Note: Just because the Nazis valued nature, instituted compassionate policies toward animals, and utilized homeopathy doesn’t mean these are bad things. Judaism prohibits uprooting fruit trees and discourages needless waste under the prohibition of bal tashchit. Cruelty toward animals is strictly forbidden, including for non-Jews as one of the 7 Mitzvot of Bnei Noach.
And I personally have used homeopathic medication with great success.
The problem starts when, for example, you make protecting fruit trees an “ism” and raise its priority higher than its actual value—as if uprooting a fruit tree is worse than murdering a baby.
_________________________________________
In NAZI GREENS - An Inconvenient History, Martin Durkin writes:
“Picture the scene. At the edge of a forest, German soldiers point their guns at rows of naked people who follow the Jewish religion. Among them are young mothers clutching their babies. The shots echo through the woods and the dead bodies fall into the ground. Down the road, while this is happening, their German army comrades are busy establishing nature walks and bird sanctuaries and planting trees…The same Nazi monsters who committed crimes of unimaginable barbarity also advocated vegetarianism, organic agriculture, forest preservation and homeopathic healthcare.”
And I personally have used homeopathic medication with great success.
The problem starts when, for example, you make protecting fruit trees an “ism” and raise its priority higher than its actual value—as if uprooting a fruit tree is worse than murdering a baby.
_________________________________________
In NAZI GREENS - An Inconvenient History, Martin Durkin writes:
“Picture the scene. At the edge of a forest, German soldiers point their guns at rows of naked people who follow the Jewish religion. Among them are young mothers clutching their babies. The shots echo through the woods and the dead bodies fall into the ground. Down the road, while this is happening, their German army comrades are busy establishing nature walks and bird sanctuaries and planting trees…The same Nazi monsters who committed crimes of unimaginable barbarity also advocated vegetarianism, organic agriculture, forest preservation and homeopathic healthcare.”
This is NOT a "weed." While the Nazi movement is generally portrayed as atheist, it was really pagan. An entire movement based on nature-worship and borrowing from Far Eastern influences (like Yoga and Buddhism) preceded the Nazi movement and strongly influenced Nazi ideology, as will be discussed in a future post.
The Nazis prized pristine nature, just as they prized what they viewed as a “pristine” race.
Vegetarianism was "in" and smoking was "out."
Again, Darwinism plays a part here. With evolution seen as “survival of the fittest,” an evolutionist sees the today's trees, plants, and flowers as examples of the fittest flora.
So preserving and nurturing beautiful flowers, for example, means getting rid of useless and troublesome weeds.
Applying this concept to people, undesirable races or racial characteristics are mere weeds in need of uprooting to protect and nurture the superior Juliet roses.
This was the view of Ernest Haeckel, a German zoologist who coined the term “ecology” in the 1870s and was the creator of the inaccurate yet famous woodcutting meant to show fetal development as developing through stages of the forms of all the major groups of adult animals and mirroring the stages of evolution—an alleged indication of evolution.
These woodcuttings, though inaccurate, and the theory behind them were still being taught in school in the Eighties as one of many “proofs” of evolution. In college, I remember students and professors discussing them in class as if they were accurate representations.
So the Nazis cherished nature conservation for the same reasons.
Ever since I was young, it bothered me that environmentalists invested so much in saving trees when there was so much dire human suffering. While they always defend their priorities by saying, for example, that forestry loss and pollution affects people and acting as if without their efforts, there won’t be a world for people to live in, if you save and nurture people, they won’t become so desperate that they harm their environment. (Not to mention that there is so much nature throughout the world, humans aren’t in any real danger from ecologically incompatible practices.)
And while we all want clean water and clean air, the Nazis idealized this in a way that was both religious and genocidal.
I’ll leave you with some quotes by some of history’s most immoral and sociopathic figures.
I’m sure you’ll find the ideas expressed in them unnervingly familiar.
______________________________________
The Nazis prized pristine nature, just as they prized what they viewed as a “pristine” race.
Vegetarianism was "in" and smoking was "out."
Again, Darwinism plays a part here. With evolution seen as “survival of the fittest,” an evolutionist sees the today's trees, plants, and flowers as examples of the fittest flora.
So preserving and nurturing beautiful flowers, for example, means getting rid of useless and troublesome weeds.
Applying this concept to people, undesirable races or racial characteristics are mere weeds in need of uprooting to protect and nurture the superior Juliet roses.
This was the view of Ernest Haeckel, a German zoologist who coined the term “ecology” in the 1870s and was the creator of the inaccurate yet famous woodcutting meant to show fetal development as developing through stages of the forms of all the major groups of adult animals and mirroring the stages of evolution—an alleged indication of evolution.
