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Live to party,work to affordit. Registered: 10/03/04 Posts: 8,978 Loc: South Texas Last seen: 12 years, 9 months |
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HITLER WAS A SOCIALIST
John J. Ray ^ | unknown | John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) Posted on 05/27/2004 6:32:13 AM PDT by RedBloodedAmerican Previously unpublished article HITLER WAS A SOCIALIST John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) The Demand for Explanation Now that more than 50 years have passed since the military defeat of Nazi Germany, one might have thought that the name of its leader would be all but forgotten. This is far from the case, however. Even in the popular press, references to Hitler are incessant and the trickle of TV documentaries on the Germany of his era would seem to be unceasing. Hitler even featured on the cover of a 1995 Time magazine. This finds its counterpart in the academic literature too. Scholarly works on Hitler's deeds continue to emerge (e.g. Feuchtwanger, 1995) and in a recent survey of the history of Western civilization, Lipson (1993) named Hitlerism and the nuclear bomb as the two great evils of the 20th century. Stalin's tyranny lasted longer, Pol Pot killed a higher proportion of his country's population and Hitler was not the first Fascist but the name of Hitler nonetheless hangs over the entire 20th century as something inescapably and inexplicably malign. It seems doubtful that even the whole of the 21st century will erase from the minds of thinking people the still largely unfulfilled need to understand how and why Hitler became so influential and wrought so much evil. The fact that so many young Germans (particular from the formerly Communist East) today still salute his name and perpetuate much of his politics is also an amazement and a deep concern to many and what can only be called the resurgence of Nazism among many young Germans at the close of the 20th century would seem to generate a continuing and pressing need to understand the Hitler phenomenon. So what was it that made Hitler so influential? What was it that made him (as pre-war histories such as Roberts, 1938, attest) the most popular man in the Germany of his day? Why does he still have many admirers now in the Germany on which he inflicted such disasters? What was (is?) his appeal? And why, of all things, are the young products of an East German Communist upbringing still so susceptible to his message? Modern Leftism Before we answer that question, however, let us look at what the Left and Right in politics consist of at present. Consider this description by Edward Feser of someone who would have been an ideal Presidential candidate for the modern-day U.S. Democratic party: He had been something of a bohemian in his youth, and always regarded young people and their idealism as the key to progress and the overcoming of outmoded prejudices. And he was widely admired by the young people of his country, many of whom belonged to organizations devoted to practicing and propagating his teachings. He had a lifelong passion for music, art, and architecture, and was even something of a painter. He rejected what he regarded as petty bourgeois moral hang-ups, and he and his girlfriend "lived together" for years. He counted a number of homosexuals as friends and collaborators, and took the view that a man's personal morals were none of his business; some scholars of his life believe that he himself may have been homosexual or bisexual. He was ahead of his time where a number of contemporary progressive causes are concerned: he disliked smoking, regarding it as a serious danger to public health, and took steps to combat it; he was a vegetarian and animal lover; he enacted tough gun control laws; and he advocated euthanasia for the incurably ill. He championed the rights of workers, regarded capitalist society as brutal and unjust, and sought a third way between communism and the free market. In this regard, he and his associates greatly admired the strong steps taken by President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to take large-scale economic decision-making out of private hands and put it into those of government planning agencies. His aim was to institute a brand of socialism that avoided the inefficiencies that plagued the Soviet variety, and many former communists found his program highly congenial. He deplored the selfish individualism he took to be endemic to modern Western society, and wanted to replace it with an ethic of self-sacrifice: "As Christ proclaimed 'love one another'," he said, "so our call -- 'people's community,' 'public need before private greed,' 'communally-minded social consciousness' -- rings out.! This call will echo throughout the world!" The reference to Christ notwithstanding, he was not personally a Christian, regarding the Catholicism he was baptized into as an irrational superstition. In fact he admired Islam more than Christianity, and he and his policies were highly respected by many of the Muslims of his day. He and his associates had a special distaste for the Catholic Church and, given a choice, preferred modern liberalized Protestantism, taking the view that the best form of Christianity would be one that forsook the traditional other-worldly focus on personal salvation and accommodated itself to the requirements of a program for social justice to be implemented by the state. They also considered the possibility that Christianity might eventually have to be abandoned altogether in favor of a return to paganism, a worldview many of them saw as more humane and truer to the heritage of their people. For he and his associates believed strongly that a people's ethnic and racial heritage was what mattered most. Some endorsed a kind of cultural relativism according to which what is true or false and right or wrong in some sense depends on one's ethnic worldview, and especially on what best promotes the well-being of one's ethnic group There is surely no doubt that the man Feser described is in fact a mainstream Leftist by current standards. But who is the man concerned? It is a historically accurate description of Adolf Hitler. Hitler was not only a socialist in his own day but he would even be a mainstream socialist in most ways today. Feser does not mention Hitler's antisemitism above, of course, but that too seems once again to have become mainstream among the Western-world Left in the early years of the 21st century. Insane? But what about Hitler's insanity? There have been many proposed explanations of Hitler's influence and deeds but nearly all of the social scientific explanations very rapidly come up with the word "insanity" or one of its synonyms (e.g. Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson & Sanford, 1950). Attributing mental illness or mental disturbance to Hitler seems to be the only way that many people can deal with his malign legacy. Proving a negative is of course notoriously difficult so proving that Hitler was NOT insane is something we can only do probabilistically. As perhaps some initial context however, consider this description of a German country gentleman of Hitler's day: "There is nothing pretentious about his little estate. It is one that any merchant might possess in these lovely hills. All visitors are shown their host's model kennels, where he keeps magnificent Alsatians. Some of his pedigree pets are allowed the run of the house, especially on days when he gives a "Fun Fair" for the local children. He delights in the society of brilliant foreigners, especially painters, singers and musicians. As host he is a droll raconteur. Every morning at nine he goes out for a talk with his gardeners about their day's work. These men, like the chauffeur and air-pilot, are not so much servants as loyal friends. A life-long vegetarian at table, his kitchen plots are both varied and heavy with produce. Even in his meatless diet, he is something of a gourmet. He is his own decorator, designer and furnisher, as well as architect." This apparently pleasant, artistic country gentleman was described in the 1938 edition of the British "Homes & Gardens" magazine -- which is now on the net here. It sounds about as good an opposite to the insane Hitler as one could get, does it not? In reality, of course, it is a description of Hitler himself. The story of how the article concerned came to be posted on the internet is here So we surely do need to look at the plausibility of the "insanity" claim. Do madmen achieve popular acclaim among their own people? Do madmen inspire their countrymen to epics of self-sacrifice? Do madmen leave a mark on history unlike any other? Until Hitler came along, the answers to all these questions would surely have been "no". So is there an alternative explanation? Is there something other than mental illness that can explain Hitler's success? If there is we surely owe it to ourselves and to our children to find out. If by dismissing Hitlerism as madness we miss what really went on in Hitler's rise to power we surely run dreadful risks of allowing some sort of Nazi revival. The often extreme expressions of nationalism to be heard from Russia today surely warn us that a Fascist upsurge in a major European State is no mere bogeyman. What we fail to understand we may be unable to prevent. All possible explanations for the Nazi phenomenon do surely therefore demand our attention. It is the purpose of the present paper, therefore, to explain the rise and power of Hitler's Nazism in a way that does not take the seductive route of invoking insanity. Before we do that, however, we have to place him in the context of his times. We literally have to know "where he was coming from". Party programmes Let us start by considering political party programmes or "platforms" of Hitler's day: Take this description of a political programme: A declaration of war against the order of things which exist, against the state of things which exist, in a word, against the structure of the world which presently exists". And this description of a political movement as having a 'revolutionary creative will' which had 'no fixed aim, no permanency, only eternal change' And this policy manifesto: 9. All citizens of the State shall be equal as regards rights and duties. 