Beyond Hitler: What comes after century of defining evil?

In a powerful essay marking the centenary of Mein Kampf’s publication, theologian and historian Alec Ryrie turns the spotlight not on Hitler’s ideology, but on what the enduring cultural presence of his infamy reveals about us. Writing in The New Statesman, Ryrie, author of The Age of Hitler, argues that modern Western moral identity has been shaped more by what it opposes—fascism, Nazism, Hitler—than by any shared vision of the good. In his view, the 20th century’s “anti-Nazi consensus” provided moral clarity, but left a vacuum in values that is now dangerously exposed.

Ryrie opens with the strange truth that Mein Kampf still “matters”—not because people are reading it, but because its author remains our dominant symbol of evil. In a reversal of cultural centrality, he notes that whereas Jesus Christ was once the prevailing moral figure, today Hitler serves as our universal point of reference. He is the negative moral compass by which we orient ourselves, a secular Satan whose legacy has defined the “postwar era”—a phrase still in use nearly 80 years after 1945.

That consensus—that Nazis are evil and we are not them—has provided Western societies with a rare moral certainty. But Ryrie warns this negative framework can no longer sustain us. We know what to hate, he says, but not what to love. Hitler gave us moral guardrails, but not direction. Without a corresponding vision of the good, our values become hollow, unable to address contemporary challenges like climate change, economic injustice, or technological control.

Ryrie illustrates this vacuum through culture and politics. From Darth Vader to the Death Eaters, postwar pop culture has rehashed Nazi villains, reinforcing the idea that evil is authoritarian, militaristic, and easily identified. Yet real-world problems are often more ambiguous. Our instinct to “fight evil” as we did in World War II has led to repeated failures—Suez, Iraq, and almost catastrophe during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our allergy to “appeasement” has become a strategic liability.

The centre-left, Ryrie argues, is especially trapped. In trying to conserve postwar values, it has become risk-averse and bereft of vision. “No disasters and the distant hope of an incremental increase in rations” is hardly a compelling political offer. The result is a public hungering for meaning, for something more than technocratic competence or algorithmic freedom. Meanwhile, the far right finds traction by offering bold, if dangerous, narratives.

So what’s next? Ryrie doesn’t advocate abandoning anti-Nazi values—pluralism, human rights, the rule of law—but rather enriching them with the deeper traditions we’ve sidelined: religious, cultural, and philosophical roots that offer not just boundaries, but beauty, purpose, and ethical substance. These older traditions bring concepts that liberal modernity struggles with—like forgiveness, patience, humility, and love. They provide content to fill the “vacant categories” of freedom and rights.

In the end, Ryrie’s message is both sobering and hopeful: we can’t define ourselves solely by what we oppose. If the 20th century taught us what to guard against, the 21st must teach us what to live for. As the shadow of Hitler fades with time, the question isn’t what we’ve rejected—but what we’re willing to embrace in its place.

By Vugar Khalilov