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From: arndt@lymph.DEC
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re. Whoa there . . . Hitler!
Message-ID: <504@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Feb-85 14:18:02 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.504
Posted: Fri Feb  8 14:18:02 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Feb-85 05:31:14 EST
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That last posting of mine on Hitler and the SS was not up to my usual
low standards, it has been pointed out to me.  So let me explain (get in
deeper?).

Perhaps a few lines from the novel THE GOLDEN EXPRESS, by Derek Lambert,p155.

"Ritter said at last, "I was in the SS."

"I noticed your expression change when I said that," Ritter observed.  "A trace
of contempt perhaps?"

"Did you expect admiration?"

"The SS are the toughest troops in the world.  And the best."

"They're bloody good at shooting women and children, if that's what you mean."

"Only the minority."  "The majority are good soldiers, fine soldiers.  A few 
have given us a bad name."  "You don't understand."

"Don't tell me," Miller said, "Germany's full of idealists."

Ritter ignored him.  "I joined when I was seventeen.  It was wonderful. You had
to be fit and healthy as hell to get in.  You know, we WERE the elite.  And we
looked it and acted like it.  Those black and silver uniforms, the marching, thetraining.  And it wasn't all just swagger.  We were the personification . . . ifthat is right?  Sometimes my English is not too good . . ."

"It's fine," Miller said.

" . . . of the new Germany.  The Fatherland rising from the ashes.  And yes, we
gloried in it.  Why not?"  He looked anxiously at Miller.  "And all of us would
have given our lives or the little man with the mustache who had shown us the 
way to be strong again and, yes, we also admired Goering even if he was a littelridiculous because at least he had panache.  Anyway, he had balls.  Guts.  Okay,
so he was fat.  But we Germans don't mock everything like the British.  You laugh at everything."

--------------------------

Sorry for the typo's and spelling.  But you get the idea.  It's a very REAL
problem to explain how SO MANY people could be 'insane'.  Remember, just to
say Hitler was 'insane' does not deal with the issue.

Drop the slogans and cant and THINK about it.  Because it will no doubt happen
again only in a different form.  From the Right or the Left.  More like the
Right in this country.  But hardly from Reagan or Jerry as some nitwits seem
to say on the net.  Again, READ Speer's account.  READ the memoirs of the
SS.  It's all there to see.

Well, enough.

Regards,

Ken Arndt