Is Obama A Nazi?

[Abiding Dude]

OK, the subject line was provocative to get you to read this.

On the news I see a lot of Nazi images surrounding some of Obama's detractors. This has always struck me as odd because I always thought the Nazis were right-wing. After a little of the Googling (because, you know, the Internet wouldn't mislead me) I found a lot of explanations of Nazis as left-wing because they were the National SOCIALIST party.

But all the information I read about fascism said that it was an ultra right-wing movement. So do the tea-partiers have it wrong or am I missing something?

[Brettmcd]

He is no more a nazi then Bush was the next coming of Hitler that some on the extreme left portrayed him as.

[Hans Lauring]

Fascism isn't strictly speaking right or left. The teabaggers want the nazis to be left, because they were evil and "hey, look totalitarianism and massmurder. Do you know who else loved totalitarianism and massmurder? Stalin!"
But looking at actual policies they had much more in common with the far right, as do most fascists.

[corsair]

OK, the subject line was provocative to get you to read this.

On the news I see a lot of Nazi images surrounding some of Obama's detractors.

See my thread where it's the other way around (Tea Party Succumbs to Godwin's Law).


This has always struck me as odd because I always thought the Nazis were right-wing. After a little of the Googling (because, you know, the Internet wouldn't mislead me) I found a lot of explanations of Nazis as left-wing because they were the National SOCIALIST party.

But all the information I read about fascism said that it was an ultra right-wing movement. So do the tea-partiers have it wrong or am I missing something?

Yeah, right-wingers like to play that game. Despite the "socialist" tag, fascists are considered right-wing. Far right. Now, I'm of the opinion that it isn't so much a line as a circle, and the far right and the far left meet at the far side of the circle, and fascism was founded on both far right and far left principles, but the Nazis were planted pretty much firmly on the right side.

[Dan Lawrence]

I'd say Nazi-ism was pretty far-right.

I'd generally consider the far left as spaced out, waster hippies dreaming of peace and love, if only we could all just get along, the countries of the world holding hands - that kind of thing.

The far right are efficient and merciless capitalists, prizing effciency and profit whilst worshipping their nation and its traditions above all others.

Nazism sounds more like the far right to me.

[Cubit]

Yes

45

[Brettmcd]

I'd say Nazi-ism was pretty far-right.

I'd generally consider the far left as spaced out, waster hippies dreaming of peace and love, if only we could all just get along, the countries of the world holding hands - that kind of thing.


I believe that people who lived under communism in a number of countries would differ with your assessment of left wing policies.

[Kebooo]

It's not very accurate to describe Hitler as right or left. If you listen to his speeches, he sometimes rails on the capitalists and men seeking profit, plus obviously had a policy of big government. Is that far-right? But he was also nationalistic and xenophobic, traits often associated with the far-right. Both sides try to portray him as the far left/right, whichever is their opposite.

[Dan Lawrence]

More likely I would disagree that they were that left wing, assuming that you mean Stalin's Russia and recent China.

Those regimes were collectivist, rather than individualist but they were also authoritarian, brutal, corrupt, anti-science and nationalist which are not generally held to be far left principles.

[corsair]

It's not very accurate to describe Hitler as right or left. If you listen to his speeches, he sometimes rails on the capitalists and men seeking profit, plus obviously had a policy of big government. Is that far-right? But he was also nationalistic and xenophobic, traits often associated with the far-right. Both sides try to portray him as the far left/right, whichever is their opposite.

Historians are pretty uniform in their assessment of Nazis are right wingers, so I'm going with the learned faction rather than the ax-grinders.

[Dan Lawrence]

It's not very accurate to describe Hitler as right or left. If you listen to his speeches, he sometimes rails on the capitalists and men seeking profit, plus obviously had a policy of big government. Is that far-right? But he was also nationalistic and xenophobic, traits often associated with the far-right. Both sides try to portray him as the far left/right, whichever is their opposite.

You can probably pull out a few left-right axises (axii?), but my bet is that Nazism falls on the right hand side of more of them than it falls to the left. Plenty of right wing regimes occasionally talk as if they are left wing, as left wing ideas can sometimes be very populist. It is what they actually do that is important.

I'd argue that the right's position on the size of government varies depending on the government function in question. For defence and advancing corporate interests the government can never be too big, but for perfoming tasks that could be performed for profit by the private sector it is always too large.

[CLWheeljack]

I believe that people who lived under communism in a number of countries would differ with your assessment of left wing policies.

Whenever I read Communist Russian history or fiction, I always get confused whether being "rightist" or "leftist" is bad, since it apparently was pretty malleable thing based on who was in power, and what the issue being addressed was.

[Chris Nahr]

I'd say Nazi-ism was pretty far-right.

I'd generally consider the far left as spaced out, waster hippies dreaming of peace and love, if only we could all just get along, the countries of the world holding hands - that kind of thing.

The far right are efficient and merciless capitalists, prizing effciency and profit whilst worshipping their nation and its traditions above all others.

Nazism sounds more like the far right to me.

I assume you're trolling because that's one of the dumbest things I've ever read here.

"If we define far left as hippies and far right as their opposites, then the far left are hippies and the far right are their opposites!"

[Anti-Bunny]

I assume you're trolling because that's one of the dumbest things I've ever read here.

"If we define far left as hippies and far right as their opposites, then the far left are hippies and the far right are their opposites!"
It's a joke.

Also is anyone else bored of this subject yet?

[Dan Lawrence]

I assume you're trolling because that's one of the dumbest things I've ever read here.

"If we define far left as hippies and far right as their opposites, then the far left are hippies and the far right are their opposites!"



That's the dumbest thing you've ever read here? Read more threads!

But yes, two ends of a continuum will tend to be in opposition or what is the point?

Or are you saying I should only describe one end and let you infer the other?

Or are you saying that you disagree with my descriptions of far left and far right?

[Chris Nahr]

I'm saying that debating Dan Lawrence's private definitions of far left and far right is a pointless waste of time. These labels by themselves mean nothing. There are and were actually groups and regimes that self-describe as left or right, and you need to look at such groups to get at any kind of definition. All of them, not just the ones you like or dislike.

[Lorini]

The Nazi's called themselves socialist to appeal to people who liked socialism. They were not socialists, but I thought we'd discussed this before.

[Zylon]

OK, the subject line was provocative to get you to read this.
Good idea! Next time I want to start a thread, I'll be sure to title it, "Is Abiding Dude a Pedophile?"

[Dan Lawrence]

I'm saying that debating Dan Lawrence's private definitions of far left and far right is a pointless waste of time. These labels by themselves mean nothing. There are and were actually groups and regimes that self-describe as left or right, and you need to look at such groups to get at any kind of definition. All of them, not just the ones you like or dislike.

I'd say that was a terrible way to figure out left wing and right wing positions, why should some regime claiming itself as left wing or right wing, possibly in opposition to its actual actions carry more weight than my opinion? You'll learn pretty much nothing from trying to piece together a political spectrum from the public claims of politicians or dictators.

The UK was ruled by a supposedly left wing party for the past 12 years but it was obvious to almost everyone that they had slid determindly towards the right wing whatever they said.

[Kebooo]

Historians are pretty uniform in their assessment of Nazis are right wingers, so I'm going with the learned faction rather than the ax-grinders.

