The Power of Recall

[Childress]

The last century's most successful demigods; Hitler, Stalin and Castro had almost identical childhoods; physically abusive fathers and doting mothers. And all three possessed photographic memories. Stalin, who never slept in a bed, would consume 500 page books in a single evening and remember every detail. And Castro's powers of recall are legendary. Hitler could walk through an art exhibit and later sketch the paintings with the most exacting precision.

 

This capacity has been attributed by some researchers to early childhood trauma.

 

Maser tells many stories about Hitler's photographic memory and encyclopaedic knowledge of nearly everything imaginable:

 

He could draw dozens of public buildings from memory with photographic accuracy. He once visited an opera house in some remote city and immediately remarked that there was a technical fault in the architectural design of the building from a purely theatrical point of view -- nothing to do with the design of the building at all; the stage door was too close to the orchestra pit, or something like that. He was right. 

 

When he hired his chauffeur, who was also an expert mechanic, the driver said later that he was amazed how much Hitler knew about cars. 

 

He knew all the armaments of all the world's armies, navies and air forces; General Keitel said it was impossible to find a single mistake. 

 

During the invasion of Norway, one of his admirals complained that they needed an anti-aircraft gun that could fit through the hatch of a submarine; all the German ones were too big. Hitler said he saw a gun in Austria once that he thought would fit. The gun was located, and it fit exactly. 

 

During the invasion of Normandy, his generals asked him how far away from the beach they had to be before they'd be out of range of Allied artillery on board Allied battleships. 

 

Hitler replied that it depended on the armaments on the ships, the displacement of the ships, and the exact depth of the water at that location. He had all the figures in his head, did all the calculations on the spot and gave them the answer, right on the spot. And he was right. 

 

In 1940 he visited Paris for the first time in his life and asked Arno Breker, who had lived there for 10 years, "Is that the Chamber of Commerce?", referring to some building in the distance. Breker said he didn't think so. They drove past it, and sure enough, it was. 

 

He visited the Paris Opera and said he wanted to see the Oval Room. They said, there is no such thing. He said, "I'll show you where it is", took them to it, and it turned out that they had altered the floor plan, bricked up a doorway, built a wall or something, changed the shape of the room and changed its name in the 19th century, but basically it was still there. So once again he was right.

Edited July 31, 2015 by Childress

[Childress]

Once an officer in the Cuban army under Fidel Castro, Servando Gonzalez defected to the United States in 1981. His experiences in Cuba, including involvement in the Bay of Pigs operation and the Cuban missile crisis, give him unique insight into the person of Fidel CastroThe book examines the many facets of Castro’s personality, the most prominent of which is his public persona, or, as Gonzalez calls it, Castro’s symbolic self. In an interview with WorldNetDaily’s talk-radio host Geoff Metcalf, Gonzalez discusses his analysis of Castro.

 

Q: You also mention other significant traits, notwithstanding the fact he may be nuts, but he has a photographic memory and a number of other uncommon abilities. Such as?

A: He has what is called an eidetic photographic memory. It has nothing to do with people who memorize. He just reads something, and it’s like a Xerox machine. When he was a student at the University of Havana, he boasted that he was reading a book and he could tear out the pages and put them in the trash can, and then he could recite from memory the whole book. That is amazing. And he uses that to fool people that he is very knowledgeable of certain areas, like he did with the Soviet who was the one who first came to Cuba [and reported] that Castro was a Marxist. Castro was telling him about Marx, Lenin, Engle. The night before, he just read a few books about Marxism. It is an incredible ability. By the way, Hitler had the same ability.

Q: Apparently, Kennedy did as well.

A: People who memorize using mnemonic technique are different. This is just a born ability.

[Doug Williams]

Very interesting.

Thanks, Childress.