10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. The activities of the individual may not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the frame of the community and be for the general good. Therefore we demand: 11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished. 12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in life and property, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as a crime against the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits whether in assets or material. 13. We demand the nationalization of businesses which have been organized into cartels. 14. We demand that all the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared out. 15. We demand extensive development of provision for old age. 16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle-class, the immediate communalization of department stores which will be rented cheaply to small businessmen, and that preference shall be given to small businessmen for provision of supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities. 17. We demand a land reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to confiscate from the owners without compensation any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land. So who put that manifesto forward and who was responsible for the summary quotes given before that? Was it the US Democrats, the British Labour Party, the Canadian Liberals, some European Social Democratic party? No. The manifesto is an extract from the (February 25th., 1920) 25 point plan of the National Socialist German Workers Party and was written by the leader of that party: Adolf Hitler. And the preceding summary quotes were also from him (See towards the end of Mein Kampf and O'Sullivan, 1983. p. 138). The rest of Hitler's manifesto was aimed mainly at the Jews but in Hitler's day it was very common for Leftists to be antisemitic. And the increasingly pervasive anti-Israel sentiment among the modern-day Left -- including at times the Canadian government -- shows that modern-day Leftists are not even very different from Hitler in that regard. Modern-day anti-Israel protesters still seem to think that dead Jews are a good thing. Other examples of Hitler's Leftism Further, as a good socialist does, Hitler justified everything he did in the name of "the people" (Das Volk). The Nazi State was, like the Soviet State, all-powerful, and the Nazi party, in good socialist fashion, instituted pervasive supervision of German industry. And of course Hitler and Stalin were initially allies. It was only the Nazi-Soviet pact that enabled Hitler's conquest of Western Europe. The fuel in the tanks of Hitler's Panzern as they stormed through France was Soviet fuel. And a book that was very fashionable worldwide in the '60s was the 1958 book "The Affluent Society" by influential "liberal" Canadian economist J.K. Galbraith -- in which he fulminated about what he saw as our "Private affluence and public squalor". But Hitler preceded him. Hitler shared with the German Left of his day the slogan: "Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz" (Common use before private use). And we all know how evil Nazi eugenics were, don't we? How crazy were their efforts to build up the "master race" through selective breeding of SS men with the best of German women -- the "Lebensborn" project? Good Leftists recoil in horror from all that of course. But who were the great supporters of eugenics in Hitler's day? In the USA, the great eugenicists of the first half of the 20th century were the "Progressives". And who were the Progressives? Here is one summary of them: "Originally, progressive reformers sought to regulate irresponsible corporate monopoly, safeguarding consumers and labor from the excesses of the profit motive. Furthermore, they desired to correct the evils and inequities created by rapid and uncontrolled urbanization. Progressivism ..... asserted that the social order could and must be improved..... Some historians, like Richard Hofstadter and George Mowry, have argued that the progressive movement attempted to return America to an older, more simple, agrarian lifestyle. For a few progressives, this certainly was true. But for most, a humanitarian doctrine of social progress motivated the reforming spirit" Sound familiar? The Red/Green alliance of today is obviously not new. So Hitler's eugenics were yet another part of Hitler's LEFTISM! He got his eugenic theories from the Leftists of his day. He was simply being a good Leftist intellectual in subscribing to such theories. The summary of Progressivism above is from De Corte (1978). Against all his own evidence, De Corte also claims that the Progressives were "conservative". More Leftist whitewash! See also Pickens (1968). And are feminists conservative? Hardly. And feminists are hardly a new phenomenon either. In the person of Margaret Sanger and others, they were very active in the USA in first half of the 20th century, advocating (for instance) abortion. And Margaret Sanger was warmly praised by Hitler for her energetic championship of eugenics. And the American eugenicists were very racist. They shared Hitler's view that Jews were genetically inferior and opposed moves to allow into the USA Jews fleeing from Hitler (Richmond, 1998). So if Hitler's eugenics and racial theories were loathsome, it should be acknowledged that his vigorous supporters in the matter at that time were Leftists and feminists, rather than conservatives. Hitler the Greenie And Hitler also of course foreshadowed the Red/Green alliance of today. The Nazis were in fact probably the first major political party in the Western world to have a thoroughgoing "Green" agenda. I take the following brief summary from Andrew Bolt: Hitler's preaching about German strength and destiny was water in the desert to the millions of Germans who'd been stripped of pride, security and hope by their humiliating defeat in World War I, and the terrible unemployment that followed. The world was also mad then with the idea that a dictatorial government should run the economy itself and make it "efficient", rather than let people make their own decisions. The Nazis -- National Socialists -- promised some of that, and their sibling rivals in the Communist Party more. The theory of eugenics -- breeding only healthy people -- was also in fashion, along with a cult of health. The Nazis, with their youth camps and praise of strong bodies and a strong people, endorsed all that, and soon were killing the retarded, the gay and the different. Tribalism was popular, too. People weren't individuals, but members of a class, as the communists argued, or of a race, as the Nazis said. Free from freedom -- what a relief for the scared! You'd think we'd have learned. But too much of such thinking is back and changing us so fast that we can't say how our society will look by the time we die. A KIND of eugenics is with us again, along with an obsession for perfect bodies. Children in the womb are being killed just weeks before birth for the sin of being a dwarf, for instance, and famed animal rights philosopher Peter Singer wants parents free to kill deformed children in their first month of life. Meanwhile support for euthanasia for the sick, tired or incompetent grows. As for tribalism, that's also back -- and as official policy. We now pay people to bury their individuality in tribes, giving them multicultural grants or even an Aboriginal "parliament". But most dangerous is that we strip our children of pride, security and even hope. They are taught that God is dead, our institutions corrupt, our people racist, our land ruined, our past evil and our future doomed by global warming. Many have also watched one of their parents leave the family home, which to some must seem a betrayal. They are then fed a culture which romanticises violence and worships sex -- telling them there is nothing more to life than the cravings of their bodies. No one can live like this and be fulfilled. People need to feel part of something bigger and better than ourselves -- a family, or a church, or a tradition or a country. Or, as a devil may whisper, the greens. The greens. Here's a quote which may sound very familiar -- at least in part. "We recognise that separating humanity from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind's own destruction and to the death of nations. "Only through a re-integration of humanity into the whole of