Historians are pretty uniform in their assessment that they are fascists. It's up to anyone else to decide whether or not they believe fascism is accurately described by right or left wing. I think it's an over-simplification of reality, all for political gain (if you can call right wingers to be on the side of fascists, you can hurt them politically, or vice versa, why else do people bother to classify what crazy brutal dictators were?). I'd argue fascism is best described as an authoritarian system, and that at minimum, political polarity should be divided into the four directions (right, left, authoritarian, libertarian), but even that is somewhat simplified. Fascism also has a strong identity in collectivism through the state, something better described as left wing.

Many people advocating small government and freer trade are called far-right (tea partiers, for example), when that clashes strongly with a lot of what the Nazi party did - taking away liberties, forced relocation, seizure of land, property, regulation of business, getting involved with business and industry, and so forth. I would argue that the far right is more anti-government than the regular right is, that is, a tea partier is more anti-government/business collusion than George Bush is, but the tea partier would be called more right than Bush. Many historians are forced into an either-or choice, "is he more right wing, or more left wing?", but let's be honest, it's a crude description of what the Nazi party really was. So why do it?

[Abiding Dude]

Good idea! Next time I want to start a thread, I'll be sure to title it, "Is Abiding Dude a Pedophile?"Don't ask if you really don't want to know.

[Chris Nahr]

I'd say that was a terrible way to figure out left wing and right wing positions, why should some regime claiming itself as left wing or right wing, possibly in opposition to its actual actions carry more weight than my opinion?

Because the political labels "left" and "right" are devoid of any inherent meaning, unlike physical descriptors like "hot" or "bright" or "heavy". They merely refer to the way parties once happened to be placed in the 18th century French assembly, and then got adopted by any group that felt like adopting them.

Thus the only way to determine how any actions relate to the labels "left" and "right" is to compare them to the actors' self-description, and to the actions of others who use such self-descriptions.

Also, by definition everything carries more weight than your opinion because your baseless and prejudiced opinion on what some label should mean really carries no weight at all. We get it, you think "left" means good and "right" means evil, and whenever a left-wing group does something bad you simply declare them "right". That's straight out of kindergarten.


You'll learn pretty much nothing from trying to piece together a political spectrum from the public claims of politicians or dictators.

Exactly how do you think a political spectrum is established in the first place? Thrown down by God from heaven into your brain or what? The political spectrum is nothing but the total aggregate of claims and actions by whatever politicians happen to be active at any given time.

[RickH]

Because the political labels "left" and "right" are devoid of any inherent meaning, unlike physical descriptors like "hot" or "bright" or "heavy".

But then how will people know that their label makes them the superior version of human?

[maxle]

That's easy. Whichever label you apply to yourself is best.

[MatthewF]

This thread is going places.

[lesslucid]

Yes, the problem is that "left" and "right" wing are spatial metaphors that have no necessary connection to any particular political attitude. In a very broad historical sense, "right wing" typically meant people who favoured the status quo, which meant defending entrenched sources of political power and privilege against the "left wing", radicals who wanted to redistribute political power in some "more equal" fashion, although what this equality consisted of varied considerably.

But it's not really a sufficiently nuanced scale of gradation to be able to make much sense of questions like, "how right-wing was William Pitt the younger on a scale of 1-10?" because there isn't any universal definition of what, exactly, constitutes a "right-wing idea" or policy and so on. Yet, the terms have proved to be extremely durable because even though what is described by them shifts tremendously they do a decent job of describing the cultural fault-lines along which political questions tend to be approached. While what constituted "left wing opinions" in Britain in 1910 are vastly different from the left-wing opinions of Germany in 2010 (say), there is a fairly stable social tendency for people who hold left-wing views of immigration to also hold left-wing views on taxation and foreign affairs, &c, regardless of what those views happen to be.

Anyway, relative to the standards of his time, Hitler was clearly on the right of politics. He focused a lot of his early efforts on having communists and socialists in Germany killed. His major political allies were businessmen, military men, and various cultural reactionaries. Saying that modern day socialists are Nazis because the NSDAP had the word "socialist" in their title is like saying somebody is an anti-semite because, like Hitler, they wear a mustache. It's pure nonsense. By all means, say why you think somebody's ideas are foolish or wrong-headed, but using spurious analogies to the one bit of history everybody is familiar with is lazy and wildly unhelpful. In fact, I've heard there might be some kind of internet law against it...

[IainC]

The main point of confusion in the US is that the right-wing noise machine has managed to successfully conflate the terms communist and socialist. Hitler's particular brand of 'socialism' refers to a strong society based approach to identity and nation. In that he was almost perfectly aligned with existing far-right ultra nationalists. His economic policies were mostly corporatist rather than what most would describe as socialist.

Really this gets to the point of what labels are used to describe the opposites. Socialist is not the opposite of conservative, rather it is the opposite of fascist.

The fact that Hitler described his party as a socialist one does not make it so any more than the DPRK is a democratic republic just because the name describes it as such.

[Chris Nahr]

Equating socialists with Nazis is certainly idiotic. The connection between fascists and socialists did go further than just propaganda, though -- early fascism had bona fide socalist roots (notably Mussolini himself), and both European fascism and National Socialism were considerably more proletarian and egalitarian (within nationalist bounds), more open to modernization and less traditionalist (also less religious) than the existing political right at the time.

Conservatives in both Italy and Germany really rather disdained fascists and Nazis even while allying with them, and the NSDAP had its famous falling out with the party's socialist elements when they realized that Hitler wanted to ally with the German right-wing establishment rather than overthrow it. I think it's perhaps most accurate to say that fascism and NS were an attempt to modernize the contemporary right by assimilating the culture and voters of the contemporary left while throwing out its ideological goals.

[Flowers]

Fascism is not about a rising tide that lifts all ships, and it is not about money trickling down to supply such a tide. Fascism is not about women voting or not voting, or men being free to choose their own religion. Fascism is devotion to the state. Fascism is collectivist in that every citizen has as his highest duty the advancement of the interests of his nation. It is tribal, not factional.

Liberalism is the belief that political institutions are defined by man, and that man is at liberty to alter the fundamental workings of these institutions to better suit the needs of mankind.

Conservatism is the belief that it ain't broke, so don't fix it, or at the worst, it ain't that broke, and we don't need a new one, so just put things back the way they were, because most big ideas result only in increasingly large piles of bodies.

In Layman's terms...

Socialism is when someone throws away all the copies of Cigar Afficianado in the employee breakroom and asks the boss to subscribe to better magazines.

Communism is when the boss says "Yes, as long as you all agree what magazines you want, you can pick three." Right when that one person from HR just ends up picking all the magazines.

Conservatism is how you feel after you tried to put a password on your wireless router and a WEP conflict coupled with the lack of a firmware update allowing for DHCP on your device means that you can't watch Netflix on your Wii for an entire week.

Liberalism is how you feel in the time between when you see your first homeless person and when you get confronted and groped by your first homeless person.

Fascism is any family vacation you have ever been on.

[Zylon]

Don't ask if you really don't want to know.
http://babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/2008/09/23-End/shocked%20kids.jpg

[Enidigm]

Left/Right just don't have the same connotations today as they did back then.

There were phases in the development of radical thought from the 19th into the 20th in which these streams became crossed and confused. I'm not perfect here in my knowledge but it basically goes like this:

French Revolution: Results are that republicanism, populist terror, and imperialism all become intertwined in European thought.

Revolutions of 1848: Widespread unrest against aristocratic establishments which kills tens of thousands and manifests "class consciousness" as an international political force, increases distrust of republicanism and populist terror.

