I want to venture into the topic raised by the Editrix. There is an effort by some to trivialize or rationalize and minimize the Holocaust. We do get the kook deniers, but they are a loud vocal minority.
We need to begin with the notion of man itself. Man is capable of great good as well as great evil. The great evil does not come from nowhere, but is part and parcel of political power plays. This should not be taken as an endorsement of the anarchy imbecile fantasies. Rather, we need a logical starting point of individual rights granted to us on the basis of our common humanity.
What makes the Holocaust unique was mixture of a vile idea of eugenics. Eugenics is a backward idea created by junk science that is laughable. Genetic diversity is mankind's greatest gift and love is too rare a gift to be spoiled by science. There have been plenty of massacres before, but an industrial genocide backed by a kooky scientific idea is unique.
The history of far left movements using Jew hatred for populist appeal continues to this day. What makes the left wing variant unique is the cold calculating nexus of evil elements the left binds together with the glue of Jew hatred.
We really do not spend nearly enough time on the crimes of Communists and Jihadis. Thus we encounter people who try and rebrand a deadly philosophies as relevant. The average American
does spend some time on the crimes of colonialism and slavery. They spend zero time on the crimes of communists and Islamo colonialism.
We really do need to discuss Islamo colonialism and the historic crimes of communists. It is utterly preposterous that histories greatest butchers should proclaim themselves the moral arbiters of right and wrong and pass judgement on anyone.
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What makes the Holocaust unique was mixture of a vile idea of eugenics. Eugenics is a backward idea created by junk science that is laughable. Genetic diversity is mankind's greatest gift and love is too rare a gift to be spoiled by science. There have been plenty of massacres before, but an industrial genocide backed by a kooky scientific idea is unique.
Eugenics (and euthanasia) are two policies born of "progressive" leftist thinking in the late 19th and early 20th Century that heavily influenced left-wing labor activist Adolf Hitler and his fellow national socialists.
Both policies, alongside Nazi centrally planned command economics backed by forced labor camps, government monopolized national health care programs and a studious adherence to the anti-Semitic views of leftists like Marx, Proudhon, Bakunin, and others leave absolutely no doubt that the Nazis were left-wing.
A list of opponents of eugenics policies from even before the Nazis adopted them from their fellow leftists in America would read like a who's who of early 20th Century right-wing conservatives. G. K. Chesterton, for example, was warning of its evil in 1917.
"What makes the Holocaust unique was mixture of a vile idea of eugenics."
Again I have to disagree. To keep up the magic evil powers of the Jews Hitler had to paint them as strong (yet bad). Eugenics was about strengthening the fictitious Aryan race by excluding the ill and feeble.
In your misled and counter-productive search for a leftist in every nook and cranny and under every bed you are missing the point once again.
Hitler hated the Jews (as every antisemite does) because they invented God, monotheism. They gave mankind the human conscience, the knowledge of good and bad. And every Jew reminds every evil man of his evilness and he will not sleep until the last Jew has vanished from the face of the earth. Hitler even said so. And THAT makes the Holocaust unique.
That is, too, why original antisemitism is not known among the non-Abrahamic religions.
Editrix
Some of the Holocaust was attributable to eugenics which is a very vile and dangerous idea.
We are in agreement with the populist dimension. I differ slightly towards another theory advanced by Thomas Sowell. His works may not be translated into German. Sowell points to another phenomenon as the middle men minority hypothesis.He shows the hatred of similar groups in different cultures. This explains populist Jew hatred in most far left groups.
I want to point out the theory is far from fool proof as gypsies could not be described in similar terms. Gypsies like Jews were perceived as foreign outsiders without the elements of class.
The Holocaust was a unique confluence of many events. Populism
is sadly an element common to the Holocaust and other tragedies. One can point to it in the Armenian/ Assyrian genocide and it is an element in communist class massacres.
I do want to point out that if you
locate a copy of Toynbee's work on the Armenian genocide or Morgenthau's death of a nation they point somewhat to a dehumanization of Armenians but not in Eugenic terms. Locating Toynbee in English was not easy and expensive. When I moved from Vermont to NYC the local library
tried to get me to give that book up. They do not have much on the Armenian Genocide.
Certain historic events for political reasons are called a Holocaust. The Slave trade was a
huge crime but not a holocaust. Moreover, those who make this claim ignore the Eastern Slave trade while focusing on the role of a handful of Jews to advance bigotries.
Colonial conquests are crimes, but are different in nature from the Holocaust. It is true that much of the butchery in these cases comes from dehumanization. Western Scholars tend to ignore non European Colonialism.
