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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

The comparison with Naopoleon in the text is inappropriate and anachronistic. Napoleon WAS fighting against destiny. France was then attacked on all fronts by foreign kingdoms who wanted to crush the republic and restore the monarchy. Napoleon was the one to rise to defend the nation against foreign powers. It had nothing to do with Hitler agressing other countries around.for the sole purpose of establishing a larger German land and destroying its enemies.

EDIT: I can only attribute this silly parrallel between Hitler and Napoleon to Orwell's origins. Being a British writer, he was probably educated throughout his life to loathe Napoleon, presented as the ultimate Evil causing trouble in Europe.

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Read it again: he's saying that both Napoleon and Hitler appealed to a sense of unjust martyrdom the masses experienced, and which is actually a very common element of popular culture. He's only discussing the rhetorical device, not any actual merit of the stance (which, as you say, Napoleon might have had at some point -- certainly not when he invaded Italy though -- not unlike Hitler in Weimar Germany, humiliated and mistreated after WWI).

I don't see the parallel as intended to put Napoleon down, but instead to attribute the same force of personality to Hitler. As someone who never met either man (perhaps that's obvious :), I'm not sure the connection works with me.

The German philosopher, Hegel had quite the man-crush on Bonaparte.

"I saw the Emperor -this soul of the world- go out from the city to survey his reign; it is a truly wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrating on one point while seated on a horse, stretches over the world and dominates it."

Similarly, Hitler saw himself as being the concrete expression of the soul of the German people. He may not have been aware of the quote, but the ideas it expressed were strong themes in the German romantic movement.

Do you have a source for that quote from Hegel ? I'd like to check the actual german version of it :)

I found some references, including this one[1]:

"As far as the philosophy of history is concerned, what is the first trait of the Hegelian vision of the Napoleonic hero ? A famous passage is often quoted. It is an extract from the letter Hegel addressed from Iena to his friend Niethammer, October 13th, 1806, when he had just finished writing The Phenomenology of Mind : " I saw the Emperor -this soul of the world- go out from the city to survey his reign; it is a truly wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrating on one point while seated on a horse, stretches over the world and dominates it. " (Correspondance, T. I, p.114)."

"Napoleon soul of the world" makes a pretty good search phrase[2].

[1] http://www.napoleon.org/en/reading_room/articles/files/napol... [2] https://www.google.com/#q=emperor+napoleon+this+soul+of+the+...

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