GER politics thread

[Dargo]

Were the Nazis socialists? No, not in any meaningful way, and certainly not after 1934. But to address this canard fully, one must begin with the birth of the party. In 1919 a Munich locksmith named Anton Drexler founded the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP; German Workers’ Party). Political parties were still a relatively new phenomenon in Germany, and the DAP—renamed the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP; National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazi Party) in 1920—was one of several fringe players vying for influence in the early years of the Weimar Republic. It is entirely possible that the Nazis would have remained a regional party, struggling to gain recognition outside Bavaria, had it not been for the efforts of Adolf Hitler. Hitler joined the party shortly after its creation, and by July 1921 he had achieved nearly total control of the Nazi political and paramilitary apparatus.

To say that Hitler understood the value of language would be an enormous understatement. Propaganda played a significant role in his rise to power. To that end, he paid lip service to the tenets suggested by a name like National Socialist German Workers’ Party, but his primary—indeed, sole—focus was on achieving power whatever the cost and advancing his racist, anti-Semitic agenda. After the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch, in November 1923, Hitler became convinced that he needed to utilize the teetering democratic structures of the Weimar government to attain his goals. Over the following years, the brothers Otto and Gregor Strasser did much to grow the party by tying Hitler’s racist nationalism to socialist rhetoric that appealed to the suffering lower middle classes. In doing so, the Strassers also succeeded in expanding the Nazi reach beyond its traditional Bavarian base. By the late 1920s, however, with the German economy in free fall, Hitler had enlisted support from wealthy industrialists who sought to pursue avowedly anti-socialist policies. Otto Strasser soon recognized that the Nazis were neither a party of socialists nor a party of workers, and in 1930 he broke away to form the anti-capitalist Schwarze Front (Black Front). Gregor remained the head of the left wing of the Nazi Party, but the lot for the ideological soul of the party had been cast.

Hitler allied himself with leaders of German conservative and nationalist movements, and in January 1933 German President Paul von Hindenburg appointed him chancellor. Hitler’s Third Reich had been born, and it was entirely fascist in character. Within two months Hitler achieved full dictatorial power through the Enabling Act. In April 1933 communists, socialists, democrats, and Jews were purged from the German civil service, and trade unions were outlawed the following month. That July Hitler banned all political parties other than his own, and prominent members of the German Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party were arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps. Lest there be any remaining questions about the political character of the Nazi revolution, Hitler ordered the murder of Gregor Strasser, an act that was carried out on June 30, 1934, during the Night of the Long Knives. Any remaining traces of socialist thought in the Nazi Party had been extinguished. https://www.britannica.com/story/wer...zis-socialists

[Skybird]

Different to Haffner, you follow just by the superficial cosmetical appearance that last nbut not least afetr the war was introduced by the potlicla, left to diustanc eitself form the brownies and their deeds, thats why I clal it one of the biggest propaganda coups of all time. All what you describe what the Nazis did to secure their power and that iof Hitler, was not ideological convictio - it was, in Haffner'S words, policing action and not more.

You repeat the mainstream narration that Haffner criticises, and me, and some others before. But again, you fall for the superficial appearance of things.

BTW, my grandfathers both lived in the third Reich, and fought in the war. They too both said it was more socialist than anything, added with some German specialities like the natuionalism added and the racism card played to have a scapegoat to have the masses go after in distraction, but in principle: state socialism and its economic characteristics. And not at all that different than what there was in the USSR. Including the state terror and the way it was organised.

https://www.amazon.com/-/de/dp/B07PY...s%2C159&sr=8-1

I think it was published on English under this title,

https://www.amazon.de/Meaning-Hitler...ps%2C81&sr=8-1

but I am not fully certain, he had several of his books, also on Hitler, translated into English.

I red just three books on Hitler, this is by the far most qualified one and is part of the fundament of Haffner's international fame.


Mere hisotric facts and statistics dont tell evertyhign about a past tiem and its canditions. You need the option to dive into it, brfeath it, fill it with life. To the degree this succeeds only you can get an idea of how it really was. In nthis case, its last but not least also a psychological case study of Hitler. He did not tick like a classical Marxist, nor like a fascist like Mussolini. But definitely like a socialist with a sixth sense for the power of monumental orchestrations to turn over the masses. And the most relevant argument: the living reality for Germans in the Third Reich was that of a socialist collectivistic spirit and state organisation.



That the political left today spits bile and poison when being told this, is self-explanatory. In their narration, they want to be seen as the good ones.

[Dargo]

Right-wingers love to insist that members of Adolf Hitler’s party were socialists. But Nazism’s real economic policies upheld hypercapitalist principles rooted in social Darwinist ideas about the value of human life. They weren’t socialists at all. One of the most tiresome arguments levelled against socialism claims that Nazism was somehow “socialist,” and so something the Left needs to answer for. Adolf Hitler’s men marshalled the economy for war, put the state above the individual and, as the killer argument, they even called themselves “National Socialists.” Checkmate? Not quite. Even aside from the fact that other conservative and liberal parties actually voted for full powers to Hitler in 1933, his regime was characterized by massive interventions to help out private business. And the social Darwinism championed by the Nazis, counting the “unproductive” as mere wasteful expense, obeyed the logic of judging human life by the yardstick of profit.

