Why were the Nazis Not More Socialist? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14345901
I had always thought that fascism and National Socialism rejected liberalism. However the economy of NS Germany was more or less Keynesian and they did not implement the same sort of corporatist or syndicalist policies which existed in Italy. I know that there were more socialist elements within party like Strasserists but they did not come to prominence. Why was Adolf Hitler not more corporatist?
#14345929
Hitler wasnt overly concerned with social policies, his priority was preparing Germany for war while a lot of programs were announced they often gave way in practice to the war economy (Nazi Germany was always a war economy) Hitler seems to be a fairly lazy and spasmodic dictator, leaving his henchman to loot the economy is peace mostly. I dont think he was overly concerned about German living standards, most of the top Nazis were pretty light of policy. With the General suppression of just about everything there were very little interest groups to be kept happy, Hitler and the Nazi cared about iron political control, developing the war economy, looting and punishing people they didnt like.
#14345942
Actually, you both have that reversed.

It was Italy that failed to implement the programme, on three different attempts before the end of the war. NS Germany managed to implement parts of the programme, but never was able to finish it.

Regarding living standards, those actually did rise in Germany.
#14345947
What program? There was no problem. Employment improved, but lower wages, higher taxes , and less consumer goods (both less imported and less manufactured crowded out by the armaments program) schemes like the Volkswagen where wages were deducted but no products delivered, compulsory donations to the Nazi winter appeal (or face been beaten up), I dont think the living standards improving is clear cut.
#14345963
(Nazi Germany was always a war economy)

Actually, it wasn't. It was only after the shock of the defeat at Stalingrad that the German economy was finally put on a war footing. Difficult to believe, I know, but it's true. The Nazis didn't want a repeat of 1918, when civilian unrest led to Germany's collapse in the First World War.
#14345968
I disagree Potemkin, we believe that only because of successful personal propaganda by Albert Speer. Germany was on war footing since 1939, the tremendous increase in production of war materials was result of previous efforts, mainly expansion of productive capacity.

Its been long since I read, "wages of destruction" by Adam Tooze but he does dispels that myth.
#14345974
Germany spent 23% of its GDP on the military in 1939. This was a huge expenditure. Its a myth that Germany failed to mobilise its economy. The comparison with Britain in the early part of the war is unfair. Britain has access to the world market and in particular America, allowing them to spend their assets and buy on credit. Later they had lend lease. Germany's later war mobilisation was completely unsustainable. They were only able to maintain production in 1944 by burning through their raw material, parts and capital stock.

Disraeli had as much right to call himself national socialist as the Nazis did. Fascism was a movement of the right. It was a Conservative movement. It was a Patriarchal Movement. There was absolutely no fundamental socio economic ideological clash between the fascist and classical Liberals.
Mises wrote:It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aimed at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has for the moment saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history.


What distinguished the fascists and Nazis was their commitment to nationalism. World War I and World War II were nationalist conflicts. The problem is that people can't accept that these terrible wars, that left awful peace settlements in their wake were caused by such trivial conflicts. Hence the attempt to imbue this great period of conflict with supra-nationalist ideological conflict.

The idea that Britain and America were fighting against racism or that Italy's occupation of Ethiopia, or Nazi Germany's occupation of Poland were some noble struggle against the international banking industry are pathetic jokes!

But such banal fantasies won't go away because they are so psychologically satisfying to their proponents.
#14345977
Citing Mises who doesn't actually understand Nazism, does nothing to demonstrate that Nazism was aligned to liberal-capitalist interests. One of the chief ways that you can realise it is not aligned, is how fast they back-pedalled once they realised that fascism was not a tactic, it was an idea.

Liberals at the start thought that fascism was just a tactic of violence which could be used to fend off Marxist-Leninists. They quickly learned that it was not the case. Axis came the closest that anyone has ever come, to actually destroying the entire liberal-capitalist world order.

The only reason that you don't want to admit this, is because you were raised in a society that will not permit you to acknowledge the truly world-changing potential of what was being attempted. There was undoubtedly a fundamental contradiction based around class and ethnicity, which was taking place, and it is so obvious that only someone who is deliberately being deceptive would claim not to have seen it.
#14345981
Rei Murasame wrote:Axis came the closest that anyone has ever come, to actually destroying the entire liberal-capitalist world order.


That may have been the case but only as an accidental consequence of the war. Destroying the liberal-capitalist world (unfortunately) wasn't Hitler's goal at all. His main enemy was always judeo-bolshevism and he believed that it was Germany's duty to serve as bulwark for western democratic civilazation against the bolshevik hordes. His favorite Opera was Wagner's Lohengrin as he identified with its protagonist, that is a heroic figure of light.

Adolf Hitler wrote:Deutschland wird wie immer als Brennpunkt der abendländischen Welt gegenüber den bolschewistischen Angriffen anzusehen sein. Ich fasse dies nicht als eine erfreuliche Mission auf, sondern als eine leider durch unsere unglückliche Lage in Europa bedingte Erschwerung und Belastung unseres völkischen Lebens. Wir können uns aber diesem Schicksal nicht entziehen.
(Hitler, Geheime Denkschrift zum Vierjahresplan, 1936)

The entire war preparation aimed at fighting to the death with communism in order to decide the course of history. In the eyes of Hitler, Liberalism was merely a weakness which prevented the western world to properly fight the asiatic hordes.
#14345983
Mises wrote: It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aimed at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has for the moment saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history.


I don't know if it would live through eternity or not but as long as libertarians exist they will have to answer for that mises' quote.
#14345986
Andrea_Chenier wrote:That may have been the case but only as an accidental consequence of the war.

You are cherry picking the Hitler quotes that you like, rather than doing any analysis on what actually happened, and I basically as a rule refuse to entertain any thread of debate in which Hitler's words take primacy. This is because Hitler's words changed depending on who he was addressing at any given time.

For example, if anyone were to take your quotes seriously, apparently Hitler was so busy 'battling against Asiatic hordes' that he decided to ally himself with as many Asiatic people as he possibly could, to kill Americans and Jews? Adolf Hitler had to live with the reality of the situation at hand, and no pep talks to his base could undo the fact that he was compelled to turn against 'western civilisation', a 'western civilisation' based on Judeo-Christendom, which he had to struggle against. This was so obvious that various people who were working with him, started to point it out.

In fact, just for fun, let me use quotes by an assortment of different people (bear in mind, this is still not analysis, but I am making a point here about quotes in general), I am going to choose the ones that I think come closest to the reality of what was happening:

Adolf Hitler, 27 Feb 1942 (emphasis added) wrote:It would always be disagreeable for me to go down to posterity as a man who made concessions in this field. I realise that man, in his imperfection, can commit innumerable errors-- but to devote myself deliberately to errors, that is something I cannot do. I shall never come personally to terms with the Christian lie. Our epoch in the next 200 years will certainly see the end of the disease of Christianity. My regret will have been that I couldn't behold it.


And:
Imperialismo pagano, 'Fascism against Christianity: The Great Liberation', Julius Evola, 1928 wrote:Ethical and religious Christianity today is nothing more than a name and a habit, absolutely external to conscience; but nobody, or nearly nobody, has bothered to abolish the name itself and to put its content on trial again, so as to start right back at the beginning, rejecting the "fact" of Christianity, its "tradition" and all the rest.

This is precisely my intent: to hold such a trial, demanding that every account to be scrutinized with inflexible severity, that all cards be placed openly on the table, and that every way out and every compromise be barred in advance. At stake are not more or less anticlerical polemics but rather a serious, objective examination, unbiased by feeling and belief. A cool-headed examination should suffice to blunt the ecstatic thrill and to unmask the true poverty and inferiority of the Christian vision of the world and of man.


