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Date:         Wed, 16 Dec 1992 19:29:01 -0600
From:         "VALENTINE M. SMITH" <CDELL@UMKCVAX1.BITNET>
Subject:      On Rightism, A Reply to the Notion that Nazis Aren't Rightists...

I went back to the original post of "Caius" denying that Nazis were
right-wing, and added two that have been written in the past two days
on this theme, and will cite several passages within this post from
two "centrist" (as I've heard them labelled) historians - Alan
Bullock's (from Great Britain) 1992 work, _Hitler and Stalin,
Parallel Lives, his biography of Hitler, _Hitler a Study in Tyranny
(1962) and the "standard" _The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
(1959, 1960) by William Shirer, an American journalist.

However, I would begin with a statement I heard from Gunter Grass
today on the American Radio program "Fresh Air," a public radio show,
and I paraphrase, "Yes, the neo-Nazis are the extreme right wing of
German politics."

Date: 04 Dec 1992 13:07:27 +0100 (MET)
From: Grzegorz Albinowski <caius%II.UJ.EDU.PL@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Subject: RE: "CIS," Russia, Germany, Serbia, Bosnia, and ...(#796)

>> Germany-
>>
>> Two right-wing men were taken into custody yesterday, allegedly
>> confessing to the fire-bombing that killed three Turkish women last
>> week. It would appear that the German government has decided to take
>> at least SOME action towards the worst of the rightist violence.

I realize that I have already commented on this post, but what
follows is a more documented case for what I think to be more
accurate than our friend from Poland has intimated.

>Right-wing???? Rightist??? Do you call Nazis right-wing???

Yes, I do. And here are some reasons why.

From _The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p.78 - Shirer, in writing
about the Beer Hall putsch's aftermath - "The sentences were imposed
on April 1, 1924. A little less than nine months later, on December
20, Hitler was released, free to resume his fight to overthrow the
democratic state. The consequences of committing high treason, if you
were a man of the extreme Right, were not unduly heavy, ..."
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

p.51 - " ... in the stormy years between 1921 and 1923. ... The
N.S.D.A.P. (the National Socialist Germany Workers Party) was but one
of several right-wing movments in Bavaria ..."
           ^^^^^^^^^^

In October, 1931, Bullock notes in _Hitler, A Study in Tyranny (I have
a poor, paperback abridged edition, so the page numbers are not of
much use) - "The day after his interview with the President
(Hinderburg, on 10 October, 1931) he took part in a great
demonstration of the Right-Wing "National" opposition ..., ... all
                     ^^^^^^^^^^
joined in passing a solemn resolution uniting the parties of the
Right."
^^^^^

From Bullock's _Hitler and Stalin, Parallel Lives, p.85, "No other
right-wing party in Germany had ever attempted anything like this
^^^^^^^^^^
before. It gave substance to Hitler's claim that the NSDAP was a
genuinely populist movement ..."

p.146 - "... the evidence suggests that, while anti-Semitism was part
of the common currency of the German right and was taken for granted
^^^^^^^^^^^^ as part of the Nazi package, ..."
                            ^^^^
(I believe this shows a linkage between the intolerance anti-Semitism
of the neo-Nazis and their predecessors,the Nazis)

p.147 - "... audiences came to listen to Hitler, less for the
contents of his speeches, which for the most part were the
commonplaces of nationalist and right-wing propaganda, ..."
                                ^^^^^^^^^^

and lastly, from p.243 - "Nothing so much impressed German opinion as
the fact that Prussia, ... surrendered without resistance, ...
against the extremists of both left and right, the Communists and the
Nazis."                                        ^^^^
^^^^^

These are but a few pieces of many that state to me unequivocally that
Hitler and the Nazis WERE rights, and extremists. I gave an hour or
so to finding these citations, had a few days, I could have found
twenty more from more authors. I do not believe I need to submit that
level of documentation - it is GENERALLY agreed, as I stated before,
that the Nazis and neo-Nazis ARE rightists.

>I call myself right-wing and I do NOT want to be confused with these
>hooligans.

That's your call to make, however, as I've tried carefully to point
out, the Nazis, and their successors the neo-Nazis are considered
"rightist."

>If you want to call something, somebody, an organisation, a
>government RIGHTIST just have in mind these two opinions:

>1) Free market economy = no government intervention

Under the rightist regimes of Hitler, Pinochet, Mussolini, and
Franco, there was no government intervention? What does one call use
of the police to suppress all opposition? What does one call
preferred treatment, as both Hitler and Franco did with various
corporate interests (most notably, the relationship of the Nazi
regime with airplane and defense production, with Messerschmitt and
Krupp) - does that not subvert "free trade?" I contend that the "free
market economy" is a myth - ALL countries, all spectrums of regime,
"interfere" with their economies with subsidies, preferred treatment,
or tariffs (at the least, I'm no economist).

>2) Strong government in for(g?)e?ing relations and in providing
>security to citizens.

I assume you meant "forging," and I would contend that Hitler, and to
a lesser degree, the other three examples, "forged relations" by terror
and murder, as did their left counter-parts in the Soviet Union, and
in the later "East Bloc" states. The "security" the Nazis gave their
citizenry was a two-edged sword - yes, there was nigh unto full
employment. No, the people had no security from the terror
apparatuses of all these states.

>Killing people is by no means rightist!!

