Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Is there a moral difference between Nazis and Communists?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/edwest/100026946/is-there-a-moral-difference-between-nazis-and-communists/

I would say that Stalin and Hitler were equally evil. The Holocaust was hardly better or worse than the countless millions of landowners, Ukrainians, ordinary citizens, military officers and others who were starved to death, murdered or sent to gulags.

However, can we compare, instead, the ordinary Nazi versus the ordinary communist? Both were (or are) often motivated by misplaced ideals. Nazis were largely aware, and sometimes supportive, of the worst crimes of Hitler. Ordinary Wehrmacht members were often involved in gross murders in occupied lands. Many such soldiers were tasked with murderous activities and they wrote home about them. On the other hand, communists frequently distance themselves from the monster, Stalin, and repudiate his methods as not true communism.

As much as I disapprove of communism, I think that the ordinary Nazi in some ways was more evil than today's ordinary communist, but note that there were probably Nazis who themselves opposed (though probably quietly) Hitler's worst actions.

By the way, there were as many as 40 attempts on Hitler's life, but the most likely explanation for why they failed is that the would-be assassins usually tried to save their own lives. Thus, they would set bombs to explode after they had left, or chose to not simply walk up to Hitler and pull out a gun (if they had such access). I owe this insight to Count Miklos Banffy, d.1950, former foreign minister of Hungary and author of The Phoenix Land, published by Arcadia Books (I intend to review this excellent book on Charles Saline Books).


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