And:
'Wie ich mich ums Leben brachte', Ernst von Wolzogen, 1923 wrote:Christianity has offered promises of happiness to the materially and spiritually poor, the cripples of body and soul, the slave and weaklings; it has heaped menaces upon the rich, the strong, the free, the healthy. It has preached the equality of men, at all their stages of evolution, before God, and thus invested the dull masses with a control over the ingenious, strong, and proud individuals.


And:
'The Beast Reawakens', Martin A. Lee, pg 211, 1997 wrote:By rejecting Christianity as an alien ideology that was forced upon the Indo-European peoples two millennia ago, French New Rightists distinguished themselves from the so-called New Right that emerged in the United States during the 1970s. Ideologically, GRECE had little in common with the American New Right, [the latter] which de Benoist dismissed as a puritanical, moralistic crusade that clung pathetically to Christianity as the be-all and end-all of Western civilization.

The Journal of Historical Review 14, 'Charting Europe's Future in the 'Post Postwar' Era: The 'European New Right': Defining and Defending Europe's Heritage. An Interview with Alain de Benoist', Ian B. Warren, March-April 1994 wrote:Based on everything I know about it, the so-called New Right in America is completely different from ours. I don't see even a single point with which I could agree with this so-called New Right. Unfortunately, the name we now have gives rise to many misunderstandings.

While I cannot say that, after these many years, the [European] New Right is accepted everywhere -- that is obvious -- I can say that, in ever wider circles, it is accepted in France as a part of the cultural-political landscape. Debate and discussion here during the last two decades could not be thought of without the contribution of the New Right. Moreover, it is because the New Right has taken up particular themes that particular debates have taken place at all. I refer, for example, to discussions about the Indo-European legacy in Europe, the Conservative Revolution in Germany, about polytheism and monotheism, or about I.Q. -- heredity or environment (which is partly a rather false dichotomy), participatory democracy, federalism and communitarian ideas, criticism of the market ideology, and so forth. Well, we were involved in all these issues. As a result, I think, the situation in France today is a bit different.


And:
Chronicles, 'Monotheism vs Polytheism', Alain de Benoist, April 1996 wrote:As Shmuel Trigano notes, "by projecting itself as the new Israel, the West has given to Judaism a de facto jurisdiction, albeit not the right to be itself." This means that the West can become "Israelite" to the extent that it denies Jews the right to be Israelites. Henceforth, the very notion of "Judeo-Christianity" can be defined as a double incarceration. It imprisons "the Christian West," which by its own deliberate act has subordinated itself to an alien "jurisdiction," and which by doing so denies this very same jurisdiction to its legitimate (Jewish) owners. Furthermore, it imprisons the Jews who, by virtue of a religion different from their own, are now undeservedly caught in the would-be place of their "accomplishment" by means of a religion which is not their own.

Trigano further adds: "If Judeo-Christianity laid the foundations of the West, then the very place of Israel is also the West." Subsequently, the requisites of "Westernization" must also become the requisites of assimilation and "normalization," and the denial of identity. "The crisis of Jewish normality is the crisis of the westernization of Judaism. Therefore, to exit from the West means for the Jews to turn their back to their 'normality,' that is, to open themselves up to their otherness." This seems to be why Jewish communities today criticize the "Western model," only after they first adopt their own specific history of a semi-amnesiac and semi-critical attitude.

In view of this, Christian anti-Semitism can be rightly described as neurosis. As Jean Blot writes, it is because of its "predisposition toward alienation" that the West is incapable of "fulfilling itself or rediscovering itself." And from this source arises anti-Semitic neurosis. "Anti-semitism allows the anti-Semite to project onto the Jew his own neuroses. He calls him a stranger, because he [the European Christian] himself is a stranger, a crook, a powerful man, a parvenu; he calls him a Jew, because he [the European Christian] himself is this Jew in the deepest depth of his soul, always on the move, permanently alienated, a stranger to his own religion and to God who incarnates him."

By replacing his original myth with the myth of biblical monotheism, the West has turned Hebraism into its own superego. As an inevitable consequence, the West had to turn itself against the Jewish people by accusing them of not pursuing the "conversion" in terms of the "logical" evolution proceeding from Sinai to Christianity. In addition, the West also accused the Jewish people of attempting, in an apparent "deicide," to obstruct this evolution.


And:
Comment Peut-on Etre Païen?, 'The Path Toward the Sacred', Alain de Benoist, 1981 wrote:In ancient Europe, the sacred was not conceived in opposition to the profane, but rather embraced the profane and gave it meaning. There was no need for a Church to mediate between man and God; the whole city itself effected this mediation, and religious institutions constituted only one aspect of it. The conceptual antonym of Latin religio would be the verb negligere. To be religious is to be responsible, not to neglect. To be responsible is to be free -- to possess the concrete means of exercising a practical liberty. To be free is also, at the same time, to be connected to others through a common spirituality.

When Lévy remarks that "monotheism is not a form of sacrality, a form of spirituality, but on the contrary, the hatred of the sacred as such," his comment is only apparently paradoxical. The sacred involves unconditional respect for something; yet monotheism, in a literal sense, outlaws such respect, placing it outside the Law. For Heidegger, the sacred, das Heilige, is quite distinct from traditional metaphysics and from the very idea of God. We say, to use an antimony favored by Emmanuel Lévinas, that the sacred vests itself as a mystery in this world, that it is based on an intimacy between man and the world, in contrast to holiness, which relies on the radical transcendence of the Other. Paganism sacralizes and thereby exalts this world, whereas Judeo-Christian monotheism sanctifies, and thereby deducts from and diminishes it.


And:
Dr. William Pierce, 'Membership Handbook for the National Alliance': Section 2D Part 7: 'Christianity, one of the seven opposed ideologies', some time a long time ago? (emphasis added) wrote:The immediate and inevitable fact which forces us to come to grips with Christianity is that the mainstream Christian churches are all, without exception, preaching a doctrine of White racial extinction. They preach racial egalitarianism and racial mixing. They preach non-resistance to the takeover of our society by non-Whites. It was the Christian churches, more than any other institution, which paralyzed the will of White South Africans to survive. It is the Christian establishment in the United States which is preeminent in sapping the will of White Americans to resist being submerged in the non-White tide sweeping across the land.

Most Christian authorities collaborate openly with the Jews, despite the contempt and abuse they receive in return, and the rest at least follow Jewish policies on the all-important matter of race. The occasional anomaly—a Catholic bishop in Poland speaking out angrily against Jewish arrogance, a few Protestant groups in the United States expressing sympathy for oppressed Palestinians—does not invalidate the rule.

We are obliged, therefore, to oppose the Christians churches and to speak out against their doctrines.

[...]

It is not an Aryan religion; like Judaism and Islam it is Semitic in origin, and all its centuries of partial adaptation to Aryan ways have not changed its basic flavor. It was carried by a Jew, Saul of Tarsus (later known as Paul), from the Levant to the Greco-Roman world. Its doctrines that the meek shall inherit the earth and that the last shall be the first found fertile soil among the populous slave class in Rome. Centuries later, as Rome was succumbing to an internal rot in which Christianity played no small part, legions of Roman conscripts imposed the imported religion on the Celtic and Germanic tribes to the north.

[...]

The fact is that, [even] completely aside from the [aforementioned] racial question, no person who wholeheartedly believes Christian doctrine can share our values and goals, because Christian doctrine holds that this world is of little importance, being only a proving ground for the spiritual world which one enters after death. Christian doctrine also holds that the condition of this world is not man’s responsibility, because an omnipotent and omniscient deity alone has that responsibility.

Section 2D Part 7 in that book is actually now legendary, because as the story goes, there was a Christian conspiracy in the USA to take hold of the National Alliance after Dr Pierce's death, and so they actually removed Part 7 from Section 2D when they printed it. This meant that the book was printed with the heading stating that there were "seven opposed ideologies", but the page nevertheless ended at Section 2D Part 6 for 'no apparent reason'.

