Mein Kampf

[exeexe]

So i heard that it says in the book Mein Kampf written by Hitler that you could read there that Hitler planned to exterminate all the jews. Does anyone know if its true? Because thats quite scary considering that people let Hitler into power if they could just read his book and see what was coming.

[QueerVanguard]

No, Ateoff Shitler didn't just write in a book "Yeah, I wanna kill 6 millions Jews, LGBTQ people, Gypsies and other minority groups". Even he wasn't *that* stupid.

[Rosa Partizan]

why do you think that this would be scary at all? Times after WWI were tense and people were keen to have a scapegoat. Throughout history, Jews were very popular to be given the place of that "raffendes Kapital" (as mentioned in Mein Kampf) as contrary to "schaffendes Kapital" that was the hard-working, honest, productive people that didn't work with something dirty like money. People would've jumped on anything that was given to them as explanation for their hardship, and this is even working nowadays with a lot of people.

[PhoenixAsh]

He falls short of actually arguing that but his polemic against Jews as parasites and vile corrupters can logically only lead to the conclusion that if he had is way they would not be tolerated to continue to exist in Germay. It could be open to debate if he would have meant expulsion or extermination. He leaves that unanswered.

These views were not really strange though for that time period.

[exeexe]

ok thx - that answered my question

[Geiseric]

First of all, marx wasnt an anti semite. He worked with jews his whole life. Second Hitler did say that he was going to invade eastern europe, and exterminate bolshevism. Communists in germany are responsible for him gaining power due to their bureaucratic ineptitude.

What an anti semite, supporting the political emancipation of the jews in germany! Shit, there are people here who dont advocate for self determination for black americans and other oppressed natipnalities, as it is. That stance is a nuance of racism but marx didnt hold it.

[Loony Le Fist]

So i heard that it says in the book Mein Kampf written by Hitler that you could read there that Hitler planned to exterminate all the jews. Does anyone know if its true?


He wasn't completely overt in Mein Kampf, but he certainly made his anti-semitism very clear. He blamed all the problems of Germany on Jews, Marxists, and Social Democrats among others.



Because thats quite scary considering that people let Hitler into power if they could just read his book and see what was coming.

Hitler was a populist. He appealed to the problems of the day. Consider the state of the Weimar Republic. Jews were an easy scapegoat, much like immigrants are an easy scapegoat in the US and especially in the UK, France and Greece today, for instance.. Germany was strapped with war debt from WWI, and the economy was in the tank. People wanted a solution--any solution. In Hitler, they saw a leader with answers.

This is one of the reasons why times of economic peril are so dangerous. They make you desperate to put food on the table without considering the implications.

[DOOM]

Hitler was literally the manifestation of german consent on jews and other minorities.
Saying that they wouldn't have elected him is non-sense, as Hitlers beliefs were fairly common in the german population. They wanted a Hitler and they got one.


First of all, marx wasnt an anti semite. He worked with jews his whole life. Second Hitler did say that he was going to invade eastern europe, and exterminate bolshevism. Communists in germany are responsible for him gaining power due to their bureaucratic ineptitude.

What an anti semite, supporting the political emancipation of the jews in germany! Shit, there are people here who dont advocate for self determination for black americans and other oppressed natipnalities, as it is. That stance is a nuance of racism but marx didnt hold it.

Uh well, not really. Anti-semitism is a worldview replacing real anti-capitalism with regressive anti-capitalism and puts the jews in the position of a scapegoat. Of course, it has its roots in anti-judaism, but it's clearly not plain racism.

[Geiseric]

Hitler was literally the manifestation of german consent on jews and other minorities.
Saying that they wouldn't have elected him is non-sense, as Hitlers beliefs were fairly common in the german population. They wanted a Hitler and they got one.

Lol hitler and himmler were from austria though. And they were catholic. And they DIDNT elect him, he was appointed. Sorry youre wrong.

[Geiseric]

Those ideas were widespread in the 19th century and they were rampant with early socialists who more or less made the same connection to Judaism and capitalism and the state in a conspiratory sense as the 20th century NSDAP.

They are also the foundation of the agitation of many Jewish organisations against Marxism and communism.

Nobody who held those views was important because they were seen to of been nuts. Only petit bourgeois in the far peripheral areas of austria hungary and the german empire believed that suff. The german and russian working classes were led by jewish socialists such as Laselle, Bebel, Marx, Trotsky, and luxembourg which is why jews are hated with such virulence.

[DOOM]

Lol hitler and himmler were from austria though. And they were catholic. And they DIDNT elect him, he was appointed. Sorry youre wrong.

What the fuck?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nationalism_in_Austria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_July_1932
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_November_1932
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_referendum,_1934

Do you even history m8?

[Geiseric]

The nazis never gained a majority until the seizure of power. They were able to gain power due to the communists inability to take advantage of revolutionary situations. If the red referendum wasnt supported by communists hitler wouldnt of gained power. Communists also didnt care when the ruhr was occupied, and only started organizing a year after the fact that the general strike was crushed.

So dont act like you know what youre talking about. They had to break nearly all of weimar republic's laws before they gained power. In 1932 when the communists more or less gave up, they and the SPD had just as many votes as the Nazis as well as a huge paramilitary. Instead of fighting the Nazis they fought the SPD, which had control over the major unions. And left communists think that was the right thing to do.

[Invader Zim]

What the fuck?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nationalism_in_Austria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_July_1932
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_November_1932
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_referendum,_1934

Do you even history m8?

Do you? As the link you posted show, the NSDAP never won an election. Hitler achieved power through coalition politics and rigging elections. He never had a popular mandate.

[DigitalBluster]

So i heard that it says in the book Mein Kampf written by Hitler that you could read there that Hitler planned to exterminate all the jews. Does anyone know if its true? Because thats quite scary considering that people let Hitler into power if they could just read his book and see what was coming.

You can find every instance of "Jew" in Mein Kampf by clicking here (https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Jew*+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fhitler.org% 2Fwritings%2FMein_Kampf%2F).

[exeexe]

You can find every instance of "Jew" in Mein Kampf by clicking here (https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Jew*+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fhitler.org% 2Fwritings%2FMein_Kampf%2F).
I found this passage:


Hence the Jewish leadership in trade-union affairs remains uncontested until an enormous work of enlightenment influences the broad masses and sets them right about their never-ending misery, or else the state disposes of the Jew and his work.


Also he equals Marxism to Jewishism so if he at one point said exterminate Marxism, he could very well also mean the extermination of the Jews.

[Sabot Cat]

To those saying that the Nazis didn't attain a majority: of course they didn't. No party in the Weimar Republic ever attained a majority in the parliamentary elections because it wasn't a bipartisan system. Coalition politics, and even the most popular parties only receiving pluralities of the total vote, are not irregularities even now in Germany and most of Europe.

In fact, in ever single politically plural German election from 1867 to 2013, guess how many times a party has attained a majority of the votes cast? Never.

[Remus Bleys]

Hitler didn't go "lol I'm gonna kill all the jews" and it wasn't Hitler alone who was responsible for the Holocaust. The Nazis were in power since 1933, and the Final Solution wasn't even proposed or formulated until 1942. Besides, before then there was talk of sending the Jews to somewhere in Africa (Madagascar?) in order to colonize it (there was also talk of selling Jewish people as slaves). This is not Nazi Apologism, its just that Hitler didn't all by himself force the Holocaust and the Holocaust wasn't even formulate before 1942. It wasn't what the Nazis rode on to get to power, and the Nazis probably wouldn't have wanted to do that before, anyway.
edit: this isn't to say that the nazis weren't deeply anti-semitic, one merely needs to look at ghettos to overcome that holocaust-denier idiocy.

[Sabot Cat]

To hammer my earlier point home, here's how the Nazis chart against other parties that attained pluralities by election year before the Reichstag fire or decree, by percent of votes cast:

1. 1919: Social Democratic Party 11,509,048 37.86
2. 1932/July: National Socialist German Workers Party 13,745,680 37.27
3. 1912: Social Democratic Party 4,250,400 34.8
4. 1932/Nov.: National Socialist German Workers Party 11,737,021 33.09
5. 1903: Social Democratic Party 3,010,800 31.7
6. 1928: Social Democratic Party 7,881,041 26.0

The Nazis thus had the second-highest margin of victory, and the most total votes cast for them, in German history up to that point.

[Remus Bleys]

To hammer my earlier point home, here's how the Nazis chart against other parties that attained pluralities by election year before the Reichstag fire or decree, by percent of votes cast:

1. 1919: Social Democratic Party 11,509,048 37.86
2. 1932/July: National Socialist German Workers Party 13,745,680 37.27
3. 1912: Social Democratic Party 4,250,400 34.8
4. 1932/Nov.: National Socialist German Workers Party 11,737,021 33.09
5. 1903: Social Democratic Party 3,010,800 31.7
6. 1928: Social Democratic Party 7,881,041 26.0

The Nazis thus had the second-highest margin of victory, and the most total votes cast for them, in German history up to that point.
Bourgeois democracy is a sham and a puppet show that reflects the interest of capital. This is an established point, so I must ask, what is yours?
Or are you yet again talking about how one could have voted the nazis away? Some fucking anarchist you are.

[Five Year Plan]

These days racism and anti semitism is called satire. No racist or anti-semite ever tried to hide racism by playing the satire card ...naturally.

And of course it is totally believable that Marx and Engels were merely being satirical when they wrote all their serious discourses, correspondence, private letters and articles of the span of years and years. This was the longest running satirical easter egg gag ever. Nobody knew this and they never told and eventhough non of the serious later Marxists who defended Marx by saying we should look at these quotes in context and never came up with the "satire defence" we are no to believe that it is actually the case.

Not sure if this is directed at me, but I stated pretty clearly that Marx made racially insensitive (or "racist" remarks), but seriously, you should be embarrassed by that litany of quotes you posted, because it makes you look like a right-wing hack just trying to smear Marx with quotes that any reasonable reading would demonstrate is Marx actually taking shots at anti-Jewishness. You might as well have quoted out of context Marx facetiously calling Max Stirner "St. Max" in the German Ideology as evidence for Marx's closet Catholicism.

[Sabot Cat]

Bourgeois democracy is a sham and a puppet show that reflects the interest of capital. This is an established point, so I must ask, what is yours?
Or are you yet again talking about how one could have voted the nazis away?

Someone alleged that the Nazis did not attain a majority as if that counted against their electoral legitimacy for what that's worth, but this is a misconception that stems from a misunderstanding of how parliamentary politics in Germany works.


Some fucking anarchist you are.

You're kind of a belligerent and rude, you know?