In 2009, Israeli historian Ishay Landa published the book The Apprentice’s Sorcerer: Liberal Tradition and Fascism, an extensive study of the economic and social interests the Nazis really pursued. In this interview with Jacobin, he explains what the term “socialism” meant to Hitler, how his political and economic views were connected — and why we can see the dangers of economic liberalism in Elon Musk today.

Originally Posted by Ishay Landa

They were strongly capitalist. The Nazis placed great emphasis on private property and free competition. It’s true that they intervened in the free market, but it was also a time of a systemic failure of capitalism on a global scale. Almost all states intervened in the market at the time, and they did so to save the capitalist system from itself. This has nothing to do with socialist sentiment: it was pro-capitalist. In a way, there’s a parallel there with the way big banks were bailed out by governments after the 2008 financial crisis broke out. That, of course, did not reflect socialist intentions in any way, either. It was merely an attempt to stabilize the system a little bit.

Social Darwinism is actually a form of hypercapitalism. It takes from capitalism the focus on competition as a struggle of all against all. And the Nazis argued: “Well, that’s just the way nature is.” This was not a break with capitalism, but an intensification of economic views. Capitalism, in the Nazis’ view, is simply a part of nature. So, it is not just a matter of political domination, but of naturalizing economic contradictions. Hitler then said that it is above all “the Jew” who is trying to play a little trick on nature in order to make the struggle for survival superfluous. The will to tamper with the economy made Jews insidious, from the Nazi point of view.

Even the Shoah is related to economic considerations. For in Nazi ideology, Jews were seen as the ultimate obstacle. Obstacle to what? To capitalism, not least. They were considered the backbone of Marxism. The Nazis construed Marxism as an essentially Jewish conspiracy against the capitalist economy — and thus against the natural order. Of course, the Shoah was the result of many factors and the culmination of various Nazi obsessions, phobias, and hatreds. But among all these, one shouldn’t lose sight of this socioeconomic factor.

By the term “socialism” they didn’t mean anything that we would even remotely recognize as socialist, but rather their policy of intervening in the free market for the benefit of the capitalists. By the term “Marxism,” on the other hand, they meant social democracy and the protection of basic workers’ rights. In Mein Kampf, Hitler says that his antisemitic world view was finally formed the moment he realized that the Jews were the masterminds of social democracy. Nazi discourse was a very convenient — if cynical — way of manipulating concepts and ascribing them completely new meanings.

This is actually not so new, and has a long history. Already during the time of fascism there were attempts to portray the Nazis as socialists, for example by Ludwig von Mises. But in general, the efforts to establish a direct link between Marxism and National Socialism was a minority position. Then, beginning in the 1980s, a turning point occurred when a revisionist current began to emerge in fascism studies. It sought to link fascism much more strongly with the political left, with revolution and with anti-capitalism. This happened at a time when neoliberalism was beginning to dismantle the welfare state. Which made this ideological move very convenient. Advocates of this policy could say: “The Nazis actually stood for an authoritarian form of socialism!” Attacking the welfare state could thus be presented as an anti-fascist act, a resistance to Nazism and a purging of its political residues.

[mapuc]

I've been reading a lot of argument for Hitler being Left wing or Right wing-I admit I don't know what he was, other than very evil and that's what count not his political standpoint.

Markus

[Skybird]

https://mises.org/friday-philosophy/...ere-socialists

If we look at the Nazi program, this isn’t quite what comes to mind. Its dominant theme is that the German people have to come together as a collective entity: the common good must be put before the individual good. Differences in class and wealth must be strictly subordinated to the good of the German people (Volk) as a whole. Points 10 and 11 of the program declare:

The first obligation of every citizen must be to productively work mentally or physically. The activity of individual may not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the framework of the whole for the benefit for the general good. We demand therefore: Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of debt (interest)-slavery.

Point 14 is “We demand that the profits from wholesale trade shall be shared out.” Crucially, point 24 is

We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: “The good of the community before the good of the individual”. (“GEMEINNUTZ GEHT VOR EIGENNUTZ”).

The great Austrian historian Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn has given the best analysis of Hitler and the the Nazi Party Program in his Leftism. He emphasizes Hitler’s disdain for traditional German society:

[Hitler] wanted to see Germany in complete monotony, with local traditions eliminated, regional self-government destroyed, the flags of the Länder strictly outlawed, the differences between the Christian faiths eradicated, the Churches desiccated and forcibly amalgamated. He wanted to make the Germans more uniform, even physically, by planned breeding and the extermination, sterilization, or deportation of those who deviated from the norm. The tribes (Stämme) should cease to exist.

Contrary to the impression Sehon gives, Hitler didn’t see himself as a partisan of business. In a conversation with Carl J. Burckhardt, the League of Nations high commissioner in Danzig, Hitler called himself a “proletarian.”

