Apologia for Genocide

[Scott Smith]

I would argue that most of you do not really understand National Socialism and see it merely as its victorious enemies wanted it to be seen, as a racist killing machine that couldn't do anything but start risky wars.

Well, unless one were Jewish (as the regime took advantage of popular anti-Semitic sentiments, particularly to use against the Weimar Left and the Moscow Socialists) then I don't see why he could possibly prefer Stalinism over prewar Germany. Some intellectuals were slow to see that the Red Star had lost it progressive luster almost from its inception, but the question is conducted with the benefit of hindsight here.

Most people forget that Marxist-Leninism had decades to develop yet we judge Nazi Germany by today's standards and not the normative standards of the 1930s, which we have often ignored or actually even tried to erase from our own feel-good history. The democracies in those days (if they were weak) could not do anything to protect their ethnicities from the strong majorities, and (if they were strong) they could not even employ their own working classes or upwardly mobile.

National Socialism, on the other hand, was a lower-middle class movement of engineers and technocrats. People who had too much education to find jobs in a democratic regime that wasn't producting enough colored flavors of toothpaste and soft drinks to keep its talent employed, simply because the stock market was down. National Socialism on the other hand, said the sky was the limit and anything was possible with German talent. Capital is no longer a pillory serving the financial caste but the tool of the State in manufacturing national culture.

It just so happens that there were other pressing issues, namely the revenge of the Versailles regimes who wished to reassert the status quo of Germany as an economic colony instead of a world power--and thus the result was war with a superior foe which (predictably) won.

So all that German talent was put into rearming for war on a shoestring--and a remarkable shoestring it was. Without the imperative for war to settle Germany's problems (which were very real and none of them created by Hitler) then Germany might have indeed produced a lasting national culture, and by that, world culture, as any addition of culture is worthy of notice. Perhaps a better man than Adolf Hitler could have pulled it off somehow without world war. Who knows? He was neither a God nor a Devil.

In any case, Germany was very advanced by 1930s standards, and this despite rearmament. We never see the good things because they are overshadowed by the bad. There is hardly anyone left who can put things into perspective because the Germans themselves are witnesses to their defeat and have the mentality of a defeated people, particularly those of the postwar generation who can only see greed and disaster because they judge things by modern standards where such cynicism is just business, the way of life.

Now, if I were asked if Nazi Germany was better that the present system today, I would find the question absurd because this is not the 1930s. There is as much water under the bridge now as there was regarding Napoleon's time during the Great War. Any kind of progressive philosophy or movement would have to learn the mistakes of the past and incorporate from a rich set of ideas, borrowing from many historical patterns. I'm not afraid, for example, of looking closely at a Communist idea that had merit, such as a worker-owned factory in Tito's Yugoslavia or something from Nazi Germany.

Stagnation, however, is to be avoided at all costs. Sure, sometimes change is a gamble, but hopefully a calculated one and not for cosmetics or for its own sake. Stagnation benefits only the established classes and squeezes merit and talent into the mold of serfdom when the financial markets are expansive, and into oblivion otherwise. Produce/consumerism turns national culture into the equivalent of an MTV dinner: High in calories but low in nutrition and taste. It is an intellectual wasteland where leadership is pointless and nations are aimless. That is to be avoided, IMHO.


[NOTE: This thread was split from here, Communism vs Nazism. The title "Apologia for Genocide" is not mine.]

[R.M. Schultz]

The problem with Scott Smith's analysis is that, while Hitler used many progressive ideas and people to create the Third Reich, his sole program was one of genocide.

Sure, brilliant men like Walter Darré, Fritz Todt, and Hiajmar Schacht were employed by Hitler to build up Germany before the war, and sure the population was won over by full employment and a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth, but this was only a method of building power to carry out a program of genocide.

The record of the war years proves this without a doubt. Populations of occupied territories were alienated by needlessly cruel policies. Valuable transport was used to move people to death-camps. Soldiers were diverted from front-line duty to carry out executions. Every effort was made to eradicate the Jews from Europe, yet many necessary war efforts were neglected.

If Hitler had died in 1939 history would paint a very different picture of him but he did not and it is disingenuous to pretend that the genocide of the war years was not his goal all along.

[Scott Smith]

The problem with Scott Smith's analysis is that, while Hitler used many progressive ideas and people to create the Third Reich, his sole program was one of genocide.

That is a teleologically flawed theory-of-history. It is just as flawed as Marx's teleological theory-of-history which said that economic history (as particularly meaning class-warfare) was the ONLY valid theory-of-history.

