Many of the true-blue Nazis didn’t really see the big deal after World War II.
When I asked Herr Wedekind, the baker, why he had believed in National Socialism, he said, “Because it promised to solve the unemployment problem. And it did. But I never imagined what it would lead to. Nobody did.”
I thought I had struck pay dirt, and I said, “What do you mean, ‘what it would lead to,’ Herr Wedekind?”
“War,” he said. “Nobody ever imagined it would lead to war.”None of them ever heard anything bad about the Nazi regime except, as they believed, from Germany’s enemies, and Germany’s enemies were theirs. “Everything the Russians and the Americans said about us,” said Cabinetmaker Klingelhöfer, “they now say about each other.”
From They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45 by Milton Mayer.
Highly recommended.
Every time I look a little closer, it gets worse.
Reading that book really opened my eyes to how this kind of thing happens, how long it lasts, and how deep it goes.
The countries that think they’re safe are merely naive.
That’s a really good point. It makes more sense to me to ask, “What would it take for me to do that? What would it look like?” rather than just tell myself, “I would never…”
Vigilance and education (and vigilance in education) seem important, that’s all I got.
If anyone has the chance, I really do recommend reading the book. It looks academic but it’s really easy to read despite being written in 1953.
The author was Jewish, but kept that totally hidden while doing the interviews to avoid the obvious.
Which makes the above even more crazy. “I thought I’d hit paydirt” because someone was finally going to talk about killing his people. Nope.
Thanks again. I just requested a copy from the library.
Also purchasing the book, thanks for the recommendation
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“Everything the Russians and the Americans said about us,” said Cabinetmaker Klingelhöfer, “they now say about each other.”
The meaning of that quote is suffering dearly from the current changes in global politics.
To the kind of people that pretend they don’t understand historical context sure
A disturbing amount of people seem to love fascism.
They don’t like it to be called by name, but they do love it.
I think there’s a scene in a TV show recently where the modern day Nazi says something like “They like what I say. They just don’t like the word Nazi”
Many people have a, let’s say, shallow understanding of history. They believe Nazis are bad but just like axiomatically. They don’t have a good definition of why, and so they don’t really see it when their in-group behaves the same.
The boys. They got pretty heavy handed because certain crowds weren’t getting the idea.
When I started dating my now wife, my now Father In Law got into a massive argument with my wife’s uncle because the uncle’s a pretty unhinged version of a leftist and was arguing that his ideal form of goverment was that of a benevolent dictatorship. My FIL was flabbergasted that anyone would think that that was a good idea, not just because he’s politically opposed to my wife’s Uncle’s idea of what constitutes benevolence, but that he would think that a strong autocratic leader would fix anything, regardless of their politics.
8 years later, here we are with my Father In Law being so loudly and unrelentingly pro-Trump it has nearly caused permanent rifts in the family, including with my wife, and nearly destroyed his marriage too. He has zero problem with Trump taking as much power as needed to push his policies through. The fucking irony of it, supporting the most blatant autocratic shift in American political history after being furious at the idea from my wife’s Uncle, and it’s entirely lost on him.
The original point about a benevolent dictatorship being the ideal form of government is, in my opinion, true. Having a single point of decision means that issues are dealt with quickly and efficiently, the ‘benevolent’ part means that the needs of the populace are heard and addressed, oppression is eliminated wherever it can be found. A truly benevolent dictatorship looks a lot like a well-run democracy.
The problem comes when the benevolent dictator dies peacefully in their sleep. Or when other parts of the government begin to realize that they can feed the dictator lies in order to get what they want. Or when the dear leader starts to get paranoid. A benevolent dictatorship only works briefly, after which the ‘dictatorship’ part starts to become a real problem.
Or if ‘benevolence’ includes religious extremism (although I would argue that a leader like that wouldn’t count as truly benevolent).
The problem comes when the benevolent dictator dies peacefully in their sleep.
The problems arise well before that. There’s no such thing as a benevolent dictator because it’s an oxymoron. Anyone who would seek to control everyone is not benevolent. And even if we agreed that unilaterally controlling everyone could still be benevolent, there is no means to gaining such control that is not inherently not benevolent short of nearly every one of your constituents collectively appointing you to that position.
