Stalin means steel which is ironic because he dealt primarily in lead.
Hitler’s etymology is contested but may be old german for ‘hiedler’ which means ‘defender’ which might have served propaganda purposes but considering the end result is extra funny, or ‘hütter’ which means ‘hut-dweller’ which makes him sound like a hermit or basement dweller, either of which are also funny and track.
Hut-dweller is funny for the anecdote (reported by Speer, I think, so not reliable) about how their archaeological research to reveal the grand history of the German people showed them living in mud huts at the same time as other civilizations were much more accomplished.
I heard from some historian on a podcast that the story was that Hitler was writing letters to other people about how Himmler was making Germans look like fools by digging up huts and comparing them directly to Roman and Greek ruins, thereby making it plain that “Aryans” (Germans) were not the origin of all civilisation.
Speer meanwhile was the inventor of a school of architectural thought that considered that one of the factors architechts needed to consider was how good the building would look when it fell apart.
We don’t have the actual letters, we just have Speer’s reporting on the letters, and he was a notorious liar for the purpose of helping his own (and Germany’s) image postwar. What Speer reports that Hitler said included:
Why do we call the whole world’s attention to the fact that we have no past? It isn’t enough that the Romans were erecting great buildings when our forefathers were still living in mud huts; now Himmler is starting to dig up these villages of mud huts and enthusing over every potsherd and stone axe he finds… We really should do our best to keep quiet about this past.
Stalin means steel which is ironic because he dealt primarily in lead.
Hitler’s etymology is contested but may be old german for ‘hiedler’ which means ‘defender’ which might have served propaganda purposes but considering the end result is extra funny, or ‘hütter’ which means ‘hut-dweller’ which makes him sound like a hermit or basement dweller, either of which are also funny and track.
Hut-dweller is funny for the anecdote (reported by Speer, I think, so not reliable) about how their archaeological research to reveal the grand history of the German people showed them living in mud huts at the same time as other civilizations were much more accomplished.
I heard from some historian on a podcast that the story was that Hitler was writing letters to other people about how Himmler was making Germans look like fools by digging up huts and comparing them directly to Roman and Greek ruins, thereby making it plain that “Aryans” (Germans) were not the origin of all civilisation.
Speer meanwhile was the inventor of a school of architectural thought that considered that one of the factors architechts needed to consider was how good the building would look when it fell apart.
We don’t have the actual letters, we just have Speer’s reporting on the letters, and he was a notorious liar for the purpose of helping his own (and Germany’s) image postwar. What Speer reports that Hitler said included: