Stalin and Hitler

[Revan]

so maybe man just can not be enlightened. there can be no utopia. we will always have crime and poverty - because man himself is corrupt.

Just so. But corruption defines and makes us value beauty. Without one, we cannot have the other. And certainly there will always be crime sgt, no regime in history has ever prevented this.

[Farsailer]

Random remarks:

Some are more equal than others...

Through all the reviling Hitler gets regarding fascism, nationalism, etc., it's easy to forget the 2nd word in his party's name was "Socialist". Which it was very much so.

And Mao doesn't get any mention here, yet it is known that many millions died either at his hands or as a result of his policies.

[Prebe]

Regardless of how it was practiced, the underlying ideology of socialism and national socialism makes a bit of a difference. I.e. how it was practiced does not validate either ideology. Just like it's not correct to call christianity or islam violent depraved ideologies, because they has been practiced as such on more than one occasion.

[Montresor]

Through all the reviling Hitler gets regarding fascism, nationalism, etc., it's easy to forget the 2nd word in his party's name was "Socialist". Which it was very much so.

Sorry to revive an old post to reply to something from years back, but . . .

There was nothing at all Socialist about the Nazi party. Socialism, in fact, is the ideological enemy of fascism. Everyone in the party understood this, and everyone in the world knew there was noting socialist about the NSDAP (or NAZI).

The use of 'Socialist' in the party title was orginally proposed by Anton Drexler who was himself vehemently opposed to communism and socialism. Hitler himself later adopted the 'socialist' part of the party title, though he had to be talked into it.

About the only vaguely socialist thing the Nazis ever did was have the welfare system controlled by the State. However, they were very much in support of protecting business interests. Hitler was of middle-class origins (though essentially impoverished ones), and he had absolute no sympathy for or love of the German working class.

Most of the rest of National Socialist German Worker's Party is poorly named. About the only things in the title that the Nazis were genuinely in favour of was Nationalism, and Germany.

Millions of people were slaughtered under the Soviet flag, and millions more were oppressed.

Many people say the same about the Stars and Stripes. Wholesale ethnic and political repression, slavery, and attempted genocide has been carried out under the flapping banner of the United States too and, for some, it's as equaly offensive as the Hammer and Sickle.

Images are powerful, and I can accept people finding them detestable, but ultimately it's all context. Put the swastika on Hitler, and it's vile; Mel Brooks wears it, and it's funny.

[Avatar]

Good post. (And don't worry about restarting old threads. )

--A

[Damelon]

Through all the reviling Hitler gets regarding fascism, nationalism, etc., it's easy to forget the 2nd word in his party's name was "Socialist". Which it was very much so.

Some of the Nazi leadership was "socialist", but most of the prominent ones didn't survive The Night of the Long Knives in 1934 or had otherwise been purged by Hitler in the years leading to their rise to power. Goebbels and Bormann being the prime survivors. The term for them, if I recall, was "beef-steak Nazis". Brown on the outside, red on the inside.

Socialist policies that didn't assist in rearmament weren't high on Hitler's priority list. He needed the support of the industrialists for that, even if may not have cared for them or the old nobility.

[Montresor]

Good post. (And don't worry about restarting old threads. )

--A

Thank you. And now I will show no restraint.

Actually, I think this sub-forum needs a lack of restraint, to be honest

[Orlion]

Good post. (And don't worry about restarting old threads. )

--A

That was an excellent post...

[Kalkin]

I understand this question to be "who was better, who was worse, who was more sucessful."

Perspective: I have a Finnish friend who things Hitler wasn't nearly as bad as Stalin, but then, Finland had a rough time at the hands of the Soviets. My Mother was born and raised in Scotland during the War, and really had nothing good to say about Hitler, and little at all to say about Stalin.

The two men were more or less the same. Evil dictators who managed to dominate their systems to get power, muder and terrorize to keep power, and left burning, rotting hulks in their wakes.

The only real difference is: Stalin won, Hitler lost. Stalin might have killed more people, but had Hitler won the war...

As for which political system was better, they both failed.

[Avatar]

All political systems fail at some point.

--A

[Kalkin]

I suppose, to an extent. Some more spectacularly than others.

I've also been of the opinion that communism is a wonderful system, except for the humans that keep buggering it up. It would be nice to think of a world where everyone did the best they could and had all their needs fulfilled, but how likely is that? I've never been anywhere that at least some of the people scammed the system, and someone else tried to usurp it.

[Avatar]

Pretty much agree. The theory is lovely. The application thereof, not so much.

Of course, we've never yet had a system in place wherein everybody involved agreed with, and accepted the principles of, said system. Let alone abided thereby.

Maybe that would make a difference. I tend to think not, but you never know.

--A