Sehon’s answer to this is that Hitler in power wasn’t a radical. There were socialists in the Nazi Party, such as Gregor Strasser, but Hitler kicked them out and in many cases killed them. He surrendered to big business in order to gain power. He did not nationalize the major industries of Germany. He was no socialist but favored private property and business enterprise.

In answer to Sehon, I mentioned Mises’s vital distinction between two kinds of socialism. In one of them, the state owns the means of production. In the other, private property still exists but the state tells the owners what to do. This is a form of central planning and still counts as socialism, and it was this that the Nazis put into practice.
[etc.]

https://mises.org/mises-daily/why-na...m-totalitarian

evertheless, apart from Mises and his readers, practically no one thinks of Nazi Germany as a socialist state. It is far more common to believe that it represented a form of capitalism, which is what the Communists and all other Marxists have claimed. The basis of the claim that Nazi Germany was capitalist was the fact that most industries in Nazi Germany appeared to be left in private hands.
What Mises identified was that private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.
De facto government ownership of the means of production, as Mises termed it, was logically implied by such fundamental collectivist principles embraced by the Nazis as that the common good comes before the private good and the individual exists as a means to the ends of the State. If the individual is a means to the ends of the State, so too, of course, is his property. Just as he is owned by the State, his property is also owned by the State.
But what specifically established de facto socialism in Nazi Germany was the introduction of price and wage controls in 1936. These were imposed in response to the inflation of the money supply carried out by the regime from the time of its coming to power in early 1933. The Nazi regime inflated the money supply as the means of financing the vast increase in government spending required by its programs of public works, subsidies, and rearmament. The price and wage controls were imposed in response to the rise in prices that began to result from the inflation.
[etc.]

https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/m...socialism-1944

The prices set on the unhampered market correspond to an equilibrium of demand and supply. Everybody who is ready to pay the market price can buy as much as he wants to buy. Everybody who is ready to sell at the market price can sell as much as he wants to sell. If the government, without a corresponding increase in the quantity of goods available for sale, decrees that buying and selling must be done at a lower price, and thus makes it illegal either to ask or to pay the potential market price, then this equilibrium can no longer prevail. With unchanged supply there are now more potential buyers on the market, namely, those who could not afford the higher market price but are prepared to buy at the lower official rate. There are now potential buyers who cannot buy, although they are ready to pay the price fixed by the government or even a higher price. The price is no longer the means of segregating those potential buyers who may buy from those who may not. A different principle of selection has come into operation. Those who come first can buy; others are too late in the field. The visible outcome of this state of things is the sight of housewives and children standing in long lines before the groceries, a spectacle familiar to everybody who has visited Europe in this age of price control. If the government does not want only those to buy who come first (or who are personal friends of the salesman), while others go home empty-handed, it must regulate the distribution of the stocks available. It has to introduce some kind of rationing. …
The isolated measures of price fixing fail to attain the ends sought. In fact, they produce effects contrary to those aimed at by the government. If the government, in order to eliminate these inexorable and unwelcome consequences, pursues its course further and further, it finally transforms the system of capitalism and free enterprise into socialism.
Many American and British supporters of price control are fascinated by the alleged success of Nazi price control. They believe that the German experience has proved the practicability of price control within the framework of a system of market economy. You have only to be as energetic, impetuous, and brutal as the Nazis are, they think, and you will succeed. These men who want to fight Nazism by adopting its methods do not see that what the Nazis have achieved has been the building up of a system of socialism, not a reform of conditions within a system of market economy.
There is no third system between a market economy and socialism. Mankind has to choose between those two systems—unless chaos is considered an alternative.

If it looks like a frog, jumps like a frog, squawks like a frog, then its probabyl a frog.

The political left cannot allow to see that the Nazis were socialists, it would shaken them in their moral very fundaments. Its the left versus the Nazis, right, it always was, right?



History gets written by the victors.


I say this not since Weidel's conversation with Musk, or since the rise of the AfD in recent years, or the rights' campaign since some years to push this thought. I say this already since I clashed with Sailor Steve about this topic once, and by feeling that is twelve, thirteen, fourteen years or so ago, since it was brought up again in a book with political and economic comments on the present events around 2010 that I red at that time, give and take a year. And even earlier! In fact it was a - very good! - history teacher already who provoked us with this queston, or topic, or theory., however you call it. And that was in the early 80s.

This understanding is part of my thinking since my teen years. I'm getting 58.


The war of weblinks could be continued endlessly. But they are only illustrave for me, not new in content. I stick to the points that I have already repeated several times, in this thread, and in recent years. The Nazis were socialists. From beginnign on. Goebbels made that clear already in the earliest 30s.

[Dargo]

Nazis did not believe in the elimination of social class, but in a rigid caste system. They were not feminists and anti-racists, they practised racist genocide. They were not against militarism and prisons and the death penalty; they were history’s worst murderers. Did they believe in the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”? No, they massacred and enslaved the weak and disabled. Did they believe in worker ownership? Did they think, as socialists do, that racism is an illusion used to divide workers and keep them from recognizing the common interests of the working class? Everything socialists stand for was opposed by the Nazis, which is why they killed countless Communists and members of the socialist German Social Democratic Party.

