There is an interesting controversy brewing between academics and Jewish groups in Germany as the deadline approaches for the end of the copyright over Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, the book that laid the foundation for the Nazi takeover and ultimately the genocidal crimes of World War II. For seven decades, the copyright has rested with with Bravarian officials who have prevented the publication of the work. Now, academics are arguing that the book should be reprinted due to its obvious historical significance. However, Jewish and other groups are demanding a continuation of the ban on reprints.
The 800-page book, “My Struggle,” will become part the public domain on January 1st.
But as “Mein Kampf” — whose title means “My Struggle” — falls into the public domain on January 1, differences have emerged over how it should be treated in future. The historians at the Institute of Contemporary History of Munich (IFZ) will produce an annotated version of the two-volume tome that will be offered in January for 59 euros ($65).
The historians view this as a compromise since the work will be heavily annotated. However, Charlotte Knobloch, President of the Jewish community in Munich and Upper Bavaria, objects that even an annotated version “contains the original text” which “should itself not be printed”. She insists that it will be “in the interest of right wing militants and Islamists to spread these ideas.”
I certainly understand the concern but I believe that work should be reprinted with or without annotations. It is a historically important work in understanding the crimes and ideology of the Nazis. Like most free speech advocates, I have always been critical on the effort of Germany to criminalize references or symbols of the Nazi period. These laws have been easily circumvented by developing closely related symbols and salutes for Neo-Nazis. More importantly, it remains a fundamental tenet of free speech that the solution to bad speech is good speech — not censorship. The scourge of white supremacy and Nazi values has continued despite these laws, which allow extremists to assume the claim of victims and accuse the West of hypocrisy (or fear of exposure to these ideas). There remains plenty of sources of this information, particularly given the Internet. Historians however believe that the work should be available in new additions to be studied in history, political science and other departments. Perhaps not too surprising given the free speech and academic interests, I favor reprinting the work and leaving the debate over its content to the market of free ideas and exchange.
What do you think?
Source: Yahoo
Annie, explain the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in light of your claim about the “non-socialism” of the Nazis.
Use small words, so I can understand.
Regarding crony capitalist and nationalism.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420084/donald-trump-puts-camp-campaign
“Whatever Trump’s appeal is to the Right’s populist elements, it isn’t policy. He is a tax-happy crony capitalist who is hostile to free trade but very enthusiastic about using state violence to homejack private citizens — he backed the Kelo decision “100 percent” and has tried to use eminent domain in the service of his own empire of vulgarity — and generally has about as much command of the issues as the average sophomore at a not especially good college, which is what he was (sorry, Fordham) until his family connections got him into Penn.”
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Trump is the epitome of a crony capitalist, so why do so many conservatives adore him?
Only when you say it.
The fact that Nazis were socialists is no longer in dispute.
It has been completely refuted repeatedly in the last 15 years.
Your continued attempts to re-argue the case once again proves that
1. SJWs always lie.
2. SJWs always double down.
3. SJWs always project.
So I don’t bother reading your drivel in detail, but just scan for the most idiotic piece, though that can be a tough call at times, given the wide array of doltish choices.
You sound like Duranty writing for the NYTimes in the 1930s.
Go sell BS someplace else, lady. We’re all stocked up here.
KCF, you are simply wrong.
Give it up.
See how silly that sounds?
“…they also privatised quite a few things, too::”
Socialism loves crony capitalism.
Annie, you are simply wrong.
Give it up.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100261121/hitler-wasnt-a-socialist-stop-saying-he-was/
“Dan asserts that Hitler was a socialist with reservations, that:
Marx’s error, Hitler believed, had been to foster class war instead of national unity – to set workers against industrialists instead of conscripting both groups into a corporatist order.
Yet, by this very definition, Hitler wasn’t a socialist. Marxism is defined by class war, and socialism is accomplished with the total victory of the Proletariat over the ruling classes. By contrast, Hitler offered an alliance between labour and capital in the form of corporatism – with the express purpose of preventing class war. Marxists regarded this as one of the stages of capitalist development and few at the time legitimately interpreted the Third Reich to be a socialist society. The radical George Bernard Shaw, for example, certainly expressed sympathy for Hitler when he came to power but later described the dictator’s socialism as fraudulent – as a way of buying off the inevitable revolution. He wore, in Shaw’s opinion, “the latest mask of capitalism.”