[Five Year Plan]

Hitler didn't go "lol I'm gonna kill all the jews" and it wasn't Hitler alone who was responsible for the Holocaust. The Nazis were in power since 1933, and the Final Solution wasn't even proposed or formulated until 1942. Besides, before then there was talk of sending the Jews to somewhere in Africa (Madagascar?) in order to colonize it (there was also talk of selling Jewish people as slaves). This is not Nazi Apologism, its just that Hitler didn't all by himself force the Holocaust and the Holocaust wasn't even formulate before 1942. It wasn't what the Nazis rode on to get to power, and the Nazis probably wouldn't have wanted to do that before, anyway.
edit: this isn't to say that the nazis weren't deeply anti-semitic, one merely needs to look at ghettos to overcome that holocaust-denier idiocy.

One of the Big Debates (tm) in twentieth century German historiography is the extent to which the Holocaust was the result of organized planning and premeditation, and the extent to which Hitler himself may have been involved in that planning.

[Remus Bleys]

Someone alleged that the Nazis did not attain a majority as if that counted against their electoral legitimacy for what that's worth, but this is a misconception that stems from a misunderstanding of how parliamentary politics in Germany works.
Geiseric is an idiot, and no one who wants to retain their sanity should engage with him. But who cares if the Nazis got a majority or not? Why argue that? You're right here, but why not point out the fact that it doesn't matter if they did or if they didn't?



You're kind of a belligerent and rude, you know?Yeah I do. And you're kind of a parliamentary cretin, you know? Hey, did you stop voting for the "lesser of two evils" yet? Because it would align most perfectly with your politics if you genuinely thought that fascism could have been better fought if they paid just a smidgen more attention to the ballot box.


One of the Big Debates (tm) in twentieth century German historiography is the extent to which the Holocaust was the result of organized planning and premeditation, and the extent to which Hitler himself may have been involved in that planning.
Yeah I know. I think my position is quite obvious, as my sig has that lovely piece by Martin Axelrod (The Great Alibi). What's your position on it?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Please don't pollute this thread with anymore "Marx/Proudhon/Bakunin was a racist/sexist/homophobe/anti-Semite/etc" stuff.

Users who are inclined to vent their spleens on this topic are invited to do so in the thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/antisemitism-famous-socialists-t189421/index.html?t=189421) I created in Discrimination. Thanks!

[exeexe]

Besides, before then there was talk of sending the Jews to somewhere in Africa (Madagascar?) in order to colonize it (there was also talk of selling Jewish people as slaves).
Well it also said somewhere else in Mein Kampf (cant be arsed to find it now) that (according to Hitler) Jews were not cultural equipped to have their own state.

[Sabot Cat]

Geiseric is an idiot, and no one who wants to retain their sanity should engage with him. But who cares if the Nazis got a majority or not? Why argue that? You're right here, but why not point out the fact that it doesn't matter if they did or if they didn't?

As you pointed out, that's an established point and I'm not going to be the socialist version of Captain Obvious.


Yeah I do.

Well... what's the point?


And you're kind of a parliamentary cretin, you know? Hey, did you stop voting for the "lesser of two evils" yet?

I'm not going to help you derail the thread.


Because it would align most perfectly with your politics if you genuinely thought that fascism could have been better fought if they paid just a smidgen more attention to the ballot box.

I kind of doubt that would have helped, honestly.

[Remus Bleys]

Well it also said somewhere else in Mein Kampf (cant be arsed to find it now) that (according to Hitler) Jews were not cultural equipped to have their own state.
Hitler was not the be-all end-all of the Nazi Party nor of the German State, either though. I haven't read and won't read Mein Kampf because its a crock of conspiracy theorist, anti-semtic bullshit that has no use to anything. I'm sure Hitler did things that contradicted Mein Kampf, however, a book he wrote as a propaganda piece should not be taken so literally.

post.
So I take it as a yes, that you still vote for Democrats because supposedly that makes the state less threatening, so the question has to be asked: why wouldn't this work in the case of Nazism in Germany? If voting really and truly did have an affect on the Bourgeois state, wouldn't it be the duty of every "anti-fascist" to go out and vote and pay attention to the ballot (in an effort to squash fascism)? I'm not arguing this point, of course, but I am arguing that you are being inconsistent.

[Sabot Cat]

Hitler was not the be-all end-all of the Nazi Party nor of the German State, either though. I haven't read and won't read Mein Kampf because its a crock of conspiracy theorist, anti-semtic bullshit that has no use to anything. I'm sure Hitler did things that contradicted Mein Kampf, however, a book he wrote as a propaganda piece should not be taken so literally.

So I take it as a yes, that you still vote for Democrats because supposedly that makes the state less threatening, so the question has to be asked: why wouldn't this work in the case of Nazism in Germany? If voting really and truly did have an affect on the Bourgeois state, wouldn't it be the duty of every "anti-fascist" to go out and vote and pay attention to the ballot (in an effort to squash fascism)? I'm not arguing this point, of course, but I am arguing that you are being inconsistent.

If I lived in Germany at the time, you bet that I would vote against the Nazis; I just don't think that would be the most effective means of fighting against fascism at the time if done alone. Violent means were definitely called for.

[Remus Bleys]

If I lived in Germany at the time, you bet that I would vote against the Nazis; I just don't think that would be the most effective means of fighting against fascism at the time if done alone. Violent means were definitely called for.
So, for you, fighting class enemies starts with voting and ends with violence, as a last resort. Such is the unabashed view of pacifism, revealing its bourgeois nature.

[Sabot Cat]

So, for you, fighting class enemies starts with voting and ends with violence, as a last resort. Such is the unabashed view of pacifism, revealing its bourgeois nature.

Such is the unabashed view of someone who doesn't want to be imprisoned, where one's revolutionary activities are rather limited.

Also, are you engaging in violent attacks against the elements of capital? I don't think you are, because they'd be ineffective; not because you're a pacifist.

[Geiseric]

To hammer my earlier point home, here's how the Nazis chart against other parties that attained pluralities by election year before the Reichstag fire or decree, by percent of votes cast:

1. 1919: Social Democratic Party 11,509,048 37.86
2. 1932/July: National Socialist German Workers Party 13,745,680 37.27
3. 1912: Social Democratic Party 4,250,400 34.8
4. 1932/Nov.: National Socialist German Workers Party 11,737,021 33.09
5. 1903: Social Democratic Party 3,010,800 31.7
6. 1928: Social Democratic Party 7,881,041 26.0

The Nazis thus had the second-highest margin of victory, and the most total votes cast for them, in German history up to that point.

Youre not really examining why that happened. By 1932 there was open warfare between the KPD and SPD over who would lead the working class' s organizations, while the depression was deepening and the bourgeois was becoming more desperate. The inability of the KPD leadership to pounce on opportunities they had to lead the working class through the revolution, on top of stalinist third period politics, is what led to Nazism. Not a mandate from the masses, as republican history channel would present it.

[Geiseric]

So, for you, fighting class enemies starts with voting and ends with violence, as a last resort. Such is the unabashed view of pacifism, revealing its bourgeois nature.

You told me you agreed with third periodism though.

[Remus Bleys]

You told me you agreed with third periodism though.
When you worthless piece of shit? Or are you simply, yet again, faux-trotting about calling Bordiga a Third-Periodist, using this to deduce that I am a third periodist? Can you, for just a second, not think of me as being somehow both an ultraleftist and a stalinist?


Also, are you engaging in violent attacks against the elements of capital? I don't think you are, because they'd be ineffective; not because you're a pacifist.
They are ineffective insofar that I am an individual. Terrorism is not an effective habit when its just some guy, and even as an organization, it can still lead to detrimental effects. Not because of some weird metaphysical absurdity that makes liberalism immune to violence.

[Sabot Cat]

They are ineffective insofar that I am an individual. Terrorism is not an effective habit when its just some guy, and even as an organization, it can still lead to detrimental effects. Not because of some weird metaphysical absurdity that makes liberalism immune to violence.

...er, I don't remember saying or implying as much?


Youre not really examining why that happened. By 1932 there was open warfare between the KPD and SPD over who would lead the working class' s organizations, while the depression was deepening and the bourgeois was becoming more desperate. The inability of the KPD leadership to pounce on opportunities they had to lead the working class through the revolution, on top of stalinist third period politics, is what led to Nazism. Not a mandate from the masses, as republican history channel would present it.

Er, I don't remember saying all that either.

Geez guys, my jaws are hurting from all of the words that you're putting in my mouth.

[Remus Bleys]

...er, I don't remember implying as much?



Er, I don't remember saying all that either.

Geez guys, my jaws are hurting from all of the stuff that your putting in my mouth.
Uh, yeah, again you always start with violence as a last resort. See the arguments you are making in that "how do you describe a state" thread. You did it now, with "well why aren't you blowing shit up." I said why I wasn't, but I never said that violence is off the table simply because we aren't facing fascists... which you implied, if not outrightly stated in some other thread.

[Sabot Cat]

Uh, yeah, again you always start with violence as a last resort. See the arguments you are making in that "how do you describe a state" thread. You did it now, with "well why aren't you blowing shit up." I said why I wasn't, but I never said that violence is off the table simply because we aren't facing fascists... which you implied, if not outrightly stated in some other thread.

I said no such thing, but you're right in that I don't share your eagerness for violence.

[Five Year Plan]

I said no such thing, but you're right in that I don't share your eagerness for violence.

I think there's an important difference between stating that violence is never, on principle, off the table, which is Remus's position, and "being eager" for violence, which is the position you are imputing to him.

[Sabot Cat]

I think there's an important difference between stating that violence is never, on principle, off the table, which is Remus's position, and "being eager" for violence, which is the position you are imputing to him.

Eh, fair enough. I suppose he is merely more willing to justify its use than I.

[Geiseric]

When you worthless piece of shit? Or are you simply, yet again, faux-trotting about calling Bordiga a Third-Periodist, using this to deduce that I am a third periodist? Can you, for just a second, not think of me as being somehow both an ultraleftist and a stalinist?


They are ineffective insofar that I am an individual. Terrorism is not an effective habit when its just some guy, and even as an organization, it can still lead to detrimental effects. Not because of some weird metaphysical absurdity that makes liberalism immune to violence.

You said you historically would not of been open to a front with SPD rank and file workers if uou were a german communist in the 1930s. Im just trying to have a normal discussion.

[Remus Bleys]

You said you historically would not of been open to a front with SPD rank and file workers if uou were a german communist in the 1930s. Im just trying to have a normal discussion.
Where and when? And that makes me a stalinist... how?

Lets just say, Geis, that I said this exact phrasing. How does not masturbating to your inane "KPD+SPD = Communism (yay!)" make me a stalinist? How is that a statement that I agree with the Third Period?

