Was Hitler really right wing?
Discussion
andy_s said:
What happened to your posts 'Balmoral'...?
On reflection I decided it wasn't a topic I wanted to engage with. Whether Hitler was right wing or not technically/factually is besides the point.There are many commonly held beliefs that don't stand up to basic analysis and can be challenged on that basis, there are also commonly held beliefs that again don't stand up to basic analysis, but nonetheless are not challenged, you just don't.
Halb said:
Well yes, on that I agree. SOmeone her mentioned horseshoe. THose authoritarian types can get to the same place from different directions.
Totalitarian regimes share common traits; who would have thunk it? As I pointed out the EU negotiations thread the aim of communism is a classless society, The aim of Nazism is a pure racial nation that seeks to dominate the world. Marxist philosophy is well thought out and put forward in logical manner (for the time it was written). Mein Kampf is one long shouty rant about how Jews are the cause of all ills in the world.
Balmoral said:
andy_s said:
What happened to your posts 'Balmoral'...?
On reflection I decided it wasn't a topic I wanted to engage with. Whether Hitler was right wing or not technically/factually is besides the point.There are many commonly held beliefs that don't stand up to basic analysis and can be challenged on that basis, there are also commonly held beliefs that again don't stand up to basic analysis, but nonetheless are not challenged, you just don't.
Cheers - I thought you'd upset our overlords...
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I think most just see you as ignorant and stupid rather than as a card carrying fascist.You come across as having a massive chip on your shoulder about the prospect of foreigners ‘taking advantage of’ what you perceive as ‘British’ services and using up ‘your’ tax money.
This vague anger appears to completely replace compassion or common sense so when you start a thread suggesting that Hitler is just suffering from a bit of bad PR, you have to understand that nobody with half an ounce of intelligence will take you seriously.
alfie2244 said:
PositronicRay said:
kurt535 said:
That was great; I came out same as Gandhi!
Me too. 
in the lead up to the referendum it had me as more authoritarian so i am not sure how much confidence should be placed in the test for establishing peoples political leanings.Teddy Lop said:
Drop the condescension, you're only impressing yourself, and start reading a little, eugenics is a good place to start - Hitler may have taken it further than us decent people but he was reading from the same hymn sheet.
A lot of what Hitler did domestically isn't what led to WW2 and its a little cynical its used so heavily.
As a hill to die on “Hitler May have taken eugenics further” is possibly the bizarrest I’ve seen on PH. And that’s saying something.A lot of what Hitler did domestically isn't what led to WW2 and its a little cynical its used so heavily.
Dindoit said:
Teddy Lop said:
Drop the condescension, you're only impressing yourself, and start reading a little, eugenics is a good place to start - Hitler may have taken it further than us decent people but he was reading from the same hymn sheet.
A lot of what Hitler did domestically isn't what led to WW2 and its a little cynical its used so heavily.
As a hill to die on “Hitler May have taken eugenics further” is possibly the bizarrest I’ve seen on PH. And that’s saying something.A lot of what Hitler did domestically isn't what led to WW2 and its a little cynical its used so heavily.
The problem here and in life and the world is people think they can compartmentalize Hitler into a box and go "I'm not like that because that's (for example) right wing" and think of it as an alien concept, but its these people who are the most susceptible and will sleepwalk societies into tyrannies because they simply can't see their own bias.
Look at how much hate and bile and assumptions are being made on the duke of Edinburgh crash thread - now swap "range rover" for "15 year old Toyota avensis" and "duke of Edinburgh" for "Mohamed the immigrant" and furnish with a similar amount of bile and assumptions to see how it really looks.
Hitler didn't invent the idea of the master race. Eugenics was mainstream in the 30s. Moreover it's a thoroughly progressive idea that you can make a better future by altering the population. Multiculturalism is pretty much like a master race in this sense. It just seeks to create it via social rather than genetic engineering.
JuanCarlosFandango said:
Hitler didn't invent the idea of the master race. Eugenics was mainstream in the 30s. Moreover it's a thoroughly progressive idea that you can make a better future by altering the population. Multiculturalism is pretty much like a master race in this sense. It just seeks to create it via social rather than genetic engineering.
Is giving people the freedom to live where they want to really social engineering? And if it results in a mixture of races, how is it a master race?JuanCarlosFandango said:
Hitler didn't invent the idea of the master race. Eugenics was mainstream in the 30s. Moreover it's a thoroughly progressive idea that you can make a better future by altering the population. Multiculturalism is pretty much like a master race in this sense. It just seeks to create it via social rather than genetic engineering.
Is giving people the freedom to live where they want to really social engineering? And if it results in a mixture of races, how is it a master race?It's the opposite in a superficial sense that you don't end up with a nation of tall, blonde haired and blue eyed Aryans (or whatever your chosen master race), but it's analogous in the sense that you are creating a 'better' society by selecting the people who will form it.
Simply letting people live where they want is not social engineering as such, but there's a but more to multiculturalism than that. The idea that mass migration is in and of itself a good thing and that diversity is something to be celebrated and encouraged is a form of social engineering in the same way that Hitler's master race was a form of genetic engineering, that was an extreme of the modish eugenics of his time.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that the current vogue for multiculturalism is in anyway on a par with the holocaust for evil, either in its intention or its execution. in fact I'm not saying multiculturalism is evil at all. The holocaust definitely was evil, and I believe the entire eugenics movement was pretty rotten far beyond Nazi Germany. I'm merely opining that it wasn't especially 'right wing' just because it was overtly racist, but was in fact quite left wing in its utopianism and lust for radical, state directed change.