These woodcuttings, though inaccurate, and the theory behind them were still being taught in school in the Eighties as one of many “proofs” of evolution. In college, I remember students and professors discussing them in class as if they were accurate representations.
So the Nazis cherished nature conservation for the same reasons.
Ever since I was young, it bothered me that environmentalists invested so much in saving trees when there was so much dire human suffering. While they always defend their priorities by saying, for example, that forestry loss and pollution affects people and acting as if without their efforts, there won’t be a world for people to live in, if you save and nurture people, they won’t become so desperate that they harm their environment. (Not to mention that there is so much nature throughout the world, humans aren’t in any real danger from ecologically incompatible practices.)
And while we all want clean water and clean air, the Nazis idealized this in a way that was both religious and genocidal.
I’ll leave you with some quotes by some of history’s most immoral and sociopathic figures.
I’m sure you’ll find the ideas expressed in them unnervingly familiar.
______________________________________
"The man who contemplates the universe with his eyes wide open is the man with the greatest amount of natural piety; not in the religious sense, but in the sense of an intimate harmony with things."
Atheists often express some form of this idea.
But guess who also felt this way?
Adolf Hitler. Those are his own words.
Source: Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Secret Conversations, 1941-1945 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953), p. 5.
____________________________________________
"When we National Socialists [Nazis] speak of a belief in God, we do not mean what naive Christians and their clerical exploiters have in mind. ...The power of nature's law is what we call the omnipotent force or God. ...We National Socialists demand of ourselves that we live as naturally as possible, that is to say in accord with the laws of life. The more precisely we understand and observe the laws of nature and of life and the more we keep to them, the more we correspond to the will of this omnipotent force."
-- Martin Bormann, Nazi Party Secretary
Source: Boria Sax, Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust (New York: Continuum, 2000), p. 106.
__________________________________
"Man should organize his existence meaningfully in the natural sphere of his living space, should make everything that nature offers him useful for himself while being conscious of his responsibility, should be the master of nature but at the same time its protector and conserver."
--Julius Wagner, German educator
Source: Julius Wagner, Die Biologie im Dienste heimatlicher Landschaftskunde (1934).
________________________________________
GERMAN IMPERIAL CONSERVATION LAW OF 1935
Lands protected included:
"Remaining portions of landscape in free nature whose preservation on account of rarity, beauty, distinctiveness or on account of scientific, ethnic, forest, or hunting significance lies in the general interest."
Source: Raymond H. Dominick III, The Environmental Movement in Germany: Prophets and Pioneers, 1871-1971 (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 108. (Introduction to law can be read here (PDF File).
_______________________________________
"At the end of the last century the progress of science and technique led liberalism astray into proclaiming man's mastery of nature, and announcing he would soon have dominion over space ... In any case, we shall learn to become familiar with the laws by which life is governed, and acquaintance with the laws of nature will guide us on the path of progress."
-- Adolf Hitler, 11 July 1941
["Path of progress"! See? Hitler was a progressive.]
Source: Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944. tr. N. Cameron & R.H. Stevens (New York: Enigma Books, 2000), pp. 5-6.
___________________________________________
"Among the Spartans all newly born children were subject to a careful examination or selection. All those that were weak, sickly, or affected with any bodily infirmity, were killed. Only the perfectly healthy and strong children were allowed to live, and they alone afterwards propagated the race."
-- Ernst Haeckel, Father of German Ecology
Source: Ernst Haeckel, The History of Creation. 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1876), vol. I, p. 170.
_________________________________________
"For as soon as the procreative faculty is thwarted and the number of births diminished, the natural struggle for existence which allows only healthy and strong individuals to survive is replaced by a sheer craze to ‘save’ feeble and even diseased creatures at any cost. And thus the seeds are sown for a human progeny which will become more and more miserable from one generation to another, as long as Nature’s will is scorned."
-- Adolf Hitler
Source: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Chapter 4.
[Notice Hitler’s emphasis on THEIR misery. The “feeble and even diseased creatures” are predicted to become “more and more miserable.” This is exactly how people justify the abortion of deformed and the euthanasia of “vegetative” people—it’s for THEIR sake. Abortion and euthanasia prevents THEM from suffering. This attitude makes the abortionists and euthanasiaists into heroes and saviors.]
___________________________________________
"The German landscape is something unique that we cannot disturb and have no right to destroy. The more densely populated our 'living space' becomes with settlements, the greater our hunger will grow for unspoilt nature. The ever increasing spiritual damage caused by life within the big city will make this hunger practically uncontrollable ... when we build here on this the landscape of our homeland we must be clear that we will protect its beauty; and in places where this beauty has already disappeared, we will reconstruct it."
-- Fritz Todt, who believed that, based on the above, “our engineering will reflect the National Socialist [Nazi] movement."