First International 1864: First International Workingman's Association. All sorts of labor oriented groups become intertwined in European thought because of their mutual associations: anarchism, Marxism, labor unions, ect. All are seemed to share the same diseased root, and all begin more closely related than they eventually diverged off into.

Anarchism/Unionism pre-WW1: Mass protests, labor related violence, strikes and strike breaking. Anarchism seems to be more "Marxist" in it's desire to revolutionize society and production (though it seems to have rejected Marxism per se); Unionism seems more oriented toward improving conditions. Anarchism becomes more and more associated with violence esp. toward the State (whether true or not), and assassinations are regularly attributed to them.

Bolshevik Revolution: Lenin disdains mere "Marxism" and declares himself to be a "Communist" in the revolutionary meetings he attends in Europe; when he returns to Russia the Bolsheviks seize power through the various organized labor movements that had formed prior to and during the Russian Revolution, then proceed to liquidate competing Socialist parties.

Great Depression: Causes a mass shift worldwide away from lassez-faire capitalism and seems to justify labor's political power. Also, Communist propaganda (little was known outside of Russia about the oppression of dissidents, and what was known was often rationalized) and the anti-nationalism in the wake of WW1 is widespread. Socialist ideas are widely adopted, to one or another degree, internationally. Anti-nationalism turns into a blame game, with various nations finding suitable scapegoats for why WW1 occurred.

[Dan_Theman]

I think the modern conceptions of "left" and "right" are much too nebulous in meaning in the US to really line up Hitler with any consistency. If you go by the book definitions of liberal and conservative, it's a bit easier but still not black or white.

Liberalism primarily refers to a couple of disparate political philosophies and one cultural philosphy.

1) Classical Liberalism: freedom is essential and government should be very limited, but some is signed over to the authoritative government via social contract to make sure their rights are protected. This concept would also cover the notion that personal liberties should be primarily unabbridged by the government except where absolutely necessary (if this sounds like Conservatism, you're starting to get the idea that the two aren't as far apart as many seem to portray: it's the combination of classical liberals and social conservatives that formed the Conservative movement in the U.S.).

As Nazi Germany was a Facist state, there would have been an extremely large impingment of personal liberties and therefore would have been considered quite opposite to Classical Liberalism.

2) Social/Modern Liberalism: beyond the focus on freedoms and the need to sign over limited power to the authoritative government for protective purposes, this form of Liberalism also believes that the government has a role in social justice (such as through a progressive tax program like that which exists in the U.S. and most other industrialized countries). This is why Socialism falls under the Liberal umbrella - the goal of a Socialist government is to provide for a basic standard of living for its people without the requirement of an individual doing something to earn it. This is where the "big government" commentary is derived from. The U.S. already has some Socialized aspects already built into it, like our form of income tax, Medicare, and Social Security. However, neither Obama nor any notable Liberal in the government has expressed a fervent desire to shift the U.S. government to a purely Socialist format. The U.S. has and likely will continue to exist as a hybrid form for many decades to come.

As Germany would have been hyper-technically Socialist per the purported goals under the 3rd Reich, in that respect it would have potentially been potentially liberal. Of course, in practice it was entirely facist and therefore *NOT* socialist.

3) Cultural Liberalism: personal freedoms with regards to cultural values are to be hghly prized. In line with the "social justice" aspect noted in modern liberalism, equality is sought for all cultural diversions from tradition (gay marriage, etc.).

Nazi Germany was pretty much the antithesis of this, for obvious reasons.

----------------------------------------------

Then there's Conservatism. Conservatism has two common forms attributed to its modern ideology in the U.S. -

1) Fiscal Conservatism: essentially the same as classical liberalism, but with an emphasis against the expansion that modern Liberalism has taken (basically, it's against the notion of government supported social justice).

Nazi Germany really doesn't fit this in any respect. It was an overly powerful central government without the plan to divest itself of riches or resources for the betterment of its uninvested people.

2) Social/Cultural Conservatism: the focus on reinforcing traditional roles and behaviors.

In this respect, Nazi Germany was technically an ultra-social conservative state as it worked to re-establish traditional cultural and ethnic dominance to its members. That said, the wholesale slaughter of millions wasn't a tradition and any association with modern social conservatives should be completely severed.

[Lorini]

up voting Dan's post.

[rhinohelix]

I'd say Nazi-ism was pretty far-right.

I'd generally consider the far left as spaced out, waster hippies dreaming of peace and love, if only we could all just get along, the countries of the world holding hands - that kind of thing.You would be wrong by most accounts. The Far Left is generally considered by most to be the authoritarian, totalitarian expression of collectivism or communism.


The far right are efficient and merciless capitalists, prizing effciency and profit whilst worshipping their nation and its traditions above all others.

Nazism sounds more like the far right to me. The prevailing line of thinking connecting Nazi/National Socialism is that Communism was International Marxist socialism stressed the universality of the worker's condition and disregarded nationalism as a tool of bourgeois oppression; National Socialism focused on the worker's condition but within the existing boundaries of the nation-state, in this case, Germany, with belief in national and racial superiority at the core of its tenets. Its easy to forget that at the origin of National Socialism, Germany as a nation was less than 60 years old and the victories of the Reds over the Whites in Russia was only a few years past.

[Dan_Theman]

up voting Dan's post.
Thanks! (assuming that was for me, now that I realize Mr. Lawrence also posted)

[RickH]

1) Classical Liberalism: freedom is essential and government should be very limited, but some is signed over to the authoritative government via social contract to make sure their rights are protected. This concept would also cover the notion that personal liberties should be primarily unabbridged by the government except where absolutely necessary (if this sounds like Conservatism, you're starting to get the idea that the two aren't as far apart as many seem to portray: it's the combination of classical liberals and social conservatives that formed the Conservative movement in the U.S.).

That's about as accurate as it gets. The version of Conservatism I most see advocated is of this variety.

The more accurate distinction is whether the political philosphy in question is aligned around collectivism or individualism. Or in other words, how much do these folks want to impose their will upon other people through the mechanism of the state?

[Enidigm]

One thing to remember about German politics was how reactionary traditionalist strains appealed to the German character politically. Germany had been the doormat of Empires for 400 years, and appealing the the memory of a glorious "Reich" had long been a trope among the Germans for a very long time, a measure of pride in a (at this point) idealized past when there was little to be prideful of.

[Lum]

To actually answer the original question:

No, Barack Obama is not a Nazi.

To actually answer the implied question:

Hitler and the NSDAP used socialist rhetoric to attract the unemployed (this being during the Great Depression there were a great many of them). Once Hitler took power he instead allied with corporate leaders to achieve his goals of rapid rearmament and militarization (fascism being a welding of the corporate sector to the needs of state power, while still keeping control of the private sector overall in private hands). The people who joined the Nazis thinking they were socialists were somewhat irked by thist.

So Hitler did about what you'd expect: he killed them all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives).

So yes, the Nazis were totally leftists, if you ignore the whole killing-everyone-who-was-a-leftist-in-their-ranks thing.


The prevailing line of thinking connecting Nazi/National Socialism is that Communism was International Marxist socialism stressed the universality of the worker's condition and disregarded nationalism as a tool of bourgeois oppression; National Socialism focused on the worker's condition but within the existing boundaries of the nation-state.

Actually, national socialism did not focus on the worker's condition at all but saw him as a cog in the corporate state. When the Nazis took power labor unions were turned into business adjuncts via the German Labor Front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Labour_Front) which used socialist rhetoric as an excuse to turn industrial laborers into latter-day serfs. To quote Robert Ley, Labor Minister:


We promise to restore absolute leadership to the natural leader of a factory -- that is, the employer. Only the employer can decide. Many employers have for years had to call for the 'master in the house.' Now they once again are to be the 'master in the house'.

