Peter Singer & Vegetarian Dogs (was Re: The Heiress and theAnarchist)

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Mon Mar 6 20:10:30 PST 2000


The canard about the Nazis being vegetarians and believers in animal rights was offered in a newsgroup a few months ago and thoroughly demolished, especially after the offerer failed to provide any evidence. It's just the usual sort of thing people with marginalized beliefs or positions have to put up with -- the Jews drink blood, hippies are really fascists in diguise, people concerned the status of animals are implicit Nazis.

I'm surprised to see this sort of thing showing up in this venue, however.

Gordon

Ken Hanly:
> If Hitler viewed people as animals then why the difference between his reaction
> to animals killing people=animals (equanimity) and people (animals) killing
> people (animals) (can't stand it). Both are animals killing animals.
> And if he can't stand people killing people how can he stand war or killing
> jews, gypsies, and communists. And if he can't stand the human treatment of
> animals how can he stand his own treatment of jews, gypsies, gays, etc. who are
> after all animals? This set of quotes shows
> only that Hitler is a bundle of contradictions. By the way who were these
> vegetarian Aryans. I expect they exist only in the fertile imagination of Reich
> pseudo-historians or was there something of this sort?
> Cheers, Ken Hanly
>
> Dace wrote:
>
> > From: Michael Pugliese
> >
> > > There is a great book from Sue Coe, the radical artist, on the meat
> > >packing plants, that depicts the (almost said dehumanization!) brutality to
> > >both the cattle, pigs and chickens, and the human workers, mostly Central
> > >American and Mexican living in Nebraska and Iowa (hopefuly the UFCW is
> > >making inroads, read a good piece on this in all places, US News & World
> > >Report a whille ago).
> > > And last night found an article in German, on a debate between Singer
> > and
> > >Peter Sloterdijk. Anyone (maybe Johannes) wanna translate?
> > > Michael Pugliese
> > >
> > >
> > *Dead Meat* by Sue Coe, including an essay by Alex Coeburn, "A Short,
> > Meat-Oriented History of the World from Eden to the Mattole." Here's a
> > selection from the essay:
> >
> > Nazi leaders were noted for love of their pets and for certain animals,
> > notably apex predators like the wolf and the lion. Hitler, a vegetarian and
> > hater of hunting, adored dogs and spent some of his final hours in the
> > company of Blondi, whom he would take for walks outside the bunker at some
> > danger to himself. He had a particular enthusiasm for birds and most of all
> > for wolves. His cover name was Herr Wolf. Many of his interim headquarters
> > had "Wolf" as a prefix, as in Wolfschanze in East Prussia, of which Hitler
> > said "I am the wolf and this is my den." He also liked to whistle the tune
> > of "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" from Walt Disney's movie of the
> > Depression, about the Three Little Pigs.
> > [...]
> > A maharaja gave Hitler films that displayed animals killing people. The
> > Fuehrer watched with equanimity. Another film showed humans killing
> > animals. Hitler covered his eyes and begged to be told when the slaughter
> > was over.
> > [...]
> > Central to this equation was the composer Richard Wagner, an ardent
> > vegetarian who urged attacks on laboratories and physical assault on
> > vivisectionists, whom he associated with Jews (presumably because of kosher
> > killing methods). Identifying vivisectors as the enemy, Wagner wrote that
> > vivisection of frogs was "the curse of our civilization." Those who failed
> > to untruss and liberate frogs were "enemies of the state"... He believed
> > the purity of Aryans had been compromised by meat-eating and mixing of the
> > races. A nonmeat diet plus the Eucharist would engender a return to the
> > original uncorrupted state of affairs...
> > The Nazis abolished moral distinctions between animals and people by viewing
> > people as animals. The result was that animals could be considered higher
> > than some people.
> > [...]
> > Aryans and animals were allied in a struggle against the contaminators, the
> > vivisectors, the undercreatures.
> >
> > Ted
>



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