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More on Hitler and vegetarianism

In Reply to: Play Time Is Over, Kiddies. posted by Zarathustra on March 02, 19100 at 11:28:59:

Found this...

What Sort of Vegetarian was Hitler?Donal O'Driscoll, Oct 1998
For those fighting for the abolution of vivisection it is not uncommon to be
labelled as nazis by its defenders in their efforts to discredit with ad hominem attacks when their science fails them.
This is not simply a question of basic insult. Is ugly head rises continually rises as the pro-vivisection have found themselves a bit of twentieth century mythology of sufficent impact to latch onto. What it boils down to is that the Nazi Party of Hitler's German claimed to respect animal rights and therefore all animal rights activists must be of the same calibre.
The flaw in this argument is apparent to all who pause for a
minute to think about the logic behind it. The same logic would have us branding as fascist anyone with blue eyes and blond hair.
Rather than go into detail as to the various logical flaws of this stand point - odd for men and women of science where logic is the basis of their work, we are going to concentrate on the nazis themselves and see how far the claims made by the pro-vivisectionists for them are actually true. This roughly divides into two issues: the extent and nature of vivisection in Nazi Germany and the laws controlling the use of animals in their science and society; and what sort of vegetarian was Hitler. The former has already been explored elsewhere in the essays and work of Roberta Kalechofsky (Founder of Jews for Animal Rights) [7] and Jeremy Caudle. It is the latter we shall concentrate on in this article since there seems to be as much confusion among those fighting vivisection as those proposing it. Though some would argue that we can not seperate Hitler's opinion on vivisection and vegetarianism, this article is
being constructed from the point of view of criticisms leveled at the modern
anti-vivisection and vegetarianism movements which are sufficiently distinct to
make this seperation nessecary to keep the issues at stake clear. For those who
say that Hitler was a supporter of animal rights as defined in the modern
language of Singer and Regan, then the quick answer is that in this philosophy
there is no room for a person who tests out his cynide pill on his pet dog.
On of the first things we must be careful not to do is to dismiss the claims out of hand immediately. If we are to be strong as a movement we must be able to defeat our detractors at their own game and take them on with their standards.
If we do this and succeed then we have made them look foolish; not doing this
leaves us open to the perennial accusation of simply being ignorant cranks.
Hidding from the fact Hitler claimed to be vegetarian is not going to do any
good. What we need to do is to show how this supposed vegetarianism was nothing
more than a claim, in part promoted by the Nazi spin doctors, in part a weak man deluding himself.
The answer to the "accusation" that Hitler was a vegetarian, is that those who
make this claim are as much victims of the man as those who believed in his lies at the time. Hindsight has given us the advantage to see through his other
claims and posturings so why should we fall for this one as well.
We will start with the question as to why Hitler espoused vegetarianism then
discuss how good a vegetarian he was. What seems to accepted through out the
various sources and historians that this claim first surfaces in or before the
year 1931. After this we get into the principle region of confusion as there
seemingly two schools of thought.
The first is that Hitler was told to go vegetarian on the advice of his doctors. In the years of the Weimar Republic which governed Germany following World War I until the Nazis took power, vegetarianism was seen as a health fad for which much good was claimed. In particular it was espoused by one of Hitler's heros, the composer Wagner. Wagner believed that vegetarianism promoted vitality, long life and physical fitness, all things important to Hitler (though not practised by) and which he was to attribute to vegetarianism. Hitler also had a chronic stomach condition which was to trouble him for the majority of his life.
Connected with this was a flatulance problem. He believed that a diet of
vegetables helped to settle his stomach and remove the odors of the latter.
The second is that Hitler went vegetarian as a result of the death of his niece
Geli in 1931. Geli, full name Angela Raubal, was the daughter of Hitler's
step-sister who was acting as his housekeeper from 1929. Between 1929 and 1931
Hitler became very attached to Geli, forming a possesive and jealous
relationship over her that developed into an infatuation. His feeling for her
does not appear to have been recipocated and in September 1938 she shot herself.
There are several theories around her death and some mystery remains due to lack of direct evidence more than anything else, however the important issue here is that it had a very profound effect on Hitler. For the rest of his life he had a photo of her in his room which flowers were placed in front of every year on the anniversaries of her birth and her death. Many statements as to Hitler's vegetarianism are derived from this period. Indeed the diaries of one of his secretaries states that it was as a result of Geli's death that he turned vegetarian.
So which of the above view points are correct? The first thing to note that his
doctors recommended that he went vegetarian but he did not seem to follow their
advice more than intermittently. However, the idea was planted in his mind and
the death of his niece, which we know made a profound and lasting shock on him.
His vegetarianism, or rather his definition of it, seems to have become stronger after the death of Geli Raubal. Up until then vegetarianism was associated with his feeling better from his stomach problems and other conditions, though there was some evidence that there was some cross pollination of the idea of meat being bad for him with the idea
