I missed the important aspect Nanner wrote of which is that what happened was probably necessary to show the world the consequences of a certain sort of thinking if allowed to run uncontrolled in the modern world.

We surely have to take this view unless we're resolved that creation is out of control, that God is not omniscient, or that there's a devil who could possibly 'win'. Or if Buddhist that 'natural goodness' is not the underlying nature of things.

If we can take this on board then perhaps the bit that we have to understand is precisely that it was not an extreme exception brought about by the exceptional depravity of one man. The world is full of people who if born into the particular circumstances and zeitgeist with his particular (and not all that uncommon) tendencies and karma would deliver precisely the same. He wasn't necessarily all that exceptional.

He in a sense seems to have bought into the belief that was pretty universal before WW2 to the effect that force, authoritarianism and war were perfectly legitimate means by which to progress your aims. That if it didn't work that you weren't ruthless enough, you needed to up the ante.

My (now very old) parents and most of their generation took a view of working life that reflected precisely that vibe. That if you failed it was your own fault, you didn't try hard enough or weren't tough enough.

Hitler fought and suffered in the trenches in WW1, at a time when in England the ladies of the local women's institute or whatever were still handing out white feathers and social catastrophe or worse to those who refused to enlist. War was still seen through the rose tinted lens of an earlier horse powered era where casualties were very limited.

It's in a sense perhaps only in the appalling aftermath of WW2 (also in the East), and with the emergence in the 1960s of anti war sentiment (helped peculiarly enough by the years of anti Hitler propaganda which actually has made it much harder for our leaders to sell war - they now have to resort to fear mongering and talk of 'defence') that the (actually highly selective) view of Hitler as a pariah has even become possible.

We've been subject to over 50 years of unrelenting propaganda and demonisation of him by those that got to write the history books - yet they have gone on to show that they in turn are very happy to use military force and similar tactics (moderated only by this new zeitgeist and public morality and awareness of the horrors of war) to achieve their ends.

We've even done the same sort of thing (perhaps not quite on the same scale) many times over since - for example Stalin, various South American types, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Stalin and so on. Robert Mugabe is steadfastly working his way down the same road, but probably hasn't the wealth or the time left to reach quite the same heights. And those are only the headliners, every single one of us that resorts to force and power to achieve our ends is in the same space. The US and Europe have not been shy either about the use of military power for economic ends.

If we try to apply a karmic perspective to Hitler then perhaps he created both a lot of very negative karma for himself, and at the same time a lot of positive karma by fulfilling a really important task in the world. Who's to judge what his ultimate debt if any was? All that's required of him is perhaps just a simple recognition of his initial error?

It's not a task by the way that would have been required if all of the players that created the context he found himself in had actually built a different and loving reality in which he was gently steered away from whatever latent tendencies he had.

That too presumably created an enormous karmic debt, perhaps moderated only by the fact that it was spread over so many centuries and so many peoples. But the war cost so many on all sides so much, perhaps much of it was paid off.

Perhaps he was as much sinned against as sinner, so to speak.....

Hi! All,

I must say I am very surprised at the response to my somewhat rhetorical thread about Hitler. If we look at the near death experience where a person must go through the life review where everything one has done in life is played off in front of them, where they feels not only the affect of ones own action on self,  but the pain, sorrow, horror desolation inflicted on others as a result of their actions. Hitler had to feel this when he died and perhaps that was his punishment (it must have been terrible).

Remember Harry Truman, he said, “the buck stops here”, so he took the responsibility for bombing Japan.

Likewise, with Hitler the buck stopped with him on the Second World War so all its horrors are on his direct accountability.

No matter how we try to rationalize and compare an evil monster like Hitler with normal humanity we cannot. There are consequences for what we do in this present life that go into the next like, like it or not. Be they the Christian hell or Kara reversion

Hitler was an evil beast and no amount of convoluted argument will convince me otherwise. His deserver’s punishment, but what kind of punishment I leave up to God.

To try to exonerate this evil monster in human form is immoral to me.

Regards,

Alan

Hi guys. Each to his own I guess but my point was not to exonerate him. The point was just that he may simultaneously have done great good and very great harm, and that in karmic terms these may balance to whatever degree.

It's clear that he must eventually come to see and face what he did. But this is only one side of the picture, and I'd not presume to judge the total picture or the highest view.

Presuming that he does face a karmic debt, I'd argue that it was/will be himself that drive him into a reality where he can learn otherwise when he is placed so that he sees the enormity of the harm done.

But the suffering this entails seems likely to be only as much as is needed for him to drop his identification with the use of power, force and compulsion as a means to achieve ends. Perhaps for example (although there's no reason to think this) he had an epiphany before he died.

Point being we it's often said suffer not out of the imposition of some sort of revenge or judgement  by God, but as a result of the very practical effects and consequences of our own choosing to live from other than love. Once we wake up we're instantly forgiven.