Of course once World War 2 began German labor policy moved from feudalism directly to slavery. But fascism as practiced by Germany was about as far from left-wing practice as it is possible to be.

[kerzain]

Didn't Frogboy and Matthew Gallant already sort this issue out for us?

[bago]

Why don't you ask Iowa?

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2010/07/13/obamahitler-billboard-is-not-disrepectful-tea-leader-says/

[rhinohelix]

To actually answer the original question:

No, Barack Obama is not a Nazi.
There is no disagreement here.

To actually answer the implied question:

Hitler and the NSDAP used socialist rhetoric to attract the unemployed (this being during the Great Depression there were a great many of them). Once Hitler took power he instead allied with corporate leaders to achieve his goals of rapid rearmament and militarization (fascism being a welding of the corporate sector to the needs of state power, while still keeping control of the private sector overall in private hands). The people who joined the Nazis thinking they were socialists were somewhat irked by thist.

So Hitler did about what you'd expect: he killed them all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives).

So yes, the Nazis were totally leftists, if you ignore the whole killing-everyone-who-was-a-leftist-in-their-ranks thing. Similar purges didn't make Lenin or Stalin any less Leftist, though. Almost everyone they killed who was a competitor was also a socialist/leftist/Marxist as well.

Actually, national socialism did not focus on the worker's condition at all but saw him as a cog in the corporate state. When the Nazis took power labor unions were turned into business adjuncts via the German Labor Front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Labour_Front) which used socialist rhetoric as an excuse to turn industrial laborers into latter-day serfs. To quote Robert Ley, Labor Minister:

Straight off the Wiki page and the horses' mouths:


To rescue Germany from the effects of the Great Depression, Nazism promoted an economic third position; a managed economy that was neither capitalist nor communist.[14][15] The Nazis accused communism and capitalism of being associated with Jewish influences and interests.[16] They declared support for a nationalist form of socialism that was to provide for the Aryan race and the German nation: economic security, social welfare programs for workers, a just wage, honour for workers' importance to the nation, and protection from capitalist exploitation.[17]

17.^ a b Bendersky, Joseph W. A history of Nazi Germany: 1919-1945. 2nd ed. Burnham Publishers, 2000. p. 40.


...Similarly, the second volume of Mein Kampf is entitled The National Socialist Movement.[18] According to Joseph Goebbels in an official exposition of the ideology, the logic behind the synthesis of Nationalism and Socialism as represented in the name, was to "counter the Internationalism of Marxism with the nationalism of a German Socialism".[19]
So as an ideology they don't fall very far from the Leftist tree; the actual governance, however, was very much totalitarian thuggery.

Of course once World War 2 began German labor policy moved from feudalism directly to slavery. But fascism as practiced by Germany was about as far from left-wing practice as it is possible to be.Would the workers in an apples-to-apples wartime/peacetime Soviet and Germany factories known much of a difference between the two, other than ideological rhetoric? One thing that is clear is that there is a much larger gap between the liberal governments of the West and the authoritarian/totalitarian empires of the East, from a European perspective.

[Andrew Mayer]

Left and Right were originally the sides that the members of they French Parliament sat on: Monarchists on the right vs. Revolutionaries on the left.

I'd say the terms remain about that useful, and no more.

[Jason McCullough]

So as an ideology they don't fall very far from the Leftist tree; the actual governance, however, was very much totalitarian thuggery.

Other than having absolutely nothing in common with "the left" on non-economic issues?

[maxle]

There is no disagreement here.
Straight off the Wiki page and the horses' mouths:


I'm puzzled. Lum twice states that the Nazis used socialist rhetoric to, basically, fool people and you attempt to rebut this statement by citing some of that same socialist rhetoric?

[Dan Lawrence]

Apparently if Rupert Murdoch or the BNP say they are left wing we must bend the term to include them ;p

By the way, I never stated that I thought the far left were unnalloyed good nor that the far right were the baddest of the bad. In fact, like most, I think that the best position lies at some point between the two extremes. I also believe it is very possible to pull together a political force that picks and chooses its individual policies to suit from across the ideological spectrum, and why not?

There has likely never been a completely pure far right government, just as there has never been a pure far left one. I doubt either would work which is one of the things the two sides have in common, along with their ever present furious anger.

[rhinohelix]

I'm puzzled. Lum twice states that the Nazis used socialist rhetoric to, basically, fool people and you attempt to rebut this statement by citing some of that same socialist rhetoric?

There is a difference between where they were ideologically and the actions they took in governance. Lum paints it as a deliberate trojan horse from the beginning; while I tend to view it more as expediency from barbarians drunk on power. Certainly there is a difference between campaign trail rhetoric and how someone governs. Which were their actual philosophical views and where should they be categorized ideologically? There are a number of posts that paint the continuum issues. I think that's not nearly as cut and dried as a few sentences makes it out to be.

[Lum]

You assume the Nazis had actual philosophical views. They did not - their leftist 'ideology' was wholly born of expedience. When they assumed power they ruled using the right wing, allied with conservatives in German industry and military leaders, because again it was the expedient thing to do, and the "true believer" leftists were either killed outright (Roehm), purged into irrelevance (Strasser) or moved into positions where their political views were ignored (Goebbels).

Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, actually mocked the Germans openly for this when he visited. "What is your party program? You don't have one? How can you be a political party if you do not have a program?"

In any event trying to paint the Nazis as socialist is born from a number of factors which are both directed through our modern prism and also mindbogglingly stupid:

* "They are called National Socialist. Thus obviously - they are socialists! Just like the Soviets, and the Democrats, and other bad people."
* They were totalitarians. The Communists were totalitarians. Thus they are the same.

There's also a good many serious histories which seek to ground Stalin and Hitler in the same revolutionary seed, but they ignore several key factors which fascism doesn't share on that way (collectivized economy, global nationalization of industry, focus on the class struggle as a prism to view all politics).

The real difference, though, is that fascism is totalitarianism for totalitarianism's sake in its purest form. It is the holding forth of the leader as the director of the national will. Socialism by contrast concerns itself with economic policy specifically - fascism is concerned with economic policy only in so far as it serves the leader's/the nation's will. Thus Germany nationalized industries when it suited them, and allowed industries free will to engage in profiteering when it suited them. It was not so much an ideology as an excuse.

And failing to understand that is why the US right is susceptible to those same excuses today.

[Janster]

Right, left hm these 'parties' were just tools of dictators to win power. That said, labels aplenty, I think centric extremism is the more correct term, since they were a mix of private and state owned industry/property.
Today we got parties here in Norway atleast who follow this creed, they are usually greens or farmers parties, altough Labour in UK can be said to be this now despite the name.

The sad thing about Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini etc is that the lesson learned is simple, strong men who want to 'save' the country should be avoided at all cost imho, however in 2 of these 3 cases, the right wing would rather sink into fascism than ever give an inch to socialism.

I found that funny, since it cost them their lives instead of just their property.

[Brian Rucker]

The picture I have of what Nazism meant was derived from a social history class I took in college some time ago.

