B. Angel
B. Angel
Aug 31, 2018 · 7 min read

I just happened upon this article, and frankly I was a just shocked to read that the Wiemar Republic was in any way “progressive.” The only way I’d call it progressive was by allowing radical political parties, most notably the National Socialists and the German Communist Party, to grow powerful. As it seems others have touched on the ineffectiveness of the Republic, I’ll leave that one be, though I should say it was far from progressive. Firstly, Atlas Obscura is hardly a credible source, but beyond that Hirschfeld was a minority in his thinking. There were similar people in the US who explored the field as well, though they reached different conclusions on transgendered people. Hardly indicative of a “progressive” society.

Ignoring the parts of this article referencing Trump, there are some huge errors in not only your history of Hitler’s rise to power, but also your assertion that his racial policies were identical to, or inspired by, racial thinking in the US.

First, I should clarify that it is commonly agreed upon by most historians that Mariuns van der Lubbe, a Dutch Council Communist, did start the Reichstag fire. As to whether it was part of a communist plot or Nazi misdirection, we have no way of knowing, but his communist beliefs certainly helped to fuel that fire. If it was his own doing, or someone else, then Hitler got quite lucky.

That note aside, National Socialism and specifically Hitler’s own beliefs are complex. You continue to call it Fascism, yet Hitler’s National Socialism is a different beast. Fascism generally should be used to refer to Mussolini’s ideology, which takes its core tenets from Marxism. Fascism emphasizes socialist policies coupled with a hefty emphasis on the state, which is why Mussolini pushed for his image of a reborn Roman Empire as opposed to Hitler’s Aryan Race. Mussolini’s Fascist government had no racial bounds, meaning that all people would be accepted. He only changed his attitudes on this subject after he aligned himself with Hitler, who by this point wielded much greater power than Mussolini. National Socialism, while still emphasizing the socialist elements (though, there was a great bit of disagreement over the extent of those elements within the Nazi Party), emphasized the Aryan Race first and foremost, with the German State as its champion. These are important distinctions. Hitler gradually began to grow distasteful of Mussolini because of his differing opinions on matters of race. Nazi racial thought placed Italians far lower than Aryans, and this continued until Hitler needed to forge closer ties with Italy. Mussolini, wanting to emulate the strength that Hitler was fostering in Germany, eventually bought into this racial thinking, and a racial divide between Northern and Southern Italians developed during his time in power.

“German leaders and citizens alike told themselves that his more extreme rhetoric was just a show.”

Some* did. And as time went on, fewer did. Though a great deal of Germans rejected Hitler’s ideological teachings, the majority of the population became infatuated with him. People often fail to give Hitler enough credit — he was a Genius. Go listen to some accounts of people who went to his speeches, hear how he invoked pride and emotion so strong in them that people collapsed and burst in to tears. Aside from being one of History’s greatest orators (not most positive, but certainly great in skill), Hitler fostered an image of a Strong Germany led by a humble German. He wore plain clothing, the usual armband (before the war), and if he did wear medals, it was only his wound badge, his Iron Cross (both justly won during his service in WW1), and sometimes his party badge. His headquarters and living spaces were also usually plain, outside of the Berghof. One of the more famous pictures of him in the pre-war era is that of him ceremonially breaking the ground for the Autobahn. He presented himself as a German, hardworking, proud of his people and his race, and above all willing to do anything for the Fatherland.To a majority of the German people, Hitler was the embodiment of all that was lost when the German Empire ceased to be in 1918.

