Hitler was a Leftist

Hitler was a Leftist ^ | John Ray

[Maelstrom]

Good idea...a petition...with Hitler's quote on the front and the source on the back.

[Maelstrom]

Wait...

...let's think about this...

...We SHOULD do this for real. Circulate the petition *without* attribution for the quote.

Then send the petition AND the attribution to FOX News, Sean Hannity, Tony Snow, and the Rush Limbaugh show!

[antiRepublicrat]

Damn Tripod image blocking. You'll see the images on the site.

[longtermmemmory]

You know that is a real good idea. Protestwarrior.com is set for this type of deal. (all praise the bellygirl for her fitness program) They would even provie pictures and video of the people signing...

[Billthedrill]

I wish people would stop using "left" and "right" in this particular context. It doesn't really apply. Hitler was a "rightist" only insofar as he was in opposition to the revlolutionary Communists of his day, who were "left" only by notational convention.

Both the Nazis and the Communists were certainly (1) socialistic, (2) authoritarian, and (3) attempting the violent overthrow of the Weimar Republic. If you want to use contemporary usages, they both were social and political and economic "progressives" inasmuch as they wished to replace the status quo with their own schemes in those regards. That would make the Weimars "conservatives," despite the fact that they represented progress from the authoritarian Hohenzollern model of government grafted from Prussia by Bismark, which was in its turn "progressive" with respect to the myriad of small states that went before it. All of these are relative terms.

[onedoug]

How far were the nazis to the left of the commies?

[luckydevi]

for later

[longtermmemmory]

ORIGINAL QUOTE: "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"

how about this question to every president:

Mr/Mz Presidential Candidate: Will you work to end the present ecconomy with 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 will you be determined to achieve this goal?

[dubyagee]

Reading Adolf Hitler by John Toland right now for this very reason. (Poorly written, IMHO) It has been an eye opening book. I am currently to where he has just gained power. The interesting thing is, he played everyone in his attempt to gain power, including monied Jews. It is truly frightening how easily complete power was handed to him. He used a fire in the Reichstag to basically abolish the constitution. Imagine what Bush could have done with 9-11 if he had evil intentions.

[longtermmemmory]

Socialist are on the left
Nazi's are socialists
Mazi's are on the left.

This sylogism is closed captioned for the Democrat Party Impaired.

(no offense intended to you, just a ha ha)

[longtermmemmory]

Imagine algore putting the constitution and bill of rights in "protective suspension" following 9/11.

[longfellow]

In 1986 I began my graphic novel with this same message in attempt to 'wake up' America. I have not had much luck and have even lost a job over it. I have been called every name in the book at conventions and have been attacked on comic book websites. But I take pride in the fact that our little comic book was before Ann Coulter's great book Treason and Hannity's book, we didn't wait for 9-11 to wave our flag and stand up for our country neither. check out our web site (tagline) mention freepers and i'll send you a free set of books.

[Kleon]

I agree, we can connect Socialism to a lot of terrible things--the totalitarian USSR being the most extreme, but to link it to Hitler and Socialism is just plain wrong.

What I've been reading here are a lot of posts saying either a) that they called themselves "socialist," therefore they were socialists and b) Hitler's words prove he was Socialist.

There are some problems here.

First, it is wrong to assume they were socialist because of their name. What about the "German Democratic Republic"? It was Democratic, right? No, that was just the official name of East Germany.

In fact, Hitler never actually practiced Socialism. In his Germany, the means of production were controlled by capitalists, not the workers. If you understand this and still say Hitler was a socialist, then you should really stop and think about what "Socialism" means.

And about those quotes, given his actions after gaining total power, there is no reason to believe he actually meant any of that. Hitler is one of the biggest liars in history; his statements were pure propoganda, designed to win the worker vote.

I don't know why we have to play this game of hot potato with Hitler against the Left. His policies were so extreme, it is meaningless to connect him to any modern group, left or right.

[You Dirty Rats]

This is total nonsense.

The 25 points were developed before the Beer Hall Putsch, for crying out loud. They were designed to attract votes rather than intended to be implemented.

As proof, note that the high-ranking members of the Nazi Party who believed in these points (the Strasser Brothers and Roehm) were drummed out and/or shot by the Nazis after Hitler became Chancellor.

Hitler's support in the years 1931-3 immediately prior to his rise to power and in 1933-4 while he consolidated his power was from the Army and the Business Establishment -- i.e. the Right. They provided the money and the support. The Left was detroyed by the nazis in 1933-4 (unions were banned, for example) -- but the business establishment, the Army, and other institutions of the Right were not.

In the climactic vote in the Reichstag in 1934, which transferred their functions to the Chancellor & Cabinet, the Communists were banned from the chamber and the only votes against Hitler were from the Social Democrats. The Center and Right parties (Catholic Center, Nationalists, etc.) all voted Ja.

Claiming Hitler was a Leftist is as ridiculous as those that claimed in the Late 1980's and '90's that the Politburo were the "Conservatives" and Yeltsin, et al were "Liberals" -- and that, therefore, the Politburo were Rightists. Stalin was Left (i.e. pro-worker anti-capitalist) and Hitler was Right (anti-worker and pro-business). The 25 points mean squat -- actions, not words or papers, are the means to judge.

[ellery]

btttt

[finnman69]

WHERE IS THE CAPITALISM HERE?

"Most cruel joke of all, however, has been played by Hitler & Co. on those German capitalists and small businessmen who once backed National Socialism as a means of saving Germany's bourgeois economic structure from radicalism. The Nazi credo that the individual belongs to the state also applies to business. Some businesses have been confiscated outright, on other what amounts to a capital tax has been levied. Profits have been strictly controlled. Some idea of the increasing Governmental control and interference in business could be deduced from the fact that 80% of all building and 50% of all industrial orders in Germany originated last year with the Government. Hard-pressed for food- stuffs as well as funds, the Nazi regime has taken over large estates and in many instances collectivized agriculture, a procedure fundamentally similar to Russian Communism."

(Source: Time Magazine; Jaunuary 2, 1939.)

[finnman69]

MORE

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.

[Sam Cree]

In case you hadn't seen it, thought you might be interested.

[Held_to_Ransom]

&&But Hitler was not a revolutionary Leftist. He fought many elections and finally came to power via basically democratic means&&

Until he came to power, then he eliminated those annoying elections in his own revolution, did he not?

Here's the real skinny. Hitler's railcar command center was named 'Amerika' and von Mainstein could never figure out why, but we know:

http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/

[Maelstrom]

Actually, the link between Hitler and Socialism is entirely correct.

First, ignore the name and look at the economic policies. There is a LOT of socialism evident within those economic policies as well as many social policies.

Second, Hitler did actually practice socialism. In his Germany, the means of production were not controlled outright by the GOVERNMENT, but via extensive and overburdening regulations, the business owners were figureheands.

Socialism doesn't place control over the means of production in the hands of the workers. It places it in the hands of central managers...it must...and as such, those central managers become the de facto government.

Socialism is fundamentally flawed due to the inability to allocate scarce resources without discrimination.

Very few of Hitler's policies were so extreme as to validate your complaint. I daresay that the ONLY policy that extreme was the extermination of Jews, Bohemians, Gypsies and other undesireables.

Of course...many other socialist nations also have their bogeymen whom they slaughter in the millions, so even that complaint needs to be buttressed for it to fail to apply to contemporary socialists.