[Geiseric]

Where and when? And that makes me a stalinist... how?

Lets just say, Geis, that I said this exact phrasing. How does not masturbating to your inane "KPD+SPD = Communism (yay!)" make me a stalinist? How is that a statement that I agree with the Third Period?

I didnt mean to call you a stalinist. But politically bordiga was against fronts with social democratic parties against fascism.

[Remus Bleys]

I didnt mean to call you a stalinist. But politically bordiga was against fronts with social democratic parties against fascism.
Yes and so? You are, yet again, demonstrating yourself to speaking about things you have absolutely no knowledge of: in this case, it is both the Italian Left and Third-Period Stalinism.

[synthesis]

Hitler was literally the manifestation of german consent on jews and other minorities.
Saying that they wouldn't have elected him is non-sense, as Hitlers beliefs were fairly common in the german population. They wanted a Hitler and they got one.

Wherein the class analysis of the anti-Deutsche, or lack thereof, is laid bare.

[RedWorker]

To add on to what some people said at the start of this thread, I would like to emphasize that Hitler never gained much support in any free and fair elections.

The elections in which Hitler obtained the most support, he still wasn't approved of by a majority, even though they were done under total violence, total repression, full censorship of all the other parties, ...

[exeexe]

So why did the party get 44% of the brutto votes in 1933? Only 71,6% voted. So thats more than 50% of the netto votes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March_1933

[Remus Bleys]

To add on to what some people said at the start of this thread, I would like to emphasize that Hitler never gained much support in any free and fair elections.

The elections in which Hitler obtained the most support, he still wasn't approved of by a majority, even though they were celebrated under total violence, total repression, full censorship of all the other parties, ...
pray tell what are these and why is it desirable? Do you really think that "any free and fair elections" in a bourgeois state are desirable?

[RedWorker]

So why did the party get 44% of the brutto votes in 1933? Only 71,6% voted. So thats more than 50% of the netto votes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March_1933

88.74% of the people with right to vote voted. And 43.91% of these 88.74% voted NSDAP.

(43.91/100)*88.74 = 38

38% of people with the right to vote voted for NSDAP. And these elections were done under total violence, repression and censorship like I said...


pray tell what are these and why is it desirable? Do you really think that "any free and fair elections" in a bourgeois state are desirable?

I believe that truly fair elections never happened under capitalism, for many different reasons. What I meant is that they were not "free and fair" even by bourgeois standards.

[exeexe]

88.74% of the people with right to vote voted. And 43.91% of these 88.74% voted NSDAP.

(43.91/100)*88.74 = 38

88,74? No 71,6% voted. Even then you calculate it incorrectly. The number 38 should be higher than 43,91.

[RedWorker]

88,74? No 71,6% voted. Even then you calculate it incorrectly.

Interesting. Wikipedia gives conflicting numbers: 71.6% in the infobox and 88.74% in the table.

So using the 71.6% number:

(43.91/100)*71.6 = 31

31% of people with the right to vote voted for NSDAP.

You are wrong about which number must be higher. If turnout is lower than 100%, then by definition the percentage of people who voted in favor of a certain party out of those who actually voted must be higher than the percentage of people who voted in favor of a certain party out of those who have the right to vote.

[exeexe]

Interesting. Wikipedia gives conflicting numbers: 71.6% in the infobox and 88.74% in the table.

So using the 71.6% number:

(43.91/100)*71.6 = 31

31% of people with the right to vote voted for NSDAP.

Yes your number was right. I can some german and they translated the page from german wrongly. 88,74 is the correct number. I think the number 71,6% means how many of the entire population that can vote. Like for example someone who is 5 year old cant vote.

Let me tell you why the number should be higher than 43:
http://i58.tinypic.com/2607vup.jpg

[RedWorker]

But 43% is the number that is there when there is no white block, not when there is a white block. And what we're doing to calculate the percentage of people with the right to vote who voted in favor of NSDAP is putting the white block in, not taking it out...

[PhoenixAsh]

Is everybody assuming the NSDAP were the only ones with anti-semitic ideas and ideals?

[DOOM]

The nazis never gained a majority until the seizure of power. They were able to gain power due to the communists inability to take advantage of revolutionary situations. If the red referendum wasnt supported by communists hitler wouldnt of gained power. Communists also didnt care when the ruhr was occupied, and only started organizing a year after the fact that the general strike was crushed.

So dont act like you know what youre talking about. They had to break nearly all of weimar republic's laws before they gained power. In 1932 when the communists more or less gave up, they and the SPD had just as many votes as the Nazis as well as a huge paramilitary. Instead of fighting the Nazis they fought the SPD, which had control over the major unions. And left communists think that was the right thing to do.
You don't need an absolute majority in germany to "win" an election. However, 44% is more than enough to be the major party in a coallition. So YES the Nazis have absolutely won the elections. Of course, the inability of the german communists did do a major part in the Nazi rise, but one can't ignore that völkisch ideas and anti-semitism were fairly common in germany. As I said, Hitler was the manifestation of german consent. It wasn't just the Nazis, that have held these positions. Two parties were on the left side (KPD, SPD), some in the centre and the rest were all undoubtly nationalist, völkisch and antisemitic. This is a fact.

[exeexe]

..
No in politics the number of votes is shown in relation to 100% of people who can vote, because you get to decide over the whole of the population. So to show how the population is represented in the parliament you show that number with the white block. I summed the numbers together in excel and i got 34,5 million which is far away from the 39,7 million shown in total in the table on wiki.

[DOOM]

Wherein the class analysis of the anti-Deutsche, or lack thereof, is laid bare.
Please elaborate how I'm wrong. Hitler was a beloved ruler.
This shit reminds me really off german apologism.

[RedWorker]

Hitler was a beloved ruler.

The question is, by whom?

By the Jews? By the people who used to be voters of SPD or KPD? By the workers? By the population of the states he invaded?

Or by a minority of the population of a state named "Germany"?

I refuse to accept that Hitler was "beloved" in any way, which seems to somehow have become part of mainstream thought. At most, he was seen like a desperate solution by a minority of the population of his state.

[DOOM]

The question is, by whom?

By the Jews? By the people who used to be voters of SPD or KPD? By the workers? By the population of the states he invaded?

Or by a minority of the population of a state named "Germany"?

I refuse to accept that Hitler was "beloved" in any way, which seems to somehow have become part of mainstream thought. At most, he was seen like a desperate solution by a minority of the population of his state.

why are you strawmanning me so hard? I knew someone's going to write such an answer.
By whom you ask? by the white german men, by the workers, by the capitalists and by the peasants. By the FUCKING majority.
Believing that only a minority supported Hitler is apologism at its finest.

[exeexe]

No in politics the number of votes is shown in relation to 100% of people who can vote, because you get to decide over the whole of the population. So to show how the population is represented in the parliament you show that number with the white block. I summed the numbers together in excel and i got 34,5 million which is far away from the 39,7 million shown in total in the table on wiki.
Nevermind, i tried to do it again and now i reached 39 millions. Must have made an error the first time.


But 43% is the number that is there when there is no white block, not when there is a white block. And what we're doing to calculate the percentage of people with the right to vote who voted in favor of NSDAP is putting the white block in, not taking it out...
Ok you were right. I just find it awkward to show the numbers in this way.

[exeexe]

Hitler wasnt a beloved ruler, it was just that democratic capitalism (or liberal capitalism) was becoming a mess and people needed a way to get out of it. They had 3 options: Party communism, anarchism and nazism, and apparently nazism was what they picked.

Party communism had already killed tons of people in USSR so naturally people sought other ways to deal with their problem and anarchism was not really a practical solution at that time since both the communist party and the fascist had ganged up on it in Spain and elsewhere.

[Sasha]

to come back at the original question


So i heard that it says in the book Mein Kampf written by Hitler that you could read there that Hitler planned to exterminate all the jews. Does anyone know if its true? Because thats quite scary considering that people let Hitler into power if they could just read his book and see what was coming.

i doubt many people really read mein kampf and of those that did i think not that many really took it as an political program, its a poorly written book, very incoherent with elements of both an auto-biography and a polemic.
viscously anti-semite polemics where being release left and right (pun intended) at the time, hardly anyone but a very few jews themselves though that things like "exterminate the rat jew" "destroy Jewry" etc etc would ever entail the actual industrial mass-scale destruction of a people, in general people thought they where talking about the destruction of this (non-existent) secret cabal of leading jewish bankers etc, probably with some more deportations and ghetosations and the occasion pogrom for Sam and Moos the average workingclass jew thrown in again which was sadly the bread and butter for Judeaism for over the last 2000 years.
And because germany was a coalition democracy with the most integrated and enlightened jewish community in history many jews didnt take the threat of the NSDAP very serious, compared to what was happened in russia under the Tsar, the brutal mass pogroms against the defenseless underdeveloped peasants of the Pale, Germany was heaven, the new Jewish golden age. Even after the establishment of the nazi dictatorship many of the religious and bourgeois jews still thought it all would blow over. Only many of the jewish-communists saw the writing on the wall.
If you can get your hands on it I would very much advise you to read Hayo G. Meyer's "the end of Judeaism" (http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Judaism-Hajo-Meyer/dp/0978869125), not only because of his very worthwhile writing on the Israeli question and modern anti-semitism but especially on his excellent analysis of what happened in the 20's, 30's and 40's in germany.

[Invader Zim]

To those saying that the Nazis didn't attain a majority: of course they didn't. No party in the Weimar Republic ever attained a majority in the parliamentary elections because it wasn't a bipartisan system. Coalition politics, and even the most popular parties only receiving pluralities of the total vote, are not irregularities even now in Germany and most of Europe.

In fact, in ever single politically plural German election from 1867 to 2013, guess how many times a party has attained a majority of the votes cast? Never.

No shit, Sherlock. But the assertion was that the NSDAP had a popular mandate, and that this was an expression of cross-the-board German anti-seminism - they didn't and it was not. In fact, at the time that the Nazis gained actual power their electoral position was in decline. In fact, more people, throughout the entire electoral career of the party, voted against them than ever voted for them. While this is, as you say, the norm in German politics, it is manifestly false to suggest that the election result was evidence that "Hitler was literally the manifestation of german consent on jews and other minorities."

[Invader Zim]

So i heard that it says in the book Mein Kampf written by Hitler that you could read there that Hitler planned to exterminate all the jews. Does anyone know if its true? Because thats quite scary considering that people let Hitler into power if they could just read his book and see what was coming.


No. That argument is a load of intentionalist nonsense. Read Chris Browning.

End of thread.

[exeexe]

No. That argument is a load of intentionalist nonsense. Read Chris Browning.

