"Hitler was a Lefty"

[StClone]

Have you run into this argument from Right-wingers in defending Bush?

I can not believe how these guys deceive themselves to protect their views. I have always thought of Hitler using propaganda to appear to be for the working man and such but his actual deeds were all in the end Fascist and tending toward Right-wing ideology.

I welcome some Historians input in this query or any body with a sense of the nuances in the argument.

The link below does a good job of bunking the points.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitler.htm

[BlueEyedSon]

1. The Bushies are beyond left & right

and compared to them, maybe Hitler was a lefty......

[expatriot]

2. yeah, along with Jesus was a conservative n/t

[JohnKleeb]

3. Ive run in to that arguement before yes

Very easy to debunk. Here's what i recommend y'all, say well I thought you all thought we was commies, Hitler hated the communists like he did the Jews, after the war people like Otto Skorzney helped with international right wing parties and regimes like Juan Peron in Argentina and others, Hitler's ally Benito Mussolini was a fascist and fascists are right wingers.

[demnan]

4. I don't think his economic policies are even relevant

for a discussion on U.S. economy. But he threw his country into endless wars for conquest - who does that remind you of?

[IconoclastIlene]

6. But Bush isn't smart enuf to write a book; even if confined to jail

and for that I am really embarrassed by this man, Mr. Bush.

[jonnyblitz]

5. yup i have heard or read this from them.

they zero in on the SOCIALIST part of National Socialists.

[JohnKleeb]

9. yep jonny yep

Its funny as hell because a lot of party names are like, I read that theres a party in Russia called the liberal democrats, well I hear they are conservative czarists.

[leftynyc]

19. Using that ridiculous logic would make

The Iraqi Republican Guard Republicans.

[Cat Atomic]

22. Yeah. I just tell them that by their logic, China is a Republic.

As was the Soviet Union. And Vietnam. It's a silly argument.

[LSK]

28. thats a good one!

Its something their simple minds can comprehend.

[coalition_unwilling]

7. No point in even responding to such claims

Hitler equated Judaism with Communism in order to attack both. By what standard would that make Hitler a "lefty"? The claim is so ludicrous that you'll better spend your time arguing that Bush and Hitler employ similar tactics and strategies, a far more plausible argument.

[JHB]

8. "But it was the 'National SOCIALIST party...!'"

If they could see through false advertising, they wouldn't be right-wingers in the first place.

[Wapsie B]

15. That's the crux of their argument.

They see the word socialist and automatically smear the American Left, trying to show this is what the natural extention of Liberalism is.

What I'd love to know is what's the natural extension of conservatism?

[TahitiNut]

18. .. and it's the "People's REPUBLIC of China"

... and the "Union of Soviet Socialist REPUBLICS".

Today's Republican Party is overtly fascist, dividing the people by pandering to their hatreds and bigotry (antisemitism) while benefiting the "ownership class" of Krups et. al. The well-documented association of the Bush Family with fascism is not accidental or anomalous.

[K-W]

20. He hijacked a leftist party, he wasnt a leftist, end of story really.

They want people to think that the only threats to democracy come from the left, its pitiful.

[tom_paine]

10. I know there are many quote where Hitler DECLARES HIMSELF a fascist

Of course, that Liberal Lefty was lying, wasn;t he?

:silly: :crazy:

Yes, the funny thing is that the Orwellain Revisionist History and the ability to ignore the man's own words (and Mussolini's, too) is ITSELF a symptom of Totalitarian Manipulation and Mania.

What else would a perosn who can fly in the face of history to believe that Lie, also believe.

perhaps:

War is Peace
Slavery is Freedom
Ignorance is Strength

Seems more and more like the motto of Imperial Amerika.

[poliguru]

11. Hitler was a fascist

Everyone knows that. So remind them of that, and then tell them that by definition, a fascist is to the right of the political spectrum. If they don't believe you, refer them to any political science textbook or this website: http://www.politicalcompass.org/ (go to the analysis page)

[bobthedrummer]

12. Fuck no, his biggest political enemies were communists and the left

just as his racial hatred for Jews drove him to The Final Solution.

To Hitler social=volk-it was racial to the core using the living organism model.
:argh:

[Fenris]

13. Absolutely nonsensical argument.

Fascism is a right-wing phenomenon. Most arguments for the theory that Hitler was on the left side of the political spectrum hinge on the name of the party: "National Socialist German Worker's Party. However, anyone with any education on the subject will tell you that the Nazi government was anything but socialist. It was basically a government controlled by a dictator with backing from the major German industrialists and landholders. Nothing socialist about it. Further, a left-leaning government would have never destroyed the country's national labor unions after the Tag der Arbeit dog-and-pony show.

An actual liberal government would have also never: crushed all dissent and outlawed free speech; imprison political opponents; imprison and murder those they felt were biologically inferior; invade countries without provocation; suspended just about every civil liberty imaginable; and commit wanton atrocities without consideration.

The argument is garbage and unsupported by the mountain of evidence the Nazis left in their paths.

[Cicero]

31. Have to take a bit of an issue here...

An actual liberal government would have also never: crushed all dissent and outlawed free speech; imprison political opponents; imprison and murder those they felt were biologically inferior; invade countries without provocation; suspended just about every civil liberty imaginable; and commit wanton atrocities without consideration.

With the possible exception of your third item, this exactly describes most every major communist dictatorship of the last century.

Whether you are coming from the left (communism) or the right (fascism), the further you travel down the totalitarian path the less real difference you have between the two. (I see Nazism as just an even more extreme version of fascism, principally because of the racial aspect.)

IIRC, Stalin had no great love for the Jews, either, so possibly even your third point can also apply to leftist totalitarian governments.