As a final point I'd suggest that if his words had not resonated with many he'd just have been some loon ranting on a street corner or in a beer hall in Munich. He can't be handed the entire tab for what happened....

Vajra - I must say you have impactful words and I agree with you.
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Fubar - I found it, thanks.

On 30 January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor. On 23 March 1933 his government was given legislative powers through the Enabling Act and was passed by all Reichstag except the Social Democrats and Communists (whose deputies had already been arrested). Hitler had obtained the votes of the Centre Party, led by Prelate Ludwig Kaas, by issuing oral guarantees of the party's continued existence and the autonomy of the Church and her educational institutions. He also promised good relations with the Holy See, which some interpret as a hint on a future concordat.

In April, he sent his vice chancellor Franz von Papen, a Catholic nobleman and former member of the Centre Party, to Rome to offer negotiations about a Reichskonkordat. On behalf of Cardinal Pacelli, Ludwig Kaas, the out-going chairman of the Centre Party, negotiated the draft of the terms with Papen. The concordat was finally signed, by Pacelli for the Vatican and von Papen for Germany, on 20th July. One of Hitler's key conditions for agreeing to the concordat, in violation to earlier promises, had been the dissolution of the Centre Party, which occurred on July 6.[3]

The Reichskonkordat was ratified on September 10, 1933. In the Concordat, the German government achieved a complete proscription of all clerical interference in the political field (articles 16 and 32). It also ensured the bishops' loyalty to the state by an oath and required all priests to be Germans and subject to German superiors. Restrictions were also placed on the Catholic organisations.

Shortly before signing the Reichskonkordat, Germany signed similar agreements with the major Protestant churches in Germany.The Catholic Church was not alone in signing treaties with the Nazi regime at this point. The concordat was preceded by the Four-Power Pact Hitler had signed in June 1933.

--- Now I am starting to get the "big" picture. Because the War for the "people" began as early as 1935, 1-2 years after the signing of these documents. They recall changes, daily changes in their lives. So if I am guessing at this correctly The regime wanted back up from the "Religions" to commence into this monstery and from all I can read up on this : The Regime got that back-up in form of this Reichkonkordat!

Yeah I knew about the funding of the big honchos in industry, however the major RELIGIONS BACK UP  I had no idea of. I mean com`mon, how can religious doctrine teach sunday school lessons about love, faith, divine godly like atomosphere while in same incident signing a freakin document in another country which allows such mass distruction? Oooops Nannerghost seriously emotional right now...Not good when angels cry! 

It's OK Nanner, it was just karma playing out. The reality is I guess that a key step on the spiritual path is to see and come to terms with the groundless nature of the fact that none of human institutions are very reliable, and that while they come wrapped in all sorts of self serving propaganda all are shot through by the narrow and unwise self interest of those controlling them.

It's unfortunately the egotists that normally rise to the top. Be that in politics, nationalism, law, medicine, technology, popular culture, industry, the military, the institutional churches - whatever.

Blink has hit the nail on the head.

The important aspect of the whole story of WW2 is that we use it to waken up, that we connect with a more accurate version of the reality, that we draw the right message from the whole episode so that it's less likely to happen again.

We've touched on big political, international banking, industrial, religious and other interests as playing a part. (They have by the way continued this pattern of backing totalitarian regimes ever since - apart from those they choose to set up as enemies and demonise that is - look at the various S American strongmen, the Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein and so on. Look too at recent politics, propaganda and the military/industrial complex in the US, and in other countries, and the way they have brought us to the brink yet again.)

The mood of the german people in the aftermath of the reparations imposed by the WW1 allies combined with a militaristic vibe dating from way back (but focused by Bismarck and the like) played a part too.

Not to mention the 'sins of omission' of all the ordinary people and political leaders across the world who turned a blind eye initially to the suffering in germany, and later to the rise of Nazism. And who are continuing to do so to what's happening today.

There's rather a large lobby that it suits to hang the blame for the whole WW2 affair on Uncle Adolf.

While he was far from blameless, that's clearly a highly selective and very partial view. But one (if we judge by the stridency and insistence of the continuing propaganda to that effect that takes in so many) that many want to keep alive. (which suggests by the way that many know something they don't want ordinary people to realise)

That includes those today that want to retain the ability to ultilise power, force, war and repression as a means of forcing through their ends.

The one thing that can stop them is a population that stops believing their self serving fairy stories about winners and losers, heroes, bravery, romanticism about the military, the civilisation threatening spectre of Bin laden (just another individual in a cave, but one harnessing precisely the same vibe that Hitler did - which exists for precisely the same reasons) and so on.

It comes back to the belief that the (selfish) means justifies the end versus living from wisdom and compassion  yet again. There's many that quite genuinely see the former as 'good sense', or at least as the only option available.

It's our task to wake up, to play our part in showing the world that there's another way of seeing, being and doing that works.....

Okay    I have no idea, how my "Quote" got put into a "Quote" and then my part to the thread right into the middle of both "quotes"...LOL..