The friends we make, the love it takes It's worth, it's worth, it's worth it all this time

Okay, folks. Somehow this got pushed into my timeline on twitter a lot again recently, so please... Let me talk about the "baby Hitler meme". For those who somehow lived under a rock for the last like 30 years, it goes something like that: "If you could go back in time and kill Hitler when he was still a baby, would you do it?"

There is also an alternate version going around on TikTok with people begging that art academy in Vienna to admit Hitler, so that he wouldn't go into politics.

And... I hate it. Because it is stupid. It is Great Man theory and nothing else. It proposes that if Hitler had not been around that the Nazi party had never risen to power and no holocaust or anything of the like would have happened. And that just... ignores the fault of everyone else.

I am not gonna lie, yeah, sure, there is some evidence that the industrialized killing thing sprang from the mind of Hitler. But folks forget: Hitler got into power by winning an election (after which he then made sure he could not get out of power again). And he won that election because his ideas of demonizing Jewish people, Sinti, Roma, disabled people, queer folks, and Socialists were popular at the time.

There were many reasons for it. Fallout from the first world war, but also stuff connected to the great depression. Folks were struggling and like always when people struggle they look for a scapegoat. And that scapegoat at the time were Jews and socialists. Jews because within most of Europe (and a good chunk of the Arabian world) Jews have been the favorite scapegoats for millennia. And socialists, because... well, global politics at the time.

The holocaust didn't happen because of just Adolf Hitler, but because of a lot of people who were totally into the idea of killing everyone who was different. And because the normal folks in Germany just happily marched along at the time.

As much as Germans today tend to deny it (I am from Germany, I know) most of our ancestors didn't do shit about it. People KNEW what was happening. But 99% of all Germans cheered it on or at least stood idly by watching it happen.

I hate the "baby Hitler" meme, because it acts as if those 99% are innocent and basically goot brain washed by Hitler, who bears sole responsibility. And that is bullshit. Everyone was guilty. Something, something, all that needs to happen for evil to persist is for the good people to stand by and do nothing.

People voted for the Nazi party. People voted for Hitler. People wanted those marginalized folks to die.

Would the Holocaust as this big industrial killing thing would have happened without Hitler? Nobody knows. Because we cannot travel in time.

But the meme sucks, because it acts as if everyone else was not an accomplice in it.

Sincerely,

@ilovelaica sent us this beautiful halter 😍