Talk:Nazism

Were Nazis or Soviets more pseudoscientific
I think this is an important point. 79.67.94.128 (talk) 17:25, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it would be far more interesting to argue which group had more of a contribution to science despite both of them being involved in terrible science. Soviets are usually known for their spacey stuff, but Nazis had people like, the guy who is a father of rocket technology and space science in the U.S. and even contributed to which was part of the space race between U.S. the Soviets.  19:06, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
 * @79.67.94.128 The question is far too vague to answer. Put like this — on the one hand, the peak achivements of Soviet and Nazi technology easily rivaled those of the west, and of each other. On the other hand, there were also many instances — both Nazi and Soviet — of state-sponsored pseudoscience.


 * Furthermore, the distinction should be made between "the Nazis"/"the Soviets" (as an individual whole) and the Nazi/Communist ideologies themselves. Taken as ideologies, it's clear that both Nazism and Communism was (and is) brimming with crankery (if not 'pseudoscience' precisely), far beyond even that in the west.


 * In other words: it's not that they couldn't have run "tighter ships" in theory than they actually did. It's that their models and visions of their respective 'perfect society' sucked donkey balls was utterly insane.


 * Their societal target goal simply was, and is, completely psychotic unrealistic — and their respective methods of achieving said goals weren't much saner. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 14:21, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Be careful on the section of the article about the Nazis and the occult, there's a lot of bullshit out there about it
The Nazis had several significant members of their movement such as Heinrich Himmler who was attracted to ancient Germanic pagan religious culture though he also was interested in ancient Christian Germanic society such as the first German King Henry the Fowler and in a public event placed a large wreath at his tomb. Himmler's interest in pre-Christian Germanic culture including adopting symbols from it has been exaggerated by Christian proponents of the claim that the Nazis were occultist. This has been fueled in popular culture by films and books that have utilized the claim of attraction to the occult to create stories of heroes stopping the Nazis from attaining some occult power that would allow them to dominate the world.

The reality is that Hitler and the party accepted all people who were deemed Aryans as party members regardless of religion except Judaism of course. However the party came under considerable attack from Catholic conservatives over its support of eugenics including use of abortion for eugenics and was accused of having atheist and pagan sympathies because of the Nazis admiring elements of the ideas of atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and because of the use of symbols that existed in pre-Christian Germanic lands like the swastika and the SS runes. In response Hitler went out of his way to say that the Nazis supported maintaining Christian religion in Germany and declared the party opposed to any attempt to undermine Christianity in Germany.

There was of course batshit crazy Alfred Rosenberg's ideas of Aryans originating from Atlantis who may have been interested in the occult given the absurd mythical-sounding theories he had on the origins of people deemed Aryans. He wrote some book about it, again people wanting to exaggerate claims of ties of the Nazis with the occult point to Rosenberg - only neo-Nazi nutcases care about that lunatic's ideas. The Nazi party never subscribed to Rosenberg's claims, it followed racial anthropological views far tamer in comparison to Rosenbergs that were done by the Nazi supporting anthropologist Hans F. K. Gunther. Rosenberg appears to have been liked by Hitler for some reason which is why he was kept around in the high ranks of the party, perhaps for his administrative abilities as he was appointed to several administrative posts.

To sum up if the above is tl;dr, claims of the Nazis being occultist are exaggerations promoted by two groups: (1) Christians typically wanting to say that few genuine Christians were Nazis because Nazis believed in the occult; (2) popular media promoting sensational stories of evil Nazis wanting the power of the occult to achieve world domination (Indiana Jones stuff). Reality: most Nazis were Christians of some denomination, some were interested in Germanic pagan religious culture but no clear evidence of any large base of neo-pagans in the party, and lastly there were probably some members who were closet atheists who liked all the nationalist and racist stuff but didn't care about religion but didn't kick up a fuss about Hitler appealing to Christians for support.


 * The Nazi leadership weren't seriously practitioners of occult religions, but they weren't particularly Christians either, or atheistic. A lot of people claim that because Hitler persecuted some Christians, that means he was anti-Christian. But he persecuted enemies of all faiths, beliefs, philosophies, and political persuasions. Germany remained overwhelmingly Christian under Nazi rule. Many of the Nazi leadership including Hitler had muddled and contradictory ideas about religion, which doesn't indicate that they were anti-religion (or pro-religion). They sought to use religion, particularly Christianity, when they could and took action against it when it got in their way, but they were generally not strongly Christian in any sense (vaguely theistic, perhaps, a certain fondness for mass worship). Certainly the occult claims are exaggerated by makers of ridiculous TV documentaries and writers of ludicrous books. Most Germans remained Christian, at least in the sense of cultural Christianity: occasional church-going, belief in god, etc. What does it mean to "be Christian"? Church-going, hymn singing, self-identification, paying your church taxes, philosophical agreement, not being an avowed atheist? --Gospatric (talk) 10:14, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Punch A Nazi
Is it okay to punch a Neo-Nazi? 68.0.189.224 (talk) 03:14, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * No. 03:17, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreed! 15:06, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Unless they're trying to harm you it's not ok to punch people because they're assholes. GeeJayK (talk) 15:20, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Move Nazism -> National Socialism?
I dunno, it would make sense to me that the article name isn't abbreviated or anything. --2001:999:22:79C8:95B9:9B2E:5FC3:5EC4 (talk) 09:07, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Devil Worshipping occultists
I read That a good number of Hitler’s advisors were devil worshiping occultists and because of that, they influenced Hitler to set up his regime the way that he did

