Hitler was a Socialist. Orwell was a Communist and I don't know shit about history.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

I finally got the treatment. I got the conservaturd co-worker treatment. Please allow me to rant because I am on edge right now. I am pissed off. So the language will be caustic.

I am getting my PhD in China in Chinese History. My first Master's Degree was in Ed. Leadership. My second was in adolescent psychology. I double majored in history and poli sci, and double minored in Philosophy and Geography as an undergraduate. This is my educational background as a history teacher at an international school in China. MY department chair (the other history teacher) has a PhD in Medieval History, a JD from Uni. of Arkansas, an MA in history and a BA in history from Cambridge. Both of us are on the same page educationally and politically.

The chemistry teacher and biology teacher (both vehement liberals) and I are discussing Nazi Germany at lunch. In comes one of the English teachers (for the sake of argument, let's call him DB as in douchebag). So, DB comes in and asks to sit. We oblige and people continue the discussion. After a minute, he pops up that: "You know, Hitler as a socialist!"

Oh no. . .not this shit again. I've heard this meme for years.

Anyway, I tell him no, one of Hitler's aims was to destroy communism and Hitler's political association of Fascism makes socialism impossible. He goes into "they had socialized medicine." I tell him socialized medicine doesn't make someone a socialist. Then he goes into how socialists and communists are the same (they aren't), how his home of Canada is a communistic state (it isn't) and how George Orwell supported communism. I tell him that Animal Farm was the 1917 Russian revolution, that Napoleon was Stalin, the horse was the worker, the pig that was killed was Trotsky and the dogs were the KGB. He tells me George Orwell was a communist. I tell him 1984 was an attack on communism (and all totality in politics actually), then leave and go teach my students that the Road to World War 2 (the lesson was on Czechoslovakia).

After I leave, the discussion continues. The chemistry teacher (one of my best friends) comes up and says that after I left, the English teacher kept on about things, stating "It's a fact that Orwell was a communist, Hitler was a socialist and (me) doesn't know shit." CHALLENGE!!!

I start going through my archives and my documents. Then, the English teacher continues by coming to my desk and telling me that Mussolini and Hitler weren't buddy/buddy. I tell him who told him that? HE said he read it. I ask for the book. (Keep in mind, I just taught four days earlier, a lesson on the Spanish Civil War and Ethiopia).

After that, he sends me an email about a book by Goet Aly about the German welfare state in Nazi Germany and that this book proves it exists. Five seconds on wikipedia to look up who the author is and I come up with this as a response.

The "welfare state" you talk of was not a true welfare state. Welfare States and their redistribution of wealth ideas come from taxation. That's NOT what happened. The Nazi "Welfare State" moved the poor and allowed them social upward mobility, but the ability to do that was taken from the Jews and the "sub-humans" that were not fit to live. Fascism was still the political theory with Capitalism as the economic philosophy. Socialism only applies to the redistribution of wealth taken from "parasites" and given to Germans. Taxes paid for NONE of it.

Again, Nazi Germany was NOT a welfare state, nor was it socialist. The Socialism is a brand name, unless socialism means confiscating from people, denying them their rights to life then exterminating them. Then you're correct.

Okay. . .point proven. He then replies into this long, talking point missive that is some of the most insane shit in the world. Feminists beat him up, he lost in court because the judge was feminist, Socialists in Canada got him fired because he wanted private insurance, Hitler was a socialist because of the name of the party (now a new line of attack) and that he doesn't trust the news, even Fox News, because it's too liberal for him. He claims everything in statist. At the end, he claims that Hitler loved socialism and brings up Ernst Rohm, leader of the SA. Rohm "criticized Hitler for not being socialist and Hitler had him killed, which proves Hitler was socialist.

An email response to everything he said came next, complete with copies of primary sources, digital copies of primary cartoons and this email, refuting everything he said:

Please look at the photos from my lessons (that (my department chair) has used for years that I teach and have added to as well).

1: Yes, Germany had socialized, universal coverage under the Nazis. It was started in 1871 by that great Nazi thinker Otto Von Bismarck, a full 18 years before Hitler was born in Austria and a full 49 years before the NSDAP was established.

2: I don't care about Canada or the Canadian experience. When it's in the lower 48 and Hawai'i and Alaska, I'll be concerned.

Your assertions are not valid. This email is mostly primary sources from the era, as well as the work in lessons (my department chair) and I worked together with our resources, to make.

Please explain to (my department chair) why he is wrong in stating that the Nazis were not Socialists. Please trying to revise history. And please do not teach this in your classes, as this is detrimental to (my department chair) and my teaching of OUR subject.

