Thursday, January 8, 2009
Miscellaneous
So I know this isn't exactly a post topic but a comment Rob posted on one of my earlier posts got me thinking. I want to see what everyone thinks about this. Feel free to disagree its an open ended thing. Could Napoleon be blamed for WWII? I know there were many other factors than Hitler involved in WWII so this is mainly going to be focused on the European theatre. Here's what I think. Napoleon tried to unify Europe. He tried to make it all the same, same metric system, same republic, same flag, same customs, same dress, in other words a uniform europe was a better Europe. This is where Nationalism came into play. The different nations began to see the beauty of their old and independent cultures. Thus Germany became more "unified" as the peoples felt a more patriotic emotion towards their homeland. This nationalistic view would be passed on for a few generations until the man we all know as Adolf Hitler was born. He was raised with this pride and loyalty to his beloved nation. When he was a teen he saw the devastation of WWI and when his fellow german brothers needed someone to blame for their pain and suffering, Hitler, as we all know, blamed those foreigners, the "not true germans", the Jews... the story continues on from there. But all I'm saying is that if Hitler had not been raised with such a dedication to his country would he have been compelled to do all he did?
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9 comments:
i think you have a very good point. Napoleon brought Germany together and possibly injected some nationalism into it, but i don't think that it was enough to spark WWII. Hitler was driven by many things, but i dont believe that nationalism from napoleon was one of them. so on the thought of a direct connection between napoleon and hitler, i cannot agree with you.
understandable. I mean it may not be a direct connection but you do see what I mean?
yea i guess i could. there was some similarities i noticed while reading... none come to mind sadly. but i know they were there. haha.
Thats another interesting comparison actually. Napoleon and Hitler. Both dreamed of creating their own empire, and put their family in seats of power... what do you think?
they both got their butts kicked by the russians. with the same strategy. ha
I think that perhaps Napoleon was a kind of role model for Hitler. I'm sure that when Hitler read (if he did indeed read about it, which I'm pretty sure he did) about the conquests of Napoleon and all the Glory brought to France, he envisioned an equally glorious Germany. I think it might have been even the Peace of Westphalia and of course the results of WWI that got Germany and indeed Hitler so fired up about becoming strong and unified. Germany was the neighborhood dump/boxing ring for Europe for hundreds of years on account of it's disunity.
However, I definitely agree that the nationalism sparking in Germany at the end of Napoleon's reign was the start of the nations journey to Reichdom.
Elise brings up a very good point. Napoleon was definitely one of Hitler's heroes. Apart from the nationalist standpoint, Hitler admired Napoleon's celebrity status. Strong resemblances can be seen in the “accomplishments” of the two alone. Although Napoleon’s strategy was not genocidal, his army took thousands of casualties in hours. The brutality of the two leaders is what I see as the strongest resemblance.
I also see a lot in common between Hitler and Napoleon, but I think saying that Napoleon is to blame for World War II is a big stretch. I agree that Napoleon was a cause for such strong nationalism in European countries, Germany included, but I think that nationalism would have emerged even if Napoleon had not existed.
I totally agree Sam. I think as humans we tend to simplify a complicated situation by putting the whole blame on one person, a lot like how Robespiere was blamed for all the horrors of the Reign of Terror. And besides, we could blame anything on a lot of people; we could blame Hitler's mother or whoever decided to reject him from art school,or the parties for being to lax with him. I think the real thing that Napoleon directly contributed hear was his policy for a constitution to be drafted up in each conquered political entity. If it weren't for these constitutions, an idea that was by no means solely Napoleon's, the ideas of the French Revolution and perhaps even more importantly, the possibility for an indepenent constituional government in Germany and the many other nations of Europe wouldn't have been nearly as influential or effective. The Napoleonic age was just a new era for Europe and with a new era comes new ideas but the idea of a strong unified Germany was by no means a new idea, it was just a change of scenery that got people to act in new ways upon their ideas.
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