Debunking A Bad Rap

Fed up with the misrepresentation in cyberspace, some netizens have set up a Facebook account to defend Adolf Hitler. The first topic to take to task is whether his son will or will not serve national service - i.e. sign up with the National Socialist army, better known as Nazi (Nationalsozialismus) in the German vernacular. You know, the organisation where all the elitist generals stick out their hands and shout "Sieg Heil" - or "kee chiu" for those more proficient in local dialects.

It's all hypothetical, of course. Hitler and his wife Eva Braun never got to do the procreative thing and help raise the Total Fertility Rate for the nation since both blew their own brains out in the underground bunker on 30 April 1945. It's always easier to debunk a fictitious story, how can you prove or disprove something purely speculative?

A real controversy would be about the birthright of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was born in the municipality of Braunau am Inn, Upper Austria, and not Germany. There are even claims that Hitler had Jewish ancestry. It was on 25 Feb 1932 when Hitler was naturalized after being appointed as a civil servant in the then-free state of Braunschweig -- a crucial step for the continuation of his political career. Almost 62 years after his death, German politician Isolde Saalmann, a Social Democratic member of Lower Saxony's regional parliament, wanted to revoke the Nazi leader's 1932 naturalization -- as a "symbolic step." It's easy to understand why politicians are sensitive about the origins of their family's citizenships.

A tougher call would be to tackle the Holocaust topic. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have called the extermination of 6 million Jews during World War II a "myth" in 2005, but there are volumes of literature out there to debunk his version of "truth". Some survivors of the abomination are still alive, just as there are living victims of the wicked ISA detentions. Try calling them liars.

Charles Colson wrote in "How Now Shall We Live":

“Debate can be unpleasant at times, but at least it presupposes that there are truths worth defending, ideas worth fighting for. And if there is no truth, then we cannot persuade one another by rational arguments. All that’s left is sheer power–which opens the door to a new form of fascism.”

Law academic Eugene Tan is quoted saying "these sort of (Facebook) efforts are good for leaving it to Singaporeans to decide for themselves where the truth lies." And if the dream isn't real, is the lie worth defending?


But sir, it clearly says "venomous religion" in the cable