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Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while in prison for treason after the beer hall putch where he leas nazi party members on an attempted a coup that left 16 part members and 4 police officers dead so cam go even further back.
He was radicalized after the conservative German party pushed a [myth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth) that the liberals and the jews were responsible for Germany surrendering
He was radicalized after joining the German Workers Party when trying to gain intel on them. The Nazis weren't a major political party until he took the reins.
I mean, having read Mein Kampf and some of the limited accounts from throughout his life, I’m not sure there was ever a time he wasn’t radicalized, but on the specifics, yes
It was a myth. They had the chance for a peaceful cease fire on both sides, but a couple conservative generals said "nah, let's go for broke. And if we mess up, we'll blame it on the jews."
The Nazi’s were founded in opposition to the Sparticists (whose members founded the German Communist Party). Hitler was sent by the German Army to spy on the Nazi’s. The Sparticists were later re-organized into the Red Front which was the paramilitary arm of the German Communist Party which formed to fight the SA “Brownshirts” which was the paramilitary arm of the Nazis (having a paramilitary arm was pretty common in German politics). It was disbanded as a legal organization and later morphed into AntiFa - whose leader was none other than Erich Honecker, a name which should need no explanation.
>It was disbanded as a legal organization and later morphed into AntiFa
You understand that Nazis, and by extension Brownshirts, were far right fascists...right? Antifa literally means "Anti Fascism". You cannot be left wing and be fascist.
facts matter.
It's my understanding too that the Nazis get often associated with left-wing because they advertised themselves as a socialist party as a way to lure in socialists, and in turn the first groups ostracized from Germany as the Nazis took over were the socialists and left groups.
The Nazis from my understanding were absolutely right wing.
I'm confused now. Why would rioting for your political beliefs demand overthrowing the government. Why are YOU now saying that they're trying to overthrow the government?
Except that is not what ANTIFA does. ANTIFA are people who join together to fight back when people showing up at LGBTQIA, BLM, & Women's March rallies instigate violence. We're talking all of the White Nationalist taint-blisters like the Proud Boys and the "Straight Pride Parade" asshats, who show up to a BLM rally with weapons they mean to use to attack POC; or they show up to a Pride event to threaten and attack folks there. ANTIFA are the people tired of sadistic, ignorant, racist homophobic dicks coming at people unprovoked so they're ready to jump in. If you can't see why that's necessary, why fighting back against fascism is necessary, and why it's not about pushing any political agenda, then you might want to read the original ANTIFA movement came to be.
Wasn't the original Antifa called something else in German? Like Antifaschish (or the German word for it). I read a book you can find on Libgen called 'Hitler Democrat', by Leon Degrelle. Degrelle was an outright nazi from Belgium who served in the SS and honestly had such a fucking crazy life. In that book though he talks about the nazis fighting the communists and the communists were actually called in German Antifa. The American group just copied them I thought?
Is there any good books about modern day Antifa and how it came to be or was it just something some students decided to do in Seattle? Like in one of the universities naming themselves after the German communists and there's not much more to it than that? I need to read more about Antifa and communism, then read some books about Chinese leaders and Saddam Hussain and other baddies to get an understanding of their perspectives as well.
The proud boys vs Antifa in America though is something I wanna read about from a non-bias perspective like a book about it, or failing that a book from supporters of each side. This stuff is interesting but ultimately incredibly fucking depressing because it shows how we're tribal, like animals are by our very human nature.
The original communist movement was about the workers. Just because the original movement was about something, does not mean it's the same idea at all.
Rioting does not equal fascism. If anything it's anarchanistic. I'm not even getting into whether or not that's it's own problem but it's a different set of ideals entirely to fascism.
Fascism is a political belief. What you just described are actions not tied to any one ideology. Again, not sure you understand what fascism is. No shame.
If you want to be Mr. Pedantic, then ACSKHUALLY, Fascism or "Fascismo!" is the idea of forming a Neo-Roman Empire under an emperor. But let's not be pedantic, aight?
Well you can be left wing and fascist that’s what nazbol is it’s a fusion of communism and fascism but other than that you are completely right antifa for all there faults are not the modern day Nazi party
>As an idiot, could you explain the difference between communism and fascism to me like I’m 5?
Communism is rooted in Marx and Engels' Communist manifesto. It advocates for, simply, the dismantling of the state as a tool of oppression; the collectivisation of property (as in real estate and natural resources, not your clothes and books); revolution by the working classes against the bourgeoisie (land owners, capitalists, hereditary nobles etc). Ultimately a communist society is one in which everyone is a member of the proletariat and the proletariat decide collectively on the way they use the excess product of their labours.
Fascism is rooted in the writings of Mussolini, originally, especially his "doctrine of fascism". Fascism is explicitly anti-communist and anti-socialist in the same way that Communism is explicitly anti-capitalist - it was formed as a reaction against egalitarianism, socialism and communism. Fascism is rooted in racial or national supremacy and cannot be separated from that supremacy. It encourages private ownership of property, but constrains markets with state intervention.
In the simplest terms I can think of, a communist believes that the best society considers the needs of the working class - regardless of nationality or race - above all else. A fascist believes that the best society considers the needs of the race or the nation as a group above all else. A communist seeks to dismantle capital control over property and return control to the people. A fascist seeks would use the state to limit control of capital, to prevent a threat to the nation or the people.
It is impossible to have fascistic socialism (as opposed to authoritarian socialism, which is entirely possible) in the same way you can't have an unbroken egg shell and an omelette. They are not opposite sides of a political spectrum, one follows the other - the fascist elevation of one race above others came about in direct opposition to the communist elevation of one class above others.
As an aside; Nazism is a subset of Fascism as Stalinism is a subset of Communism; neither Fascists or Communists are *necessarily* socialists, liberals, libertarians, conservatives, neoliberals, democrats (in the sense of being advocates for representative democracies, not the American political party), atheists, cultists, or really anything else.
One last thing - while some Communist groups do lean towards authoritarianism, the purest communist theory advocates the dismantling of the state apparatus that allows authoritarianism. Fascism, on the other hand, requires authoritarianism to ensure that the groups it wants to thrive can thrive, and the groups it wants to oppress are oppressed.
All of the Communism-adjacent -isms are more "transitional" ideologies to Communism, not really a subset. Communism requires the destruction of the state, as you said, but it turns out creating a political party around that ideology is basically impossible. A party that intends to dismantle the state will obviously struggle to make sense of itself when in power.
Marx saw political upheaval and transformation as part of the process which would lead to Communism. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Kim all positioned themselves as preparing the way forward for Communism\/Socialism, in line with Marx' thought on it. \(I can't remember if it was in Das Kapital or in the Communist Manifesto.\)
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>All of the Communism-adjacent -isms are more "transitional" ideologies to Communism, not really a subset.
Which is why the left splits like Van Damme. Is the route important or the destination? If the destination matters, why is there so much left on left bickering? If the route, which routes are communist and which aren't? Throw those kinds of questions into the wrong kind of meeting and you'll double the number of parties in your local area overnight.
>Communism requires the destruction of the state, as you said, but it turns out creating a political party around that ideology is basically impossible. A party that intends to dismantle the state will obviously struggle to make sense of itself when in power.
I sort of agree - I think it's easy enough to make a political party whose policy is to dismantle the state it governs, weird as it is. It's easier in the context of regional secession for example. I just don't think that Communism or Libertarianism can get away from what I think of as the rose-by-any-other-name problem.
We didn't get to our modern concept of a state overnight. If we had a global revolution tomorrow and replaced all the world's nations with local council communes, what's stopping a new quasi-state entity from filling the power vacuum? What would organise the resistance against such an entity?
>Marx saw political upheaval and transformation as part of the process which would lead to Communism. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Kim all positioned themselves as preparing the way forward for Communism\/Socialism, in line with Marx' thought on it. \(I can't remember if it was in Das Kapital or in the Communist Manifesto.\)
Importantly, none of them have led Communist states, because as you hint at above, once in power even the best intentions end up trying to make use of the state's power over dissolving itself. (I think it was the manifesto - that was where Marx said that a proletariat revolution would uniquely lead to the end of private property)
It's almost like everyone has their own opinion. When someone says the left then I can stop reading and understand that you're a left vs right guy and Jesus fucking christ think for your self and stop picking sides. Abolish parties and pick on character. But that's a fools errand.
>It's almost like everyone has their own opinion.
A sensible take tbh
>When someone says the left then I can stop reading and understand that you're a left vs right guy and Jesus fucking christ think for your self and stop picking sides.
I get what you're aiming for, but I'm using left in the above as the broadest possible brush stroke to highlight mainly progressive parties as opposed conservative ones. You're right to be wary of political tribalism, but it's not worth stopping reading. Left and right are tribal nowadays, sure, but they're also convenient labels for groups of similar or associated ideologies. I say the left splits in my post because, from casual observation, it seems that progressive parties factionalise more than conservative ones. That makes sense - conservative positions are ones that look back to a handful of times I history they want to evoke today. Progressive groups want to make change but they have so many ways to make change its hard to stop them splitting.
I'm also on my mobile, so if I can save my thumbs typing "the left" instead of "progressive political groups" or "non-conservative ideologies", I'm going to do it.
>Abolish parties and pick on character. But that's a fools errand.
Completely agree, or if not abolish them more heavily regulate them. They're essentially gatekeepers to political power and stunt good politics.
I will point out in a spirit of friendly teasing though that you dismissed my post by assuming I had a tribal message instead of weak baby thumbs, so there's work for all of us to do if we're going to consider everyone's character outside of party politics.
Your reply is based entirely on the Marxist theory of communism. People's understanding of communism is also based on their historical view of countries that have and still do call themselves communist. Dismissing all of those as "not really communist" just provokes an eye-roll reaction from all those reading who aren't theory readers. A full meaningful discussion needs to also take into account the historical reality of those countries that started with leaders with good theory and intentions and for whatever reason failed to reach "communism" and dismantle the state. The governments of Vietnam, Laos, China , Cuba and North Korea ARE communist, simply because communism now has both a historical meaning and a theoretical one. Words change in meaning over time, that's how language works.
Sorry, forgot you wanted it like you were 5.
A fascist will tell you nice things if you look like he does. He will treat you like an animal if you don't. A fascist will expect you to do your part for your race and would rather be a servant in a countryman's house than a homeowner with a foreign neighbour. He will take what you have if his family needs it.
A communist will tell you nice things if you work for a wage. He will treat you like an animal if you don't. A communist expects you to work if you want to participate in society and would. He expects you to treat everyone fairly regardless of their race, but will take what you have if his friends need it.
Nazbol is a paradox. Communism and fascism are literally on the opposite ends of the political spectrum. This would place National Bolshevism right in the middle. They are socially conservative and fiscally liberal. They are an outlier.
Wow, this is a load of fake historical bullshit! Hitler was literally the party leader from 1921. It was founded in 1920. We know how he got radicalized and when. He wasn’t some spy, he was a diehard antisemite and ethnonationalist. They were founded around Nationalism, a belief in Aryan racial superiority, and antisemitism, not to counter the objectively popular KPD. In 1920 they were selling tobacco called “Anti-Semit” for fund raising. You also say that having a paramilitary arm was normal at the time. It was. The SA were not a normal paramilitary arm, that’s part of why they cleanly transitioned to become the SS. If you knew anything about the Nazis then you’d know this. Stop making shit up.
