There Is a Hitler In All of Us
Of the two wolves, good and evil, the winner is the one you constantly feed.
“The only devils that exist are the ones that live inside us, that’s where all of life’s battles need to be fought. When you realize how difficult it is to win those internal battles, you’ll be more tolerant of the scoundrels around you.” Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Father of the nation, India.
I heard this quote while watching Gandhi, a biopic movie on the Life of Mahatma Gandhi. It dug deep. It’s true, there’s both good and evil in all of us. Who we become; depends on the side we nurture.
Take Adolf Hitler, born as any other baby. Adorable, cuddly, and completely devoid of any expression of horror.
No one holding this infant in their arms could see him as the perpetrator of the holocaust. A heinous genocide that killed six million Jews and another five million non-combatants.
How did this adorable-looking baby, grow up to be the world’s worst dictator psychopath in power?
How did an innocent baby grow into a racist murderer?
Hitler’s early life provides clues on his journey from innocence to monstrosity.
Born in an Austrian family, to a doting mother but an abusive father is where Hitler’s negative conditioning started.
Historians record that the intense father-son conflicts stemmed from Hitler’s refusal to conform to the strict discipline of his school life.
Despite his mother’s attempts to protect him, Hitler’s father would often beat him, if he failed to follow his bidding.
Young Hitler was very good at art, but despite several attempts, he wasn’t accepted into any art school. Imagine if he were, could we have seen him as the next Picasso instead of the orchestrator of the world’s most horrific massacre?
Did society play a role in his conditioning?
Are we doing the same to other children in every new generation?
When young Hitler lost his parents, he left Austria and became a homeless orphan, sleeping on park benches in Germany.
Living a life devoid of family, friends, and wise mentors, invoked his dark side and fostered his sinister fascist ideologies.
His jilted love life and strange affection towards his half-niece, Geli Raubal sparked a raging devilish battle inside him. The inner battle reached its tipping point in September 1931, when Geli took her own life with Hitler’s gun, in his Munich apartment.
Her tragic death was a source of deep, lasting pain for Hitler.
The intense fire in him needed an outlet, the fury needed a mission.
In war-torn Germany, the political unrest, economic depression, and post-WW1 anguish provided the perfect opportunity to stimulate Hitler’s seething insanity. By joining the newly formed German Party, Hitler found an ideal stage to display his dark side.
It’s akin to giving a weapon in the hands of a crazy lunatic looking for a meek target to satisfy his barbaric intentions.
Even today, our society is fraught with lurking lunatics, awakened by the slightest provocation. The shooting of innocent people at the Spas in San Antonio, Texas is a perfect example.
Hitler rose to power by design, not coincidence.
You attract what you desire.
In Hitler’s case, he needed a platform and power to carry on his debauched plans of eliminating the Jews.
To blame Hitler alone, for the genocide carried out by a country that had sixty-eight million people during the Nazi era would not be fair.
Historians account that the Nazi dictatorship was not a totalitarian monolith, but rather an unstable union of a “power cartel” comprising the National Socialist German Workers Party, big business, the German state bureaucracy, the Army, and SS/police agencies.
Many other people agreed with his plans and were seeking an evil chief to lead the march. Post-WW1 negativity, hopelessness, and poverty forced many SSS supporters to put wisdom by the wayside and support the Nazi party.
Putting history in today’s context. Are we not experiencing the same sentiments among people divided by religion and race, eager to destroy fellow humans based on prejudice, apathy, and negativity?
We all have positive and negative inside us. The side we nurture grows.
An American Indian parable explains this beautifully.
An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life…
“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves.
“One is evil — full of anger, envy, greed, arrogance, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
“The other is good — full of joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, compassion, and faith.”
“This same fight is going on inside you — and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old chief simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Can Hitler be revived?
Unfortunately, yes.
Every time we allow ego to overtake our wisdom, Hitler is revived.
- There’s a Hitler in every racist looking down on another human based on creed, color, & religion.
- There’s a Hitler in every parent who abandons or abuses their child.
- There’s a Hitler in every personal relationship dominated by emotional and physical violence.
- There’s a Hitler in every country that rules its people like a dictatorship.
- There’s a Hitler in ‘us’ when we condemn another human with hatred and disrespect.
Though Hitler died decades ago, his evil essence carries on in humanity.
Every generation alive is capable of quelling or raising his beastly spirit.
The devils we see in other people are simply a reflection of the ones that live inside us.
