I would never say "I admire Hitler" but as someone who believes in personal accountability I can say that he was unusually talented in powers of persuasion. I could say similar things about Stalin, Mao, and Castro. It's called "giving the Devil his due" -- from Shakespeare, Henry IV.
"Devil" being hyperbole - Hitler wasn't the Devil, he was a bad man, but human. But these days in some circles you can't admit that Hitler had any talents at all. You can't even say that Leni Reifenstahl was a talented film maker, because she admired Hitler herself during the 1930s.
I think it's probably OK to speak somewhat objectively about Hitler in, say, a college classroom, because I've done it fairly recently. I wrote an essay on Hitler's economic programs during the Great Depression in Germany a couple of years ago, and got an A minus. It was a little bit late.
Saying "Hitler did this, that, and the other thing, and it was in part good, in part bad, and in part mixed" isn't the same thing as saying "I want to kill all the Jews."
IMHO. |