Yeah. George Washington is one of the only men in history who had a chance to be a benevolent dictator. And what did he do? He said “No, we’re doing democracy now.” And if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been benevolent.
He understood normal human kindness.
Yes, that is why I continued to give examples of when it would go south.
This is absolutely a pie-in-the-sky fantasy. Benevolent dictatorships work as well as state-run communism does - which is to say, in theory they’re great, but they show cracks nearly the instant they’re actually enacted.
work as well as state-run communism does - which is to say, in theory they’re great
State-run communism is also an oxymoron. The total state control of production is meant to be an intermediary step in the transition from capitalism. First the state seizes materials, machinery, money, etc away from the capitalists and corporations, redistributes the seized wealth according to need, and then it relinquishes control of production to the workers and of the governance to community structures and dissolves itself. That last step has never happened at a national scale in human history. State-run communism is not communism, by definition. It’s just capitalism where the state leadership are the only capitalists.
Amen
I have not ever heard such a bang on take vs communism on the internet before. Upvotes for you.
The Roman dictators were unlike what we think of a dictator nowadays. From Wikipedia:
He received the full powers of the state, subordinating the other magistrates, consuls included, for the specific purpose of resolving that issue, and that issue only, and then dispensing with those powers immediately.
Worked out fairly well for the Roman Republic, until Julius Caesar became dictator-for-life which a lot of people didn’t like. You can guess how that ended.
guess how that ended.
You mean killing him was a bad idea?
I heard that Brutus is an honourable man. Dude that told me sounded a little sarcastic tho, not sure if he was for real.
No because its still a single person imposing their will on an entire country and only giving them what they feel they deserve.
The ultimate form of government will always be a democracy. People should work together to build society. It may be slower but thats fine, government doesnt need to move fast and break things.
Even in a democracy, you will still have a small group of people imposing their will over others, and only giving them what they feel they deserve. The only difference you are seeing is that of scale. Instead of a collection of elected representatives who are granted disparate powers by the plurality of people they are ruling over in their various capacities as governors, a benevolent dictatorship has one person who is granted all governmental powers by the people they are ruling over. Even a democracy can, briefly, be a tyranny. It just requires multiple bad actors to work together.
The primary difference is how long it takes for the wheels to fall off. In a dictatorship, it can - and usually does - happen virtually instantly. That’s the primary reason democracies (and republics) are the way they are - to slow down the encroachment of tyranny, hopefully enough to allow people to react to it and overturn it. (And as we’re seeing in the USA right now, that’s no guarantee.)
Yeah, it seems like it would be one of the better forms of government. The problem I see is having a human as said dictator. And I don’t see any way of making something like an AI that isn’t compromised.
Not to get all “human nature”, but there’s a primal appeal of fascist rhetoric, particularly when it is couched within the urgency of media misinformation and real material economic decay.
People who are overworked, underfed, and deluged with propaganda are primed to accept the “evil foreigners have inflicted this upon you” rhetoric. The states where Republicans outperform tend to be states with large O&G based economies, with people who feel their livelihoods are predicated on petroleum production and export. Downturns in these economies are blamed on Muslims, who just happen to be the majority faith in rival oil exporting nations. The opioid crisis and its socio-economic impacts have very real material consequences to impoverished communities, but the domestic pharmaceutical industry employs and enriches a lot of people. So its easier to blame China than the Sackler Family, in the same way it was easier to blame Jimmy Carter and public housing policies from the 1970s than the Mega-Banks back during the '08 financial crash. High health care costs and housing / education / credit card debts are, similarly, problems that can be displaced onto migrants “stealing” limited resources and PoC getting special government subsidies offered by evil liberal socialists. And “crime” as an eternal bugaboo haunts every local news network and AM Talk Radio show in the country, justifying ever more draconian police and surveillance.
You don’t even have to limit yourself to the Republican Party to find this compelling. How many liberals are fully sold on the idea that Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran are behind all of America’s domestic failings? How many people were willing to throw Muslim and Transgender voters under the bus because Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election?