nature can our people be made stronger . . "This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life, with nature itself, a nature into which we are born, this is the deepest meaning and the true essence of National Socialist thought." That was Ernst Lehmann, a leading biologist under the Nazi regime, in 1934, and he wasn't alone. Hitler, for one, was an avid vegetarian and green, addicted to homoepathic cures. His regime sponsored the creation of organic farming, and SS leader Heinrich Himmler even grew herbs on his own organic farm with which to treat his beloved troops. HITLER also banned medical experiments on animals, but not, as we know to our grief, on Jewish children. And he created many national parks, particularly for Germany's "sacred" forests. This isn't a coincidence. The Nazis drew heavily on a romantic, anti-science, nature worshipping, communal and anti-capitalist movement that tied German identity to German forests. In fact, Professor Raymond Dominick notes in his book, The Environmental Movement in Germany, two-thirds of the members of Germany's main nature clubs had joined the Nazi Party by 1939, compared with just 10 per cent of all men. The Nazis also absorbed the German Youth Movement, the Wandervogel, which talked of our mystical relationship with the earth. Peter Staudenmaier, co-author of Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience, says it was for the Wandervogel that the philosopher Ludwig Klages wrote his influential essay Man and Earth in 1913. In it, Klages warned of the growing extinction of species, the destruction of forests, the genocide of aboriginal peoples, the disruption of the ecosystem and the killing of whales. People were losing their relationship with nature, he warned. Heard all that recently? I'm not surprised. This essay by this notorious anti-Semite was republished in 1980 to mark the birth of the German Greens -- the party that inspired the creation of our own Greens party. Its message is much as Hitler's own in Mein Kampf: "When people attempt to rebel against the iron logic of nature, they come into conflict with the very same principles to which they owe their existence as human beings. Their actions against nature must lead to their own downfall." Why does this matter now? Because we must learn that people who want animals to be treated like humans really want humans to be treated like animals. We must realise a movement that stresses "natural order" and the low place of man in a fragile world, is more likely to think man is too insignificant to stand in the way of Mother Earth, or the Fatherland, or some other man-hating god. We see it already. A Greenpeace co-founder, Paul Watson, called humans the "AIDS of the earth", and one of the three key founders of the German Greens, Herbert Gruhl, said the environmental crisis was so acute the state needed perhaps "dictatorial powers". And our growing church of nature worshippers insist that science make way for their fundamentalist religion, bringing us closer to a society in which muscle, not minds, must rule. It's as a former head of Greenpeace International, Patrick Moore, says: "In the name of speaking for the trees and other species, we are faced with a movement that would usher in an era of eco-fascism." This threat is still small. But if we don't resist it today, who knows where it will sweep us tomorrow? Lebensraum and the population "problem" Reading Mein Kampf can be a perverse sort of fun. You can open almost any page of it at random and hear echoes of the modern-day Left and Greens. The points I mention in this present article are just a sampling. I could fill a book with examples showing that Hitler was not only a Leftist in his day but that he was also a pretty good Leftist by modern standards. His antisemitism would certainly pass unremarked by much of the Left today. Among students of the Nazi period it is well-known that Hitler's most central concern after getting rid of the Jews was Lebensraum for Germany -- i.e. taking over the lands of Eastern Europe for Germans. But WHY did Hitler want Lebensraum (literally, "life-space") for Germans? It was because, like the Greenies of today, he was concerned about overpopulation. Greenie Paul Ehrlich wrote in his 1968 book The population bomb: "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate..." Hitler shared Ehrlich's pessimism: "Germany has an annual increase in population of nearly nine hundred thousand souls. The difficulty of feeding this army of new citizens must grow greater from year to year and ultimately end in catastrophe, unless ways and means are found to forestall the danger of starvation and misery in time... Without doubt the productivity of the soil can be increased up to a certain limit. But only up to a certain limit, and not continuously without end..... But even with the greatest limitation on the one hand and the utmost industry on other, here again a limit will one day be reached, created by the soil itself. With the utmost toil it will not be possible to obtain any more from it, and then, though postponed for a certain time, catastrophe again manifests itself". (Mein Kampf pp. 121 & 122). Both Prof. Ehrlich and Hitler were intelligent but overconfident Green/Left ignoramuses who knew nothing of the economics concerned -- as is shown by the almost hilarious wrongness of Ehrlich's predictions -- but Hitler unfortunately had the means to do something about his ill-informed theories. He concluded that rather than let Germans starve, he would grab more land off other people to feed them -- and the rest is indeed history. But surely Hitler was at least like US conservatives in being a "gun nut"? Far from it. Weimar (pre-Hitler) Germany did have restrictions on private ownership of firearms but the Nazis introduced even further restrictions when they came to power. The Nazi Weapons Law (or Waffengesetz), which restricted the possession of militarily useful weapons and forbade trade in weapons without a government-issued license, was passed by the Reichstag ("State Assembly" -- i.e. the German Federal Parliament) on March 18, 1938. More Leftist than racist? Hitler was in fact even more clearly a Leftist than he was a nationalist or a racist. Although in his speeches he undoubtedly appealed to the nationalism of the German people, Locke (2001) makes a strong case that Hitler was not in fact a very good nationalist in that he always emphasized that his primary loyalty was to what he called the Aryan race -- and Germany was only one part of that race. Locke then goes on to point out that Hitler was not even a very consistent racist in that the Dutch, the Danes etc. were clearly Aryan even by Hitler's own eccentric definition yet he attacked them whilst at the same time allying himself with the very non-Aryan Japanese. And the Russians and the Poles (whom Hitler also attacked) are rather more frequently blonde and blue-eyed (Hitler's ideal) than the Germans themselves are! So what DID Hitler believe in? Locke suggests that Hitler's actions are best explained by saying that he simply had a love of war but offers no explanation of WHY Hitler would love war. Hitler's extreme Leftism does explain this however. As the quotations already given show, Hitler shared with other Leftists a love of constant change and excitement --- and what could offer more of that than war (or, in the case of other Leftists, the civil war of "revolution")? See here for a more extensive treatment of what motivates Leftists generally. The idea that Nazism was motivated primarily by a typically Leftist hunger for change and excitement and rejection of the status quo is reinforced by the now famous account of life in Nazi Germany given by a young "Aryan" who lived through it. Originally written before World War II, Haffner's (2002) account of why Hitler rose to power stresses the boring nature of ordinary German life and observes that the appeal of the Nazis lay in their offering of relief from that: "The great danger of life in Germany has always been emptiness and boredom ... The menace of monotony hangs, as it has always hung, over the great plains of northern and eastern Germany, with their colorless towns and their all too industrious, efficient, and conscientious business and organizations. With it comes a horror vacui and the yearning for 'salvation': through alcohol, through superstition, or, best of all, through a vast, overpowering, cheap mass intoxication." So he too saw the primary appeal of Nazism as its offering of change, novelty and excitement. And how about another direct quote from Hitler himself? "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions" (Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by Toland, 1976, p. 306) Clearly, the idea that Hitler was a Rightist is probably the most successful BIG LIE of the 20th Century. He was to the Right of the Communists but that is all. Nazism was nothing more nor less than a racist form of Leftism (rather extreme Leftism at that) and to label it as "Rightist" or anything else is to deny reality. The word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation of the name of Hitler's political party -- the Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei. In English this translates to "The National Socialist German Worker's Party". So Hitler was a socialist and a champion of the workers -- or at least he identified himself as such and campaigned as such. There is a great deal of further reading available that extends the points made here about the nature of Nazism and Fascism. There is, for instance, an interesting review by Prof. Antony Flew here of The Lost Literature of Socialism by historian George Watson. Excerpt: Many of his findings are astonishing. Perhaps for readers today the most astonishing of all is that "In the European century that began in the 1840s, from Engels' article of 1849 down to the death of Hitler, everyone who advocated genocide called himself a socialist and no conservative, liberal, anarchist or independent did anything of the kind." (The term "genocide" in Watson's usage is not confined to the extermination only of races or of ethnic groups, but embraces also the liquidation of such other complete human categories as "enemies of the people" and "the Kulaks as a class.") The book seems well worth reading but is not of course available online. An excellent earlier essay by Prof. Watson covering some of the same ground is however available here. He shows in it that even such revered figures in the history of socialism as G.B. Shaw and Beatrice Webb were vocally in favour of genocide. We do however need to keep in mind that there is no such thing as PURE Leftism. Leftists are notoriously fractious, sectarian and multi-branched. And even the Fascist branch of Leftism was far from united. The modern-day Left always talk as if Italy's Mussolini and Hitler were two peas in a pod but that is far from the truth. Mussolini got pretty unprintable about Hitler at times and did NOT support Hitler's genocide against the Jews (Steinberg, 1990; Herzer, 1989). As it says here: "Just as none of the victorious powers went to war with Germany to save the Jews neither did Mussolini go to war with them to exterminate the Jews. Indeed, once the Holocaust was under way he and his fascists refused to deport Jews to the Nazi death camps thus saving thousands of Jewish lives - far more than Oskar Schindler." "Far more than Oskar Schindler"!. And as late as 1938, Mussolini even asked the Pope to excommunicate Hitler!. Leftists are very good at "fraternal" rivalry. So unity is not of the Left in any of its forms. They only ever have SOME things in common -- such as claiming to represent "the worker" and seeking a State that controls as much of people's lives as it feasibly can. Tom Wolfe's essay on American intellectuals also summarizes the origins of Fascism and Nazism rather well. Here is one excerpt from it: "Fascism" was, in fact, a Marxist coinage. Marxists borrowed the name of Mussolini's Italian party, the Fascisti, and applied it to Hitler's Nazis, adroitly papering over the fact that the Nazis, like Marxism's standard-bearers, the Soviet Communists, were revolutionary socialists. In fact, "Nazi" was (most annoyingly) shorthand for the National Socialist German Workers' Party. European Marxists successfully put over the idea that Nazism was the brutal, decadent last gasp of "capitalism." Other sources on the basic facts about Hitler that history tells us are Roberts (1938), Heiden (1939), Shirer (1964), Bullock (1964), Taylor (1963), Hagan (1966), Feuchtwanger (1995). The above are however secondary sources and, as every historian will tell you, there is nothing like going back to the original -- which is why much original text is quoted above. For further reading in the original sources, the first stop is of course Mein Kampf. It seems cutomary to portray Mein Kampf as the ravings of a madman but it is far from that. It is the attempt of an intelligent mind to comprehend the world about it and makes its points in such a personal and passionate way that it might well persuade many people today but for a knowledge of where it led. The best collection of original Nazi documents on the web is however probably here. Perhaps deserving of particular mention among the documents available there is a widely circulated pamphlet by Goebbels here. One excerpt from it: The bourgeois is about to leave the historical stage. In its place will come the class of productive workers, the working class, that has been up until today oppressed. It is beginning to fulfill its political mission. It is involved in a hard and bitter struggle for political power as it seeks to become part of the national organism. The battle began in the economic realm; it will finish in the political. It is not merely a matter of pay, not only a matter of the number of hours worked in a day-though we may never forget that these are an essential, perhaps even the most significant part of the socialist platform-but it is much more a matter of incorporating a powerful and responsible class in the state, perhaps even to make it the dominant force in the future politics of the Fatherland Objections At this stage I think I need to consider some objections to the account of Hitler that I have given so far: Leftist denials of Hitler's Leftism: Kangas Modern day Leftists of course hate it when you point out to them that Hitler was one of them. They deny it furiously -- even though in Hitler's own day both the orthodox Leftists who represented the German labor unions (the SPD) and the Communists (KPD) voted WITH the Nazis in the Reichstag (German Parliament) on various important occasions. As part of that denial, an essay by Steve Kangas is much reproduced on the internet. Entering the search phrase "Hitler was a Leftist" will bring up multiple copies of it. Kangas however reveals where he is coming from in his very first sentence: "Many conservatives accuse Hitler of being a leftist, on the grounds that his party was named "National Socialist." But socialism requires worker ownership and control of the means of production". It does? Only to Marxists. So Kangas is saying only that Hitler was less Leftist than the Communists -- and that would not be hard. Surely a "democratic" Leftist should see that as faintly to Hitler's credit, in fact. At any event, Leonard Peikoff makes clear the triviality of the difference: Contrary to the Marxists, the Nazis did not advocate public ownership of the means of production. They did demand that the government oversee and run the nation's economy. The issue of legal ownership, they explained, is secondary; what counts is the issue of CONTROL. Private citizens, therefore, may continue to hold titles to property -- so long as the state reserves to itself the unqualified right to regulate the use of their property. Which sounds just like the Leftists of today. Some other points made by Kangas are highly misleading. He says for instance that Hitler favoured "competition over co-operation". Hitler in fact rejected Marxist notions of class struggle and had as his great slogan: "Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Fuehrer" (One State, one people, one leader). He ultimately wanted Germans to be a single, unified, co-operating whole under him, with all notions of social class or other divisions forgotten. Other claims made by Kangas are simply laughable: He says that Hitler cannot have been a Leftist because he favoured: "politics and militarism over pacifism, dictatorship over democracy". Phew! So Stalin was not political, not a militarist and not a dictator? Enough said. Other denials of Nazism as Leftist When all is said and done, however, the challenge by Kangas is really just too silly to take seriously. More serious is the strong reaction I get from many who know something of history who say that Hitler cannot have been a Leftist because of the great hatred that existed at the time between the Nazis and the "Reds". And it is true that Hitler's contempt for "Bolshevism" was probably exceeded only by his contempt for the Jews. My reply is that there is no hatred like fraternal hatred and that hatreds between different Leftist groupings have existed from the French revolution onwards. That does not make any of the rival groups less Leftist however. And the ice-pick in the head that Trotsky got courtesy of Stalin shows vividly that even among the Russian revolutionaries themselves there were great rivalries and hatreds. Did that make any of them less Marxist, less Communist? No doubt the protagonists concerned would argue that it did but from anyone else's point of view they were all Leftists at least. Nonetheless there still seems to persist in some minds the view that two groups as antagonistic as the Nazis and the Communists just cannot have been ideological blood-brothers. Let me therefore try this little quiz: Who was it who at one stage dismissed Hitler as a "barbarian, a criminal and a pederast"? Was it Stalin? Was it some other Communist? Was it Winston Churchill? Was it some other conservative? Was it one of the Social Democrats? No. It was none other than Benito Mussolini, the Fascist leader who later became Hitler's ally in World War II. And if any two leaders were ideological blood-brothers those two were. So I am afraid that antagonism between Hitler and others proves nothing. If anything, the antagonism between Hitler and other socialists is proof of what a typical socialist Hitler was. Another difficulty that those who know their history raise is the great and undoubted prominence of nationalist themes in Hitler's propaganda. It is rightly noted that in this Hitler diverged widely from the various Marxist movements of Europe. So can he therefore really have