End of thread.
What argument? Its not an argument but a scientific fact

[Invader Zim]

What argument? Its not an argument but a scientific fact

The argument is that Hitler planned, should he ever come to power, the Holocaust from as early as 1925, based on his droolings about jews. Unless you have some means of reading the minds of long dead men it plainly isn't a 'scientific fact', rather it is an interpretation or argument. It is also a problematic one.

The current, if highly contested, historical consensus actually edges towards the view that the policy of extermination evolved in a relatively ad hoc fashion, and that there were, in fact, numerous 'final solutions' to the 'Jewish question', all of which failed, prior to the Nazis election of genocide as the only remaining 'solution'.

[exeexe]

The argument is that Hitler planned, should he ever come to power, the Holocaust from as early as 1925, based on his droolings about jews. Unless you have some means of reading the minds of long dead men it plainly isn't a 'scientific fact', rather it is an interpretation or argument. It is also a problematic one.

The current, if highly contested, historical consensus actually edges towards the view that the policy of extermination evolved in a relatively ad hoc fashion, and that there were, in fact, numerous 'final solutions' to the 'Jewish question', all of which failed, prior to the Nazis election of genocide as the only remaining 'solution'.
But it is a scientific fact what you can read in Mein Kampf

[Invader Zim]

But it is a scientific fact what you can read in Mein Kampf

No, it is not. Reading is a process of interpretation, and therefore open to subjectivity. That Hitler railed against Jews and called for a 'a war of annihilation' against Marxism and Jews, does not, for a moment, mean that we can suggest with assurance that Hitler had planned the 'final solution' or indeed the Second World War in the 1920s. The assumption you make here is that early rhetoric equaled later intent. Hitler was a dictator who ruled by opportunity, and therefore his, and Nazi, policies were usually developed in tandem with circumstance.

You are committing the cardinal historical sin of 'post hoc ergo propter hoc'.

[exeexe]

If you can read something in a book then you can read it. If you can not read something in a book then you can not read it. Its a scientific fact.

[Five Year Plan]

If you can read something in a book then you can read it. If you can not read something in a book then you can not read it. Its a scientific fact.

I think Zim's point is that you can read a statement, but then to interpret that statement as having a causal connection with a later event outside of the text requires you to place a specific subjective interpretation onto the text that is by no means "scientific."

[Invader Zim]

I think Zim's point is that you can read a statement, but then to interpret that statement as having a causal connection with a later event outside of the text requires you to place a specific subjective interpretation onto the text that is by no means "scientific."

Quite, and moreover, the written medium is actually a rather poor medium of transmitting information.

Not to go all post-structuralist on you exeexe, but just because something is written does not immediately mean that a readers interpretation of the the text's meaning is what another reader would take or what the author intended readers to take.

[synthesis]

Please elaborate how I'm wrong. Hitler was a beloved ruler.
This shit reminds me really off german apologism.

This idea that "Hitler was beloved by the German people" is an anti-working class myth. The NSDAP's base was always in the German petite-bourgeoisie:


By 1928, the NSDAP was popular with farmers, small business owners, public servants and others in the middle-class who felt ignored or betrayed by the Weimar government. The Nazis failed to muster much support in industrial and working class areas, such as Berlin, Hamburg and the Ruhr, where support for the SPD and KPD remained strong. (source (http://alphahistory.com/weimargermany/rise-of-the-nsdap/))


Voters in large urban centres were less susceptible to Nazi electoral propaganda. In July 1932, the NSDAP's support in the Grosstadte (over 100,000 inhabitants) was 10 per cent lower than the national average. Though there had been a significant increase in support among German workers between 1930 and 1932, this was less marked in the larger cities; and nearly half the working-class newcomers to the party ranks between 1925 and 1932 came from villages of under 5,000 inhabitants. And proportionally few of the working-class storm-troopers of the SA came from the big cities.

In part this pattern reflects the point that Hitler and his followers were able to build support in small provincial towns and rural areas more effectively than in the large cities precisely because political mobilisation was less developed in the provinces and the countryside. SPD (Social Democrat) and KPD (Communist) support had been and was still concentrated in the big cities, and the electoral drive of the NSDAP encountered powerful traditions and loyalties there. This urban/rural divide was reinforced by another factor: the Nazis were relatively unsuccessful in gaining the electoral support of the unemployed, who were also concentrated in Germany's largest cities.

For many years the Nazi movement was seen as a political response of the German Mittelstand (lower middle class) of small businessmen, independent artisans, small shopkeepers and the self-employed, to the threats coming from big business and large retail stores, from the trade unions, the SPD and the KPD, and from increased government interference and taxes to pay for Weimar's burgeoning welfare state. In many respects it was such a response -- in its combination of anti-socialist and anti-big business rhetoric, and in its social support. The lower middle class of Germany's Protestant towns did constitute the hard-core of Nazi support and were over-represented in the membership of the NSDAP. (source (http://www.johndclare.net/Weimar6_Geary.htm))


White-collar workers living in large industrial towns and from manual working-class backgrounds were relatively immune to the NSDAP's appeals and often supported the SPD, whereas those living in middle-class districts or small provincial towns, as well as those whose origins were not in the manual working class, were more likely to be Nazi supporters. (source (http://books.google.com/books?id=q3kGSciS6WsC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25#v=onepage&q&f=false))


Contrary to Joseph Goebbels's assertion in early 1933 that the Machtergreifung signified "a revolution of a workers' movement," empirical historical inquiry has established that by 1933 the NSDAP drew its electoral support overwhelmingly from the smalltown and rural Protestant Mittelstand, comprising men and women in roughly equal numbers, in northern, central, and eastern Germany. Although by 1930-31 the lower Hittelstand, particularly of the "old" or traditional type, predominated among the party's voters and members, the upper Hittelstand were beginning to flock into the ranks in ever-increasing numbers in 1932, thus making the NSDAP more of a catch-all movement of middle-class protest, a movement of bourgeois integration. Two identifiable groups were manifestly immune to Nazi blandishments: the Catholics, who continued to vote solidly for the confessional Center Party and Bavarian People's party, and the organized industrial working class, who steadfastly maintained their allegiance to the Social Democratic (SPD) and Communist (KPD) parties. Changes in voting patterns among the organized workers usually involved a switch by unemployed, unskilled or semiskilled urban voters from the SPD to the more radical KPD.

Despite some success among workers in certain urban and industrial areas in Westphalia, the Rhineland-Ruhr, Saxony, Thuringia, the Pfalz, and ßerlin-Brandenburg, the NSDAP remained a party of middle-class interests, and in terms of its membership, industrial workers were also significantly underrepresented, especially in the leadership cadres. In both proportionate and absolute terms, the working-class element in the NSDAP's constituency from 1925 to 1933 was small, and its claims to be a genuine popular movement had, therefore, no basis in reality. This is the scenario against which any discussion of the party's relationship to the German proletariat must take place. This chapter analyzes this relationship with a view to obtaining a clear perspective on the principal reasons for the NSDAP's failure to win much support among this particular group in Weimar society. (This source (http://jch.sagepub.com/content/15/3/493.full.pdf) goes on about this at length.)

If by "German apologism" you mean "working class politics" then hey, guilty as charged, I suppose. Anti-Germanism has always skewed towards an anti-working class inversion of the rabid (anti-working class) nationalism that came before it. That's how ostensible socialists can make statements like "Bomb [Germany] again. Do it" with essentially a straight face: because the lives of German workers are basically meaningless in the face of their ex post facto wrath against "the German people." (Readers, beware of anyone who makes sweeping statements about "the people" of any particular ethnicity or nationality, positive or negative, at least if you think class analysis is something to be valued.) Let me guess: you probably also think that Bordiga's "The Great Alibi" is Holocaust denial?

[Sasha]

This idea that "Hitler was beloved by the German people" is an anti-working class myth. The NSDAP's base was always in the German petite-bourgeoisie:
[...]
If by "German apologism" you mean "working class politics" then hey, guilty as charged, I suppose. Anti-Germanism has always skewed towards an anti-working class inversion of the rabid (anti-working class) nationalism that came before it. That's how ostensible socialists can make statements like "Bomb [Germany] again. Do it" with essentially a straight face: because the lives of German workers are basically meaningless in the face of their ex post facto wrath against "the German people." (Readers, beware of anyone who makes sweeping statements about "the people" of any particular ethnicity or nationality, positive or negative, at least if you think class analysis is something to be valued.) Let me guess: you probably also think that Bordiga's "The Great Alibi" is Holocaust denial?

i think that is a bit unfair, while ridiculous in its practice the anti-german sentiment (and its not only the antigermans, the anti-imp RAF and RZ had the same critique) does have some valid critique of the way the germans tried to portray themselves as a in majority population of victims instead of a"Tätervolk" right after the war with the shifting the whole blame (still) on the nazi's/SS and hiding the role of for example the wehrmacht and the important positions ex-nazi's got in especially the new BDR but also to some extend in the DDR... (the same obviously goes for the dutch where suddenly everyone was in the resistance after the war while the fact was the majority here collaborated either actively or passively with the nazi's)

[Sea]

Do you people not even know how to use ctrf+f?

[PhoenixAsh]

Synthesis...from your same source. Which is a really interesting read btw.



More contentious has been the relationship between workers and the Nazi Party. Recent research has revised the impression of working-class immunity to Nazism: around 55 per cent of SA stormtroopers came from working-class backgrounds and the Nazis made substantial gains from working-class communities in parts of Saxony, especially around Chemnitz. Around 40 per cent of members of the Party seem to have been of working-class origins; similarly 40 per cent of the Nazi vote came from workers and one worker in every four voted for Hitler in July 1932.

There is little correlation between the percentage of workers in a community and the level of support for the NSDAP, though there is a slight positive correlation between the percentage of employed workers and the size of the Nazi vote. In 1930 some 3 per cent of Nazi votes came from former KPD and 14 per cent from former SPD voters (July 1932, 2 per cent and 10 per cent respectively); and the number of workers voting for the National Socialists in the first Reichstag elections of 1932 was greater than the number of workers voting for the SPD or the KPD individually (though not than the number voting for SPD and KPD combined). (source) (http://www.johndclare.net/Weimar6_Geary.htm)

[DOOM]

words
Of course, the KPD was the preferred party of the workers, it makes only sense. However, let me remind you that even the KPD has held anti-semitic and to some point völkisch beliefs. Radek, for example, is known to have openly praised a fascist, who died in WW I. Or Remmele said once "the fascists say, that they're fighting the jewish financial capital. Good. Let them do that! Agreed! But let's not forget the industrial capital, which is in fact nothing else but the financial capital".
This sort of structural antisemitism and third-positionism is more than pathetic and shows that antisemitic ressentiment and völkisch beliefs were widespread in germany, even on the left. You can't deny that.
However, that's just one aspect. The other one is, that the german workers adapted themselves fairly fast to this anti-working class regime, didn't they? Of course, criticism was forbidden but how do you explain that notion of total war?
When the allies started to bomb italy, resistance movement have risen everywhere. However, when the Allies bombed Germany, the german workers didn't do anything.
When the Allies landed in the Normandy, the german workers didn't do anything.
When the Allies were in fucking Berlin, the Germans didn't do anything.
Why? Because the working class masses supported Hitler after his Machtergreifung.

