"... it's well known, for example, that the old officer caste in Germany largely detested the Nazis, and Nazi hatred of the Jews was almost entirely detached from old religious bigotries"? What history of Nazism are you reading? Because the standard text, Evans' The Rise of the Third Reich, makes pretty much exactly the opposite of your points: before the Reichstag fire, the Nazis were the junior coalition partner in a 3-party right-wing coalition: pro-corporate Christian Democrats, pro-monarchist Catholic Nationalists, and themselves. The losing alliance in that election was the pro-labor Social Democrats, the Socialists, and a handful of Communists.
Shortly thereafter, in the Spanish Civil War, you see the exact same alignment: Christian Democrats, Catholic nationalists, and the fascist Falange rising up to overthrow the winning coalition of social democrats, socialists, and anarcho-communists, and guess who Hitler and Mussolini armed and provided air cover for? (See Beevor, The Battle for Spain.)
And, by the way, guess which side American Republican campaign donors and Republican politicians were supporting up until 1941?
A lot of smokescreen has been thrown up since 1941 to find some way to blame Hitler on the left, but it's just that, a historically dishonest smokescreen. Nazism is, and always was, a right-wing phenomenon.
And, I have to say, this whole argument is an irrelevant side issue, a distraction, to the point that Nancy is making: we are seeing right-wing American talk radio drag back out of obscurity a lot of the same linguistic techniques that Nazi propagandists used, not because they're Nazis, but because (at times like this) they work.
no subject
Shortly thereafter, in the Spanish Civil War, you see the exact same alignment: Christian Democrats, Catholic nationalists, and the fascist Falange rising up to overthrow the winning coalition of social democrats, socialists, and anarcho-communists, and guess who Hitler and Mussolini armed and provided air cover for? (See Beevor, The Battle for Spain.)
And, by the way, guess which side American Republican campaign donors and Republican politicians were supporting up until 1941?
A lot of smokescreen has been thrown up since 1941 to find some way to blame Hitler on the left, but it's just that, a historically dishonest smokescreen. Nazism is, and always was, a right-wing phenomenon.
And, I have to say, this whole argument is an irrelevant side issue, a distraction, to the point that Nancy is making: we are seeing right-wing American talk radio drag back out of obscurity a lot of the same linguistic techniques that Nazi propagandists used, not because they're Nazis, but because (at times like this) they work.