I think mainly of the tools they used to get popular support. Finding scapegoats to blame for all social ills. Claiming the inherent and divine superiority of their nation (and race). Inventing an idyllic past, that never really existed as such, to be the template for their future. Crushing any social aberrations, to them, like communism, socialism or homosexuality in addition to the obvious Judaism. While cynical and often hypocritical, they did appeal to piety and religion and "traditional" German family values. Any art or literature they disapproved of was destroyed. They promoted a paranoid and suspicious view of other nations and cultures, "Everyone is out to get us." They had no value for civil or privacy rights at all and turned neighbors into informants with professional security agents, including of course The Gestapo, free to engage in any sort of investigation they wanted to. They partnered with the military industrial complex of the time to both get rich and arm their forces.

The labels might not matter as, sure, they're mutable but when you see and hear the rhetoric of the right it gets alot closer to this kind of thing than the left does.

Tea partiers might sound anti-government but many of them are also social conservatives, supporters of big military spending, suspicious of outsiders and quick to cast blame for society's ills on whole classes of people (who aren't like them). In fact, I'd probably say that rather than anti-government they're more likely just anti-this-government. Where were they when Bush was running things?

[Janster]

Sometimes they forget the military is government too, and the most dangerous part of it too. I doubt tea party will reduce government, they will just move the spending around a bit, less schools, more weapons.

[Andrew Mayer]

Sometimes they forget the military is government too, and the most dangerous part of it too. I doubt tea party will reduce government, they will just move the spending around a bit, less schools, more weapons.

Considering they're nothing more than a radicalized arm of the Republicans, that's a good bet.

[ShivaX]

Many historians are forced into an either-or choice, "is he more right wing, or more left wing?", but let's be honest, it's a crude description of what the Nazi party really was. So why do it?

How else can you make posters with people and Hitler if you don't use crude descriptions?!?!

[rhinohelix]

While I quibble with some of your points below, the genesis of this particular discussion is really more oriented towards where the Nazis lie on the ideological continuum. Since Nazis are one of the few unequivocal evil organizations in modernity, both sides have been fighting to place them in the other camp for a long time.


You assume the Nazis had actual philosophical views. They did not - their leftist 'ideology' was wholly born of expedience. Of course they had philosophical views. They weren't evil robots from the future. Even if they didn't mean it, they had stated positions and then actual policies which had roots in one philosophical tradition or the other, even if those were only for expediency's sake.
When they assumed power they ruled using the right wing, allied with conservatives in German industry and military leaders. They weren't "conservatives" in the modern sense, of course but rather military leaders who past ideological purity and loyalty tests and business leaders who became more and more closely allied with the Nazi government, much like business leaders in many systems that while not completely nationalized have exceedingly strong central governments.

The British Marxist historian Timothy Mason, who was a leading expert on the economic history of Nazi Germany argued that after the 1936 economic crisis, a “primacy of politics” prevailed with business interests being subordinated to the Nazi regime. In a 1966 essay, Mason wrote "that both the domestic and foreign policy of the National Socialist government became, from 1936 onward, increasing independent of the influence of the economic ruling classes, and even in some essential aspects ran contrary to their collective interests" and that "it became possible for the National Socialist state to assume a fully independent role, for the "primacy of politics" to assert itself"[35] Mason used the following to support his thesis:
that after the 1936 economic crisis, German industrialists were increasing excluded from the decision-making process[36]
that after 1936, the German state came to play an increasing dominant role in the German economy both through state-owned companies and by placing increasing larger orders[37]
that the expansion of armament-related production supported by a highly economically interventionist state led to those capitalist enterprises not related to armaments to go into decline[38]
the decline in effectiveness in economic lobbying groups in the Third Reich[39]
that through every major German industrialist called for a reduction of working class living standards from 1933 onwards, before 1942 the Nazi regime always ignored such calls, and sought instead to raise working class living standards[40]


There's also a good many serious histories which seek to ground Stalin and Hitler in the same revolutionary seed, but they ignore several key factors which fascism doesn't share on that way (collectivized economy, global nationalization of industry, focus on the class struggle as a prism to view all politics). No one is saying that they are exactly the same but rather that they spring from the same philosophical roots. They are somewhat distant cousins rather than brothers, like Stalinist/Marxist Communism and Maoist Communism.


The real difference, though, is that fascism is totalitarianism for totalitarianism's sake in its purest form. It is the holding forth of the leader as the director of the national will. So in essence really a cult of personality rather than an ideology at all?
Socialism by contrast concerns itself with economic policy specifically - fascism is concerned with economic policy only in so far as it serves the leader's/the nation's will. Thus Germany nationalized industries when it suited them, and allowed industries free will to engage in profiteering when it suited them. It was not so much an ideology as an excuse. Germany nationalized industries as it was necessary for their war aims. The rest is obviously somewhat disputed.


And failing to understand that is why the US right is susceptible to those same excuses today.

And here we come to it: Putting the Nazis on the Left is ludicrous but watch out, U.S. Right! Ur-Fascism is calling from inside your house.

[Dan_Theman]

No one is saying that they are exactly the same but rather that they spring from the same philosophical roots. They are somewhat distant cousins rather than brothers, like Stalinist/Marxist Communism and Maoist Communism.

I've got to take issue with this statement.

Rhino, you seem to think that nationalization of industries is a philosophical root of both Socialism and Facism.

It's not.

Nationalization of industries is merely one of many means to an end - it's not philosophical or ideological, it's a tool that is useful to both Socialism and Facism much the same way that a hammer is useful to both a carpenter and also to someone who desires to bludgeon another. The desired ends for those two forms of government, the crux of their political philosophies, are VERY different from each other. That's philosophical.

[Brian Rucker]

I'm rereading the chapter on business from Twelve Year Reich which was the main text we used in our class and it's pretty obvious many industrialists made out like bandits.


Yet, in spite of heavy taxes and the gentler slope of the upward curve, the net profits of large corporations quadrupled within the first four years of Nazi rule, and managerial and entrepreneurial income rose by nearly 50 percent (from an average of 3,700 marks in 1934 to 5,420 marks in 1938). Things were to get even better: in the three years between 1939 and 1942 German industry expanded as much as it had in the preceding 50 years.

An episode related in the course of the Nuremberg trials provides an illustration of the euphoric atmosphere in which this expansion proceeded. On 18 May 1940 Krupp, a partner in Henkel, the detergent manufacturers, and two other industrialist spent hours listening to the radio when seated round a table covered with a map of north-western Europe. As news flashes of the Wehrmacht's advances into the Low Countries came in, they grew increasingly agitated and started waving their hands about to jab at the map. 'This one here is yours, that one there is yours, we shall have that man arrested, he has two factories...' In the midst of the hubbub one of the four industrialists got up to telephone his office staff and ordered them immediately to request Wehrmacht permission for two of their number to proceed to Holland the following day.

As for the workers, the Nazis broke up unions as a force hostile to their control of the people. While they may have resisted calls from industrialists (I can't find anything to support or refute that with this cursory refreshing of some very old reading matter) to reduce worker's standards of living there's a reason for that.


The fact that, despite longer working-hours, industrial conscription and over-exertion stimulated by high bonus payments, the health of the workers did not deteriorate further was a function of the central role that 'fringe benefits' played in the Third Reich's industrial scheme.. Since the widespread application of the wage freeze largely ruled out traditional forms of industrial incentive, substitute rewards assumed far greater importance. Perks replaced fuller pay packets and were trumpeted abroad as a 'socialism of deeds', a corollary of the Nazi's restructured definition of socialism, which posited an identity of interest between employers and employees, to be promoted by means of a factory community. The regime projected the specious notion of such a community by semantically abolishing employers and physically abolishing trade unions.