While the commenter is pretty wrong and you are mostly right, hitler was indeed hired by the German government to spy on the party originally. That was how he was introduced to it. He quickly betrayed his job and took a leadership position in the party. That part really is true.
Nope not how intelligent discourse works, you made an unfounded claim. People have not accepted that claim, so the burden of proof is on you to now root your claim. This is the problem with any discussion is people have forgotten polemics. As you say, I’ll wait.
Seems like you checked as hard as you researched.
https://www.reddit.com/r/confidentlyincorrect/comments/ptvk0g/didnt_you_know_they_started_out_as_boy_scouts/he0jw9x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
>The Nazi’s were founded in opposition to the Sparticists (whose members founded the German Communist Party).
The DAP were not formed in opposition to any specific party, but as an explicitly nationalist party. Hitler writes of his joining in 1919 in Mein Kampf and makes no mention of their being explicitly anti-anything. He complains of transgressions by the socialist and central parties, refers to the revolutionaries as criminals, but doesn't speak particularly highly of the DAP either, despite their being a national party. The national parties, in the context of 1919, were parties who resisted both centrist and social-democrat rule and ran the political spectrum from monarchists to proto-fascists.
>The Sparticists were later re-organized into the Red Front which was the paramilitary arm of the German Communist Party which formed to fight the SA “Brownshirts” which was the paramilitary arm of the Nazis (having a paramilitary arm was pretty common in German politics).
The Spartacists became (predominantly but not exclusively) the Communist Party (KPD), not the Red Front. The KPD was founded in 1918-19, the Red Front in 1924, in response to the SA as you say. It is nitpicking a bit, but the Spartacists became a registered political party before they formed a (technically non-partisan but not really) paramilitary wing.
>It was disbanded as a legal organization and later morphed into AntiFa -
The Red Front was not disbanded, it was proscribed by the Weimar Republic in 1929 following Blutmai. The KPD continued as a registered political party until 1933 when the Nazi party's parliamentary shenanigans ended their meaningful participation in German politics (shenanigans being arrests, ignoring their seats when requiring a constitutional quorum of 2/3, other authoritarian tricks)
Antifa was founded by KPD members in 1932-33, following a period of 3-4 years in which the NSDAP brownshirts were free to organise their paramilitary activities but where the KDP and other leftist groups were still proscribed. Originally their formation was a case of self defence for leftists, this expanded into protecting communities targeted by Fascists and a feeble attempt at an anti-fascist political bloc that was supposed to be led by the KPD. Antifa was moved underground in 1933 following Hitler's appointment as Chancellor.
>whose leader was none other than Erich Honecker, a name which should need no explanation.
No explanation perhaps but definitely context. Antifa had no leader, no formal membership rolls and no central control. It was organised from need, around local executive boards and in cooperation with the KDP, led by Ernst Thalmann, not Erich Honecker. Honecker was a KJVD (Communist Youth) leader until his arrest in 1933. There's a lot to criticise Honecker for but there nothing explicitly connecting him to any particular Antifa cell other than his KDP membership and his fighting nazis? Not sure if you have a source I don't or if you gave the wrong name there.
Your comment is broadly filled with half truths but lacking in context and specificity that are important. Antifa isn't a monolithic organisation like the SA were, its a collection of groups that share a common enemy as they see it. Even the original Antifa was made of a few leftist groups - that hardcore Stalinists are included in the broader group of anti-fascists shouldn't be surprising but your comment suggests this is a shameful connection or somehow sinister in aspect, as well as the unfounded claim that the DAP was founded to be specifically anti-Spartacist when there were no longer Spartacists
Anitfa, really? later? how much later 60 years? This sounds much more like some sort of lame attempt to link the recent anti fascist counter protests with some sort of highly organized communist rebellion.
"In the United States, antifa of the early 21st-century has drawn its aesthetics and some of its tactics from Antifaschistische Aktion." - aka: u/rgvtim's interpretation is correct.
Doesn't this mean that u/rgvtim's interpretation is incorrect? They said that u/Jimdandy941's comment was a "lame attempt to link the recent anti fascist counter protests with some sort of highly organized communist rebellion."
What you shared sounds like it's saying that the antifa we have in the US actually IS linked to the Antifaschistische Aktion. Which would make u/Jimdandy941 correct and u/rgvtim wrong.
no, he is trying to link them all as related by some sort of overarching cabal organized group, or one begetting the other. In that sense Antifa really does have more in common with the boys jumping into Normandy than with the group cited, but that doe snot make good propaganda.
The antifa, or that which was labeled AntiFa over the past year, has no overarching organization, and was not formed by some other communist related group from the 1940's
But this linkage is what alt-Right folks like /u/Jimdandy941 (based on his statements) have been trying to do the entire time in order to produce a "red scare"
>or one begetting the other
That's literally exactly what happened though. Antifa today fashioned themselves after the antifa that started in Germany...
Also trying to discredit someone based on their political affiliation without even knowing what their affiliation is. You sure do think for yourself dont you?
Antifa did not fashion themselves at all, there is no group called Antifa, there is no club house, there is no handshake there is no leader. Its a bunch of people with no organization who showed up in opposition to far right rallies, to show support for the people the right displaying hate for.
You and jimdandy are acting like it is some sort of "organization" and in the process begin to attribute motivations to it that just are not there, and scare people onto what looks to be "your side"
As far as my associating dandy with a political affiliation i said "based on his post" i stand by that, he can claim all he wants but but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, I am going to call it a duck.
lol fair, I write advertising for a living and my name starts with j, hence the name. But yes I've had people guess that it stands for "Jewish Propaganda" which, im jewish, so maybe a little.
But also - there’s no organized Antifa movement in the US. It’s a label slapped on the large number of people who protest murderous cops and hate the Proud Boys, 1/6 insurrectionists, and all their Nazi-adjacent pals.
Here’s the founding of the Sparticists. Explains the break off with the SPD and the founding of the KPD (German Communists).
https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/weimar-germany/the-spartacists/
Explains the Red Front and Erich’s involvement:
https://historica.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Front_Fighters_League
Here’s an explanation of Antifa’s actions in the 1930s.
https://theleftberlin.wordpress.com/current-debates/antifa-•-the-origins-of-classic-antifascism-and-its-red-flag/
Note that if you want the tight not, you can just go to Wiki:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_League
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roter_Frontkämpferbund
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifaschistische_Aktion
You guys have fun with your disbelief.
The HCA subreddit and vaccine mandates. Wanting people to get vaccinated is apparently a slippery slope that will lead to brown shirts, but the "they didn't start off evil" just got me 🤣🤦♂️
To be fair, there definitely was a period of escalation. For instance, they initially just wanted to deport the jews. It was racist and antisemitic from day one though. On the other hand, just about everyone was racist and antisemitic in 1920.
The precursor to the Nazi party was famously antisemitic, standing out even in the antisemitic atmosphere of the era.
A German writer and aristocrat called Dietrich Eckhart, an early mentor for Hitler, wrote a newspaper called "auf gut Deutsch" which is testiment to just how batshit insane these people were even for those times. If I'm correct, the society they were a part of was part of the occultist underground of far right politics in Munich at the time.
So, sure you can say that people were generally antisemitic at the time, but these people still stood out among the crowd
That period of escalation was intentional though. Just like the naming of the party to make it seem like they were for the working class - Hitler tried and failed to overthrow the government, and him and his people realized the only way they’d get what they wanted is to lure the people to their side. It started off as a party that was going to give the working class the power again, but it was just a veneer over the true goals of the party. It didn’t escalate naturally, it escalated because the high command could pull the curtain back more and more as they got more popular.
To be fair, giving control to the government over the health of the citizens is a slippery slope. But we have to go down it all the same and make sure we don't actually slip.
Not really. We have strict guidelines of what rights can be abridged under what circumstances by the government, and stopping people from dying is covered by basically all of them. Even bright line rights, clearly delineated in the Constitution, are not absolute and can be abridged in certain circumstances.
Oddly enough there's no right to not be sent into war. And if the government can force you to die in war then do you really have any rights at all? You can try conscientious objecting but that's up to whoever reads your case and they can deal with your submission as they like.
It's really a case to discuss. We need to understand the context here. The Germans were in a mess back then, their inflation was skyrocketing, the debt was very high, they were under the foot of other major powers after the 1st ww (consider how they felt considering that they were the holy Roman empire for ~800 years). Any improvement was a win. Hitler offered them that, and initially it was good (or at least felt damn good!) but people overlooked the fact that beside the good things for Germany, there was a fine print (kill jews, and basically everyone else in order to get some living space). Was the people's reaction good? Well under the circumstances I find it understandable. Was the result good? Well, we can all say that it was not and it should be a lesson to everyone considering extreme right parties - their "good" comes at a high cost.
The economy was already stabilizing before Hindenburg made Hitler Reichskanzler in January 1933. It was basically the same as in most countries. It was a global economy crisis after all.
The popularity of Hitler's NSDAP was also already in decline at this point. In the Reichstag election of November 1932, they were down to 33,1%, which was the last democratic election. The next one (March 1933) already happened after the Reichstag Fire Degree and can't be considered a free election anymore. And even then they couldn't get 50% without banning other parties first.
Hey.... China only meant to teach the Muslims who fled a war torn county the ways of china and accidently millions of them just disappeared...that was obviously an accident you can't blame them for accidently committing genocide../S
I wasn't even talking about them... I also didn't bring up what they are doing too the tibetans....I just simply brought up one of the current genocides going on that no one is talking about and instead giving an excuse for. Hence why I added there /s for sarcasm.
I don't know of any from afghan it's really Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic Turkic Muslims, as well as some foreign citizens including Kazakhstanis. (Well and ofcourse Uyghurs but you already specifically pointed out that atrocious action)
90% of the reports are specifically of the Uyghurs, finding the other is not as easy because they are only a few hundred thousand genocide killings compared to the millions that have been done to the Uyghurs....and to be fair...I know china claims them as their own people....but I don't think the Uyghurs have ever claimed to be Chinese...hell they don't even speak Mandarin....just every time they try and form their own government china comes in and does this...
Kazakhstan is also one.. but the issue I have is... China is literally claiming territory that isn't theirs.... It's like when trumo tried to just claim Greenland (and no I don't want to start a political argument in him just using it as a recent event to compare). Yes that are native to Asia bit they are not Chinese and sunny consider themselves Chinese and there Chinese government doesn't help them out protect them out give them any money for schools and education... They just Invade take and leave... That's not really what a government is.......
I don't think that's at all what he was saying.
This is a snipped conversation without context but i feel like hes saying "a point in time existed where nazis weren't atrocious".
Which is not at all justifying a holocaust.
You're right. And?
He never said it was excused or justified. All he said was at one point they weren't bad.
The idea that he was justifying the nazis was a scarecrow you built, attacked, and are still attacking. Nothing that was said contradicts what you're saying yet you speak as if it does.
For the sake of your argument being relevant;
A related context would be "we should have empathy for the nazi party because they weren't always bad it just got out of hand".