Indeed, while the Nazis continued the Weimar Republic’s policy of nationalisation, they also privatised quite a few things, too: some steelworks, four major banks and the railways. The profit generated almost 1.4 per cent of the state’s income from 1934-38. Industrialists did well in the Nazi years, helped by a state policy of crushing the unions and emphasising full employment over raising pay. It is true that the economy was socialised in the latter part of the 1930s, but not for the sake of building socialism. It was to prepare for war. Politics came before economics in the fascist state to the degree that it’s hard to conceive of Hitler as a coherent economic thinker at all. He would’ve done anything to aid his conquest of Eastern Europe, and a command economy proved to be better at building tanks than the free market. Given that the dictator enjoyed the support of a bourgeoisie that accepted that sacrifices had to be made to defend their profits against socialism, we might define the Third Reich as capitalism embracing aspects of socialist economics in order to defend the interests of capitalists. Shaw was right.”
Inga – George Bernard Shaw was a socialist, not a radical. He also said “Women are like rugs, they need to be taken out an beaten regularly.”
And let’s discuss the German Labor force.
Germans do make good stuff. They make $60,000 cars and $90 potato peelers. If you can afford it, it’s well made. But it’s very expensive.
In order to support those huge benefits packages, their goods are costly. They sell their products to the rich and upper middle class.
The majority of consumers buy cheap products made in China. That’s just reality.
Karen – the Germans are a country of engineers. And under Hitler they engineered a lot of things. Their biggest problem was that they over engineered a few of those things, i.e., the Tiger tank, the Bismarck, etc.
Let me try to explain National Socialism. People hear Socialist and think Bernie Sanders. They hear conservative and think Republican. National Socialism was neither. It was a unique product of the sum of the following:
1. Fanatic nationalism in the construct of racial and national hierarchies
2. Subordination of individual rights to that of the collective nation
3. Fanatic loyalty to a dictator in full control of the military, judicial system, and the military
4. Loss of human rights
5. Corruption of absolute power
6. Belief in racial hierarchy
7. Support for eugenics (learned, tragically, in California), including promoting abortions for “undesirables”
8. Class warfare between nations
9. The only religion allowed, and encouraged, was that favorable to the state and anti-semitic.
10. National control of industry, including boards that set prices. There was private ownership was only allowed if it advanced the goals of the Nazis. Otherwise, the industry was nationalized.
11. Massive military spending and expansion to engage in conquering the world
12. Ultra conservative family values – the woman’s place was to produce as many Aryan children as possible for world domination
13. Antisemitism was the tool used to shift any blame for the ills in Germany onto the shoulders of “someone else”, someone “other” and easily blamed.
Hitler did oppose communism and socialism, not because he loved democracy, but because he envisioned a different tyranny that shared some features of both, but was not atheist, had some private ownership, and did not alienate the middle class.
Instead of focusing on class warfare, as communism does, he united the classes in fanatic nationalism completely under the power of a dictator. The foe was anyone non-Aryan or non-German.
We really should take to heart the mantra “never forget” and learn from history’s mistakes, lest we repeat them.
One of the highest risk factors in the rise of a dictator is the erosion of individual rights, and an unanswerable government. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/naziprog.html
The Program of the German Workers’ Party is a program for our time.
The leadership rejects the establishment of new aims after those set out in the Program have been achieved, for the sole purpose of making it possible for the Party to continue to exist as the result of the artificially stimulated dissatisfaction of the masses.
1. We demand the uniting of all Germans within one Greater Germany, on the basis of the right to self-determination of nations.
2. We demand equal rights for the German people (Volk) with respect to other nations, and the annulment of the peace treaty of Versailles and St. Germain.
3. We demand land and soil (Colonies) to feed our People and settle our excess population.
4. Only Nationals (Volksgenossen) can be Citizens of the State. Only persons of German blood can be Nationals, regardless of religious affiliation. No Jew can therefore be a German National.
5. Any person who is not a Citizen will be able to live in Germany only as a guest and must be subject to legislation for Aliens.
6. Only a Citizen is entitled to decide the leadership and laws of the State. We therefore demand that only Citizens may hold public office, regardless of whether it is a national, state or local office.