We press on:
'Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944: His Private Conversations', Martin Bormann wrote:Everywhere they have fostered discontent against the established power. For these are the seeds which produce the crop they hope later to gather. Everywhere they fan the flames of hatred between peoples of the same blood. It is they who invented class-warfare, and the repudiation of this theory must therefore always be an anti-Jewish measure. In the same way, any doctrine which is anti-Communist, any doctrine which is anti-Christian must, ipso facto, be anti-Jewish as well. The National Socialist doctrine is therefore anti-Jewish in excelsis, for it is both anti-Communist and anti-Christian.


Regarding 'positive Christianity', positive Christianity was interesting. The same Professor H. Schwarz that appears on this page here: [Link]

Is the same man who said this:
Professor H. Schwarz, 1933 wrote:The German Faith movement poses the question: How far does Christianity agree, how far does it disagree with our Kind?


Which leads ultimately to this operation of gutting Christianity from the inside:
Hanns Kerrl, 1937 wrote:Dr Zoellner and [Catholic Bishop of Munster] Count Galen have tried to make clear to me that Christianity consists in faith in Christ as the son of God. That makes me laugh... No, Christianity is not dependent upon the Apostle's Creed... True Christianity is represented by the party, and the German people are now called by the party and especially the Fuehrer to a real Christianity... the Fuehrer is the herald of a new revelation.

That 'Christ' that Kerrl was subtly edging toward there, was not Jesus of Nazareth as he is normally known, but rather, is sort of attempt to talk about a sort of 'saviour consciousness' incarnated in the leader of the party.

Who was Kerrl? Well, let's go to his wikipedia, since that has what I need:
wikipedia: Hanns Kerrl wrote:Hanns Kerrl (11 December 1887 – 12 December 1941) was a German Nazi politician. His most prominent position, from July 1935, was that of Reichsminister of Church Affairs.

[...]

On 17 June 1934 he became Reichsminister without Portfolio. In the following year, on 16 July 1935, he was appointed Reichsminister für die kirchlichen Angelegenheiten (Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs), to head a newly created ministry. On the one hand, Kerrl was supposed to mediate between those Nazi leaders who hated Christianity (for example Heinrich Himmler) and the churches themselves and stress the religious aspect of the Nazi ideology. On the other hand, in tune with the policy of Gleichschaltung, it was Kerrl's job to subjugate the churches—subject the various denominations and their leaders and subordinate them to the greater goals decided by the Führer, Adolf Hitler. Indeed, Kerrl had been appointed after Ludwig Müller had been unsuccessful in getting the Protestants to unite in one "Reich Church."

[...]

"In 1935 Kerrl scored some initial successes in reconciling the differing parties in the Church Struggle. However, by the second half of 1936, his position was clearly undermined by NSDAP hostility, and by the refusal of the churches to work with a government body which they regarded as a captive or stooge of the Nazi Party. Hitler gradually adopted a more uncompromising and intolerant stance, probably under the growing influence of ideologues such as Bormann, Rosenberg and Himmler, who were loath to entertain any idea of the new Germany having a Christian foundation even in a token form."[1]


Also, I might as well add Japan in since you know how it is. I will give talk about the Urayasu no Mai.

Two short excerpts here:

[youtube]f-wkLVSU5Os[/youtube] [youtube]HDNgI4UMgEk[/youtube]

This ritual was brought into force in August of 1940, and at exactly 10:00 on November 10th 1940, at every shrine in the Japanese Empire - which is to say of course locations outside Japan which had been incorporated into the Empire also - this was performed.

The operation was to honour the 2600th Anniversary of the establishment of the Japanese Imperial Family, but of particular note is the fact that they chose November 10th, and that the ritual includes the use of torimono. Torimono are used for inviting a deity to descend using the object as a conduit for making its presence known in a ceremony, and sometimes the deity can even possess/overshadow the ones who are calling on it.

Also, since the issue of paganism being the root of everything has come up, Japan also has this doctrine too, it is called han honji suijaku setsu, which is a religious theory which holds that all the other systems of thought in the region are outgrowths of the indigenous religions, and to there they shall return.

And since I'm on that point now, I just can't help but continue to go on:

A Critique of Liberal Ideology, Alain de Benoist, 2008 wrote:Liberal freedom thus supposes that individuals can be abstracted from their origins, their environment, the context in which they live and where they exercise their choices, from everything, that is., that makes them who they are, and not someone else. It supposes, in other words, as John Rawls says, that the individual is always prior to his ends. Nothing, however, proves that the individual can apprehend himself as a subject free of any allegiance, free of any determinism. Moreover, nothing proves that in all circumstances he will prefer freedom over every other good. Such a conception by definition ignores commitments and attachment that owe nothing to rational calculation. It is a purely formal conception, that makes it impossible to understand what a real person is.


But what can overcome this? Many things, and religious institutions are a part of overcoming it:
Image
A Miko performs Kagura in Nara.
Mircea Eliade, 'The Sacred and the Profane', pg21, 1961 (emphasis added) wrote:In the homogeneous and infinite expanse, in which no point of reference is possible and hence no orientation is established, the hierophany (appearance of the Sacred) reveals an absolute fixed point (Sacred Space), a centre. [...] The manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world.

Mircea Eliade, 'Myths, Dreams and Mysteries', pg23, 1967 wrote:In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythic hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time (Eternal Return).


Who was Mircea Eliade?

We go to wikipedia:
wikipedia: Mircea Eliade wrote:Mircea Eliade (Romanian: [ˈmirt͡ʃe̯a eliˈade]; March 13 [O.S. February 28] 1907 – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential.[1] One of his most influential contributions to religious studies was his theory of Eternal Return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but, at least to the minds of the religious, actually participate in them.[1]

His literary works belong to the fantastic and autobiographical genres. The best known are the novels Maitreyi ("La Nuit Bengali" or "Bengal Nights"), Noaptea de Sânziene ("The Forbidden Forest"), Isabel şi apele diavolului ("Isabel and the Devil's Waters") and Romanul Adolescentului Miop ("Novel of the Nearsighted Adolescent"), the novellas Domnişoara Christina ("Miss Christina") and Tinereţe fără tinereţe ("Youth Without Youth"), and the short stories Secretul doctorului Honigberger ("The Secret of Dr. Honigberger") and La Ţigănci ("With the Gypsy Girls").

Early in his life, Eliade was a noted journalist and essayist, a disciple of Romanian far right philosopher and journalist Nae Ionescu, and member of the literary society Criterion. He also served as cultural attaché to the United Kingdom and Portugal. Several times during the late 1930s, Eliade publicly expressed his support for the Iron Guard, a fascist and antisemitic political organization. His political involvement at the time, as well as his other far right connections, were the frequent topic of criticism after World War II.


And to end off:
Kakuzo Okakura, 'The Book of Tea', 1906 wrote:The ideal lover of flowers is he who visits them in their native haunts, like Taoyuenming [all celebrated Chinese poets and philosophers], who sat before a broken bamboo fence in converse with the wild chrysanthemum, or Linwosing, losing himself amid mysterious fragrance as he wandered in the twilight among the plum-blossoms of the Western Lake. 'Tis said that Chowmushih slept in a boat so that his dreams might mingle with those of the lotus. It was the same spirit which moved the Empress Komio, one of our most renowned Nara sovereigns, as she sang: "If I pluck thee, my hand will defile thee, O flower! Standing in the meadows as thou art, I offer thee to the Buddhas of the past, of the present, of the future."

However, let us not be too sentimental. Let us be less luxurious but more magnificent. Said Laotse: "Heaven and earth are pitiless." Said Kobodaishi: "Flow, flow, flow, flow, the current of life is ever onward. Die, die, die, die, death comes to all." Destruction faces us wherever we turn. Destruction below and above, destruction behind and before. Change is the only Eternal,--why not as welcome Death as Life? They are but counterparts one of the other,--The Night and Day of Brahma. Through the disintegration of the old, re-creation becomes possible. We have worshipped Death, the relentless goddess of mercy, under many different names. It was the shadow of the All-devouring that the Gheburs greeted in the fire. It is the icy purism of the sword-soul before which Shinto-Japan prostrates herself even to-day. The mystic fire consumes our weakness, the sacred sword cleaves the bondage of desire. From our ashes springs the phoenix of celestial hope, out of the freedom comes a higher realisation of manhood.