So the most obvious reason for thinking that Nazism wasn’t socialism is that the things Nazis believed are rejected entirely by socialists, and the things socialists believe were rejected entirely by Nazis. All that is left is the name “national socialism,” but Hitler himself said that “our adopted term ‘Socialist’ has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism.” Instead, it was a piece of branding, like all the dictatorships that call themselves the Extremely Democratic Totally Non-Dictatorial People’s Democracy. The worst dictatorships would all be socialism by definition, because socialism is defined as government control. A monarchy could be “socialism” if the king was powerful enough. A feudal aristocracy could be “socialist” if those who “governed” also “controlled production.” This would be ludicrous, though, because it would mean that an economy in which a giant caste of wage labourers served a tiny wealthy aristocracy would be “socialist,” so that a society violating every single principle socialists endorse would be said to satisfy their principles.

The reason this definition goes so badly off the rails is that it fails to consider basic socialist concepts like class, democracy, equality, and exploitation. Government control of production gets you nothing if your society is still stratified by class, undemocratic, highly unequal, and filled with exploitation. Everything depends on the kind of government you have. When socialists talk about their economic ideal, they speak of worker ownership, which is not the same as “government ownership.” The government, after all, could be feudalism, in which case government ownership would give the workers nothing. Socialists want to see a world in which the people who do the labour have control over their workplaces. This is also why “communist” countries that are authoritarian dictatorships should not be called “socialist” even if they claim the label for themselves. To know whether an economy is socialist, you have to look at how equal it is, how much power workers have, whether people are exploited, and who is in charge of what.

Alright, so socialism does not mean “government control of production,” thus proving that the Nazis controlled production does not prove that they were socialists. But it is worth noting here that even if socialism was “government control of production,” the argument that “the Nazis were socialists” would still be incredibly misleading. When people say “the Nazis were socialists,” what they want you to hear is “socialism and Nazism are synonymous.” They want you to believe that if they can prove Nazi Germany had a socialist economy, it shows that socialist economies are totalitarianism. But the reasoning is fallacious, for the same reason that “Hitler was a vegetarian, therefore vegetarianism and Nazism are synonymous” is fallacious.

The features that horrify us about Nazi Germany generally relate to their racist militarism: They were homicidal maniacs who tried to conquer the world. My problem with Nazis is not that the state was too involved in the economy, but that they tortured and murdered millions upon millions of people. If they had had “government control of production” without the racist, genocidal, militaristic, anti-human elements, then they would lack the elements that horrify us. People who say “The Nazis were socialists because the state controlled production” are trying to get you to associate one aspect of Nazi Germany (power of the state sector in the economy) with the others (the racist genocide). Like “vegetarian Hitler,” the attempt is to show that because two things occurred together in an instance, they are related. The reason you know it’s silly is that the moment we look at other cases, we see that it is not true that state direction of economic activities means a Nazi-like government. You can say, “the Nazis had a state-run healthcare system.” But Britain has a state-run healthcare system and has not got Nazi government. (It’s rather funny that one of the classic texts of conservatism is Friedrich von Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, which argues that socialistic policies lead to totalitarianism. Shortly after its publication, a socialist government came to power in Britain and introduced a socialized healthcare system, which proved wildly popular and did not in fact lead to totalitarianism. Hayek’s argument was utterly destroyed by the success of countries that became more socialistic without becoming less democratic. This is the case in the whole of Europe.)

I have confronted enough Nazis in my life on the streets that the idea they are social is utterly ridiculous. I have seen when I was a little kid what Nazi Germany did to the socialist I have seen the ones that survived the camps these were the "socialist" not Nazi Germany! So do not come here and spread your utter bollocks what a Nazi is or not we have seen what Nazis were when in the meantime you lot next to the exterminate camps wir haben nichts gewusst bollocks!

[Skybird]

"Social" and "socialist" are two totally different things and, from a humanistic standpoint, over the longer time antagonistic to each other.

And have you even cared to watch the Haffner video with English transalted subtitles? I read nothign from you that adresses the very valid points he or Mises and others make. While the quotes i linked to rebuff in advance much of what you give in return.

Well, there were people in the forum in the past who implied that Mises and Hayeck themselves were in principle propagating Nazism since they were criticising socialism.

In the mood for a classic? Hayek: The Road to Serfdom. Old, but gold - and frighteningly descriptive of the world of our current present. Have it for free here: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet...ge/n3/mode/2up

Its quite discouraging and can turn one into a pessimist about mankind to see socialist conceptions being raised as the reply of what is just and human to nazism. Or inhumane. It reminds of a victim of rape afterwards begging for more and not letting go the attacker.

[Skybird]

In today's latest polls, the CDU/CSU union has slipped below 30%. This means that it would no longer have a majority in a coalition with either the Reds or the Greens.

