Through the course of more than seventy years, the character of Adolf Hitler was thoroughly studied and scrutinized multiple times, contemplating whether his experiences or practices could be applied in a positive key. While some prefer to distance themselves from the examination of Hitler’s motives and strategy and even suggest that it would have been better if Hitler was never born, others oppose this common opinion (Bates). The main argument of the opposing position focuses on World War II occurring as the result of several factors preceding the inevitable confrontation between Jews and Christians.
In examining the general development of Hitler’s views of Jews, one could state that Hitler experienced mania to identify Jews from the mass of people in Germany. However, upon close inspection of Hitler’s overall way of thinking on outside involvement in Germany’s politics, literature, and banking sphere, one could determine that he correctly recognized the imposed risks (Bates). Hitler educated other people in Germany on the issue through his prism of understanding, which resulted in gathered support from the population. From his experience, one could learn a lesson that carefully inspecting the issues in society and addressing it could be used to gain power and support from the population.
Using the force of a dissatisfied population is a widespread strategy used in politics to gain power and win elections. Hitler used the rising confrontation between the Jews and Christians in Germany to support his views and start the persecution of Jews in Germany (Bates 17). Even though Hitler was not the only one who used the strategy, his example illustrates the extreme possibilities of manipulating the population with imposed hate towards a certain group of people.
The Good War is the title of the book written by Studs Terkel that focuses on the aspect of World War II being perceived by Americans as a war with evil. Although there are some undoubtful positive consequences resulting from World War II for the Americans, such as the social impact which laid the foundation for the civil rights movements, war itself cannot be good. The ordinary soldiers from both sides had to face terrible events; thus, as long as war results in the society losing millions of lives, there is no such thing as a good war.
To gain insight into the soldiers’ perspective on the war and understand why there is no good side in the war, one could investigate soldiers’ letters and diaries. In his memories, on Pearl Harbor, John Garcia remembers how as a sixteen-year-old, he had to repeatedly go into the water for three days in a row to collect bodies of sailors. The bodies had been “blown off the ships”, destroyed by Japanese bombs (Garcia 535). Garcia emphasizes how an American shell hit the house of his girlfriend of three years, meaning to illustrate how destructions were caused by both sides, and people suffered not only from the enemy’s bombings.
In Sergeant Horace Evers’ letter that he wrote to his relatives, he described his experience in visiting a concentration camp. According to Evers, the remains of people in the concentration camp were more disturbing than furious deaths he saw in combat (Carroll 275). His illustration of inhuman conditions that the people were forced to live in concentration camps explains how there is no limit to human cruelty. Therefore, freeing the people from suffering is the main goal of any war rather than defeating evil.
Works Cited
Bates, Christopher. “What if Adolf Hitler Was Never Born?” Electoral Vote. Web.
Carroll, Andrew, editor. War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars. Simon and Schuster, 2008.
Garcia, John. “Peral Harbor: The View from the Ground” World War II: The Autobiography, edited by Jon Lewis, Robinson, 2009, pp. 532-535.