Fascist rhetoric is appealing because it offers a very simple, straightforward, and violently final solution to a host of perceived social problems. It promises immediate relief from your pain. It promises schadenfreude as a kind of restitution for accumulated injustices. And it promises to make you impervious to future harms, through the terror you invoke in your enemies.
It’s an instinctual social response. One that aspiring politicians play on to build popular movements and seize power from sclerotic bureaucracies. And when you’re feeling the impulse, it doesn’t feel wicked or wrong. It feels justified and deeply satisfying.
Learned a new word: sclerosis. Thanks!
🤣🤣🤣
You could replace that with “evil old people” and it would be mostly correct.
“Evil Old People” survivor bias.
The Greenpeace was old people. The Black Panthers was old people. The anti-war movements have been old people going back centuries.
Whatever generation we’re on didn’t invent good politics from whole cloth.
Uh yes it did it’s me, all my takes are the right ones and always will be
Yeah but only when it’s applied to others
Nazi: But why skulls, though?
Hans: What?
N: Why skulls?
H: Well, maybe they’re the skulls of our enemies.
N: Maybe, but is that how it comes across? It doesn’t say next to the skull, you know, “Yeah, we killed him but trust us, this guy was horrid.”
H: Well, no, but…
N: I mean, what skulls make you think of? Death, cannibals, beheading, erm pirates?
H: Pirates are fun!
N: I didn’t say we weren’t fun, but fun or not, pirates are still the baddies. I just can’t think of anything good about a skull.
H: What about pure Aryan skull shape?
N: Even that is more usually depicted with the skin still on, whereas the allies-"
H: You haven’t been listening to ally propaganda. Of course they’re going to say we’re bad guys.
N: But they didn’t get to design our uniforms and their symbols are all, you know, quite nice, stars, stripes, lions, sickles.
H: What’s so good about a sickle?
N: Well, nothing, and if there’s one thing we’ve learnt in 1,000 miles of retreat, it’s that Russian agriculture’s in dire need of mechanisation.
H: Tell me about it.
N: You’ve got to say it’s better than a skull. I really can’t think of anything worse as a symbol than a skull.
H: A rat’s anus?
N: Yeah, and if we were fighting an army, marching under the banner of a rat’s anus I’d probably be a lot less worried, Hans.
Edit: thanks to ltxrtquq for the corrections.
N: Maybe, but is that how it comes across? It doesn’t say next to the skull, you know, “Yeah, we killed him but trust us, this guy was horrid.”
I mean, its a comedy sketch. But it should be noted that this is exactly what the Germans were saying of their victims in the 1930s and 40s.
Might also be worth noting that, for all the shit German Nazis (justifiably) get, the English and the French and the Americans and Chinese and Turks and the various Eastern European powers were also engaged in these horrifying industrialized holocausts within their own spheres of influence. And they were also insisting the genocides of American Native Peoples, Hindu Nationalists, assorted African and Middle Eastern Nationalists, Koreans, Filipinos, Communist and Socialist civil reformers and union organizers, Jews, Roma, Disabled Peoples, and anyone else who didn’t fit their trending eugenics theories were justified because the people being killed were “horrid”.
Germany and Japan (and Italy kinda when they didn’t suck at it) just polarized the politics of industrial genocide in an effort to build fresh new empires over the carcasses of the old Colonial Powers. And that’s what had The Allies so upset. They were generally fine with The Holocausts within Germany and Japan, so long as they stayed on their own sides of the imaginary lines.
also engaged in these horrifying industrialized holocausts within their own spheres of influence
Makes me think of Eddie Izzard’s bit on this:
The reason we let them get away with it because they were killing their own people. And we’re sort of fine with that. “Help yourself, we’ve been trying to kill you people for ages, so you start killing your own people…” But Hitler killed people next door…the stupid man. After a couple of years we won’t stand for that now will we?!
Izzard’s delivery of that segment is superb.
I mean all Izzard’s delivery is gold, but that “the stupid man” bit is magic.