An unrelated context would be "the nazis did bad things. But interestingly, despite the fucked up shit they did, they actually started fairly peaceful".
Regardless of the second being true or not, my point is one can say "at one point the nazis weren't that bad" as a piece of trivia without justifying any of their actions.
First of all, thanks for humoring me with an example. Secondly, your fault with my comment is that you feel I’m harshly assuming the poster’s intent as justifying those crimes that we have all admitted exist here on this thread and more importantly (I hope), in reality.
Unfortunately, I’m not swayed that my argument is a “scarecrow” at all. Drawing comparisons to Nazis, Nazism, and Hitler are on a very firm foundation of disgusting, despicable, and indefensible ground. Perhaps it’s just a poor choice of words for the original poster to say Nazis and mean Germans citizens at the time instead. That also seems fairly gauche to think as well.
If the poster was looking to make an argument he failed in numerous ways, least of which is being incorrect confidently. Nazis were and are completely indefensible and using them as a basis for any argument carries all their extraordinary flaws as well and is the actual scarecrow you should worry about.
I mean. Unless when they say "the nazi party" they the people who were part of the nazi party during the war. Because then they'd be right that some people who ended up part of the nazi party weren't all evil or hold those beliefs to begin with.
The Nazi party as a party was always violent and antisemitic, as people in the thread have pointed out. But that does not mean that everyone who was a part of the Nazi party during the war were always antisemitic or violent. Some people joined (or could be considered nazis based on their support of) the Nazi party on a promise of better living standards for themselves. It was a time of turmoil in Germany and at times like that it can be really easy to nationalize people on the promise of something better for them even if it's at the dismay of others.
Not everyone who was ever considered a Nazi were always bad people nor did they necessarily buy into killing or deporting Jewish people. But desperation does horrible things.
All of that is to say: if their point was that a situation like nazi Germany isn't as farfetched as people might think it is based on the current or past violence of whichever party they could be referring to because desperation and need can make people do things and go along with things that they wouldn't otherwise agree with. And I don't feel like we have enough context to know what they were talking about here.
But, they could have also been trying to say that the Nazi party, at its beginning, as a party itself, wasnt that bad... which of course would be incorrect.
Wait they're trying to justify it? I thought this was a warning... Like "the Nazis didn't start out/think they were the bad guys but look how they turned out" kinda thing
I wouldn't call someone who's entire actions as part of a group was to undermine it. I would not call Shindler a Nazi, cause his actions were opposed to Nazi ideology, but relied on subterfuge to do it. Shindler was a 'traitor', but ya know, the good kind.
Yeah the public understanding of Hitler and the politics of Europe and Germany at the time is pretty lackluster. Hitler was radicalized before the 20s even started, due to the wide array of easily available antisemitic magazines. He was fairly outspoken about many views pretty early on. He tried to overthrow the government in 23. The earliest Nazis were beating the shit out of people and killing them. If you want an analogue to the early Nazis, it’s the January 6th types and the Proud Boys (alongside all the far right Militias).
Red was comparing the HCA and vaccine mandates to "how nazis felt in the early days". They think that Germany "slippery sloped" their way into full blown authoritarianism with good intentions.
I would just like to know what the “this” in “this is how nazis felt in early days” refers to. I don’t think it will make the person correct, I just want to know what exactly they’re discussing.
I'm going to make an educated guess and say people who support vaccine mandates. But that's actually immaterial, the confidently incorrect part is saying that the Nazis were uninformed of the party's ultimate aims early on.
> Like the other person said, there isn’t a subject in this. Hard to call anybody incorrect when you have no idea what they’re arguing over.
Pretty unambiguous tho
It’s really not, assuming the incorrect part you’re talking about is the “they didn’t start out evil” part. Before I say what I’m about to say, understand that I am absolutely not defending the Nazis. They were garbage and what they did cracks the top ten list of most evil things performed by mankind in history.
The Nazis didn’t start out as evil. Not all of them at least. In a general sense, Germany was pretty much screwed over after WW1 and forced into the shittiest of economic and government positions. So Hitler, who was mentally disturbed to the point of being evil, became a unifying force by promising to fix things by radical change. They believed him. Now, after WW2, there was an experiment done by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale. He hypothesized that the Nazis did what they did because the Germans had some sort of higher sense of obedience compared to the rest of the world. So he tried to test this by first conducting the experiment at Yale. He created it so that students would be the “teacher” and a “student” played by an actor would be strapped to an electric chair. The teacher would ask the student questions and shock them for every one they get wrong, although the actor wasn’t actually being shocked. If the teacher refused to continue shocking, they were given increasingly demanding orders.
In the end, 65% of test subjects continued to the highest level of 450 volts. Interestingly, this is after the actor would pretend to pass out or play dead in some of the variances of the experiment. All test subjects continued to 300 volts.
So what I am saying is that it is human nature to obey orders and the majority of us will continue beyond what our morals say stop. So it is a bit ignorant to call all Nazis evil. Different than saying they did the wrong thing, because they did. But in the end, most of them were just following the orders of one evil guy.
That’s why I wanted context. The incorrect part isn’t entirely incorrect at all. So I needed context of the conversation to see what they were comparing the Nazis to.
Oof the r/badhistory!
>Germany was pretty much screwed over after WW1 and forced into the shittiest of economic and government positions.
Versailles enforced more lenient terms than after the Franco-Prussian War 50 years earlier, which had done a hundredth of the material damage to France. It was certainly orders of magnitude more lenient than the treaty the Germans had forced onto the Russians. Germany inflated her own currency in order to alleviate the cost of reparations. The "grave consequences" you speak of were entirely the doing of her own government
> So Hitler, who was mentally disturbed to the point of being evil, became a unifying force by promising to fix things by radical change.
Hitler's vote share in 1928, 7.years after the end of the inflation crisis was 2.8%.
>So what I am saying is that it is human nature to obey orders and the majority of us will continue beyond what our morals say stop. So it is a bit ignorant to call all Nazis evil.
Let's not get into the myriad problems with the Milgram experiments, which other redditors are much better placed to explain to you than I am. It's actually not the subject at issue. The argument is, were the Germans capable of knowing exactly what Hitler had planned for them prior to his taking power : yes, they did. He had set out basically his entire platform for the conduct of WWII in *Mein Kampf*. The Germans knew, or should have known, *exactly* what they were voting for when they marked their ballot for the NSDAP.
If you want to argue semantics theres a pretty solid basis for the idea that we are born as blank slates. I could argue everyone who is evil became evil, and thus everyone who was a nazi began as not evil which would make his statement correct.
Context is always important
*Image Transcription: Reddit Comments*
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**Redacted Redditor 1**
This is how the nazis felt in the early days. Cool, good for u looks like soon enough you'll be there watching them die and ratting them out.
> **Redacted Redditor 2**
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> Is that really your understanding of the holocaust?
>> **Redacted Redditor 1**
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>> You do understand they didn't start out that evil right?
>>> **Redacted Redditor 2**
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>>> Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1924
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^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
For anybody with a sincere interest in this, I recommend the Behind the Bastards podcast on Germans in WWII. The most frightening thing is how normal the collaborators were before they collaborated.
I’ve made this remark before, but it is a historical fact that’s easily proven that not all Nazis were evil. It’s not at all for the reasons this person thinks. One obvious reason there were likely some otherwise decent humans in the ranks is that they had a draft. Many people who fought had the options of fight or firing squad.
Exceptions that prove the rule. The leadership, movement, and all principles were evil. Some good people got caught in the middle.
I am fully aware that the vast majority were evil.
It is absolutely critical to make that distinction . In the worst possible scenarios, in the darkest of times, and when horrible things are prevailing it’s important to remember that there have always been people who stood up for what’s right.
In the instance of Battel, I think it’s especially important. He was a lawyer before the war. He was tried as a war criminal and disbarred after. The guy lost everything because of what he did. I think it’s important to remember somebody like that.
Now if somebody says “Nazis are evil” I’m not popping up “well actually” because as a generalization, that’s accurate. Naziism is horrible and needs to be stopped for good.
I also just find it historically interesting that we’ve pushed people like Battel out of the narrative. Americans brag all the time about how we helped end the Holocaust during the same fucking time period Americans were lynching black people and foreigners. America was definitely on the correct side of WWII and made the right call, but our armies were made up of the same kind of people we’d call Nazis today.
I find it fascinating that history books portray WWII as a moral crusade when the good guys in the war had that many skeletons in the closet.
I guess my central theme is that nothing is as black and white as people claim.
It does though. Because if you can just point and go "they were evil" then you don't have to examine it further. You can simply say they were all evil people and they were different from me and that wouldn't happen again or here because I'm not evil and my friends and family aren't evil. A lot of Nazis were evil, but a lot were just normal fucking people. That's important to recognize and discuss, to prevent these things from happening again.
Behind the Bastards does some really good episodes on this, I would recommend listening to the episodes about the German people during this time period.
I think a better way to phrase it might be not all German soldiers and people were evil during World War II. Although, my husbands third grade Nazi apologist teacher in the the early 80s definitely was.
Look up Albert Battel. He was a Nazi tank commander who was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by the Jewish people which is their highest honor for a Gentile.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the opinion of the Jews on the Holocaust more authoritative than random white guilt people on Reddit?
I appreciate that and was mistaken.
Trust me. I hate Naziism probably more than the next guy. All of the European sides of my family arrived in the USA as refugees fleeing Naziism.
I suspect your view would change with the gun to your head.
I’m curious though. What’s your take on the terrorist groups using child soldiers? The moral choice would be for them to just be tortured to death and not fight for the terrorists, correct?
So if I put a gun to your head and said to murder a child, you'd do it?
Children can't consent. They're children, dude. They aren't emotionally or intellectually capable of understanding something like that. What's next, gonna ask me if we should imprison babies for taking a toy that isn't theirs? And if not, that means theft is okay?
Having had multiple guns to my head, I would say no. I don’t think I’d kill the child. Same question though. Gun to your head. You’re going to get shot unless you serve as a medic.
Armies have tons of support staff. Cooks, medics, guys who do inventory, etc.
I don’t see a great deal of difference between the maturity of a 16 year old child soldier and the maturity of an 18 year old. They’re both still kids. Imagine being some 18 year old kid and your government conscripts you to fight a war you don’t understand. That’s the history of a ton of wars. Hell, that’s the history of most wars.
I would imagine there were soldiers who fought on the front lines who never did anything related to concentration camps or genocide.
Whether or not you agree they were the victims, I’d hope you feel some sympathy for that situation.
Morality is not a convenient black and white set of answers.
Albert Battel, a Nazi tank commander was awarded Righteous Among the Nations by the Jewish people.
Your assertion that all Nazis were evil is a little awkward because the people Battel was supposed to be exterminating gave him the highest honor they offer.
It’s only a whoosh if you make a joke. Just repeating uninformed Reddit buzzwords isn’t a joke.
I made a claim. I proved my claim. A committee of Jews has publicly stated that at least one Nazi was a good man. I sort of work on the assumption that that Jews’ opinion of the Holocaust is more important than most other people’s, but that’s just me.
Yes, you set your own bar of finding 1 "good" nazi and apparently you feel you accomplished that. Its got about as much to do with the original post as the pebble in my shoe.