Sure, brilliant men like Walter Darré, Fritz Todt, and Hiajmar Schacht were employed by Hitler to build up Germany before the war, and sure the population was won over by full employment and a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth, but this was only a method of building power to carry out a program of genocide.

This is the argument of Germany's enemies and Germany today, as well as Zionist propagandists and Democracy-Capitalist apologists, and maybe even (if there are any left) diehard Stalinists.

The record of the war years proves this without a doubt. Populations of occupied territories were alienated by needlessly cruel policies. Valuable transport was used to move people to death-camps. Soldiers were diverted from front-line duty to carry out executions. Every effort was made to eradicate the Jews from Europe, yet many necessary war efforts were neglected.

I completely disagree. Such Genocide, for lack of a better term, dovetails with standard repressive wartime measures against an enemy alien considered to be a Fifth Column, and particularly when an intense labor shortage encouraged impressment and exploitation of foreign groups. It is just that nobody was more foreign and hostile than the Jews, by the Nazi way of thinking. And they thought this way because these sentiments essentially struck a chord with the masses of Germans, who largely did not object to the dispossession of the Jews (unless they were Allied sympathizers or something).

If Hitler had died in 1939 history would paint a very different picture of him but he did not and it is disingenuous to pretend that the genocide of the war years was not his goal all along.

It is disputed that Hitler did anything but concern himself with winning the war from 1939 on, isolating himself in headquarters huts and bunkers and letting competing Nazi interests run the State. I do not argue that he was the divine Little Father who knew not the Evil of his ministers, as was said of the Tsar. Hitler promised that the Jews would suffer along with the Germans and they did in full measure, but killing them was never his goal or obsession beyond rhetoric--and there were attempts to expel them comparatively peaceably that were simply impossible during the war. Goebbels may have wanted to ethnically-cleanse the Jews from his modern Berlin, but Hitler could have cared less.

The brutal ethnic-cleansing of millions of Germans (and others) AFTER the war by the Communists (and legitimized by the Potsdam treaty signed by the Allies) has fallen into the Memory Hole. However, this is not Genocide because it 1) did not happen to Jews, and 2) because no gaschambers were employed.

Furthermore, like them or not, it takes a very ethnocentric viewpoint to see the Jews as the focus of world history. But then Christians have adopted a monotheistic "Jewish" religion in essence with similar teleological outlooks. As the Muslims would say, they are People of the Book. The point is that a linear Christian teleology is just as flawed as any History produced by Marx or Zionists and Allied propagandists--and of course the logic of those "Leftist German historians" who owe their modern national greatness to their hated Grandparents' defeat in 1945. Perhaps a psychiatrist could explain it better.

[Caldric]

Increasingly we are becoming an economy that cannot produce anything of real and enduring value.

By the way that is the same thing they said in 1970's. Japan is going to sink us! Americans can do nothing of real value!

Wake up Scott the GDP of California is the 5th largest in the freaking world! Must be doing something right.

Capitalism works better then all these other racist and oppressive system thought up by both sides of the spectrum. Communism and Nazism have one thing in common they murder without care, they inslave whole populations.

That is FACT not some theory.

[witness]

Scott Smith wrote :

Stagnation, however, is to be avoided at all costs

Nice appeal.. And what is the recipe ?
We are offered to look backwards on the legacies of Communism and Nazism - the brutal , artificial systems which brought misery and suffering beyond any measure.
Before these two products of human thought were introduced in the twenty century the humankind was not really familiar with such cold blooded cruelty resulting in the death of the millions of people in the name of happinnes of either the priveleged Class( Proletariat -Communism ) or priveleged Race ( so called Aryans -Nazism. The term pretty senseless in itself from a scientific view-point at least as it was given by the Nazi theorists.For example Slavs being not Aryans )We are not offered to look at what Thomas Hobbes had to offer. We are not offered to look at the ideas of libertarians .. at Dostoevsky ..No instead we are given a nice alternatives to find something useful in the bloodiest
regimes in history so that to avoid "stagnation "
Ladies and Gentlemen -there is a learning opportunity for you - you are free to choose between Gulag and KZ. With such a nice heritage we certainly will be able to move forward to the happy times of no no stagnation.

[witness]

Scott Smith wrote

Furthermore, like them or not, it takes a very ethnocentric viewpoint to see the Jews as the focus of world history.