Why not destroy flowers if thereby we can evolve new forms ennobling the world idea? We only ask them to join in our sacrifice to the beautiful. We shall atone for the deed by consecrating ourselves to Purity and Simplicity.


And:
'Der nationalsozialistische Rechtsstaat', page 40, Dr. Otto Koellreutter, 1938 (emphasis added) wrote:The horrendous experience with the First World War has in our generation replaced the individualistic mindset with that of the community experience, thus creating the necessary preconditions for the coming into existence of the rule of law of the National Socialist state. It is understandable that the Liberal state of the rule of law portrayed itself, based on its intellectual attitudes, as the constitutional state and as the state of the rule of law, just as liberal democracy has been immersed in the belief that it is the only possible political form of modern statehood in the world. What we are observing here is the claim to totality in the world of liberal ideas.

This claim to totality, regarding the shaping of our national and state life raises, of course, the issue of the National Socialist worldview. National Socialism does not strive, in a sense of the long overdue liberal thinking, for a "total state" in the sense of the totality of the state power structure; rather it strives for the totality of the National Socialist worldview in all spheres of life.

Therein lies its "illiberal" attitude. And therefore resistance is being put up here at home and abroad by circles which, for their part, strive to hold on to the totality of the liberal world of ideas. The construction of the National Socialist German state governed by the rule of law is the sign that the totality of the National Socialist worldview has [already] prevailed in the German people.

And for the record, Koellreutter was one of the most important figures involved in the creation of the National Socialist state.

It's just that no one ever cites him because everyone is too busy trying to analyse Hitler's public speeches. I also noticed that people don't quote Bormann, Rosenberg or Himmler, or anyone surrounding them, despite their importance. I am pretty much the only person around here that quotes them.

It is basically a fact that National Socialism was and is opposed to Christianity and opposed to liberalism as the first priority, since the National Socialist state cannot be completed unless liberalism is displaced, and Christianity is subverted and destroyed. And since 'the west' is 'Judeo-Christendom-liberalism', it therefore follows that National Socialism was fundamentally 'anti-western' in a philosophical-religious sense.

A fact that angry Christian conservatives actually did point out. When the Christians protest that National Socialism is 'anti-Christian' and 'anti-western', they are actually correct in saying that. Hating Judeo-Christian civilisation is a large part of what Nazism is about.
Last edited by Rei Murasame on 28 Dec 2013 14:38, edited 1 time in total.
#14345995
Rei, I admire your resourcefulness and unfortunately lack the required time to adress all of your points with my own sources (most of my books on Hitler are either in german or italian, difficult to find in the internet). I just want to make a few corrections on my original point, which I fear were not articulated all that well by me.

Rei Murasame wrote:It's just that no one ever cites him because everyone is too busy trying to analyse Hitler's public speeches.


Note that the quote I took as example is part of a much larger chain of thought, a secret military planning document which was only known to Hitler's inner circle at the time, it is generally quoted as the crucial document to reveal Hitler's true intentions/ideology within german historiography (of course you are free to dispute this).

Rei Murasame wrote:For example, if anyone were to take your quotes seriously, apparently Hitler was so busy 'battling against Asiatic hordes' that he decided to ally himself with as many Asiatic people as he possibly could, to kill Americans and Jews?


I should have said bolshevik hordes instead. Later BRD chancellor Konrad Adenauer was the one who spoke of asiatic hordes.
#14345998
Andrea_Chenier wrote:I should have said bolshevik hordes instead. Later BRD chancellor Konrad Adenauer was the one who spoke of asiatic hordes.

Fair enough, that solves that one then, it makes more sense now. I'll address the Bolshevik thing:
Andrea_Chenier wrote:Note that the quote I took as example is part of a much larger chain of thought, a secret military planning document which was only known to Hitler's inner circle at the time, it is generally quoted as the crucial document to reveal Hitler's true intentions/ideology within german historiography (of course you are free to dispute this).

Okay, then I'd ask who he was talking to, and what was he trying to get them to focus on? Since the attack against the USSR had to take place, because the industrial sector wanted the resources badly, and the military believed (correctly) that the USSR was going to break the non-aggression pact and attack Axis first anyway, so they might as well prepare to pre-emptive hit them before they can pre-emptive hit them first, if that makes sense.

So in that context, I'd say it wouldn't be surprising to find that in 1936, they are talking about how the primary goal is to hit the USSR. At that time, it really would and should have been their primary goal.

However, you have to also look at the forces in play, since even if they were not fully conscious of what was going to happen 5 years later, it would inevitably emerge that what they were really doing was preparing themselves for a conflict with the United States and the British Empire. Since obviously they were not going to just sit there and watch Germany and Japan transform themselves into regional hegemons without intervening.

The Axis powers were in the middle of trying to solidify continental hegemonies and archipelagos, and that had to be completed and simultaneously necessitated (if you don't know why, ask me about Goering and the artificial rubber, and Japan in Indonesia, and I'll happily explain in my next post, since I've talked about this before and can just quote myself) an attack against USA's assets in the Pacific region.

To build up the Japanese sphere of influence required the removal of competitors from it. The United States' reaction to this was interesting because they are a large part of a continent with numerous natural resources, that they had already conquered, so when waging war, they were able to take on a cloak of pacifism because they didn't have to physically expand their own territory to do it, they were already in a satisfactory position as a continental power with a Navy. So any warfare they wage is not to conquer ground and keep it, but to elicit compliance and knock down trade barriers.

The United States wanted to expand its form of capitalism and it understood that trade barriers would not fall unless the people behind those barriers were physically attacked. They were always going to do it eventually, it was only a matter of who would make the first move. The attack on Pearl Harbour didn't surprise them, they knew that an attack was going to happen at some point at some time, somewhere, it was only a matter of whether Japan would move first, or whether the USA would move first.

Everyone was fully aware that a protracted war was not going to be possible and that what was necessary was to ramp up production, hit the United States Navy and make them move out of the Japanese sphere, and then declare an armistice as soon as that was accomplished to satisfaction. That did not play out as planned either, but that that was the thought behind it.

Why did the Axis invade places like Russia and Manchuria? Partly for ideological reasons, but these merged with hard material concerns also, because the chemicals that were used to do farming on fields, and rapid expansion of population, meant that when the economy went on a war-footing that the chemicals and polymers (and whatever) used for farming were diverted into making bombs and aircraft, and what that meant was that there had to be some compensation for this, which of course then meant expansion. Warfare and expansion went hand-in-hand, as did warfare and the formation of Axis in the first place.

One of the key disadvantages that Axis had was that it was basically trying to build hegemony while simultaneously being at war with one that had already solidified. Axis powers had a very complicated and spread out supply network and industrial layout that was continually evolving and expanding as the war progressed, whereas the USA's was already fully established and contained neatly inside the North American continent. Axis had a wide economic flank which could be attacked by just bombing almost anything, whereas the USA was extremely hard to attack in that way.

Quotes I would use to supplement this and show that is how they were thinking:
Paris Peace Conference (1919), Fumimaro Konoe wrote:The peace that the Anglo-American leaders are urging on us amounts to no more than maintaining a status-quo that suits their interests.The true nature of the present conflict is a struggle between the established powers and powers not yet established…. At an early stage, Britain and France colonized the 'less civilised' regions of the world, and monopolized their exploitation. As a result, Germany and all the late-coming nations also, were left with no land to acquire and no space to expand.


