When US veterans of World War II recognized Hitler as evil

Everyone knows that Adolf Hitler was evil, but I'm curious if anyone using this forum in their lifetimes has ever had the chance to ask US veterans of World War II if they knew that Hitler was evil as soon as World War II started or after they saw bodies of dead and/or emaciated Jews, Gypsies, and gays at concentration camps in Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthasen, and Dachau. A search done on Google Books by me shows that a passage from the article about the film The Great Dictator in the 1940 issue of the magazine LIFE uses the word evil to describe Hitler, and when I recently saw a January 2006 news article talking about declassified documents showing that Winston Churchill discussed with his war cabinet in December 1942 the option of putting Adolf Hitler in an electric chair and electrocuted if he were captured, I found this passage from the news article making clear that Churchill himself was not afraid to use the word "evil" when characterizing Hitler during the first year of US involvement in World War II:

In cabinet discussions on what they might do with Hitler if he was captured, Churchill said in December 1942: “If Hitler falls into our hands we shall certainly put him to death.”

“This man is the mainspring of evil,” he added.

a reply to: Potlatch

he was a man full of hate and inferiority complexes, a fanatic, sociopath, a racist and a nationalist. for most germans he become evil after the war.

my grandmother saw him once, from a distance, marching through munich with his ss buddies. from the point of view of a german soldier: my grandfather was never in the nsdap (party), he was an ordinary soldier. he didn't talk much about the war, like basically the whole generation of soldiers. he never fought, always marched from there to there, all the way to france, where he was taken prisoner by the americans and shipped to america. he was ashamed all his life that he supported this sick regime as a soldier.

i believe most american soldiers did not know much about hitler (like most americans i guess). but i don't know. google knows the answer, for sure.(;

I've asked and, no most people didn't know.

Many at the time remember Time Magazine Man of the Year. 😁

originally posted by: xuenchen
I've asked and, no most people didn't know.

Many at the time remember Time Magazine Man of the Year. 😁

yeah, i forgot. interesting. just googled the reason:

"TIME explained what was perhaps the most controversial of its choices thus: "Hitler became in 1938 the greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today" (1/2/39)."

Hitler got his job in politics started from a very evil economic policy of prolonged hyperinflation on the Germans after losing WW1. The official reason to pay back reparations was rubbish. This money was just as useless to those receiving it as with those living with it. It was intentionally designed to destroy the nation and it did.

Numbers are hazy, lots died as all social infrastructure broke down. This is the political environment Hitler started with. The Jewish bankers and treasury department was first to go, a lot of this animosity continued.

With Germany taking over Poland, sounds like there was a lot of local support at the time. As Germany moved into Finland was when it was getting evil, they captured it and got a big boost to iron ore production for the rest of the war machine.

The battle in Ukraine sapped a lot of resources and stuffed up the attack on Russia. The attack on Paris and capturing France is a big one for going evil. Then into the Middle East for the oil. Germany was over extended on all fronts by this time, this move is evil for Germany. They held up well, put up a strong fight, but as little problems became big problems, it all just cracked away.

The Allies attack on the German aircraft manufacturing made a big dent to the overall German defense.

What I've always heard is that, until Allied forces actually found the concentration camps, the average American soldier had no clue about the Holocaust or any of its attendant horrors. Apparently, some rumors of it reach the Western press, but it was so over-the-top evil that most dismissed the stories as propaganda.

But to ask that question is to also wonder how Hitler rose to such enormous power in the years leading up to WWII -
There were many things happening all across Europe in those years. Economic collapse helped push Hitler into power, he said and did all the right things as far as that was concerned, promising to eradicate unemployment. But Hitler was also manic about what he saw as the takeover of German money by other nationalities, and the masses who were poverty-stricken followed him.
My Polish dad was young in those days, but the Polish people were helpless to do anything about what was happening - Germany invaded Poland, as did Russia, and whether you were Roman Catholic (my family), Jewish, or any other faith did not matter, you were sent to this camp or that to live or die.

originally posted by: RonnieJersey
But Hitler was also manic about what he saw as the takeover of German money by other nationalities, and the masses who were poverty-stricken followed him.

He was correct about that..

Dont you think it is odd that it was Only after the war?
just a thought, could some of it been propaganda?
and why??
Why did they not use it IN the WAR?

a reply to: Potlatch

My father said yes when I asked him that very question.

