If you could have lunch with anyone...

[elicoleman]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

Apparently so. I mean, silly me, it is simply genius to threaten anybody who disagrees with your political opinion with death. What a smart guy!

I recall almost this exact debate in a class I took last year called organizational behavior. The professor was explaining how great leaders have a vision in addition to allowing their vision to be critiqued and improved upon. In the case of Hitler, and virtually all other dictators, they usually possess a vision (which may or may not be sound), but they do not allow opposing opinions to exist. They even threaten death if one does not agree with the vision. This makes them neither a great leader nor a genius. Somebody who would be a great leader would be Martin Luther King Jr or Gandhi.
A couple of students were arguing a similar argument as yours, which, I am guessing is: Hitler performed horrible, heinous crimes, yet he was still influential and wielded great power and "success", so he must be considered a great leader.

I happen to disagree with that theory, but I'd be interested in hearing a counter argument (and yes, I love the pun)..

Maybe this topic should be separated to a different thread, because it is quite OT..

What he did, killing millions of Jews, was not genius.

However, I'd consider anyone that could devise a plan so intricate, where every detail mattered or the plan would be foiled, a genius. Look at what he was able to get away with? Someone with an average mind doesn't pull that off, period. He got thousands among thousands to go along with his plan.

To me, being considered a genius doesn't always have to have a positive affect.

[Gilateen]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

Hmmm...



politics

[heelsman22]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

um, 10k posts in a year....

No way, he would have to get like 5 posts in every single thread...

oh wait.



Anyway, I say Bill Gates. I can order something expensive and get all the info on the future of the XBOX.

[bravosfan]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

Ted Williams

[GBrushTWood]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

GBrushTWood - The German people (the non-Jews/Gays/Gypsies obviously) were not threatened by the German government in any way. This included the soldiers as well. If they did not want to partake in the genocide they did not have to. In other words, Hitler did not attain his power through simple threats.

Really? The Reichstag Fire Decree says otherwise.

Basically, a sketchy fire blazed inside a legislative building in Germany. I use sketchy because it appears nobody ever figured out who started the fire. The Nazis had already taken control of many key positions in the government, and they used the fire as a bully-pulpit to place blame on the Communists. They created fear through propaganda, and quickly made it illegal to explicitly oppose anything the government supported.

The punishment for disobeying these newly declared laws were draconian, including the deathy penalty for certain offenses. In case you had to guess, and you shouldn't, there was no debate given to approval of these measures. One article in the decree proclaimed the new laws to be taking effect the day the decree was proclaimed.

Could you explain to me how the German people were not threatened by these acts that made it illegal and potentially a death sentence to oppose what the Nazi party believed was part of their vision?

[Misfit]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

That was under Hindenburg, not Hitler, nor was it ever proven how the fires were started. The event was spun in a way to get the German populace to fear communists, not the Nazi party. The rise of the Nazi party is fascinating because the general population was in agreement with them, even though their measures seem barbaric to us outsiders. Individuals not targeted by genocide were not afraid of those consequences because they had no reason to disobey the law. It was not a regime that built its power by having everyone in the country fear them. This isn't the place to discuss this topic though.

[stalsy2310]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

Topic dropped.

Brett Favre would be awesome to have lunch with because you could eat at his restaurant and have a nice steak and get his autograph. And you could talk to him about all of his amazing games.

[deeman11747]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

Off-topic: I don't know if its genius, but it does take some clever thinking to pull a nation out of an economic disaster and get a majority of the population to buy into something as fundamentally insane as the notion that Jews are the source of all of Germany's problems. Hitler wasn't a stupid man (though his battle strategies were not completely sound). If he was just some raving maniac this deep fascination with him that exists in the media and in the minds of many Americans, Jewish and non, would not exist. To learn about the Holocaust one must look past the atrocity and learn to respect it as an important event in our world's history. I know it is not your motive Vince, but by making that statement it is like you are dismissing the Holocaust as nothing more than some lunatic's crusade which does not really give the event the respect it deserves. It is easy to dismiss the Holocaust from conversation because of the controversey (I did not notice who brought the idea up of having lunch with Hitler, but I'd imagine they were looking to stir up some controversey either conciously or subconciously) but I don't feel that is always the proper way to handle things. This is just one man's opinion though.