Europe and America - 2 (1926), Leon Trotsky wrote:In military art there is a saying that whoever moves into the enemy's rear in order to cut off, is often cut off himself. In economy something analogous takes place: the more the United States puts the whole world under its dependence, all the more does it become dependent upon the whole world, with all its contradictions and threatening upheavals. Already today, revolution in Europe means convulsions in Wall Street; tomorrow, when the investments of American capital in European economy have increased, it will mean a profound upheaval.


Anglo-American Rivalry and the Growth of Militarism (16th February 1926), Leon Trotsky wrote:Only the other day, Britain renounced the previously adopted plan of reinforcing Singapore. It is too bad we have no map here. Singapore and Hong Kong mark the most important high-ways of imperialism. Singapore is the key between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. It represents one of the most important bases of British policy in the Far East. But in the Pacific, Britain can conduct her policy either with Japan against America, or with America against Japan. Huge sums were appropriated for the fortification of Singapore. And MacDonald had to decide: with America against Japan or with Japan against America? And so, he renounced the fortification of Singapore.

This is not, of course, the last word of British imperialist policy. The question can come up again for a new decision. But at the given moment it is the beginning of Britain's renunciation of an independent policy – or an alliance with Japan – in the Pacific. And who ordered Britain (yes, ordered!) to break the alliance with Japan? America. A formal ultimatum was issued: break the alliance with Japan. And Britain broke. Meanwhile, Britain is conceding and retreating.

But does this mean that this is how matters will proceed to the very end, and that war between them is excluded? In no case. On the contrary, at the cost of concessions today Britain is buying only redoubled difficulties on the morrow. Under the cover of collaboration, contradictions of unprecedented explosive power are accumulating.


Nationalism and Economic Life (1934), Leon Trotsky wrote:That highest form which the Yankees gave to the law of the productivity of labour is called conveyor, standard, or mass production. It would seem that the spot from which the lever of Archimedes was to turn the world over had been found. But the old planet refuses to be turned over. Everyone defends himself against everybody else, protecting himself by a customs wall and a hedge of bayonets. Europe buys no goods, pays no debts, and in addition arms itself. With five miserable divisions starved Japan seizes a whole country. The most advanced technique in the world suddenly seems impotent before obstacles basing themselves on a much lower technique. The law of the productivity of labour seems to lose its force.

But it only seems so. The basic law of human history must inevitably take revenge on derivative and secondary phenomena. Sooner or later American capitalism must open up ways for itself throughout the length and breadth of our entire planet. By what methods? By ALL methods. A high coefficient of productivity denotes also a high coefficient of destructive force.


Speech before the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations (June 10th 1941), Benito Mussolini wrote:A specific declaration of war would not change the present situation, which is one of de facto war, if not de jure. American intervention, when employed completely, would be late, and if it were not late, would not remove the terms of the problem.


And then in the end this guy comes out:
Declaration of War Against the United States of America (December 11th 1941), Adolph Hitler wrote:I am sure that all of you have regarded it as an act of deliverance that a country [Japan] has finally acted to protest against all this in the very way that this man had actually hoped for, and which should not surprise him now [the attack on Pearl Harbour, December 7, 1941]. After years of negotiating with this deceiver, the Japanese government finally had its fill of being treated in such a humiliating way. All of us, the German people and, I believe, all other decent people around the world as well, regard this with deep appreciation.
#14346036
Rei's apologism aside, Hitler's Nazi Party was far less socialistic than it had oppurtunity to be. The faction of Nazi leadership led byHimmler that was victorious over that led by Strasser and Rohm was more esoteric and elitist than populist and materialist, and was concerned primarily with the values of Aryanism and militarism. This made it more amicable with entrenched elite interests who could help organize and fund the regime, as they had a lesser conflict with preexisting institutions relative to the Nazi left. Hitler's Germany, while having some socialistic elements pointed out by Rei, was less socialistic than it could have been had the other faction been victorious.

This doesn't mean Hitler was an ally to capitalism. His opposition, however, is ultimately more similar to that of Khomeni or bin Laden than Lenin or Mao.
Last edited by Fasces on 28 Dec 2013 22:42, edited 1 time in total.
#14346064
When Hitler referred to Asiatic Hordes he was not referring to the people of east Asia he was referring to the Russians and the people of the Soviet Union. Hitler believed Asia began at Poland.

Hitler did envision as future war with Japan once they has had triumphed over the Allied powers.

Hitler did want an alliance with the British Empire in the mid 1930s. Ribbentrop the German foreign minister failed to make a good impression with the British.

The Nazis lost much of their socialist character after Otto Strasser was expelled. This was a good move as their previous strategy of attracting the working class in urban areas was not paying dividends. They instead focused on the rural areas with more success that increased the party's status and set the stage for electoral triumphs.

The two top priorities for the Nazi Party were

1. Lebensraum, a German Empire stretching to the Urals. The Slavic population previously population these areas was to be starved or enslaved.

2. The elimination of the Jews from Europe, there was no one plan to achieve this pre 1941, they were to be deported to Madagascar at one point. Later during the invasion of the Soviet Union the mass shootings began and the death camps were founded later.

The Nazis did envision a future war with the United States. Hitler envisioned this taking place in the 1970s or so. The British and Germans were to fight together against the Americans, in this vision.

Hitler did oppose Christianity but did not want to come out against it in a very forceful way until after victory in war because of fears of enraging the German people. Previous efforts to de-Christianize Germany had to be reversed due to negative public sentiment.

Hitler was very careful not to upset the general population to a great extent.

As for the US, in their strategic planning they envisioned a mainland Europe dominated by Nazi Germany. As the war unfolded this changed as they saw that the defeat of the Japanese Empire and Nazi Germany was inevitable. The strategic planning changed to a eastern Europe dominated by the Soviet Union.

The Nazi's opposition to both Liberalism and Communism was rooted in their belief that the Jews were behind both ideologies and pulling the strings of the states that adhered to those ideologies.

The Nazi's offered a society not based on class at all, but on race and hyper nationalism.
#14346086
Andrea_Chenier wrote:That may have been the case but only as an accidental consequence of the war. Destroying the liberal-capitalist world (unfortunately) wasn't Hitler's goal at all. His main enemy was always judeo-bolshevism and he believed that it was Germany's duty to serve as bulwark for western democratic civilazation against the bolshevik hordes. His favorite Opera was Wagner's Lohengrin as he identified with its protagonist, that is a heroic figure of light.

That's my take on it too. Hitler didn't really want war with Britain, just as Wilhelm didn't. I suspect that's why Rei's opinion is so vitriolic in its antipathy to capitalism. Rei is mixed race. To Rei, it's about capitalism, not race as much. But to Hitler it was about race. Hitler saw Britain and America as Aryan too. He made no real distinction there. That's why I argue that multiculturalism and anti-racism are actually part of capitalist-imperialist ideology.

Chapter XI: Nation and Race
Adolf Hitler wrote:Historical experience offers countless proofs of this. It shows with terrifying clarity that in every mingling of Aryan blood with that of lower peoples the result was the end of the cultured people. North America, whose population consists in by far the largest part of Germanic elements who mixed but little with the lower colored peoples, shows a different humanity and culture from Central and South America, where the predominantly Latin immigrants often mixed with the aborigines on a large scale. By this one example, we can clearly and distinctly recognize the effect of racial mixture. The Germanic inhabitant of the American continent, who has remained racially pure and unmixed, rose to be master of the continent; he will remain the master as long as he does not fall a victim to defilement of the blood.

The result of all racial crossing is therefore in brief always the following:
* Lowering of the level of the higher race;
* Physical and intellectual regression and hence the beginning of a slowly but surely progressing sickness.

To bring about such a development is, then, nothing else but to sin against the will of the eternal creator.

And as a sin this act is rewarded.