[Childress]

If you've seen Youtube videos of Hitler's speeches you notice he never uses notes. Evidently he read the entire thing off a picture in his mind. Public speaking, considered one of the most psychologically daunting trials one can experience was no challenge for him, regardless of the vast audiences he often faced. He never hesitated, lost his train of though or stuttered.One is reminded of Castro's legendary 7 hour harangues.

 

There are extant anecdotal accounts that, as a soldier in France during WW1, Hitler mastered the French language. A facility he concealed for political reasons.

[Childress]

At the end, the question is.... despite his formidable brain why did Hitler make so many boneheaded decisions? Egregious blunder #1:declaring war on the US after Pearl Harbor. Acquiring yet another enemy. an an intensely moralistic nation with vast potential resources? Loyalty to a Japan, a non-Aryan power? A suicide wish?

 

Looking back, it seems inexplicable.  After all, why borrow a new enemy (and a great big one) when you haven’t even beaten the enemies you already have?  Why toss a new weight into the scales, one with the world’s largest industrial base by a considerable margin?  Why ask for trouble?  More to the point, why solve President Roosevelt’s political problems for him?  FDR saw Nazi Germany, not Imperial Japan, as the gravest threat to democracy, but even this wiliest of U.S. politicians knew it was going to be difficult to get an American public outraged by the “sneak attack” on Pearl Harbor into a war against Germany.

Edited August 11, 2015 by Childress

[StieliAlpha]

Frankly speaking: I strongly doubt those "photographic memory" tales, especially for "prominent" persons. That sounds like propaganda to me. Kind of: He is our leader, he must have a special ability.

And then: Having a special ability, like a photographic memory, does not mean that one is very smart, too. Think of people with an autistic handicap. Or think of very specialized scientists, who often enough are brilliant in their field, but useless in "real life".

Edited August 30, 2015 by StieliAlpha

[sburke]

Yeah really.  He may have a had a good memory, but he was still a whack job.  Almost all his major decisions were bone headed.  So what that he knew where a room was in a building he had never been to.  Didn't help much for a bigoted crazy megalomaniac.  If only they'd bricked that room back up with him in it.

[StieliAlpha]

Yep, I think you can say it this way, too.

[Childress]

A whack job, for sure. But historical anecdotes attest to the Svengali-like appeal of Hitler's personality. Like Castro, he 'snowed' people. Foreigners, diplomats, his own generals would arrive at HQ furious with grievances and after an hour or so would leave the Fuhrer utterly entranced, confident in the rightness of his vision. Rommel comes to mind. Pessimism turned to optimism, even in the Bunker. Hitler really was a hero to his own valet (viz Heinz Linge). And his driver and his secretaries.

 

If you could travel back in time and meet HItler, sburke, I submit that you'd love him. Even armed with historical hindsight.  As the rest of us, no doubt. 

 

The exceptions were rare and confined to the final months of the Reich, chiefly among the Junker class of generals.

Edited August 30, 2015 by Childress

[sburke]

Maybe, maybe not.  I think part of it was their own egos allowed them to be fawned on by him.  Rommel may have been a brilliant military mind, but he also had an ego a mile wide and his morality was questionable at best.  He knew what the Reich was doing.

 

As to the generals leaving mollified, I don't put much credence in that, too many got sacked even as early as 1941. 

 

I do think Hitler was able to verbalize the grievances Germans felt and was able to allow them to express their darkest side feeling that they somehow were legitimate expressions.  My personal feeling is Hitler was more an outlet for the German people rather than someone who somehow led them along with his "vision".  They wanted to believe before he opened his mouth.  Humanity does have that propensity still.  It is easier to blame someone else for your problems and then steal everything they have claiming they "owe" you.  It has been done to the Jews for a couple thousand years now and to most indigenous populations around the globe.  Britain's opium drug trade fueled one empire and impoverished another.  American manifest destiny committed genocide on a scale we can only guess at now it was so complete.  Nothing new about Hitler or the Reich.

 

The thing about the Hitler's and Stalin's and Mao's etc etc is they uniformly express and promote our worst inclinations- so it absolves our conscience to say they had some hypnotic power.  It was their fault....

