> The German movement was the most powerful anti-smoking movement in the world during the 1930s and early 1940s
> Adolf Hitler's personal distaste for tobacco and the Nazi reproductive policies were among the motivating factors behind the Nazi campaigns against smoking.
> Even by the end of the 20th century, the anti-smoking movement in Germany had not attained the influence of the Nazi anti-smoking campaign.
Ironically it may have had the opposite effect long term, at least in Germany...
> It has been argued that the Nazi anti-tobacco campaigns delayed effective nicotine addiction reduction measures by decades. At the end of the 20th century, the anti-tobacco campaign in Germany was unable to approach the level of the Nazi-era climax in the years 1939–41, and German tobacco health research was described by Robert N. Proctor as "muted". Modern Germany has some of Europe's least restrictive tobacco control policies, and more Germans both smoke and die of it in consequence, which also leads to higher public health costs.
His campaign was also one of the first to use airplanes to campaign, flying city to city to hold rallies often in the same day which made people feel closer to him.
I would like to add that Hitler was a severe Methamphetamine addict (yes, seriously). During that time, Chocolate was laced with Meth and packaged under the name Pervitin.
That drug was the secret behind the success of the German Blitzkrieg against Poland, the soldiers just did not become tired. Of course it had the same side effects, that people became irrational and aggressive.
What the NYT wrote might very well have been true in 1922, a severe meth addiction changes people and makes them more aggressive.
Also fun, modern militaries kept using amphetamines in combat until a sleep deprived american in a F16 shot up a bunch of Canadians in Afghanistan. Now it's just Modafinil for NATO countries at least.
Other drugs historically used as a stimulant in warfare include Khat in the horn of africa/persian peninsula and Betel nuts in asia, and various forms of I think fungi in the Americas.
I don't see anything stunning in the NYT article- it is a very early view on an emerging political phenomenon on the other side of the ocean- certainly in a world pretty different from our own, one where open display of racism and political violence were just a cause for concern rather than absolutely unacceptable. On the other hand the world was just emerging from a war that had killed about 20 million people, while Russia had just gone through a bloody revolution that produced the first communist state- with all the hope and terror that that entailed- all followed by the Spanish flu just to to top it off (another 50 million deaths).
In the context, the NYT article sounds actually pretty insightful; I find the expectation that a 1922 article would describe Hitler in the exact same terms of a 2016 one to be just deeply ignorant.
I learnt that the US (population and media) was mostly pro-Hitler at first. They idea of someone uniting Europe was appealing, the US had not too long ago fought for independence against the Britain monarchy, and Hitler was a strongly anti-commie/anti-union/pro-capital.
It was only later that the picture changed, largely by the US media portraying Hitler as evil, opening the way for a joint intervention.
Also note that some US businesses where still trading with nazi Germany throughout the war.
Well, duh. Most of the Eugenics movt., and its proponents, were based in Cal and NY.
The US (like UK, West) has always been a country of hypocrisy.
They put Shumei Okawa to trial in Tokyo, for having the audacity to put forward pan-Asianism to liberate it from European clutches. Japan was put on trial for waging 'aggressive war' for monopolizing Asia, even while the Dutch, British, etc. had completely destroyed Asian economies only in the past century.
The Japanese Imperial Army was no benign enterprise, but I'm sure the Europeans didn't win over Asia with flowers and chocolates.
Little wonder, the Indian Justice dissented in the show trials of Tokyo. Now, if only the Indian state had the spine to withdraw these charges, at least for symbolic purposes. The fact that it won't says a lot.
People gung-ho about "progressivism" usually don't really pay the due attention to how that mindset was intertwined and motivated by the same forces behind eugenics, evangelicalism, race science, corporatism, industrialization, mass centralization, authoritarianism, etc.
"Japan was put on trial for waging 'aggressive war' for monopolizing Asia, even while the Dutch, British, etc. had completely destroyed Asian economies only in the past century."
This is ridiculous - there is no comparison between 'The Dutch' and 'The Japanese' incursions into Asia.
The Dutch were traders, with some geopolitical leverage, money and a few ships.
The Japanese literally invaded and marauded most of E. Asia causing millions of casualties, literally destroying cities, taking sex-slaves on mass, i.e. 'Horrors of Mechanized 20th century' - on par with Nazis. Not some localized trade dispute with a pack of merchant marines firing on innocents, 'monopolizing trade of a few sectors'.