been a Leftist? My reply is of course that Hitler was BOTH a nationalist AND a socialist -- as the full name of his political party (The National Socialist German Worker's Party) implies. And he was not alone in that: Other Leftist nationalists From the days of Marx onward, there were innumerable "splits" in the extreme Leftist movement but two of the most significant occurred around the time of the Bolshevik revolution --- when in Russia the Bolsheviks themselves split into Leninists and Trotskyites and when in Italy Mussolini left Italy's major Marxist party to found the "Fascists". So from its earliest days Leftism had a big split over the issue of nationalism. It split between the Internationalists (e.g. Trotskyists) and the nationalists (e.g. Fascists) with Lenin having a foot in both camps. So any idea that a nationalist cannot be a Leftist is pure fiction. And, in fact, the very title of Lenin's famous essay, "Left-wing Communism, an infantile disorder" shows that Lenin himself shared the judgement that he was a Right-wing sort of Marxist. Mussolini was somewhat further Right again, of course, but both were to the Right only WITHIN the overall far-Left camp of the day. It should further be noted in this connection that the various European Socialist parties in World War I did not generally oppose the war in the name of international worker brotherhood but rather threw their support behind the various national governments of the countries in which they lived. Just as Mussolini did, they too nearly all became nationalists. Nationalist socialism is a very old phenomenon. And it still exists today. Although many modern-day US Democrats often seem to be anti-American, the situation is rather different in Australia and Britain. Both the major Leftist parties there (the Australian Labor Party and the British Labour Party) are perfectly patriotic parties which express pride in their national traditions and achievements. Nobody seems to have convinced them that you cannot be both Leftist and nationalist. That is of course not remotely to claim that either of the parties concerned is a Nazi or an explicitly Fascist party. What Hitler and Mussolini advocated and practiced was clearly more extremely nationalist than any major Anglo-Saxon political party would now advocate. And socialist parties such as the British Labour Party were patriotic parties in World War II as well. And in World War II even Stalin moved in that direction. If Hitler learnt from Mussolini the persuasive power of nationalism, Stalin was not long in learning the same lesson from Hitler. When the Wehrmacht invaded Russia, the Soviet defences did, as Hitler expected, collapse like a house of cards. The size of Russia did, however, give Stalin time to think and what he came up with was basically to emulate Hitler and Mussolini. Stalin reopened the churches, revived the old ranks and orders of the Russian Imperial army to make the Red Army simply the Russian Army and stressed patriotic appeals in his internal propaganda. He portrayed his war against Hitler not as a second "Red" war but as 'Vtoraya Otechestvennaya Vojna' -- The Second Patriotic War -- the first such war being the Tsarist defence against Napoleon. He deliberately put himself in the shoes of Russia's Tsars! Russian patriotism proved as strong as its German equivalent and the war was turned around. And to this day, Russians still refer to the Second World War as simply "The Great Patriotic War". Stalin may have started out as an international socialist but he soon became a national socialist when he saw how effective that was in getting popular support. Again, however, it was Mussolini who realized it first. And it is perhaps to Mussolini's credit as a human being that his nationalism was clearly heartfelt where Stalin's was undoubtedly a mere convenience. I think, however, that the perception of Hitler as a Leftist is more difficult for those with a European perspective than for those with an Anglo-Saxon one. To many Europeans you have to be some sort of Marxist to be a Leftist and Hitler heartily detested Marxism so cannot have been a Leftist. I write for the Anglosphere, however, and in my experience the vast majority of the Left (i.e. the US Democrats, The Australian Labor Party, the British Labour Party) have always rejected Marxism too so it seems crystal clear to me that you can be a Leftist without accepting Marxist doctrines. So Hitler's contempt for Marxism, far from convincing me that he was a non-Leftist, actually convinces me that he was a perfectly conventional Leftist! The Nazi Party was what would in many parts of the world be called a "Labor" party (not a Communist party). And, as already mentioned, the moderate Leftists of Germany in Hitler's own day saw that too. The Sozialistische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) who, like the US Democrats, the Australian Labor Party and the British Labour Party, had always been the principal political representatives of the Labor unions, on several important occasions voted WITH the Nazis in the Reichstag (German Federal Parliament). Non-Marxist objections Objections to my account of Hitler as a Leftist can however be framed in more Anglocentric terms than the ones I have covered so far. In particular, my pointing to Hitler's subjugation of the individual to the State as an indication of his Leftism could be challenged on the grounds that conservatives too do on some occasions use government to impose restrictions on individuals -- particularly on moral issues. The simple answer to that, of course, is that conservatism is not anarchism. Conservatives do believe in SOME rules. As with so much in life, it is all a matter of degree and in the centrist politics that characterize the Anglo-Saxon democracies, the degree of difference between the major parties can be small. But to compare things like opposition to homosexual "marriage" with the bloodthirsty tyranny exercised by Hitler, Stalin and all the other extreme Leftists is laughable indeed. And it is the extremists who show the real nature of the beast as far as Leftism is concerned. Once Leftists throw off the shackles of democracy and are free to do as they please we see where their values really lie. Extreme conservatism (i.e. libertarianism), by contrast, exists only in theory (i.e. it has never gained political power anywhere in its own right). Conservatives are not by nature extremists. The issue of allegedly conservative Latin American dictators and the evidence that the core focus of conservatism has historically been on individual liberties versus the State is considered at some length here. Another more contentious point is that many of the conservative attempts at regulating people's lives are Christian rather than conservative in origin and that Christianity and conservatism are in fact separable. So conservatism should not be blamed for the multifarious deeds of Christians. But to discuss an issue as large and as contentious as that would be far too great a digression here. A discussion of it can however be found elsewhere. But Neo-Nazis are Rightist! A remaining important objection to the account I have given so far is that Hitler's few remaining admirers in at least the Anglo-Saxon countries all seem to be on the political far-Right. If Hitler was a socialist, how come that some modern-day far-Rightists admire him? In considering this, the first thing to ask is whether the description "Far-Right" is an accurate one for the people we are talking about. I think it is. The American far Right do share important basic values with mainstream "conservatives": They are independent, individualistic, suspicious of big-government and find great wisdom in traditional American values and arrangements. But they seem to be much more doctrinaire about it all and sometimes carry their independence and individualism so far as to become "survivalists" -- trying to live as independently of government and of what they see as a corrupted society as they can. But the far Right is a broad church with many opinions within it and it must be noted that only some of them have added pro-Hitler and antisemitic attitudes to their gospel. So although support for antisemitism was in Hitler's day widespread across the American political spectrum -- from Henry Ford on the Right to "Progressives" on the Left -- it has lived on during the postwar era mostly on the extreme Right. (Though recent upsurges of "Anti-Zionism" among Leftists on university campuses seem to be a harbinger of big changes in that situation). Why? The pro-Hitler, antisemitic orientation of some modern Rightist fringe groups goes back to the fact that Marxism and Leninism were internationalist. Marx and Lenin despised nationalism and wished to supplant national solidarity with class solidarity. That this was the best way to better the economic position of the worker was, however, never completely obvious. The Fascists did not think so nor did most Leftists in democratic countries. Nonetheless, it did have the effect of identifying Leftism with skepticism about patriotism, nationalism and any feeling that the traditions of one's own country were of great value. The result of this was that people with strong patriotic, nationalist and traditionalist feelings in the Anglo-Saxon countries felt rather despised and oppressed by the mostly Leftist intelligentsia and