He then describes how this worked in theory before getting back to to illustrate why he chose the words 'specious' and 'semantic' in the previous paragraph.


But in spite of this form of control, an employer still substantially remained master during the Third Reich.

He explains that the Labor Front, the Nazi organized replacement for real trade unions, only had power with small businesses and then didn't do very much for the employees. The big industries could do as they pleased and did.

The middle class and upper middle class were by far the biggest Nazi supporters, not the workers as well.


White collar workers - known as the 'butterfly collar proletariat' - had been neurotically apprehensive of being reduced to true proletarian status at the time of the Depression. This had not in fact occured, either in terms of joblessness or wage reductions. Whereas the slump put roughly every third industrial worker on the scrap heap, 'only' one white collar worker in ten swelled the dole queues.

By the end of 1933, salaried staff formed nearly a fifth and industrial workers under a third of total Nazi party membership, which meant that compared to their distribution throughout the country, white-collar workers were 65 percent over-represented and blue-collar ones 30 percent under-represented.


Of all of Germany's socio-economic groups, the business community, especially if we take it to include the electorally crucial 'middle class' of independents (Mittlestand) such as shopkeepers or master craftsmen, assisted the Nazis most in seizing power.

It really sounds to me like Tea Party demographics when you think about it. Rather well off folks who fear not being well off and retreat into fantasies about patriotism to the point they totally misunderstand the history of the country and, frankly, don't care. They believe what they want out of fear and self-importance.

[Janster]

Similar to say when the nazi's grabbed power..
Add a massive military machine to the equation, and you get...well..the U.S.A.
I wonder how much control your political leaders truly have over your military these days.

That said, your fine with Obama, but tea party, they would get eaten alive.

[rhinohelix]

Industrialists colluding with the Third Reich doesn't make it right-wing, though, any more than the nationalization of vast swaths of the economy doesn't make it left wing.
It really sounds to me like Tea Party demographics when you think about it. Rather well off folks who fear not being well off and retreat into fantasies about patriotism to the point they totally misunderstand the history of the country and, frankly, don't care. They believe what they want out of fear and self-importance.

Again, I am a little shocked in a thread focused on the umbrage of comparing Obama's cult of personality to Nazis that the irony of then comparing in multiple posts Tea Party members, a decentralized and grass roots organization, directly to them. This is just as specious as the somewhat false example Lum used earlier: Tea Party members are on the Right; the Nazis were on the "Right"; therefore the Tea Party are like Nazis. Its a dangerous road to go down when your only tool is a hammer, all of your enemies look like Nazis.

[rhinohelix]

I've got to take issue with this statement.

Rhino, you seem to think that nationalization of industries is a philosophical root of both Socialism and Facism.

It's not.

Nationalization of industries is merely one of many means to an end - it's not philosophical or ideological, it's a tool that is useful to both Socialism and Facism much the same way that a hammer is useful to both a carpenter and also to someone who desires to bludgeon another. The desired ends for those two forms of government, the crux of their political philosophies, are VERY different from each other. That's philosophical.

I was just writing that while you posted. The shared philosophical roots have nothing to do with the nationalization of industry.

[Jason McCullough]

Industrialists colluding with the Third Reich doesn't make it right-wing, though, any more than the nationalization of vast swaths of the economy doesn't make it left wing.

Is it "colluding" if the right-wing half of the German government decides to install Hitler? Were they just being idiots, and decided that installing someone a lot like the communists they hated so much was a good idea?

[rhinohelix]

Is it "colluding" if the right-wing half of the German government decides to install Hitler? Were they just being idiots, and decided that installing someone a lot like the communists they hated so much was a good idea?

What is the "right-wing half" of the German government (do you mean electorate)?

[bago]

Industrialists colluding with the Third Reich doesn't make it right-wing, though, any more than the nationalization of vast swaths of the economy doesn't make it left wing.

Again, I am a little shocked in a thread focused on the umbrage of comparing Obama's cult of personality to Nazis that the irony of then comparing in multiple posts Tea Party members, a decentralized and grass roots organization, directly to them. This is just as specious as the somewhat false example Lum used earlier: Tea Party members are on the Right; the Nazis were on the "Right"; therefore the Tea Party are like Nazis. Its a dangerous road to go down when your only tool is a hammer, all of your enemies look like Nazis.

You mean the grass roots org that Dick Armey bussed old southerners in to protest for? I was at some of these DC rallies. I saw the buses. I even walked amongst them carrying my Merkins for a pubic option sign (http://wonkette.com/412025/teabaggers-will-attempt-to-rip-apart-1990-page-bill). If you believe the tea party is anything other than a rebranding effort to deal with the bush debacle, you're an idiot.

[Janster]

I think it simple...
You got massive propaganda, no functioning press to ask the hard questions..and you can quickly get people to vote themselves out of power.
I think this is particularly interesting when the face of politics becomes person oriented rather than party oriented.

[bago]

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341bf68b53ef0120a5b62410970c-800wi

[rhinohelix]

You mean the grass roots org that Dick Armey bussed old southerners in to protest for? I was at some of these DC rallies. I saw the buses. I even walked amongst them carrying my Merkins for a pubic option sign (http://wonkette.com/412025/teabaggers-will-attempt-to-rip-apart-1990-page-bill). If you believe the tea party is anything other than a rebranding effort to deal with the bush debacle, you're an idiot.

This just in: political groups bus in supporters. OH THE HORRORS. Next you will tell me they brought in SEIU folks to zerg the town hall meetings last summer.

And someone must be an idiot because rather than rebranding, I think this stuff had been percolating for a long time. People on the Right didn't like a bunch of what Bush was doing but felt constrained in criticizing him for it do the cacophony of criticism already coming from the Left. Once Bush left and there was no need to hold back, these people let it all hang out. There is subliminal criticism of Bush spending in each of these protests.

[Jason McCullough]

What is the "right-wing half" of the German government (do you mean electorate)?

I can't find a good overview online, but the Nazis rose to power on the support of the German equivalent of small businessmen, rural nationalists, and some of the big businesses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Rise_to_power:_1925.E2.80.931933). The left of center parties like the SPD and Communists loathed the Nazis. The parties that did ally with them were on the right end of the spectrum. When push come to shove and Hitler became Chancellor, it was a right-of-center coalition that got him there.

I think "xenophobic nationalist" is the best description of both their ideology, alliances, and governing strategy. They didn't worship the market, but they didn't want to get rid of it either. It was just a means to an end to kick everyone else's ass and be a world-dominating great power. This is one of the areas that Communist theory greatly diverged - in practice, they both ended up wanting to build these huge empires of pain, but the Communist ideological attitude towards great power politics and national power projection was very odd.

