The current actions of Elon Musk and DOGE has the left in a tizzy, and activists judges and others are doing all they can to stop the bleeding of their precious big-government state. There is a frightening similarity to what happened in Germany around 1930, but it’s not that Trump and Musk are mirroring the Nazis.
There is a persistent myth that the Nazis in Germany were “right-wing extremists.” Concurrently, some conservatives and libertarians might characterize them as “left-wing extremists.” They were neither. Or put another way, they were not seen “extremists” by many Germans.
Unlike the system in the United States, Germany of the 1920s and early 30s, known as the Weimar government, had a parliamentary system.[1] Political parties ran people to be members of the Reichstag, or Parliament, and then these members voted who would be Chancellor, a position much like the Prime Minister in Great Britain.
In 1930, there was a large number of political parties in Germany. There were conservative, so-called “moderate,” and leftist parties. Only a few concern us here: the Catholic Center Party, which was running the government in 1932, the leftist Socialist and Communist Parties (the SPD and KPD respectively), and of course the National Socialist Party, or “Nazis.”[2]
A minute analysis of each party’s political positions is unnecessary.[3] Suffice it to say, the Catholic Center Party and its allies had embarked on a slash-and-burn austerity program, in large part because of the Great Depression. At this time, Germany had the most extensive government-run social welfare program in the world, and the Catholic Center Party was cutting it, and slashing government jobs as well.[4] In contrast to the Center Party, the SPD and KPD promised to save the welfare programs and government jobs, but many patriotic Germans did not trust them, as the Leftist parties were thought to be deeply in bed with the Communist International run by the Soviets in Russia.
In stepped the Nazis. They promised to save the welfare programs and government jobs, and to sweeten the pot, they loudly proclaimed themselves to be solid, patriotic Germans. Thus, on one extreme was the Catholic Center Party, slashing away at government spending. On the other extreme were the Leftists, beholden to Moscow, which many patriotic Germans feared. And in the middle were the Nazis… patriotic Germans who would save the welfare system.
In other words, the Nazis were seen as the moderates during the period of 1930 to 1933.
Of course, some will say, “how can the moderates have stormtroopers and smash Jewish shop windows?” But one must recall that the Leftists had their own stormtroopers, as did the so-called “moderate” parties like the Catholic Center Party. They, too, wore uniforms and marched in the streets and engaged in violence.[5]
What we need to do is view the German political parties the way the man on the street did. For the average patriotic German, who was going to save the welfare state, protect government jobs, and not be beholden to foreign interests?
And that brings us back to today. Right now, President Trump with the support of his cabinet picks, are America’s equivalent of the Catholic Center Party, slashing into the government money pot with what some claim is reckless abandon. And today’s political leftists? They will come charging in on a white horse, claiming that they will save the social welfare state and the nation from destruction, with the clarion call that they are the true Americans as they play the discredited “Putin puppet” card, saying they are not beholden to a foreign power like Russia.
So watch out. The totalitarian Leftist fascists will run in future elections as… the “moderates.”
Russ Rodgers has several books published on Amazon.
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[1] And of course, they still do.
[2] As an aside, the “Nazi” moniker was gutter slang for the National Socialists, as the German word “national” is pronounced “naz-ee-ah-nal,” and hence “Nazi.”
[3] I am naturally simplifying a lot of the nuances here. But, the average German on the street didn’t care about the nuances. The bickering between parties on a host of smaller issues rarely concerned the man on the street.
[4] President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his “New Deal” was a virtual copy of what Germany had developed in the early 1900s before the Catholic Center Party embarked on austerity. Indeed, one of the members of FDR’s “Brain Trust,” Frederic C. Howe wrote a book in 1915 in praise of Germany’s socialism. See Socialized Germany. New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1915.
[5] For an overview of the socialist version of the stormtroopers see Helga Gotschlich, Zwischen Kampf und Kaptiulation (Between Struggle and Surrender). Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1987. Unfortunately, this important work has not been translated for English readers. Also see Peter H. Merkl, Political Violence under the Swastika: 581 Early Nazis. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975. While Merkl focuses on Nazi agitators, he includes plenty of data about other groups engaged in violence.