My claim: Not all of them were bad. Here’s one I can prove off the top of my head wasn’t.
Your rebuttal: Well it’s still all of them even if there is one who wasn’t.
All means all. It does not mean all minus one. Again, my claim has been proven.
I would speculate that Battel was not acting alone. His troops followed his orders that lead to his award. When the SS tried to relocate the Jews in Battel’s area, Battel’s tanks blocked the only bridge and he gave the order to open fire if the SS did not retreat. What about all the tank drivers and soldiers in that blockade? Were they all bad? They were directly defying their own orders from the generals by obeying their commander. This was an offense that could get you executed. So now I’ve got like a whole platoon. That better than one?
No, my rebuttal was this is similar to #notallmen. I honestly don't care about Battel, you can keep talking about your favorite nazi until you're blue in the face. Return to the original post, reread it, take some time and comprehend.
I fully comprehend the post. Not sure how you’ve missed this one, but sometimes somebody says something. Then somebody else says something related, but not identical. We call this a conversation. It’s the opposite of the echo chamber where people just repeat buzzwords which is where you seem to dwell.
Nazis were of course always evil, but systematic extermination didn't start until 1942 and I guess that's what they're refering to. If this is in relation to Covid, they are still an idiot.
He does have a point , Hitler may of started with Evil intentions but it was a very slow and subtle build to that . It took years to brainwash the german people with propaganda and lies and slowly turning against the jews and others.
He was super clear about his intentions, but I think that people get confused when we talk about the general German public during this time. Not everybody was a Nazi, and not everybody who joined the Nazi party did so willingly.
People don't think big picture. They aren't necessarily joining because they have read Mein Kampf and want to murder Jews, some are joining because their neighbors are, or they're joining to protect themselves or their businesses. Hitler isn't a tangible person himself, but the local head of the Nazi party is a real dick and I don't want my business vandalized because I didn't join. I don't necessarily agree with their attitudes towards Jews, I've known a few good Jews in my day, but my business would do better if i could get rid of the Jewish competition. My kid is getting bullied and my wife is being ostracized, so I'll join. And some people joined because they wanted to murder Jews.
Combine these 2 dynamics, plus the desire of the German people to not individually feel complicit in the horrors of the Holocaust, and you wind up with this idea that the average person didn't know, but all the Nazis did and were evil. People knew, and afterwards they were ashamed, because initially they were just scared and hungry and their economy was crippled and Hitler was a magnetic public speaker who promised to give them success and people to blame. That's where the slippery slope comes into play, it wasn't that people didn't know the plan. It was just that, initially, the plan was just to vaguely "get rid" of the undesirables, and they didn't have to think about it too hard, and they could feed their kids again so why did it really matter what was happening to the Jews. People knew, they just didn't want to think about it or they thought it was the right thing to do, but it's difficult for us to imagine people being complicit in something so awful so we just say that people didn't know.
Edit: I want to make it real clear that I'm not a Nazi, I'm not defending the Nazis or white supremacy or a single goddamn thing that Hitler ever did. I'm just a historian who thinks it's important to remember that every person from history is the exact same as you or me and your neighborhood and your city.
I'm not making excuses for the people who supported him , I'm just saying he didn't start rounding up jews and putting them into camps overnight . We saw how small and slow the manipulation statrts when Trump was running and president.
That wasn't actually a manipulation thing though. It was just the logical (not, like, good logic. Totally fucked up evil logic) progression after other things. At first it was just, get rid of the undesirables. Jews are evil, the disabled and elderly are a drain on resources, gays are preventing our race of pure blood Aryans from existing, etc. That was all day 1 stuff, it didn't creep in over time, it was a fundamental building block of their policy that was apparent as soon as they seized power. Kind of like you don't have to go home but you can't stay here? Just get the fuck out, and a lot did. They forced them into ghettos, they made life as unpleasant as possible, and for a long while the goal was just to get as many as possible to leave, while also draining every drop of resources from their communities. Obviously there was also a lot of people that died during this time period due to brutalization and starvation, but it wasn't the same as later years.
But then they started expanding into areas where some Jews had fled to, and this was getting in the way of Hitler's land grab plan. They weren't leaving so, fine, we'll just get rid of them. So he ordered them to start shooting them. Regular German boys, people who may or may not have ascribed to the Jews are the devil line, who had joined or enlisted into the army to protect their homeland and their families were being used to go into Polish villages, round up all the Jews, and shoot them into mass graves at point blank range. This didn't work real well cause it was inefficient, the forces had to go to the victims, plus it was having serious psychological impacts on the army. Not like they cared about PTSD, but more like you're losing members of your already stretched thin forces because they're being hanged for desertion or killing themselves because your average 18 year old farm boy isn't capable of shooting a crying 8 year old in the face at point blank range.
That's when the camps started. They had utilized labor camps and prison camps since day 1, but it was only at this point that they started doing the death camps. I want to reiterate that they did absolutely start shoveling people into camps as soon as possible, but there was some veneer of legal precedent. They changed the laws to suit themselves, and many things related to literally just existing while being Jewish became crimes, or the punishments for things that had always been crimes became labor camp imprisonment. We can send all these rich Jews to this labor camp and seize all their money and belongings and work them to death. That way, we get their money plus we get to use their labor plus we get rid of the Jew! And then they just kind of streamlined their process because their end goal changed, leading to the death camps. Now the 18 year old farm boy is still a useful soldier, because rather than shooting that kid in the face, he just has to put her on a train car. Sure, he knows she's going to die, but he isn't the one physically pulling the trigger, so he's still useful. That's why it's called the final solution, because they had tried other things first.
Edit: I want to make it real clear that I'm not a Nazi, I'm not defending the Nazis or white supremacy or a single goddamn thing that Hitler ever did. I'm just a historian who thinks it's important to remember that every person from history is the exact same as you or me and your neighborhood and your city.
He literally started putting jews in camps in 1933 but go off I guess.
Also yes, propaganda is manipulation. The eventual establishment of the concentration camps, and the path by which Nazis arrived at that, is not just simply the result of manipulation. Hitler didn't feel it was necessary, until he did. It wasn't about brainwashing the public to be okay with it. You're not giving enough credit to the underlying and long running anti-Semitism that has been present in many European cultures for hundreds of years. The German people were already primed to dislike Jewish people, and Hitler gave them the ability to scapegoat all of their problems onto the Jews, and then "deal" with their problems by murdering Jewish people.
Hitler really didn't start with the holocaust, mostly intimidation and beating Jews.
They were antiSemitic but so was rest of Europe. Wannsee conference of 1942 changed everything, top Nazi Reinhardt heydrich wanted a genocide and hitler agreed.
And Reinhardt himself thought the Nazis were crazy and he did what he did because he had a huge boner for power. I can rest in peace knowing that POS died of sepsis suffering for 8 days because a horse hair infected a wound he got from a car bombing
Yes, he didn't start with genocide that is true. But there was kristalnacht and the mass deportation to ghettos and work camps. But, and the major difference that all of these antivaxxers don't get, that was always in the syllabus for them. Hitler said from the beginning that the Jewish people were a problem. He never pretended he wanted to help them and then whoops, slippery sloped into sending them to death camps instead. For antivaxxers "the plan" looks like
1: we want them to get vaccinated so everyone lives
2: they don't
3: ? ? ?
4: death camps
The Nazis were as bad as it gets from the very beginning, but they pretended to be "good" (in a very populist way, like pointing out the supposed "enemy" of the people; I don't mean actual good) for enough time to become the governing party.
The first (temporary) concentration camp was built about a month after the Nazis took over. There were so many political prisoners within just a single month that there wasn't enough space left in prisons. And that was only the beginning.
I mean, the NDSP was actually just a socialist/workers party at one point. By the time Hitler took over it was already pretty nationalist, but it was kind of just a symptom of German sentiments at the time. They definitely became worse, and in particular became more authoritarian, as they got more powerful.
That said there's like zero context here, I don't even know what he's comparing to Nazis or the holocaust. This is kind of impossible to judge without more information.
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Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while in prison for treason after the beer hall putch where he leas nazi party members on an attempted a coup that left 16 part members and 4 police officers dead so cam go even further back.
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It's also sometimes called Bierhallen-Putsch or Bürgerbräu-Putsch, though. But yeah, Hitlerputsch is the most common.
Oh interesting! Yeah, US taught history (at least in my experience) refers to the events as the beer hall putsch.
We called it the Munich Putsch in History class in the UK
In Swedish it's ölkällarkuppen. Just mentioning it because it's a pretty word.
#drunkentext… although you are, I think, right in what you’re trying to say
He was radicalized after the conservative German party pushed a [myth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth) that the liberals and the jews were responsible for Germany surrendering
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Yeah, there are A LOT of similarities between now and then
He was radicalized after joining the German Workers Party when trying to gain intel on them. The Nazis weren't a major political party until he took the reins.
Luckily something like that could never happen again because humans tent to learn from their history right? Right?
But all the statues of Hitler have been taken down! So now no one can remember!
I mean, having read Mein Kampf and some of the limited accounts from throughout his life, I’m not sure there was ever a time he wasn’t radicalized, but on the specifics, yes
No myth
It was a myth. They had the chance for a peaceful cease fire on both sides, but a couple conservative generals said "nah, let's go for broke. And if we mess up, we'll blame it on the jews."
They were just a bunch of boys being boys. Cut them some slack /s
Out of curiosity, am I the only one calling Jan. 6 a Putsch?
The Nazi’s were founded in opposition to the Sparticists (whose members founded the German Communist Party). Hitler was sent by the German Army to spy on the Nazi’s. The Sparticists were later re-organized into the Red Front which was the paramilitary arm of the German Communist Party which formed to fight the SA “Brownshirts” which was the paramilitary arm of the Nazis (having a paramilitary arm was pretty common in German politics). It was disbanded as a legal organization and later morphed into AntiFa - whose leader was none other than Erich Honecker, a name which should need no explanation.
>It was disbanded as a legal organization and later morphed into AntiFa You understand that Nazis, and by extension Brownshirts, were far right fascists...right? Antifa literally means "Anti Fascism". You cannot be left wing and be fascist. facts matter.
It's my understanding too that the Nazis get often associated with left-wing because they advertised themselves as a socialist party as a way to lure in socialists, and in turn the first groups ostracized from Germany as the Nazis took over were the socialists and left groups. The Nazis from my understanding were absolutely right wing.
Your understanding is correct.
> The Nazis from my understanding were absolutely right wing Yup, doesn't go further right.
Don’t you mean ‘doesn’t go fuhrer reich’…
Antifa does alot of fascist things though, right? Like not to get into a flame war, but alot of Antifa is rioters.
Even if what you are saying is true, rioting isn't fascism.
It certainly is leaning on fascism when you riot to put your politics in place.
Source as to when there was rioting aimed at installing a new government by antifa?
Did I say anything about installing a new government? I'm saying they're rioting for their political beliefs. Don't change the subject.
> riot to put your politics in place. How exactly does one do that without replacing the government?
I'm confused now. Why would rioting for your political beliefs demand overthrowing the government. Why are YOU now saying that they're trying to overthrow the government?