Hi, Indonesian here. The Dutch also marauded throughout Asia, to the point of genociding wnole populations of spice islanders just to keep controls on commodities
The revolutionary war ended in 1783, the war of 1812 actually ended in 1815 (Washington DC was burned in 1814).
And of course there were many conflicts between Britain and America in the intervening years, at the time there was no special relationship (more like a special enmity), whereas Germany was a fairly new country and thus did not have this history of enmity in the U.S where people hearing about something Germany did could call on old prejudices.
on edit: should also note that for many countries a long time ago is not 147 years (1783 to 1930)
Of course my reading of the relative position of Germany in public perception after WWI might be wrong, but my understanding from the record is that it was still relatively considered ok, and that there was lots of public sympathy for Germany due to the feeling that the Treaty of Versailles had been unfair. So my feeling in the 30s a German / British comparison in the American imagination would not have been so favorable to Britain and so antipathetic to Germany as it would be today.
About the same timeframe as the US civil war -> now. You really think those wounds are gone?
Pardon the cultural stereotypes but only in the US is 100 years considered a long time. Half the planet has tribal divisions dating back millennia. See, er, this article.
Bit more on topic: certainly, most of the West was more concerned about Communism than they were a Hitler. Not exactly a methodology we've abandoned since... waves generally at Middle East. And who in 1900, 1910, even 1930, would have put money on Germany being the European country to engage in a genocide notorious even by 20th century standards? Not me. Which I guess is the point of the article.
I went into a rabbit hole exploring race relations in US and Europe after watching this opening scene from Watchmen the TV show[1]. Powerful stuff.
History being written by the victors and all that.
So what? Subsidiaries of German company subsidiaries in the US still did business and even contributed to the US war effort. What else do you expect the US citizens working for them to have done?
In general in war time the property of nationals of the country you’re at war with, in your country, remains their property. It can be frozen or confiscated or commandeered, sure, according to local law but confiscation is not the normal expectation. In Germany after WW2 the property of US companies was returned to their control, and vice versa for the assets of German companies in the US.
You use the term profit, but we don’t even know if those subsidiaries even made a profit during the war. They may have come out of the war better off than they started I suppose in theory, but given the devastation of German industry during the war that seems unlikely. Do you have any evidence the value of those subsidiaries in Germany was higher at the end of the war than when it started?
Even if it was, what would you propose be done about it?
> The German subsidiaries of those companies, in Germany run by German citizens, still traded in Germany yes.
That sounds a bit simplistic, of course if the German government ceases their operation and severs ties to the US, there is not much to be done, on the other hand e.g. Ford employed slave labor even _before_ ties to the US company were cut [0].
While Nazi Germany is ultimately responsible for these atrocities; in my opinion: companies still have / should have a moral duty. Some companies are exploring their past, e.g. Coffee companies with their ties to human trafficking. I think we need more of that, even just acknowledging our past, because "with power comes great responsibility" and those large companies, more powerful as some smaller countries should be held accountable and should do everything to prevent abuse and exploitation.
You seem to focus on the economics only, I agree profit might not have been the right term, but if a company actively exploited people it shouldn't matter too much whether they turned a profit.
I agree completely, but it is the people doing the exploiting that are responsible. Lots of people have benefited from all sorts of crimes through no fault of their own, nor any way to know what was happening or even any way to stop it even if they had. History is full of examples. You and I are probably included.
> I learnt that the US (population and media) was mostly pro-Hitler at first.
Ref? I just listened to "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", and that's not the impression I got. Hitler certainly had some support from people like Lindberg; but they seem to have been duped by his "We don't want war" rhetoric.
Support for Hitler was not uncommon, he seemed to get
the economy re-started, build roads etc.
If you ask for REF here.. then I think you ought to ask for REF when people say there were anti as well..
That the US was anti-Hitler at least at one point is proven by the fact that it was politically feasible to go to war against Germany when they weren't a direct threat across the pond.
If there is a suggestion that they were at some point pro-Hitler that needs to be supported by something. The alternative is otherwise the default assertion.
Sorry, I should have quoted more. There were absolutely Americans who were pro-Hilter. The reference I wanted was that people in America favored Hitler because "[the] idea of someone uniting Europe was appealing".
I certainly think a lot of people thought the Versaille Treaty was unfair, and were in favor of Germany being rebuilt and so on. I have a hard time believing that there were many Americans who thought the German Empire of Europe would be a good idea.
