In every USENET debate, even those concerning ruffled chips versus straight, someone gets accused of being a Hitlerite. When debating with conservatives, however, it's often appropriate.
I heard that Hilter was a "collectivist" or "leftist" - is this true?
It's normal for conservatives to see anything to the left of their position as Stalinism and anything to the right of their position as actually to the left of their position. To make this sort of absurdity seem respectable, they've been using the word "collectivist" to describe anyone less individualistic than the unibomber. Thus, since they claim that they don't agree with Hitler, he has to be a liberal - because anybody who doesn't agree with them 100% is obviously a liberal!
And they have quotes from Nazi propaganda to prove it!
The one and only source used by these people is the Nazis themselves. "It's called national socialism!" (I presume they considered the "German Democratic Republic" (communist east Germany) to be a truthful name as well?)
What do you consider to be reliable sources? Which would you trust, historians who have studied documents, interviewed witnesses, dug through statistics etc, or Hitler's own propaganda?
Of course Hitler claimed to be a leftist (all politicians try to appear further to the left than they are) - the great depression had woken many people up to the realities of capitalism, and he wanted their votes, or at least their obedience. Hitler, a politician, claimed to be "everything to everyone". He even said that his party was being too ruthless, that he wanted peace - he lied about anything and everything. (Russians learned this the hard way when he broke the Russo-German pact.)
The actual term to describe Nazism would be "Corporatist"
Corporatism is the belief that large masses of humanity are better than groups of individuals - ie, that a corporation and/or government is better than a hippy commune. One thing that separates corporatism from "collectivism" is that in corporatism there's a superficial worship of individualism - the individualism of the leader! Thus the founder of Mcdonald's is a rugged individual while burger-flippers need to be indoctrinated before being given their hair-nets. Thus Lenin & co. were given "cult" status - and while working class stiffs marched on the parade ground Hitler could rant for hours on end on obscure topics and still be the most respected bastard in the Reich.
Concentration camps were private property
From the jacket (I didn't even need to open the book to get this!) of The Arms of Krupp by William Manchester:
"Europe's richest and most powerful family...financed Hitler's "terror election" of 1933. During the Nazi era the Krupps ruled one hundred and thirty eight (138!) PRIVATELY OWNED concentration camps, and Hitler honored their loyalty by decreeing special tax exemptions which continued to be binding in post-war West Germany..."
This is *exactly* what neo-liberals are all about - less taxes for corporations, and privatizing everything from jails to crematoriums, while funding dictators...(And claiming that this will make them less dictatorial - a modern-day form of super-appeasement!)
For his research, Manchester "conducted interviews on seven countries, examined thousands of letters and studied the 13,454 PAGE transcript of Alfred Krupp's Nurmberg trial." Meanwhile, Forbes and other neo-liberals do nothing but quote Nazi propaganda!
More on how the Nazis gained power
Conservatives tend to blame poverty on those who suffer it. "The standard of life in Poland...had been filmed and commented upon by the German propaganda machine to prove conclusively, to anyone who still questioned the master race dogma, that the Slavs were inferior and that they subsisted in backward conditions, simply because they were inferior" - [p15 War on the Eastern Front James Lucas]
Hitler received massive financial support from big German industrialists (how else do you think he bought all of those uniforms and flags? Donations from unemployed people?).When he got into power, he crushed labour unions. He went berserk over family values - to the point of putting young German women in camps where their sole purpose was to get pregnant! (If he liked apple pie as much as he liked motherhood, he would have gotten as fat as Rush Limbaugh)
But Hitler used Roosevelt-style economics, so doesn't that make him leftist?
Hitler used Roosevelt style economics because he wasn't stupid (at least not yet - all of those caffeine injections and mysterious drug prescriptions took their toll later). To keep a capitalist system (mal)functioning, government spending is necessary - but a true leftist economy isn't capitalist!
But I wanna read Nazi propaganda!
Alright, here's an in-depth essay that quotes the Nazis on everything. And they're still conservative.
From the jacket of Albert Speer's Infiltration "Gone is the myth of the tightly knit [read: socialistic] German war machine. The third Reich emerges in chaos..." [read: capitalistic]
"Prior to his speech, I had given Hitler a few slogans such as "free economy after the war" and "fundamental rejection of nationalization of industry" Hitler made clear his negative attitude toward a state economy, such as had to result from state socialism. He said "the sole prerequisite for true higher development, nay, for the further development of all mankind" is "in the furtherance of private initiative. When this war is decided...the private initiative of German industry will achieve its greatest era!"...it directly contrasted with...rejection of the capitalistic structure of our economy" [Albert Speer Infiltration Appendix 9: state socialism versus capitalism]
Hitler's a leftist! It said so in a book!
If conservatives want to prove this, they'll have to also prove that his close allies Franco, Mussulini and Imperial Japan were leftists as well. They'll also have to prove that the miscellaneous monarchists and fascists that supported him were also leftists. And Chang Kai-Shek, who flirted with Nazism and fought the Mao's communists, who were actually putting up a fight against the Japanese. (The enemy of my enemy is who? I recommend reading Han Suyin's autobiography/history Birdless Summer for a look at the corruption, links to Nazism, sexism, and virtual slavery in China under our ally Chiang Kai-Shek. It explains why the west didn't use China as a front against the Japanese - because Chiang simply didn't fight the Japanese; instead hunting down the communists, who actually were fighting the Japanese) In short, Hitler had some pretty conservative pals. Sometimes you have to judge a man by the company he keeps...
If Hitler was a leftist, he was the first one not to be under attack by conservatives. Right after the horror of world war one, the pacifist west sent soldiers to fight against the leftist Bolsheviks. Those who fought in the Spanish Civil War were label PAFs (Premature Anti-Fascist) and were not trusted - kind of like draft dodgers during Vietnam, who we're not supposed to trust. Hitler had massacred his way across Russia - yet he was still perfectly acceptable. Only when he declared war was he evil. The Japanese could rape Nanking without doing anything bad - they had to attack US colonial possessions for them to become evil monsters.
The Resistence to Hitler was leftist
It's also curious that all of the other leftists weren't aware of his politics: most of the resistence was by communists - the most obvious being the Yugoslav resistence movement. For another example, read Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto By Esther Mark.
Look at the organizations that were involved in the uprising:
Polish groups, who assisted, but were saving their strength for the big uprising that eventually came in 1944:
Jewish organizations, who couldn't wait, for obvious reasons:
The Pseudonym of one of the [female] leading fighters was Moishe "Bolshevik". The fighters observed May Day, listened to Radio Moscow, and sang the "Internationale". (Op cit. p65). They raised red flags (p37) Their ranks included republican (leftist) veterans from the Spanish Civil war (p7) women who "grew up in "revolutionary student circles" (p56) and individuals such as a "socialist underground activist...a polish socialist...Jewish communal activists...communist activist...(p86-87) and were reported on by a "leftist polish underground newspaper" (p36) and a "leftist underground periodical "Glos Warszawy"".
Strangely, there didn't seem to be any conservative organizations involved in the uprising. Perhaps you wouldn't expect the "Christian" coalition in a Jewish Ghetto, but then again, they base all of their arguments on the old testament...
In conclusion, let me just say that for a collectivist, Hitler didn't have many businessmen opposed to him.
How the US helped Hitler and the Nazis
These right-wingers are worse than holocaust deniers - they take the whole history and twist it to meet their reactionary (if not fascist) agenda. People who make these claims are like Hitler in many ways - their massive financial support from rich corporations, their desire to crush labour unions, and their (often thinly) disguised sexism and racism (Under the banner "politically incorrect").