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To: Jim W N
I know at first in the early 30’s, everybody thought Hitler was the cat’s meow.

Not exactly. Americans mired in the Great Depression couldn't help but note that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both managed to escape it. Germany did it with a massive military buildup, and the Soviet Union did it with a massive program of industrialization. Both were financed by Wall Street, the City of London, the Paris Bourse and the gnomes of Zurich. Some investment banks supported Hitler as a bulwark against the Soviets, and some supported Stalin to get the two dictators to fight and wear each other down until the Americans could ride in on a white horse and set Europe to rights as Wilson attempted to do after World War I.

Some Americans took Hitler's side, to include some prominent industrialists. The German-American Bund at its zenith held that infamous rally in Madison Square Garden with floor-to-ceiling figures of Washington next to Hitler.

Some Americans took Stalin's side, with the American Communist Party making inroads into the labor movement, the academy, Hollywood and the early civil rights movement.

The New York Times was squarely on the side of Stalin.

Once we went to war with Germany, the FBI was all over German sympathizers who were lucky they weren't sent to internment camps. The Soviets were our buddies.

Then the Soviets decided to hang on to their eastern and central European conquests and had the bad manners to steal our nuclear secrets. People who had supported Stalin ended up with the FBI all over them, being forced to name others at congressional inquiries.

With the hard turn to the Left in American politics due to the Depression and the New Deal, there were more Americans in sympathy with Stalin than Hitler.

18 posted on 03/17/2025 1:31:23 PM PDT by Publius
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To: Publius
Americans mired in the Great Depression couldn't help but note that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both managed to escape it. Germany did it with a massive military buildup, and the Soviet Union did it with a massive program of industrialization.

What the Nazis did was the equivalent of you "rescuing" a homeless guy from the streets by kidnapping him, rifling through his pockets for valuables, throwing him into chains, and putting him to work in your basement. (One could be more graphic, but this is a family site.)

What the Soviets did was the equivalent of you corralling an entire hobo encampment and letting half of them starve while the other half are worked to death.

I believe that we conservatives should be very careful about our diction when describing how the Nazis and the Soviets "dealt with" the Great Depression.

Phrases like "managed to escape" give entirely the wrong impression.

Regards,

19 posted on 03/18/2025 12:09:41 AM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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