[Childress]

Obviously the stage must be set before the 'Great Man' can walk onto the boards. In the case of Germany that was the punitive and humiliating Versailles Treaty followed by a depression. But you underestimate Hitler. I submit that he was a scientist of human psychology in the way Issac Newton.or Gallileo were scientists of nature.

 

 Britain's opium drug trade fueled one empire and impoverished another.  American manifest destiny committed genocide on a scale we can only guess at now it was so complete.  Nothing new about Hitler or the Reich.

 

Very o/t, sburke, but I'll respond. Drug selling, like slavery, is held as wicked only in retrospect. Slavery was considered the Way of the World until the late 18th century.Opium, an analgesic, and its derivatives have been a net good for humanity. And the British fleet led the way in ending slavery in the 19th.

 

Re: Manifest Destiny. Genocide implies deliberation. The Nazis committed genocide. Native Americans were victims of biology. Europeans from a densely populated continent came into the New World bearing various diseases, notably smallpox, to which the native population had developed no immunity. There was indeed a holocaust, but an inadvertent one. The NA's got their revenge with tobacco and (maybe) syphilis.

Edited August 31, 2015 by Childress

[A Canadian Cat]

Europeans from a densely populated continent came into the New World bearing various diseases, notably smallpox, to which the native population had developed no immunity. There was indeed a holocaust, but an inadvertent one.

Ah, OK. This is way off topic but I'll just say a nontrivial amount of the spread of small pox was intentional. It may not be pleasant but the fact is in North America our fore fathers did try to wipe out the native peoples.

Canada's residential school system is another example.

[Childress]

Ian, (you ethno-masochist ) you're referring to the smallpox infected blanket allegedly tossed over the wall:

 

Biological warfare (Wiki)

The Siege of Fort Pitt took place in 1763 in what is now the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The siege was a part of Pontiac's Rebellion, an effort by American Indians to drive the British out of the Ohio Country and back across the Appalachian Mountains. The Indian effort to capture Fort Pitt ultimately failed. This event is best known for an allegation of biological warfare, in that the British commanding general ordered the use of smallpox. However, there is no evidence to suggest it ever happened, rather the allegation was instead propaganda. ^[1]

Historian Philip Ranlet argues that it is doubtful that actual smallpox was transmitted. He concludes that Bouquet did not carry out Amherst's suggestion because he feared contracting the disease himself.

 

Even if true that doesn't account for the epidemics already raging in the Spanish controlled regions since Cortes. Next to microbes the most deadly gift of the Europeans was alcohol.

Edited August 31, 2015 by Childress

[A Canadian Cat]

Wow, look at that.  I did not know that was a made up incident.  Good to know.  I stand corrected - thank you .

[Childress]

I submit that he was a scientist of human psychology in the way Issac Newton.or Gallileo were scientists of nature.

 

Jeez, Childress, there's only one 'l' in Galileo. Try to be more careful.

 

Also Louis Pasteur, arguably the greatest benefactor of humanity that ever lived, would have a made a superior contrast.

[StieliAlpha]

If I may add to that: This "nameless guy" (let it his name be forgotten for good), certainly was no "scientist". That's an outrageous insult to generations of scientists. Including Galileo.

But the same applies, of course, to the numberless other maniacs, like Stalin, Napoleon, you name them.

[Childress]

Well, since sburke then I hijacked this thread we might as well discuss Michael Hart's ranking of the top 100 people in history. A most stimulating read.

http://www.amazon.com/The-100-Ranking-Influential-Persons/dp/0806513500

 

Mind these are his most influential. Not the noblest, the smartest, or even the most famous.