We oppose the corrupting parliamentary custom of making party considerations, and not character and ability, the criterion for appointments to official positions.
7. We demand that the State make it its duty to provide opportunities of employment first of all for its own Citizens. If it is not possible to maintain the entire population of the State, then foreign nationals (non-Citizens) are to be expelled from the Reich.
8. Any further immigration of non-Germans is to be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who entered Germany after August 2, 1914, be forced to leave the Reich without delay.
9. All German Citizens must have equal rights and duties.
10. It must be the first duty of every Citizen to carry out intellectual or physical work. Individual activity must not be harmful to the public interest and must be pursued within the framework of the community and for the general good.
Inga – their country, their rules.
“Another key regard in which Hitler was no socialist was his racism. ”
Complete foolishness.
Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, communists all, were virulent racists.
The socialists Samuel Gompers, Woodrow Wilson and FDR were also racists.
Platform of the National-Socialist German Workers’ Party
(1933)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100261121/hitler-wasnt-a-socialist-stop-saying-he-was/
Another key regard in which Hitler was no socialist was his racism. Again, Marxism defines history as a class struggle. Hitler saw it as a racial conflict – and Bolshevism as a Jewish construct. As he put it himself:
“In Russian Bolshevism we must see the attempt undertaken by the Jews in the twentieth century to achieve world domination. Just as in other epochs they strove to reach the same goal by other, though inwardly related processes. Their endeavor lies profoundly rooted in their essential nature. Germany is today the next great war aim of Bolshevism. It requires all the force of a young missionary idea to raise our people up again, to free them from the snares of this international serpent, and to stop the inner contamination of our blood, in order that the forces of the nation thus set free can be thrown in to safeguard our nationality, and thus can prevent a repetition of the recent catastrophes down to the most distant future.“
Inga – Lenin kicked the Jews out of the Russian Communist Party. Pretty racist to me.
One should never be too old to learn.
In which Annie follows Joseph Goebbels’ admonition: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.‘
The caveat is that the big lie must be directed at the gullible, e.g., Democrats.
As to the book banning, it’s no different than US colleges banning conservative speakers.
KCFleming – it is clear from the article that today’s colleges are a hotbed of fascism.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitler.htm
The politics of Nazism
“Many conservatives accuse Hitler of being a leftist, on the grounds that his party was named “National Socialist.” But socialism requires worker ownership and control of the means of production. In Nazi Germany, private capitalist individuals owned the means of production, and they in turn were frequently controlled by the Nazi party and state. True socialism does not advocate such economic dictatorship — it can only be democratic. Hitler’s other political beliefs place him almost always on the far right. He advocated racism over racial tolerance, eugenics over freedom of reproduction, merit over equality, competition over cooperation, power politics and militarism over pacifism, dictatorship over democracy, capitalism over Marxism, realism over idealism, nationalism over internationalism, exclusiveness over inclusiveness, common sense over theory or science, pragmatism over principle, and even held friendly relations with the Church, even though he was an atheist.
The political right is popularly associated with the following principles. Of course, it goes without saying that these are generalizations, and not every person on the far right believes in every principle, or disbelieves its opposite. Most people’s political beliefs are complex, and cannot be neatly pigeonholed. This is as true of Hitler as anyone. But since the far right is trying peg Hitler as a leftist, it’s worth reviewing the tenets popularly associated with the right. These include:
Individualism over collectivism.
Racism or racial segregation over racial tolerance.
Eugenics over freedom of reproduction.
Merit over equality.
Competition over cooperation.
Power politics and militarism over pacifism.
One-person rule or self-rule over democracy.
Capitalism over Marxism.
Realism over idealism.
Nationalism over internationalism.
Exclusiveness over inclusiveness.
Meat-eating over vegetarianism.
Gun ownership over gun control
Common sense over theory or science.
Pragmatism over principle.
Religion over secularism.
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The tenets of Naziism as listed here are explained in detail in the body of the article. Read the one about gun confiscation. It’s not what conservatives have been pushing.
Olly:
You’re too funny.
I am amused when people read Professor Turley’s blog posts about the uber presidency, and that the Left will rue the day they allowed the illegal accumulation of so much power. And then they claim that anyone else concerned about lawlessness and expansion of government is paranoid.
