He sat on a chair under an arbour in a middle of a European‐styled garden. He was a rather short man with black hair and a small and funny black moustache. When I saw him, he already finished eating his breakfast, and he drank coffee and read the morning paper while wearing army uniform.
It was Adolf Hitler. I decided to approach him.
“Sir,” I told him, “I am a big fan of yours.”
“Really?” he said as a smile of pleasure came up on his face “I’m very glad to hear that. Come sit, I always have time for fans.”
“Even though I’m not too fond of your actions as a whole, your contribution to philosophy was quite impressive.”
“Pardon? To what contribution are you referring?”
“No; you should not be modest, Mr. Hitler. You should not deny that you contributed a lot to the establishment of a thesis, which is one of the most important philosophical theses in the last two hundred years. Yes… it’s obvious to me that you must be feeling…”
“Excuse me again, but I don’t understand which philosophical contribution you are praising at the moment. To praise me is, of course, something that is always desirable, but I also want to know for what I am praised. I cannot think of any special contribution which I contributed to worldwide philosophy.”
“Seriously? ” I called in wonder, “I never assumed a person like you will not know of something so significant that he is responsible for. Sir, you were one of the central philosophers who claimed that morality is equal in fact to `no morality´.”
“Did I claim that?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Allow me to quote you:
A people that is deprived of its right is allowed to use any weapon whatsoever. We do not have a conscience and I hold any weapon I need… I will do anything that will simplify my politics. I am willing to guarantee the safety along all the borders and to sign agreements for non‐invasion and to make treaties of friendship with every nation and nation. After all it would be naïve to think, that you should not use such measures just because the future status may bring you to break these festive agreements. | ||
--Adolf Hitler |
Well, don’t you agree that you are saying here that the morality, which one should act upon, is lack of morality?”
“No. This is indeed my quotation, but it does not mean that I think the Aryans should behave in an immoral way. You see, in this passage I meant that the members of the Aryan race can, or even should, take those actions in their struggle against members of lesser races, or against Aryan nations which stand in the way of Nazism.”
“So you mean a Nazi cannot kill another Nazi, but he is allowed to kill a Jew or a Negro, or even another Aryan who actively opposes the Nazism?”
“Yes, you can interpret it that way, if you generalise it from international politics to the private plane.”
“Mr. Hitler, thanks to your response, your claim seems a lot more humane to me now! I take back saying that you claim that morality in fact equals to `no morality´.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“Yes. Yes. It can be seen that all the time you acted out of that ideology, and not out of the simplistic ideology that I, by mistake, thought you held earlier. There’s definitely much more reason behind your actions now that you’ve enlightened me.
Of course an outsider, who didn’t have the chance to speak with you yet, could have reached the same conclusion I reached based on your actions. After all, Nazi Germany attacked and destroyed countries, that were mostly Aryan, and caused the killing of many, among them pure Aryans.”
I noticed he was opening his mouth to say something, but I did not let him speak. “Yes, I know it was done because those countries acted out of Anti‐Aryan interests. Or just because their conquest benefited the welfare of the whole Aryan race in the long term. I will also not discuss much detention camps, `purification´ acts and other such organised actions in which a large number of members of Aryan peoples were killed. It`s obvious that they can be justified by similar arguments.
However, I am interested in several hypothetical situations, that did not occur in real‐life. I`d love to know how you would have acted in them.”
He seemed a little pleased with my speech: “I agree to enlighten you, so you’ll witness the moral righteousness of the National‐Socialistic ideology.”
“I thank you.”. I took out a notebook and a pencil from my pocket, and opened the notebook in its first page. “Let’s start: What would you have done in case of an ideological attempt of a coup d’etat?”
“What do you mean?”
“Imagine a group of activists, which was active until now in secret, that energetically opposes your ideology. It turns out, that because of an intelligence failure, a large percent of the population now supports its views and it has a large number of enthusiastic and active supporters, who are active for the advancement of their cause.”
“And what is the nature of those activists: Socialists? Communists? Liberals? … ”
“Let’s say, for the sake of simplicity, that they are people of my intellect, only that, as opposed to me, they are sane.”
“Okay. And what are their arguments against the Nazism?”
“Well, they claim that the Nazism was meant to enforce the dictatorship of a ruling and a corrupt group. This thing is done by manipulating common psychological weaknesses and destructive mental tendencies. This political and social doctrine is based on a basic mistrust in the ability of the individual to decide for himself, and a total belief in the ability of the leader to decide for the public. Likewise it opposes the freedoms of the individual but believe in an absolute manner that the leader, who is also the founder of the doctrine, is free to do as he pleases. The ideology of the Nazism is, in their claim, incredibly subjective, and is based on superstitions that lack any basis in reality.
They also have some criticism against you: they claim you are charismatic and manipulative, but incompetent for any practical purpose, obsessive and with a chronic lack of self‐esteem. Your racism proves, in their opinion, that you are infected by the disease that you are spreading, and the number of yells that you cried out of your free will a long time ago exceeded the boundary of good manners.”
“Wait a second, and people agree with them?”, he said in a weak voice as he moved uncomfortably on his chair.