 

The Top Ten:

1. Prophet Muhammad
2. Isaac Newton
3. Jesus Christ
4. Buddha
5. Confucius
6. St. Paul
7. Ts'ai Lun
8. Johann Gutenberg
9. Christopher Columbus
10. Albert Einstein

 

Pasteur and Galileo clock in at 12 and 13. Hitler's only #39 due to his devastating but relatively short term impact. Hart's reasoning is always cogent and compelling. For example, although he considers Christianity more influential than Islam, he ranks Muhammad #1 because he classes Jesus and St Paul as a team.

 

The entire list:

http://arankingofthe100.blogspot.com/2011/09/michael-h-hart.html

Edited August 31, 2015 by Childress

[StieliAlpha]

Come on. He forgot Dilbert, the eternal engineer

[sburke]

Hey you are the one starting a thread on Hitler. Stalin and Castro.  How did you ever expect that to stay on topic?

 

And while continuing "off topic", US policy towards Native People's was far more deliberate.  The trail of tears, extermination of the buffalo, the constant land theft and confinement to the reservation system.  You are far too lenient on the culpability of the US gov't and white population in general.  Small pox was one small part of a much broader theft of land and resources.

 

As to the Opium trade.  The Boxer rebellion was not begun to stop the proliferation of an analgesic.  Christ man.  Opium dens ring a bell?  The Chinese held it as wicked as a contemporary experience, just as Africans held slavery to be wicked while they were dying in droves during the middle passage.  Slavery as was practiced then was different.The west likes to confuse this matter saying- well everybody had slaves.  True except for one critical detail - in most cultures slavery was individual, a slave wasn't a slave forever based on the color of their skin.  Slavery as practiced by the west was a far more institutionalized thing than say for example what it was in the Ottoman empire.  Being a slave is never good, but being a slave and knowing your descendant 5 generations removed will likely still be a slave.. well that is slightly different.

 

 

Now to that list of most influential people, he has it all wrong

 

#1 The person who first harnessed fire.

#2 The person who first learned to plant crops

#3 The  person who first domesticated animals.

#4 The person who first thought up writing- okay that is likely a bunch of people so we'll call 4 a group win.

#5 The person who first realized shell fish are damn good eating - okay that probably doesn't belong there, but this is my list.

 

For Kohlenklau

#1 The genetic forbears of Kate Upton.

Edited August 31, 2015 by sburke

[Childress]

...just as Africans held slavery to be wicked while they were dying in droves during the middle passage.  

 

Huh? HUH? Africans were the most culpable in the slave trade, followed by their middlemen the Arabs. But the Africans were the dealers, selling off all those captives captured in their incessant local wars.

[Childress]

True except for one critical detail - in most cultures slavery was individual, a slave wasn't a slave forever based on the color of their skin.  Slavery as practiced by the west was a far more institutionalized thing than say for example what it was in the Ottoman empire.  Being a slave is never good, but being a slave and knowing your descendant 5 generations removed will likely still be a slave.. well that is slightly different.

 

You're probably on the money about that. The Roman Empire was heavily based on slave labor but there was considerable fluidity inherent in the system. Freedmen became power players over time. Not to mention fabulously wealthy if well connected. As far as the Ottoman Empire is concerned it was certainly unpleasant for a Christian youth to be wrenched from his family and forcibly converted to Islam. But becoming a Janissary was probably not a terrible gig.

[sburke]

again, I made a distinction in how the institution of slavery functioned, I did mention that the west likes to say how everybody had slavery (and many still practice today - hell we still have slavery in the US,yes- it is illegal, but it does still exist.)  Africans selling Africans into slavery definitely happened, but what they were selling them into they had no idea.  More to the point, what difference does that make- THEY sold them can not be your excuse for our buying them - sorry officer about having that ounce of crack, but that guy was selling it- it is his fault.