They really had some bizarre occult shit going on, and things like the debatable existence of the Vril society.

It’s been like 3 years since I’ve been down that hole but I remember that the arguments made for it made a lot of sense. Especially with the SS ideology76.178.152.46 (talk) 11:45, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Look at the previous section about the same subject for a reply on your remark. 12:43, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, I understand that the Nazi Satanists thing is really overblown. Probably by people who watch too much History Channel.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 20:11, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Outcasts and expediency
The fact that the Nazis betrayed the German homosexuals has less to do with radical politics itself and more to do with the hallmarks of fascist ideology: the scapegoating of "degeneracy" whatever that may be. Moreover, usage of "useful idiots" is a hallmark of politics in general. As soon as the Cold War ended all the right-wing dictatorships NATO propped up were left to wither in the wind precisely because they lost their utility. This is just how power operates. Carthage (talk) 18:01, 10 July 2023 (UTC)


 * (EC) I'd like to avoid edit wars. Gay Nazis were indeed a thing... but not part of the core ideology of Nazism.  They only supported Nazism because they were outcasts, and were brutally betrayed.  It's an interesting bit of history that most people rather would not talk about; neo-nazis don't want to hear about how gay people were in their group nor how they literally stabbed in the back their own members, gay people don't want to be associated with the nazis.  The truth is, again, that homosexuality was not in itself a cause of nazism, but that being outcast from society is the only causal link between the two.  It's ugly bits of history, but it's important to learn this bit of history because we need to understand the importance of including as many people into society as possible, as well as learning the reality of what happens to those who do support hate groups that otherwise openly hates them.  Is there anything you'd like to adjust to the below before I add it back in?
 * (EC) I'd like to avoid edit wars. Gay Nazis were indeed a thing... but not part of the core ideology of Nazism.  They only supported Nazism because they were outcasts, and were brutally betrayed.  It's an interesting bit of history that most people rather would not talk about; neo-nazis don't want to hear about how gay people were in their group nor how they literally stabbed in the back their own members, gay people don't want to be associated with the nazis.  The truth is, again, that homosexuality was not in itself a cause of nazism, but that being outcast from society is the only causal link between the two.  It's ugly bits of history, but it's important to learn this bit of history because we need to understand the importance of including as many people into society as possible, as well as learning the reality of what happens to those who do support hate groups that otherwise openly hates them.  Is there anything you'd like to adjust to the below before I add it back in?


 * Edit: we seem to be on a similar page on this matter.


 * "On the other hand, the claim of certain Religious Right wingnuts like Scott Lively and Soviet propaganda author that Nazism emerged out of a homosexual subculture is almost universally discredited, except among homophobes.  It's true that  was homosexual, as were numerous other leaders of the Sturmableitung (SA); privately, Hitler had promised Röhm that homosexuals were to be protected despite Hitler's public rhetoric against homosexuality.  It's also true that a large number of the rank-and-file of the SA were homosexual.  Why?  Because homosexuals of the era were inherently social outcasts, and outcasts are always the ones most likely to join any fringe group that offers them a purpose and place in society.  The causal link ends there; Röhm's sexuality was a liability in the public eye, and many of the early Nazi leaders were effectively rivals to Hitler himself, so the SA were butchered in an event known as  Röhm had outlived his usefulness, and the SS which replaced the SA most definitely did not have openly homosexual members allowed in.


 * If anything the real lessons that should be learned from homosexuals within the Nazi Party are that 1) turning large numbers of otherwise healthy and productive members of society into outcasts is really what enables extremist ideologies to grow, and 2) just because you supported the revolutionaries from the start does NOT mean they won't send you to the executioner's block the moment they no longer need you."


 * 18:09, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Nah, it's fine. Well, maybe change "revolutionary" to "reactionary." Revolutionaries want to transform society into something new, reactionaries want to bring society back to some mythical golden age. Carthage (talk) 18:18, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Just going to use "violent fringe group" instead. My concern with "reactionary" is that no one should be running around thinking "well, my group isn't reactionary ergo I'm safe".  No, if your group is violent, you aren't safe.  18:51, 10 July 2023 (UTC)