For Hitler, the war seemed to confirm what he had read in pan-Germanic pamphlets and newspapers in Vienna, namely that in human society, as in nature, only the strong would survive, while the weak would drop dead in their tracks. More than once in his monologues, Hitler confirmed that such social Darwinist beliefs, which he would maintain until the end of his life, originated in his experience of the war. “I went to the battlefield with the purest idealism,” Hitler said, “but when you see thousands get injured and killed, you become aware that life is a constant, terrible struggle, which
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