When man attempts to rebel against the iron logic of Nature, he comes into struggle with the principles to which he himself owes his existence as a man. And this attack I must lead to his own doom. Here, of course, we encounter the objection of the modern pacifist, as truly Jewish in its effrontery as it is stupid! 'Man's role is to overcome Nature!'
...
It is not true, as some people think, that Japan adds European technology to its culture; no, European science and technology are trimmed with Japanese characteristics. The foundation of actual life is no longer the special Japanese culture, although it determines the color of life-because outwardly, in consequence of its inner difference, it is more conspicuous to the European-but the gigantic scientific-technical achievements of Europe and America; that is, of Aryan peoples. Only on the basis of these achievements can the Orient follow general human progress. They furnish the basis of the struggle for daily bread, create weapons and implements for it, and only the outward form is gradually adapted to Japanese character.

If beginning today all further Aryan influence on Japan should stop, assuming that Europe and America should perish, Japan's present rise in science and technology might continue for a short time; but even in a few years the well would dry up, the Japanese special character would gain, but the present culture would freeze and sink back into the slumber from which it was awakened seven decades ago by the wave of Aryan culture. Therefore, just as the present Japanese development owes its life to Aryan origin, long ago in the gray past foreign influence and foreign spirit awakened the Japanese culture of that time.

Hitler thought the European (Aryan) mind was unique, and there is quite a bit of evidence to that effect. However, to Hitler this was a self-evident truth. In fact, China had a superior culture to Europe's prior to the rise of the Roman Empire. If you've ever read "The Bell Curve," by Charles Murray and Richard Hernnstein, they highlighted some interesting things from IQ tests. For example, the Chinese score better at math than Europeans on tests; however, they also note something interesting. As IQ increases, the standard deviation among the population group declines. So Asians have the highest average IQ, but the lowest standard deviation. By contrast, Central West Africans tend to have the lowest IQs, but the highest standard deviation. Europeans, with a relatively high IQ and higher standard deviation, probably produce more genius minds per capita.

I thought Hitler's analysis of Britain versus America in Mein Kampf was spot on too: namely, that the foundational strength of Britain was in its homeland, but it's head was in London; whereas, America's foundational strength was in its heartland, so America was naturally going to be the more formidable enemy, while Britain would naturally be the more vigilant. I think it's this understanding which made Hitler more interested in European expansion and hegemony and less interested in colonialism. Hitler put it this way:
Chapter IV: Munich
Adolf Hitler wrote:Today many European states are like pyramids stood on their heads. Their European area is absurdly small in comparison to their weight of colonies, foreign trade, etc. We may say: summit in Europe, base in the whole world; contrasting with the American Union which possesses its base in its own continent and touches the rest of the earth only with its summit. And from this comes the immense inner strength of this state and the weakness of most European colonial powers.

Nor is England any proof to the contrary, since in consideration of the British Empire we too easily forget the Anglo-Saxon world as such. The position of England, if only because of her linguistic and cultural bond with the American Union, can be compared to no other state in Europe.

For Germany, consequently, the only possibility for carrying out a healthy territorial policy lay in the acquisition of new land in Europe itself. Colonies cannot serve this purpose unless they seem in large part suited for settlement by Europeans. But in the nineteenth century such colonial territories were no longer obtainable by peaceful means. Consequently, such a colonial policy could only have been carried out by means of a hard struggle which, however, would have been carried on to much better purpose, not for territories outside of Europe, but for land on the home continent itself.


Andrea_Chenier wrote:The entire war preparation aimed at fighting to the death with communism in order to decide the course of history. In the eyes of Hitler, Liberalism was merely a weakness which prevented the western world to properly fight the asiatic hordes.

Indeed. That was America's aim too. However, Hitler's war on the Jews ultimately put him at war with the banking cartels. As I see it, Hitler should have been more like Metternich or Bismarck: he never should have invaded Poland. Integrating Austria was more important in my opinion. He just went too far too fast.

Chapter XIII: German Alliance Policy after the War
Adolf Hitler wrote:From the political point of view it is not in the interests of Great Britain that Germany should be ruined even still more, but such a proceeding would be very much in the interests of the international money-markets manipulated by the Jew. The cleavage between the official, or rather traditional, British statesmanship and the controlling influence of the Jew on the money-markets is nowhere so clearly manifested as in the various attitudes taken towards problems of British foreign policy. Contrary to the interests and welfare of the British State, Jewish finance demands not only the absolute economic destruction of Germany but its complete political enslavement. The internationalization of our German economic system, that is to say, the transference of our productive forces to the control of Jewish international finance, can be completely carried out only in a State that has been politically Bolshevized. But the Marxist fighting forces, commanded by international and Jewish stock-exchange capital, cannot finally smash the national resistance in Germany without friendly help from outside. For this purpose French armies would first have to invade and overcome the territory of the German Reich until a state of international chaos would set in, and then the country would have to succumb to Bolshevik storm troops in the service of Jewish international finance.

Hence it is that at the present time the Jew is the great agitator for the complete destruction of Germany. Whenever we read of attacks against Germany taking place in any part of the world the Jew is always the instigator. In peace-time, as well as during the War, the Jewish-Marxist stock-exchange Press systematically stirred up hatred against Germany, until one State after another abandoned its neutrality and placed itself at the service of the world coalition, even against the real interests of its own people.

The Jewish way of reasoning thus becomes quite clear. The Bolshevization of Germany, that is to say, the extermination of the patriotic and national German intellectuals, thus making it possible to force German Labour to bear the yoke of international Jewish finance – that is only the overture to the movement for expanding Jewish power on a wider scale and finally subjugating the world to its rule. As has so often happened in history, Germany is the chief pivot of this formidable struggle. If our people and our State should fall victims to these oppressors of the nations, lusting after blood and money, the whole earth would become the prey of that hydra. Should Germany be freed from its grip, a great menace for the nations of the world would thereby be eliminated.

Hitler also saw international finance as inherently Jewish in character. See what I mean from the quote above? A "Jewish-Marxist stock-exchange Press" seems like a contradiction in terms, or the idea that international finance is inherently Jewish in nature and Jewishness is inherently Bolshevik. Rei argues that Churchill was stupid in so far as not seeing America as a threat, but what about Hitler? He apparently saw that the bankers had influence on British and US foreign policy, but not what it would yield in terms of war financing, or he would never have attacked Poland so early on.

Rei Murasame wrote:Adolf Hitler had to live with the reality of the situation at hand, and no pep talks to his base could undo the fact that he was compelled to turn against 'western civilisation', a 'western civilisation' based on Judeo-Christendom, which he had to struggle against. This was so obvious that various people who were working with him, started to point it out.

Well, that's true. However, that doesn't change the fact that Hitler was a racist, and he did not see Asians as Aryan. Christianity, is after all, Jewish. So it doesn't strike me as odd that Hitler would be anti-Christian. In debating with left wing liberals, I have had to come to a similar conclusion as your Ernst von Wolzogen quote--that very obviously, we are not equal. So at the end of the day, Hitler would likely have to have opposed to equality before the law too. I was actually kind of struck that the American feminist, Camille Paglia, is starting to sound a bit like Pat Buchannan in her critique of the modern left. Camille Paglia: A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues.

She starts by pointing to the diminished status of military service. "The entire elite class now, in finance, in politics and so on, none of them have military service—hardly anyone, there are a few. But there is no prestige attached to it anymore. That is a recipe for disaster," she says. "These people don't think in military ways, so there's this illusion out there that people are basically nice, people are basically kind, if we're just nice and benevolent to everyone they'll be nice too. They literally don't have any sense of evil or criminality."


Rei Murasame wrote:It is basically a fact that National Socialism was and is opposed to Christianity and opposed to liberalism as the first priority, since the National Socialist state cannot be completed unless liberalism is displaced, and Christianity is subverted and destroyed. And since 'the west' is 'Judeo-Christendom-liberalism', it therefore follows that National Socialism was fundamentally 'anti-western' in a philosophical-religious sense.