[Sabot Cat]

No shit, Sherlock. But the assertion was that the NSDAP had a popular mandate, and that this was an expression of cross-the-board German anti-seminism - they didn't and it was not. In fact, at the time that the Nazis gained actual power their electoral position was in decline. In fact, more people, throughout the entire electoral career of the party, voted against them than ever voted for them. While this is, as you say, the norm in German politics, it is manifestly false to suggest that the election result was evidence that "Hitler was literally the manifestation of german consent on jews and other minorities."

I didn't suggest as much; I was correcting a historical misconception that's all too prevalent among people who are unfamiliar with this system of politics.

I really detest this worldview that every fact must be an ideological cudgel, and not simply a fact. I understand that there are perspectives and frames which inform how we chose to present them, but my purpose here was just to demonstrate a more accurate view of history.

[synthesis]

Synthesis...from your same source. Which is a really interesting read btw.
More contentious has been the relationship between workers and the Nazi Party. Recent research has revised the impression of working-class immunity to Nazism: around 55 per cent of SA stormtroopers came from working-class backgrounds and the Nazis made substantial gains from working-class communities in parts of Saxony, especially around Chemnitz. Around 40 per cent of members of the Party seem to have been of working-class origins; similarly 40 per cent of the Nazi vote came from workers and one worker in every four voted for Hitler in July 1932.

There is little correlation between the percentage of workers in a community and the level of support for the NSDAP, though there is a slight positive correlation between the percentage of employed workers and the size of the Nazi vote. In 1930 some 3 per cent of Nazi votes came from former KPD and 14 per cent from former SPD voters (July 1932, 2 per cent and 10 per cent respectively); and the number of workers voting for the National Socialists in the first Reichstag elections of 1932 was greater than the number of workers voting for the SPD or the KPD individually (though not than the number voting for SPD and KPD combined). (source) (http://www.johndclare.net/Weimar6_Geary.htm)

I don't believe that "the belovedness of Hitler by 'the German people' is an anti-working class myth" and "the working class was not immune to Nazism" are mutually contradictory statements, at least as evidenced by the excerpt you provided, for the following reasons.

1. The class composition of the SA would have skewed towards a larger working class base, disregarding the notion that Strasserism was the "left wing" of the NSDAP, for the simple reason that the SA was the "street fighting" division of the NSDAP, and it was the urban working class who was most involved in this particular environment of political strife. Workers who weren't in KPD-affiliated gangs would have drifted towards the SA simply by virtue of it being the only alternative; this is of course not to justify anyone joining the SA, but it's just a truism that 1. street fighting was most prevalent among the working class and 2. there would have had to have been at least two sides between which to split the workers.

2. The question of election statistics and psephology doesn't consider the statistics for workers who did not vote at all - except, of course, the statistic stating that 25% of workers voted for the NSDAP, which I don't consider a valid basis for the statement "Hitler was beloved by the German people [including the working class]." I will have to do a little digging to find the exact numbers but the NSDAP, of course, rose in the context of a defeated and demoralized German working class; the defeat of the German revolution meant that parliamentary participation was not seen by class-conscious workers as an effective means of effecting their agenda, compared to the nationalists who had a great deal support from powerful reactionary elements in the government.

I have to say, I think it's interesting that as of this post, your post drew thanks from almost every Revleft member who has recently been accused of holding social democratic politics, and is completely composed of such. I would hope, PhoenixAsh, that this would inform your understanding of the side you're taking in this debate.

[synthesis]

Of course, the KPD was the preferred party of the workers, it makes only sense. However, let me remind you that even the KPD has held anti-semitic and to some point völkisch beliefs. Radek, for example, is known to have openly praised a fascist, who died in WW I. Or Remmele said once "the fascists say, that they're fighting the jewish financial capital. Good. Let them do that! Agreed! But let's not forget the industrial capital, which is in fact nothing else but the financial capital".
This sort of structural antisemitism and third-positionism is more than pathetic and shows that antisemitic ressentiment and völkisch beliefs were widespread in germany, even on the left. You can't deny that.

Well, I suppose that's as solid a basis as any for holding radically anti-working class politics.


However, that's just one aspect. The other one is, that the german workers adapted themselves fairly fast to this anti-working class regime, didn't they? Of course, criticism was forbidden but how do you explain that notion of total war?
When the allies started to bomb italy, resistance movement have risen everywhere. However, when the Allies bombed Germany, the german workers didn't do anything.
When the Allies landed in the Normandy, the german workers didn't do anything.
When the Allies were in fucking Berlin, the Germans didn't do anything.
Why? Because the working class masses supported Hitler after his Machtergreifung.

There are other members on here who are more knowledgeable about the role of communists attempting to organize international working class solidarity in Germany after 1933, but for my part I have to note that, again, the German working class as a whole was defeated and demoralized by the events occurring during the fifteen years or so leading up to the Machtergreifung. I realize that the anti-German philosophy does not allow for any mitigating factors for the participation, coerced or otherwise, of German workers in the atrocities of the war, or lack of resistance thereof. But from a communist perspective, this has as much to do with the defeat of the German working class before 1933 as with the rise of fascism after.

[PhoenixAsh]

The idea that widespread anti-semitism in Germany was a result of the nazification of the country has been a prevanlent myth since WWII. And Nazi's were by far the only one expressing these sentiments.

And there is no better reflection that to look at Jewish political support and labour organization to see this.

40-50% of the Jews belonged to the Petit-Bourgeois with an invested interest in the continuation of the Weimar Republic. Most of these supported the Deutsche Zentrumpartei (small portions of it because it was on a whole quite unfriendly to Jews) or the SPD and DDP. 35% of the working class Jews were non-manual laborers. Both rejected by the KPD and the traditional white colar unions they were pushed towards more inclusive SPD unions and associations.

Most of these non SPD unions were less anti-semitic (and certainly opposed to structural, but not individual anti-semitism!!!) than the indirectly and directly anti-semitic organizations of the Catholics and Liberals. The Bavarian Zentrumpartei especially were anti-semitic. As was the NDVP and the Deutsche liberalpartei. Going so far as to allow frequently even openly hostile articles in party organizational publications.

The SPD on the other hand oppposed structural anti-semitism and organized against it. At the same time it completely misunderstood anti-semitism as an issue though and diminished it as a problem. And it also allowed anti-semitic sentiments being expressed by its individual members (many members in top functions had been or still were active members within anti-semitic organisations of different kinds) in perpetuation of Jewish stereotypes and wrote in the late 19s "their unclean habits and morals are almost uneradicable" (Nywak).

The KPD mainly saw support from manual workers from the Jewish community. And even then they didn't recognize them as Jews really. They rejected the Jewish community as part of the petit-bourgeois, capitalism and as a religious community and saw anti-semitism as mere expressions of political strategy of the bourgeoisie and nationalism. The party itself was through the connection of judaism with international capital not openly friendly to Jews.

So make no mistake what so ever. German society was thoroughly and openly riddled with indirect and direct anti-semitism even within parties which traditionally were assumed to be friendly and more open like the SPD.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

No, it is not. Reading is a process of interpretation, and therefore open to subjectivity. That Hitler railed against Jews and called for a 'a war of annihilation' against Marxism and Jews, does not, for a moment, mean that we can suggest with assurance that Hitler had planned the 'final solution' or indeed the Second World War in the 1920s. The assumption you make here is that early rhetoric equaled later intent. Hitler was a dictator who ruled by opportunity, and therefore his, and Nazi, policies were usually developed in tandem with circumstance.

You are committing the cardinal historical sin of 'post hoc ergo propter hoc'.

Who said anything about Hitler having a specific plan in the OP? Sure, he and the Nazi government may not have had concrete plans to murder the Jews however a 'war of annihilation' against said persons, seems explicitly like intent to me. The specifics may have arose later but it seems like the intent and overall goal of the Nazis were to wipe out the Jews of Germany and Europe. You're argument is akin to saying someone who written about rape and then raped and is one of the most famous serial rapists ever is not intent or foreshadowing because it was a crime of opportunity and circumstance. Just the same as the final solution and the Nazis. Are all not all crimes more or less of opportunity? The man and the party espoused a platform of racial cleansing. I don't get wha you're saying.

[PhoenixAsh]

I don't believe that "the belovedness of Hitler by 'the German people' is an anti-working class myth" and "the working class was not immune to Nazism" are mutually contradictory statements, at least as evidenced by the excerpt you provided, for the following reasons.

1. The class composition of the SA would have skewed towards a larger working class base, disregarding the notion that Strasserism was the "left wing" of the NSDAP, for the simple reason that the SA was the "street fighting" division of the NSDAP, and it was the urban working class who was most involved in this particular environment of political strife. Workers who weren't in KPD-affiliated gangs would have drifted towards the SA simply by virtue of it being the only alternative; this is of course not to justify anyone joining the SA, but it's just a truism that 1. street fighting was most prevalent among the working class and 2. there would have had to have been at least two sides between which to split the workers.

2. The question of election statistics and psephology doesn't consider the statistics for workers who did not vote at all - except, of course, the statistic stating that 25% of workers voted for the NSDAP, which I don't consider a valid basis for the statement "Hitler was beloved by the German people [including the working class]." I will have to do a little digging to find the exact numbers but the NSDAP, of course, rose in the context of a defeated and demoralized German working class; the defeat of the German revolution meant that parliamentary participation was not seen by class-conscious workers as an effective means of effecting their agenda, compared to the nationalists who had a great deal support from powerful reactionary elements in the government.

I have to say, I think it's interesting that as of this post, your post drew thanks from almost every Revleft member who has recently been accused of holding social democratic politics, and is completely composed of such. I would hope, PhoenixAsh, that this would inform your understanding of the side you're taking in this debate.

Are you seriously playing this card? To politicize statements of historical fact? Been reading a little too much Stalin have we?


The myth that large swats of workers didn't vote at all is basically a blatant ignoring of the truth....voter turn out rose from the early 20's to the early 30's and topped at 88% in 33. But in the significant first election in 32 the turnout was 83% the highest turn out so far. The second 32 elections the NSDAP lost...turnout had dropped to 77%. It is a factual impossibility for the working class to stay at home en masse.