The wikipedia page on Nazism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism) is actually pretty good. For example:


The Nazis argued that capitalism damages nations due to international finance, the economic dominance of big business, and Jewish influences within it.[90] Adolf Hitler, both in public and in private, held strong disdain for capitalism; he accused modern capitalism of holding nations ransom in the interests of a parasitic cosmopolitan rentier class.[92] He opposed free-market capitalism's profit-seeking impulses and desired an economy where community interests would be upheld.[93] He distrusted capitalism for being unreliable, due to it having an egotistic nature, and he preferred a state-directed economy.[94] Hitler told one party leader in 1934, "The economic system of our day," referring to capitalism, "is the creation of the Jews."[95] In a discussion with Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, Hitler said that "Capitalism had run its course".[94]

To Hitler, the economy must be subordinated to the interests of the Volk and its state.[95] In Mein Kampf, Hitler effectively supported mercantilism, in the belief that economic resources from their respective territories should be seized by force; he believed that the policy of lebensraum would provide Germany with such economically valuable territories.[96] He believed that the only means to maintain economic security was to have direct control over resources rather than being forced to rely on world trade.[97] He claimed that war to gain such resources was the only means to surpass the failing capitalist economic system.[96] He believed that private ownership was useful in that it encouraged creative competition and technical innovation, but insisted that it had to conform to national interests and be "productive" rather than "parasitical".[93]

A number of Nazis held strong revolutionary socialist and anti-capitalist beliefs, most prominently Ernst Röhm, the leader of the Nazis' main paramilitary group, the Sturmabteilung (SA).[98] Röhm claimed that the Nazis' rise to power constituted a national revolution, but insisted that a socialist "second revolution" was required for Nazi ideology to be fulfilled.[99] Röhm's SA began attacks against individuals deemed to be associated with conservative reaction.[100] Hitler saw Röhm's independent actions as violating and possibly threatening his leadership, as well as jeopardizing the regime by alienating the conservative President Paul von Hindenburg and the conservative-oriented German army.[101] This resulted in Hitler purging Röhm and other radical members of the SA.[101]

Whatever that is, I don't think it's socialism. "Collectivism", sure, but in with a goal totally divergent from that of the Communists. Admittedly they were kind of incoherent at points. Also, again to stress this:


Philosopher Stephen Hicks writes: "The issue about how socialist the Nazis were is, in part, a judgment call about long-term principles and short-term pragmatism."[115] Hicks argues that the Nazis claimed to be more devoted to socialism than the Soviet Bolsheviks: the Russians were preoccupied with economics while the Nazis thought socialism should control not only economics but breeding, religion and other intimate details of life.

The interesting thing is that, well, the religion and breeding was supposed to be in service of goals that the actual left found horrifying - creating cannon fodder for wars, "proper" social relations that were gussied-up peasant romanticism, etc.

"Maximal state nationalist collectivists?" Beats me.


People on the Right didn't like a bunch of what Bush was doing but felt constrained in criticizing him for it do the cacophony of criticism already coming from the Left.

I'd believe this if I'd seen anyone but the Paulites complaining at all, even internally, when he was in office. There was absolutely nothing unless you count people the people who got kicked out or left. If there was complaints people would have noticed; the right leaks like a sieve.


There is subliminal criticism of Bush spending in each of these protests.

No, there's not. Every time a Democrat gets elected the right freaks the hell out and generates a protest movement, convinced their entire way of life is about to end. Happened with LBJ (Medicare = death of freedom, Birchers), happened with Carter (don't know the details here), happened with Clinton (you lived through it), it's happening again with Obama.


You mean the grass roots org that Dick Armey bussed old southerners in to protest for?

The Freedomworks funding was key to them getting a lot of media coverage and organizing beyond a local level, but a new yorker article a few months ago made a pretty good case it was a groundswell. The big conservative foundations are just channeling it.

[Brian Rucker]

You can't really call the Nazis "socialists" with a straight face when they rounded up real socialists as political enemies and broke up unions. To be fair, Twelve Year Reich also points out Communist critiques of Nazism which would have them be the pawns of industry, the conservative military hierarchy, and the old aristocracy aren't correct either. Those elements may have thought they could manipulate the Nazis (there were factions in the military that feared Hitler's militarism, while most relished the incoming funds and power, and plotted against him while many aristocrats, individually at least, tended to despise the grubby irrational fanatics on general principle much like conservative leadership these days isn't quite sure what to do with the Tea Party - manipulate them or create some distance from the crazy). They were wrong.

But it's clear the group who benefited most, initially, and supported the Nazis most were the middle class 'independent' merchants and craftsmen. Long term, the book argues convincingly, they ended up the worst with big business thriving and taking over as small businesses failed or found themselves unable to compete. Blue collar workers didn't fare well either.

The facts really speak for themselves here. Who appealed to family values, told people to fear anyone different than themselves, blamed minorities for all their country's ills, thrived on conspiracy theories, were supported by traditionally conservative political factions while attacking liberal and socialist ones? The Nazis may have paid the destruction of capitalism lip service but it was the capitalists, large and small, who disproportionately made up the rank and file of the Nazi party and supported it all the way.

[rhinohelix]

You can't really call the Nazis "socialists" with a straight face when they rounded up real socialists as political enemies and broke up unions. Again, every Totalitarian Left-wing government rounded up "real socialists" not associated with the overall ruling hierarchy as well. They broke up unions not out of competition to their control (their adherence to International Socialism/Communism "immunized" them against Nazi inroads, in much the same way Catholicism "protected" Catholics from going Nazi (OLoughlin, Flint, and Anselin 1993).
To be fair, Twelve Year Reich also points out Communist critiques of Nazism which would have them be the pawns of industry, the conservative military hierarchy, and the old aristocracy aren't correct either. Those elements may have thought they could manipulate the Nazis (there were factions in the military that feared Hitler's militarism, while most relished the incoming funds and power, and plotted against him while many aristocrats, individually at least, tended to despise the grubby irrational fanatics on general principle much like conservative leadership these days isn't quite sure what to do with the Tea Party - manipulate them or create some distance from the crazy). They were wrong.Again, with the allusions.
But it's clear the group who benefited most, initially, and supported the Nazis most were the middle class 'independent' merchants and craftsmen. Long term, the book argues convincingly, they ended up the worst with big business thriving and taking over as small businesses failed or found themselves unable to compete. Blue collar workers didn't fare well either. No one really "faired well" who participated in the Nazi regime, did they? There are four groups that are identified with increased Nazi support that moved them from an also-ran to the second largest party in Germany: Protestants, Blue Collar Trade Workers, The Self-Employed, and New Voters, with the Unemployed becoming a stronger voting block as the Depression went on. (OLoughlin, Flint, and Anselin 1993) The Nazis mostly benefited from increased turnout. Their message wasn't uniform to every group. In the cities, they stressed their anti-capitalist message; in the areas with long histories of Anti-Semitism, they stressed their opposition to "international Jewry".


The facts really speak for themselves here. Who appealed to family values, I am glad that you mentioned this again. You obvious attempt at allusions aside, the Nazis appeal to 'family values' in the same way the Soviets appealed to 'family values': the appeal to family was because of its key duty to the state (Pine 1999) not out of any Western notion of the nuclear family,
...told people to fear anyone different than themselves Just like the Democrat rank and file opposition to NAFTA, you mean? This is a function of every party seeking to enhance internal cohesion. The politics of fear don't have party affiliation.
...blamed minorities for all their country's ills, If by that you mean Anti-Semitic attacks on Jews, sure the Nazis did this.
...thrived on conspiracy theories, Yes, this is sole province of people on the Right in America [giant eye roll here]
...were supported by traditionally conservative political factions while attacking liberal and socialist ones? The "liberal" factions they attacked were classic liberal supporters of Weimar democracy. Again, those "socialist" (and by that you mean Communist KPD supporters) were considered their biggest rivals in the run-up to revolution.
The Nazis may have paid the destruction of capitalism lip service but it was the capitalists, large and small, who disproportionately made up the rank and file of the Nazi party and supported it all the way.
Some major business figures such as Fritz Thyssen were Nazi supporters and gave generously,[18] but many other businessmen were suspicious of the extreme nationalist tendencies of the Nazis and preferred to support the traditional conservative parties instead.[19] The contortions one has to go through in order to turn the Tea Party/conservatives into the Nazi party are only worthwhile for a committed ideological enemy and tends to prove the point that Nazis are most like your enemies no matter where one sits on the political spectrum.

