The Hitler o f History
Lukacs, John
MOVING THE MASSES John T. McGreevy doIf Hitler is the most important figure of the last one hundred years, claims historian John Lukacs, and an evaluation of Hitler's biographers is in...
...The first claim is at least debatable...
...Jews threatened the German nation, Hitler persistently stressed, and must be eradicated from it...
...The institute, jointly founded by Pope Paul VI and the University of Notre Dame, is a residential center for visiting scholars interested in the ecumenical and interreligious dimensions of scriptural, theological and pastoral studies...
...Lukacs's warnings about this kind of nationalism, as exemplified by the career of Adolf Hitler, are salutary, a reminder of how idolatry of nation can fatally limit our moral imagination...
...Populist nationalism has an often unseemly history, but Soviet, British, and American nationalisms proved more than a match for their Nazi counterpart...
...That Communist regimes survived into the late twentieth century testifies either to their ability to harness nationalist energy (Cuba) or to the military support of the Soviet Union (the German Democratic Republic, until 1989...
...Mao and the leaders of the Chinese revolution surely transformed the lives of more people, and the regime he began continues to shape the politics and economics of the world's most populous hemisphere...
...He lived in a populist age, distant from the more hierarchical, ordered societies of the past...
...Excellent management, communication, interpersonal and cooperative skills are necessary qualifications...
...The book displays astonishing erudition, and a philosophical acuteness rare in historical inquiry...
...Hitler was a nationalist, not a patriot...
...Marxian faith (or hope) that workers had no country weakened before the eagerness of workers to slaughter each other in World War I, and collapsed completely in the face of the Nazi regime...
...It also offers three-month sessions in continuing education for parish clergy, religious teachers and other church workers, as well as semesters of international study for undergraduates...
...The rector is the academic and administrative leader of the institute, and is responsible for the continuing development of its ecumenical and interreligious mission...
...UI John T. McGreevy, the author of Parish Boundaries (University of Chicago Press), teaches histo W at the University of Notre Dame...
...And the specifically American belief that the nation was uniquely devoted to social equality also laid the groundwork for successful civil rights protests during the 1960s...
...Tantur Ecumenical Institute for Theological Studies in Israel invites nominations and applications for the position of rcctor...
...One of Lukacs's most telling, and discouraging, examples is an allusion to a 1942 debate at the German Catholic bishops' conference, at which some priests suggested segregating Jewish Catholics into special communion services...
...Patriots appreciate other cultures, while nationalists rank them...
...Southern segregationists thought of themselves as nationalists and patriots, too, of course, but at that moment more Americans saw their national ideals reflected through Martin Luther King, Jr., than through Bull Connor...
...This sort of nationalism fulfills spiritual and emotional needs by rallying partisans to an intense hatred of supposed national enemies...
...By 1938, Germans are marrying and having children at an extraordinary rate, a demographic marker of social confidence all the more remarkable when contrasted with falling birthrates and economic indicators in most Western nations...
...German workers professed confidence in the Ffihrer even as Soviet troops encircled Berlin...
...For Lukacs, the Hitler phenomenon demonstrates that nationalism - - not communism, not socialism, not mass consumption- proved to be the "principal political reality of the twentieth century...
...Hitler's achievement (using the term in its most neutral sense) is in this way different from that of Caesar or Napoleon...
...Patriotism, he maintains, is rooted in the land or the history of a particular country, but nationalism depends upon a myth of the people, a myth that often has exclusionary implications...
...With the assistance of the vice-rector and administrator, the rector oversees the educational programs and conferences, the finances, and the staff, and develops cooperative relationships with appropriate academic and religious persons to further the aims of the institute, both in the local and international arenas...
...Nominations and applications will be accepted until May 1, 1998...
...Applicants should provide a letter of introduction, a current resume and four references...
...MOVING THE MASSES John T. McGreevy doIf Hitler is the most important figure of the last one hundred years, claims historian John Lukacs, and an evaluation of Hitler's biographers is in order...
...But these parlor games do not diminish Lukacs's second point, that Hitler's life requires sustained reflection...
...This distinction seems to me forced...
...Indeed, our recent inability to further social reform with appeals to national ideals--note the health-care debate of 1993-94--may signal American nationalism's waning power...
...134 Hayes-Healy Center University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 Co*nmonweal 3 | April 10, 1998...
...Applications should be submitted to: Tantur Rector Search Committee c/o Rev...
...A doctorate is preferred, and a working knowledge of Hebrew and/or Arabic would be strong assets in the position...
...Under his direction, the German economy thrives, and he wins adulation of an unprecedented sort...
...Since its creation in 1971, over 3,500 Orthodox, Protestants, Anglicans and Roman Catholics have participated in the programs...
...Perhaps a more precise way of making Lukacs's point is to emphasize his rejection of a particular kind of nationalism, one that in effect becomes religious...
...At times Lukacs worries that patriotism may be irrelevant in a democratic age, that nationalism is a form of Tocqueville's democratic tyranny...
...Given this view of the Hitler pheCommonweal 3 0 April 10, 1998 nomenon, Lukacs is understandably wary of nationalism's power...
...The basic story remains startling: a failed Austrian architect assumes dictatorial powers in one of Europe's best educated and most "civilized" nations ten years after a desultory beer hall putsch lands him in jail...
...The consolidation of the Soviet revolution in the hands of Josef Stalin, and Stalin's ability to withstand the Nazi assault during World War II, ensured the extension of the cold war into the farthest reaches of the globe...
...Mark L. Poorman, C.S.C...
...Concentration camp officials continued to slaughter Jews long after the outcome of the war was obvious...
...Hitler was only "its most extreme representative...
...Nationalism, too, meshed with Hitler's Judeophobia...
...The successful candidate will possess significant experience in educational administration and a distinguished record of academic accomplishment in the area of biblical theology', ecumenical and interreligious studies, or related fields...
...When in September 1944, the government called for sixteen-year-old Germans to volunteer for service, 96 percent promptly did so...
...Had Hitler died in 1938, Lukacs observes, agreeing with biographer Joachim Fest, he would have been remembered by most Germans as the fulfiller ("der Vollender") of Germany's destiny...
...To lead," Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, "means to be able to move the masses...
...He had an uncanny ability to tell powerful Germans--industrialists, church leaders, politicians - - what they wanted to hear, while building a base of support that would eventually allow him to eliminate all opponents...
...Seven years later Hitler committed suicide, but only after unleashing the most bloody of all wars, and spurring the most horrific of all genocides...
...His last testament, dictated a few hours before his death, pleads with Germans not to allow Jews to return to their midst...
...Tantur, located just outside Jerusalem oil tile road to Bethlehem, is a center for theological inquir> Christian ecumenical studies, and interreligious dialogue between Christian.s and those of other world faiths, especially Jews and Muslims...
...The Hitler of History is precisely that, a reasoned survey of over one hundred Hitler biographies in several European languages...
Vol. 125 • April 1998 • No. 7