I love his delivery about how Hitler dying in a ditch covered in patrol and on fire is funny. Hits so perfectly within the modern context of the latest rekindling of neonazi parties
There are quite a few mistakes in your transcription there, from not attributing the quotes to the right people to not using the correct words
Thanks for the feedback. I pulled it from a transcript and cleaned it up as best I could from memory. If you’d like to suggest some edits, I’d be happy to make the relevant changes.
Nazi:
I mean,But why skulls, though?Hans: What?
N: Why skulls?
H: Well, maybe they’re the skulls of our enemies.
N: Maybe, but is that how it comes across? It doesn’t say next to the skull, you know, “Yeah, we killed him but trust us, this guy was horrid.”
H: Well, no, but…
I mean, what do skulls make you think of?N: I mean, what do skulls make you think of? Death, cannibals, beheading, erm pirates?
H: Pirates are fun!
N: I didn’t say we weren’t fun, but fun or not, pirates are still the baddies. I just can’t think of anything good about a skull.
H: What about pure Aryan skull shape?
N: Even that is more usually depicted with the skin still on, whereas the allies-"
H: You haven’t been listening to ally propaganda.
They’re boundOf course they’re going to say we’re bad guys.N: But they didn’t get to design our uniforms and their symbols are all, you know, quite nice, stars, stripes, lions, sickles.
H: What’s so good about a sickle?
N: Well, nothing, and obviously if there’s one thing we’ve learnt in 1,000 miles of retreat, it’s that Russian agriculture’s in dire need of mechanization.
H: Tell me about it.
N: You’ve got to say it’s better than a skull. I mean, I really can’t think of anything worse as a symbol than a skull.
H: A rat’s anus?
N: Yeah, and if we were fighting an army marching under the banner of a rat’s anus I’d probably be a lot less worried, Hans.
Thanks! Hopefully it’s good now.
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck…
And salutes like a duck?
Salute? That’s an “odd hand gesture” obviously. “My heart goes out to you!”
Whaaat nda heeell? Yo these cartoons were definitely not for kids huh.
(I know they weren’t.)
Oh no this was definitely for kids. This is from a propaganda film made during WWII where Donald Duck has to live a day in Nazi Germany. The full cartoon is available on YouTube.. If you think the content is too extreme for kids, consider that the kids watching this originally likely had dads and brothers who were off fighting in the war and were thinking about it constantly.
Oh gosh, those poor kids. Thinking of my own in that situation, and how I would think about them constantly in return. Oof.
That whole era wasn’t suitable for kids
Sure wasn’t. Neither is the one we’re in now to be honest with you 😑
You may be a Nazi then…
This made me think of Jeff Foxworthy, except he’s telling “You might be a Nazi if” jokes instead.
If you’ve EVER had to look around to see if you need to self censor the comment you’re about to make…
You might be a Nazi!
If you then just say it anyway, without any censorship…
You might be a Nazi!
Confusing comment.
You see, in my imagination, the nazis were absolute evils, doing evil thing for the sake of evil, like some saturday morning cartoon villain. I, on the other hand, always present evidence, such as certain groups being overrepresented in crime, and I even make up statistics about race and IQ. The nazis didn’t, they just killed Jews and the Roma, so they could be the most evil in history.
I sometimes fear that
people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
worn by grotesques and monsters
as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honour,
make you feel proud,
protect your house,
give you a job,
clean up the neighbourhood,
remind you of how great you once were,
clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you…It doesn’t walk in saying,
“Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.”- Michael Rosen
https://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/fascism-i-sometimes-fear.html?m=1
2014.05
Damn, he was way ahead of the curve. I tried to tell those exact words to my skeptic and atheist friends, only to liken me to those conspiracy theorists, who thought the nazis secretly control everything.
Turns out, the billionaire neo-nazis openly control everything instead
So magats are like Nazis, but without the good job market. Magats slid into what they are for less than what the Nazis got. Gross.
Less than what the Nazis got, with all the knowledge and history about Nazis at their fingertips, and with their ancestors having fought Nazis. Disgusting, pathetic, losers.