sought allies and inspiration wherever they could. And Hitler was certainly a great exponent of national pride, community traditions and patriotism. So those who felt marginalized by their appreciation of their own traditional values and their own community tended in extreme cases to adopt Hitler and blot out of their minds or otherwise rationalize the fact that he was also a socialist. And the Leftists also blotted out of their minds or otherwise rationalized Hitler's socialism for exactly the same reason -- because Hitler was also a nationalist. The Rightists liked Hitler's nationalism and the Leftists did not but it suited neither to acknowledge his socialism. It did not suit the Leftists because it would have associated them with a failed and condemned figure and it did not suit the Rightists because socialism was no part of the traditional independent culture that they wished to preserve. So antisemitism lived on in the postwar era among the extreme Right for two reasons -- firstly because such people are traditionalists and antisemitism had been traditional in European societies for roughly 2,000 years and secondly because it was a central part of Hitler's doctrines. Their liking for Hitler's national and ethnic pride led to their adopting his antisemitism too. So how did Hitler gain so much influence? I will submit the radically simple thesis that Hitler's appeal to Germans was much as the name of his political party would suggest -- a heady brew of rather extreme Leftism (socialism) combined with equally extreme nationalism -- with Hitler's obsession with the Jews being a relatively minor aspect of Nazism's popular appeal, as Dietrich (1988) shows. There were nationalist Leftists long before Hitler (Napoleon Bonaparte for one) -- as is shown at length here (PDF) but the usual "all men are equal" dogma of the Left and their Marxist belief in the all-important role of social class usually inhibited 20th century Leftists from being really keen nationalists. Hitler felt no such inhibitions. His "Ein Volk" dogma in effect very cleverly substituted the usual leftist dogma with "All GERMANS are equal" -- and also, of course, superior to non-Germans. And Hitler's nationalism did have the very great appeal of being at least apparently heartfelt. Right from the earliest chapters of Mein Kampf Hitler's love of his German nation (Volk) stands out. And that his constantly expressed love of his people and belief in their greatness should have earned him their love and belief in return is supremely unsurprising. Note also that, horrible and massive though the Nazi crimes were, they were anything but unique. For a start, government by tyranny is, if anything, normal in human history. And both antisemitism and eugenic theories were normal in prewar Europe. Further back in history, even Martin Luther wrote a most vicious and well-known attack on the Jews. And Nazi theories of German racial superiority differed from then-customary British beliefs in British racial superiority mainly in that the British views were implemented with typical conservative moderation whereas the Nazi views were implemented with typical Leftist fanaticism and brutality (cf. Stalin and Pol Pot). And the Nazi and Russian pogroms differed mainly in typically greater German thoroughness and efficiency. And waging vicious wars and slaughtering people "en masse" because of their supposed group identity have been regrettably common phenomena both before and after Hitler (e.g. Stalin's massacres of Kulaks and Ukrainians, the unspeakable Pol Pot's massacres of all educated Cambodians, Peru's "Shining Path", the Nepalese Marxists, the Tamil Tigers and the universal Communist mass executions of "class-enemies"). Both Stalin and Mao Tse Tung are usually "credited" with murdering far more "class enemies" than Hitler executed Jews. And another aspect of Hitler's "normality" is that, as he came closer to power, he did reject the outright nationalization of industry as too Marxist. As long as the State could enforce its policies on industry, Hitler considered it wisest to leave the nominal ownership and day to day running of industry in the hands of those who had already shown themselves as capable of running and controlling it. This policy is broadly similar to the once much acclaimed Swedish model of socialism in more recent times so it is amusing that it has often been this policy which has underpinned the common claim that Hitler was Rightist. What is Leftist in Sweden was apparently Rightist in Hitler! There are of course many differences between postwar Sweden and Hitler's Germany but the point remains that Hitler's perfectly reasonable skepticism about the virtues of nationalizing all industry is far from sufficient to disqualify him as a Leftist. A democratic Leftist! But Hitler was not a revolutionary Leftist. He fought many elections and finally came to power via basically democratic means. It is true that both Hitler and Mussolini received financial and other support from big businessmen and other "establishment" figures but this is simply a reflection of how radicalized Germany and Italy were at that time. Hitler and Mussolini were correctly perceived as a less hostile alternative (a sort of vaccine) to the Communists. And what was that about election campaigns? Yes, Hitler did start out as a half-hearted revolutionary (the Munich Putsch) but after his resultant incarceration was able enough and flexible enough to turn to basically democratic methods of gaining power. He was thenceforth the major force in his party insisting on legality for its actions and did eventually gain power via the ballot box rather than by way of violent revolution. It is true that the last election (as distinct from referenda) he faced (on May 3rd, 1933) gave him a plurality (44% of the popular vote) rather than a majority but that is normal in any electoral contest where there are more than two candidates. Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher never gained a majority of the popular vote either. After the May 1933 elections, Hitler was joined in a coalition government by Hugenburg's Nationalist party (who had won 8% of the vote) to give a better majority (52%) than many modern democratic governments enjoy. On March 24th, 1933 the Reichstag passed an "Enabling Act" giving full power to Hitler for four years (later extended by referendum). The Centre Party voted with the Nazi-led coalition government. Thus Hitler's accession to absolute power was quite democratically achieved. Even Hitler's subsequent banning of the Communist party and his control of the media at election time have precedents in democratic politics. Even the torturous backroom negotiations that led to Hitler's initial appointment as Kanzler (Chancellor, Prime Minister) by President Hindenburg on January 30th, 1933 hardly delegitimize that appointment or make it less democratic. Shirer (1964) and others describe this appointment as being the outcome of a "shabby political deal" but that would seem disingenuous. The fact is that Hitler was the leader of the largest party in the Reichstag and torturous backroom negotiations about alliances and deals generally are surely well-known to most practitioners of democratic politics. One might in fact say that success at such backroom negotiations is almost a prerequisite for power in a democratic system -- particularly, perhaps, under the normal European electoral system of proportional representation. It might in fact not be too cynical to venture the comment that "shabby political deals" have been rife in democracy at least since the time of Thucydides. Some practitioners of them might even claim that they are what allows democracy to work at all. The fact that Hitler appealed to the German voter as basically a rather extreme social democrat is also shown by the fact that the German Social Democrats (orthodox democratic Leftists who controlled the unions as well as a large Reichstag deputation) at all times refused appeals from the German Communist party for co-operation against the Nazis. They evidently felt more affinity with Hitler than with the Communists. Hitler's eventual setting up of a one-party State and his adoption of a "four year plan", however, showed who had most affinity with the Communists. Hitler was more extreme than the Social Democrats foresaw. The only heartfelt belief that Hitler himself ever had would appear to have been his antisemitism but his primary public appeal was nonetheless always directed to "the masses" and their interests and his methods were only less Bolshevik than those of the Bolsheviks themselves. Hitler's Post-election Manoeuvres It is true that Hitler proceeded to entrench himself in power in all sorts of ways once he came to rule but reluctance to relinquish power once it is gained is not uncharacteristic of the far Left in a democracy. In the early '70's, for instance, Australia had a government of a very Leftist character (the Whitlam government) that tried to continue governing against all constitutional precedent when refused money by Parliament. Because Australia is a monarchy with important powers vested in the vice-regal office, however, the government could be and was dismissed and a constitutional crisis thus avoided. It may also be noted that the Whitlam government presided over a considerable upsurge of Australian nationalism. It was literally