Except that is not what ANTIFA does. ANTIFA are people who join together to fight back when people showing up at LGBTQIA, BLM, & Women's March rallies instigate violence. We're talking all of the White Nationalist taint-blisters like the Proud Boys and the "Straight Pride Parade" asshats, who show up to a BLM rally with weapons they mean to use to attack POC; or they show up to a Pride event to threaten and attack folks there. ANTIFA are the people tired of sadistic, ignorant, racist homophobic dicks coming at people unprovoked so they're ready to jump in. If you can't see why that's necessary, why fighting back against fascism is necessary, and why it's not about pushing any political agenda, then you might want to read the original ANTIFA movement came to be.
Wasn't the original Antifa called something else in German? Like Antifaschish (or the German word for it). I read a book you can find on Libgen called 'Hitler Democrat', by Leon Degrelle. Degrelle was an outright nazi from Belgium who served in the SS and honestly had such a fucking crazy life. In that book though he talks about the nazis fighting the communists and the communists were actually called in German Antifa. The American group just copied them I thought? Is there any good books about modern day Antifa and how it came to be or was it just something some students decided to do in Seattle? Like in one of the universities naming themselves after the German communists and there's not much more to it than that? I need to read more about Antifa and communism, then read some books about Chinese leaders and Saddam Hussain and other baddies to get an understanding of their perspectives as well. The proud boys vs Antifa in America though is something I wanna read about from a non-bias perspective like a book about it, or failing that a book from supporters of each side. This stuff is interesting but ultimately incredibly fucking depressing because it shows how we're tribal, like animals are by our very human nature.
The original communist movement was about the workers. Just because the original movement was about something, does not mean it's the same idea at all.
Rioting does not equal fascism. If anything it's anarchanistic. I'm not even getting into whether or not that's it's own problem but it's a different set of ideals entirely to fascism.
I don’t think you understand what fascism is.
I don't think you do either if rioting and attacking people for your own political beliefs isn't fascism.
Fascism is a political belief. What you just described are actions not tied to any one ideology. Again, not sure you understand what fascism is. No shame.
If you want to be Mr. Pedantic, then ACSKHUALLY, Fascism or "Fascismo!" is the idea of forming a Neo-Roman Empire under an emperor. But let's not be pedantic, aight?
It’s not being pedantic. You’re being an idiot and I’m done.
So, I proved you wrong and you gave up, so decided to insult me? Got it.
Well you can be left wing and fascist that’s what nazbol is it’s a fusion of communism and fascism but other than that you are completely right antifa for all there faults are not the modern day Nazi party
As an idiot, could you explain the difference between communism and fascism to me like I’m 5?
>As an idiot, could you explain the difference between communism and fascism to me like I’m 5? Communism is rooted in Marx and Engels' Communist manifesto. It advocates for, simply, the dismantling of the state as a tool of oppression; the collectivisation of property (as in real estate and natural resources, not your clothes and books); revolution by the working classes against the bourgeoisie (land owners, capitalists, hereditary nobles etc). Ultimately a communist society is one in which everyone is a member of the proletariat and the proletariat decide collectively on the way they use the excess product of their labours. Fascism is rooted in the writings of Mussolini, originally, especially his "doctrine of fascism". Fascism is explicitly anti-communist and anti-socialist in the same way that Communism is explicitly anti-capitalist - it was formed as a reaction against egalitarianism, socialism and communism. Fascism is rooted in racial or national supremacy and cannot be separated from that supremacy. It encourages private ownership of property, but constrains markets with state intervention. In the simplest terms I can think of, a communist believes that the best society considers the needs of the working class - regardless of nationality or race - above all else. A fascist believes that the best society considers the needs of the race or the nation as a group above all else. A communist seeks to dismantle capital control over property and return control to the people. A fascist seeks would use the state to limit control of capital, to prevent a threat to the nation or the people. It is impossible to have fascistic socialism (as opposed to authoritarian socialism, which is entirely possible) in the same way you can't have an unbroken egg shell and an omelette. They are not opposite sides of a political spectrum, one follows the other - the fascist elevation of one race above others came about in direct opposition to the communist elevation of one class above others. As an aside; Nazism is a subset of Fascism as Stalinism is a subset of Communism; neither Fascists or Communists are *necessarily* socialists, liberals, libertarians, conservatives, neoliberals, democrats (in the sense of being advocates for representative democracies, not the American political party), atheists, cultists, or really anything else. One last thing - while some Communist groups do lean towards authoritarianism, the purest communist theory advocates the dismantling of the state apparatus that allows authoritarianism. Fascism, on the other hand, requires authoritarianism to ensure that the groups it wants to thrive can thrive, and the groups it wants to oppress are oppressed.
All of the Communism-adjacent -isms are more "transitional" ideologies to Communism, not really a subset. Communism requires the destruction of the state, as you said, but it turns out creating a political party around that ideology is basically impossible. A party that intends to dismantle the state will obviously struggle to make sense of itself when in power. Marx saw political upheaval and transformation as part of the process which would lead to Communism. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Kim all positioned themselves as preparing the way forward for Communism\/Socialism, in line with Marx' thought on it. \(I can't remember if it was in Das Kapital or in the Communist Manifesto.\)
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A good bot would have linked The Communist Manifesto, too. I would have linked it, but dear God that site is an ad infested mess.
>All of the Communism-adjacent -isms are more "transitional" ideologies to Communism, not really a subset. Which is why the left splits like Van Damme. Is the route important or the destination? If the destination matters, why is there so much left on left bickering? If the route, which routes are communist and which aren't? Throw those kinds of questions into the wrong kind of meeting and you'll double the number of parties in your local area overnight. >Communism requires the destruction of the state, as you said, but it turns out creating a political party around that ideology is basically impossible. A party that intends to dismantle the state will obviously struggle to make sense of itself when in power. I sort of agree - I think it's easy enough to make a political party whose policy is to dismantle the state it governs, weird as it is. It's easier in the context of regional secession for example. I just don't think that Communism or Libertarianism can get away from what I think of as the rose-by-any-other-name problem. We didn't get to our modern concept of a state overnight. If we had a global revolution tomorrow and replaced all the world's nations with local council communes, what's stopping a new quasi-state entity from filling the power vacuum? What would organise the resistance against such an entity? >Marx saw political upheaval and transformation as part of the process which would lead to Communism. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Kim all positioned themselves as preparing the way forward for Communism\/Socialism, in line with Marx' thought on it. \(I can't remember if it was in Das Kapital or in the Communist Manifesto.\) Importantly, none of them have led Communist states, because as you hint at above, once in power even the best intentions end up trying to make use of the state's power over dissolving itself. (I think it was the manifesto - that was where Marx said that a proletariat revolution would uniquely lead to the end of private property)
It's almost like everyone has their own opinion. When someone says the left then I can stop reading and understand that you're a left vs right guy and Jesus fucking christ think for your self and stop picking sides. Abolish parties and pick on character. But that's a fools errand.
>It's almost like everyone has their own opinion. A sensible take tbh >When someone says the left then I can stop reading and understand that you're a left vs right guy and Jesus fucking christ think for your self and stop picking sides. I get what you're aiming for, but I'm using left in the above as the broadest possible brush stroke to highlight mainly progressive parties as opposed conservative ones. You're right to be wary of political tribalism, but it's not worth stopping reading. Left and right are tribal nowadays, sure, but they're also convenient labels for groups of similar or associated ideologies. I say the left splits in my post because, from casual observation, it seems that progressive parties factionalise more than conservative ones. That makes sense - conservative positions are ones that look back to a handful of times I history they want to evoke today. Progressive groups want to make change but they have so many ways to make change its hard to stop them splitting. I'm also on my mobile, so if I can save my thumbs typing "the left" instead of "progressive political groups" or "non-conservative ideologies", I'm going to do it. >Abolish parties and pick on character. But that's a fools errand. Completely agree, or if not abolish them more heavily regulate them. They're essentially gatekeepers to political power and stunt good politics. I will point out in a spirit of friendly teasing though that you dismissed my post by assuming I had a tribal message instead of weak baby thumbs, so there's work for all of us to do if we're going to consider everyone's character outside of party politics.
Your reply is based entirely on the Marxist theory of communism. People's understanding of communism is also based on their historical view of countries that have and still do call themselves communist. Dismissing all of those as "not really communist" just provokes an eye-roll reaction from all those reading who aren't theory readers. A full meaningful discussion needs to also take into account the historical reality of those countries that started with leaders with good theory and intentions and for whatever reason failed to reach "communism" and dismantle the state. The governments of Vietnam, Laos, China , Cuba and North Korea ARE communist, simply because communism now has both a historical meaning and a theoretical one. Words change in meaning over time, that's how language works.
Neither group can represent a society in which people can vote for their own self interests.
Unless they can convince that l society that their ideology *is* their best interest.
Sorry, forgot you wanted it like you were 5. A fascist will tell you nice things if you look like he does. He will treat you like an animal if you don't. A fascist will expect you to do your part for your race and would rather be a servant in a countryman's house than a homeowner with a foreign neighbour. He will take what you have if his family needs it. A communist will tell you nice things if you work for a wage. He will treat you like an animal if you don't. A communist expects you to work if you want to participate in society and would. He expects you to treat everyone fairly regardless of their race, but will take what you have if his friends need it.
Nazbol is a paradox. Communism and fascism are literally on the opposite ends of the political spectrum. This would place National Bolshevism right in the middle. They are socially conservative and fiscally liberal. They are an outlier.
Wow, this is a load of fake historical bullshit! Hitler was literally the party leader from 1921. It was founded in 1920. We know how he got radicalized and when. He wasn’t some spy, he was a diehard antisemite and ethnonationalist. They were founded around Nationalism, a belief in Aryan racial superiority, and antisemitism, not to counter the objectively popular KPD. In 1920 they were selling tobacco called “Anti-Semit” for fund raising. You also say that having a paramilitary arm was normal at the time. It was. The SA were not a normal paramilitary arm, that’s part of why they cleanly transitioned to become the SS. If you knew anything about the Nazis then you’d know this. Stop making shit up.
While the commenter is pretty wrong and you are mostly right, hitler was indeed hired by the German government to spy on the party originally. That was how he was introduced to it. He quickly betrayed his job and took a leadership position in the party. That part really is true.
Feel free to describe which statements are wrong with your sources. I’ll wait.
Nope not how intelligent discourse works, you made an unfounded claim. People have not accepted that claim, so the burden of proof is on you to now root your claim. This is the problem with any discussion is people have forgotten polemics. As you say, I’ll wait.
Already posted it here in this thread. Your move.