Yes, Nazism would have to eradicate Christianity, because equality and compassion were diametrically opposed to Nazi ideology. However, some of what he adopted was also Western. Eugenics was born in America, not Nazi Germany. Social Darwinism was born in England, not Nazi Germany. The strange paradox of WWII is that America and Britain ended up rejecting their own racist past in their condemnation of Germany. If you ever watch Apocalypse Now Redux, even a depiction of the 1960s French holdouts in Vietnam were saying similar things about building something from nothing.

Rei Murasame wrote:Okay, then I'd ask who he was talking to, and what was he trying to get them to focus on? Since the attack against the USSR had to take place, because the industrial sector wanted the resources badly, and the military believed (correctly) that the USSR was going to break the non-aggression pact and attack Axis first anyway, so they might as well prepare to pre-emptive hit them before they can pre-emptive hit them first, if that makes sense.

Perhaps in a non-military context, but do the tactics further the strategy? Hitler basically made the same mistake as Enver Pasha in WWI and Napolean in 1812. Fighting the Russians in the winter is folly. For example, America's 10th Mountain Division is the only force that's really equipped to fight like that. The rest of our divisions would be handed their heads in Russia. There's no way we could have done it at the height of the Cold War, which is why our strategy vis a vis Russia/Soviet Union was containment.

Rei Murasame wrote:To build up the Japanese sphere of influence required the removal of competitors from it. The United States' reaction to this was interesting because they are a large part of a continent with numerous natural resources, that they had already conquered, so when waging war, they were able to take on a cloak of pacifism because they didn't have to physically expand their own territory to do it, they were already in a satisfactory position as a continental power with a Navy. So any warfare they wage is not to conquer ground and keep it, but to elicit compliance and knock down trade barriers.

It took us 70 years to defeat the Soviet Union. We learned that you do not invade Russia from at least Hitler, Enver Pasha and Napolean. It's not the Russian Army that kills you. It's the weather. Hitler's annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia was enough for a time. Attacking Poland was a huge mistake. He needed to rethink Germany as a larger power, and didn't. America did rethink. It's Pacific Fleet in San Diego or Hawaii with major military installations in the San Francisco area illustrated that might. That conquest wasn't just the continent, but the Panama Canal.

Rei Murasame wrote:One of the key disadvantages that Axis had was that it was basically trying to build hegemony while simultaneously being at war with one that had already solidified. Axis powers had a very complicated and spread out supply network and industrial layout that was continually evolving and expanding as the war progressed, whereas the USA's was already fully established and contained neatly inside the North American continent. Axis had a wide economic flank which could be attacked by just bombing almost anything, whereas the USA was extremely hard to attack in that way.

As I quoted from Mein Kampf, Hitler already knew this. So why not take a more moderate approach? He had already annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia. Why not then use trade and soft power? Danzig was also a German city, as was Konigsberg. The Germans could have been yammering on about Copernicus and wooing Silesia, eventually just taking a bite off of Poland in the same manner, possibly without triggering a two front war with Britain and France.

EvilDeadII wrote:When Hitler referred to Asiatic Hordes he was not referring to the people of east Asia he was referring to the Russians and the people of the Soviet Union. Hitler believed Asia began at Poland.

As the British believed wogs begin at Calais? Hitler didn't have the kindest of words for East Asia either, but he needed allies. Japan was a natural ally as a result of their long-standing fued with the Russians/Soviet Union.

EvilDeadII wrote:The two top priorities for the Nazi Party were

1. Lebensraum, a German Empire stretching to the Urals. The Slavic population previously population these areas was to be starved or enslaved.

2. The elimination of the Jews from Europe, there was no one plan to achieve this pre 1941, they were to be deported to Madagascar at one point. Later during the invasion of the Soviet Union the mass shootings began and the death camps were founded later.

Well lebensraum was something that the Germans were talking about before WWI too, and the elimination of Jews, Magyars and Turks was an objective as well. That's the interesting thing about the propaganda against Hitler and the Nazis--the German state was more or less tied to this vision well before the Nazis even existed.

The Nazi's opposition to both Liberalism and Communism was rooted in their belief that the Jews were behind both ideologies and pulling the strings of the states that adhered to those ideologies.

The Nazi's offered a society not based on class at all, but on race and hyper nationalism.

I agree essentially with that analysis; and the thing is that the British and Americans had factions in the progressive Eugenics movement who also agreed with that general sentiment. Even Eugenic abortion was promoted to kill off Jews, Blacks and others. Yet, it's promoted as some sort of reproductive right these days, even though its roots are in Eugenics.
#14346100
blackjack21 wrote:Hitler didn't really want war with Britain, just as Wilhelm didn't.

Yet it inevitably was going to happen, despite Hitler's feely-feelings. Most people seem to have a sort of irrational desire to cling to every throwaway comment or musing by Hitler, as though it means anything. Hitler wished for a world in which the British Empire would be on his side. He did not get that world, because so long as Britain's ruling class were big financier capitalists, they were going to laugh him to scorn and join their colleagues in New York City and Washington DC. Because that's where their trajectory was headed to.

If it sounds strange that I would make that criticism, it's because there is more to Axis decision-making than Hitler, and Hitler was no infallible. Sometimes his contribution to the decision-making process was actually negative and caused bad results.

The only real way to avert war with the British Empire, would have been if a domestic petite-bourgeoisie movement (read: Fascism in Britain) had completely taken over the British government. That did not happen because the March on Cable Street failed, because Oswald Mosley unfortunately failed to capture the hearts and minds of the British people, and because the British government put Oswald Mosley in jail along with his entire party.

After that happened, Hitler should have realised that Britain was going to be his enemy and that there literally nothing he could do other than to wait for the war to be inevitably declared. But since Hitler was a sentimental man - most men are like that it seems - he couldn't just say, "oh fuck it, and fuck them, prepare to fight", instead he had to waste time imagining about things that obviously were no longer possible on the eve of war.

I would even speculate that the mistake at Dunkirk - and by 'mistake' I mean the mistake where the Germans allowed the British Expeditionary Force to get out alive - was not just because of the map falsely showing the incorrect terrain for the tanks in front of them. The map showed a marsh, but anyone could've just gone forward to scout the area and see that the ground was in fact dry as a bone and firm for driving German tanks on, if they really wanted to drive forward. Rather, the other factor in the mistake was that Hitler showed mercy to his mortal enemies. Every British soldier ought to have been captured or shot that day, but because there was a little bit of mercy in Hitler's heart in the middle of a war, they escaped, the entire heart and brain of the British Army's leadership escaped with them, and many many people in Axis died at the hands of the Allies later because he showed mercy to those British enemies at Dunkirk.

German and Japanese children burned to death in their homes because Hitler maintained affectionate feelings for his opponents even after hostilities had commenced. It would have been very nice if someone had pointed this problem out to him so he would stop exhibiting that behaviour, but I assume no one noticed this error until it was manifesting as an incoherent and confusing order at Dunkirk.

It could almost be a sort of Shinto or Zen parable about what happens when you start showing mercy to people who have made themselves into the enemy.

blackjack21 wrote:I suspect that's why Rei's opinion is so vitriolic in its antipathy to capitalism. Rei is mixed race. To Rei, it's about capitalism, not race as much. But to Hitler it was about race.

I'm Anglo-Japanese, but to me it is equally about race and about capitalism. I just don't wear the race element on my sleeve in a vulgar fashion, because the race element is the really easy part. It is very easy for me to talk about racial tensions, but it takes more effort to do criticism of capitalism so I focus on that more.

blackjack21 wrote:Hitler saw Britain and America as Aryan too. He made no real distinction there.

Hitler opportunistically changed the definition of the 'Aryan' umbrella multiple times. Its definition seemed to gradually expand to embrace most of the European landmass.

Regarding Britain, the sentiment he had was irrational, seeing as it didn't align with what was actually happening to him, and he'd have been better off just accepting that not all 'Aryans' were going to support his plans. Much like how Japan accepted that not all 'Asians' were going to support the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Regarding America, it was actually Hitler who claimed that America's heart was actually "Jewish" and "Negro". I have no idea what he meant by that, but it was probably that he actually hated it so much that he didn't even want to admit that America was a monstrosity created by Anglo-Saxons at the start.

blackjack21 wrote:As IQ increases, the standard deviation among the population group declines. So Asians have the highest average IQ, but the lowest standard deviation.

