Who Remembers Moderate Nazis?

Meanwhile, back in the real world, do you remember when The Times (the London one of course) felt that Hitler was a moderate making concessions to ingratiate himself with the “radical” wing of his own Nazi party. Yes, you heard that right, upon implementing another plank in his plans to eradicate Jews (as meticulously documented years before in Mein Kampf), The Times wrote:

The new laws, while in line with anti-Semitism which has been a large part of the Fuhrer’s inspiration from the beginning are no doubt to be taken as an encouragement to the Radical wing of the party.

Let that sink in: if the Nazi party had a “Radical wing” (their capitalisation) are they seriously suggesting there was a moderate form of Nazi-ism? They concluded their article by trying to find the silver lining for the Jews of Germany:

The best to be said of the new laws is that they may offer German Jewry the process of law in place of arbitrary bullying and local tyranny.

And we all know where the trains to carry out that “process of law” ended for six million people.

Here is the full text of the article:

The Times of London, Leading Article, The Nuremberg Laws, September 17 1935

Reprinted September 17 2004

Herr Hitler’s speech to the special meeting of the Reichstag at Nuremberg may not have fulfilled all the expectations of the Deputies who were so suddenly summoned together. But our Berlin Correspondent considers that for domestic purposes it was a master-stroke of party stage-craft; and the one-hour session provided speeches by the Fuhrer and General Goring and three new laws. Henceforward the Swastika flag, till now the emblem of the National-Socialist movement, is to the official flag of the German Reich. The other two laws impose severe conditions for full German citizenship so as to exclude Jews and forbid marriage between Aryans and Jews, on the engagement of German girls as domestic servants in Jewish houses.

For Germany the new “ghetto legislation” will rank in importance equally with Herr Hitler’s references to foreign policy. In the long run it may mean more to Germany than any manifestation of activity in foreign affairs. Nothing like the complete disinheritance and segregation of Jewish citizens now announced has been heard since medieval times. The new laws, while in line with anti-Semitism which has been a large part of the Fuhrer’s inspiration from the beginning are no doubt to be taken as an encouragement to the Radical wing of the party.

To increase a provocation which is doing grave injury to German interests abroad is a contradiction more than strange, while it is a further defiance to conceptions of social justice that are still second nature to the greater part of mankind. The best to be said of the new laws is that they may offer German Jewry the process of law in place of arbitrary bullying and local tyranny.

Update March 30, 2017: This post has become a classic and is often referred back to. As such the original opening (which set it up as following an earlier story on the blog) is out of place. I’ve moved that opening to the end, below this note, which makes more sense six years later.

Original opening of the post:

Hello, Brian of London here again providing the serious foil to Dave’s post about Dr Who. Clearly it’s a P.R. shill invented story to drum up some extra publicity for a forthcoming show. Doctor Who has spent quite a lot of time bouncing around in 1940’s London so it’s no surprise he’d eventually cross over to the other side.

11 thoughts on “Who Remembers Moderate Nazis?”

  1. those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it

    my gosh..the more things change…the more they stay the same

  2. And there is to reason to believe that at the beginning stage, if the world had spoken out strongly, he would have found other ways to unite the people. (This happened with Peron.) But a thousand years of Christian preaching had done its work, and the world didn't care to. And so….

    And this is the problem here. A million half-hearted condemnations of terrorism and signatures on paper are worthless when the "Arab Street" is taught that there was a massacre in Jenin, that a Jewish cabal runs the world, et. al.

    1. Jim from Iowa

      Who knows how history might have been different had Hitler adopted Shirley Temple movies, popular at the time, as the cultural touchstone for Nazi Germany instead the operas of anti-Semite Richard Wagner? "Animal Crackers in My Soup" is a lot less menacing than the "Ride of the Valkyries."

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