No, it is not. But, "rightists" are not excluded from murder, as the
case cited above, as many a history book in the West have damned both
the Nazis and Communists of doing - all groups, from "Shining Path,"
the Peruvian leftists, to the "rightist" (very conservative)
Hezbollah in Iran and Lebanon. There is a large spectrum on the
right, and while you personally as an admitted rightist (as are many
others on this list, with a wide variety of beliefs) are probably not
a killer, that does not preclude that the neo-Nazi "rightists" (a
term used by almost all American national media, from many American and
European newspapers, notable Germans like Grass and Kohl) could be or
are killers, and that their predecessors, the Nazis, definitely
killed a lot of people, in the most blatent kind of state
interference possible.

>Caius. Extreme Right.

A claim not necessarily to be proud of (that from an avowed moderate
"centrist").

Caius ( =Grzegorz Albinowski )                  Internet : caius@ii.uj.edu.pl

Date: 16 Dec 1992 20:19:53 +0100 (MET)
From: Grzegorz Albinowski <caius%II.UJ.EDU.PL@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Subject: Re:

MMORSE@YORKVM1.BITNET pisze:
>>
>> Dear Caius,
>>   I think you should know that while rightists have the same rights
>> and freedoms as the rest of us,

>Agreed. We all have the same rights and freedoms (at least we should
>have).

Often, in the past both extreme right and left regimes both have
denied this desired reality.

>> they are definitely NOT normal.

>Why not? I can't understand your point. What "rightist" do you speak
>of?

I assume Michael was talking of the Nazis, who were all kinds of ilk
- murderers, racists, anti-Semites, homosexuals, thieves, oppressors,
conquerors, exploiters of women, and aggressors (and that's just a
few of the "not normal," -or out and out evil- things "rightists" did
in the "good old days.")

>> (Care to define your terms, chum?)
>> Provisionally Cordially,
>> Michael

>Caius.

Date: 16 Dec 1992 20:53:23 +0100 (MET)
From: Grzegorz Albinowski <caius%II.UJ.EDU.PL@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu>
Subject: RE: rightist

>>jimmy donal wales pisze:

>> I want to warn you to be careful with your quantifiers.  The statement
>> that 'this terminology has been accepted only by the leftist media'
>> is simply false.  I am not a member of the media, and I am not a
>> leftist.  Yet, I accept the terminology. "only" is a powerful word,
>> use it wisely.

>Thank you for pointing out the logical error.

>The correction: (on calling Nazis rightist)

>"this terminology has been accepted only by the leftist media and some
> of those who listen to the media stated"

Well, to put it bluntly, I think you're full of crap. A good chunk of
my reading is from very center-oriented histories (or are you going
to call all historians "liberal," and tar them with the same
simplistic generalization you offer above?), and from fairly
scholarly publications such as "Foreign Affairs" and "World Press
Review," which also call Nazis and neo-Nazis "rightists." Yes, I
listen to media considered "liberal," but I also read across a wide
span of publication of no particular political persuasion at all. I
would, as Jimbo did above, STILL question your use of the word
"only." It sounds like your "prejudice" as a "rightist" does not
allow you to see certain facts very well.

>Better?

No, since it still is scapegoating, "blaming" the "leftist media" for
not agreeing with your pre-conceived notion of what a rightist is and
isn't. This was a classic Nazi technique, who also blamed the
"leftists" and Jews for Germany's ills, and ended up murdering a
large number of their left opponents. (Stalin did this in the
opposite direction, "blaming" the "Trotskyists" and "right
deviationists" for the USSR's ills, and murdered a great many of
THEM!)

>I just CANNOT accept putting the "rightist" label to everything that
>the media dislike. The same people put the "conservative" label to
>the Soviet communist hard-liners, that have quite opposite views.

Well, I'm NOT the "media," but one lone scholar, and I put a
"rightist" label on only that clearly identified by a wide consensus
as being "rightist." The "conservative" label on hard-line Communists
comes from their yearning for the past, their wish for strong,
dictatorial and authoritarian leadership, and their resistance to
change, considered by MOST sensible political analysts as traits
indigenous to "classic conservatism."

>You can call a computer "an egg", "a w ooboodoo", "a foobar" or
>something else but this does not change the fact what it actuall(y)
>is.

Well, in calling the Nazis and neo-Nazis "rightist," I believe I'm
calling them what they are, nothing more, nothing less.

>Caius.

Date: 16 Dec 1992 15:54:14 -0500 (EST)
From: MMORSE%YORKVM1.bitnet@MIZZOU1.missouri.edu
Subject: RE: NORNAL

>Given the recent spate of postings, perhaps we can agree on this
>definition: a rightist is someone who doesn't believe in irony,
>and insists on the right not to define his/her terms.

>HMMMmmmmmm.....

I would at least agree on the latter - it would appear that
"rightists" will more often offer rhetoric than reasonable dialogue,
and refuse to talk terms that are "generally accepted" by scholars
all over the world. A thought to this would be that Orthodox Jews,
among the most conservative of people one could find, would agree
that Nazis and neo-Nazis are "rightist," and the "rightest" LePen in
France would agree that the Nazis were "rightists," though he would
say his anti-foreign stance is not like the anti-Jew, anti-Slav
stance of the Nazis.

>MWM

I will not touch the horribly simplistic "labelling post" that
"Caius" offered earlier today, that kind of stereo-typing is very
dangerous. But, I defy you to find me a scholarly or media source of
any kind that would deny that Nazis and neo-Nazis are rightists,
excluding propaganda. If you are like the other "rightists" on this
list, you will offer opinion and rhetoric, but few to no facts.

VMS