| Hitler Wasn't Elected, Mr. Turner |
| January 26, 2005 |
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We're going to talk about Ted Turner next. The Fox people put out a great quote, and I'm going to have to paraphrase this -- and I know it's Ailes. It came from "a Fox spokesman." I know Ailes well enough to know that this is Ailes' quote. He said, "Well, it's understandable that Ted would be saying these things. He's lost his network. He's lost his ratings, and now he's lost his mind." (Laughing.) That's a Roger Ailes quote, folks. But he doesn't know his history. This business of Adolph Hitler? I looked this up. I was going to make it the morning update today, but said, nah, I better check my history first just to double-check because my instinct was that Hitler was never elected by the Germany people. The most he got in any German election was 30%.  He never was elected to anything. He took over. He was a dictator. I looked it up. You know, I went through the American public school system prior to the NEA getting hold of it, so I actually learned something. I remember Hitler wasn't elected to beans. I saw Turner said this yesterday. I said, "What is he talking about?" He's comparing Fox News to Hitler. By the way, he already, like five or six years ago, he compared Murdoch to Hitler, when Fox News started, and the Anti-Defamation League demanded that Turner apologize for trivializing Hitler and his role in the world by comparing Rupert Murdoch to Hitler, and Turner apologized for that, but he can't get it out of his system. So we have details all coming up here in just a second, but first a phone call. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: (Reuters) "Can a film that humanizes Adolf Hitler win an Oscar?" Yes, and the director of Downfall, a film about the last days of Hitler's life, Oliver Hirschbiegel, certainly hopes so. His movie was nominated for an Oscar on Tuesday as one of five foreign language films, one of the five best foreign language films, Downfall, humanizing Adolf Hitler and his last days. "Hirschbiegel said he was surprised at the nomination. 'My film is very controversial. Are we as filmmakers allowed to depict Hitler as a man or are we supposed to depict him as a monster,' he said. 'We owe it to the victims to show that this was not a demon from hell but a man born in Austria and raised in Germany. I am very proud of this movie. It is my best work.'" It was a couple years ago they honored Leni Riefenstahl, who is a documentary maker of Hitler. This year they're honoring Oliver Hirschbiegel for a sympathetic humanizing portrayal of Adolf Hitler, and yet The Passion of the Christ gets three lowly, insignificant nominations. I mentioned this as a prelude to more detail on the story that broke yesterday. Ted Turner was speaking, and during the Q&A session at the National Association for Television Programming Executives, he was asked how he feels about Fox News Channel beating CNN, and Turner said that Adolf Hitler "got the most votes when he was elected to run Germany prior to World War II." He said that Fox "is the propaganda tool for the Bush administration. There's nothing wrong with that, certainly illegal, but it does pose problems for our democracy." So yesterday Ted Turner compared Fox's popularity to Hitler. We have a small sound bite. This is what he said. |
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| TURNER: That's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean it's not -- I'm not happy about it, but Adolf Hitler was more popular in Germany in the early thirties than his -- people that were running against him. So just because you're bigger doesn't mean you're right. RUSH: All right, yesterday, I was going to do a morning update on this. In fact, I did. I recorded it and I didn't air it today because I wanted to double-check my history. My instincts were that Hitler of us never elected to anything in Germany. In fact, when he ran he was defeated. He was never elected to diddly-squat in Germany, Ted. You know, he was not more popular than the other candidates. He got 30% of the vote when he ran. Here is the history, ladies and gentlemen -- and, by the way, I want to read to you from Jacob Hornberger at Freedom Daily because this is the site that I went to to get the history. It says: "Whenever U.S. officials wish to demonize someone, they inevitably compare him to Adolf Hitler. The message immediately resonates with people because everyone knows that Hitler was a brutal dictator. But how many people know how Hitler actually became a dictator? My bet is, very few. I’d also bet that more than a few people would be surprised at how he pulled it off, especially given that after World War I Germany had become a democratic republic. The story of how Hitler became a dictator is set forth in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer, on which this article is based. In the presidential election held on March 13, 1932, there were four candidates: the incumbent, Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler, and two minor candidates, Ernst Thaelmann and Theodore Duesterberg. The results were: Hindenburg 49.6 percent, Hitler 30.1 percent, Thaelmann 13.2 percent Duesterberg 6.8 percent. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, almost 70 percent of the German people voted against Hitler, causing his supporter Joseph Goebbels, who would later become Hitler’s minister of propaganda, to lament in his journal, 'We’re beaten; terrible outlook. Party circles badly depressed and dejected.' Since Hindenberg had not received a majority of the vote, however, a runoff election had to be held among the top three vote-getters. On April 19, 1932, the runoff results were: Hindenburg 53.0 percent, Hitler 36.8 percent, Thaelmann 10.2 percent." So again, 63% of the German voters voted against Adolf Hitler. "Thus, even though Hitler’s vote total had risen, he still had been decisively rejected by the German people."  "On June 1, 1932, Hindenberg appointed Franz von Papen as chancellor of Germany, whom Shirer described as an 'unexpected and ludicrous figure.' Papen immediately dissolved the Reichstag (the national congress) and called for new elections, the third legislative election in five months. Hitler and his fellow members of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party, who were determined to bring down the republic and establish dictatorial rule in Germany, did everything they could to create chaos in the streets, including initiating political violence and murder. The situation got so bad that martial law was proclaimed in Berlin. Even though Hitler had badly lost the presidential election, he was drawing ever-larger crowds during the congressional election. As Shirer points out--" Well, the next line didn't copy on the printer. Let me just cut to the chase here on the dates. You know basically the story now. On February 27th, 1933, the Reichstag building burns after being set on fire. Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe is arrested for the arson. On February 28th, 1933, Adolf Hitler got Hindenburg, President Hindenburg, to pass the Reichstag's which abolishes most political rights in the republic. On 23 March of 1933, forced to have its session in the nearby Kroll Opera Building, the Reichstag takes away its own powers, transfers them to Hitler, and becomes a show parliament for the Fuehrer and the Third Reich without any political weight. Keep in mind the Nazis never got a majority of the vote. They received around 38% of the vote and formed a coalition government with Hindenburg's party and then basically overthrew Hindenburg. They got Hindenburg to essentially appoint Hitler as chancellor #2 and then they basically just took out Hindenburg. Hindenburg kicked the bucket -- uh, died -- and so the history was thus made. Adolf Hitler was never elected beans. He was never more popular than anybody else in an election. Ted Turner doesn't know what he's talking about, and to compare Fox News to Hitler, and as he did nine years ago to compare Murdoch to Hitler, just serves to trivialize Hitler and to show that Ted Turner is losing his mind. Matt Drudge on his website today posts this. "New York, October 2nd, 1996: Ted Turner has apologized to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for comments he made recently comparing Rupert Murdoch to Hitler. ADL had written to the CNN Chairman that such inapt analogies 'trivialize a profound historical tragedy,' and should be avoided. 'I hope you and all those offended by this comment will accept my deepest apology,' wrote Mr. Turner in response to the letter from Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. The CNN Chairman said he realized his choice of words was 'unfortunate' and 'offensive,' and he regretted the comment. Explaining his comparison 'referred only to the way Hitler managed the news in Germany.'" So the way Fox manages the news is the same way Hitler managed the news, propaganda tool, so forth and so on, but even at that Ted Turner has his history entirely wrong. END TRANSCRIPT |