of death, another very important subject in his life was already occuring in the early 1920's, viz during his relationship with Mimi Reiter [2].
However, it was not until Geli's death, triggering a much more pronounced
fixation with death did he start to fully link it with his own health which in
turn, following doctors and Wagner, he linked with vegetarianism. The result is
now an abhorence of meat and the real espousal of vegetarianism as a way of
life, as can be so readily found in the diaries of Goebbels. That it is the
death of Geli which brought about this shift of position, from a health fad to a full blown way of life is testified to in the diaries of his secretaries at the time and the well known comment to Goering that he refused to eat a piece of ham on the grounds it reminded him of a corpse. This position has been taken by a number of historians including Albert Speer, Robert Payne and John Toland.
Hitler's friend, Frau Hess, is given in Toland as having said that he never ate
meat after Geli's death except liver dumplings.
So on the face of it the evidence so far does seem to support the assertation
that Hitler was a vegetarian. However, we still have to discuss how well he
carried it out. Are we going to simply accept the ideal of the aestic leader,
favoured by Goebbels [3], of which the vegetarianism was wound in to promote
further comparisons with Ghandi? As with much in his life in this too he was a
chronic liar both to himself and others [2]. And not even consistently at that.
Pre 1931 we have the situation familiar to many of us - we hear and appreciate
the doctors advice but in the face of giving up a pleasure we do not nessecarily follow it.
This holds equally true of Hitler. His love of certain meat, in
particular liver dumplings and Bavarian sauages [8] is well known and he found
it hard to give up meat altogether. It mostly depended on how much trouble he
was receiving from his stomach as to how seriously he took the vegetarian diet.
In 1931 and after, Hitler was already well on his way to power but in the words
of the historian David Irving: "By 1936 Hitler was an extremely cranky
vegetarian" and even his idea of what a vegetarian seems to deviate quite
significantly from what we currently take the word to mean. In the late 1930's
we have the testimony of a hotel chef in Hamburg called Dione Lucas saying that
Hitler's favourate dish was stuffed and roasted baby pigeon [4]. In 1937 there
was an article in the New York Times on Hitler where he is described as a
vegetarian who loved ham and caviar!! [7]
It is important to point out here that there are documented cased where he
ordered his chef to prepare vegetarian dishes [5], but as pointed out above this can be regarded as him reacting to increased stomach trouble at the time. Looking closer at this statement it is odd that for such a powerful figure that he would have to specfically order vegetarian dishes, when if he was such a professed vegetarian this should be taken as a matter of course.
This all fits in with the details given in the "The Medical Casebook of Adolf
Hitler" by Leonard and Renate Heston [6], which chronicles his stomach aliments
and the various food explorations that he tried to settle it. The overall
picture is that he was more concerned about his own mortality and pain, but when he felt good he was not adverse to delving back into meat. Meanwhile, he was keeping up the facade of a vegetarian diet to his friends as is attested in
Goebbels diaries [1], the latter fulling believing Hitler's sermonizing on the
subject.
For a person who manage to stamp so much of himself on the country he ruled at
the time, there is no evidence that he tried to do the same with vegetarianism.
yet he enforced other stringent health measures including anti-smoking laws.
Indeed the opposite seems to have been the case if the treatment of the various
vegetarian societies are anything to go by. Though individual vegetarians were
not persecuted, their socities were being forced to leave the International
Vegetarian Union and subjected to Gestapo raids and stringent conditions.
So what are we left with? Accepting that Hitler was a proclaimed vegetarian we
get a very poor impression of what that actually meant. Certainly by our
standards he would he would not rank as one. At best he appears as a hypocrite,
his problems not medical but seated much deeper in his psyche, a psyche with a
very nasty inferiority complex and mendacious tendencies. His reasons for his
belief were based on health, not moral, grounds. In fact I would go so far as to say that Hitler's vegetarianism is nothing more than a label he adopted to suite himself. Those who use the two words together are guilty of falling foul of Hitler's own propaganda. In their glee they seize on the fact that the words can be used in the same sentence with out understanding the context in which they are given.
The answer to the "accusation" that Hitler was a vegetarian, is to ask do they
believe liver dumplings, caviar and ham to be vegetarian; are they going to
listen to a liar who could not even follow his own teachings?References
[1] "The Goebbels Diaries 1939-41", translated by Fred Taylor, 1982
[2] "The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler', Robert Waite, 1977
[3] "Life and Death of Adolf Hitler", Robert Payne, 1973
[4] "Gourmet Cooking School Cookbook", Dione Lucas
[5] "Hitler, A Study in Tyranny", Alan Bullock, 1994
[6] "The Medical Casebook of Adolf Hitler", Leonard & Renate Heston, 1979
[7] "Hitler and Vegetarianism", Roberta Kalechofsky, http://www.micahbooks.com/
[8] "Adolf Hitler", John Toland, 1976Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jez Caudle and JP Goodwin for their help researching this
article.

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