“They’re not hurting the right people”
Magats are worse because they are in it for the evil.
A good portion of our populace has had their empathy removed, short circuited, or simply bypassed.
And they can’t even seem to fathom the idea, that once the weapons built it can be aimed anywhere the wielder likes.
So a nazi can’t admit he is a nazi and no one is putting up with his obtuse bullshit.
Ah, the good old days, when it wasn’t the Secretary of Health and his handipicked cronies in the CDC
Seems like an attention whore that would love to be seen as a nazi.
No one has ever accused me of being a Nazi or a fascist so maybe this guy is the problem and not “the libs” 🤔
Every time someone starts a sentence with: i’m not racist, but… I remind them that i’m not racist, and i never had to prefix a sentence with it.
Still reading meaning to your words 🙃🙄😮
While both exchanging data supporting a fascist platform. Just saying…
I guess it’s a little like using an Olympia-Werke typewriter in the 1930s to criticize the Nazi Party, but I feel like it’s still better than staying silent
Yeah this guy’s obliviousness is pretty amazing. “I don’t think this guy is a Nazi, and because I don’t think he’s a Nazi, my friends are calling me a Nazi” is like… obviously that’s how it would be if one were a Nazi and didn’t know it.
It’s hard to convince someone who lives in a delusional fantasy land. Just because someone calls me a fag online doesn’t make me one in reality.
I stopped reading after “facebook”
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Right, the guy who rants about immigrants having “bad genes” and lies about them eating people’s pets as a way to dehumanize them is totally not a fascist.
The guy who attempted a putsch to secure power outside of democratic channels is certainly not a fascist.
The guy trying to provoke his neighbors into a territorial dispute and threatening to “annex” countries for natural resources is totally not a fascist.
The guy who is enriching his corporate cronies while they consolidate power for the regime is definitely not a fascist (nor is the guy doing Nazi salutes at his inauguration).
The guy rounding people up with a secret police force and sticking them in camps can’t possibly be a fascist.
The guy demonizing anything to the left of white nationalism as communism/socialism isn’t a fascist.
No way the guy who was denounced by his own VP as “America’s Hitler” is a fascist.
And therefore the people who support him can’t be fascist!
That’s a pretty smart take you’ve got there.
You forgot “the guy who is calling for his political opponents to be killed or deported isn’t a fascist”.
Would sure help your case if there weren’t so fucking many Hitlers rolling around.
They have to compete to see who’s the best one.
Not strictly relevant, but I would watch a reality TV show called, “America’s next top fascist.”
I don’t like my current government (the German one) at all but they aren’t nazis. There’s definitely a party here where that label is appropriate, but the Union/SPD is just your good ol’ run-of-the-mill incompetent.
I mean, the cxu is definitely racist, but I wouldn’t call them Nazis. I agree about that other party though.
That’s kind of close for me. Everyone who’s racist or othwise bigoted, nationalist, authoritarian, oligarchic, theocratic, hyper-militant, etc., is going to be someone whose behavior I dislike.
I will tolerate everyone but the intolerant. I don’t care what colour your skin is, what car you drive, which team you support, who you sleep with*, what clothes you wear, what gender you are. I care if you make other people’s lives miserable because of those things or for any other bigoted reason I haven’t mentioned.
*as long as they are consenting adults.
I think this is the metaethically appropriate response to the paradox of tolerance.
Only slightly related, but there are two things in the world I can’t stand: people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures… and the Dutch.
Yeh baby! I mean obviously the Dutch are the exception to all of the above.
misread this as “mathematically appropriate”
I heard that in Finn’s voice when he says, “Mathematical!”
People are being rounded up into concentration camps, there’s constant extrajudicial killings, and it’s getting worse.
That’s exactly why people are speaking out. When mass detentions, extrajudicial killings, and systemic abuse become normalized, silence turns into complicity. History has shown us where this path leads if it goes unchecked. Calling attention to it isn’t exaggeration, it’s a warning.
THE WORLD IS DOOMED!!!
Same bad news happening all over the world.
