Despite the outrage in the mainstream media, Spicer’s comments were indeed accurate…
Press secretary Sean Spicer is in a great deal of trouble over his recent comments. In trying to make a moral case against the Syrian dictator, he said that Hitler did not use chemical weapons like Assad has. This justifiably upset many Jewish people and those sensitive to the Holocaust, where over a million captives were gassed. But I think the outrage is missing several key components that would make this a far less egregious comment.
It is true that Hitler gassed and killed millions. But even General Mattis described how Hitler avoided the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield. Historians speculate this was due to Hitler himself being a victim of a mustard gas attack during World War I. That strange hypocrisy could have been the result of several other factors, such as considering the Jews subhuman and thus not worthy of the humane considerations he had for enemy fighters. The world had changed a good deal between World War I and II. Chemical weapons were relatively new and existed in a gray area where their use in World War I did not carry the same stigma it did in World War II. (This is somewhat similar to the way that nuclear weapons were not as stigmatized in World War II and so were used to end it.) On top of that, if Germany used chemical weapons, it would have incited responses in kind, so there was likely a strong deterrent to its use. It’s possible that Hitler’s generals were consummate professionals and felt they could win without the use of chemical weapons. The Holocaust was a non-battlefield operation, which might mean they thought using gases was simply an efficient “solution” and not a battlefield atrocity. Finally, Hitler might not have been aware of the exact method by which the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and dissidents were being killed in the camps.
Whatever the reason for the double standard, Hitler did not use chemical weapons on the battlefield. When Spicer clarified his comments, that is what he intended to say. It’s unfortunate he did so in a clumsy manner that obscured what turned out to be a correct point. The United States continues to pressure Assad and his Russian supporters for their crime against humanity. It would be a shame to take away from that effort over a very inarticulate moment from a press secretary over which he seems genuinely remorseful of his unintentional disrespect of the Holocaust. Those who are offended shouldn’t let their outrage cloud the prevention of another possible Holocaust.
