Strip away the slightly overblown rhetoric, and you're left with Social Darwinism: the idea that desirable traits, or "fitness", is strongly heritable on the individual and therefore also the societal level. And racism: the idea that humans can be grouped into discrete categories the differences between which are much greater than the differences between individuals within each group.
The factual claims are empirically falsifiable, at least in principle. The most contentious point is deriving ought from is.
The elevation of social Darwinism and racism into an ethical code was also not really unique and certainly I wouldn't call it "deranged", when contrasted with some other popular ideologies and ethical theories of the time (e.g. Communism through revolution, or Anarchism by Propaganda of the Deed, or even the divine right of kings, which only really died in Europe in WW1).
There was also classical liberal democracy, but I concede that early 20th century Europe had lots of ideologies which we would consider weird by modern standards. In this cultural environment, Hitler may not have looked as weird as he does now, but I'm under the impression that he was a loose cannon even by the standards of his time.
I don't know whether to call it "deranged" or not. We would need to taboo the word. I do know it is far from original and was a common sentiment among many Christians.
Historically, yes. But the 20th centuries it was unusual to publicily express these opinions, especially for a politician. Jews were well integrated in Western Europe. There were Jewish academics, politicians, judges, etc., though obviously there was an antisemitic undercurrent that Hitler pandered to.
I think I should concede that the word "deranged" was not very appropriate. My point is that Hitler had an unusually aggressive ideology. One could have been tempted to write it off as rethorics, as many people of that time indeed did, but by 1938 it should have been fairly clear that he was interested in implementing it for real.
Historically, yes. But the 20th centuries it was unusual to publicily express these opinions, especially for a politician. Jews were well integrated in Western Europe. There were Jewish academics, politicians, judges, etc., though obviously there was an antisemitic undercurrent that Hitler pandered to.
Maybe. My impression was that antisemitism was alive and well among the non-highly-educated majority of the population. But I'm not very sure about it. (In countries other than Germany, like Poland, Ukraine and Russia, antisemitism was definitely as bad as Hitler's.)
Some of the comments on the link by James_Miller exactly six months ago provided very specific estimates of how the events might turn out:
James_Miller:
Me:
"Russians intervening militarily" could be anything from posturing to weapon shipments to a surgical strike to a Czechoslovakia-style tank-roll or Afghanistan invasion. My guess that the odds of the latter is below 5%.
A bet between James_Miller and solipsist:
I will bet you $20 U.S. (mine) vs $100 (yours) that Russian tanks will be involved in combat in the Ukraine within 60 days. So in 60 days I will pay you $20 if I lose the bet, but you pay me $100 if I win.
While it is hard to do any meaningful calibration based on a single event, there must be lessons to learn from it. Given that Russian armored columns are said to capture key Ukrainian towns today, the first part of James_Miller's prediction has come true, even if it took 3 times longer than he estimated.
Note that even the most pessimistic person in that conversation (James) was probably too optimistic. My estimate of 5% appears way too low in retrospect, and I would probably bump it to 50% for a similar event in the future.
Now, given that the first prediction came true, how would one reevaluate the odds of the two further escalations he listed? I still feel that there is no way there will be a "conventional battle" between Russia and NATO, but having just been proven wrong makes me doubt my assumptions. If anything, maybe I should give more weight to what James_Miller (or at least Dan Carlin) has to say on the issue. And if I had any skin in the game, I would probably be even more cautious.