Anyone that was at all informed of events, at the very least, suspected such. Were there some that didn't? Of course.

originally posted by: AndyFromMichigan
What I've always heard is that, until Allied forces actually found the concentration camps, the average American soldier had no clue about the Holocaust or any of its attendant horrors. Apparently, some rumors of it reach the Western press, but it was so over-the-top evil that most dismissed the stories as propaganda.

Here is a transcript from a letter sent to Churchill. Look at the date. July 26th 1943. Two years before the allies reached the Concentration Death Camps.

News has been given on the wireless tonight about the mass murders carried out by the Germans in the district of Lublin in Poland. At the death camps of Majdanek and Treblinka a monstrous operation has begun, aimed at the destruction of hundreds of thousands of human beings who, no matter how valiant, are today absolutely unable to defend themselves or to put up any effective resistance. This means that Hitler is pursuing his policy of extermination of the Polish nation, a policy which he has so far carried out with appalling results and unpunished

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk...

The Allies knew what was going on.

a reply to: alldaylong

Yes, but ordinary folk and soldiers didn't.

originally posted by: Oldcarpy2
a reply to: alldaylong

Yes, but ordinary folk and soldiers didn't.

The woman who wrote that letter was an " ordinary " Polish woman living in London. So many did know what was going on.

She finishes the letter.

I beg you, Sir, to forgive me for writing to you personally in this matter but, like all other Poles both in this country and at home, I firmly believe in the friendship and sympathy with your nation that you have always expressed in your speeches and I know that you will not want to leave those helpless victims in Poland to their horrible fate.

originally posted by: Potlatch
Everyone knows that Adolf Hitler was evil, but I'm curious if anyone using this forum in their lifetimes has ever had the chance to ask US veterans of World War II if they knew that Hitler was evil as soon as World War II started or after they saw bodies of dead and/or emaciated Jews, Gypsies, and gays at concentration camps in Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthasen, and Dachau. A search done on Google Books by me shows that a passage from the article about the film The Great Dictator in the 1940 issue of the magazine LIFE uses the word evil to describe Hitler, and when I recently saw a January 2006 news article talking about declassified documents showing that Winston Churchill discussed with his war cabinet in December 1942 the option of putting Adolf Hitler in an electric chair and electrocuted if he were captured, I found this passage from the news article making clear that Churchill himself was not afraid to use the word "evil" when characterizing Hitler during the first year of US involvement in World War II:

In cabinet discussions on what they might do with Hitler if he was captured, Churchill said in December 1942: “If Hitler falls into our hands we shall certainly put him to death.”

“This man is the mainspring of evil,” he added.

I have known people or had relatives who saw action all the way from the trenches of WW1, through WW2 to Vietnam. I knew one fellow who actually met Hitler, and fought with a resistance movement when Germany was occupied. The extent of the NAZI atrocities weren't known until the end of the war (at least not by the average troops) and they only had their brainwashing and propaganda to go by.

As big a scourge as the NAZI's were, they were simply another chapter in the Western Imperialism that paved the way for fascism (both world wars were capitalist wars of Empire). The Spanish in the Americas, Belgian atrocities in the Congo, British in India (responsible for the deaths of 100+ million Indians over one 40 year period) being a few lowlights. The French and Dutch had their turns also. Though the British Empire was undoubtedly the worst scourge ever inflicted on our planet and spawned all manner of genocides.

The NAZIs greatly admired British Imperialism but the ones they chose as their model were the US. The seizing of power and genocide of a cultural minority, expansion via military conquest. Even the slavery the US struggled to abandon was admired, seems the NAZI's thought that was all the Slavic people to the east would been fit for (after they conquered and stole their land). The eugenics movement, the overt racism. The NAZI's openly considered US race laws when forming their own (but found many of the too harsh).

It's true the NAZI's were monsters but ironic that someone like Churchill is held up as a hero. Hitler deserved to be executed...right alongside Churchill (and Truman).

Strange the west falls silent on their own genocides and atrocities when discussing others. The US loves genocide, they have been celebrating their own on stage and screen forever and involved in others since. Interestingly, while the world were (rightly) horrified by the NAZIs, the Australian genocide was still in full swing.

Unfortunately whatever society and culture you are brought up in also comes with a thorough brainwashing (societies are brainwashing cults) that can be difficult to break away from. The idea the allied leaders were motivated to rid the world of fascism is a myth. As always they were motivated by power and wealth.

a reply to: Quintilian

Tosh.

Britain was faced with a Nazi invasion and had no choice.

Your take on history is warped.