The Holocaust is a unique historical event that should be studied. My point is we need to learn about non Western colonialism
and the crimes of communism in addition in order to have a greater
understanding of man's capacity for mayhem.
Editrix,
The left-wing labor activist Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitism comes from a convergence of his Bavarian Catholic upbringing as well as the perennial "Jewish international bankers" conspiracy theories that persist even today among Kristallnacht-emulating window smashing leftists participating in anti-globalization protests during World Trade Organization meetings.
Hatred of Jews as a "race of capitalists" can be found in the writings of Karl Marx, himself a Jew that renounced his faith to gain acceptance in socialist circles. Marx himself called for a "world without Jews" as a pre-requisite for the end of capitalism. You can find similar anti-Jewish sentiments in the psychotic leftist ramblings of Proudhon and Bakunin.
Hitler, who's drug-induced diminished capacity for rational thought pre-destined him to become a leftist in the first place, latched on to the prevailing contemporary psuedo-scientific European quest to find the purest descendants of ancient Indo-European (Aryan) migrants into the continent. Left-wing academics at state-sponsored universities throughout Europe in the 19th Century all presented theories of how their particular nation's people were the rightful "root-stock" from which all other Europeans came from. The leftists of Nazi Germany were the first government to officially adopt the "master race" theory as national policy.
And from there, they adopted the swastika from Russian socialists as their symbol. The swastika appeared on currency printed on Russian currency after the Bolshevik revolution.
The fight between Russians and Germans in World War 2 was primarily leftists fighting each other over whether the capital of international socialism would be Moscow or Berlin. The annihilation of Jews in eastern Europe can be seen as a sort of cooperative effort between Stalin and Hitler to fulfill the leftist fantasy of Marx's "world without Jews." Stalin wasted no time pushing Jews into the path of Einsatzgruppen death squads. He certainly didn't attempt to defend them.
Which also explains Soviet-backing of anti-Israeli terrorist groups through the late 20th Century.
Socialist command economies, adoption of pseudo-scientific eugenics theories, and hatred of Jews are three huge indicators that the Nazis were leftists.
Sorry Beam, I know it isn't fair to draw the "I am a German and a historian" card, but you simply don't know enough about the immensely complex historical background and Germany generally to overcome your obsession with "leftists". You are picking up isolated points and instances to fit your beloved theory. That is intellectually dishonest, although I do not think you are intentionally being that. I ought to have stopped reading your post when you were bringing in Hitler's Catholic upbringing. Sorry to say that any more arguing would be a waste of my time.
Anti-Semitism did, of course, precede Hitler. As one example, I cite Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
One of Hitler's demagoguery techniques was to unite the people via anti-Semitism. In that way, he consolidated even more his power.
Editrix,
You may well be a German historian. The rest of your comment is superfluous gainsaying.
Catholicism's role in perpetuating anti-Semitism has a history at least 16 centuries long. It is not so easily discounted. Neither is Lutheran anti-Semitism, both of which were prevalent in Hitler's lifetime to have been influencial to him and to German society as a whole.
But religious bigotry against Jews itself does not place one on the left. Finding commonality with socialist anti-Semites and implementing their economic and pseudo-scientific philosophies and policies does.
Far from dismissing "isolated points and instances," you won't argue that the Nazis were not leftists because you can't credibly do so.
The Nazis were leftists.
Hello, I am just lurking here and introducing myself at the request of Bearkerkin. On this subject, he made a point about how little attention is given to communist atrocities. I am not sure what the final death toll was in the former Soviet Union, but it dwarfed Hitler, in fact it likely exceeded the number of dead from all causes and sides during the second war. Communism is a danger that has gone unchecked in Europe (they actually have communist parties in elected positions), and forgotten totally here. McCarthy was right, absolutely right about communists. Their ideas permeate this country.
Hello Beak, I am here reading these interesting posts at your request. I see you are right, that the posters are intelligent.
I agree with you that the crimes of communists need to be placed in the forefront, because the ideology permeates the world, thanks to a deafening silence on the crimes of Mr. Stalin and company. Tens of millions dead in the gulags, and total silence. Nazis can't have a party but communists can hold power, in Europe, anywhere. Neither should be welcome! Leave aside any atrocities and look objectively at the the economic ideas of communism and fascism. If man, having equal rights, can't be made equal, adherents of these ideologies will force that equality by putting down the successful man and his ideas. That is why economies stagnate under socialism.
Kat,
I often wonder if leftists try to exclude the Nazis from the left-wing because they didn't kill enough people.
Nah, they still have this sibling rivalry thing.
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