> several reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler's anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers
Yes, Hitler Adolf was not a compulsive paranoiac, and been noted by contemporaries as a shrewd political strategist. He committed his crimes in cold blood, and sane mind.
But.... his anti-Semitism not being a product of a mental illness, or irrational hate doesn't make it less terrible. Were they rational from any viewpoint, serious, or not, it were these anti-Semitic policies which opened the road to the crime of genocide later in his reign.
This also doesn't absolve the habitual anti-Semitism practiced by virtually every other political establishment in Europe prior to WWII from sins, or make it less bad as genocidal anti-Semitism of the late third reich.
The persecution, whether is based on political rationale, or a maniacal tendency, is still persecution. I would say a crime like this becomes even more grave if it is done with some behind the curtain political rationale.
This is what boggles my mind: if Hitler and his cronies had been competent military leaders and limited the scope of their war and stopped at the English channel and kept the peace with Russia, or at least one of those, it seems to me chances were pretty good the Nazi grasp of Europe could have solidified and perhaps grown permanent. What a nightmarish scenario that is...
I am therefore happy the Nazis bit off more than they could chew by starting a war with the Brits, which eventually brought the Americans on board, and the Russians, where they suffered most of their losses. On the one hand it seems that it's just a matter of chance their leadership was so grossly incompetent, but on the other hand maybe we can always bank on such types to get caught up in their own rhetoric and they by definition are too ambitious for their own 'good'.
If the Nazis had somehow negotiated a successful end to hostilities with the UK between 1940 and 1941, they could have become a stable power holding much of central Europe. The problem they faced was lack of oil - there isn't much central Europe. That forced the push east into the oil fields of the caucasus. The Japanese invasions were similarly triggered by the need for oil that could not be embargoed from them.
Eh, probably more like how the Holodomor is treated in Russia or Nanking massacre in Japan and the west for that matter: disputed by apologists in public, lauded by nationalists in private, denied by the people in power and mostly forgotten by the rest.
United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan and most it's citizens don't/didn't feel bad about it. Why do you think a victorious German society would've cared that deeply about Jews who have been historically loathed?
It would've been publicized as a success, not something to hide away.
Exactly. People can't wrap their minds around the fact that their own country is constantly peddling propaganda. I noticed this after I started travelling around the world working in different countries. Every single country is constantly pushing its own propaganda and they all have some element of truth mixed together with lies. Conspiracy theory is how governments hides aspects of the truth that they don't like.
Not the least because the holocaust happened late in the war. I underdstand Hitler's original plan was to exile those populations [1], and the turn of ww2 forced him to come up with another plan. That is still ethnic cleansing but not of the same degree of horror.
I don't think that Holocaust did even had such a mindshare for a some time afterwards. People were quite desensitized back then - you had horrors aplenty to choose from.
But then you had the rise in all aspects of art, politics and culture of the Jewish Americans and for them obviously it was the event in WWII and great part of their identity and life. So it percolated to the other parts of the society. If Chinese Americans have risen to prominence in the 80s we would have gotten Unit 731 instead of Schindler's list. After all a creator creates on topics that are close to them.
In my part of Eastern Europe when learning about WWII the emphasis was about the monumental struggle and bodycount of the USSR and the Holocaust was sidelined.
You are incorrect, it was so horrific that the US president had as many troops as possible "tour" the sites as possible to be witnesses of what happened.
It's stunning in retrospect, but 1922 was really early, and Mr. Bad still a relative nobody. A lot of people around the world were saying crazy things at the time.
The Weimar Republic was dominated by feuding between the relatively normal Social Democrats who held power, and the more radical German Communist Party who were directed and funded by Stalin, who had a considerable share of the popular vote, and who regarded 'all parties to the right of them to be fascists' - and of course the Social Dems (nominally left of centre) to be the 'worst fascists'.
The 'far right' were a weird fringe group that were even used as stooges by the Communists when their objectives aligned i.e. to overthrow the incumbent Social Dems.
There were street/youth/thug parties of all stripes.
Remember this is the time of Universal Suffrage, the rise of Unions, literally just a few years post Russian Revolution.
And of course, there were all sorts of other Germany-specific issues such as hyperinflation etc. - which by some measures is happening right now (real estate, stocks, other assets) and our governments faced with COVID are going to be spending 20 years of deficits in 1 year etc..
