Hitler holding up a bible
![hitler holding up a bible hitler holding up a bible](http://userscontent2.emaze.com/images/6c16ee46-e7c2-422b-9adc-31930236c2ff/5a952c68-cfcd-4205-adf0-7dd65d9f0ea4.png)
We ought not to hide from ourselves that Nazi Germany is a mirror for all of us. How can the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant?. I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-but rarely do I ever simply estimate it. It is only when we cease vilifying them and recognize ourselves in them that we can begin to understand what the Grim Reaper says about human beings in Marcus Zusek’s novel The Book Thief: They were human beings just as we all are, with histories, strengths, faults, successes and failures. We use the text early in the semester, along with several others, to establish that Hitler and those in the Nazi hierarchy were neither monsters, evil aliens from Mars, nor demons from the depths of hell. Whether one is convinced by Speer’s mea culpas or not, this description of his relationship with Hitler is telling: “One seldom recognizes the devil when he is putting his hand on your shoulder.”Ī teaching colleague and I use Inside the Third Reich as a central text in our colloquium “Grace, Truth, and Freedom in the Nazi Era,” a course that we are currently teaching for the fifth time in the last eight years. Such remorse is undoubtedly the main reason why Speer escaped the death penalty that the Nuremburg tribunal passed down to many of Speer’s fellow Nazi war criminals. Reflecting back on his relationship with Hitler, Speer often shows remorse for his involvement with and facilitation of some of the worst Nazi policies, frequently suggesting that “if I had known then what I know now, I would have acted differently” in an attempt to explain and at least partially excuse himself. Speer, who was first Hitler’s architect, then his Minister of Armaments once World War II broke out, was perhaps the closest thing to a “friend” that Hitler had. Published in 1969, Speer’s memoir provides a detailed immersion into the world of Hitler and the Nazis, including an intimate portrayal of Hitler himself. This passage is a first-hand description of Adolf Hitler from Albert Speer’s Inside the Third Reich, a memoir written by Speer during his twenty-year imprisonment in Spandau prison after his conviction for war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremburg Trials in 1946. This is not, however, a description of the former guy. all of these were on daily display during Trump’s time in the Oval Office. An entourage of sycophants, a deliberate ignorance about the basics of the office he occupied, contempt for anyone who disagreed with him, a delusional belief in the accuracy of his knee-jerk reactions.
![hitler holding up a bible hitler holding up a bible](https://l450v.alamy.com/450v/f3dm56/couple-holding-star-shape-decoration-in-shop-f3dm56.jpg)
Trump, perhaps from one of the tell-all insider books that have been already written, or that will follow in the wake of his time in office. Who is this passage describing? You would be justified in guessing that it is a description of former President Donald J.