That last part is added because he is actively trying to refute everything I say in my HISTORY CLASS in his ENGLISH CLASS. I hope my department chair and this clown talk. It will be entertaining, because as my department chair states, "I am 57 years old. I have no tolerance for idiots anymore. If you are and idiot, go away." When I told him what the English teacher was doing, he just muttered, with pure venom under his breath, "he needs to stay out of my fucking classroom."

No response to my email yet. And I don't want one. What a psycho. BTW, my admin knows and is documenting.

[Katashi_itto]

1. Bully for you! and no, there is no reason to suffer fools

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Let me get this straight

He us teaching in China, a known communist state? Irony much? I get it why your blood pressure went through the roof. All this crap, by the way, has it's origin on a single "political scientist" in the UK. Guy has zero respect among colleagues, but that is where it came from, and has been poison ever since. If you need to guess, this guy is making real estate in RW land.

Next he will be quoting from World's Defeat. If you have not heard about this book, pretty obscure 1947 book written by a Spaniard to defend Hitler and deny the holocaust. It was funded by the Spanish Fascist government. If he does, let me know, I actually got a copy. And yes, it is crap. But knowing is half the battle. And dad bought it, first edition and all, shaking his head since he lived through it.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

5. I know bunk history. I have a Japanese paper denying the Rape of Nanking.

236 pages of horse shit.

[Enrique]

3. he's very wrong, but...

but your colleagues' political debate seems to be getting out of control.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

4. I ended it. He took it to another level when he said I didn't know shit about my subject

The guy is certifiable. . .oh, did I mention he bad mouths the Chinese government and the Communist Party in class to the children of party members and government officials?

And he's been here in this Communist country for sixteen years.

[Enrique]

7. yeah the part about getting beat up by feminists

made me think mental issues.

[TexasTowelie]

6. Yes, your colleague is a douchebag.

What is scary though is that at the end of the second paragraph in bold you wrote, "unless socialism means confiscating from people, denying them their rights to life then exterminating them." This particular brand of douchebag actually believes that is the definition of socialism.

[Beearewhyain]

8. It sound like you are another victim of

the Dunning–Kruger effect. Unfortunately we are all victims of it. I am sure you have strong opinions on macrame much like I do. We should tell all the macrame-ers how wrong they are.

[marble falls]

9. Speak for yourself.

[Beearewhyain]

11. Rereading my post

I may have done a poor job of expressing. What I meant was that there are others who do not recognize competence; it was not an accusation directed at the OP and if it was interpreted as such, I apologize. I think all of us have been victims of someone that thought they knew what we might know intimately. That is all I was trying to say.

Once again, my apologies if it was interpreted that way.

[Hugin]

10. Since he's an English teacher, I'd suggest he needs to read more Vonnegut...

Particularly, "Slaughterhouse Five", and leave it at that.

This is one of those cases where giving him more source is like giving medicine to a dead person, it does him no good and it's a waste of good medicine.

[DetlefK]

12. Why do those people never read german sources when talking about Nazi Germany?

The case of Ernst Röhm, for example, can easily be solved:
He was the head of the SA and wanted the SA to take control of the Wehrmacht. Hitler felt that placing a bunch of know-nothing thugs in strategic command of his future army would be a bad idea. So he had him killed.

[JHB]

13. A faction of the Nazis were, in fact, what might be called "socilaist...

...for good honest Germans (and the stick for anyone else)".

That's the faction that Hitler purged during the Night of the Long Knives.

[NobodyHere]

14. George Orwell was a Democratic Socialist

Animal Farm was more anti-authoritarianism than against communism.

Orwell wrote it because he was sick of Stalin being portrayed as a hero during WWII while the Soviets were fighting Germany.

[MattSh]

15. I guess it depends what part of the world you live in...

What I've heard in Kiev lately is that Hitler and Stalin were both Fascists.

BTW, is this an actual degreed English teacher or one of those TOEFL teachers? I've been finding that the TOEFL teachers have a stronger leaning toward political BS and being an ass about it in front of others.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

16. Supposedly he is a linguist with a BA. . .and this is an international school.

[jtuck004]

17. What a great opportunity to teach kids, and others, that not everyone can be trusted. Even teachers.

Maybe even especially teachers.

They get to learn they have make up their own mind, and even if they decide to ignore facts and make things up, they can still get a job wherein they can deliver deliberate distortions and pseudo-facts, and still get paid for it, with little downside except no respect from people who assume that just because they have facts they are right.

I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.

The kids get to learn that people can get into leadership positions, even President of the United States, and still be able to bring great harm to people while telling them he (or she) is on their side, and, anyway, must be right because they got elected.

Seems like a good lesson for kids. I know adults who haven't figure this out yet.

[Ken Burch]

18. UH..."feminists beat him up"?

Good Lord.

If "Manhood 101" posters start popping up on campus, you know who'll be responsible.