n/t

:kick:

[sandrakae]

56. No. He was a mad man.

[Greyhound]

58. He was a popular rabble-rouser that developed a following in the beer halls

as a passionate speaker to the dispossessed and desperate which, thanks to the French and the Treaty of Versailles, were plentiful. During this time there was a significant segment of the ruling class that thought fascism was a wonderful idea, and decided to unite first Europe, and eventually the rest of the world, under that system, with them at the top of course. They picked their front men and gave them the means and direction to take power. Hitler was their greatest success, but they stupidly made no provision for the possibility that he would not be obedient to them once he achieved that power.

So, in one respect, that of a speaker he was very talented and arguably brilliant.

[Dastard Stepchild]

63. Skillful opportunist maybe...

He had opportunity windows that he jumped through, and did so.

But I don't know that I would confuse opportunist with brilliant.

[Cleita]

64. You have the most plausible analysis of him IMHO.

I don't consider him brilliant though or even close.

[porphyrian]

67. He was charismatic, perhaps only due to his confidence in his beliefs,...

...but that doesn't make him brilliant. Dejected, hopeless people will cling to just about any hope, no matter how unlikely or ugly.

[aquart]

68. He was a first-class demogogue.

But he had an agreement in place with Stalin...what was the point of violating it? Russians have been happy anti-semites for centuries. If he hadn't invaded, they would have had his back.

Like the neocons, he replaced common sense with ideology. That's just stupid.

[Bluerthanblue]

70. Germany was 'ripe' for the picking-

as my father who fought in WWII explained it to me, WE the "allies" from WWI left Germany in a position where they were hopeless, and in desperate for a leader who could offer them some kind of 'direction'-. Any kind of direction. Sadly, it was a man with an agenda of hate, and world domination that was able to manuver himself into the position of leader- And to lure the people into following him-

"Brilliant"? not in my opinion- "Crafty?, Wylie?, a Manipulator?" yes to all those, but brilliance to me, would require the ability to see the ramifications of ones actions, and to have a goal that was larger than 'oneself'. To quote a 'brilliant" man-

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." MLK jr.

Hitler would be the complete opposite of 'brilliant' IMO- his darkness was as deep as the 'brightness' required to qualify one as 'brilliant'.

blu

[stepnw1f]

71. No... He Was an Egomaniacal Sociopathic Crazy Man Like Bush

Just look at all the pain and suffering our own asshole has brought upon the World. Does that look like briliance to anyone? Well maybe if you are an investor in the Military Industrial Complex, then just maybe....

[rman]

72. A useful tool for the big money interests,

being the demagogue and the great orator that he was.

It is without exception that fascism, nazism, dictators and despots receive strong support from a broad contingent of big corporations and large banks, regardless of who's friend or foe. To these powers that be, politicians serve merely to legitimize their rule. Hitler was one that served their purpose very well.

He was an idiot in over-ruling his generals, and proved to be even more of an idiot in the military decisions that he took.

[spillthebeans]

73. I don't know, ask Dr. Henry A. Murray

http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/donovan/hitler/

Analysis of the Personality of Adolph Hitler

With Predictions of His Future Behavior and Suggestions
for Dealing with Him Now and After Germany's Surrender

http://library.lawschool.cornell.edu/donovan/hitler/Hitler_whole.pdf 21MB PDF

[MilesColtrane]

76. I think the only aspect that could be considered "brilliant" was..

his public speaking ability. He could spew insane hatred and people bought it.

[Cleita]

80. Yep, like I said the Rush Limbaugh of his day.

He also had a problem with drugs.

[Bad Penny]

85. He had charisma, an ability to tap into a defeated nation's

primal bitterness and hatreds, and he was a gambler who rolled the dice continually early on in his power grab and kept hitting 7's. He became a master orator/performance artist though at first he was as much a visible idiot as Bush is. He said what his people wanted to hear, and had the boldness to go over-the-top with it. But he was inept as a leader and as a military strategist. His Reich was full of destructive losers of every stripe. The Russia debacle in lieu of invading Britain was a blunder of historic proportion and pretty much shows us how 'brilliant' Hitler was.
Hitler was as stupid as any evil bastard has been since we were all monkeys in a tree