Later,

[bryant69]

14. Yes I have run into it

A number of times. Usually the argument is something along the lines of they were the National Socialist . . . see the word socialist is right there in the title.

Did my own bit to debunk it back in the day, although my review is a bit shorter than this --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com/archives/2003_04_06_politicalcomment_archive.html#200132088

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[joefree1]

16. Up is down, black is white, left is right

Just more of the bizzaro world double speak by the extreme right. The right wing wackos (I call biege shirts) know they are walking a fine line between extreme conservatism and fascism.

[secretshopper]

17. What Morons

National Socialism was socialist in the sense of a large bureaucracy that oversaw all aspects of life, true enough. It was Nationalist, in that the mechanism of government was grounded in the notion of the Fatherland. At its heart, it was Fascist, with individuals subjugated by the collective.

The groups that brought Hitler to power in 1932 and 1933 included wealthy industrialists, pathologically anti-union. They blamed the loss in WW I on unions, targeted them with names, violence, propoganda, and so on. Many people forget that the death camps (specifically Dachau) first held labor leaders, intellectuals, communists, academics, and other opponents of the Nazi agenda. The xenophobia against Jews, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, gypsies, and others came later.

Now, for similarities: Only superficially can you say the current left movement has anything similar. OK, we want Universal Healthcare, Germany had that. Well, OK, in Germany they looked after the health of the nation, not the person, and they called it National Socialism. (cf. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/351/5/417) But the unholy marriage of government and industry over the people is a clear link between the National Socialists and the current administration.

We have gone beyond the days of "What's good for General Motors is good for America" into "Halliburton IS America." Again, the individual is subjected to the collective.

Left leaning folks exalt the individual over the state and over industry; just look at the outrage over the Patriot Act, over no-bid contracts, over governmental lies and power concentration. That is the fundamental difference, labels notwithstanding.

But that's just me...

Secret Shopper

[Cleita]

21. Socialist in name only.

He pandered to the working class by paying lip service to some social ideals. The Nazis were a very small group that did have some social principles. When they asked him to be their spokesman, because of his oratorical skills, he grabbed at the opportunity to realize his ambitions. Of course, once you inject a cancer it's hard to get rid of.

He succeeded over the next decade in bringing together any malcontents into the party that he could drum up, thereby squeezing out the real socialists and transforming it into the fascist party machine that would eventually put him in power. See, he was a lying POS from the very beginning. Now if you say that he lied about being a socialist, you have Bush and Companies mantra of being "compassionate conservatives".

[TexasSissy]

23. No, Hitler was a Bushie. Authoritarian. Warmonger. Egocentric.

His way or the highway. Total support and loyalty, or else.

Definitely a Bushie.

[bloom]

24. Several years ago - maybe early 90's

I wrote up a paper about it in response to someone saying Hitler was a lefty.

I based my argument mainly on footnotes I found in Mein Kampf such as:

"The Deutschvolkische Partei was founded in 1914 by a union of various anti-Semitic groups. After the revolution of November, 1918, it dissolved into the Deutschnational Volkspartei (German National People's Party) which was the strongest party of the extreme Right under the Weimar Republic, until overshadowed by the National Socialists. At the same time a Deutschvolkischer Bund was founded, which in 1922 assumed the name of Deutschvolkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund and was suppressed after the murder of Rathenau. A Deutschvolkische Freiheitspartei was also founded in 1922, but soon merged with the Nazis. Finally, there was a Deutschvolkische Freiheitsbewegung under the leadership of Ludendorff, which broke away from the Nazis in 1925.

Hitler's attacks are directed against all his Rightist competitors, those belonging to rival movements nad those struggling with leadership within his own movement."

[blm]

25. Hitler was a corporatist/fascist who manipulated the theocrats.

Just like Bush and his cronies.

[Endangered Specie]

26. Umm, Hitler was quite the Facist, which, as we all know, is

extreme right winged, just like communism is extreme left winged. THe point is, they are both well beyond the "sane" political spectrum and arent all that different. But fascists hate communists and so did Hitler.

[LSK]

27. heres a rebutal

1st of all the Con will emphasize the Socialism part of National Socialism. Its a fact that Hitler was ignorant on economics and if you asked Hitler, he would emphasize the National part of it. Hitler was an extreme Nationalist which is a right-wing trait. Hitler longed for the days of Imperial Germany from before WWI. One of the things that fueled him the most was how Germany lost WWI.

2nd of all, if Hitler was so left-wing, why did he have an intense hatred of Communism? He in fact blamed the Communists on the Reichstag fire which he used to gain power.

3rd of all Hitler got Germany out of recession by turning the entire economy into a War economy with the sole purpose of building up the military. Sounds a lot like the Republicans during the Cold War and now with Iraq.

[VOX]

29. Yeah, Hitler, that beacon of human rights, that flower-powered peacenik...

Yes, I have heard this fallacious and twisted argument before. One of the right wing's favorite ploys in this department is to say that "Well, Hitler enacted complete gun control." Please.

By any other name, Hitler's Third Reich was insanely fascist, and was in extreme opposition to everything the political left has historically stood for: human rights; negotiation rather than aggression; aversion to militarism; a de-emphasis on defense spending; freedom of speech; freedom of religion; freedom to criticise one's government; a free press; the right of due process; no death penalty; and so forth.

Anyone who actually says that Hitler was a "leftist" or a "liberal" is uncommonly ignorant or quite frankly, nuts.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. Yeah, and Smirk is a bleeding heart liberal.

Hitler went after the left before he got to the Jews. He was about as much a "socialist" as Ronald Reagan.