[IainC]

Again, with the allusions. No one really "faired well" who participated in the Nazi regime, did they? There are four groups that are identified with increased Nazi support that moved them from an also-ran to the second largest party in Germany: Protestants, Blue Collar Trade Workers, The Self-Employed, and New Voters, with the Unemployed becoming a stronger voting block as the Depression went on. (OLoughlin, Flint, and Anselin 1993) The Nazis mostly benefited from increased turnout. Their message wasn't uniform to every group. In the cities, they stressed their anti-capitalist message; in the areas with long histories of Anti-Semitism, they stressed their opposition to "international Jewry".
During the early years of the party prior to and up to the Munich Putsch, they were an aggressively militaristic party endorsed by such luminaries of the old military aristocracy as Ludendorff. A key part of the Nazi platform was revenge for the disgrace of Versailles and to exonerate the military at the expense of the political class that had 'stabbed the army in the back'.


I am glad that you mentioned this again. You obvious attempt at allusions aside, the Nazis appeal to 'family values' in the same way the Soviets appealed to 'family values': the appeal to family was because of its key duty to the state (Pine 1999) not out of any Western notion of the nuclear family.
It's not simply the family duty to the state though, the Nazis held the same sort of socially conservative views regarding 'family values' that US right-wingers would appreciate.


Just like the Democrat rank and file opposition to NAFTA, you mean? This is a function of every party seeking to enhance internal cohesion. The politics of fear don't have party affiliation.
Are you really trying to argue that opposition to NAFTA is the same as the institutionalised racism and hyper-nationalism at the core of Nazi policy? Really?

If by that you mean Anti-Semitic attacks on Jews, sure the Nazis did this.
And hoimosexuals, slavs, gypsies and in fact anyone who could reasonably be described as 'other' to the Aryan ideal.


The "liberal" factions they attacked were classic liberal supporters of Weimar democracy. Again, those "socialist" (and by that you mean Communist KPD supporters) were considered their biggest rivals in the run-up to revolution.
You're conflating communist with socialist here. Yes the communists were their main rivals in the run up to Hitler's election as Chancellor with street violence routinely flaring up between the groups, yes the Nazis attacked socialists as well. Socialist=/= communist. There were many moderate leftists in the turmoil that was the Weimar republic, they were purged ruthlessly as well.


The contortions one has to go through in order to turn the Tea Party/conservatives into the Nazi party are only worthwhile for a committed ideological enemy and tends to prove the point that Nazis are most like your enemies no matter where one sits on the political spectrum.

The contortions one has to go through to deny the obvious and clear ideological links between the tea party/ultra-conservatives and the Nazis are only worthwhile for a committed apologist. The Nazis are the ne plus ultra of right wing politics. Trying to pin them to the left wing is laughable - especially the moderate right/centrist 'left wing' that exists in the US currently.

[Brian Rucker]

No one really "faired well" who participated in the Nazi regime, did they?

Iain did a good job as I could have rebutting but I'd like to address this. Yes, one group did fare pretty damned well until the Nazi's crumbled - big business. They were acquiring assets for free, labor was beaten down by the Labor Front with no independent trade unions to protect them and that's not even mentioning slave labor brought in from the outside. The government poured money into the military and all the related industries.

[rhinohelix]

The contortions one has to go through to deny the obvious and clear ideological links between the tea party/ultra-conservatives and the Nazis are only worthwhile for a committed apologist. The Nazis are the ne plus ultra of right wing politics. Trying to pin them to the left wing is laughable - especially the moderate right/centrist 'left wing' that exists in the US currently.

Yes, the Tea Party doesn't just act like Nazis: They actually *are* Nazis. In another stunning development Alex Jones is set to report that not only are the Tea Party folks Nazis ideologically, they are actually the *same* Nazis as took over Germany in 1932. Here is a picture of "Joe Gravel" at a Tea Party speech:

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/holocaust/essaypics/goebbels.jpg

Hatwear provided by American Haberdashers for American Progress,Complete and Total BS, and George Soros.

[rhinohelix]

Iain did a good job as I could have rebutting but I'd like to address this. Yes, one group did fare pretty damned well until the Nazi's crumbled - big business. They were acquiring assets for free, labor was beaten down by the Labor Front with no independent trade unions to protect them and that's not even mentioning slave labor brought in from the outside. The government poured money into the military and all the related industries.

"Big Business" was inseparable from the Nazi Party and the Third Reich by that time. With that much centralized power, you either were part of the government or a victim of it. Labor Unions weren't disbanded out of philosophical differences, they were a completing locus of power and all such organizations were co-opted or destroyed. Tons of money poured into various nationalized industries because the Nazis were rearming. Very Keynesian in their approach to the recovery, though.

[Anders Hallin]

I think the problem is that during the 1930s, and indeed the entire period of 1850 to 1950, was the age of ideologies, where there was a whole bunch of alternatives to the system of that era. One was nazism, another socialism, yet another was liberalism, and there were a bunch of others. To put it into a dichotomy between capitalism and socialism completely misses the point.

[Brian Rucker]

"Big Business" was inseparable from the Nazi Party and the Third Reich by that time. With that much centralized power, you either were part of the government or a victim of it. Labor Unions weren't disbanded out of philosophical differences, they were a completing locus of power and all such organizations were co-opted or destroyed. Tons of money poured into various nationalized industries because the Nazis were rearming. Very Keynesian in their approach to the recovery, though.

There's a difference between "getting rich" and "no longer existing" that distinguishes big business and unions/socialism under the Third Reich. Business was still, for the most part, privately owned. Did they have to kiss up to the Nazis to stay that way? Yes. Did they mind? Can't see where they did so much as a group.

[Bastables]

meh //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps (add the http or just google)

Note how the instrument used to crush Marxist/left organizations such as the Spartacus league and assassinate German socialist leaders signed up with SA, NSDAP (Nazis) and SS. Nazi's or fascists actually fought and crushed left wing groups in post WWI Germany which simplistically indicates that they were sort of anti left wing. So anti they killed people with opposing viewpoints.

[rhinohelix]

meh //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps (add the http or just google)

Note how the instrument used to crush Marxist/left organizations such as the Spartacus league and assassinate German socialist leaders signed up with SA, NSDAP (Nazis) and SS. Nazi's or fascists actually fought and crushed left wing groups in post WWI Germany which simplistically indicates that they were sort of anti left wing. So anti they killed people with opposing viewpoints.

I don't know how else to get across the idea that you don't have an opposing idealogical view to kill someone, so let me put it like this: when drug dealers kill other drug dealers is that because they are anti-drugs? Or is it because they are competing for the same market?

[Mordrak]

So you're basically arguing, that by definition, no totalitarian government can be associated with right wing conservatism... totalitarianism is itself an ideal of the left because it requires submission to the government?

All businesses are subject to government in some form or another and they either bribe to change or avoid the rules, abide by the rules set by that government, or suffer whatever legal consequence is designed by said government for doing so. At this point, you seem to be arguing that the very idea of government is of the left.

That seems kind of bizarre to say the least.

[corsair]

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341bf68b53ef0120a5b62410970c-800wi

What, half cotton, half silk? I hope he has a high thread-count either way.