In my view Hitler's primary motivation was power, and he would have supported and stood for just about anything which enhanced the power of himself and his state. In 1930s Germany that was eugenics, resentment and restoring German power and prestige. It is a preposterous distraction to believe that any aspiring Fuhrer now would take up the same causes when they would be so obnoxious to any decent person. Rather he would take modish ideas to extremes and push for radical change towards a utopian vision.
Simply letting people live where they want is not social engineering as such, but there's a but more to multiculturalism than that. The idea that mass migration is in and of itself a good thing and that diversity is something to be celebrated and encouraged is a form of social engineering in the same way that Hitler's master race was a form of genetic engineering, that was an extreme of the modish eugenics of his time.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that the current vogue for multiculturalism is in anyway on a par with the holocaust for evil, either in its intention or its execution. in fact I'm not saying multiculturalism is evil at all. The holocaust definitely was evil, and I believe the entire eugenics movement was pretty rotten far beyond Nazi Germany. I'm merely opining that it wasn't especially 'right wing' just because it was overtly racist, but was in fact quite left wing in its utopianism and lust for radical, state directed change.
In my view Hitler's primary motivation was power, and he would have supported and stood for just about anything which enhanced the power of himself and his state. In 1930s Germany that was eugenics, resentment and restoring German power and prestige. It is a preposterous distraction to believe that any aspiring Fuhrer now would take up the same causes when they would be so obnoxious to any decent person. Rather he would take modish ideas to extremes and push for radical change towards a utopian vision.
Just to add:
This is how it happens again. This sort of thing right here.
Everyone involved in the Second World War eventually dies. Their first person accounts of the utter horror of that time die with them.
People begin blaming their problems on other people. On other races. On other religions.
Trump gets voted in. Says staggeringly vile things. People cheer.
Brexit gets voted for. Many voters mutter things about immigration.
People start feeling free to spout in public at ‘hearing foreign languages on the bus’ and ‘seeing too many brown faces in the street’.
Daily news articles on social media begin to fill with comments from thousands of people saying things about other humans that I do not want to repeat. Many other stand on the sidelines nodding in agreement.
Threads get started where people will probably end up saying things that paint Hitler in a slightly more favourable light.
Then eventually, an extremely charismatic, forceful and vocal politician will come along and tell the whole country that that all their problems are caused by immigrants, brown people, gypsies, Muslims, Jews, the disabled.
They will say that things can be ‘better’.
The people will roar their approval.
This is how it happens again. This sort of thing right here.
Everyone involved in the Second World War eventually dies. Their first person accounts of the utter horror of that time die with them.
People begin blaming their problems on other people. On other races. On other religions.
Trump gets voted in. Says staggeringly vile things. People cheer.
Brexit gets voted for. Many voters mutter things about immigration.
People start feeling free to spout in public at ‘hearing foreign languages on the bus’ and ‘seeing too many brown faces in the street’.
Daily news articles on social media begin to fill with comments from thousands of people saying things about other humans that I do not want to repeat. Many other stand on the sidelines nodding in agreement.
Threads get started where people will probably end up saying things that paint Hitler in a slightly more favourable light.
Then eventually, an extremely charismatic, forceful and vocal politician will come along and tell the whole country that that all their problems are caused by immigrants, brown people, gypsies, Muslims, Jews, the disabled.
They will say that things can be ‘better’.
The people will roar their approval.
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 21st January 07:39
Trolleys Thank You]Yes [/thread said:
Tune in tomorrow when Isaac asks whether the Pope really is Catholic.
Given that the Pope isn't a Catholic - the bloke in the Vatican might be referred to as such, but doesn't have it in his official title, whereas the head of the Coptic church in Alexandria does - I'd say that justifies a continuation of the discussion regarding whether or not Hitler is right wing! 
I share that view that there's really no such thing as all encompassing left or right.
Certainly Hitler wasn't economically right wing as I understand it, and surely his social policies "exterminate anyone I don't like" are linked more by being bat s
t mental than by being on the same part of the left/right spectrum as someone else?anonymous said:
[redacted]
I've taken an interest in politics and political histories over the recent years and the subject of hitler is an unavoidable one.The NAZI party was a strong socialist ideological party at heart, which places it firmly on the hard left wing of politics.
Hitler then changed Germany from being a democracy in to a single party rule, a step thought necessary to have a quick decision making government that could react and change the depressive conditions in society after WWI. And also due to the fact that the whole world was gearing up for another war; this was always inevitable due to nations allying up with others in pacts to counter other nations from making economical headway or geopolitical advantage.
So just prior to WWII Hitler had turned the nationalist social party in to a dictatorship, or at best a single-party rule government - which then pushed his ideology over to the far left.
Hitler's stance on governmental rule was firmly far left socialist.
However, having seen how Mussolini was able to control the conducts of Italy he also embraced fascism and saw this as a method in which he would conquer Europe. This enabled him to have the full backing of Germany's population, making them believe that his war effort was for the significant benefit of society and then to installed this belief in to all conquered nations.
Fascism is a far right element of political swing, but Hitler adopted its methods to further enforce his rule and command. It placed the mind set that his cause was 'just' for the sake of the nation.
So to place Hitler on a scale of political left vs right, he was the worst of both, having far left ideology at heat and adopting far right ideology to justify war to his people.
There is now a modern day argument in progress between left and right politics as to how to argue in such a way to place hitler on "the other's side".
Traditionally many have been brought up to follow the narrative that hitler was far-right, yes he was. He was also far-left. Adopting whatever ideologies he was able to implement in order to expand his rule by force.
The is my take on it at least, and of course there are multiple other angles one can look at events.
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