But what is more....there was no great desillusionment of the working class with the parliamentary system but rather with traditional parties. which is reflected in the vote outcome. The working class turned out in droves to cast their ballots. They just didn't vote for the KPD or SDP in the same droves as they did NSDAP. Ironically studies have shown a higher voter turn out from the working and unemployed segments of Weimer society did benefit both the KPD rise in votes and that of the NSDAP while at the same time working against the SDP and protestants.

[Rottenfruit]

So i heard that it says in the book Mein Kampf written by Hitler that you could read there that Hitler planned to exterminate all the jews. Does anyone know if its true? Because thats quite scary considering that people let Hitler into power if they could just read his book and see what was coming.

the 25 points of the national soclaist platform , this was the nazi party offical platform, although it does not say kill all the jews it does say that they are going to expel them


http://www.johndclare.net/Weimar_25_point_programme.htm

Number 4 .
Only Germans can be citizens. No Jew can be a German citizen.

Number 5

People in Germany who are not citizens must obey special laws for
foreigners.

Number 7


Citizens are entitled to a job and a decent standard of living. If this cannot be achieved, foreigners (with no rights as citizens) should be expelled.

]Number 8
No further immigration of non-German must be allowed. All foreigners who have come to Germany since 1914 must be expelled.

[Invader Zim]

Who said anything about Hitler having a specific plan in the OP?

"you could read there that Hitler planned to exterminate all the jews."

Which is, in my view, false. Because Hitler didn't plan to exterminate all the jews in 1939, nevermind 1925. The decision to adopt a policy of genocide wasn't, as I understand it, reached until 1941. What Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf was rhetoric, the assumption that Hitler intended that his rhetoric would translate into actual policy should he achieve power is contradicted by the fact that for eight years the Nazis were in power prior to the decision to impliment the final 'final solution' policy was not genocide. The decision to turn to genocide was, as I noted above, an incrimental process.


Sure, he and the Nazi government may not have had concrete plans to murder the Jews however a 'war of annihilation' against said persons, seems explicitly like intent to me. The specifics may have arose later but it seems like the intent and overall goal of the Nazis were to wipe out the Jews of Germany and Europe.

But this, as noted, is contradicted by the fact that the lead up to a policy of genocide was years in the making - not on the books from 1933 when the Nazis siezed power.


You're argument is akin to saying someone who written about rape and then raped and is one of the most famous serial rapists ever is not intent or foreshadowing because it was a crime of opportunity and circumstance. Just the same as the final solution and the Nazis. Are all not all crimes more or less of opportunity? The man and the party espoused a platform of racial cleansing. I don't get wha you're saying.

And your argument is deeply rightwing. Assuming that one individual's intentions drove an world war and policy of extermination is hyper-intentionalist and squarely in the remit of the conservative idea that individual agency is the motor of both society and history. As it happens, the intentionalist position, is also far weaker than functionalist position.

http://eview.anu.edu.au/burgmann/issue2/pdf/ch06.pdf

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

"you could read there that Hitler planned to exterminate all the jews."

Ok, so what's the qualitive difference between 'annihilation' and 'extermination'? This is semantics.


Which is, in my view, false. Because Hitler didn't plan to exterminate all the jews in 1939, nevermind 1925. The decision to adopt a policy of genocide wasn't, as I understand it, reached until 1941. What Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf was rhetoric, the assumption that Hitler intended that his rhetoric would translate into actual policy should he achieve power is contradicted by the fact that for eight years the Nazis were in power prior to the decision to impliment the final 'final solution' policy was not genocide.

What're you talking about? Prior to the final final solution, Jews were being put into camps after kristelnacht quote "for their own protection against the wrath of the German people," and were being worked to death or they died of famine or plague. There was a lot of systematic and institutionalized violence against the Jews of Germany under the Nazis. This is like saying again, when the marquis de Sade wrote of rape and torture, it was just prose and dodgy writing and obviously didn't foreshadow nor did he have any intent on raping, torturing and killing a sex worker which landed him ultimately in prison. The only significance the final final solution has in this context is the nazis said fuck it and a just started fading everyone. What I am saying is if you espouse the annihilation of a whole race of people it's inevitable that such an ideology would produce such horror and death. How do you cleanse a race without murder? Do you think had certain material conditions been different that the Nazis wouldn't have ultimately commited genocide one way or the other? Sure this is historical speculation but I am curious as to what you think.


The decision to turn to genocide was, as I noted above, an incrimental process.

Ok, so what? I'm saying te final final solution was inevitable given the ideology espoused by Shitler and friends and was foreshadowed in Mein Kampf. Again, the word 'annihilation' leaves little to the imagination.


But this, as noted, is contradicted by the fact that the lead up to a policy of genocide was years in the making - not on the books from 1933 when the Nazis siezed power.

You know the Nazis were pretty clever bureaucrats and even pre-WWII were good at documenting their crimes under the guise of humanitarianism and compassion. Hence relegating Jews to the ghettoes and camps. Hence the murder of Jews on a daily basis under dubious accusations. So while no they didn't have a plan of genocide, maybe, in the begining but it was inevitable. One way or another, it was bound to happen.


And your argument is deeply rightwing.

Of course it is. I'm also a raging anti-Semite, ask Rafiq. :rolleyes:


Assuming that one individual's intentions drove an world war and policy of extermination is hyper-intentionalist and squarely in the remit of the conservative idea that individual agency is the motor of both society and history.

No, no, nyet, nyet, no. This isn't what I'm saying at all. I'm saying, just like with the evil marquis, he did write about it and it did happen. Another example, I write a book about the finer points of armed robbery yet at the time I had no crew or formal plans. I just so happen to meet some cats afterward who share my enthusiasm for getting loot. Coincidentally, we through sheer luck and a long series of trial and error we successfully rob a bank and gain both loot and hostages (as was outlined in my book). How does this not show intent, inevitability and foreshadowed the events that would later come? This isn't subscribing to a "great men make history," view of analysis considering der Fooey didn't come out of a vacuum and was echoing the views of other salty right-wing assholes and douchebag veterans. WWII wasn't the first time Europeans tried to exterminate the Jews, now was it?

I also don't get all these 'ists' you keep jawing on about, perhaps you could define those too?

[Invader Zim]

Ok, so what's the qualitive difference between 'annihilation' and 'extermination'? This is semantics.

Have you actually read Mein Kampf? If not then I hardly blame you for that, it is impenetrable nonsense. The problem with Mein Kampf is that Hitler never fully pins down precisely what he wants, rather he flirts with concepts of mass destruction of jews and communists but stops short in many respects of actually saying Germany needed to murder them all.


What're you talking about?

The evolution of Nazi racial policy in the 1930s and early 1940s. It was not, as you seem to believe, geared towards genocide until after Operation Barbarossa had begun.


Prior to the final final solution, Jews were being put into camps after kristelnacht quote "for their own protection against the wrath of the German people," and were being worked to death or they died of famine or plague.

Yes, which still fell short of a deliberate policy of mass extermination. Prior to the decision to form a process of mass industrialization, the Nazis also employed policies such as deportation and the infamous Madagascar Plan. Both these policies would have, and in the case of the former did, result in mass deaths among the victims, as did the policy of interning jews and other 'untermensch'. This was viewed as irrelevant, even desirable, collateral - but it stopped short of a plan for mass extermination on an industrial scale.


Do you think had certain material conditions been different that the Nazis wouldn't have ultimately commited genocide one way or the other?

That is exactly what I'm saying - as I suggested earlier, read Chris Browning's work. There was nothing inevitable about the Holocaust.


I'm saying te final final solution was inevitable given the ideology espoused by Shitler and friends and was foreshadowed in Mein Kampf.

Yes, and I think you're wrong.


You know the Nazis were pretty clever bureaucrats and even pre-WWII were good at documenting their crimes under the guise of humanitarianism and compassion. Hence relegating Jews to the ghettoes and camps. Hence the murder of Jews on a daily basis under dubious accusations. So while no they didn't have a plan of genocide, maybe, in the begining but it was inevitable. One way or another, it was bound to happen.

This is a bit contradictory, you are arguing that a series of ad hoc processes made an historical phenomenon 'inevitable'? This strikes me as a contradiction in terms.


No, no, nyet, nyet, no. This isn't what I'm saying at all.

On the contrary, that is precisely the underpinning logic of your position - that Hitler wrote something in 1925 and therefore the Holocaust was an inevitability. Clearly, for this argument to work, you necessarily must that Hitler was able, through the force of his will, to impose an ideology of murder on Germany and Europe.


Another example, I write a book about the finer points of armed robbery yet at the time I had no crew or formal plans. I just so happen to meet some cats afterward who share my enthusiasm for getting loot. Coincidentally, we through sheer luck and a long series of trial and error we successfully rob a bank and gain both loot and hostages (as was outlined in my book). How does this not show intent, inevitability and foreshadowed the events that would later come?

This is a poor analogy. It also ignores the central problem that the armed robber, in this instance, would have had the keys to the bank for eight years and done very little about it in all that time. It is the same as saying that you might want something to happen in principal to making it inevitable that it will happen in practice.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The SPD on the other hand oppposed structural anti-semitism and organized against it. At the same time it completely misunderstood anti-semitism as an issue though and diminished it as a problem. And it also allowed anti-semitic sentiments being expressed by its individual members (many members in top functions had been or still were active members within anti-semitic organisations of different kinds) in perpetuation of Jewish stereotypes and wrote in the late 19s "their unclean habits and morals are almost uneradicable" (Nywak).

The SPD didn't oppose antisemitism, structural or otherwise. The SPD were the main organisers and backers of the murderously antisemitic Freikorps. The SPD oversaw the police apparatus of many German states, notably Prussia, which was hardly friendly to Jews. Most of the SPD cadre in the Prussian political police would serve in the Nazi security services with no real problems. The first head of the GeStaPo, Diels, served in the SPD-dominated Prussian police, and would continue to receive a salary from the SPD-dominated government of Lower Saxony after WWII.

[PhoenixAsh]

That is what Biaz and others are trying to argue and the antiDeutschen see as one more part of the evidence for a specific inclination towards racial superiority and anti-semitism in the Germans Volksart. This dichotomy between ideology and praxis.

The SPD after 1916 started to ideologically reject structural anti-Semitism though and party ideologically wise there were a lot of party publications to that sentiment. And the SPD did organize specifically against anti-semitism in 23 for example.

Like I described however the SPD did allow and facilitate anti-semitism from its members and in its publications and had the position Jews needed to stop being Jews in order to assimilate. This originates from the position that religion was to be rejected and that Jews specifically were linked with capital.

