Bonner And Hitler
Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2016 2:31 pm
Yesterday, Bill Bonner said...
Adolf Hitler (among others) promulgated the myth of a
master race. At first, people took him for a crank.
The intelligentsia made fun of him. The “Austrian corporal,”
they called him. Or the “little house-painter.” Even when
Hitler became chancellor in 1933, the thinking in polite
society was that he could be “tamed” by dutiful functionaries
and the weighty responsibilities of his office. Instead,
the myth of the Übermensch (an idea Hitler borrowed, completely
out of context, from Nietzsche) took hold of large numbers
of Germans. Again, there was no way to prove it wasn’t so.
And as time went by, more and more people found it agreeable;
it gave them a way to feel superior… and perhaps buy a house
down the street that used to be owned by Jews, at a bargain
price. Besides, the Austrian corporal was making German
industry the envy of the world… with factories booming and
full employment. (This, too, was a myth: Hitler had created
a bubble economy based on dead-end military spending.) But
as more and more people found it convenient to believe the
myth, the more self-evident it became. Soon, they were marching
to Stalingrad. Myths stretch or shrink depending on what
you think of them.
****************************
Today… what’s got to be the most controversial piece of reader
feedback we’ve ever received. It’s in response to Bill’s musings
on Hitler’s myth of a master race in yesterday’s Diary.
Alas, you are sadly mistaken about almost everything you said
about Hitler. I am German, and I have spent the last 41 years
making a detailed study of the entire National Socialist [Nazi]
phenomenon, from A to Z. Most of my information comes from the
people who actually lived it... lived through it all. No person
in the last 100 years has been so greatly maligned and vilified
than Hitler. The booming German economy of the mid- to late-1930s
had almost nothing to do with military spending. It was a combination
of [German central bank president] Hjalmar Schacht's “Keynesian”
ideas and Hitler’s invention called Volksgemeinschaft (everyone
from the richest to the poorest working together for the common
benefit.)
All Marxist trades unions and their strikes were abolished. Keynes
likely got most of his ideas from Schacht. Remember, in 1933 and
later, almost all of the countries in the West had 30% or more
unemployment. So did Germany before 1933. It was Schacht who put
everyone back to work and started the booming economic miracle...
at least miraculous for the time... comparing it with the worldwide
depression everywhere else in the world. The Germans spent MUCH LESS
on its military than Britain or the U.S. Germany’s military spending
was strictly controlled by the Treaty of Versailles. This is one
reason for its enviable economic success. Instead of tanks, warships,
and guns, Germany built houses, cars, roads, and factories. And it
produced food. The sole purpose for the invention of National
Socialism was, in Hitler’s own words, the “destruction of Bolshevism.”
And in that regard, it was eminently successful. Hitler's main mistake
was his failure to kiss the British French and American (Jew) butts
when he was asked to do so.
– Joe B.
Adolf Hitler (among others) promulgated the myth of a
master race. At first, people took him for a crank.
The intelligentsia made fun of him. The “Austrian corporal,”
they called him. Or the “little house-painter.” Even when
Hitler became chancellor in 1933, the thinking in polite
society was that he could be “tamed” by dutiful functionaries
and the weighty responsibilities of his office. Instead,
the myth of the Übermensch (an idea Hitler borrowed, completely
out of context, from Nietzsche) took hold of large numbers
of Germans. Again, there was no way to prove it wasn’t so.
And as time went by, more and more people found it agreeable;
it gave them a way to feel superior… and perhaps buy a house
down the street that used to be owned by Jews, at a bargain
price. Besides, the Austrian corporal was making German
industry the envy of the world… with factories booming and
full employment. (This, too, was a myth: Hitler had created
a bubble economy based on dead-end military spending.) But
as more and more people found it convenient to believe the
myth, the more self-evident it became. Soon, they were marching
to Stalingrad. Myths stretch or shrink depending on what
you think of them.
****************************
Today… what’s got to be the most controversial piece of reader
feedback we’ve ever received. It’s in response to Bill’s musings
on Hitler’s myth of a master race in yesterday’s Diary.
Alas, you are sadly mistaken about almost everything you said
about Hitler. I am German, and I have spent the last 41 years
making a detailed study of the entire National Socialist [Nazi]
phenomenon, from A to Z. Most of my information comes from the
people who actually lived it... lived through it all. No person
in the last 100 years has been so greatly maligned and vilified
than Hitler. The booming German economy of the mid- to late-1930s
had almost nothing to do with military spending. It was a combination
of [German central bank president] Hjalmar Schacht's “Keynesian”
ideas and Hitler’s invention called Volksgemeinschaft (everyone
from the richest to the poorest working together for the common
benefit.)
All Marxist trades unions and their strikes were abolished. Keynes
likely got most of his ideas from Schacht. Remember, in 1933 and
later, almost all of the countries in the West had 30% or more
unemployment. So did Germany before 1933. It was Schacht who put
everyone back to work and started the booming economic miracle...
at least miraculous for the time... comparing it with the worldwide
depression everywhere else in the world. The Germans spent MUCH LESS
on its military than Britain or the U.S. Germany’s military spending
was strictly controlled by the Treaty of Versailles. This is one
reason for its enviable economic success. Instead of tanks, warships,
and guns, Germany built houses, cars, roads, and factories. And it
produced food. The sole purpose for the invention of National
Socialism was, in Hitler’s own words, the “destruction of Bolshevism.”
And in that regard, it was eminently successful. Hitler's main mistake
was his failure to kiss the British French and American (Jew) butts
when he was asked to do so.
– Joe B.