The Weimar Republic [1] is a fascinating episode in contemporary history we should really spend more time looking at.
By the time Hitler came to power, the cards were in play, so in a way, the 1930's are not nearly as interesting.
Hitler did not just magically come out of a bottle in 1932 and take over - really it was the result of complicated set of factors in the 1920's. We should pay more attention there, but it's complicated, and doesn't make for great, populist filmmaking.
Edit: 1924 Election results [2] 1932 Election results [3]. You can see this early, the Nazis & Co. were not important until later.
Oh yeah, that's amazing. But by 'populist' I don't mean 'Foreign films with subtitles' I mean 'American Tanker Crew Defeats Entire German Panzer Division starring Brad Pitt and Jason Stratham, Directed by Guy Ritchie, Produced by Michael Bay' - which is how I think most people around the world learn History and Geography, and which are the only kinds of major films Hollywood makes. Regular people do not read or watch documentaries. HN readers and their peers are not 'regular' people.
Babylon Berlin was a action/erotic/murder mistery-filled series on Netflix, with english dubbing. I doubt you can get more "populist" than that. If you mean very specifically a Hollywood-made movie: why should Americans deal with this topic? It is more appropriately made by a society that had more connections to these events.
But even so, you see counter-examples, eg. Jojo Rabbit, which is about a small german town, post-WWII. "trending periods" as a topic of filmmaking changes constantly. See how in the last decade a lot of people cried out about lack of coverage on WWI, and then came "1917" or Battlefield One.
> Now, Brown's sources in all likelihood did tell him that Hitler's anti-Semitism was for show.
That is scarier than the alternative of Hitler being a true believer. What Jew would feel comfortable would want to live in a country where a cynic would choose to attack Jews because it played well to the mob?
In modern politics, it would be dismissed as a vocal, extreme minority. And if such a person won elections, they'd be accused of gerrymandering and such.
You just described more or less every country in Europe (if not the entire world) at the time. Zionism came out of a desire for Jews to have a country where they could feel comfortable that demagogues wouldn't fire up the mob against them.
By and far the scariest thing about Hitler’s rise to power is not the small minority of true believers, but rather the large masses of the population that weren’t true believers but went along with it for one reason or another. Perhaps they wanted career advancement, perhaps they feared communists and trade unionists more, or maybe they thought they could do more good on the inside. Whatever the personal reason, tons and tons of perfectly reasonable, nice Germans voted for, joined, or stood by as the Nazis took power and plunged the world into war and committed mass murder.
Eh, look at the modern attacks on white males. Mainstream politicians give speeches where they denounce white men and say things like, "women are better than men" (Obama), "women are the primary victims of war" (Clinton), "It's an English jurisprudential culture, a white man's culture. It's got to change" (Biden). They do it because it their base loves it, it plays well to "the mob" (though of course calling it that won't win me any favours here on HN), discrimination and effective banning of white men from being appointed to top positions is widespread behaviour throughout the west at this point, and so on.
There seem like two big differences. One is that - so far at least - the politicians doing this don't call for actual violence against white men. However, it's starting to get close. In places where BLM is active people scrawl on their storefronts that they're black, in an attempt to avoid the violence and damage dished out against any business not perceived as 'allied'. Prominent politicians conspicuously avoid condemning the violently racist behaviour of these rioters.
The other is that Hitler genuinely hated Jews as a race. He didn't have any concept of 'allied' Jews. Modern racial hatred often comes across as not especially genuine because it's full of white men condemning "white men", and people demanding women /blacks/black women be put into powerful positions ... unless they're the wrong kind of minority, i.e. conservative, in which case they are treated in exactly the same way as the "white men". Scott Alexander has written eloquently about the way these labels, which on the surface appear to have clear racial or gender-based definitions, have been effectively adopted and rewritten within certain subcultures to be code words for conservatives. This doesn't seem to precisely parallel what happened in Nazi Germany where, for all you can say about him, Hitler said exactly what he was going to do and then did it. Although Goebbels was well known for his ideas on propaganda, the regimes most famous for screwing with their citizens minds were all communist. Orwell's 1984 was inspired by socialism and not the more obvious and immediate example of Nazi-ism for that reason.
cf. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”
White men in 21st century America are still at the top of the totem pole; their situation is nothing like that of Jews in early 20th-century Europe. Perhaps you should spend a little more time worrying about the most vulnerable members of our society, who are also targeted by political speech, ostensibly just to rile up the "masses." Let's not forget that there are now 500 children separated, perhaps permanently, from their parents, as a result of the policies of the man who spoke the words above.
