'W hy the Germans? Why the Jews? Envy, race hatred, and the pre-history of the Holocaust."
So asks and answers the well-known author Gotz Aly in his recent book published by Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company, and I suppose all this has been gone over by specialists from his earlier book titled "Final Solution." In "Why the Germans?" Aly also states: "Jews thrived in the 19th century in the place where their mass murder was organized in the 20th. ... Nazism was propelled by the least pleasurable of the seven deadly sins, envy."
Not everyone agrees with this but most agree that the "pleasure" of the Third Reich's war machine was more than paid for by the exploitation of Jewish wealth everywhere it existed and how ever it could be wrested away at the time.
Writer Aly is both revered and disliked as controversial. Some believe that race hatred can be "explained" or wished away and others argue that it stems from early writing constituting versions of the story of creation and the beginnings of a historical recorded world that culminates in the arrival of a saving messiah!
Pondering this food for thought, I asked one of my cherished wise philosopher friends what exactly should be read that might counter some of these unhappy thoughts.
He immediately answered with Solon the Wiser who said, "In truth, I count no man happy until his death." This Greek said that it is pointless to envy the rich, powerful and successful in life prematurely. They may, after all, suffer some climactic catastrophe that cancels out their good fortune. And we all die eventually.
The philosopher also advised reading Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles and he especially advised looking at Aristophanes and his comedy "Lysistrata." This was all briefly argued in The New York Times some weeks ago, but it set me to thinking because only this week most of us learned that the new Germany will now, at last, allow Hitler's autobiography "Mein Kampf," to be published. There are many pros and cons on publishing the book in Germany where it has been banned since the end of World War II.
I guess it's one of those detested puzzles of free speech that a new democracy will give its people a chance to read Hitler's benighted life and plans again -- read it and weep again! And although you doubtless know what "Mein Kampf" tells and means, possibly there are some who should see and read it for themselves.