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU and his party's candidate for chancellor, is clearly falling behind. He maneuvers cowardly and too obviously opportunistic between appeasement towards the Greens and appeasement towards the Reds, diligently betrays formerly original conservative positions in order not to scare away woke voters, and also loses courage on formerly provocative topics such as nuclear power (even if its revival seems unrealistic). He is also putting the firewall against the AfD at the top of his list of priorities. In doing so, and with his wiggling around green and red, he is doing the best election campaign work for the AfD that the AfD could wish for. He is also condemning the CDU to eternal damnation in a red-green hell. Some pollsters believe it is possible that the AfD will not only catch up with the CDU/CSU by the election, but even overtake it - and become the strongest party. And one particularly biting headline even says that the CDU could not actually deliver anything it puts in its shop window due to a lack of its own assets. Well, I've already said that repeatedly.

No matter who votes for which color and which party wins - in the end there will be a red-green-woke-left or green-red-woke-left policy. And this is now dawning on more and more Germans, especially the conservative core voters. In addition, all four candidates for chancellor enjoy exceptionally poor approval ratings, worse by far than anything recorded in previous candidate duels. And over 40% of eligible voters say that they are extremely dissatisfied with the state of democracy, or reject it outright because of its failings. In the former GDR areas, this figure is even above the 50% mark.

I am convinced that the next legislative period will not only fail to reverse the trend of Germany's decline, but will actually exacerbate and accelerate it. And Germany will drag Europe into the abyss with it for the third time. Because, for the third time the demand Germany puts to the rest of the world is clear:


Am deutschen Wesen soll und muß die Welt genesen!

[Skybird]

With a full beard in a women's prison?

https://www-faz-net.translate.goog/a..._x_tr_pto=wapp


Germany, land of the thinkers and poets.

[Jimbuna]

Madness!!

[Skybird]

https://www-focus-de.translate.goog/..._x_tr_pto=wapp

It is no coincidence that the only party leader from Germany to attend Trump's inauguration is the AfD leader, Tino Chrupalla. Almost everything Trump plans to do and how he views the world corresponds to the AfD 's worldview .
The national, the anti-woke, the departure from climate protection as an expensive subsidy event that does little to improve the climate. The understanding of “free speech” that is largely uninfluenced by the state.
The Chancellery confidently says it is prepared for Donald Trump. Doubts are allowed. It certainly sounds defiant.
What seems certain is that Donald Trump is prepared for Germany. And that sounds rather threatening.

[Skybird]

A random find, only of interest since it was recently talked about here:

https://www.focus.de/politik/meinung...260644263.html

Neither Focus nor Markwort are known to be especially left or right.

Originally Posted by FOCUS

Helmut Markwort's diary: Allow me one more comment on Hitler and Weidel's communism thesis

Alice Weidel calls Hitler a communist - a stirring reminder of earlier historical debates. Franz Josef Strauß already portrayed National Socialism as a “variant of socialism”. But the reality is more complex: Goebbels' diaries show the socialist orientation of the NSDAP before it became a mass murder machine.

There was a huge uproar when AfD leader Alice Weidel called Adolf Hitler a communist. In fact, the debate is not new. When Franz Josef Strauß ran for chancellor 45 years ago, he said at a CSU party conference: “National Socialism was a variant of socialism. It drew its momentum from the millions of socialists who ran away from the SPD as voters at the time.”

Strauß, who studied history, was able to refer to a socialist who not many people knew in 1932. His name was Willy Brandt and he wrote at the time: “The socialist element in National Socialism in the thinking of its followers must be recognized by us.”

Hitler had renamed the party he had hijacked, the DAP, the NSDAP. Spelled out: National Socialist German Workers' Party. It wanted to be socialist and appeal to workers. Anyone reading the party's chronicles will find many ideas to steer the party towards a better communism.

Hitler's falsified diaries, which were distributed by Stern magazine [back in the 80s, Skybird], are not a source for this, but another big Nazi kept an almost pedantic record.

Joseph Goebbels, the party's propaganda chief and fanatical whisperer to his Führer, wrote down almost daily what happened and what he thought and wanted. It goes without saying that his diaries, which are available in many volumes, are biased and partisan, but they prove his convictions.

Apart from his destructive hatred of the Jews in Germany and all over the world, a common thread runs through his notes: the dream of a communist socialist Germany with subsequent world domination. His enemies are the capitalist market economy, Wall Street in New York and business with shares.

There are hundreds of sources for this NSDAP attitude. This must be noted for the sake of historical accuracy. Just as correct, however, is the terrible deformation of the party into a mass murder organization that disregarded all rights, rules and laws.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Skybird

With a full beard in a women's prison?

https://www-faz-net.translate.goog/a..._x_tr_pto=wapp

Germany, land of the thinkers and poets.

https://www.achgut.com/artikel/pech_..._ist_eine_frau


Tough luck - Marla-Svenja is a woman

Marla-Svenja Liebich's outing as a woman is causing those who have longed so much for the Self-Determination Act to hyperventilate. Why? Should a person convicted of incitement to hatred not be allowed to be a woman?