a national socialist government. Unlike Hitler, however, it was very anti-militaristic (particularly in the light of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam fiasco) and did not persecute its political opponents. Australia has, after all, inherited from its largely British forebears very strong traditions of civil liberty. Among other far-Left democratic governments that have been known to cling to power with dubious public support the government of Malta by Mintoff and Mifsud-Bonnici springs to mind. On a broader scale, the use of gerrymanders by democratic governments of all sorts also tends to entrench power. Democratically-elected governments are not always great respecters of democracy. The post-war Liberal Democratic (conservative) government of Japan never had a majority of the popular vote and ruled for over 30 years only by virtue of a gerrymander. Yet it has generally been regarded as democratic. None of this is said with any intention of excusing Hitler or drawing exact parallels with him. The aim is rather to show roughly in what sort of company he belongs as far as his attitude to democracy is concerned. In other words, like many democratic politicians he was a reluctant democrat (surely more reluctant than most) but his coming to power by democratic means still cannot be ignored. It meant that he had to be fairly popular and this affected the sort of person he could be and the policies he could advocate. As sincerity in a politician is hard to feign successfully, for maximum effectiveness (and Hitler was a very effective leader) he more or less had to be the sort of person who had a genuine feeling for his own people and who thus would not want to make war on large sections of them (unlike Stalin, Pol Pot and Li Peng of Tien Anmen Square fame). This meant that the great hostility which seems to be characteristic of the extreme Leftist had to have another outlet. Hitler was simply being an ordinary European of his times in finding the outlet he did: The Jews. Hitler's Socialist Deeds When in power Hitler also implemented a quite socialist programme. Like F.D. Roosevelt, he provided employment by a much expanded programme of public works (including roadworks) and his Kraft durch Freude ("power through joy") movement was notable for such benefits as providing workers with subsidized holidays at a standard that only the rich could formerly afford. And while Hitler did not nationalize all industry, there was extensive compulsory reorganization of it and tight party control over it. It might be noted that even in the post-war Communist bloc there was never total nationalization of industry. In fact, in Poland, most agriculture always remained in private hands. The Conservatives and Hitler And what about the conservatives of Hitler's day? Both in Germany and Britain he despised them and they despised him. Far from being an ally of Hitler or in any way sympathetic to him, Hitler's most unrelenting foe was the arch-Conservative British politician, Winston Churchill and it was a British Conservative Prime Minister (Neville Chamberlain) who eventually declared war on Hitler's Germany. Hitler found a willing ally in the Communist Stalin as long as he wanted it but at no point could he wring even neutrality out of Churchill. Not that Churchill was a saint. In 1939 Churchill exulted over the Finns "tearing the guts out of the Red Army" but, despite that, he later allied himself with Stalin. Like Mussolini, he was something of a pragmatist and saw Hitler as the biggest threat. Churchill therefore, despite his opposition to all socialist dictators, retreated eventually to the old wisdom that, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". His basic loathing for both Hitler's and Stalin's forms of socialism is, however very much a matter of record. Parenthetically, it should perhaps be noted that the lessons of history are seldom simple. The fact that the British Prime Minister who actually declared war on Hitler was a (mildly) anti-Semitic English jingoist -- Neville Chamberlain -- is something of an irony. Churchill was soon called upon to replace Chamberlain at least in part because Churchill's opposition to Hitler was seen as more heartfelt and consistent. In keeping with the fundamental opposition between Churchill's English conservatism (Rightism) and any form of socialism, it might also be noted that German monarchists were among Hitler's victims on "the night of the long knives". Nor is Hitler's going to war uncharacteristic of a social democrat (democratic Leftist). Who got the U.S.A. involved in Vietnam? J.F. Kennedy and L.B. Johnson. And who got the troops out? Richard Nixon. I am not, of course, comparing the Vietnam involvement with Hitler's Blitzkrieg. Kennedy and Johnson were, after all, only mildly Leftist whereas Hitler was extremely Leftist. All I am pointing out is that there is nothing in social democratic politics that automatically precludes military adventurism. Nationalism Perhaps the only thing that does at first sight support the characterization of Hitler as a Rightist is his nationalism. There generally does seem to be an association between political Conservatism and nationalism/patriotism (Ray & Furnham, 1984). This presumably flows from the fact that Leftists generally seem attached to their well-known doctrine that, in some unfathomable way, "all men are equal". They seem to need this philosophically dubious doctrine to give some intellectual justification for socialist (levelling) policies. If all men are equal, however, then it surely follows that all groups of men/women are equal too. Leftism and nationalism have therefore some philosophical inconsistency and a wholly consistent Leftist would -- like Trotsky -- have to deny nationalism. Thus only the conservatives are normally left to promote and defend nationalism with any vigour. Since nationalism is just another form of group loyalty, however, and group-loyalty seems to be a major and virtually universal wellspring of human motivation (Brown, 1986; Ardrey, 1961), this normally leaves conservatives in principal charge of some very powerful emotional ammunition. In wartime, as we ha -------------------- America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure" We have "reckless fiscal policies" America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better Barack Obama
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Rhizome Registered: 01/01/05 Posts: 23,576 Loc: The Barricades |
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Actually, Hitler's economic policies were mostly Keynesian, which is why he helped Germany's economy recover so well. If he had socialist policies, American corporations would not have been so eager to invest in the Third Reich.
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liberal pussy Registered: 05/21/02 Posts: 5,646 Loc: innsmouth..MA |
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Quote: michael ledeen ..(and thats not some looney libby link either)... Quote: but history might very well judge hitler..stalin..mussolini..etc to have been significantly more liberal than bush..cheney..ledeen..etc... -------------------- "anchor blocks counteract the process of pontiprobation..while omalean globes regulize the pressure"...
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↑↑↓ Registered: 09/13/05 Posts: 13,833 Loc: LA Suburbs Last seen: 8 months, 26 days |
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"National Socialist Party"
Wow, Hitler was a socialist, eh? I'm shocked, nothing would have given me that impression
-------------------- I find your lack of faith disturbing
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Stranger Registered: 08/22/05 Posts: 1,839 |
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Two problems with this fucking lunatics "theory"
1) Why did big business bankroll the Nazis and back Hitler to the hilt and 2) why did he put all the socialists in concentration camps?
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fuckingsuperhero Registered: 06/29/04 Posts: 3,531 Last seen: 4 years, 24 days |
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really, Hitler was for the advancement of his perceived "master race" so naturally he selected the most beneficial system for them. If he wasn't so exclusive (racism / prejudice) and abrasive (wars) he might have been a pretty decent guy. (please recognize the sarcasm).
Quote: war IS big business. -------------------- No statements made in any post or message by myself should be construed to mean that I am now, or have ever been, participating in or considering participation in any activities in violation of any local, state, or federal laws. All posts are works of fiction.
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free radical Registered: 05/11/05 Posts: 2,421 Loc: SE PA Last seen: 14 years, 3 days |
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that article shows pretty clearly that the man was a collectivist. it describes different nazi collectivization policies. it doesn't show for what purpose. the purpose was fascist, not socialist.
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Live to party,work to affordit. Registered: 10/03/04 Posts: 8,978 Loc: South Texas Last seen: 12 years, 9 months |
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The 25 point program of the NAZI.