Not that I defend such a viewpoint but I always thought that Nazism (so much admired by Mr Smith) was founded on the similar "ethnocentric viewpoint " ...
However the Nazi "viewpoint" resulted in the much more bloody outcome then the same one of the Zionists who also due to some stupidity problem consider themselves to be an elite nation . Essentially this is the same "viewpoint "
with the only exception that the Nazis succeded to murder much more human beings on behalf of this "idea".
Why for Scott Smith one ethnocentric viewpoint ( with the really appaling criminal record of the millions of victims) is somehow better then the other remains unclear..

[Von_Mannteufel]

Dear Mr. Smith, it's very easy to rise you country from the ashes stealing from some part of the population. And if you tell me the nazis didn't rise germany on the things that they stole from jews you must read your history book again. Hitler got money from the industries and shops of the jews, by blocking their welth and avery kind of practice like that. It was indeed good to be a german durring Hitler era just as good as being a russian durring the comunist era.

[John W]

just as good as being a russian durring the comunist era.

Although I understand the sentiment, I don't think a lot of Russians would be pleased with that. Heck, my Grandpa left his Motherland because he was disgusted with the way the Soviets were running his homeland into the ground....

John

[R.M. Schultz]

…nobody was more foreign and hostile than the Jews, by the Nazi way of thinking.

This kind of logic is only admissable if you accept the Nazi way of thinking.

For the record Mr. Smith, do YOU believe the Jews were the enemies of the Germans? Or was the Nazi state completely unjustified in its genocide?

[Scott Smith]

…nobody was more foreign and hostile than the Jews, by the Nazi way of thinking.

This kind of logic is only admissable if you accept the Nazi way of thinking.

For the record Mr. Smith, do YOU believe the Jews were the enemies of the Germans? Or was the Nazi state completely unjustified in its genocide?

That's a loaded question but I've answered it before.

I don't think the 1935 Nuremberg laws that denied Jews German citizenship were fair, regardless of whatever grievances the Germans had (or thought they had) with "the Jews." And without losing their rights in the first place the Jews would have never been the "enemy" during the war (except perhaps for the usual Leftist minority), and there would not have been any Genocide, as you call it. Jews would have suffered along with the rest of the Germans who suffered immensely during the war, and after the war, and even have Thoughtcrimes laws today to make sure that they don't forget it. The forced deportation of 30 million Germans after the war, including 1.5 million or more deaths as a result of the Potsdam agreement signed between the noble democracies and the glorious Soviet Union was surely as much "Genocide" as Wannsee (a protocol to deport and impress the Jews as forced laborers without regard to their lives, health or safety). For their anti-German internationalism, the Jews would suffer like everyone else (and then some) as far as Hitler was concerned. Stalin would have killed a "foreign minority" he deemed an enemy without batting an eyelash. Hitler was comparatively soft, but the war was extremely brutal, and he was willing to wage it on those terms.

Of course, that is just my opinion as I am no longer affected by emotive body-stinkpile photographs that I've seen since I was in gradeschool and implausible stories of gaschambers that cannot possibly have worked as described so far.

[Scott Smith]

What is to be done?

I've asked that question many times and if I knew the answer I wouldn't be typing away on a discussion forum.

[Scott Smith]

Dear Mr. Smith, it's very easy to rise you country from the ashes stealing from some part of the population. And if you tell me the nazis didn't rise germany on the things that they stole from jews you must read your history book again. Hitler got money from the industries and shops of the jews, by blocking their welth and avery kind of practice like that. It was indeed good to be a german durring Hitler era just as good as being a russian durring the comunist era.

I'm sorry but that's laughable. Germany was prosperous and fully employed in 1939, albeit burning the candle at both ends with rearmament in the belief that strength wins diplomatic contests without costly force. But even if the German government had taken all of the money of the Jews, diamonds squirreled away where the sun don't shine, taken out their gold teeth with hammers and chisels, boiled their carcasses to render fat for soap to sell to Poles, sold shrunken heads and tatooed-skin lampshades in curiosity shops and carnivals, and the whole nine-yards of flap, it still wouldn't be but a drop in the bucket to the German economy and the State budget. Germany alone was able to solve the employment problem without war because she had made Capital the servant of the State and not international financial-markets. If war had not come, the worst that would have happened would be that Germany would have to scale down the arms race--but that had outlived its usefulness past Munich anyway. And Germany could never win an arms race with the Allied coalition, which is why he recklessly used military force when he did. A big mistake, but one not without severe provocation.

[Caldric]

What is to be done?

I've asked that question many times and if I knew the answer I wouldn't be typing away on a discussion forum.

So did Lenin and he and his cronies commenced upon one of the greatest crimes against humanity in history.