With a single official application for a few euros in fees, a woman named Marla-Svenja is currently demystifying the so-called Self-Determination Act. This law declares the assignment of every person to a biological sex obsolete. Since fall 2024, only the self-assessment of one's own gender, to be submitted to the responsible registry office, is decisive.

Now the apologists of the law are howling because they don't like Marla-Svenja's courageous step towards her true self. What a joke. People suddenly don't believe that Marla-Svenja is a woman. Could it be because of Marla-Svenja's facial hair? Is it because her clothes are perceived as masculine? Or the fact that she has legal problems because of her right-wing views?

Now the apologists for the law are howling because they don't like Marla-Svenja's courageous step towards her true self. What a joke. People suddenly don't believe that Marla-Svenja is a woman. Could it be because of Marla-Svenja's facial hair? Is it because her clothes are perceived as masculine? Or the fact that she has legal problems because of her right-wing views?

However, the relevant circles should know that: The question of what someone looks like is simply no longer relevant to social gender. Neither is the person's capacity for understanding. Incidentally, this is demonstrated by the fact that parents can now determine the gender of their underage children themselves. Even for a male infant who, contrary to expectations, reaches for the pink instead of the blue rattle in his crib. The objections to the law were well known, yet it was pushed through with rare arrogance. “Trans women are women,” said Family Minister Lisa Paus, brushing off detailed questions. The Federal Minister of Justice, Marco Buschmann, who is also responsible, was also unable to identify any problems.

Now many people are sitting there, “not believing” Marla-Svenja's gender change and whispering that this is abuse. These are the same people who have taken the desire for freedom to the extreme. The law doesn't provide for an examination of whether I actually want to change my gender. It was the declared intention of those responsible that “degrading” tests, as provided for in previous laws, should be abolished. Apparently, even the harmless check question as to whether the whole thing might not just be an attempt at trolling was seen as degrading. Result: Even the nastiest trolls can now be women. If there are female trolls, which I don't want to google now, the reverse is of course also true.
Consequently, there is no provision in the Self-Determination Act that Marla-Svenja has to change anything about her appearance, speak in a squeaky voice or even take hormones. The so-called self-assessment is legally unassailable; there is no abuse clause. And anyone who, like so many others, now violates this legal requirement by using cynical or even harsh words about Marla-Svenja in the face of the much-desired law is also violating the personal rights and dignity of this courageous woman - in a blatant, downright inhumane way.

Marla-Svenja has already announced that she will sue anyone who does not respect her wish to live as a woman for at least a year until the end of the first transition period. She can sue anyone who reveals, for example by mentioning her former name, that she once went through life as a “man”. The fine for a violation of the so-called prohibition of disclosure is not insignificant. Deadnaming can cost up to ten thousand euros, which is more than the fine for insulting Agnes Strack-Zimmermann.

Marla-Svenja also has claims under civil law. Her gender entry now defines her gender, completely detached from biological truths. This goes hand in hand with a legal claim to respect. So anyone who merely mentions that Marla-Svenja was not always a woman risks being sued for injunctive relief and damages. In view of the intensity with which the poor woman is currently being picked on, her media lawyer will be very busy in the coming months.

Interestingly, the law does not make any special provision for the traditional press. The latter must therefore also respect Marla-Svenja's gender - with effect in the past. But well, a small restriction here. This is the first high-profile case. The courts will probably see an overriding interest in reporting here, provided that the malice towards Marla-Svenja's decision, which can certainly be found in previous reports, does not outweigh this. Freedom of the press may therefore take precedence by a hair's breadth, as it is not possible to report on a case without describing it. But this will no longer apply to future deadnaming.

Conclusion with best regards to Lisa Paus, Marco Buschmann and the community: Marla-Svenja is a woman. You asked for it, now live with it.

The author Udo Vetter is a specialist lawyer for criminal law and runs his own law firm.

[Skybird]

[Tichys Einblicke] Currently, 28 percent of those eligible to vote are not planning to take part in the Bundestag elections on February 23. This is the result of a survey by the Forsa Institute. At the beginning of December, the figure was still 22 percent. An increase of over a quarter over the holidays. “This is atypical and shows how unsettled people are that they no longer know who to vote for,” Forsa boss Manfred Güllner told Bild. Normally, the proportion of non-voters decreases before an election. The election campaign helps undecided voters to make a decision and motivates them to decide for themselves.
In the last election, 23.4 percent of eligible voters did not show up. Figures slightly above 28% were only recorded in 2009 and 2013, i.e. Angela Merkel's first two re-elections. The CDU woman used “asymmetric demobilization” in a targeted manner. By focusing on competing issues, the Chancellor encouraged supporters of other parties to refrain from voting. Voter turnout then rose again in 2017. The AfD mobilized non-voters and those who were dissatisfied with the Chancellor's green-red immigration policy.