GBrushTWood - The German people (the non-Jews/Gays/Gypsies obviously) were not threatened by the German government in any way. This included the soldiers as well. If they did not want to partake in the genocide they did not have to. In other words, Hitler did not attain his power through simple threats.

I agree. I'm Jewish and my pure hatred for Adolf Hitler cant be put into words... but the guy was still a genius.

Hiter was an ordinary guy from an ordinary family. I think it was him (or was it Stalin) that got rejected from art school and eventualy decided to get into politics. What he did was basically the equivilent of one of us ascending to the presidency... then convincing the whole nation that an ethnic group needed to be killed... and then did it. Thats impossible to do unless you are some sort of genius.

I too would like to sit down with him and just learn what could have possibly convinced him that a group's specific beliefs in G-d are the reason for every problem.

I'd also like to sit down with Joe Torre... Derek Jeter.... Walt Disney... and George Carlin.

[SPTO]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

I better put in my .02 cents before this gets locked

I think the best quote to define Hitler is this: "There's a fine line between genius and madness". Like it or not but right on up to 1938 Hitler was viewed as the greatest leader the German people ever knew.

He was a political genius in how he exploited and survived the rough and tumble environment of Germany in the '20s and '30s. His oratory certainly captured the nation and eerily some of his economic policies mirro FDR's "New Deal"!

Of course most of that infrastructure building masked his true intentions.

Also look at the people who were in the upper ranks of the Nazi Party. HItler had to quell uprisings against him. (prime example: The Night of the Long Knives which was a co-ordinated attack against the SA and it's leader Ernst Roehm) Hitler had to have some kind of qualities to keep those misfits in his party in line.

As for WHY I'd have lunch with Hitler, it's fairly simple, the man may have been prone to long speeches of ignorance and such but you can't deny that he can hold an audience. I've read some of Hitler's "table talk" and while I abhor 99% of what he said I still find it fascinating on some level.

[BunnyHardaway]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

I agree. I'm Jewish and my pure hatred for Adolf Hitler cant be put into words... but the guy was still a genius.

Hiter was an ordinary guy from an ordinary family. I think it was him (or was it Stalin) that got rejected from art school and eventualy decided to get into politics. What he did was basically the equivilent of one of us ascending to the presidency... then convincing the whole nation that an ethnic group needed to be killed... and then did it. Thats impossible to do unless you are some sort of genius.

I too would like to sit down with him and just learn what could have possibly convinced him that a group's specific beliefs in G-d are the reason for every problem.

I'd also like to sit down with Joe Torre... Derek Jeter.... Walt Disney... and George Carlin.

That was Hitler. He applied to the art school in Vienna, Austria and wasn't accepted, and then somehow he heard about these small party meetings the Nationalist-Socialist Party was holding. I believe he started to speak up at meetings there, and people really liked his ideas and he was "promoted" further up into the party. He then started the beer hall putsch and took thousands of people on a march to Berlin, where they were met by police and shot at. Apparently, the two people he locked arms with were shot and he avoided it. He got arrested, went to jail, wrote Mein Kampf, and unfortunately the rest is history.

[airbarrett]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

it's not very original, but i'd have to say jesus, that would be pretty sweet.

[tshelton]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

Jack Johnson
Michael Jordan

[The GIGGAS]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

New one for me:

Jonathan Larson (guy who wrote Rent)

[skitch]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

Jesus Christ, my Grandfather, and Bugs Bunny.

[Catman24]

Re: If you could have lunch with anyone...

Alive - Jesus Christ

Dead - My Father & Nephew