[R.M. Schultz]

I don't think the 1935 Nuremberg laws that denied Jews German citizenship were fair, regardless of whatever grievances the Germans had (or thought they had) with "the Jews." And without losing their rights in the first place the Jews would have never been the "enemy" during the war …

Thus, by your own logic, the Nazis made themselves the enemies of the Jews and so the moral onus of any action taken against the Jews falls upon the Nazis.

… and there would not have been any Genocide, as you call it.

If five or six million murders doesn't count as "Genocide," then what does? Nothing short of complete erradication?

… and even have Thoughtcrimes laws today to make sure that they don't forget it.

I do not favour "Thoughtcrimes" laws (or McCarthyism of any sort, for that matter) but I won't sit idly by and let a lot of double-talkers deny Hitler's moral culpability for genocide. I think it's inappropriate that there's a Holocaust Museum on our National Mall, I didn't like the Holocaust Studies Program that my daughter had in school (as it was mostly Zionist propaganda), but the Holocaust did happen, it was a moral outrage, and it sickens me to hear people dismiss it as a "war time measure" instead of a permanent blot upon all mankind.

… implausible stories of gaschambers that cannot possibly have worked as described so far.

This kind of Holocaust revisionism is just insidious. Does it make any difference if people are gassed to death or shot in trenches or worked to death under barbaric conditions? Are they any less dead? The manner of death is unimportant, it is the motivation behind the killing that is morally repugnant.

[Scott Smith]

I don't think the 1935 Nuremberg laws that denied Jews German citizenship were fair, regardless of whatever grievances the Germans had (or thought they had) with "the Jews." And without losing their rights in the first place the Jews would have never been the "enemy" during the war …

Thus, by your own logic, the Nazis made themselves the enemies of the Jews and so the moral onus of any action taken against the Jews falls upon the Nazis.

Jewry declared "war" against Germany in 1933. Not very smart but the people doing that were thinking about Zion in Israel and didn't have their own asses on the line in Germany and Europe, where these Zionist migrations would come from.

Still, the 1935 Nuremberg laws were a mistake, as I said. With any mistake, from the Intervention to Unconditional Surrender and the Cherwell Plan there is a moral onus. But governments are not angels and nobody seriously expects them to be. Those who think otherwise will only fool themselves. The best aproach is honorable diplomacy and cautious but hopeful cynicism.

… and there would not have been any Genocide, as you call it.

If five or six million murders doesn't count as "Genocide," then what does? Nothing short of complete erradication?

If the Nazis really tried to eradicate the Jews by killing them they must have been incomparable bunglers. There should be almost no Survivors left that Hitler once got his hands on. Sixty-million died in the war. Yes, the Jews suffered horribly. Deal with it. Learn lessons if possible. But move on. Politically-charged Orwellian Newspeak terms like "Genocide" do not help understanding.

… and even have Thoughtcrimes laws today to make sure that they don't forget it.

I do not favour "Thoughtcrimes" laws (or McCarthyism of any sort, for that matter) but I won't sit idly by and let a lot of double-talkers deny Hitler's moral culpability for genocide. I think it's inappropriate that there's a Holocaust Museum on our National Mall, I didn't like the Holocaust Studies Program that my daughter had in school (as it was mostly Zionist propaganda), but the Holocaust did happen, it was a moral outrage, and it sickens me to hear people dismiss it as a "war time measure" instead of a permanent blot upon all mankind.

There is nothing special about the brutalization of the Jews in the last go-around. Man's inhumanity to man has been part of civilization since the beginning, and the only way to overcome it is to stop politicizing atrocities and begin with respect and recociliation, to truly understand BOTH sides. Pontification from those who "Deny" Allied butchery, bellicosity, and trickery does not help that dialog; indeed it blinds us to such moral shortcomings the NEXT time they come around in popular patriotic garb.

… implausible stories of gaschambers that cannot possibly have worked as described so far.

This kind of Holocaust revisionism is just insidious.

And that kind of attitude is why we still, decades later, know almost nothing about the murder-weapon (if there was one).

Does it make any difference if people are gassed to death or shot in trenches or worked to death under barbaric conditions? Are they any less dead? The manner of death is unimportant, it is the motivation behind the killing that is morally repugnant.

It doesn't matter to the dead, so why the problem with the investigation? Remove the Holo-Kitsch and dig-up the Holy Death Camp sites under neutral auspices and do a some real forensic and scientific study, one meant to further the understanding of history and not an Allied hatchet job meant to justify the New World Order.

The issue of the gaschambers is of crucial importance because the whole "Genocide" argument hinges upon it. Without the gas-ovens the Holocaust is just another historical disaster within the context of a larger disaster called the Second World War, the watershed of modern times.