Nevertheless, Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf (1924): “When in the long war years Death snatched so many a dear comrade and friend from our ranks, it would have seemed to me almost a sin to complain—after all, were they not dying for Germany?”

The idea that it would be a sin to complain about the death of so many of his comrades--lay at the heart of Hitler's thinking and ideology.

Hitler refused to perform a critique and to abandon the idea of warfare—because the death and dismemberment of his comrades had occurred in the name of his beloved country. If the sacrifices were perform in the name of Germany, why should he complain? This would have been tantamount to abandoning or betraying the sacred object.

Why are historians themselves blasé in the face of the massive destruction wrought by the First World War? Why do they conceive of this war as a "normal" dimension of history, refusing to recognize the First World War as a manifestation of collective psychopathology?

Perhaps historians fail to critique the First World War--for the same reason that Hitler says that it would be a “sin to complain.” It's because of the sacred status of nations in the minds of historians--and of most human beings. If death, dismemberment and destruction occur in the name of “nations,” nothing more needs to be said. It's self-evident why people don't complain. It's the norm--that people should and do die for their countries.

“Nations” remain un-analyzed, un-deconstructed—entities pervading reality, pretending to be reality itself. Nations are gods that remain hidden and obscure—because they are right in front of us.