“Why We Keep Studying the Holocaust”
“Snyder’s Hitler was not exactly convinced that the Germans were a superior race. He was convinced that they might become a superior race, given their bloodlines and their numbers, but they would have to prove it in competition with other races on the world stage. Startling as it is, this view explains many aspects of Hitler’s character: his physical distance from the ideal he espoused (they aren’t like me, but I will midwife a superior race that I do not belong to); his unappeasable appetite for war; his rage at his compatriots for losing his war; his readiness, at the end, to see German land destroyed, German cities burned, German women raped — his manifest desire for a bonfire of the Germans. He had given them every chance to show themselves a superior race, and, since they had failed the test of history, they must suffer the consequences.”