The Union's top candidate is once again to blame for the potentially low voter turnout in 2025. Albeit in a different way this time. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz is not a real alternative to the government. He is currently foregoing existing majorities in the Bundestag on important issues such as uncontrolled immigration, the reduction of bureaucracy or better framework conditions for the economy. His CDU/CSU is not even allowing motions on these issues to be put on the agenda. Merz says he wants to avoid accidental majorities. In other words, Merz wants to hold on to the “firewall” that keeps his rival AfD away from decisions and well-paid positions. This reduces Merz's options after the election to a coalition with the SPD, the Greens or both together.

Merz promises voters better conditions for the economy, the reduction of bureaucracy and the fight against uncontrolled immigration. He does not want to push this through against the SPD and the Greens, despite having a majority, says Merz. But with the SPD or the Greens as coalition partners, he will certainly push it through, promises the CDU chairman. Obviously the voters don't believe him. Güllner calls them “insecure people”. However, voters are not quite as stupid as they need to be to buy the CDU/CSU's campaign. Especially as Merz has proven for three years that he will abandon any position within twelve hours if Green-Red journalists or politicians speak out against it.
All this time, the CDU/CSU was hovering around 30 percent, which meant a lead over the SPD and Greens of a good 15 percent each. Merz may have thought that the tracks had already been laid that would lead him to the chancellorship. Even if 30 percent is actually far too little for the largest opposition party when the government has to admit that it neither has a majority in the Bundestag nor does it enjoy the confidence of the people. Because the economy is now in its third year of contraction, because it is allowing the cost of taxes and levies to explode or because it has neither internal nor external security under control. Because more than 100 references to a Saudi Arabian terrorist do not lead to him being stopped before he runs amok at the Magdeburg Christmas market and kills six people. While just one foul-mouthed remark about the government is enough for special task forces and state journalists to roll up to search houses.

No opposition leader has ever had it as easy as Friedrich Merz. No one has started with as little as the man from Sauerland. Merkel can be credited with the fact that she at least had to deal with the Gerd Schröder election campaign machine in 2005. Even if his red-green government had also lost its majority and trust in the Bundestag. But Merz is running against Olaf Scholz. The most unpopular head of government of all democratically governed countries - worldwide. Despite this, the CDU/CSU has even slipped below 30 percent. On the very weekend that Forsa announced the sharp rise in non-voters.

People are unsettled, you could say - if you want to be gentle with Merz. He can't, but he is more accurate. Friedrich Merz is not an alternative to red-green, Friedrich Merz is the continuation of red-green under a different leader - under a leader who is just as inconsistent or charismatic as Olaf Scholz. It is therefore hardly surprising that some voters are switching to the AfD and others to the camp of non-voters. In the end, the AfD could even overtake the CDU. The TE election bet deals with this question.

[Skybird]

When Babble Olaf called Pistorius up as defence minister, I said that he is a poser and a talker but in the end will not have gotten anything done, and that his job only would be to distract critcism from Scholz. I referred to his political career before as an illustration.

Well. I dont feel I wish to correct myself.
----------------

[Tichys Einblick] Bundeswehr cannot spend billions


The Bundeswehr literally does not know what to do with all the money: it was unable to use over four billion euros last year. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is calling for more and more funds - and then has to return them to the federal treasury.

The Bundeswehr spent 4.36 billion euros less than planned last year. A spokesman for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) officially confirmed this on Tuesday.

Around 2.6 billion euros from the so-called "special fund" and around 1.7 billion euros from the regular defense budget, i.e. from "individual plan 14" of the federal budget, were not used.

For SPD man Pistorius, this is a huge embarrassment. He never tires of demanding more and more money for his house and for the troops - and he is getting more and more money. From 46.9 billion in the first traffic light year of 2021, the budget of the Ministry of Defense rose to 51.9 billion in 2024 - plus another 20 billion from the special fund. The federal government is currently arguing over three billion euros for new military aid to Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) wants to suspend the debt brake for this.

Money doesn't score goals, as they say in football. For the Bundeswehr, money alone doesn't score at all.

But how can that be? It is well known that the troops are lacking in equipment at every turn. Is that not true, were all the horror reports exaggerated or wrong?

They weren't.

The Bundeswehr has problems, gigantic ones in fact. There are no radios, so desperate soldiers communicate with each other during NATO maneuvers using their private smartphones that are not secure against eavesdropping. There are no tents for exercises in the field. There is no warm underwear for the cold months. Much of the existing equipment is currently being repaired or no longer works at all. In 2018, the Bundeswehr had 224 Leopard 2 tanks. According to the Ministry of Defense, a total of 104 of them were operational.

In 2020, the Federal Audit Office saw the Bundeswehr's operational readiness threatened by the poor overall condition of the material. In 2023, the Court of Auditors assessed the smooth material supply of the brigade provided by Germany for NATO's "rapid reaction force" as being at risk. The embarrassment will never be forgotten when Germany wanted to deliver 50 Gepard tanks to Ukraine in 2022 and then Berlin was astonished to discover that they no longer had any ammunition for the combat vehicles.

