Comments by "TheThirdMan" (@thethirdman225) on "" video.
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@Crosshair84
"Fascists also realized that outright state ownership wasn't necessary, as long as the means of production were being used for the benefit of the people via government decree/regulation."
Yes and no. During the early 1930s, Hitler and Hjalmar Schacht (the so-called "Nazi banker") engaged in a number of practices that would be illegal in most countries today on the grounds of being anti-competitive. The first thing they did was to set up a sham government bonds system which was pretty much intended to fail. the second thing the did was to encourage German industries to act as cartels to bolster their positions internationally. Finally, they undid all the safety measures that were put into place to stabilise the economy, from the Weimar Republic all the way back to Bismarck. De-regulation was the order of the day and it was pursued to the extreme. nazi Germany became almost the ultimate de-regulated economy.
"Anyone who bothers to read the writings of both ideologies would know this."
As far as Nazism is concerned, this is not very helpful. Hitler wrote his manifesto, "Mein Kampf", while languishing in Landsberg Prison in 1924. He wrote a second edition in 1928. But the fact is that there was very little continuity in any of what he said and even less in connection with what he practiced. In fact, Nazism can really only be judged on what they did. There were dozens of competing interests within the party - Grigor and Otto Strasser were frequently at odds with Hitler, so much so that Grigor Strasser became a victim of the "Night of the Long Knives". Goebbels was another. There is a quote from him that is frequently cited by advocates of this zombie argument that Nazism was left wing that was from a writing in 1923. But that was when the NSDAP was still very fragmented. Goebbels was from the North and Hitler was in Munich. When Goebbels finally met Hitler he immediately dropped any previous aspirations and subordinated himself. The NSDAP recognised eventually that they could get nowhere without Hitler at the helm, so whatever he said, they followed.
Hitler's ideology - such as it existed - was never as absolute as most people like the think. He stuck to his campaigns against democracy, socialism and Jews (though he wasn't an anti-semite until after WWI). His speeches were mostly ramblings based around long-standing prejudices and assumptions which many agreed with. Much of what has been written about Nazism is retrospective, rather than from a philosophical perspective.
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@kiddkuru
"After the Nazis became the biggest German political party in 1932, hitler conspired with large business conglomerates and due to the economic instability eventually was able to get Hindenburg to appoint him as chancellor."
Not quite. Close but not quite. Hindenburg didn't appoint him due to any economic instability. In fact, Hindenburg didn’t appoint him. He was merely the rubber stamp. The Nazis benefitted from the privations of the Great Depression because Germany was affected more than most other countries, especially when American investment loans were called in.
After the 1932 elections, the Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag. The Chancellor at that point was Franz von Papen, a conservative. His government was notable for bringing about the first breach of the Versailles Treaty when it passed a bill to start rebuilding the navy.
After a no confidence motion against him, von Papen wanted to shore up some support for his conservative government so he approached the Nazis. Hitler was only interested in making a deal as long as he was made Chancellor and von Papen put it to his party. They agreed.
You may not have heard it but at the time, von Papen, speaking on behalf of the conservatives, remarked, 'We are hiring him'.
So Hitler was elevated to Chancellor - yes, this was approved by Hindenburg - with the connivance of the conservatives, who were prepared to countenance an openly anti-democratic crank like Hitler over the German left wing parties. With hindsight, one would have expected it to be the other way but it wasn't.
"While I will say that many of the large business conglomerates were right winged, I’d also like to point out hitler screwed them over when he enacted policy to remove the existence of private business, and forced these conglomerates to join the nazi party (the state) or else they would be send to re-education camps."
No. This isn't accurate. You were quite right when you pointed out that the first supporters of Hitler were industrialists like Fritz Thyssen and later, Krupp, Porsche, I.G. Farben and a number of others. I'll get to them in a minute but that much is certainly true..
When the Nazis came to power the party was 10 million Marks in debt. Hitler called a meeting with a number of big business benefactors, which included the families Thyssen, Krupp, Porsche, the Quandt family (BMW), I.G. Farben, Flicks and the von Finks.
They appealed to these people to join them in a business venture that would effectively guarantee them a free hand and a virtual river of money. Needless to say, this went ahead largely as planned.
So there was no need to force board members to become Nazis. They had been Nazis for years before. Some other never became Nazis at all. While there were ways in which the party exerted control over businesses, they remained in private hands and acted in concert with the party, largely at their own discretion.
"This gave the party full control over the economy. That is how socialism and communism work."
Again, no. First of all, even in the most liberal and conservative democracies, governments still exert control over economies. They do this through mechanisms like fiscal and monetary policy, budgets and other policy measures which can have a great deal of influence. Laws controlling industrial relations or public service pay rises can have a huge influence.
