From: David P. Hayes
Newsgroups: alt.movies.silent
Date: Monday, December 29, 1997 8:48 AM
dehblh@heronet.or.jp wrote in message
<883382390.2013528071@dejanews.com>…
>How COULD she have been become a Nazi sympathizer? As the screenwriter
>for Metrop[o]lis, with its insistence on 'the heart and the brain', and its
>views of the downtrodden masses, you would have thought Naziism would
>have been the last social order [s]he would have embraced!
It should be understood that the Nazi Party presented itself as "the heart" over "the brain" and that in an unexpected manner, it delivered on that.
Consider the Nazi Party's platform:
"We demand that the State shall make it its first duty to promote the industry and livelihood of citizens…" (Point 7)
"We demand extensive development of provision for old age." (Point 15)
"We demand creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, immediate communalization of department stores, and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders…" (Point 16)
"The state must see to the raising the standard of health in the nation…" (Point 21)
"We demand an end to the power of financial interests." (Point 11)
"We demand therefore ruthless confiscation of all war gains." (Point 12)
"We demand nationalization of all … trusts." (Point 13)
Popular versions of history present the Nazis as being on the right of the political spectrum, but this is a whitewash. True, the Nazis did allow some large business concerns to remain in operation and to thrive, but these were under strict Nazi oversight, such that the leaders of these concerns became merely highly-paid bureaucrats (not that high-ranking officers in the Nazi government and other leftist governments aren't also raking off huge sums, either openly or clandestinely, although in either event, that fact is incidental to the question of what form of government is best).
The Nazis, in letting businessmen retain title to their property, smartly avoided the problem the Soviets had with people of know-how ceasing to be productive. The pretense that private property was being preserved made tremendous difference--and led to the branding of the Nazis as being on the right.
Nazi programs of the 1930s addressed the points made in the platform, offering common citizens subsidized vacations, cultural events, etc., but always on such crammed cruise-ships and lodges that discomfort was most frequently experienced.
The atrocities of the Nazi regime could be and were justified as service to the majority, righting of past wrongs, deliverance on envy and misunderstanding, etc. Unfortunately, too few saw that the platitudes were to lead to a result so repugnant.
--
David Hayes
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