For the first time in all the events which were depicted in this book, I did not respond, but remained silent and smiled a wide smile.
“O.K. And you want me to tell you how I plan to react against them?” the dictator asked.
“Yes. But you should also know some more facts: in their claim, the Nazism is very destructive and if people will let it go on, it could lead to the loss of millions and even dozens of millions lives of people. Because of that, and because of the danger it hides to the individual rights and his freedom, one must fight the government as powerfully as possible, even through self sacrifice.”
“And you want to know how I am going to deal with them?”
“Of course! But don’t you want to know first the percentage of those who support them?”
“Ahhh… yes.”
“Let’s start with 10%.”
“Then for what do I wait for God’s sake? I’ll go to the army, to the SS and tell them to execute or imprison every leader or activist in this movement we know of. I’ll offer large sums of money to those who will hand over the activists who are hiding. Mass arrests, questionings…”
“According to what the army and the intelligence estimate, such activity will lead to a civil mutiny from the side of these supporters.”
“I am aware of that. But one should remember that at its end, Germany will be purified from those destructive creeps, who have handsome amounts of Jewish bloods in their veins.”
“Ahhh… did I already mention the fact that the leaders of the movement are pure Aryans?”
“No.”
“O.K., allow me to mention it: the leaders of the movement are pure Aryans.”
“And what does this fact have to do with anything?”, the dictator said angrily.
“Did I say it has anything to do with anything?” I replied in a question.
Hitler looked confused. Actually, I was also confused. But I didn’t show it.
“O.K.,” he said “is there anything else you want to know?”
“Yes. What would you have done if the percentage of the supporters had been 20%?”
“I told you… executions, arrests…”
“And 30%?”
“Likewise.”
“40%?”
He stood up and said: “The same thing.”
“O.K.” I said to him, “You clarified your position sufficiently. I understand your decision, because people from all the political wings agree that one has to take any measures against ideological activists whose ideology poses a threat to the proper regime. I’m sure that about a military coup d’etat, your decision would be completely different.”
“Wh… Wh… Wh… ”
“ ‘What’ ? ”
“Yes. What do you mean by ‘military coup d’etat‘? Do you mean some kind of ‘Sunday’s coup’, where a couple of military officers try to assassinate me or something like that?”
“No, of course not. In fact Göring and several generals of the Warmacht lead this coup. They intend to preserve the Nazism but are not content from you as their leader.”
“And what are their arguments against me?”
“Well, they use a more popular terminology than the first time — they just claim you’re mentally ill, capricious and delusional. Luckily for you, part of the people still support you.”
“Really? How many?”
“10%, for a start.”
“From where do you pull out those situations? O.K. — so I go underground, wage a war against the people who betrayed me and the forces that support them, and try to become ruler again.”
“Interesting. And what would you do if 20% support you?”
“Excellent! That would give me a better chance of succeeding!”
I wondered if he noticed the downside of the matter. “30%? 40%?”, I asked him.
“Even better!”
Apparently he did not.
I continued to present hypothetical situations to him, and to ask him what he would do if they happened. As time went by, he became more relaxed, responded with less emotion, and sat comfortably in his chair. It even seemed to me that he enjoys the whole deal. After a small hour I finished questioning him, and then I turned back the pages in my notebook, studied what I noted down for a while, and closed the notebook. I lifted my head and said to the dictator:
“Mr. Hitler, I must remark that, aside from your great contribution to modern philosophy, I am beginning to think you also have an extraordinary gift for diplomacy. Despite all the things you’ve said, I am still convinced that your doctrine is not based on the assumption that morality equals ‘no morality’. You wanted millions of Aryans to fight each other, whether in battles between armies, civil mutiny or even gang wars. You’ve come to dividing Germany and even the entire Aryan race to two camps, equal in their size and power, which were willing to fight each other until dusk. All that I’ve mentioned was done for the sole cause of you staying to rule over Germany.
But bloodshed was not the only act which you rationalised with such a brilliant strategy. In the course of the investigation, you reasoned how you would team together with Jews, Communists and/or Democrats in order to serve your interest; how you would agree to be the leader of a large group of clear anti‐Nazis, in hope you would be able to convert them to Nazism later. You even agreed to give speeches that boldly deny the Nazi theory in case it would have left you as a ruler.
If another person would say all that, then most people would think he was the most selfish and power‐hungry person they met. But because of your extraordinary diplomatic talent, I am still convinced that you are doing it out of high morality, and for a noble cause! I do not have enough words to describe the deep impression I have from the way you said those things!
Do you have anything to say about it, Mr. Hitler?”
Oh! I wish you could see the look on his face! Actually, I would have also liked to see the look on his face, but just then I woke up from the dream. After I woke up, I leaned on my elbows and looked outside the window. It was before dawn, a few minutes before sunrise, so the sky were a little lit to the east. Many birds twittered their morning twitter intensively — the chill, probably, did not disturb them much. After I looked a little at the village houses, in which most of the people were still asleep, I lied down again on bed.
“Damn it!” I said to myself “I was just beginning to warm up…”
End