As for Hitler’s racial thinking being inspired by the US, I assume you gathered this from Hitler’s admiration of our handling of the Native Americans. Whether you meant to or not, you’ve made it seem as if the US was the only source of such ideas. The Scientific Racism that Hitler touted first came in to being in the 1600s, during the rush of European Colonialism and the beginnings of the Atlantic Slave Trade. British French, and other European Enlightenment Thinkers pioneered the field, includingthe Swede Carl Linnaeus (the man who is responsible for the field of Taxonomy). Look no further than his Human taxa, where he gives some radically biased depictions of Europeans against Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, and so on. Through the Enlightenment thinkers, Scientific Racism came to America. It’s true that a number of our founding fathers, most notably Benjamin Rush, believed to some degree in a genetic (or at least societal, depending on how their words are interpreted) superiority of Whites. Though, the majority of what we think of now in this regard came to be in Britain in the late 1800s. At the time, British Universities and Museums were funding the first major archaeological expeditions to Egypt, Greece, and elsewhere around the world. This, coinciding with the Second Industrial Revolution, led to attempts by educated people of all fields to try and explain the intricacies of the world through science. Naturally, preexisting Enlightenment ideals of racial superiority came to the forefront. Even Charles Darwin believed any race other than that of the Europeans were savages. Racial thinking like this is not unique to the US, nor to the Nazis. For that matter, hating Jews isn’t unique to the Nazis either, but that’s a story for another time. To say that the US “inspired” Hitler is no more right than to say Walt Disney did. Rather, it should be said that Hitler was inspired by a nearly forgotten concept of scientific racism that had begun dying out by the start of WW1. Jim Crow Laws and Apartheid are the two outliers that existed beyond that point, with their own complicated reasons why.

You mentioned indigenous genocide, which…if you mean the death of some 90% of the native population of the Americas due to disease, then you’re stepping pretty far out of bounds trying to call that genocide. The lack of majorly developed cities outside of Central America and the Andes, and the lack of domesticated animals like cows and pigs in close proximity to said cities meant that the Natives had no immunity to Smallpox or other diseases which have a history of being exceptionally deadly among populations who did have some immunity to them.

It’s longwinded, but bear with me, we’re almost through to the end.

Your comparison between Trump’s actions against Illegal Immigrants and Hitler’s actions against every non-aryan is just…Hitler set out to do one of two things. Either he’d A. Expel all the Jews from Germany, enforce Lebensraum on the Soviets, and live happily ever after for 1,000 years, or B. He’d exterminate all the Jews in Germany, enforce lebensra…you get the idea. Whether they were German citizens or not, that didn’t matter. National Socialism, as I said before, hinges on the fact that Race sits above the state. Citizenship means nothing if the State is to act as a vessel for the Aryan race to reclaim the Fatherland. What we have in the US now is a case of actions which are legally justifiable, albeit morally reprehensible, as the people in question are not Citizens. Though they have rights (mind you, more rights than just about any other nation in the world affords to illegal immigrants), they are nevertheless breaking a law. When Reagan got in hot water over the Iran-Contra Scandal, it was said that We are a nation of laws, and that no matter the intent it is imperative that we abide by those laws. Yet, someone who breaks our laws to live here illegally is seen as above that requirement. Some say they are Americans, just the same as I. But if I, and indeed the President of the United States, must abide by the rule of law, then why not them? I agree with you that the separation of families is a terrible thing, but it’s not anywhere close to what the Nazis did. There is no comparison between deportation of illegal immigrants and the deliberate expulsion and eventual extermination of an entire people, citizen or no. If your wish is to implicate that this is merely the first step towards something worse, I think you’re stepping into the realm of fear mongering.

And on that note, don’t call Trump a Fascist or a Nazi. Besides not being a Nazi, it makes him look worse than he is, and makes real Nazis look a lot better than they should.

Also, when Slavery was abolished in the US, the US was not the only nation still practicing slavery. Here’s a short list, with abolition dates listed afterwards: Russia (1861), Netherlands (1863), Portugal (1869), Puerto Rico (1873), Gold Coast (1874 — At the time, a British Colony), Bulgaria (1879), the Ottoman Empire (1882), Cambodia (1884), Cuba (1886), Brazil (1888), Korea (1894), Egypt (1895), Madagascar (1896), Zanzibar (1897), Qing China (1906), Morocco (1922), Afghanistan (1923), Iraq (1924), and plenty of others. Spain, Portugal, France, Britain, and Russia, long after they had abolished Slavery allowed the practice to continue in their colonies and territories, most notably French West Africa, which saw forms of slavery exist until the 1930s. Forms of slavery still exist in the Middle East, India, Mauritania, and some other nations here and there. North Korea, of course, sends tens of thousands of workers around the world to work in appalling conditions for just barely enough money to survive on — a kind of slavery uniquely North Korean.

    B. Angel

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    B. Angel