White men in 21st century America are still at the top of the totem pole; their situation is nothing like that of Jews in early 20th-century Europe
This seems like an odd statement. You are aware of why anti-semitism was so widespread in Europe at that time and why Hitler found it such fertile ground? It's because Jews were perceived (with some justification) as being at the top of the totem pole, they tended to dominate top financial jobs in particular, but also were successful in many other ways e.g. many were business owners, lots of academics were Jews and so on. The anti-Jewish trope at the time was that this was because Jews were involved in a global conspiracy to promote Jews above others.
The Protocols is an example of this kind of conspiracy theory. It was said they controlled the world's financial systems, the press, and so on. The conspiracy theory was vague, and the Protocols doesn't really name any specific people or give specific evidence. Nonetheless it became widely believed in the first part of the 20th century in Russia and Europe.
This was why the first part of the anti-semitic policies of the Nazis was to start banning Jews from holding high ranking positions, and boycotting their businesses.
Now in 2020 it is de rigour for people to state that white men hold positions of power due to a vague sort of conspiracy ("patriarchy" and "institutional racism"), that they should be removed from these positions and replaced by people of acceptable race and gender, and that this is OK because they sit at the top of the totem pole. Patriarchy/institutional racism are vague theories, with no specific names or evidence ever being presented to support their existence. But nonetheless they are very popular theories and are routinely used to justify discrimination against white men.
There was a 1000-year history of antisemitism in Europe prior to the Nazis, and Jews had had the right to fully participate in public life in most of western Europe for less than a century, but sure, other than that it was just like the situation of white men today.
Jews were taking part in public life in rather big and noticeable ways throughout written history. There's a book about one of them that's quite well read...
I think it's clear that you're going to keep looking for real or imagined differences between the situations to dismiss the parallels, because the parallels are uncomfortable. That's fine, there's no expectation on you to recognise how dangerous so-called 'social justice warriors' are today. But think about the similarities instead of searching about for reasons to just reject the whole train of thought outright. It may prove important.
You're really grasping now. Assuming you're referring to Jesus, allow me to point out the obvious fact that he wasn't European, and antisemitism as we understand it today did not exist in his time.
There is audio recording of Governor Cuomo telling Orthodox Jewish leaders in New York that his restrictions on their religious activities are driven by fear (i.e. political) not science. Would that qualify?
"Hitler is credited with having a rapidly increasing following among the workers disgruntled by the high cost of living". The situation of German workers doesn't seem too dissimilar to the economic unrest slowly mounting in the western world today.
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vox's link to the archived NYT article is broken because most archived NYT stuff is behind the paywall now. if anyone else wants to read the full article, someone has reproduced the entire thing here with helpful wikilinks added: https://medium.com/@marcslove/new-popular-idol-rises-in-bava...
Another condition favorable to the outburst of the movement is the widespread discontent with the existing state of affairs among all classes in the towns and cities under the increasing economic pressure.
The article touches on the 'moderate left', which was seen as a bigger threat than the right ( were the Nazi's rightwing? I dare to question ).
However, since the fall of the USSR, the 'moderate left' in Western Europe seemingly have lost interest in the classic ideals, bowed to neo-liberalism and found alternative ideals.
So maybe he was not wrong after all.
edit: posted under wrong parent before. I deleted and reposted.
Depends how you define right wing.
Were the nazis totalitarian? Yes, but so was the CCCP.
Were they socialists. Definetely yes.
Were they catholic, or even christian. Not at all.
If you say that the republicans are right wing, then it's hard to put nazis on the same plate.
The meaning of the term right-wing changed a lot in the last 100 years.
If you trace back to Spain during the Franco reign, then you will quickly realize, that a lot of the people fighting for republic were in fact far left (including notably some anarchists). Basically the whole republic concept was considered to be a lef-wing thing (and it was for the time).
Were nazis right-wing? At that time yes.
Are nazis right-wing in the modern meaning of right-wing? Definitely not, those two have nothing in common.
"right-wing politics represents the view that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable,[1][2][3] typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, or tradition."
If you define yourself as master race ... hmmm ... natural hierarchies pretty much.
Also why do they have such a big following under the right extremists and white supremacists in the US?
Edit: I would recommend Hitler's Mein Kampf and Marx and Engels "A Manifest of a Communist Party" for you.