They do not make any connection between the two.
Paul – it has a little bit of everything, from conservative family values, nationalization of industry, erosion of individual rights and human rights in general, rise of a dictator.
What troubles me is the steps that we’ve already taken towards an unaccountable uber presidency. Already, we have remarked on Teflon politicians and government employees. Honored veterans died because of fraud in the VA, but no one went to jail. If your highly enough placed in government, you are above the law. Any other government employee would be doing time for what Hillary Clinton did, with her emails alone. Top Secret information is supposed to be kept, hard copy, in a locked room with a guard. You are allowed to read it and leave, without taking notes or making a copy. And she uploaded it to a cloud server and emailed it to people. She refused to produce these emails in response to a subpoena. She lied. She wiped her server clean in an effort to destroy evidence while under investigation. There are people who’ve lost their security clearance, their jobs, and/or been convicted of crimes for doing far less.
Obama has a pen and a phone and doesn’t need Congress. He threatens the Supreme Court to toe the line. He ignores the checks and balances meant to prevent excess. He funded Obamacare subsidies illegally. He lied about Obamacare in order to get it passed. What’s happened to him? He got re-elected.
There are efforts to erode free speech frequently here in the US. Professor Turley has many several blog posts on the subject. People want to remove the 2nd Amendment. Rich politicians use Class Warfare to buy votes. “Blame the rich” has become a tired mantra of politicians who preach victimization and helplessness instead of personal responsibility. One is to recall that girl who wouldn’t put her cell phone down in class, refused to obey her teacher, her principal, or a police officer. When she grows up poor because she threw away her free education and took no responsibility for steering her own future, there will be plenty of activists telling her to blame the white, blame Latinos, blame the Rich, or blame anyone else other than herself.
Germany’s downfall happened very, very fast. It came as a shock to my grandmother, who emigrated here before WWI. She was devastated to learn what her country of birth had done in WWII.
It’s sad to see erosion occur in our own country, and I hope people like Professor Turley stem the tide and protect us from our own foolishness.
http://shoqvalue.com/the-nazis-were-leftists-lie
“Nonsense is nonsense
…and it should be exposed as such; often and always. There are few right wing lies quite so annoying as “the Nazis were Leftists/Socialists/Communists” lie. The revisionist hooey whores like Jonah Goldberg have made it easier for this orchestrated stupidity to gain new traction with his “Liberal Fascism” screed.
The money shot
If you just don’t have a lot of time, you can use Hitler’s own words from Mein Kampf, where the Furhrer clearly illustrates his contempt for the “leftists,” and had used their colors (not to mention their name) to annoying them:
“Yes, how often did they not turn up in huge numbers, those supporters of the Red Flag, all previously instructed to smash up everything once and for all and put an end to these meetings. More often than not everything hung on a mere thread, and only the chairman’s ruthless determination and the rough handling by our ushers baffled our adversaries’ intentions. And indeed they had every reason for being irritated.
The fact that we had chosen red as the colour for our posters sufficed to attract them to our meetings. The ordinary bourgeoisie were very shocked to see that, we had also chosen the symbolic red of Bolshevism and they regarded this as something ambiguously significant.
The suspicion was whispered in German Nationalist circles that we also were merely another variety of Marxism, perhaps even Marxists suitably disguised, or better still, Socialists. The actual difference between Socialism and Marxism still remains a mystery to these people up to this day. The charge of Marxism was conclusively proved when it was discovered that at our meetings we deliberately substituted the words ‘Fellow-countrymen and Women’ for ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ and addressed each other as ‘Party Comrade’. We used to roar with laughter at these silly faint-hearted bourgeoisie and their efforts to puzzle out our origin, our intentions and our aims.
We chose red for our posters after particular and careful deliberation, our intention being to irritate the Left, so as to arouse their attention and tempt them to come to our meetings – if only in order to break them up – so that in this way we got a chance of talking to the people.””
Inga – you are always at the mercy of the translator.
Oh, stop it Karen. Clearly your ‘fear’ of government is irrational. The fact you used the word “conservative” clearly demonstrates the conservatives in the United States are in complete alignment with the Nazi regime.
{sarcasm off}
Darren – I believe I’ve lost a post!