Primary+Source+Interpretations

Nik Jameson AP World History 4-27-09

__Primary Source Interpretations__

__Adolf Hitler__

Hitler believes that when a racially pure parent crosses with a racially lower parent, the offspring will result in a medium child. But Hitler believes that this should not happen, the stronger should not breed with the weaker, instead they should dominate. If the superior blend in with the lesser, than they are sacrificing their own greatness. Hitler's evidence to support his beliefs that the superior should not blend with the weaker is that racial crossing lowers the level of the higher breed while also lowering the physical and intellectual abilities of the racially stronger.

__Benito Mussolini__

Benito Mussolini says that fascism accepts and loves life, and is the complete opposite of Marxism. He also believes that the state is the basic foundation of fascism. Fascism views the state as one absolute, but also recognizes all the individual groups and their relation to the absolute state. Mussolini says that fascism organizes the nation. Growth, expansion, and rise of a nation are vital to fascism. Mussolini's fascism appealed to Italians because the Italians themselves are rising after many centuries of abasement. Because fascism represents the aspirations of people who want to rise, grow, and expand, and the Italians want to rise, fascism appealed to them.

__Hermann Friedrich Graebe__

This primary source account told by Hermann Friedrich Graebe could have sounded many different ways to individuals who had not witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust. For one, this account may have shed some light on exactly how horrific the Holocaust was. Many people might not have realized that what was going on was this horrible. Others may have had more of an idea of just what was happening. But I believe that all in all this account really proved to people what exactly was going on and how horrific it was, when no one really knew quite what was going on. I believe that many steps could possibly have been taken to force the SS soldiers to act like mass murderers. One step may have been torture. The soldiers may have been threatened to do what they were ordered. On the other hand some SS soldiers may have actually believed in Hitler's master race, and therefore had nothing wrong with what they were doing.