Compare it to Fascism and you will hopefully figure out that it's the opposite. Antifa is an Anti-fascist movement ... Anarchist. Putting Fascism and Anarchy under the same label (left wing) is just being ignorant.
Do you agree that USA is not the world? You can come up with any type of definition of left and right ...
Read less blogs and more books :) The common agreement between historians and normal people as also shown in the wikipedia articles is that fascism is right wing and anarchism is left wing (as they treat hierarchies differently). You might have an other opinion, that's ok. I mean there are people who think the earth is flat, so your opinion is not the worst. Yet, just don't claim something is based on logic when it isn't.
"The Nazi social welfare provisions included old age insurance, rent supplements, unemployment and disability benefits, old-age homes and interest-free loans for married couples, along with healthcare insurance, which was not decreed mandatory until 1941.[8] One of the NSV branches, the Office of Institutional and Special Welfare, was responsible "for travellers' aid at railway stations; relief for ex-convicts; support for re-migrants from abroad; assistance for the physically disabled, hard-of-hearing, deaf, mute, and blind; relief for the elderly, homeless and alcoholics; and the fight against illicit drugs and epidemics".[9] The Office of Youth Relief, which had 30,000 branch offices by 1941, took the job of supervising "social workers, corrective training, mediation assistance" and dealing with judicial authorities to prevent juvenile delinquency.[10]"
Nazi's are the source of many of todays social accomplishments. They may not have been the originators of old age pensions, but they were the first to bring them in on a large scale. Pensions for disabled, same. Rent-control, social housing, ...
And while the NSV was disbanded and recreated from scratch (it still unofficially exists, especially outside of Germany), this is not true for various social welfare organisations in Europe, who find their origins ... with the Nazis and were never disbanded due to lack of alternative (lack of alternative because the Nazis disbanded every other welfare organisation whenever they got a chance, but still. Also the Nazis disbanded welfare organisations by making them part of the NSV and absorbing them into that organisation. If one is truly honest, this was generally an improvement until 1943 or so. And while European states were keen to take control of their local single welfare organisation, they weren't keen on splitting it up again).
It doesn't stop there. As is well known, the Nazi state was not friendly, at all, to capitalists (in fact this was one of the main supposed problems with the Jews. Early on the enemy was "Jews and Bankers". Not exactly laissez-faire rhetoric ...)
Currently the general explanation is that when it comes to extremes, extreme-left and extreme-right aren't actually that different. It is moderate left and moderate right that have a big gulf between them. (extreme and moderate by 1940's standards, not today's)
Unfortunately while the Nazis were an unparalleled evil in history, the world isn't so simple that that means they only did bad things. One might even say that both the war and the endlosung were, at least, partially driven by desperation on part of the Nazi government. Desperation, because their social welfare state was fast collapsing. Nothing can justify the choices they made after that (to, for instance, kill off the "worst" of the disabled, even children, as a cost-saving measure). But if you want to build an argument that they were forced into those choices, it's not going to be very hard. WW2 and the Holocaust kept Nazi's in power for 5 years or so longer than they would otherwise have been. It was a choice between war and atrocities or losing the state that was providing food, loding, and everything for close to half the population.
Obviously the modern left does not like to call attention to that USSR and Nazi (and other) atrocities happened, in some small part, to enable social welfare. It may not be a reasonable criticism of today's policies, but anyone can see too many people will see it that way. I shudder to think how Trump would use this argument. And we all know, if it was the least bit popular, he would.
This is very wrong to the point that I have to question if it can be a good faith argument.
Hitler was funded by capital. It is true that he employed anti-capitalist rhetoric, but he was not concerned with capitalism per se, but with Jewish capitalism. The only companies that were dispossessed where Jewish companies.
The German war machine was carried by corporations. It was a capitalist system through and through, and the state hired out forced labourers to companies.
You also point to the German Labour Front. I guess you mean to imply it was somehow forced unionisation. That is incorrect. The German Labour front was the replacement for unions. It was not a union, because workers had no right in the labour front. Actual union leaders were thrown into concentration camps or killed.
Essentially, you're either falling for or repeating Nazi propaganda. The Nazi party did not care for the worker. Whenever it stated it "cared" for some group of people that meant that it took control away from that group.
You can't just take what the Nazis said about their organisations at face value. Social workers, caring for the physically disabled? Please, the Nazi state systematically murdered the disabled and who it deemed anti-social.
