> <i>But they would never accept such rhetoric in their own politicians, for it would remind them of Hitler’s demagogic charisma. [...] “Because of Hitler, the palette of contemporary German political rhetoric is deliberately narrow, cautious and boring.”</i><p>That sounds 100% positive to me. Treating politics as public theater has never done anything good in the world.
A little background on the quote about eggs of Columbus: <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_of_Columbus</a>
"Look Who's Back", mentioned in the article, isn't just a book. It's a movie. The trailers: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtW1Lq5c04E" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtW1Lq5c04E</a><p>The part where a young Goth woman shows Hitler how to use Google is very funny.
The book that completely changed my view on Hitler was 'Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning' by Timothy Snyder. It explained a lot of the inner logic of WWII and the Holocaust.
Decent summary of the contemporary German identity. However, I find it futile to debate the effect of publishing Mein Kampf when everyone who is interested can download it from the internet.
Well, Hitler himself said: "You will not get one true word out of me". I don't think there's much more to see than a useful (for some) narcissist.
Considerably worse thing with Russia and Stalin, because of the sorry state of modern Russia people are filled with ressentiment and even more susceptible to that kind of second thoughts. Much more polarising.
The fact that holocaust denial is banned (in EU, even as an idea!) only sends the signal that the government fears it might be true.<p>I mean, they don't even ban creationism!
Off-topic (but not really): This article/site takes almost ~8 seconds to load, then another 7+ seconds for the page to calm down (tracker loading etc). Then there are nearly 40 trackers trying to figure out what you're doing.<p>Dear Economist, I am closing the window.
Much of what I read about Hitler in the mainstream media seems kinda black and white. This paragraph of the Economist article, for example "Woven into the prose are crude Social Darwinism and anti-Semitism that resonated even beyond Germany, as well as hints of the author’s murderous potential. Having been gassed by the British in the first world war, Hitler writes: if some of the “Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in the field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain.”"<p>It is of course not mentioned that initially the Nazis simply wanted the Jews to leave Germany. Hitler himself said that if some other country would accept them, he would send them on luxury cruise ships. But of course, countries like the UK or US did not want lots of Jews to immigrate to them.