Osho on Adolf Hitler

 

 

These uncreative religions and uncreative religious people have done nothing but harm -- quarrelling, argumentative, killing each other. And with the problem about the transcendental, one thing is very complex: you cannot prove anything. The experience is transcendental. Christians cannot prove they are right. Hindus cannot prove they are right. No, no decision can be decisive, so they go on fighting and quarrelling. The whole energy that should become creative becomes destructive. This also has to be noted down: if you don't use your energy in a creative way, if it doesn't become a dance and a laughter and a delight, then the same energy will become harmful and poisonous. It will be destructive.

 

It is said that Adolf Hitler wanted to become a painter, but he was refused admission. Just think: the whole world would have been totally different if he had been accepted in the academy. There would have been no Second World War. The whole humanity would have been totally different. But this man could not be creative. He wanted to be creative, he had the energy; certainly he had tremendous energy: he dragged the whole world towards destruction as no other man has ever been able to do. But it was the same energy; it could have become creative, but became uncreative.

 

-Osho, "The Beloved, Vol 2, #9"

 

 

 

 

I would like to remind you that Germany is one of the most intellectual countries in the world. It has given to the world people like Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Martin Heidegger -- great philosophers, great psychologists. And still a third-class crackpot, Adolf Hitler, managed to get all the intelligentsia of the country to follow him.

And I don't think humanity has learned anything out of it. If you don't learn, then history repeats. If you learn, then you can stop history repeating again.

 

Martin Heidegger was perhaps one of the most significant philosophers of the century, and he was a contemporary of Adolf Hitler. He supported Adolf Hitler -- inconceivable! The whole youth, which is the cream of the society, its intelligence, all the universities' vice-chancellors, professors -- they all supported Adolf Hitler, a man who was uneducated, a man who was refused from the school of art, who was refused from the school of architecture, because he had no intelligence.

 

This man became the leader of the most intelligent country in the world, and he created the greatest fascist regime. He killed almost ten million people, and still people were supporting him. It has to be psychoanalyzed.

 

What was the reason? The reason was, Germany was defeated in the first world war. And the intellectuals tend to fight among themselves. They argue, rationalize, philosophize; they are not physically active people. And they are egoists. They think they have found the secret of life, every one of them.

 

After its defeat in the first world war, Germany was in a chaos. The chaos created Adolf Hitler, because he promised, and he fulfilled the promise, "I can make this country again united, again strong, so strong that it can rule over the whole world."

It was something that was immensely needed. People were not working, people were not being creative. Somebody was needed to make the country again creative, disciplined. And Adolf Hitler filled the gap. Within ten years Germany was again a world power.

 

Strange -- if you give people freedom, they become lazy, they don't want to work. But if you give them a fascist order, they work to their very potential; they create, they are united, they become strong.

 

Germany went on winning for five years. That proved that the people of Germany had chosen the right person -- the whole world on one side, and he alone was enough. He gave the intelligentsia their ego as nobody had given them before. He said to them that the Nordic German race is the purest Aryan race, and it is its destiny to rule over the world, because all others are subhuman. It was tremendously gratifying. The intellectual ego was very much fulfilled, and even a man like Martin Heidegger fell into the trap.

 

Only after Hitler was defeated and Germany was almost destroyed, then people started looking back at what they had done, what kind of man they were supporting: a monster, a murderer who has killed millions of people -- perhaps the greatest murderer in the whole history.

 

So remember one thing: freedom is not license. Freedom is responsibility. And if you cannot take your responsibility yourself, then somebody is going to take the responsibility on your behalf. And then you are enslaved.

 

-Osho, "From Bondage to Freedom, #4, Q1"

 

 

 

 

A man should live intelligently -- that's all. Then whatever he does is his responsibility. It happens that even great intellectuals are not living intelligently. Martin Heidegger, one of the greatest intellectuals of this age, was a follower of Adolf Hitler. And after Adolf Hitler's defeat and the exposure of his basic animality, brutality, murderousness, violence, even Martin Heidegger shrank back and said, "I was simply following the leader of the nation."

 

But a philosopher has no business to follow the leader of the nation. In fact a philosopher's basic duty is to guide the leaders of the nation, not to be guided by them, because he is out of active politics, his vision is more clear. He is standing aloof, he can see things which people who are involved in action cannot see. But it is easy to throw responsibility...

 

If Adolf Hitler had been victorious, I am certain Martin Heidegger would have said, "He is victorious because he followed my philosophy." And certainly he was a great intellectual compared to Adolf Hitler. Adolf Hitler was just a retarded person. But power...

 

We have been brought up to follow the powerful -- the father, the mother, the teacher, the priest, the God. Essentially we have been told that whoever has the power is right: "Might is right." And you have to follow it. It is simple because it needs no intelligence. It is simple because you can never be told that it was your responsibility, that whatever happened was your responsibility.

 

In all the armies around the world only one thing is taught through years of training, and that is obedience. In Germany, in the second world war, there were good people, but they were heads of concentration camps. They were good fathers, good husbands, good friends. Nobody could have conceived -- watching them in their families, with their friends, in the club -- that these people are burning thousands of Jews every day.

 

And they were not feeling guilty at all, because it is only an order from above. And that is their whole training, that you have to follow the order. It has become part of their blood and their bones and their marrow. When the order comes, obedience is the only way. This is how man has lived up to now, and that's why I say obedience is one of the greatest crimes, because all other crimes are born out of it. It deprives you of intelligence, it deprives you of decisiveness, it deprives you of responsibility. It destroys you as an individual. It converts you into a robot.

 

Hence I am all for disobedience. But disobedience is not just against obedience. Disobedience is above obedience and the so-called disobedience described in the dictionaries. Disobedience is simply the assertion of your intelligence: "I take the responsibility, and I will do everything that feels right to my heart, to my being. And I will not do anything that goes against my intelligence."

 

-Osho, "Beyond Psychology, #8, Q1"

 

 

 

 

People have always been wondering why Adolf Hitler was able to dominate a great intelligent race like the Germans. Why? It appears a paradox that a man like Martin Heidegger, one of the greatest thinkers of this age, was a supporter of Adolf Hitler. The great professors of the great German universities supported Adolf Hitler. Why? How was it possible?

 

And Adolf Hitler is just a stupid person, uneducated, unsophisticated. But he has something in him that the professors were lacking, that intelligent people were lacking, that the Martin Heideggers were lacking. He has something in him which no intelligent person can have: he has absolute certainty. He is idiotic -- but he can say things with no ifs and no buts; he can make statements as if he knows. He is a madman, but his madness had great impact. It changed the whole course of human history.

 

It is not a surprise that the Germans became so interested and impressed by him. They were intelligent people, some of the most intelligent people on the earth, and intelligence always brings confusion. That is the secret of Adolf Hitler's success. Intelligence brings confusion and confusion brings trembling, fear; one knows not where to go, what to do, and one starts looking for a leader. One starts searching for somebody who can say things with absoluteness, who can assert categorically.

 

-Osho, "The Book of Wisdom, #4, Q2"