Leftists become incandescent when reminded of the socialist roots of Nazism

The Telegraph ^ | February 25th, 2014 | Daniel Hannan

[cripplecreek]

On 16 June 1941, as Hitler readied his forces for Operation Barbarossa, Josef Goebbels looked forward to the new order that the Nazis would impose on a conquered Russia. There would be no come-back, he wrote, for capitalists nor priests nor Tsars. Rather, in the place of debased, Jewish Bolshevism, the Wehrmacht would deliver “der echte Sozialismus”: real socialism.

Goebbels never doubted that he was a socialist. He understood Nazism to be a better and more plausible form of socialism than that propagated by Lenin. Instead of spreading itself across different nations, it would operate within the unit of the Volk.

So total is the cultural victory of the modern Left that the merely to recount this fact is jarring. But few at the time would have found it especially contentious. As George Watson put it in The Lost Literature of Socialism:

It is now clear beyond all reasonable doubt that Hitler and his associates believed they were socialists, and that others, including democratic socialists, thought so too.

The clue is in the name. Subsequent generations of Leftists have tried to explain away the awkward nomenclature of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party as either a cynical PR stunt or an embarrassing coincidence. In fact, the name meant what it said.

[GeronL]

exactly, the same territory and the same audience

[Chode]

100%

[cripplecreek]

Left and right don’t mean the same things in continental Europe as they do in the English speaking world. Left and right have the same general connotations in Great Britain, Canada, the USA, and Australia.

[Caipirabob]

Leftists are basically totalitarians while conservatives are closer to moderates. All totalitarian governments, socialist, fascist, communist, corporatist are mechanisms of the left.

[Travis McGee]

[cripplecreek]

I think I would put myself about dead center between conservative and libertarian on that graphic.

[KC_Lion]

Wow, I wish I could write like that.

I would just simply say, Nazism VS Communism is just like Coke VS Pepsi.

The Same ingredients just marketed differently.

[Steely Tom]

The author's assistant responded to me, saying that the author identified them that way because that was the way they were traditionally identified, or some nonsense.

I would think that the terms in which an organization identified itself, - in its founding documents and in the name it took - would be the "way they were traditionally identified."

In the case of the Nazi party, the name they took was die Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or "the National Socialist German Workers Party."

The only "tradition" here is the traditional degree to which Left wingers would like to re-write history so as to airbrush out their failures and redirect the responsibility onto their political enemies. In this case they cannot do this, because the record is very clear.

In the case of the racial history of the American South, their efforts have been much more successful.

[Carbonsteel]

I think the most dishonest narrative ever perpetuated by academia and the media is that Fascism is/was a right wing ideology.

[GeronL]

I agree

[Farmer Dean]

Libs understand it,they choose to ignore it.They are hopeless fools.

[lurk]

This whole thing of defining what socialism is is cute. It’s like talking about the difference between being beaten and being flogged.

[Chode]

100%

[Chode]

less filling/tastes great...

[cripplecreek]

I would think that the terms in which an organization identified itself, - in its founding documents and in the name it took - would be the "way they were traditionally identified."

Just compare the nazi party planks to the Occupy Wall street list of demands. They're virtually identical.

[Revolting cat!]

I know it’s true, but I’ve read it here and elsewhere hundreds of times, so how come it’s not catching, and since it’s not catching, maybe different methods oughta be used. I mean, it’s become a tired refrain, we are all already persuaded, enough.

[Chode]

denial isn't just a river in Egypt...

[MeganC]

Bookmark

[Noumenon]

"The Party is all-embracing. It rules our lives in all their breadth and depth. We must therefore develop branches of the Party in which the whole of individual life will be reflected. Each activity and each need of the individual will thereby be regulated by the Party as the representative of the general good. There will be no license, no free space, in which the individual belongs to himself. This is Socialism - not such trifles as the private means of production."

Of what importance is that if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party, is supreme over them, regardless whether they are owners or workers. All that, you see, is unessential. Our Socialism goes far deeper..."

"The people about us are unaware of what is really happening to them. The gaze fascinated at one or two superficialities, such as possessions and income or rank and other outworn conceptions. As long as these are kept intact, they are quite satisfied. But in the meantime, they have entered a new relation; a powerful social force has caught them up. They themselves are changed. What are ownership and income to that? Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings."

Adolph HitlerThe Voice of Destruction pp 191-193

Straight from the horses, er, mouth so to speak. This reference really drives them nuts. Also - a little too eerily familiar in tone, no?

[bigtoona]

I’ve been making similar comments about right vs left for a long time, love it! a liberal friend was dumbfounded when I pointed out that Nazis, commies and socialists are all the same and that they require total government control of the people.