Many people, especially modern liberals, focus only on Hitler's fascism, conveniently ignoring his socialist agenda. Liberals tend to liken any conservative politician whose polcies they despise to Hitler. This is a baseless comparison and runs contrary to historical facts. Hitler was a leftist, socialist, environmentalist who was appeased/accomodated by liberals and opposed by conservatives during his rise to power.
Here are some exceprts from Dr. John J. Ray's fabulous and well documented exploration of the topic:
He had been something of a bohemian in his youth, and always regarded young people and their idealism as the key to progress and the overcoming of outmoded prejudices. And he was widely admired by the young people of his country, many of whom belonged to organizations devoted to practicing and propagating his teachings. He had a lifelong passion for music, art, and architecture, and was even something of a painter. He rejected what he regarded as petty bourgeois moral hang-ups, and he and his girlfriend "lived together" for years. He counted a number of homosexuals as friends and collaborators, and took the view that a man's personal morals were none of his business; some scholars of his life believe that he himself may have been homosexual or bisexual. He was ahead of his time where a number of contemporary progressive causes are concerned: he disliked smoking, regarding it as a serious danger to public health, and took steps to combat it; he was a vegetarian and animal lover; he enacted tough gun control laws; and he advocated euthanasia for the incurably ill.
He championed the rights of workers, regarded capitalist society as brutal and unjust, and sought a third way between communism and the free market. In this regard, he and his associates greatly admired the strong steps taken by President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal to take large-scale economic decision-making out of private hands and put it into those of government planning agencies. His aim was to institute a brand of socialism that avoided the inefficiencies that plagued the Soviet variety, and many former communists found his program highly congenial. He deplored the selfish individualism he took to be endemic to modern Western society, and wanted to replace it with an ethic of self-sacrifice: "As Christ proclaimed 'love one another'," he said, "so our call -- 'people's community,' 'public need before private greed,' 'communally-minded social consciousness' -- rings out.! This call will echo throughout the world!"
The reference to Christ notwithstanding, he was not personally a Christian, regarding the Catholicism he was baptized into as an irrational superstition. In fact he admired Islam more than Christianity, and he and his policies were highly respected by many of the Muslims of his day. He and his associates had a special distaste for the Catholic Church and, given a choice, preferred modern liberalized Protestantism, taking the view that the best form of Christianity would be one that forsook the traditional other-worldly focus on personal salvation and accommodated itself to the requirements of a program for social justice to be implemented by the state. They also considered the possibility that Christianity might eventually have to be abandoned altogether in favor of a return to paganism, a worldview many of them saw as more humane and truer to the heritage of their people. For he and his associates believed strongly that a people's ethnic and racial heritage was what mattered most. Some endorsed a kind of cultural relativism according to which what is true or false and right or wrong in some sense depends on one's ethnic worldview, and especially on what best promotes the well-being of one's ethnic group
As Dr. Ray points out this sounds like any modern candidate for the Democratic party. Hitler, were he alive today, would be one of them... Here's part of a manifesto he produced for the National Socialist German Workers Party in 1925:
Therefore we demand:
11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.
12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in life and property, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as a crime against the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits whether in assets or material.
13. We demand the nationalization of businesses which have been organized into cartels.
14. We demand that all the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared out.
15. We demand extensive development of provision for old age.
16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle-class, the immediate communalization of department stores which will be rented cheaply to small businessmen, and that preference shall be given to small businessmen for provision of supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.
17. We demand a land reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to confiscate from the owners without compensation any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.
Who can argue that this is not a page right out of any modern US Democrat's secret dream book? Abolish all investment income? Check. Confiscate war profits, i.e. Halliburton? Check. Demand nationalization of large businesses like "big oil", "big pharmaceutical" and "big banks"? Check. Free ride for old folks since you took away all their businesses and investments? Check. Push class warfare and pander to the middle class? Check. Attack department stores (the Wal Mart's of their day)? Check. No more private property rights? Check. I can truly imagine Barack Obama signing all of this into law.
The United States of America is currently rushing towards socialism. Can fascism be far behind? I believe they go hand in hand, especially during times of unrest and economic uncertainty. The rise of socialism in the US timed with our current economic difficulties is no accident. People in fear will reach out to anything for salvation, and leftists like Obama advisor Rahm Emmanuel have publicly vowed to use this crisis as an opportunity to get things done they normally could not. Nationalized banks, nationalized auto companies, nationalized health care... those are only the beginnings.
Check out the rest of Dr. Ray's work and you'll see many many more correlations between Hitler and modern liberals. It's a terrifying read, and puts to lie their use of his name as a slur against their political opponents when in fact it would more aptly apply to their own leadership.