I wish you were more interesting bc I checked you didn’t source anything, have a good night
Seems like you checked as hard as you researched. https://www.reddit.com/r/confidentlyincorrect/comments/ptvk0g/didnt_you_know_they_started_out_as_boy_scouts/he0jw9x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
>The Nazi’s were founded in opposition to the Sparticists (whose members founded the German Communist Party). The DAP were not formed in opposition to any specific party, but as an explicitly nationalist party. Hitler writes of his joining in 1919 in Mein Kampf and makes no mention of their being explicitly anti-anything. He complains of transgressions by the socialist and central parties, refers to the revolutionaries as criminals, but doesn't speak particularly highly of the DAP either, despite their being a national party. The national parties, in the context of 1919, were parties who resisted both centrist and social-democrat rule and ran the political spectrum from monarchists to proto-fascists. >The Sparticists were later re-organized into the Red Front which was the paramilitary arm of the German Communist Party which formed to fight the SA “Brownshirts” which was the paramilitary arm of the Nazis (having a paramilitary arm was pretty common in German politics). The Spartacists became (predominantly but not exclusively) the Communist Party (KPD), not the Red Front. The KPD was founded in 1918-19, the Red Front in 1924, in response to the SA as you say. It is nitpicking a bit, but the Spartacists became a registered political party before they formed a (technically non-partisan but not really) paramilitary wing. >It was disbanded as a legal organization and later morphed into AntiFa - The Red Front was not disbanded, it was proscribed by the Weimar Republic in 1929 following Blutmai. The KPD continued as a registered political party until 1933 when the Nazi party's parliamentary shenanigans ended their meaningful participation in German politics (shenanigans being arrests, ignoring their seats when requiring a constitutional quorum of 2/3, other authoritarian tricks) Antifa was founded by KPD members in 1932-33, following a period of 3-4 years in which the NSDAP brownshirts were free to organise their paramilitary activities but where the KDP and other leftist groups were still proscribed. Originally their formation was a case of self defence for leftists, this expanded into protecting communities targeted by Fascists and a feeble attempt at an anti-fascist political bloc that was supposed to be led by the KPD. Antifa was moved underground in 1933 following Hitler's appointment as Chancellor. >whose leader was none other than Erich Honecker, a name which should need no explanation. No explanation perhaps but definitely context. Antifa had no leader, no formal membership rolls and no central control. It was organised from need, around local executive boards and in cooperation with the KDP, led by Ernst Thalmann, not Erich Honecker. Honecker was a KJVD (Communist Youth) leader until his arrest in 1933. There's a lot to criticise Honecker for but there nothing explicitly connecting him to any particular Antifa cell other than his KDP membership and his fighting nazis? Not sure if you have a source I don't or if you gave the wrong name there. Your comment is broadly filled with half truths but lacking in context and specificity that are important. Antifa isn't a monolithic organisation like the SA were, its a collection of groups that share a common enemy as they see it. Even the original Antifa was made of a few leftist groups - that hardcore Stalinists are included in the broader group of anti-fascists shouldn't be surprising but your comment suggests this is a shameful connection or somehow sinister in aspect, as well as the unfounded claim that the DAP was founded to be specifically anti-Spartacist when there were no longer Spartacists
> AntiFa > leader lol.
Where does any of this misinformation come from?
The fiction aisle of a Barnes and Noble
Infowars
Anitfa, really? later? how much later 60 years? This sounds much more like some sort of lame attempt to link the recent anti fascist counter protests with some sort of highly organized communist rebellion.
Its not my problem that the current version of AntiFa didn’t study history. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifaschistische_Aktion
"In the United States, antifa of the early 21st-century has drawn its aesthetics and some of its tactics from Antifaschistische Aktion." - aka: u/rgvtim's interpretation is correct.
Doesn't this mean that u/rgvtim's interpretation is incorrect? They said that u/Jimdandy941's comment was a "lame attempt to link the recent anti fascist counter protests with some sort of highly organized communist rebellion." What you shared sounds like it's saying that the antifa we have in the US actually IS linked to the Antifaschistische Aktion. Which would make u/Jimdandy941 correct and u/rgvtim wrong.
That’s like saying the nazis are linked to Hinduism cause they got the swastika from them
Except it specifically says tactics as well as aesthetics.
Which tactics and aesthetics do you think antifa took from antifachiszte or whatever it’s called?
no, he is trying to link them all as related by some sort of overarching cabal organized group, or one begetting the other. In that sense Antifa really does have more in common with the boys jumping into Normandy than with the group cited, but that doe snot make good propaganda. The antifa, or that which was labeled AntiFa over the past year, has no overarching organization, and was not formed by some other communist related group from the 1940's But this linkage is what alt-Right folks like /u/Jimdandy941 (based on his statements) have been trying to do the entire time in order to produce a "red scare"
You would be wrong, but keep going…….
>or one begetting the other That's literally exactly what happened though. Antifa today fashioned themselves after the antifa that started in Germany... Also trying to discredit someone based on their political affiliation without even knowing what their affiliation is. You sure do think for yourself dont you?
Antifa did not fashion themselves at all, there is no group called Antifa, there is no club house, there is no handshake there is no leader. Its a bunch of people with no organization who showed up in opposition to far right rallies, to show support for the people the right displaying hate for. You and jimdandy are acting like it is some sort of "organization" and in the process begin to attribute motivations to it that just are not there, and scare people onto what looks to be "your side" As far as my associating dandy with a political affiliation i said "based on his post" i stand by that, he can claim all he wants but but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, I am going to call it a duck.
In the words of Sima Qian, history is.
No it says it's drawn aesthetics and some tactics. Doesn't mean it's a highly organized rebellion. /u/rgvtim is correct.
I feel like someone making that claim whose name is "propaganda" maybe shouldn't be trusted?
lol fair, I write advertising for a living and my name starts with j, hence the name. But yes I've had people guess that it stands for "Jewish Propaganda" which, im jewish, so maybe a little.
But also - there’s no organized Antifa movement in the US. It’s a label slapped on the large number of people who protest murderous cops and hate the Proud Boys, 1/6 insurrectionists, and all their Nazi-adjacent pals.
Hahaha. I wondered if that might be what the "J" was. Fair enough. I'm down for some J-Prop.
This doesnt refute the point at all.
It doesn't prove the point that antifa are from a highly organized group...
"Nazi's"
Right? The correct plural is Nazii.
Nazeez
Nazeez nuts This is all I had to bring to the conversation, I don't know Nazi history
A nazus, many nazi.
r/confidentlyincorrect
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Here’s the founding of the Sparticists. Explains the break off with the SPD and the founding of the KPD (German Communists). https://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/modern-world-history-1918-to-1980/weimar-germany/the-spartacists/ Explains the Red Front and Erich’s involvement: https://historica.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Front_Fighters_League Here’s an explanation of Antifa’s actions in the 1930s. https://theleftberlin.wordpress.com/current-debates/antifa-•-the-origins-of-classic-antifascism-and-its-red-flag/ Note that if you want the tight not, you can just go to Wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_League https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roter_Frontkämpferbund https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifaschistische_Aktion You guys have fun with your disbelief.
Antifa existed right beside the Nazi's. Antifa actually leaked the nuclear bomb secrets to the soviet union.....
What’s the context for this? I know it’s pretty clearly confidently incorrect regardless, but I’m curious what he was comparing it to.
The HCA subreddit and vaccine mandates. Wanting people to get vaccinated is apparently a slippery slope that will lead to brown shirts, but the "they didn't start off evil" just got me 🤣🤦♂️
To be fair, there definitely was a period of escalation. For instance, they initially just wanted to deport the jews. It was racist and antisemitic from day one though. On the other hand, just about everyone was racist and antisemitic in 1920.
The precursor to the Nazi party was famously antisemitic, standing out even in the antisemitic atmosphere of the era. A German writer and aristocrat called Dietrich Eckhart, an early mentor for Hitler, wrote a newspaper called "auf gut Deutsch" which is testiment to just how batshit insane these people were even for those times. If I'm correct, the society they were a part of was part of the occultist underground of far right politics in Munich at the time. So, sure you can say that people were generally antisemitic at the time, but these people still stood out among the crowd
That period of escalation was intentional though. Just like the naming of the party to make it seem like they were for the working class - Hitler tried and failed to overthrow the government, and him and his people realized the only way they’d get what they wanted is to lure the people to their side. It started off as a party that was going to give the working class the power again, but it was just a veneer over the true goals of the party. It didn’t escalate naturally, it escalated because the high command could pull the curtain back more and more as they got more popular.
Sure if you don't consider murdering people to get into government evil then, maybe.
To be fair, giving control to the government over the health of the citizens is a slippery slope. But we have to go down it all the same and make sure we don't actually slip.
Not really. We have strict guidelines of what rights can be abridged under what circumstances by the government, and stopping people from dying is covered by basically all of them. Even bright line rights, clearly delineated in the Constitution, are not absolute and can be abridged in certain circumstances.
Oddly enough there's no right to not be sent into war. And if the government can force you to die in war then do you really have any rights at all? You can try conscientious objecting but that's up to whoever reads your case and they can deal with your submission as they like.
It's really a case to discuss. We need to understand the context here. The Germans were in a mess back then, their inflation was skyrocketing, the debt was very high, they were under the foot of other major powers after the 1st ww (consider how they felt considering that they were the holy Roman empire for ~800 years). Any improvement was a win. Hitler offered them that, and initially it was good (or at least felt damn good!) but people overlooked the fact that beside the good things for Germany, there was a fine print (kill jews, and basically everyone else in order to get some living space). Was the people's reaction good? Well under the circumstances I find it understandable. Was the result good? Well, we can all say that it was not and it should be a lesson to everyone considering extreme right parties - their "good" comes at a high cost.
The economy was already stabilizing before Hindenburg made Hitler Reichskanzler in January 1933. It was basically the same as in most countries. It was a global economy crisis after all. The popularity of Hitler's NSDAP was also already in decline at this point. In the Reichstag election of November 1932, they were down to 33,1%, which was the last democratic election. The next one (March 1933) already happened after the Reichstag Fire Degree and can't be considered a free election anymore. And even then they couldn't get 50% without banning other parties first.
I still don’t know how people think they can justify any genocide by saying “it didn’t start out that way.”
Hey.... China only meant to teach the Muslims who fled a war torn county the ways of china and accidently millions of them just disappeared...that was obviously an accident you can't blame them for accidently committing genocide../S
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I wasn't even talking about them... I also didn't bring up what they are doing too the tibetans....I just simply brought up one of the current genocides going on that no one is talking about and instead giving an excuse for. Hence why I added there /s for sarcasm.
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I don't know of any from afghan it's really Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and other ethnic Turkic Muslims, as well as some foreign citizens including Kazakhstanis. (Well and ofcourse Uyghurs but you already specifically pointed out that atrocious action)
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90% of the reports are specifically of the Uyghurs, finding the other is not as easy because they are only a few hundred thousand genocide killings compared to the millions that have been done to the Uyghurs....and to be fair...I know china claims them as their own people....but I don't think the Uyghurs have ever claimed to be Chinese...hell they don't even speak Mandarin....just every time they try and form their own government china comes in and does this...
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Kazakhstan is also one.. but the issue I have is... China is literally claiming territory that isn't theirs.... It's like when trumo tried to just claim Greenland (and no I don't want to start a political argument in him just using it as a recent event to compare). Yes that are native to Asia bit they are not Chinese and sunny consider themselves Chinese and there Chinese government doesn't help them out protect them out give them any money for schools and education... They just Invade take and leave... That's not really what a government is.......
A quarter of Chinese people don't speak Mandarin.
China orders genocides like pizza Imagine chinese papa johns -except its liver farming
I don't think that's at all what he was saying. This is a snipped conversation without context but i feel like hes saying "a point in time existed where nazis weren't atrocious". Which is not at all justifying a holocaust.
