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WHY DID THE BEST MEN DIE IN THE FIRST WORLD WAR, WHILE THE WORST SURVIVED?
Adolf Hitler and the origins of the Holocaust

German Casualties of
the First World War

Dead 2,037,000
Wounded 4,300,000
Missing or Prisoner 974,977
TOTAL 7,311,977

533,000 widows and
1,192,000 orphans.

Source: Whalen, Robert (1984). Bitter Wounds: German Victims of the Great War: 1914-1939. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

When he wrote Mein Kampf in 1924, Hitler was aware that millions of German men had died in the First World War—and millions more wounded. He knew that millions of German men would not pass their genes along—a case of “negative selection.”

He was profoundly disturbed. The best men were the masculine, courageous ones—those who volunteered to fight—and were more likely to die in battle.

The worst men were those who lacked courage—found ways to avoid participating in battle—and were more likely to survive.

As a result, Hitler said, while the “best human material” was being “thinned on the battlefield,” the worst people “wonderfully succeeded in saving themselves.”

This conundrum lay at the heart of Hitler’s thinking: Why do the best (fittest) men die in war, while the worst (least fit) survive?

Hitler’s answer to this question—led to the Holocaust.