Hat tip to Gonzo for the link to Dr. Ray.
UPDATE: Here's an Interesting and timely Michelle Malkin post on lefties and their Hitler complex.
UPDATE II: I'm getting a lot of Google searches for "Hitler nationalized banks", evidently from people worried about our President's current policy trajectory. Here's a direct quote on the matter from Adolf himself:
"We don't have to nationalize the banks and factories. Instead we nationalized the people".
He didn't need to officially nationalize the bank, he just had to place some Nazi's in emplyment there and have the SS drop by every once in awhile to make sure the bank did exactly as he ordered them to. If the banker steps out of line he's no longer the banker, and may no longer be a free (or even living) man. Liberals keep clinging to this as some kind of defense, saying "Hitler was a capitalist!", but all industry and private enterprise existed only to serve the Third Reich, which is clearly not a free market by any stretch of the imagination... unless you're a demented left winger I suppose.
You're forgetting two things 1: "liberalism" specifically refers to a free-market system, so a correlation between the modern Democratic Party and socialist politics is feeble at best. The modern Democratic party owes more to the "Populist" end of the spectrum (I'm thinking people like Margaret Sanger here) than the radical socialist end of the spectrum (ie Emma Goldman, Eugene Debbs). Socialism and Populism, at the height of their influence in the US, did not see eye to eye.
and 2: Hitler was NOT a Socialist in the way the term is commonly applied. He said so in his own words:
“Our adopted term 'Socialist' has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism. Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not.”- Adolf Hitler, 1930
The notion that the man who ordered the "Final Solution" would follow the economic theories of a born Jew (which was a GENETIC and not religious designation under the third reich) is utterly ridiculous. Revise your rhetoric.
Posted by: C. Copeland | February 20, 2009 at 03:32 PM
"a correlation between the modern Democratic Party and socialist politics is feeble at best"
Okay... Your grip on reality is what's feeble, and to debate you would probably be a waste of time.
Ciao.
Posted by: Woody | February 20, 2009 at 07:34 PM
"Okay... Your grip on reality is what's feeble, and to debate you would probably be a waste of time."
A sure sign of an inferior intellect. If your ideas held water, you would allow them to be examined. You, sir, are a coward.
As a question: have you ever actually READ "Mein Kampf" or "The Communist Manifesto"? This may be a good place to examine the essential differences between basic Socialist and Nazi ideologies.
Never mind...you probably are also of the equally unassailable opinion that even cracking those volumes would be inviting demonic possession on yourself.
Hope I didn't use too many big words.
Posted by: C. Censored | February 26, 2009 at 07:03 PM
I created this site, I pay for this site, and I welcome comments from visitors but not harassment or counter-blogging in the comment section.
That being said, I do admit deleting your previous comment today was rather dickish of me, so accept my apologies and chalk it up to my having had a rough day at work. This new Obamanomics thing is not going so well for my company and I had to lay some people off. It tends to put you on edge if you genuinely care for the people you employ.
Your initial comment cited one single Hitler quotation and failed to address any of the seven points I quoted from the manifesto he himself penned. Nor did you attempt to refute any of Dr. Ray's conclusions. Thus I felt your comments did not merit a direct rebuttal, since you were going off on a tangent of your own. The fact that Hitler wrote one contradictory sentence in his lifetime does not prove he was not a socialist, nor does the fact that he did not enact 100% of the socialist agenda. Did he nationalize all industry? No, he nationalized the people, and bent industry to his will. A visit from the SS was all it took to get any banker or factory owner to cooperate. I never said he was a Marxist or a Communist.
The fact that you deny a connection between modern liberals and socialism is ludicrous in my opinion. I’m sure you can cite many examples where socialists of yore differ from Democrats of today, but I can cite as many if not more examples of today’s liberals pushing for excessive government regulation and controls, central planning, nationalization of industries, expansion of the welfare state and all the other hallmarks of the ideology. Not to mention the inordinately high number of Democratic voters spotted wearing Che t-shirts! Or do you also deny that Che was a socialist?
I have little doubt my post or comments will cause you to have an epiphany and change your beliefs, and having read Dr. Ray’s work I see little chance you can accumulate enough selected Hitler quotations to change mine. Perhaps its best we agree to disagree.
Posted by: Woody | February 26, 2009 at 08:55 PM
I wonder... do you think that Obama had the SS visit Rick Wagoner over the weekend? It sure sounds like it....
Posted by: Mike | March 30, 2009 at 01:24 PM
Well there IS a precedent for socialist leaders trying to run an automobile company. Hitler had many suggestions for the Volkswagen Beetle as I recall...
Posted by: Woody | March 30, 2009 at 04:11 PM