"The only man who could remove Hitler — a man without nerves"

Following up a quote in the combox of one of W. M. Briggs posts, I have been reading about Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord. A fascinating man. An ardent anti-Nazi, he personally warned Hitler in 1932 that he would shoot him if he attempted a coup. During the war, he was involved in several plots to overthrow Hitler, and was relieved of his command because of his "negative attitude towards National Socialism". He died of cancer in April, 1943.

According to the Wikipedia article, Heinrich Brüning, leader of the Catholic Center party, who served as German chancellor between 1930 and 1932, called Hammerstein-Equord "the only man who could remove Hitler — a man without nerves". According to the reminiscences of his son Kunrat von Hammerstein, Hammerstein-Equord resigned from the Club of Nobility when they threw out their non-Aryan members in 1934 or 1935, and spoke of "organized mass murder" of the Jews before the summer of 1942. He supplied his daughter Maria-Therese von Hammerstein-Paasche with the names of Jews who were scheduled for deportation or arrest, enabling her to warn or hide them. Two of his sons, Ludwig and Kunrat, took part in a failed plot to kill Hitler and replace the Nazi regime with a new government on 20 July 1944, fleeing Germany in its aftermath. His widow and two younger children were then deported to a concentration camp, and freed only when the Allied Forces liberated the camps in 1945.

The quote that sparked all this off concerned Hammerstein-Equord's special classification scheme for his men:

"I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief."

So Tom Jones, Van Morrison and Jeff Beck went into a bar... er.. recording studio...

and came up with this...

Obesity and Abstinence

A very interesting post by Crude over at Crude Ideas.

Clearly I'm a bit stupid but the comparison hadn't really struck me before. Yes, Society demands high levels of will-power and abstinence for people who can't manage their desire for one biological necessity but thinks that it is wildly impractical, not to say bordering on pathologically repressed to demand it of another.

Of course, I suspect that when we have a magic pill to eradicate weight gain and the reduce costs associated with obesity, all this emphasis on healthy eating and exercise will go by the board and we'll be back to belittling the idea that any form of self discipline is something for which we should strive. Expecting self-control from people, especially young people, is just so unrealistic...