Comments on: Hitler was a vegetarian

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:51:25 +0000

Thanks for the comment, DK. Though I did make that point above (comment 5). Still it’s always good to have someone else telling the “Hitler was a vegetarian” people where they can shove their ideas. I wouldn’t have chosen their pipes, myself. But I guess the sun doesn’t shine there either.

By: Devil's Kitchen

Devil's Kitchen — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:27:06 +0000

Hitler was not a vegetarian. He had a gut disease (quite probably complicated by his heavy intake of morphia) that caused immense pain; he found that avoiding some foods alleviated this pain. Meat was one of those foods (and he still ate it from time to time).

Ideologically he was not a vegetarian and he was not really a vegetarian by choice. So your “Hitler was a vegetarian” people can stuff that in their pipe and smoke it.

By: bazu

bazu — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 22:41:36 +0000

Amen.
I have to say, maybe I’m paranoid, but I don’t think people bring up Hitler and his supposed vegetarians to show that vegetarianism doesn’t make you a good person. I think they actively want to equate vegetarianism with being a bad person. Like, you spit in the face of everything that is good and decent and normal about our culture and way of thinking. The way Hitler did.

Anyway, isn’t it a rule that whenever someone compares you to Hitler their argument is immediately rendered invalid because of sheer hyperbole? As true in politics as in food/diet conversations.

(enough said)

By: Paul Gogarty

Paul Gogarty — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 21:21:15 +0000

Hi Jim,

I understand that Hitler wasn’t vegetarian at all. Even though he stuck to a veggie diet for health reasons, he still retained a fondness for German sausages.

Regards,

Paul G

By: LC

LC — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 10:38:15 +0000

I read that Hitler only used vegetarianism as a treatment for some digestive disorder. Forgive me if someone mentioned that and I didn’t see it skimming the comments.

The last line there is hilarious. My cat is concerned because he’s never seen me laugh this hard.

By: Amit

Amit — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 00:02:20 +0000

Just musing here, not criticizing.

I’m a vegetarian, and I must admit that the imp of mischief seizes me whenever I see examples of famous vegetarians (like Gandhi, GBS, LdV etc.) on a website or a food festival, and my thoughts wander in the direction of proposing to add Hitler to the list.

I’m wondering whether on blogs/forums, Hitler is brought up by mischief mongers whenever others bring up the greats and link them to a vegetarian diet, as if it validates their choice, or as if there is a cause-and-effect link between vegetarian diet and greatness/”goodness”.

If so, then I’m wondering why I haven’t experienced greatness despite being a vegetarian for 17+ years. And where do you stop with the link? From what I’ve read, Gandhi also slept naked (different from having sex) with young girls to test himself. Should we ascribe that behavior to his vegetarian diet too?

In India, a huge number of people are vegetarians and go about their lives without giving it a second thought. Only here in the US do the vegetarians have to somehow validate their choice and defend it, probably because they (we) are a small minority.

I haven’t read Hitler’s biographies, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there is more to it (Hitler and vegetarian diet) than meets the eye, as Jim mentions above.

-Amit

By: L

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 05:49:08 +0000

heh heh heh. I will have to try that out.
It’s good to see you back!
btw, thank you for your very kind comment…. it’s been a bit of a rough week as I tend to be an overly sensitive young thing

By: darice

darice — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 16:05:55 +0000

Love this. Enough said.

By: Jim

Jim — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 23:36:49 +0000

There maybe something in that Peter. Thing is though; Hitler was a pretty damn obsessed kind of guy. I feel quite certain that if he’d felt meat was somehow “impure” and polluted his body, he’d have become a strict vegan in a second (and probably mandated it for all Germans). But actually, he only experimented briefly with a vegetarian diet in the early 20s (for health reasons). He abandoned this very quickly and was never truly vegetarian. Indeed the German Vegetarian Society was closed down by the Nazis, and its members persecuted. Plus, Nazi propaganda would often show hale and hearty aryan families, after a hard day at work, sitting down to a dinner-table dominated by a piece of meat.

So while your idea does sound like it may have some merit, I’m not 100% convinced. Biographers have often marvelled at the sheer number of different dietary regimes that Hitler went through. He was a very strange man (and a meth-freak) and he clearly held many strange ideas about lifestyle and diet. However, his supposed distaste for meat was never enough to make him become a genuine vegetarian, and that speaks volumes in my view. Hitler acted upon his beliefs, and he wouldn’t have eaten meat if he believed it was impure.

On your other point… that some vegans and vegetarians see meat as being a ‘pollutant’, it’s very possible. Of course, given the modern tendency to pump our farm animals full of hormones and antibiotics, they probably have a point.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 22:56:35 +0000

As you say, the counter-argument “Hitler was a vegetarian” is usually intended as an argument that vegetarianism doesn’t make you a good person – or even makes you a bad person – which doesn’t make sense logically.

Perhaps a more interesting area to explore is why Hitler was a vegetarian (or somebody who objected to eating flesh). My analysis is that Hitler was somebody obsessed with purity – racial purity was one aspect of this, bodily purity was another aspect. He did not want to be ‘polluting’ his body by eating flesh.

I do think there is an element of this with some vegetarians and vegans – so if you are looking for the common thread, this is where to look.