 

For more on that whole issue, this wiki link has quite a bit of interesting info. (for clarification- I am not quoting below as a response specifically to anything you said and am not trying to imply that you did - it is just for me an interesting discourse on how the whole discussion of the African slave trade is itself a very political discussion.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa

 

The viewpoint that “Africans” enslaved “Africans” is obfuscating if not troubling. The deployment of “African” in African history tends to coalesce into obscurantist constructions of identities that allow scholars, for instance, to subtly call into question the humanity of “all” Africans. Whenever Asante rulers sold non-Asantes into slavery, they did not construct it in terms of Africans selling fellow Africans. They saw the victims for what they were, for instance, as Akuapems, without categorizing them as fellow Africans. Equally, when Christian Scandinavians and Russians sold war captives to the Islamic people of the Abbasid Empire, they didn’t think that they were placing fellow Europeans into slavery. This lazy categorizing homogenizes Africans and has become a part of the methodology of African history; not surprisingly, the Western media’s cottage industry on Africa has tapped into it to frame Africans in inchoate generalities allowing the media to describe local crisis in one African state as “African” problem.^[18]

—Dr. Akurang-Parry, Ending the Slavery Blame-Game

 

My point was the institution of slavery to a specific social/ race grouping that was bound in servitude forever was kind of unique.  And the fact that it was banned in the 1800s shows there was contemporary issue with it.  You were the one who stated it was a retrospective thing as if in the 17 and early 1800s it wasn't considered bad.  Fact is it was.  Perhaps not by all, but by enough that the French revolution banned it and eventually a terrible war would occur in the US over it.

 

But enough of this, more importantly you did not state your agreement or disagreement with my most influential people list.

Edited September 1, 2015 by sburke

[Childress]

But enough of this, more importantly you did not state your agreement or disagreement with my most influential people list.

 

They were all worthwhile candidates, sburke, perhaps the most worthwhile (except Kate Upton). But candidates to whom we cannot, sadly, ascribe a name. Voila tout.

 

Both sides of my family fought for the Confederacy and owned slaves. My great-grandfather's photo as an 18 yr old dressed in an immaculate gray uniform(cum watch fob) hangs on my wall. Frankly, he looks like a young twerp. He's there as an historical curiosity. Do I feel guilty? Meh. The concept of inherited racial guilt strikes me as barbarous. Africans owned, and still own, African slaves. I have Native American ancestors, as well. Like many Americans.

 

What infuriates me is that my distant Celtic ancestors were likely held as Roman slaves. Some of their masters were no doubt Africans, or North Africans. Black slaves back then were a minute minority, most were North Europeans, especially Germans. Many were no doubt worked to death on latifundia (vast commercial farms). Should I appeal to the Italian government for an apology or, better yet, remuneration?

Edited September 1, 2015 by Childress

[sburke]

 

What infuriates me is that my distant Celtic ancestors were likely held as Roman slaves. Some of their masters were no doubt Africans, or North Africans. Black slaves back then were a minute minority, most were North Europeans, especially Germans. Should I appeal to the Italian government for an apology or, better yet, remuneration?

Absolutely!  But you have to split that 40 acres and a mule with all the generations since so that leaves you with this... uh blade of grass and a mule hair.  As for me, most of my American ancestry is pretty recent so I don't have to bear any of that guilt. 

 

I might have had an ancestor (Clarissa Dye) who server as a nurse in the civil war.

http://www.civilwarphilly.net/2003survey/LittleSurvey-Medical.pdf

Hard to say with my family - wouldn't be the first time I was told something that turned out to be completely false.  The woman is real- our relationship to her  meh maybe maybe not.

[Childress]

As for me, most of my American ancestry is pretty recent so I don't have to bear any of that guilt. 

 

So you believe in genetic guilt. That's just sad, sburke. The concept has a whiiff of Nazi ideology. Sorry. Your great-grandfather was a Jew, so.... And what about your pre-American genealogy? Surely we can discover some sins. Black Burke, the pirate?

 

The point is that there needs to be an expiration date on historical grievances. Or we'll all go mad. Or homicidal.

 

I should also add that the majority of Black Americans came here voluntarily as immigrants. The pourcentage of blacks whose ancestors were slaves is shrinking daily.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Childress