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From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion,net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: The Shame of the President
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Date: Tue, 30-Apr-85 21:11:23 EDT
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Posted: Tue Apr 30 21:11:23 1985
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> > 
> >By the way, can we all stop using that misleading abbreviation "Nazi"?  It's
> >short for "National Socialist" in German, and a lot of modern day socialists
> >would like for people to forget what Hitler's economic policies were all about,
> >in the same way that they would like people to forget that "fascism" is 
> >Italian for "collectivism".  As much as you may like to pretend differently,
> >Hitler and Mussolini's movements were outgrowths of socialism.  They were
> >called "right wing" because the conservatives throughout Europe have tended
> >towards variations of socialism and collectivism.  "Right wing" in the American
> >tradition has NOTHING to do with the right wing traditions of Europe.
> 
> Ah, the old chesnut about how socialist the National Socialists were.  The
> part of the party who really took the economic propaganda of the party
> seriously were purged shortly after Hitler had consolidated power.  Did
> large capitalists disappear under Hitler?  No.
> 
> Why don't you take the time to read Shirer's *The Rise and Fall of the
> Third Reich*, Karl Dietrich Bracher's work on National Socialism, and
> maybe David Abraham's book on Weimar Germany?
> 
> -- 
> Jeff Myers				The views above may or may not
> University of Wisconsin-Madison		reflect the views of any other
> Madison Academic Computing Center	person or group at UW-Madison.
> ARPA: uwmacc!myers@wisc-rsch.ARPA
> UUCP: ..!{ucbvax,allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!myers
> 
> "I am not a Nazi." -- Richard Nixon :-(

I have read Shirer's book; you are correct that the ideological socialists
were purged shortly after Hitler came to power.  Nonetheless, Hitler's 
economic policies have a lot more in common with socialism than laissez faire
economics, especially in two respects:

1) The supremacy of the State over the individual.

2) The idea that the State was going to work for the common good.  It didn't
   happen.  It never has.  Power corrupts even people who mean well.
   
Finally, let me recommend you read *Nazis and Labor* (the author escapes me
at the moment).  Hitler's National Socialism appealed to much the same 
constituency as the German Communist Party, and for very similar reasons.
.