What you are describing is however the result of political choices and strategy before 1919-20 and during the later 20's begin 30's when the political landscape became contradictory enough.

[Invader Zim]

Ok, so what's the qualitive difference between 'annihilation' and 'extermination'? This is semantics.

Have you actually read Mein Kampf? If not then I hardly blame you for that, it is impenetrable nonsense. The problem with Mein Kampf is that Hitler never fully pins down precisely what he wants, rather he flirts with concepts of mass destruction of jews and communists but stops short in many respects of actually saying Germany needed to murder them all.


What're you talking about?

The evolution of Nazi racial policy in the 1930s and early 1940s. It was not, as you seem to believe, geared towards genocide until after Operation Barbarossa had begun.


Prior to the final final solution, Jews were being put into camps after kristelnacht quote "for their own protection against the wrath of the German people," and were being worked to death or they died of famine or plague.

Yes, which still fell short of a deliberate policy of mass extermination. Prior to the decision to form a process of mass industrialization, the Nazis also employed policies such as deportation and the infamous Madagascar Plan. Both these policies would have, and in the case of the former did, result in mass deaths among the victims, as did the policy of interning jews and other 'untermensch'. This was viewed as irrelevant, even desirable, collateral - but it stopped short of a plan for mass extermination on an industrial scale.


Do you think had certain material conditions been different that the Nazis wouldn't have ultimately commited genocide one way or the other?

That is exactly what I'm saying - as I suggested earlier, read Chris Browning's work. There was nothing inevitable about the Holocaust.


I'm saying te final final solution was inevitable given the ideology espoused by Shitler and friends and was foreshadowed in Mein Kampf.

Yes, and I think you're wrong.


You know the Nazis were pretty clever bureaucrats and even pre-WWII were good at documenting their crimes under the guise of humanitarianism and compassion. Hence relegating Jews to the ghettoes and camps. Hence the murder of Jews on a daily basis under dubious accusations. So while no they didn't have a plan of genocide, maybe, in the begining but it was inevitable. One way or another, it was bound to happen.

This is a bit contradictory, you are arguing that a series of ad hoc processes made an historical phenomenon 'inevitable'? This strikes me as a contradiction in terms.


No, no, nyet, nyet, no. This isn't what I'm saying at all.

On the contrary, that is precisely the underpinning logic of your position - that Hitler wrote something in 1925 and therefore the Holocaust was an inevitability. Clearly, for this argument to work, you necessarily must that Hitler was able, through the force of his will, to impose an ideology of murder on Germany and Europe.


Another example, I write a book about the finer points of armed robbery yet at the time I had no crew or formal plans. I just so happen to meet some cats afterward who share my enthusiasm for getting loot. Coincidentally, we through sheer luck and a long series of trial and error we successfully rob a bank and gain both loot and hostages (as was outlined in my book). How does this not show intent, inevitability and foreshadowed the events that would later come?

This is a poor analogy. It also ignores the central problem that the armed robber, in this instance, would have had the keys to the bank for eight years and done very little about it in all that time. It is the same as saying that you might want something to happen in principal to making it inevitable that it will happen in practice.


I also don't get all these 'ists' you keep jawing on about, perhaps you could define those too?

Sure.

'Intentionalism' holds that Hitler planned to seize power and destroy the Jews long before he achieved power. That his genocidal racial ideology was the driving force behind the development of Nazi policy. So basically, it is more or less your argument, that Hitler wanted to destroy the Jews in Europe from the earliest points in political career and that the Holocaust was the culmination of that desire in 1941.

The structuralist/functionalist school of thought, however, is somewhat more difficult to define as it actually includes scope for a far wider series of positions. However, the basic premise, when taken to its extreme, was that Hitler was a 'weak' dictator. Or, to put it another way, he was indecisive and much policy in Nazi germany was actually dreamed up by others, often his lieutenants like Himmler and Heydrich. Obviously, Hitler would then give their ideas his approval or disapproval accordingly. So, as time went on and the situation changed, various people would suggest various solutions to the 'Jewish problem' to him and he would agree or disagree. So, initially, the Nazis tried to expel jews by quite literally rounding them up and dumping them, with out their possessions (which were stolen by the regime) on the border of Germany and leave them to fend for themselves. Obviously, as Nazi Germany expanded, this ceased to be practicable as the Reich incorporated territories with increasing Jewish populations and even many of the Jews they had already expelled. So, in 1940, after Germany had annexed Poland with its 3 million Jews, Franz Rademacher a senior Nazi in charge of dealing with the 'Jewish problem' proposed the Madagascar Plan. This was, in essence, a plan to deport Jews to Madagascar. Obviously, this again was not practicable particularly after the invasion of the Soviet Union with its millions of Jews and other undesirables. It is at that point, around mid-late 1941 that the Nazis they turned towards genocide as policy. So, the idea is basically that structural concerns dictated how Nazi racial ideology manifested itself, and that Hitler, while obviously of massive importance, actually played a functional role in Jewish policy as opposed to its primary architect and driving force behind it.

Now, in my opinion, the latter position holds rather more water than the former. It seems to me that Nazi policy clearly evolved over time as opposed to something Hitler had wanted from day one. I think that if you look at it in terms of the big picture it plays out that way, but also if you take a close look at specific mechanisms in the Holocaust. So, for example, if you look at how Auschwitz-Birkenau operated, you can see that it was not initially designed for mass destruction of life. For instance, Krema 2, was not originally designed to be a death factory. It was originally built as a morgue. Its gas chambers and incinerators was installed later. They were also installed on different levels of the building. This meant that a large lift had to be installed in the building to allow the Sonderkommandos (jewish slaves who had to move the bodies) to drag the cadavers of gassed victims upstairs from one part of the complex to the incinerators. The incinerators were also rather less efficient than the gas chambers, the former being able to burn perhaps 2,000 bodies in 24 hours while the gas chamber in Krema II could kill 3,000 in the same period.

So what does all this morbid information tell us? Well, basically that Krema II was not initially built for its eventual purpose. Rather it was an existing structure that was then turned into a death factory. Because it was not built for this purpose it was actually, in many ways, rather inefficient. Something that was not planned from the outset. Rather, it demonstrates the ad hoc nature of Nazi Jewish policy - a policy that developed in both scope and intention over the course of time. Obviously, this kind of grizzly look at a specific building can only take us so far in understanding that, but as a microcosm of the Holocaust it demonstrates the precise same 'make it up as you go along' nature of the Holocaust. So, basically, argument is that if the Nazis had intended to destroy the entire Jewish population of Europe from the outset, why would they wait so long and employ so many different means of removing them from the Third Reich before turning towards actual destruction? And then, once they did elect to commit industrial scale genocide, why were the mechanisms devised to achieved this developed in a meandering, though ultimately linear fashion? Surely, they would have devised more effective methods of annihilation from the outset rather than having, through trial and error and a developing policy, to build the most 'efficient' death factories?

I hope that helps.

[Geiseric]

I dont think hitler "planned out the halocaust," in the 1920s, he wasnt really smart enough for that kind of thing. But he didnt ever argue against anybody who was like "lets wipe them out." He did want to murder every communist though, thats for sure, and a large number of them were jewish.

[Luís Henrique]

The SPD didn't oppose antisemitism, structural or otherwise. The SPD were the main organisers and backers of the murderously antisemitic Freikorps.

That is false.

The main backers and organisers of the Freikorps where Army officials and local businessmen.

What the SPD did was quite different, though not less treasonous: they used the already existent Freikorps to suppress the revolution.

Luís Henrique

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Without the backing of the SPD government, the Freikorps would have remained isolated and insignificant groups. We can debate whether the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt was really formed when Ehrhard proclaimed himself the leader of a unit that existed to a good degree on paper, or when Noske supplied the unit with materiel and official backing, but the fact remains that the SPD never opposed "structural anti-Semitism".

[Luís Henrique]

Without the backing of the SPD government, the Freikorps would have remained isolated and insignificant groups.

That, probably.

But then without using the Freikorps, the SPD government wouldn't have lasted long either, and the Freikorps would have been probably backed by whatever other counter-revolutionary government replaced Ebert's.


We can debate whether the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt was really formed when Ehrhard proclaimed himself the leader of a unit that existed to a good degree on paper, or when Noske supplied the unit with materiel and official backing,

We could, I suppose. I don't think Noske had the adequate contacts in the military to put up such a unit.


but the fact remains that the SPD never opposed "structural anti-Semitism".

If I attributed any precise meaning to the phrase "structural anti-semitism", it would be easier to agree or disagree.

Anti-semitism was widespread within Weimar Republic. It was more common in the political right, but it was certainly not absent in the political left. That includes the KPD (some of whose leaders seemed to think that "opposing Jewish capital" only needed to be complemented by "opposing non-Jewish capital" to become a complete and coherent opposition to capital as such)* and the SPD.

Without such widespread level of anti-semitism, Hitler et caterva would have been unable to grab power first place, and to implement their "final solution".

Now, if such widespread anti-semitism was "structural", I have no idea.

Hitler and his party's anti-semitism was certainly quite different from it, though. Traditional widespread German (or, more properly, European) anti-semitism was mostly based on old Christian superstitions about the Jews, not on racial pseudo-science, which was what distinguished Hitler's and Nazi anti-semitism (is that the difference between "structural" and "non-structural" anti-semitism?) In any case, it was certainly easy for many people to slide from one kind of anti-semitism to the other (and back again, after the war was lost), and it is quite possible that many didn't even notice the difference.

Luís Henrique

*hence we see how apt the description, "socialism of the fools", is.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

That, probably.

But then without using the Freikorps, the SPD government wouldn't have lasted long either, and the Freikorps would have been probably backed by whatever other counter-revolutionary government replaced Ebert's.

Alright? How does this negate the counter-revolutionary role played by the SPD, and their connection to the extreme right?


We could, I suppose. I don't think Noske had the adequate contacts in the military to put up such a unit.

Perhaps not in the military - although you seem to be forgetting that Noske was a functionary of the German Empire, concerned with military affairs. But definitely in the government and bureaucracy. Military units don't spontaneously coalesce from counter-revolutionary intentions, they need to be organised, equipped, recognised and so on. Here Noske played a key role.


If I attributed any precise meaning to the phrase "structural anti-semitism", it would be easier to agree or disagree.

Anti-semitism was widespread within Weimar Republic. It was more common in the political right, but it was certainly not absent in the political left. That includes the KPD (some of whose leaders seemed to think that "opposing Jewish capital" only needed to be complemented by "opposing non-Jewish capital" to become a complete and coherent opposition to capital as such) and the SPD.

Without such widespread level of anti-semitism, Hitler et caterva would have been unable to grab power first place, and to implement their "final solution".