Source: Franz W. Seidler, Fritz Todt: Baumeister des Dritten Reiches (München: F.A. Herbig, 1986), p. 113.
____________________________________________
I'll end with a question asked of Liberals by Jonah Goldberg (who is not Jewish, BTW):
"If you leave out the parts about killing all the Jews and invading Poland, what specifically about the Nazi political platform do you disagree with?"
[The above sources were culled from World Future Fund.]
Atheists often express some form of this idea.
But guess who also felt this way?
Adolf Hitler. Those are his own words.
Source: Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Secret Conversations, 1941-1945 (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1953), p. 5.
____________________________________________
"When we National Socialists [Nazis] speak of a belief in God, we do not mean what naive Christians and their clerical exploiters have in mind. ...The power of nature's law is what we call the omnipotent force or God. ...We National Socialists demand of ourselves that we live as naturally as possible, that is to say in accord with the laws of life. The more precisely we understand and observe the laws of nature and of life and the more we keep to them, the more we correspond to the will of this omnipotent force."
-- Martin Bormann, Nazi Party Secretary
Source: Boria Sax, Animals in the Third Reich: Pets, Scapegoats, and the Holocaust (New York: Continuum, 2000), p. 106.
__________________________________
"Man should organize his existence meaningfully in the natural sphere of his living space, should make everything that nature offers him useful for himself while being conscious of his responsibility, should be the master of nature but at the same time its protector and conserver."
--Julius Wagner, German educator
Source: Julius Wagner, Die Biologie im Dienste heimatlicher Landschaftskunde (1934).
________________________________________
GERMAN IMPERIAL CONSERVATION LAW OF 1935
Lands protected included:
"Remaining portions of landscape in free nature whose preservation on account of rarity, beauty, distinctiveness or on account of scientific, ethnic, forest, or hunting significance lies in the general interest."
Source: Raymond H. Dominick III, The Environmental Movement in Germany: Prophets and Pioneers, 1871-1971 (Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1992), p. 108. (Introduction to law can be read here (PDF File).
_______________________________________
"At the end of the last century the progress of science and technique led liberalism astray into proclaiming man's mastery of nature, and announcing he would soon have dominion over space ... In any case, we shall learn to become familiar with the laws by which life is governed, and acquaintance with the laws of nature will guide us on the path of progress."
-- Adolf Hitler, 11 July 1941
["Path of progress"! See? Hitler was a progressive.]
Source: Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944. tr. N. Cameron & R.H. Stevens (New York: Enigma Books, 2000), pp. 5-6.
___________________________________________
"Among the Spartans all newly born children were subject to a careful examination or selection. All those that were weak, sickly, or affected with any bodily infirmity, were killed. Only the perfectly healthy and strong children were allowed to live, and they alone afterwards propagated the race."
-- Ernst Haeckel, Father of German Ecology
Source: Ernst Haeckel, The History of Creation. 2 vols. (New York: D. Appleton, 1876), vol. I, p. 170.
_________________________________________
"For as soon as the procreative faculty is thwarted and the number of births diminished, the natural struggle for existence which allows only healthy and strong individuals to survive is replaced by a sheer craze to ‘save’ feeble and even diseased creatures at any cost. And thus the seeds are sown for a human progeny which will become more and more miserable from one generation to another, as long as Nature’s will is scorned."
-- Adolf Hitler
Source: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Chapter 4.
[Notice Hitler’s emphasis on THEIR misery. The “feeble and even diseased creatures” are predicted to become “more and more miserable.” This is exactly how people justify the abortion of deformed and the euthanasia of “vegetative” people—it’s for THEIR sake. Abortion and euthanasia prevents THEM from suffering. This attitude makes the abortionists and euthanasiaists into heroes and saviors.]
___________________________________________
"The German landscape is something unique that we cannot disturb and have no right to destroy. The more densely populated our 'living space' becomes with settlements, the greater our hunger will grow for unspoilt nature. The ever increasing spiritual damage caused by life within the big city will make this hunger practically uncontrollable ... when we build here on this the landscape of our homeland we must be clear that we will protect its beauty; and in places where this beauty has already disappeared, we will reconstruct it."
-- Fritz Todt, who believed that, based on the above, “our engineering will reflect the National Socialist [Nazi] movement."
Source: Franz W. Seidler, Fritz Todt: Baumeister des Dritten Reiches (München: F.A. Herbig, 1986), p. 113.
____________________________________________
I'll end with a question asked of Liberals by Jonah Goldberg (who is not Jewish, BTW):
"If you leave out the parts about killing all the Jews and invading Poland, what specifically about the Nazi political platform do you disagree with?"
[The above sources were culled from World Future Fund.]
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