Marxism = Nazism (another datum)
Baader-Meinhof was a far Left terrorist group, and one of the most violent, killing dozens and maiming more during the 1970s. Its “official” name was Rote Armee Fraktion (”Red Army Faction”). The logo shows a nice big socialist red star with a Heckler Koch submachine gun.
The group’s two most prominent members were Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Here is one of Meinhof’s explanations:
“Auschwitz meant that six million Jews were killed, and thrown on the waste-heap of Europe, for what they were: money Jews. Finance capital and the banks, the hard core of the system of imperialism and capitalism, had turned the hatred of men against money and exploitation, and against the Jews … Anti-Semitism is really a hatred of capitalism.” [Source.]
Which is of course right out of Karl Marx: “What is the profane basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly cult of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly god? Money. Very well: then in emancipating itself from huckstering and money, and thus from real and practical Judaism, our age would emancipate itself.
“As soon as society succeeds in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism—huckstering and its conditions—the Jew becomes impossible … The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism.” [Source: “On the Jewish Question” (1843), in The Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 48, 52.]
Which is what Hitler agreed with: “Today I will once more be a prophet. If the international Jewish financiers, inside and outside Europe, succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!” [Source: Hitler, speaking in the Reichstag on January 30, 1939.]
As did Goebbels, in speaking of “the money pigs of capitalist democracy”: “Money has made slaves of us.” “Money is the curse of mankind. It smothers the seed of everything great and good. Every penny is sticky with sweat and blood.” [Sources: Goebbels, 1929, quoted in Orlow 1969, p. 87 and Goebbels 1929, quoted in Mosse ed., 1966, p. 107.]
[Bonus question: Who said this?
“The worker in a capitalist state—and that is his deepest misfortune—is no longer a living human being, a creator, a maker. He has become a machine. A number, a cog in the machine without sense or understanding. He is alienated from what he produces.”
Answer: Joseph Goebbels, in his 1932 “Those Damned Nazis” pamphlet.]
Related post: Heidegger, anti-humanism, and the Left
Tags: Adolf Hitler, Andreas Baader, Anti-capitalism, anti-Semitism, Heckler Koch submachine gun, Joseph Goebbels, Karl Marx, On the Jewish Question, socialist red star, Ulrike Meinhof
Very interesting source information; thanks for posting this.
Sadly, there isn’t a very large gap between the sentiments (and even the language) expressed here and many of the op-eds and bloviating of several prominent politicians of the past two years.
Let’s hope we can turn the culture fast enough, far enough to avoid the same fate.
Regards,
Jeff
Thanks, Jeff.
There are definitely parallels, ominous ones, one might say.
Professor, I just finished watching your DVD (from Netflix) on Nietzsche and the Nazis. It was excellent. Better than most movies I rent. Your point that we should take the Nazi philosophy seriously rather than seeing it as some kind of madness is right on point. It always seemed to me that the world the Nazis were trying to create had a lot of “beauty” in it, especially when one looks at the things Speer was going to build. The grand architecture, the discipline, those lovely blonde german fraus; nazism gave life beauty, meaning, order and hope for a better tomorrow–and it did this in a world in which god was fading away and people were looking for something. Unfortunately, I do not know if our society is going to have the ability to combat the next ism that comes along as modern people see philosophy as essentially worthless. Sigh. Again, thanks for the video. As a philosophy major, it was good to be back in the classroom listening to something actually important.
Thanks, Tim. Philosophy can be a hard sell sometimes, especially when it means having to take your enemies’ positions seriously and in their strongest form. Glad to hear you enjoyed the program.
Hi Professor Hicks,
Just finished your lecture on Netflix and really enjoyed it. I am a student of medical anthropology and love when individuals are able to explain, within a larger social context, history.
However, I had a few questions for you.
First, do you really believe that socialism (not national socialism, but at the end when making your comparative list) needs to be countered with capitalism? I ask this in the reference that you made of the Nazi’s ability to manipulate democracy and democratic rule. As we all should be fully aware of capitalism’s own manipulation of democratic rule to meet it’s own ends, from the recent news of the BP Oil Spill and the Obama admin.’s involvement in looking the other way publicly in regards to clean - up efforts/safety regulation, Bush family/Halliburton/Iraq War, Bush/Obama/Afganis/Natural Gas reserves, ect. The list could be as long as the day.
I guess I would like to get your views on the social, political problems that arise with the welcomed marriage of capitalism and democracy and the subsequent abuses that both multinationals and the political usury carry out on a daily basis in the world. Isn’t the current state of affairs with certain governments of more concern (i.e. U.S., Britain, Israel, German, France, ect) then of any future national socialist goverment?
Thanks for making me think.
Timothy Miller