Now, if such widespread anti-semitism was "structural", I have no idea.

Hitler and his party's anti-semitism was certainly quite different from it, though. Traditional widespread German (or, more properly, European) anti-semitism was mostly based on old Christian superstitions about the Jews, not on racial pseudo-science, which was what distinguished Hitler's and Nazi anti-semitism (is that the difference between "structural" and "non-structural" anti-semitism?) In any case, it was certainly easy for many people to slide from one kind of anti-semitism to the other (and back again, after the war was lost), and it is quite possible that many didn't even notice the difference.

Luís Henrique

It was another user who suggested that the SPD opposed "structural anti-semitism". That is not the case, the SPD did not oppose any sort of antu-Semitism and in fact used anti-Semitism liberally. As for the anti-Semitism of the Weimar regime, calling it the result of Christian prejudice ignores the key role of the October Revolution and the anti-communist struggle in fanning the flames of anti-Semitism.

[Luís Henrique]

Alright? How does this negate the counter-revolutionary role played by the SPD, and their connection to the extreme right?

It doesn't.


It was another user who suggested that the SPD opposed "structural anti-semitism". That is not the case, the SPD did not oppose any sort of antu-Semitism and in fact used anti-Semitism liberally. As for the anti-Semitism of the Weimar regime, calling it the result of Christian prejudice ignores the key role of the October Revolution and the anti-communist struggle in fanning the flames of anti-Semitism.

Which eventually coalesced in Hitler's party.

Luís Henrique

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Well, some of them. Others coalesced into, for example, the Stahlhelm organisation. Which eventually merged with the paramilitary organisation of the SPD.

[SHORAS]

So i heard that it says in the book Mein Kampf written by Hitler that you could read there that Hitler planned to exterminate all the jews. Does anyone know if its true? Because thats quite scary considering that people let Hitler into power if they could just read his book and see what was coming.


Well, if you read the book or listen to an audio file you will find he dehumanizes Jewish people from the start. Claims all Social Democrats are Jewish and says they are against the natural aristocratic order and therefore want the downfall of civilisation. He wants ethical uniformity and says a homogeneous population will hold a state together. He claims the 1848 revolutions were classed based all apart from Austria which was race based.

He was simply an Austrian nationalist similar to any other nationalist. It's clear he was going to do something regarding the Jewish problem as he saw it.

[PhoenixAsh]

To say that the SPD as a party did not oppose structural anti-semitism is showing a profound misunderstanding of both the SPD and the politics of that party vs the socialism resulting from Zur Judefrage. The issue has been extensively researched, documented and written about.

The SPD refered to anti-semitism as fools socialism (refering to the political interpretation of Zur Judefrage by Marx) because of the Christian use of anti-semitism to draw in the working class and before 1917 they were the primary defenders of Jewish civil rights in Germany and until the Spartacist uprising the SPD was known in Germany as "The party of the Jews".

This opposition to structural anti-semitism does NOT mean that the SPD held a favorable view of Jews and Judaism and still upheld the contemporary interpretation of Zur Judefrage in which Jews were simply seen as the driving force behind capitalism and Judaism a reactionary and backward religion which prevented the assimilation of Jews in society and the working class. The party used this view in its party propaganda. It also allowed anti-semitic members to express their opinions and its members and some of its leadership were profoundly discriminatory against Jews.

But as a party and conform their policy they opposed any form of legal discrimination against Jews.

On the other hand the KPD did use open anti-semitism in the interbellum. Especially directed at the SPD. Ironically. Or perhaps not so...because the most heard criticism from the KPD was against the Jewish intelectualism of the SPD.

Contrary to what is expressed here. When the SPD came to power in the Weimar period...it was the primary force against legal actions against Jews. In 1932 the vast majority of the Jewish population voted for the SPD for exactly that position and the SPD's defence of their rights.

Now you may not like this. But those are the facts. Deal with them.

[exeexe]

Well, if you read the book or listen to an audio file you will find he dehumanizes Jewish people from the start.
Well, if you read the book or listen to an audio file you will find he didnt dehumanizes Jewish people from the start.

[Luís Henrique]

Well, some of them. Others coalesced into, for example, the Stahlhelm organisation. Which eventually merged with the paramilitary organisation of the SPD.

Hm, no.

The Stalhelm merged with the SA. Though it would be fairer to say that they were merged into the SA.

Luís Henrique

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

And before that, the members of the banned Reichsbanner Rot-Schwartz-Gold joined the Stahlhelm en masse - excluding the Jewish members of course. In fact this was among the reasons that prompted the Nazi government to (partially) merge the Stahlhelm and the SA, probably taking a good portion of the SPD members.


To say that the SPD as a party did not oppose structural anti-semitism is showing a profound misunderstanding of both the SPD and the politics of that party vs the socialism resulting from Zur Judefrage. The issue has been extensively researched, documented and written about.

The SPD refered to anti-semitism as fools socialism (refering to the political interpretation of Zur Judefrage by Marx) because of the Christian use of anti-semitism to draw in the working class and before 1917 they were the primary defenders of Jewish civil rights in Germany and until the Spartacist uprising the SPD was known in Germany as "The party of the Jews".

This opposition to structural anti-semitism does NOT mean that the SPD held a favorable view of Jews and Judaism and still upheld the contemporary interpretation of Zur Judefrage in which Jews were simply seen as the driving force behind capitalism and Judaism a reactionary and backward religion which prevented the assimilation of Jews in society and the working class. The party used this view in its party propaganda. It also allowed anti-semitic members to express their opinions and its members and some of its leadership were profoundly discriminatory against Jews.

But as a party and conform their policy they opposed any form of legal discrimination against Jews.

On the other hand the KPD did use open anti-semitism in the interbellum. Especially directed at the SPD. Ironically. Or perhaps not so...because the most heard criticism from the KPD was against the Jewish intelectualism of the SPD.

Contrary to what is expressed here. When the SPD came to power in the Weimar period...it was the primary force against legal actions against Jews. In 1932 the vast majority of the Jewish population voted for the SPD for exactly that position and the SPD's defence of their rights.

Now you may not like this. But those are the facts. Deal with them.

So we're in agreement that the SPD was the main organiser and backer of the murderously anti-Semitic Freikorps, the main inspiration of the anti-Semitic Weimar Republic, and expressed anti-Semitic views - but, you claim, they were not "structurally" anti-Semitic (is there any other way to be anti-Semitic?) because they were considered a Jewish party and a lot of Jews supported them. But pardon, the Democratic party in the US is considered a party of Hispanics (for example) and a lot of Hispanic people vote for them - does that mean the Democrats are innocent of structural racism toward people of Hispanic descent? It doesn't.

[PhoenixAsh]

You are oversimplifying the nature of anti-semitism in the Weimar republic.


And before that, the members of the banned Reichsbanner Rot-Schwartz-Gold joined the Stahlhelm en masse - excluding the Jewish members of course. In fact this was among the reasons that prompted the Nazi government to (partially) merge the Stahlhelm and the SA, probably taking a good portion of the SPD members.

You are glossing over about 14 years of history between the end of WWI and the supressing of the Spartacists and skipping right to the end of the Weimar Republic. Most of the RB-SRG were arrested and seriously prosecuted and many of them formed the resistance to the NSDAP after '33. Because of this prosecution some former members joined the Stahlhelm group which was still legal. This however was not only done by the SPD Rb and IF members but also by KPD members and the USDP members and led to subversion of the SH and coup attempt in Braunschweig. This led to the Stahlhelm coup by the NSDAP and eventually the ussurpation of the ST into the SA (1934) and its disbanding in 1935. .


So we're in agreement that the SPD was the main organiser and backer of the murderously anti-Semitic Freikorps,

No. We are not.

Mainly because there is a huge difference between ministers originating from the SPD, driven by coalition and the necessity to protect their government/republic, and the SPD proper, with its own political program.

The correlation between calling for the aid of the Freikorps, when the Reichswehr failed to be able to protect the Republic, and support for structural anti-semitism is convoluted and ignores political reality.



the main inspiration of the anti-Semitic Weimar Republic, and expressed anti-Semitic views

I also completely disagree with your portrayal of the Freikorpses as some driving force behind German anti-semitism rather than being an expression of it.

This is a complete misrepresentation of the nature and reality of anti-semitism in Germany but it also ignores the fact that the Freikorpses were not a political uniform entity and allied themselves with different parties ranging from the liberals to the nationalis monarchists. All of which were anti-semetic long before the Weimar Republic. Anti-semitism in Germany was bread and butter of most of the parties and society at large for decades. This is why the anti-Germans argue that anti-semitism is rife in the German culture and "Volksart".

The SPD as one example was one of the very few, but by far politically the most powerful of the lot, to oppose in its party platform and ideology legislation against Jews and politically strived for the emancipation of Jews in Germany and defended their civil rights.


- but, you claim, they were not "structurally" anti-Semitic (is there any other way to be anti-Semitic?) because they were considered a Jewish party and a lot of Jews supported them.

No. I actually argued quite a lot more. What I said was that the SPD ideologically and as part of their party platform opposed any form of structural anti-semitism. It opposed laws against Jews, it argued for Jewish emancipation, fought for the protection and expansion of Jewish civil rights and it opposed discrimination by the state of Jews based on the Jewish ethnic identity.

This is why Jews flocked to the party, made up its core membership and elite and this is why they voted for the party enmasse.

Saying I am arguing that the SPD was not anti-semetic because Jews voted for it is ignoring the entire core of my argument when I said:


In 1932 the vast majority of the Jewish population voted for the SPD for exactly that position and the SPD's defence of their rights.

This is not to say that individual members of the SDP weren't anti-semitic. Nor is it support for the SPD policies or political stance.



But pardon, the Democratic party in the US is considered a party of Hispanics (for example) and a lot of Hispanic people vote for them - does that mean the Democrats are innocent of structural racism toward people of Hispanic descent? It doesn't.

We are however not talking about the DP in the US in a bi-party system. What we are discussing is the political party program and activism of the SPD in the period preceeding the end of the Weimar period.

[SHORAS]

Well, if you read the book or listen to an audio file you will find he didnt dehumanizes Jewish people from the start.

Strange because that's the first note I made when listening to the book. Are you saying he doesn't dehumanize Jewish people in the book or just being a bit of a prat and agreeing that he does at some point not necessarily right at the very beginning.

[exeexe]

Strange because that's the first note I made when listening to the book. Are you saying he doesn't dehumanize Jewish people in the book or just being a bit of a prat and agreeing that he does at some point not necessarily right at the very beginning.
The book mentions jew seven times before it says "Then I came to Vienna." which is where he changed his mind on the jews.