Yep, I've talked about all that a lot before.

Regarding Hitler's waffling about Japanese innovation - or lack thereof - he would be proven wrong to his face on that, during the war itself. His wrongness would be demonstrated by the fact that Japanese aerospace engineers eventually overtook their German counterparts. It should've only been expected that this could happen, but for some reason Hitler didn't expect it.

blackjack21 wrote:However, Hitler's war on the Jews ultimately put him at war with the banking cartels. As I see it, Hitler should have been more like Metternich or Bismarck: he never should have invaded Poland.

Then he would've just lost everything automatically. Metternich ultimately was revealed to have been a complete waste of everyone's time, and Bismark as well.

blackjack21 wrote:A "Jewish-Marxist stock-exchange Press" seems like a contradiction in terms, or the idea that international finance is inherently Jewish in nature and Jewishness is inherently Bolshevik.

Those are indeed contradictions in terms. It's okay to point out when Hitler is actually being incoherent. Another instance where I will point out incoherence in Hitler's writing is where he describes the liberals as 'strong' at one moment, and then a paragraph later they are also 'weak'. Will he make up his mind?

It's said that the Germans and Japanese had a few clashes over these issues, because his Japanese counterparts had very little patience for this sort of thing, a lack of patience that I probably inherited from the fact that I approach this from an Asian direction in the first place.

Adolf Hitler sees America as a wayward child that has been seized by Jews and black people. Hideki Tojo sees America as Anglo-Saxon schemers deliberately in league with Anglo-Saxon and Jewish financiers who run the country. Tojo is correct.

blackjack21 wrote:Rei argues that Churchill was stupid in so far as not seeing America as a threat, but what about Hitler? He apparently saw that the bankers had influence on British and US foreign policy, but not what it would yield in terms of war financing, or he would never have attacked Poland so early on.

Well, if he had waited until later, then Britain would have been even more ready for him, and the USSR would have actually been able to finish re-organising their army in time to meet him.

A lot of people don't know that Britain was preparing to fight Germany even while Chamberlain was still Prime Minister. And that Joseph Stalin was planning to pre-emptively attack Germany as well. He was pre-empted by Germany because the Nazis acted first.

The mistake they made was that the pre-empted too late. The pre-empting should have happened in the spring prior to when it actually happened. However, some logistical or manufacturing problems caused them to delay they attack, and this meant that winter caught up with them.

blackjack21 wrote:Well, that's true. However, that doesn't change the fact that Hitler was a racist, and he did not see Asians as Aryan.

I never claimed he wasn't.

blackjack21 wrote:So at the end of the day, Hitler would likely have to have opposed to equality before the law too.

The only Axis country to test that framework was Japan, which allowed female advisers to assist in crafting various state policies. For example, the plan for equal recognition of matrilineality and patrilineality in children, was an idea that was tabled in Fascist Japan (this was not enacted before the war's end and would re-appear later), and the most obvious one of all was the 'wage differential of zero' (achieved during the war), which was what you would now call 'equal work for equal pay'.

Japan was, as far as I know, the only country in the conflict that paid women the same amount for a day's work as it paid men.

blackjack21 wrote:Yes, Nazism would have to eradicate Christianity, because equality and compassion were diametrically opposed to Nazi ideology.

Yes, among other reasons.

blackjack21 wrote:However, some of what he adopted was also Western. Eugenics was born in America, not Nazi Germany.

Yet America by historical necessity had to turn against eugenics.

blackjack21 wrote:Social Darwinism was born in England, not Nazi Germany.

Yet Britain also turned against that.

blackjack21 wrote:Attacking Poland was a huge mistake.

As I said before, attacking Poland too late, was the mistake.

Had Germany not attacked Poland, it would have simply been steamrolled by the USSR later, because the USSR was already going to attack Germany anyway, they were simply arranging their army for that eventuality.
#14346108
Fasces wrote:Rei's apologism aside, Hitler's Nazi Party was far less socialistic than it had oppurtunity to be. The faction of Nazi leadership led byHimmler that was victorious over that led by Strasser and Rohm was more esoteric and elitist, than populist and materialist, and was concerned primarily with the values of Aryanism and militarism. This made it more amicable with entrenched elite interests who could help organize and fund the regime, as they had a lesser conflict with preexisting institutions relative to the Nazi left. Hitler's Germany, while having some socialistic elements pointed out by Rei, was less socialistic than it could have been had the other faction been victorious.

This doesn't mean Hitler was an ally to capitalism. His opposition, however, is ultimately more similar to that of Khomeni or bin Laden than Lenin or Mao.

I agree with this and would add that, if anything, Nazi Germany was pragmatic in economic matters rather than ideologically driven. And this usually leads to a somewhat competent management of the economy and prevents disastrous events like "the great leap forward". That is, they used any economic policy that they thought would work and did not restrict themselves by considering who owned the means of production (i.e. the capitalists) or who was lending them money (i.e. international finance). Their pragmatism in many matters is probably key to understanding how they managed to gain support from almost all areas of society: industry and capitalist, farmers, workers, etc.

There is some debate whether the economy in the years before the war was a war-economy in peacetime and during the first years of the war was a peace-economy in wartime. But regardless of what we call it, a lot of their policies could have (and probably would have) been implemented without considerations to the war which the Nazis were unquestionably planning. The military had little input on how and where the Autobahn was built, for instance. The housing program, work schemes, tax incentives, and monetary policy were also not necessarily guided by war plans and could have been implemented had the Nazis been peace-loving hippies.

It also needs to be understood that most of their policies weren't novel. Many had been planned and even tried before the Nazis came to power, but failed or couldn't be successfully implemented due to opposition of certain domestic interest groups or restrictions due to the WWI reparations. So a key accomplishment of the Nazis was that they managed to get support from all quarters so that they could implement policies where previous governments had repeatedly failed.
#14346161
Most people agree that the infamous halt order was not given to go soft on the British, Hitler wanted them destroyed and expected them to be destroyed. The British Themselves were quite negative about their chances of getting significant forces evacuated. The Terrain was really bad for Tanks, the German Armor units did need to regroup. While with hindsight it can be argued the best chance to destroy the British was immediate attack with all forces is was far from being seen so at the time by everybody. Hitler statements later in the war can be ignored, the waffling humbug Hitler regularly trotted out often borne no relation to facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... Halt_order

"Few historians now accept the view that Hitler's behaviour was influenced by the desire to let the British off lightly in hope that they would then accept a compromise peace. True, in his political testament dated 26 February 1945 Hitler lamented that Churchill was "quite unable to appreciate the sporting spirit" in which he had refrained from annihilating [the British Expeditionary Force, or BEF] at Dunkirk, but this hardly squares with the contemporary record. Directive No. 13, issued by the Supreme Headquarters on 24 May called specifically for the annihilation of the French, English and Belgian forces in the pocket, while the Luftwaffe was ordered to prevent the escape of the English forces across the channel."
#14346170
Really this obsessive focus on Dunkirk is ridiculous. Britain actually re-landed large numbers of troops in France. Most of which successfully got away a second time. Hitler's big mistake in 1940 was underestimating the strength of the Soviet Union. In a way he was unlucky in this as most observers in the West expected the Soviet Union to collapse in the Barborossa campaign. Given Hitler's (far from unique) assumption that all he had to do was kick in the door, his strategy of attacking the Soviet Union was quite reasonable. Defeating the Soviet union would give him access to oil and other raw materials he desperately needed. Britain would have to sue for peace.

Recognising the true strength of the Soviet Union and under Trotsky Soviet capabilities would have undoubtedly been far superior, would have undermined Hitler's whole world view.

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