Your information on Hitler's vegetarianism was not very interesting, and did not seem to be accurate. I produced a lot more information that he was not a vegetarian, and mine was better referenced and seemed more substantial to me.
But I think this is all quite silly because whether Hitler was a vegetarian is pretty much totally irrelevant. He is dead! Get over it! When I became a vegetarian I was under the impression that he was one. It had nothing to do with my own decision. I simply read things later that convinced me that Hitler's vegetarianism was a propaganda tool of the Nazis, to try and humanize him. There seemed to be substantial evidence from contemporary sources that this was the case. People who love eating liver dumplings are not vegetarian. Opponents of the anti-vivisectionist movement also used Hitler's supposed vegetarianism to try to make all vegetarians look bad. Isn't that rather stupid?
One of the things that convinced me that Hitler was not vegetarian was the way he and the Nazis treated animals. Perhaps you would be interested in reading this?
Nazism and animal abuse
Furthermore, the fact that the Nazis has no genuine interest in animal protection or rights is revealed by even a cursory review of the lifestyles and behaviour of the leading Nazis (including Göring who introduced the 1933 ruling). For example, Von Ribbentrop hunted (also having a hunting lodge). In the case of Himmler, who was Reichsfuehrer of the SS, and leader of the Gestapo, Reich Commisar for the Consolidation of German Nationhood, and Supreme Commander of the Volkssturm, while unhappy with certain features of hunting, he 'often' hunted and killed deer, and approved of hunting for food; his views towards animals was not based on 'animal rights' but was apparently derived from Hindu/Buddhist beliefs with which he was very familiar.[19] Furthermore, Professor Callum MacDonald notes that after Himmler became Reichsführer SS in 1929, he owned a chicken farm, i.e., he bred animals for slaughter and human consumption.[20]
In Wolfgang Paul's biography of Göring, who occupied such positions in the Nazi government as Reich minister for Air, Prussian Minister President, Prussian Minister of the Interior, Commander in Chief of the Air Force, Plenipotentiary for the Implementation of the Four-Year Plan, Chairman of the Reich Council for National Defence, and Reichmarschall, it is said that this war criminal was 'more likely to be found hunting game than planning a war', he owned a hunting lodge in the Schorfheide and the Rominter Heide, he had his own thickly stocked estate in which he hunted animals, and his Waldhof estate was decorated with bearskins. When he visited Peenemünde on 30 October 1944, General Dornberger recalled that he was dressed in leather boots and a fur coat.[21] In the case of Albert Speer, Hitler's architect and Minister for Armaments, when resting at different sites, he used reindeer skin for bedding.[22]
In the matter of Hitler's supposed affection for animals, Kershaw refers to Hitler's note in his Monologue (219: 22-23 Jan. 1942), relating to how he liked his dog but this was because of its obedience: Kershaw comments that as 'with his dogs, as with every human being he came into contact with, any relationship was based upon subordination to his mastery'; he also reports how one of Hitler's dog-whips was made from animal skin, and that Hitler would seek to impress a young female admirer by 'thrashing his own dog'.[23]
Mimi Reiter, a schoolgirl living in Berchtesgaden, the site of Hitler's own mountain retreat, became acquainted with Hitler in 1925: she described how on one occasion when they were walking with their dogs:
The two dogs suddenly attacked each other...Hitler suddenly intervened, like a maniac he hit his dog with his riding whip...and shook him violently by the collar. He was very excited...I did not expect that he could hit his dog so brutally and ruthlessly. 'How can you be so brutal and beat your dog like that?' I asked. 'It was necessary', Hitler said.[24]
Toland reports that Hitler's wife, Eva Braun, wore fox fur and Hitler himself wore deerskin clothing.[25] In the case of Hitler's own dog, the cyanide used by Eva Braun when she and Hitler committed suicide was not taken until it was first tested on the dog.[26] Before committing suicide Hitler summoned Prof. Werner Haase to test the poison and 'he forced open the dog's jaws and crushed the prussic acid capsule with a pair of pliers'.[27]
When Hitler referred to those whom he believed should be exterminated, he compared them to 'animals'.[28] It should also be noted that the word 'animal' does not occur anywhere in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf in respect of animal protection/rights; moreover, the word 'vivisection' is altogether absent. Indeed Hitler's view of the human being makes it abundantly clear that he believed the human was the most developed form of life and all other forms, which were therefore weaker, had no right to life:
Science has not yet established the roots of the human species. The only thing that is certain is that we are the highest stage of development in mammals...Anything that is ill-adapted to life, or not strong enough, gets eliminated'.[29]
In fact, any perusal of modern academic textbooks dealing with Nazi Germany will also show a complete absence of any reference to either animal rights or vivisection in the index. This in itself shows the gross exaggeration of pro-vivisectionists.
Various other facts that are known about the Nazi regime show any claim of a pro-vivisectionist that the Nazis were 'pro-animal' is absurd. For example, next to Hitler's palatial two-hundred acre Berhof villa in the village of Berchtesgaden was accomodation for his staff together with a farm on which animals were kept; these included pigs being bred for food after being slaughtered.[30] On one of the occasions when Hitler rewarded his close colleagues with presents, he gave The Falconer, written by Hans Makart, to Göring because of his love of hunting.[31] To exploit the resources of Russia, the Nazis established 'Eastern Monopoly Companies' with joint government participation. These included companies which dealt with oil, chemicals and textiles; one of these was to deal with the production of such items as animal furs. In respect of war engagement, the Nazis used 625,000 horses in their offensive against the Soviet Union, many of whom suffered and died. Furthermore, during the time when the Nazis occupied Russia, they consumed 600,000 tons of meat and this reached a stage when even Goebbels complained 'there are no cattle left'.[32]
Thus it is patently obvious from the above that the architects of Nazism had no genuine interest in animals or animal rights; furthermore, any stated intentions to give protection to animals (apart from the fact they were not implemented), were clearly insincere and were wholly annulled by the fact that most of the leading Nazis supported or even personally indulged in animal abuse.
Further examples are supplied in The Third Reich: A New History, a recent work by Michael Burleigh, a Distinguished Research Professor in Modern History and the author of several books dealing with the Third Reich. Despite its length, i.e., nearly one thousand pages, there are very few references to animals, once again indicating the fanciful nature of the pro-vivisectionist's argument that animal rights was a fundamental feature of Nazism.
The few references made include, for example, how Nazi supporters used the term 'animal' as a derogatory term to insult their opponents, how SS dog-handlers in concentration camps would kill any dog that showed a liking for a prisoner, that Göring suggested that Russian prisoners should 'live off cats and horses', and when Nazi-controlled German companies bought products from the Lodz ghetto, they were keen to purchase amongst other items, fur coats and combs made from cattle bones.[33]
It is also worth noting that Burleigh mentioned how 'scientists and doctors' (the heroes of the pro-vivisectionist), 'were frequently used' to support the Nazi program of exterminating the sick and that 45 per cent of doctors were members of the Nazi Party and 'many more doctors belonged to the SS than comparable professions with the exception of lawyers'. Burleigh wrote that physicians tended 'to treat ethics as an obligatory sideline'.[34] He also described how physicians were actively involved in the actual Nazi process of killing the sick:
Doctors stationed in adjacent alcoves turned on the manometers of the gas cylinders...death came in the dark, as the terrified victims rolled off the benches or collapsed on the floor or beat their hands against the doors when they realised what was happening to them. Ventilators extracted remaining fumes...[and] the corpses...slid across wet floors to the ovens. Their ashes were dumped in rivers or arbitrarily distributed in urns.'[35]
vivisection-absurd.org.uk. |