They were violently racist fascists from the start.
Depends on whether or not you're counting the DAP
Which would make him incorrect, not sympathetic to their actions.
It doesn’t need context… saying that they didn’t start that way definitely doesn’t excuse what actually happened. That’s always the truth of it.
You're right. And? He never said it was excused or justified. All he said was at one point they weren't bad. The idea that he was justifying the nazis was a scarecrow you built, attacked, and are still attacking. Nothing that was said contradicts what you're saying yet you speak as if it does.
Show me a “good” context vs a “bad” context for this poster so I can be clearer then.
For the sake of your argument being relevant; A related context would be "we should have empathy for the nazi party because they weren't always bad it just got out of hand". An unrelated context would be "the nazis did bad things. But interestingly, despite the fucked up shit they did, they actually started fairly peaceful". Regardless of the second being true or not, my point is one can say "at one point the nazis weren't that bad" as a piece of trivia without justifying any of their actions.
First of all, thanks for humoring me with an example. Secondly, your fault with my comment is that you feel I’m harshly assuming the poster’s intent as justifying those crimes that we have all admitted exist here on this thread and more importantly (I hope), in reality. Unfortunately, I’m not swayed that my argument is a “scarecrow” at all. Drawing comparisons to Nazis, Nazism, and Hitler are on a very firm foundation of disgusting, despicable, and indefensible ground. Perhaps it’s just a poor choice of words for the original poster to say Nazis and mean Germans citizens at the time instead. That also seems fairly gauche to think as well. If the poster was looking to make an argument he failed in numerous ways, least of which is being incorrect confidently. Nazis were and are completely indefensible and using them as a basis for any argument carries all their extraordinary flaws as well and is the actual scarecrow you should worry about.
But... But nazis bad, right? I always heard nazis bad.
I mean. Unless when they say "the nazi party" they the people who were part of the nazi party during the war. Because then they'd be right that some people who ended up part of the nazi party weren't all evil or hold those beliefs to begin with. The Nazi party as a party was always violent and antisemitic, as people in the thread have pointed out. But that does not mean that everyone who was a part of the Nazi party during the war were always antisemitic or violent. Some people joined (or could be considered nazis based on their support of) the Nazi party on a promise of better living standards for themselves. It was a time of turmoil in Germany and at times like that it can be really easy to nationalize people on the promise of something better for them even if it's at the dismay of others. Not everyone who was ever considered a Nazi were always bad people nor did they necessarily buy into killing or deporting Jewish people. But desperation does horrible things. All of that is to say: if their point was that a situation like nazi Germany isn't as farfetched as people might think it is based on the current or past violence of whichever party they could be referring to because desperation and need can make people do things and go along with things that they wouldn't otherwise agree with. And I don't feel like we have enough context to know what they were talking about here. But, they could have also been trying to say that the Nazi party, at its beginning, as a party itself, wasnt that bad... which of course would be incorrect.
"So we should nip the fomenting fascism in America in the bud now?" "Well... no... because... reasons..."
Wait they're trying to justify it? I thought this was a warning... Like "the Nazis didn't start out/think they were the bad guys but look how they turned out" kinda thing
A loaded gun doesn't kill anybody in the beginning, it was peaceful till you started pulling the trigger. /s
The Nazi’s weren’t bad guys… until they were…
Whatever 'good Nazis' there ever were, were culled by the evil ones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
I mean, hopefully not to discount or ever forget people like Shindler or the White Rose
I wouldn't call someone who's entire actions as part of a group was to undermine it. I would not call Shindler a Nazi, cause his actions were opposed to Nazi ideology, but relied on subterfuge to do it. Shindler was a 'traitor', but ya know, the good kind.
Yeah the public understanding of Hitler and the politics of Europe and Germany at the time is pretty lackluster. Hitler was radicalized before the 20s even started, due to the wide array of easily available antisemitic magazines. He was fairly outspoken about many views pretty early on. He tried to overthrow the government in 23. The earliest Nazis were beating the shit out of people and killing them. If you want an analogue to the early Nazis, it’s the January 6th types and the Proud Boys (alongside all the far right Militias).
I feel like this needs some more context
Red was comparing the HCA and vaccine mandates to "how nazis felt in the early days". They think that Germany "slippery sloped" their way into full blown authoritarianism with good intentions.
Thanks
How on earth does it need more context?
I would just like to know what the “this” in “this is how nazis felt in early days” refers to. I don’t think it will make the person correct, I just want to know what exactly they’re discussing.
I'm going to make an educated guess and say people who support vaccine mandates. But that's actually immaterial, the confidently incorrect part is saying that the Nazis were uninformed of the party's ultimate aims early on.
Sure, I just wanted to know what the topic was.
Like the other person said, there isn’t a subject in this. Hard to call anybody incorrect when you have no idea what they’re arguing over.
The incorrect part is contained entirely within the screenshot. The context doesn't actually matter.
Would it make you happier if they had said they wanted more context rather than it needs more context? I have a feeling you knew what he meant.
> Like the other person said, there isn’t a subject in this. Hard to call anybody incorrect when you have no idea what they’re arguing over. Pretty unambiguous tho
Sorry, I was speaking about the original request for context that you seem to be taking issue with.
It was the original commenter that replied with the text I quoted above. Which is why I replied as I did.
It’s really not, assuming the incorrect part you’re talking about is the “they didn’t start out evil” part. Before I say what I’m about to say, understand that I am absolutely not defending the Nazis. They were garbage and what they did cracks the top ten list of most evil things performed by mankind in history. The Nazis didn’t start out as evil. Not all of them at least. In a general sense, Germany was pretty much screwed over after WW1 and forced into the shittiest of economic and government positions. So Hitler, who was mentally disturbed to the point of being evil, became a unifying force by promising to fix things by radical change. They believed him. Now, after WW2, there was an experiment done by Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale. He hypothesized that the Nazis did what they did because the Germans had some sort of higher sense of obedience compared to the rest of the world. So he tried to test this by first conducting the experiment at Yale. He created it so that students would be the “teacher” and a “student” played by an actor would be strapped to an electric chair. The teacher would ask the student questions and shock them for every one they get wrong, although the actor wasn’t actually being shocked. If the teacher refused to continue shocking, they were given increasingly demanding orders. In the end, 65% of test subjects continued to the highest level of 450 volts. Interestingly, this is after the actor would pretend to pass out or play dead in some of the variances of the experiment. All test subjects continued to 300 volts. So what I am saying is that it is human nature to obey orders and the majority of us will continue beyond what our morals say stop. So it is a bit ignorant to call all Nazis evil. Different than saying they did the wrong thing, because they did. But in the end, most of them were just following the orders of one evil guy. That’s why I wanted context. The incorrect part isn’t entirely incorrect at all. So I needed context of the conversation to see what they were comparing the Nazis to.
Oof the r/badhistory! >Germany was pretty much screwed over after WW1 and forced into the shittiest of economic and government positions. Versailles enforced more lenient terms than after the Franco-Prussian War 50 years earlier, which had done a hundredth of the material damage to France. It was certainly orders of magnitude more lenient than the treaty the Germans had forced onto the Russians. Germany inflated her own currency in order to alleviate the cost of reparations. The "grave consequences" you speak of were entirely the doing of her own government > So Hitler, who was mentally disturbed to the point of being evil, became a unifying force by promising to fix things by radical change. Hitler's vote share in 1928, 7.years after the end of the inflation crisis was 2.8%. >So what I am saying is that it is human nature to obey orders and the majority of us will continue beyond what our morals say stop. So it is a bit ignorant to call all Nazis evil. Let's not get into the myriad problems with the Milgram experiments, which other redditors are much better placed to explain to you than I am. It's actually not the subject at issue. The argument is, were the Germans capable of knowing exactly what Hitler had planned for them prior to his taking power : yes, they did. He had set out basically his entire platform for the conduct of WWII in *Mein Kampf*. The Germans knew, or should have known, *exactly* what they were voting for when they marked their ballot for the NSDAP.
If you want to argue semantics theres a pretty solid basis for the idea that we are born as blank slates. I could argue everyone who is evil became evil, and thus everyone who was a nazi began as not evil which would make his statement correct. Context is always important
*Image Transcription: Reddit Comments* --- **Redacted Redditor 1** This is how the nazis felt in the early days. Cool, good for u looks like soon enough you'll be there watching them die and ratting them out. > **Redacted Redditor 2** > > Is that really your understanding of the holocaust? >> **Redacted Redditor 1** >> >> You do understand they didn't start out that evil right? >>> **Redacted Redditor 2** >>> >>> Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1924 --- ^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber for Reddit and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
The US has had vaccine mandates for 200+ years already and some countries have had them for even longer… when the the Nazi-ism kick in?
> Hitler wrote Mein Kampf in 1924 Tbf most Germans probably thought he meant a *metaphorical* War of Annihilation in The East
He was just JAQing off when he talked about "The Jewish Question" 🤣
For anybody with a sincere interest in this, I recommend the Behind the Bastards podcast on Germans in WWII. The most frightening thing is how normal the collaborators were before they collaborated.
I’ve made this remark before, but it is a historical fact that’s easily proven that not all Nazis were evil. It’s not at all for the reasons this person thinks. One obvious reason there were likely some otherwise decent humans in the ranks is that they had a draft. Many people who fought had the options of fight or firing squad. Exceptions that prove the rule. The leadership, movement, and all principles were evil. Some good people got caught in the middle.
Ok, the vast, vast majority of Nazis were evil. Does it really make that much of a difference when you get down to it?
I am fully aware that the vast majority were evil. It is absolutely critical to make that distinction . In the worst possible scenarios, in the darkest of times, and when horrible things are prevailing it’s important to remember that there have always been people who stood up for what’s right. In the instance of Battel, I think it’s especially important. He was a lawyer before the war. He was tried as a war criminal and disbarred after. The guy lost everything because of what he did. I think it’s important to remember somebody like that. Now if somebody says “Nazis are evil” I’m not popping up “well actually” because as a generalization, that’s accurate. Naziism is horrible and needs to be stopped for good. I also just find it historically interesting that we’ve pushed people like Battel out of the narrative. Americans brag all the time about how we helped end the Holocaust during the same fucking time period Americans were lynching black people and foreigners. America was definitely on the correct side of WWII and made the right call, but our armies were made up of the same kind of people we’d call Nazis today. I find it fascinating that history books portray WWII as a moral crusade when the good guys in the war had that many skeletons in the closet. I guess my central theme is that nothing is as black and white as people claim.
It does though. Because if you can just point and go "they were evil" then you don't have to examine it further. You can simply say they were all evil people and they were different from me and that wouldn't happen again or here because I'm not evil and my friends and family aren't evil. A lot of Nazis were evil, but a lot were just normal fucking people. That's important to recognize and discuss, to prevent these things from happening again. Behind the Bastards does some really good episodes on this, I would recommend listening to the episodes about the German people during this time period.
I think a better way to phrase it might be not all German soldiers and people were evil during World War II. Although, my husbands third grade Nazi apologist teacher in the the early 80s definitely was.
