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Well, Russia is a country where a party can call itself Liberal Democratic and be run by a crazed, Pole-hating anti-Semite with a Polish Jewish background.
The Twin Vipers: A TL of the Berlin-Moscow Axis
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Well, Russia is a country where a party can call itself Liberal Democratic and be run by a crazed, Pole-hating anti-Semite with a Polish Jewish background.
Bookmark1995
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The leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party is Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The man is like the Elliot Rodger of Russia: clownish in behavior, but with a really demented outlook on life.
Well, antisemitism had been an historical issue in Russia and the Ukraine* even more prominently than in Germany before Hitler came along, so... you can kind of see why there might be overlap, but...
It still amazes me at how Russian Nazis can exist. Not because of what Mein Kampf says about Slavs, but just looking at what the Germans did in Soviet territory, to civilians and to Red Army POWs. I mean...not talking about history book stuff here. Wouldn’t most Russians have grown up with family stories about the Fritzies murdering relatives or stuff like that?
It’s a real doublethink thing to me, especially as so much modern Russian nationalism/patriotism still seems to be based around ‘WE SMASHED THE NAZIS!’
That said, ITTL I can really see it being a major thing given the two were allies. Scarily so... I imagine that ‘real editions’ of Mein Kampf start appearing ITTL with passages saying ‘Slavs are Eastern Aryans’ or something similar.
Also German Holocaust deniers have a rallying cry ITTL: ‘It was the Russians, not us!’
*Disclaimer: I’m not saying all or even most Russians or Ukrainians are anti-Semitic, I know for a fact this isn’t true. But it is true that those countries had historical problems on those lines.
Its a crazy world full of crazy people but I still like to think they're in the minority.
Bookmark1995
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There are Nazis in Israel. There are Nazis in Poland.
That kind of lunacy can pop up anywhere.
Like every madness of the mind, there are still Communists in Russia too and like Nazi-apopolgists they too claim what happened and killed all those people wasn't "real Communism". Don't get me wrong I've read Marx and I like some of the thesis behind it, as it promise some form of Utopia. I just don't belive it works as long as humans with emotion, ambitions and a own ego, mind and will are involved in that equation, so .... Nazism similarly is Madness as if I love my great country as a Patriot I should be proud, glad and happy for anyone who truely/ honestly feels the same, wants to protect and build it up the same as me and therefore is my brother, who cares what other things he also believes in or what color is his skin, heck for all I believe he could be Extraterrestrial I wouldn't care as long as the creteria before is met. I also always fealt if Nazis truely believe their National Pride (like true Patriots do) shouldn't they be glad for all wishing to work, fight and die for their nation/ country the way they claim they would, even if they don't like specific people (wich crazy enought if these people do so that still doesn't convince these fools otherwise that they are good patriots and citizens themselves). However is Nazism a illness of the mind, or simply a form of inferiority feeling towards the other, were you fear what you don't understand, don't like or maybe even what you know could outsmart/ outwork/ outthink you on the long run?
I believe Nazism has a strong appeal to those with strong feelings of inferiority but it must've appealed to the strong willed as well otherwise why would so many fight so bravely for it?
I'm not talking about the average German soldier here but the die hard members of the SS, the craziest thing about Nazism to me is that its such a mish mash of ideas, hair brained theories and stuff that was just made up for the most part in the early 1920's and yet not only were people willing to fight and kill for this never truly defined ideology but that they were willing to die for it as well.
Bookmark1995
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The sad thing is that it is possible for otherwise decent, brave people to fight for some really wretched causes. Because they believe that those causes are good and just.
The SS thought all their wretched crimes were in the service of a greater German nation.
I believe part of this reason is indoctrination and make-believe/ imagination. THese people have been told their own superiority for years and believed it even if it was false, similar to how some native tribes with spears stormed against guns and canons, believing to be invulnerable because of some tribal shaman magic. Adding to that is the fact that many knew what they had done in crimes troughout the war, meaning that they either feared revenge for it from the enemy, or continued to fight even if they realised it was wrong, as opposing it would have meant facing and confronting own crimes and wrongdoings, something that's not easy for many.
Bookmark1995
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Well...Heinrich Himmler certainly fits the bill.
As the walls closed in around him, he said this to Norbert Masur, World Jewish Congress Representative: "I want to bury the hatchet between us and the Jews. If I had had my own way, many things would have been done differently..."
He also lied and claimed the survival rate of Auschwitz was high, and tried to position himself as a member of a post-war government.
To me, this proves that genocidal killing is the act of pussies, and that maturity is rising above nationalism and slogans to do the right thing.
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I agree with both of you and I think in time Nazism would have turned around to bite the Lords of the Third Reich in the ass.
I recently read a book about the Normandy campaign and how the young soldiers of the 12th SS Hitler Jugend division fought with a fanatical zeal that surprised even veterans of the Eastern front, the boys were many times difficult to reign in and they treated white Canadian soldiers as if they were Jews or Slavs.
I believe the reason for this was that the core members of the 12 SS had been raised and indoctrinated at a very early age but most were still old enough to remember the hard economic times in Germany before Hitler's rise to power. These boys took these memories and experiences with their indoctrination to heart.
These boys probably never saw a real Jew outside of a propaganda film but they did see the horrors of the Allied bombing campaign and as far as they were concerned, all enemies of the Reich were untermensch and only worthy of extermination.
Had the war ended differently I think it possible that in time a lot of these young people who would mostly be war vets, would look down on any Germans who were not vets or who in any way appeared wishy washy about their idea of National Socialism.
They may have ended up carting off a lot of older less fanatical true believers East.
Bookmark1995
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If the Reich won, then all of their beliefs would've been vindicated. A lot of the OTL German postwar politicians might have instead become even more fanatical Nazis.
I'm not so sure, I used to think the same thing but considering how a lot of Nazism was made up on the spot and that a lot of the old guard had very different views on what it meant to be a Nazi, for instance Goring, Himmler and Goebbels had very different definitions of what Nazism meant.
Hitler didn't really spell it out as accurately as Marx and Later Lenin defined communism, all other ideologies had decades if not centuries of works defining their positions.
After a victorious war for Nazi Germany is won, a lot of thought would have to be made to define what exactly National Socialism was and there would be a lot of different views just as there are different sects of Christianity.
The younger guard might decide a Jihad is necessary to clear the whole mess up.
Mind you these are just some new ideas that came to me recently and they really need a lot more thinking on my part but I'd like to hear what others think about it even its all disagreements.
True, that depends on how long Hitler would have lived, if he would have written a "Manifest" later or how the core ideology would have formed if they had won or if it would have remained a flued thing were each generation of leaders defines it (heck even if it survived or the old military guard later managed to change it, or be changed by it).
Bookmark1995
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His successors could have easily doubled down on his ideology or they could've pursued a kinder-gentler Nazism.
Bookmark1995
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"We've have allowed the Untermesnchen laborers to have 5 minutes breaks and enjoy potable water and some salted bread. We are truly generous toward the lesser beings."
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