reason it was popular is because they… delivered on a lot of their political promises.
Comment on Anon's class fails expectations
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 23 hours ago
It’s easier to think of Nazis as just evil and incompetent. The uncomfortable truth is that a significant part of their platform was popular, especially in the beginning of their rule. They were also extremely competent early on, it wasn’t until Hitler was in full on drug psychosis that things started going down hill. Expecting something the Nazis did, especially early on to be unpopular and a massive red flag is just foolish on the teacher.
It would be better if we focused more on the uncomfortable parts of Nazi Germany. Their militarization efforts pulled them out of global recession faster than everyone else. Jewish segregation was inspired by the US treatment of African Americans. Jesse Owens was treated better in Nazi Germany than in the US despite being a national hero. The eugenics movement was also massively popular in the US and elsewhere. There was a lot of luck involved in the war in Europe going as well as it did, Germany winning wasn’t ever really realistic unless the US aided them, but things could have been much worse.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
“It’s the economy stupid” is probably the most applicable statement to how political success happens across all systems and ages.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
and yet, despite all the ‘genius’ of our political consultants, they can’t seem to understand that. because they are so blinded by ‘social issues’, at least in the USA.
dubs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 hours ago
It’s not so much that the political consultants don’t understand that. It’s more that they can’t do anything about it: That would mean changing our economic structure to help out the workers, rather than their rich friends.
Bigfishbest@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
George Carlin said it clearly. “Cause the owners of this country won’t allow it”
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 11 hours ago
the USA politicians understand perfectly well that it’s all about the economic situation. yet they have already decided that they won’t tax the rich (because their rich friends say so) so they need to make up excuses and divert the attention to other topics instead. at least that’s how it has been for the last 3 elections that i actually looked at up-close.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
and they made it boom.
By taking on unrepayable levels of debt and stealing from Jewish citizens
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 22 hours ago
In a lot of ways, it’s not that they were competent, it’s that the more popular parts of their policies (e.g. public spending, job creation programs) were running on borrowed time - the government kind of strong-armed the banks into funding them, and if they were ever going to pay them back, it was through spoils of war. I guess it takes some kind of competency to put that plan into action…
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
You make it sound like spoils of war wasn’t the main income for Europe for pretty much all of history until then. Colonialism put a little nicer name on it.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 21 hours ago
After industrialization, selling industrial products was frequently far more profitable than the expensive and uncertain spoils of war. And there wasn’t really a likely reality where Nazi Germany fought their war in a way that was actually winnable.
musubibreakfast@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
You’re right about colonialism being a net loss for the government. In the Netherlands the NSB (Dutch Nazi Party) based a lot of their messaging around the idea that if the Netherlands were to join up with the allied forces, they would be forced to relinquish their colonies.
This was absolute nonsense but it spoke to people at the time because the idea of giving the colonies their independence had become a popular talking point during the recession because they were no longer profitable (fuckery involving the united fruit company).
During the second world war the Dutch colonies would become profitable but for completely different reasons. Basically a lot of the fosfate used in bombs came from Curacao and the aluminum to craft airplanes came from Suriname.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 11 hours ago
noteworthy the british empire never turned a profit for england at all. it was losses all the way through. the english wikipedia article mentions it: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org 11 hours ago
most of europe had very little income from international trade until 1800 or sth
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 50 minutes ago
Spoils and plunder isn’t really trade. Rome wasn’t trading for slaves, Spain wasn’t trading for gold, England wasn’t trading for anything that they could lift…
flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 20 hours ago
You’re right in what you say but it’s not relevant to this discussion. Colonialism is a very different MO than attacking neighboring countries.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 13 hours ago
Eh, Nazi Germany basically attacked Poland to do settler colonialism (or at least that was the regime’s justification). Main difference is that the Poles were more developed that e.g. the Native Americans.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
It’s a matter of distance really. Germany raiding France or Brazil isn’t functionally different.
Randelung@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Funnily enough, that’s what I expect a government to do (except for the war part). Invest into the future, reap the rewards later. It’s very difficult to bring about change without credit of some sort. That’s why I’m always confused by the debt ceiling debate in the US - assuming the money would be invested into the country and not siphoned off, which I know is naive. But investing money it doesn’t have (yet) is one of the main levers a government has, usually supported by taxes in the following years.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 10 hours ago
You’re not wrong. If you could be reasonably certain that you’re 1. going to win the war and 2. win the war without too much damage to your own country, it would be a sound investment. The Nazis probably had enough overconfidence to believe both of those.