History Lesson for Modern America - Read, Learn From It..... or Repeat It

Although my father deserted me and my mother raised me, I later wrote a book idolizing my father not my mother.

I grew up practicing one faith but converted to Christianity, as it was widely accepted in my new country, but I practiced non-traditional beliefs and didn't follow Christianity, except in the public eye under scrutiny.

I worked and lived among lower-class people as a young adult, disguising myself as someone who really cared about them.

That was before I decided it was time to get serious about my life and embarked on a new career.

It was clear to those who read my memoirs, that I had difficulties accepting that my father abandoned me as a child.

I became active in local politics in my 30's then, with help behind the scenes, I literally burst onto the scene as a candidate for national office in my 40s.

I had a virtually non-existent resume, little work history, and no experience in leading a single organization.

Yet I was a powerful speaker and citizens were drawn to me, as though I were a magnet and they were small roofing tacks.

I was very critical of my country in the last war, and seized every opportunity to bash my country.

But what launched my rise to national prominence were my views on the country's economy.

I pretended to have a really good plan on how we could do better, and every poor person would be fed and housed for free.

I decided to start making citizens hate them and, if they became envious of others who did well, the plan was clinched tight.

I was the surprise candidate because I emerged from outside the traditional path of politics and was able to gain widespread popular support.

I knew that, if I merely offered the people 'hope', together we could change our country and the world.

So, I started to make my speeches sound like they were on behalf of the downtrodden, poor, ignorant and included "persecuted minorities".

My true views were not widely known and I kept them unknown, until after I became my nation's leader.

I had to carefully guard reality, as anybody could have easily found out what I really believed, if they had simply read my writings and examined those people I associated with. I'm glad they didn't.

If you were thinking of SOMEONE ELSE, you should be frightened .... very.... very.... frightened!

Incorrect analogy.

A few facts about Der Führer.

Hitler’s father, Alois Hitler, was not born in another country. He was born in Austria, and was a customs official. He didn’t abandon his son, Adolf. He died when Adolf was around 12 or 13 or so.
There was no dispute about Adolf Hitler’s parentage. His father however, was a different matter. Alois Hitler was born to Anna Maria Shickelgruber, a single woman, and until Alois was about in his mid 20’s, he was known as Alois Schickelgruber. At that point, a certain Jan Nepomuk Hütler turned up, and claimed Alois was his son, and the baptismal record was duly changed, with the exception being that the priest misspelled the last name as “Hitler” (which is a variant of Hütler).

Adolf Hitler was baptized as a Catholic, and remained one (nominally) until his death in 1945, though I suspect personally, he was most likely an agnostic.

Adolf never lived among lower class people voluntarily; he despised them. Only poverty forced him to, because he was basically something of a Bohemian artist type, and refused to get a real job. He did, however, join the German Army in WWI, and served with some distinction, being awarded the Iron Cross, First and Second Class, the I.C.First Class being awarded only to those who showed conspicuous bravery in combat; so whatever he did in WWI, he most likely earned it. He wasn’t a coward.

Hitler’s economics were a bit wooly. He admitted he was wholly ignorant on the subject, and his Social Darwinist beliefs led him to say in 1942, “I absolutely insist on protecting private property ... we must encourage private initiative” (Hitler’s Table Talk/Private Conversations, 1941-1944, pp. 162-163).

His definition of socialism was even woolier; culminating in one point in Mein Kampf as, “He who extols the German race and does his utmost to protect it: that man is a socialist!” When it came to economics, Hitler knew little, and left it to others.

Hitler never said it was the free market, the banks, or the capitalist that caused Germany’s ruin the intrawar years; he blamed solely and exclusively on the Jews. No ifs, ands, or buts. The Jews were responsible for Communism, Bolshevism, the decline of German morals, and the reason for Germany’s defeat in WWI (all of which is total and unmitigated BS, but that was his schtick).

Hitler’s true views were never hidden; on the contrary he expressed them quite openly and frequently. And if didn’t have a chance to go to a Party Rally, you could always read Mein Kampf, which expressed his views quite succinctly (though muddled). Unfortunately, the worldview of this half-baked histrionic personality was shared by a sizable proportion of the German electorate, from all classes, worker, middle-class, and lower middle class. This accounted for the Nazi’s success.

I could go on and on. Hitler is nowhere in the same league as President Obama. Hitler was a genuinely disturbed psychopathic personality who was high-functioning, and as a result was able to infect (for lack of a better term), or perhaps actuate the psychosis in the German people in the first third of the 20th Century. It has been pointed out by quite a few writers, in regard to Hitler’s anti-Semitism, that exterminationist sentiments in regard to the Jews were already quite common in Germany (and Europe in general) by the time Hitler appeared on the political scene in the mid 1920s, and he simply got the ball rolling.

But as an earlier poster said, it’s Godwin’s Law when it comes to this sort of thing. It’s impossible to draw parallels because these two men existed in very different sociocultural conditions at very different times. Is President abundantly left wing? Of course he is; perhaps even a socialist, though I’ve never spoken with the man, and until I speak with someone face-to-face, I can’t ascertain their true intention (even more so when the person in question is a politician; they lie like hell), and a sound bite to me is irrelevant. Likewise, I can’t speak to Herr Hitler, as he’s passed on.

Well, sorry about my rather long-winded rant. I don’t like historical inaccuracy, and I read some in the posting.

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