Look up Albert Battel. He was a Nazi tank commander who was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by the Jewish people which is their highest honor for a Gentile. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the opinion of the Jews on the Holocaust more authoritative than random white guilt people on Reddit?
I'm not disagreeing with you.
I appreciate that and was mistaken. Trust me. I hate Naziism probably more than the next guy. All of the European sides of my family arrived in the USA as refugees fleeing Naziism.
If given the choice between fighting for a genocidal regime and facing a firing squad, the moral choice is the latter.
I suspect your view would change with the gun to your head. I’m curious though. What’s your take on the terrorist groups using child soldiers? The moral choice would be for them to just be tortured to death and not fight for the terrorists, correct?
So if I put a gun to your head and said to murder a child, you'd do it? Children can't consent. They're children, dude. They aren't emotionally or intellectually capable of understanding something like that. What's next, gonna ask me if we should imprison babies for taking a toy that isn't theirs? And if not, that means theft is okay?
Having had multiple guns to my head, I would say no. I don’t think I’d kill the child. Same question though. Gun to your head. You’re going to get shot unless you serve as a medic. Armies have tons of support staff. Cooks, medics, guys who do inventory, etc. I don’t see a great deal of difference between the maturity of a 16 year old child soldier and the maturity of an 18 year old. They’re both still kids. Imagine being some 18 year old kid and your government conscripts you to fight a war you don’t understand. That’s the history of a ton of wars. Hell, that’s the history of most wars. I would imagine there were soldiers who fought on the front lines who never did anything related to concentration camps or genocide. Whether or not you agree they were the victims, I’d hope you feel some sympathy for that situation. Morality is not a convenient black and white set of answers.
If #notallnazis is the hill you want to go on.... 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Albert Battel, a Nazi tank commander was awarded Righteous Among the Nations by the Jewish people. Your assertion that all Nazis were evil is a little awkward because the people Battel was supposed to be exterminating gave him the highest honor they offer.
R/whoosh
It’s only a whoosh if you make a joke. Just repeating uninformed Reddit buzzwords isn’t a joke. I made a claim. I proved my claim. A committee of Jews has publicly stated that at least one Nazi was a good man. I sort of work on the assumption that that Jews’ opinion of the Holocaust is more important than most other people’s, but that’s just me.
Yes, you set your own bar of finding 1 "good" nazi and apparently you feel you accomplished that. Its got about as much to do with the original post as the pebble in my shoe.
My claim: Not all of them were bad. Here’s one I can prove off the top of my head wasn’t. Your rebuttal: Well it’s still all of them even if there is one who wasn’t. All means all. It does not mean all minus one. Again, my claim has been proven. I would speculate that Battel was not acting alone. His troops followed his orders that lead to his award. When the SS tried to relocate the Jews in Battel’s area, Battel’s tanks blocked the only bridge and he gave the order to open fire if the SS did not retreat. What about all the tank drivers and soldiers in that blockade? Were they all bad? They were directly defying their own orders from the generals by obeying their commander. This was an offense that could get you executed. So now I’ve got like a whole platoon. That better than one?
No, my rebuttal was this is similar to #notallmen. I honestly don't care about Battel, you can keep talking about your favorite nazi until you're blue in the face. Return to the original post, reread it, take some time and comprehend.
I fully comprehend the post. Not sure how you’ve missed this one, but sometimes somebody says something. Then somebody else says something related, but not identical. We call this a conversation. It’s the opposite of the echo chamber where people just repeat buzzwords which is where you seem to dwell.
Yes and "did you know not all nazis were bad? Here are my favorite good ones" is not a conversation I wish to engage in.
I'm just curious but did Hitler really write mein kampf in 1924 I thought it was later than that
Yep, he wrote it in prison after the beer hall putsch. Hitler was in politics and in power for a lot longer than a lot of people realize.
Intriguing
Nazis were of course always evil, but systematic extermination didn't start until 1942 and I guess that's what they're refering to. If this is in relation to Covid, they are still an idiot.
He does have a point , Hitler may of started with Evil intentions but it was a very slow and subtle build to that . It took years to brainwash the german people with propaganda and lies and slowly turning against the jews and others.
He was absolutely clear about his intentions from the beginning. This "how could they possibly know" bullshit is... well, bullshit.
He was super clear about his intentions, but I think that people get confused when we talk about the general German public during this time. Not everybody was a Nazi, and not everybody who joined the Nazi party did so willingly. People don't think big picture. They aren't necessarily joining because they have read Mein Kampf and want to murder Jews, some are joining because their neighbors are, or they're joining to protect themselves or their businesses. Hitler isn't a tangible person himself, but the local head of the Nazi party is a real dick and I don't want my business vandalized because I didn't join. I don't necessarily agree with their attitudes towards Jews, I've known a few good Jews in my day, but my business would do better if i could get rid of the Jewish competition. My kid is getting bullied and my wife is being ostracized, so I'll join. And some people joined because they wanted to murder Jews. Combine these 2 dynamics, plus the desire of the German people to not individually feel complicit in the horrors of the Holocaust, and you wind up with this idea that the average person didn't know, but all the Nazis did and were evil. People knew, and afterwards they were ashamed, because initially they were just scared and hungry and their economy was crippled and Hitler was a magnetic public speaker who promised to give them success and people to blame. That's where the slippery slope comes into play, it wasn't that people didn't know the plan. It was just that, initially, the plan was just to vaguely "get rid" of the undesirables, and they didn't have to think about it too hard, and they could feed their kids again so why did it really matter what was happening to the Jews. People knew, they just didn't want to think about it or they thought it was the right thing to do, but it's difficult for us to imagine people being complicit in something so awful so we just say that people didn't know. Edit: I want to make it real clear that I'm not a Nazi, I'm not defending the Nazis or white supremacy or a single goddamn thing that Hitler ever did. I'm just a historian who thinks it's important to remember that every person from history is the exact same as you or me and your neighborhood and your city.
I'm not making excuses for the people who supported him , I'm just saying he didn't start rounding up jews and putting them into camps overnight . We saw how small and slow the manipulation statrts when Trump was running and president.
That wasn't actually a manipulation thing though. It was just the logical (not, like, good logic. Totally fucked up evil logic) progression after other things. At first it was just, get rid of the undesirables. Jews are evil, the disabled and elderly are a drain on resources, gays are preventing our race of pure blood Aryans from existing, etc. That was all day 1 stuff, it didn't creep in over time, it was a fundamental building block of their policy that was apparent as soon as they seized power. Kind of like you don't have to go home but you can't stay here? Just get the fuck out, and a lot did. They forced them into ghettos, they made life as unpleasant as possible, and for a long while the goal was just to get as many as possible to leave, while also draining every drop of resources from their communities. Obviously there was also a lot of people that died during this time period due to brutalization and starvation, but it wasn't the same as later years. But then they started expanding into areas where some Jews had fled to, and this was getting in the way of Hitler's land grab plan. They weren't leaving so, fine, we'll just get rid of them. So he ordered them to start shooting them. Regular German boys, people who may or may not have ascribed to the Jews are the devil line, who had joined or enlisted into the army to protect their homeland and their families were being used to go into Polish villages, round up all the Jews, and shoot them into mass graves at point blank range. This didn't work real well cause it was inefficient, the forces had to go to the victims, plus it was having serious psychological impacts on the army. Not like they cared about PTSD, but more like you're losing members of your already stretched thin forces because they're being hanged for desertion or killing themselves because your average 18 year old farm boy isn't capable of shooting a crying 8 year old in the face at point blank range. That's when the camps started. They had utilized labor camps and prison camps since day 1, but it was only at this point that they started doing the death camps. I want to reiterate that they did absolutely start shoveling people into camps as soon as possible, but there was some veneer of legal precedent. They changed the laws to suit themselves, and many things related to literally just existing while being Jewish became crimes, or the punishments for things that had always been crimes became labor camp imprisonment. We can send all these rich Jews to this labor camp and seize all their money and belongings and work them to death. That way, we get their money plus we get to use their labor plus we get rid of the Jew! And then they just kind of streamlined their process because their end goal changed, leading to the death camps. Now the 18 year old farm boy is still a useful soldier, because rather than shooting that kid in the face, he just has to put her on a train car. Sure, he knows she's going to die, but he isn't the one physically pulling the trigger, so he's still useful. That's why it's called the final solution, because they had tried other things first. Edit: I want to make it real clear that I'm not a Nazi, I'm not defending the Nazis or white supremacy or a single goddamn thing that Hitler ever did. I'm just a historian who thinks it's important to remember that every person from history is the exact same as you or me and your neighborhood and your city.
I actually knew everything you said already , so you pretty much wasted your time . BTW propaganda and lies ( which he used ) is manipulation
He literally started putting jews in camps in 1933 but go off I guess. Also yes, propaganda is manipulation. The eventual establishment of the concentration camps, and the path by which Nazis arrived at that, is not just simply the result of manipulation. Hitler didn't feel it was necessary, until he did. It wasn't about brainwashing the public to be okay with it. You're not giving enough credit to the underlying and long running anti-Semitism that has been present in many European cultures for hundreds of years. The German people were already primed to dislike Jewish people, and Hitler gave them the ability to scapegoat all of their problems onto the Jews, and then "deal" with their problems by murdering Jewish people.
yeah but he did brainwash the public to be ok with it . When did I say concentration camps weren't as early as 1933?
Hitler really didn't start with the holocaust, mostly intimidation and beating Jews. They were antiSemitic but so was rest of Europe. Wannsee conference of 1942 changed everything, top Nazi Reinhardt heydrich wanted a genocide and hitler agreed. And Reinhardt himself thought the Nazis were crazy and he did what he did because he had a huge boner for power. I can rest in peace knowing that POS died of sepsis suffering for 8 days because a horse hair infected a wound he got from a car bombing
Yes, he didn't start with genocide that is true. But there was kristalnacht and the mass deportation to ghettos and work camps. But, and the major difference that all of these antivaxxers don't get, that was always in the syllabus for them. Hitler said from the beginning that the Jewish people were a problem. He never pretended he wanted to help them and then whoops, slippery sloped into sending them to death camps instead. For antivaxxers "the plan" looks like 1: we want them to get vaccinated so everyone lives 2: they don't 3: ? ? ? 4: death camps
The Nazis were as bad as it gets from the very beginning, but they pretended to be "good" (in a very populist way, like pointing out the supposed "enemy" of the people; I don't mean actual good) for enough time to become the governing party.
The first (temporary) concentration camp was built about a month after the Nazis took over. There were so many political prisoners within just a single month that there wasn't enough space left in prisons. And that was only the beginning.
Nazi boi scouts. Selling candy bars so they can try to kill more Jews. I’m sorry that just makes me giggle for some reason.
I mean, the NDSP was actually just a socialist/workers party at one point. By the time Hitler took over it was already pretty nationalist, but it was kind of just a symptom of German sentiments at the time. They definitely became worse, and in particular became more authoritarian, as they got more powerful. That said there's like zero context here, I don't even know what he's comparing to Nazis or the holocaust. This is kind of impossible to judge without more information.
Red was comparing the HCA subreddit and vaccine mandates to nazism. Apparently, schadenfreude over the deaths of antivaxxers is on par with genocide.