So there are plenty of gaps. Why can't the Bundeswehr use the money it has and make up for the many existing deficiencies? The answer is not very flattering for Boris Pistorius. Because the PR talent appears to the outside world as a hands-on doer. In truth, the Social Democrat poll-topper never got his ministry under control.

The main problem has a name: the Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support. This is the central and only procurement office for the troops. The

authority was created by merging the Federal Office of Defense Technology and Procurement (BWB) with the Federal Office of Information Management and Information Technology of the Bundeswehr (IT-AmtBw). These two predecessor authorities were considered inefficient and slow. So our politicians pretended to do something to solve the problem: They turned the two criticized smaller offices into a single new, large office.

But even if you tie two stones together, they just can't fly.

At the time of German reunification, both the Bundeswehr and the National People's Army (NVA) were excellently equipped organizations with modern equipment. After the NVA was integrated into the Bundeswehr, the new all-German Bundeswehr had a luxury problem:

It was far too big.

According to the agreements of the 2+4 Treaty, it had to massively reduce its personnel. At the same time, it had huge legacies of material that had been accumulated in East and West during the Cold War. With fewer and fewer soldiers, there was no need to acquire new material. There was still too much of the old. A little modernization was done here and there, but in a seemingly peaceful Europe, the pressure and consequently the seriousness was lacking.

That is why the army of reunified Germany never developed real competence in procurement.

This becomes very clear when you compare us with other countries. In 2020, Germany spent 5.8 billion euros more on national defense than France. But with much less money, the French maintain a significantly larger troop strength, significantly more reservists, the same number of guided missiles, rocket launchers and attack helicopters - and even have significantly more armored vehicles. France has a much larger navy. And France has nuclear weapons.

And all of this with less money.

The Bundeswehr is not lacking money, but efficiency. Boris Pistorius has not managed to remedy this problem in any way during his time in office. Worse still: the most popular German politician has not even seriously tried.

Yet German soldiers are internationally respected. When they manage to beg together the necessary equipment, they regularly achieve very good results in NATO maneuvers, for example. It is not the fighting troops that are the problem, but logistics and procurement and administration.

And there the problem is not a lack of money, but what it is spent on.

In 2021, France invested 29 percent of its entire defense budget in new material. Germany spent only 19 percent on it. In France, 26 percent went to army administration and repairs. In Germany, it was an incredible 37 percent. And this maintenance and repair share is also constantly increasing. This is because the proportion of outdated equipment continues to grow. We know this from cars: the older the car, the more expensive the visits to the workshop become. It is exactly the same with armaments, only here it is not a matter of a few thousand, but quickly a few billion.

The legendary sailing training ship Gorch Fock was to be overhauled over a period of two years for ten million euros. In the end, the general renovation took seven years and cost 135 million - but no one wanted to part with the boat. Holding on to old equipment drives up the costs of maintenance every year. But the procurement artists at the Federal Office would rather repair a 60-year-old sailing ship than buy a modern frigate for the same money.

And even when really new equipment is to be bought, the Bundeswehr's procurement system fails. Soldiers waited ten (in numbers: 10) years for urgently needed new helmets. Why? The model has been used by the US military for many years, so it has been extensively battle-tested. Nevertheless, the procurement contract was not signed for ten years - because the agency wanted to test the helmets further.

What corruption does in Russia, bureaucracy does in Germany.

Between 2014 and 2021, Germany spent almost 55 billion euros on new equipment. France, with a slightly smaller defense budget, spent 96 billion in the same period, and Great Britain even spent 108 billion.

To give you a little idea of ​​what these differences mean: For the 41 billion euros that France spent more on equipment than Germany during this time, you would get two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. Or more than 500 F-35 jets. Or enough combat drones to plaster the whole of Hesse with them.

The rampant incompetence in the ministerial bureaucracy and in the Bundeswehr administration itself leads to an unexpected form of deterrence: it scares off potential employees.

What young person with half a mind would sign up to a club that has not managed to procure enough tents for maneuvers for three years - in other words, to get a handle on a problem that a few interns could solve in an afternoon with a trip to the hardware store or a bulk order from Amazon?

The Bundeswehr and the Federal Office have a major personnel problem - qualitatively and quantitatively. The difficulty of not having enough employees is made worse by every new financial injection for the troops. Because then the same employees who were already unable to spend the little money they had before suddenly have to spend a lot more money.

The Ministry of Defense fills the personnel gaps with temporary external consultants. Not only are they expensive, they also leave at the end of their (usually short) contract period - and take their knowledge with them. The Bundeswehr's procurement department has always only solved a problem in the short term with a lot of money, but has not increased its own expertise in the process.

You can also burn money that way.

Weapons procurement is always a long-term project. Short-term financial injections, even if they are huge like Olaf Scholz's 100 billion "Zeitenwende" (turning point) euros, help politicians with their own advertising and in the election campaign. They do not help the troops. Because it all fizzles out if 100 billion are not spent on new equipment, but 37 percent of it continues to end up in administration and the repair shop.

The Bundeswehr does not lack money to buy weapons. The Bundeswehr lacks people who know how to buy weapons.