I am a very very lazy person. I like to pride myself on being in the running with Lebowski. And to me hate takes way way to much energy. Having even the simple idea of killing has to take some effort. Kind of seems like he just set out on a life not worth living IMO
Ingrained racist beliefs, as well as a pragmatic ‘those are a group that can’t fight back if pushed against. I will blame them because I want the majority on my side.’
However one cannot overstate the role cultural antisemitism played. Hitler didn’t ‘one day wake up.’ Europe has had a long history of hating the jewish people. Scapegoating and Persicuting them. Blood liable for example was an accusation that popped up from time to time. Kidnapping people to mix their blood with matzah bread. Complete bunk, but the jewish people are a stateless people who do not share local traditions and norms nor do they worship at the same place. Plus they often found work doing the things that people either couldn’t or wouldn’t do, which lead to oft conspiricies of jewish money lenders puppeting from the background.
That is the sort of enviroment young Adolf grew up in. Same as how people in the modern US are essentially being taught to think of disadvantaged blacks and mexicans as a existenital threat sucking wealth away from them.
To add on there is a documentary on Netflix called the circle of evil that dramatically shows the way hitler came to power. It’s not just antisemitism in Europe it’s a party of echo chambers with anti semitism and Hitler was the one most radical in his speeches while being highly influential. You don’t convince a country without a good indoctrinating speech about how the Jewish population is ruining everything. Germany just came off WW1 and a lot of bullshit stigma was thrown at the Jewish population because the war torn population stereotyped them as “helping both sides”. A lot of factors that nobody will be capable of recognizing are crucial to Hitlers power.
Respectfully, do some reading of even middleschool level history books. He didn’t personally decide to “be mean” to particular groups. His worldview was shaped by the post WWI dynamics in Europe, latent stereotypes and domestic problems within Germany, and a whole lot of misapplied emerging science. He literally believed in racial supremecy and was trying to build an ethnostate. This motivated him to define groups of ethnic “undesirables” and also to lump in other groups that he found politically inconvenient. Read about the scapegoating of Jews circa that time. He likely believed his cruelty towards them was somehow justified because he laid all of Germany’s problems (economic issues, humiliation of the country and loss of territory post-WWI) at their feet.
TL; DR - Bad actors believe their evil behavior is justified.
There’s probably as many theories as there are people.
My own is that cognitive dissonance is a powerful force, especially for a narcissist. Hitler spent 4 of the best years of his life is the pure misery of the trenches of WWI, and even worse - running between the trenches to deliver messages. He was gassed so badly it put him in the hospital for the final month of the war. Hitler was probably also deluded about Germany’s failing position in the war, probably kept in the dark by German propaganda and made quite gullible by his fierce patriotism. So when Germany surrendered, that must have actually both shocking and enraging for him. And we know that because he frequently attacked the treaty of Versailles.
The “stab in the back” myth is the idea that Germany’s surrender was corruptly carried out by politicians, and due to common antisemitism across Germany and Europe generally it soon focused on Jews. In reality there was virtually no Jewish people significantly involved with the surrender and events leading up to it, but that didn’t matter because as is often the case today, emotional truth is more important than reality. Given that Hitler couldn’t possibly bring himself to believe that he incurred tremendous pain and suffering by voluntarily and stupidly buying into an imperialistic war that was doomed to failure from the start, the stab in the back myth would’ve been extremely appealing to him. He wanted to believe it, so he did.
So when he happened to be assigned to monitor the DAP - the predecessor to the Nazi Party - he was ready to wholeheartedly accept their antisemitic ideas. Even though he seemed to get along with Jewish officers during the war, by a year after the war he was already talking about “removing” the Jews.
IIRC during the third Crusade, the Christians slaughtered 60,000 Jewish people before they even got out of Germany. The beef goes way back.
Some people will say the origin is Christ’s death. But even reading that story it’s clear that Europeans and Israelites weren’t on good terms then either.
It’s hard to find a “cause” for a belief that isn’t rational.
Pogroms were common throughout Europe for hundreds of years. Because Christians were forbidden from lending money at interest Jews were the ones doing the banking.
When a ruler got too far into debt they’d incite some religious hatred and miraculously be out of debt, because their creditors were dead or missing.
“Expelling the Jews” is a mechanic in Crusader Kings 2. And it gets abused like it did historically, too- borrow a shitload of money and then expel the Jews. Suddenly you found free money.
Some people will say the origin is Christ’s death. But even reading that story it’s clear that Europeans and Israelites weren’t on good terms then either.
Further, early Jewish Christians were persecuted by the Pharisees and other Jews who were angry with their breaking Moses’ Law. It was probably only natural to gradually amp up the anti-Jewish sentiment as the Gospels were written because there were open beefs happening in daily life.
Hitler’s antisemitism was shaped by the widespread anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe, particularly in Vienna, where he lived as a young man. He capitalized on these prejudices, blaming Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I, economic hardships, and other societal issues. By using Jews and other minorities as scapegoats, he was able to unite and mobilize his followers.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler described history as a racial struggle, promoting the idea of Aryan superiority while portraying Jews, Slavs, Roma, disabled individuals, and others as threats to his vision of a “pure” German society. His ideology was influenced by pseudoscientific racism and eugenics, which he used to justify policies of persecution and genocide.
Nazi propaganda reinforced and amplified these ideas, systematically dehumanizing targeted groups. This allowed for widespread discrimination, persecution, and ultimately, the Holocaust. Hitler’s actions were not impulsive; they were deeply rooted in his ideology and strategically used to gain and maintain power.