It is true that the National-Socialism was more race based than class based but the Soviets had a significant racial element too, both with respect to the Jews and with respect to Roma and Slavic peoples.
Likewise, much of what you mentioned could also be said of the Soviets especially under Stalin. Labor rights were crushed in the interest of the state. Likewise with nominally state owned enterprises that were all but controlled by the political class who are now the barons of Russia. Sure you could argue that "it's not true socialism" but what is and why hasn't anyone been able to do it at any appreciable scale?
> As is well known, the Nazi state was not friendly, at all, to capitalists (in fact this was one of the main supposed problems with the Jews. Early on the enemy was "Jews and Bankers". Not exactly laissez-faire rhetoric ...)
You might want to check out who bankrolled Hitler's rise to power ( industrialists like Thyssen) and what happened to them once he was in power ( they gained a lot of money ).
Yes, and? The parent made the argument that some social achievements were based on the Nazis.
I provided counter points ...
How did the Soviets come in there? Yes, they did as well, and I would be appalled if anybody argued that the Soviets were the basis of today's social achievements.
The problem with far left (or far right) formations, is that their biggest oponent is not the far right. It's the moderate left. Almost no one from far left starts outright supporting far right, but a lot of people "seep in" to more certer oriented views as they age. Also the only way to get into places of power in a "attention economy" is to be more radical than all the rest. Most people do not have any political views at all. The "silent majority" is a myth. Those are people that will just bend to anything that is mainstream, while complaining about this at home. The reason for that is that they do not have an integrated political view that is sufficienty important. It's just a third rate thing, while for the radicals it's the most important thing in the world. Political environment is developing based on movement. If there is no shift, there is no place for people to make careers, that's why no one who is seriuous about being a politician will stick to defending the center. An attack position will always yield better result than a defensive one. You do not have to have answers to all the possible problems, in reality you do not have any answers at all, just prove that your oponent does not have answers to SOME problems. It's a game that we cannot avoid playing and a game that makes everyone lose in the end.
Yes, and in 1932 Walter Duranty of the NYT won a Pulitzer for his fine work denying and minimizing Soviet atrocities, an award the Pulitzer comittee declined to revoke as late as 2003.
The article ends with the expected (it’s vox) comparison to Trump. One thing I don’t understand in these comparisons is that Hitler was openly antisemitic very early on (as this article points out). Who is Trump openly against? All of his “obvious racism” is poorly thought out off-the-cuff remarks that he then backtracks later. If Trump is Hitler 2.0, who are the Jews?
>. One thing I don’t understand in these comparisons is that Hitler was openly antisemitic very early on (as this article points out). Who is Trump openly against?
Immigrants and "leftists", socially acceptable targets. As far as anti-semitism goes, politicians have learned not to be so open about it, although Trump has had his fair share of slip-ups in that regard[0], he's never so overt that people can't talk themselves out of believing he's saying what they think he's saying.
>If Trump is Hitler 2.0, who are the Jews?
Again, immigrants and "leftists," which thanks to the demonization of BLM as a violent "neo-marxist" organization, now includes any African Americans who openly object to systemic racism, although that's just part of a long American tradition of delegitimizing black activism.
Also still the Jews. It's always going to still be the Jews, but you'll have to read between the lines when modern politicians complain about "globalist bankers" and "New York liberals" and "cultural Marxists" to get it.
But have you read Hitler’s speeches? There is no subtly that people can “talk themselves out of believing”. Phrased differently, people have to convince themselves there is some hidden undertone from Trump (“dog whistles”). The opposite was true for Hitler, people were convincing themselves he couldn’t possibly mean what he was saying.
After all the gifts that Trump gave to Israel- probably in part pushed by his son in law Jared Kushner- the suggestion that Trump might be antisemitic is hilarious, just hilarious.
You're probably right, every source I've read tells me that Donald Trump's prejudice is against people of color and preferential of Jews, especially (according to an interview and depositions) when it comes to counting money in his casinos or renting his properties.
And yet somehow, white supremacists and anti-semites seem drawn to him like moths to a flame. Go figure.
But where are his speeches then talking about how non-whites are the issue? If he was in any way similar to hitler these would be overt, explicit messages.
It's a video underneath the article, about Trump's rise to power. To be honest I didn't notice it either (I'm quite pleased I now have such a blind spot for videos) until Trump supporters started complaining about it here.