So central planning - invariably decried as socialism - is used everywhere, no matter what the stripe of government we are talking about. Without it, you couldn't manage a currency market and you couldn't manage international trade, especially in these days of an essentially global economy. You couldn't manage foreign policy and defence.
Now while it's true that things were somewhat different in the 1930s, it's also true that governments were a lot more invested in major projects than they are now. It's also true that the Great Depression was arguably the first global financial event.
So, to best answer your next point, it is necessary for me to ask another question:
How did the Nazis finance German rearmament and the major capital works programs, like the building of the Autobahns?
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@TheFlyingSquirrel1980 So what? If you knew anything about Hitler, you’d know how whimsical and capricious he was. Here’s another one he said to a group of Hamburg businessmen in 1929:
”We are all workers. The aim is not to get higher and higher wages, but to increase production, because that is to the advantage of each individual.” - “Hitler”, Ian Kershaw, Penguin Books, 2009, p. 179.
In other words, no unions. We’re going to maximise your profits. He was right: they did. As soon as he got in, Hitler and his banker Hjalmar Schacht, dismantled almost every law that had stabilised the economy since Bismarck. They de-regulated on a scale never seen before and they actively encouraged German companies to work as cartels and allowed them to fix prices in order to bolster their international position. Then they sold junk government bonds to prop up wealthy industrialists.
No unions, de-regulation, letting business do what they would not be allowed to do, even in a free market economy….
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@magictransistorradio4933
"Ok, so maybe I should've said conservative and liberal instead of right wing vs left wing. Texas is right wing, but not always conservative."
Okay, so we agree that it's possible to be right wing and big government...?
"The Nazi's were more left wing than right wing I would say."
Well, let's have a look at a few things. First of all, there is the matter of nationalism and internationalism. The first is a right wing position and the second is left wing. The Soviet Union was internationalist. That's why everyone was afraid of the spread of communism. The Nazis were nationalist. Hitler was a pan-German nationalist who wanted all Germans to be able to live under a united national government at the expense of everyone else (Slav, Jews, socialists, etc..). The communists fought their battles against the class system. The Nazis fought their battles against race and culture (sexuality too). Then there's the matter of the role of women in the Third Reich. Hitler's position on this - with rare exceptions like film make Leni Riefenstahl - was that the role of women was strictly supportive: "Kinder, Küche, Kirche" was the motto. Very much a conservative viewpoint.
Then there's economics. Hitler and Hjalmar Schacht (AKA, "The Nazi Banker") underwent a massive program of deregulation in the 1930s. They dismantled virtually every law that had stabilised the economy since Bismarck. They allowed businesses to engage in anti-competitive practices, such as cartels and price-fixing, in order to bolster their position internationally. Price fixing has often been cited as a left wing policy, whereas it's not. Without legislation, companies in an unregulated market will mark out territory and fix prices. Deregulation is a long way from socialism.
And that's before we start talking about the street fights with socialists and communists and before we talk about Hitler's hatred of bolshevism, etc.. Those are the usual tropes in these arguments but there is a lot more to it when you lift the carpet and look underneath.
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"So in short blame the Right for Nazism."
Well, if you think the cap fits... Look, the best thing that can happen here is for you to forget this petty tribalism. Conservatives are no more Nazis than progressives are communist, except in the mids of low-information voters. If you want to believe that kind of bilge, that's your business but you're on a hiding to nowhere. Nobody's best interests are served by this kind of absolutist, binary political trench warfare.
But the fact is that the Nazis were right wing. Just as communism is left wing.
"Surely speaking Hitlers platform had more in common with the socialists than the right .Government contrroll of the state is a left wing Idea."
Not at all. The idea that the size of a government is what decides someone is left or right wing is a construct of a troll like Jonah Goldberg. If you want to see a conservative big government, look no further than Texas. Claims to be in favour of individual rights. Stops a woman making choices about her own body. Are they big government? Yes. Are they Nazis? No (despicable but not Nazis).
"There is no god only the Government is god."
No! Couldn't be further from the truth. A totalitarian state has a god: the leader. Hitler's personal charisma, aided and abetted by Goebbels and the Nazi press, was such that to all intents and purposes, he was God to most Germans. Hitler referred occasionally to God in his speeches but it was usually to ay that he was simply following "providence", a word he used a lot and following God's will (his personal interests). Totalitarianism is the cult of the leader (Fuhrer).
"Hitler greatly admired Mussolini. Dismissing it as a rumor is simply a lazy argument."
It's irrelevant.
"Socialists have been responsible for the worst human suffering in the last century since time began."
The Nazis did a pretty good job of it themselves. Once again, putting all progressives, even socialists, into the same basket as Stalin or Mao Zedong is a Zombie argument that's easily dismantled with education.
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