1. We demand the unification of all Germans in the Greater Germany on the basis of the right of self-determination of peoples. 2. We demand equality of rights for the German people in respect to the other nations; abrogation of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain. 3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the sustenance of our people, and colonization for our surplus population. 4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race. 5. Whoever has no citizenship is to be able to live in Germany only as a guest, and must be under the authority of legislation for foreigners. 6. The right to determine matters concerning administration and law belongs only to the citizen. Therefore we demand that every public office, of any sort whatsoever, whether in the Reich, the county or municipality, be filled only by citizens. We combat the corrupting parliamentary economy, office-holding only according to party inclinations without consideration of character or abilities. 7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens. If it is impossible to sustain the total population of the State, then the members of foreign nations (non-citizens) are to be expelled from the Reich. 8. Any further immigration of non-citizens is to be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans, who have immigrated to Germany since the 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to leave the Reich. 9. All citizens must have equal rights and obligations. 10. The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all Consequently we demand: 11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery. 12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits. 13. We demand the nationalisation of all (previous) associated industries (trusts). 14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries. 15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare. 16. We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality. 17. We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land. 18. We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, Schieber and so forth are to be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race. 19. We demand substitution of a German common law in place of the Roman Law serving a materialistic world-order. 20. The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbuergerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession. 21. The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young. 22. We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army. 23. We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press. In order to enable the provision of a German press, we demand, that: a. All writers and employees of the newspapers appearing in the German language be members of the race: b. Non-German newspapers be required to have the express permission of the State to be published. They may not be printed in the German language: c. Non-Germans are forbidden by law any financial interest in German publications, or any influence on them, and as punishment for violations the closing of such a publication as well as the immediate expulsion from the Reich of the non-German concerned. Publications which are counter to the general good are to be forbidden. We demand legal prosecution of artistic and literary forms which exert a destructive influence on our national life, and the closure of organizations opposing the above made demands. 24. We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: common utility precedes individual utility. 25. For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich. Unlimited authority of the central parliament over the whole Reich and its organizations in general. The forming of state and profession chambers for the execution of the laws made by the Reich within the various states of the confederation. The leaders of the Party promise, if necessary by sacrificing their own lives, to support by the execution of the points set forth above without consideration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program IMO this sounds like Socilism, Religious Fanaticism, and a Dictator gone mad..... -------------------- America's debt problem is a "sign of leadership failure" We have "reckless fiscal policies" America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better Barack Obama
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Stranger Registered: 05/24/04 Posts: 10,920 |
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hitler and the nazi movement usurped the workers movement in germany and railed against marxists, socialists and communists soon afterward. fascism is essentially socialism turned on its head and put into the rightwing context of nation, god, and the master race rather than the liberation of labor. there are similiarities between state socialism and fascism and that is where you are confused.
hitler was not a socialist, he was a rightwing fascist. you should read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler#The_early_years_of_the_Nazi_Party I once saw an television commmerical where some police were rapping to a beat about saying no to drugs. these cops were not hiphop artists - they were cops.
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Stinky Bum Registered: 12/20/00 Posts: 3,322 Loc: Charm City Last seen: 5 years, 3 months |
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Quote: ![]() Quote: ![]() Hitler's antisemitism was fundamentally tied to his hatred of the left. He was convinced of a zionist communist intellectual conspiracy taking place all over Europe, and his attack on the Jews was not simply based on racism, but racism blended with the desire to purge all communist ideologies from his country. Making a comparison between Hitler's enaction of genocide against the jews and the opinion of some leftists that Israel as a state is full of problems begs another one of these: ![]() Quote: oh yeah! Us liberals are all about creating a master race! You got us nailed there, lonestar! Quote: oh my god we'd better start putting bovine growth back in our milk or we'll start goosestepping and invading poland! I had no idea there was such a strong connection between organic farming and absolutist government.Quote: ok I'm done with the article because I've read enough. Basically it was written by some asshole who wants to prove that the contemporary left and Hitler believed in all the same things and that if you don't start voting republican Hillary Clinton is going to lead us into the next era of fascism because women will be allowed abortions and taxes may increase and we may spend money on green energy and this is all the same thing as life under the third reich and blah blah blah. NOTHING pisses me off more than when people nowadays try and compare the democrats or the Republicans to Hitler. "Bush is a fascist" "Clinton is a fascist." It is ridiculous. A fascist would come to your house in the middle of the night and bash your family's heads in with a rifle butt to save bullets, all because your grandma was 1/4 jewish. Are you so blinded by your hatred of the opposing party that you see them as genocidal murderers? If so, then go to the holocaust museum for a day and get something called fucking perspective in your brain. You owe it to those who died under Hitler. beyond that, biO already said what I wanted to say. Fascism doesn't fall neatly into today's spectrum of left to right wing politics that the mass media has been spoon feeding you your whole life. Yes it is absolutely true that Hitler believed in more state control of the economy, but he also believed in state control of everything else. Socialism's main goal is to obliterate class inequalities, through the help of a state that is kept in check by the people. Hitler had no problems with class inequalities, and in fact had many businesses in his back pocket which made many German CEOs very very rich. On top of that, trying telling Hitler that the state is meant to be kept in check by the people and he would have you gassed. The third reich basically took the idea of a centralized state and ran with it, replacing the mythic meaning of class struggle with an even more grandiose myth of the struggle of the third reich for power over the entire world. Intellectualism, marxism, socialism, capitalism, democracy, judaism...all these were things that stood in the way of the heroic German war machine and were to be crushed. The promise of socialism is that workers will one day own the means of production and no longer will be exploited by a class who owns production. The promise of the third reich is that one day Hitler will own everything, the world, and all those who think in opposition to this vision will have long been dead, and the master race will rule the world under one authoritarian leader. Please prevent the spread of dribble like this article by reading something on Hitler's rise to power that is based on history instead of trying to rewrite history to discredit a current politcal movement. -------------------- Society in every form is a blessing, but government at its best is but a necessary evil - Thomas Paine Edited by gluke bastid (03/16/06 06:40 PM)
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Stranger ![]() Registered: 04/21/05 Posts: 4,587 |
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Hitler was a leftist.
Hitler was bad. If Hitler was bad and Hitler was a Leftist, Leftists must be bad. How logical.
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The Innovator Registered: 05/25/05 Posts: 1,074 Last seen: 12 years, 8 months |
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Well lets look at the liberals you cow follower:
Revolutionary War America: Liberal Britain: Conservative Winner: Liberal Liberals 1-0 Civil War North: Liberal South: Conservative Winner: Liberal Liberals 2-0 So suck on a bone randy mcrandle-snut. -------------------- I don't think for myself. I think as though I'm explaining my thoughts to someone else. I'm concerned only for those listening. Edited by beatnicknick (03/17/06 10:39 AM)
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Fred's son Registered: 10/18/00 Posts: 12,949 Loc: Dominican Republ Last seen: 9 years, 18 days |
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I suggest you re-read the forum rules before making your next post. No flaming allowed. You get one warning. This is that warning.
Phred
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The Innovator Registered: 05/25/05 Posts: 1,074 Last seen: 12 years, 8 months |
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My bad dog. I just gotta look both ways before I cross the street, if you know what I'm getting at.
-------------------- I don't think for myself. I think as though I'm explaining my thoughts to someone else. I'm concerned only for those listening.
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↑↑↓ Registered: 09/13/05 Posts: 13,833 Loc: LA Suburbs Last seen: 8 months, 26 days |
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No.
-------------------- I find your lack of faith disturbing
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Registered: 05/28/05 Posts: 2,764 Loc: Classified |
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Nearly all of Hitler's beliefs placed him on the right-wing platform and he preferred capitalism over socialism
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horrid asshole Registered: 02/11/04 Posts: 81,741 Loc: Fractallife's gy Last seen: 7 years, 7 months |
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Way to read the thread and contribute a well thought out post, replete with links and citations.
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Registered: 05/28/05 Posts: 2,764 Loc: Classified |
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The ridiculous article had already been torn to shreds. I thought everyone knew the majority of Hitler's beliefs leaned right? If you would like links or article citations, I can present them, right-wing massa.
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horrid asshole Registered: 02/11/04 Posts: 81,741 Loc: Fractallife's gy Last seen: 7 years, 7 months |
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Go for it. I didn't see any shredding going on, at least not here.
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Daisy Chain Eate Registered: 12/04/03 Posts: 2,400 Loc: New York |
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Does anyone really care if Hitler was a socialist?
-------------------- what's with neocons and the word 'ilk'?
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oh yeah! Us liberals are all about creating a master race! You got us nailed there, lonestar!