To be fair, I think they have a point. Comparison of [current politician] to Hitler is just shit for the birds.
> "Hitler's anti-Semitism was not so violent or genuine as it sounded." This attitude was, apparently, widespread among Germans at the time; many of them saw Hitler's anti-Semitism as a ploy for votes
...
> Watch: Donald Trump's rise is a scary moment in America
every single time. if you can't see what's going on here, you wouldn't even if i explained.
It might have been written as propaganda against the future POTUS, but it would have been quite the foresight, as Trump wasn't even a credible candidate until the Iowa primary in February 2016.
The time the article was written, and the purpose for which it was written, is irrelevant. What’s relevant is the fact that it’s now being used to not-so-subtly attack Trump.
Maybe it’s a coincidence, or based on keywords in the article, or perhaps an editor carefully picked this specific video to prominently display below the article. Guess we’ll never know.
But it is quite telling that an article about Hitler/concentration camps focus on Trump rather than Xi Jinping/Xinjiang.
This fellow makes an interesting case that Nazis (i.e. National Socialists) were what it says right on the tin: socialists who swapped out class struggle in favor of an ethno-nationalist struggle but were otherwise identical. I don't agree with everything he rants about, but I do find interesting his discussion of the shrinking market theory
Edit - those who downvote: I'm totally fine with a judicious downvote, but if you wouldn't mind leaving a comment about what it is that you disagree with or dislike? I'd especially love to hear from those who disagree that Nazis were socialists: Do you disagree with the video per se or something else? I'm eager to learn more!
I didn't watch the video because i don't want this type of nonsense in my viewing history and because the premise is inherently flawed.
Socialism means something, and Nazi Germany and the NSDAP don't fit any of the criteria. Did the workers own the means of production ? Did the NSDAP even remotely move in that direction? No and hell no. The NSDAP worked closely with industrialists ( which helped finance their rise to power), destroyed unions, etc. Having a few national programs ( Volkswahen, the Autobahn, etc.) doesn't mean socialism.
They were as socialistic as horses are fish. Yeah, they have two eyes, but that's about it.
Personally, I don't think so. I wish there were two separate words for these two concepts:
* the proletariat seizing the means of production from the bourgeoisie (or 'volk' from 'untermenschen' in the case of the Nazis) and distributing resources from a centralized economic authority
* generous social benefits funded by high taxes as a matter of public and social policy
They're both labeled "socialism" but completely different ways and results. In the US, discussion of the second is always stymied by conflation with the first
"Did the workers own the means of production ? Did the NSDAP even remotely move in that direction?"
The arguments in the video address everything you bring up, here. It would be lovely to have you refute those very specific arguments. My precis won't argue nearly as well:
"Did the workers own the means of production ?"
Nazis seized businesses, positions and property from Jews and absolutely handed them over to Germans, which is the Nazi analog of seizing the means of production
"destroyed unions..."
Destroyed communist labor unions in favor of Nazi labor unions, youth groups, etc
"The NSDAP worked closely with industrialists..."
I would imagine if you were one of those industrialists, and you didn't work closely with the Nazis, you would swiftly find your industry "nationalized"
"I didn't watch the video because i don't want this type of nonsense in my viewing history"
... the fellow is decidedly anti-socialist, and if you're pro-socialist I can imagine you would find it upsetting. But, given that you know socialism intimately, you are the only one who can refute those ideas! It would be nice to know where he goes off the rails
Yes, they too jumped to incorrect assumptions based on reading their own political biases into the article rather than the content of the article itself.
> The German movement was the most powerful anti-smoking movement in the world during the 1930s and early 1940s
> Adolf Hitler's personal distaste for tobacco and the Nazi reproductive policies were among the motivating factors behind the Nazi campaigns against smoking.
> Even by the end of the 20th century, the anti-smoking movement in Germany had not attained the influence of the Nazi anti-smoking campaign.
Ironically it may have had the opposite effect long term, at least in Germany...
> It has been argued that the Nazi anti-tobacco campaigns delayed effective nicotine addiction reduction measures by decades. At the end of the 20th century, the anti-tobacco campaign in Germany was unable to approach the level of the Nazi-era climax in the years 1939–41, and German tobacco health research was described by Robert N. Proctor as "muted". Modern Germany has some of Europe's least restrictive tobacco control policies, and more Germans both smoke and die of it in consequence, which also leads to higher public health costs.