It is amazing how fast National Socialism just . . . disappeared.

[Politruk]

The Nazi Party spent 12 years indoctrinating the German public by every means available. The policy of Gleischaltung -- "coordination" -- was so all-pervasively implemented that even local sports clubs and singing groups were brought under direct Party control. All dissent was ruthlessly and quite effectively suppressed. There appeared to be a people entirely devoted to the cause of German national greatness through territorial expansion.

And yet, when the war ended, so did National Socialism -- without its Fuhrer, the whole movement simply dissolved. The Allies' policy of "denazification" was hardly necessary. Nobody in Germany even cared about it any more, as a cause worth fighting for. There was a partisan resistance called Werwolf, but it did not last long or do much.

Why is that? Was it all too closely bound to Hitler's personality to survive him, or what?

 

[silky52]

The Nazi Party spent 12 years indoctrinating the German public by every means available. The policy of Gleischaltung -- "coordination" -- was so all-pervasively implemented that even local sports clubs and singing groups were brought under direct Party control. All dissent was ruthlessly and quite effectively suppressed. There appeared to be a people entirely devoted to the cause of German national greatness through territorial expansion.

And yet, when the war ended, so did National Socialism -- without its Fuhrer, the whole movement simply dissolved. The Allies' policy of "denazification" was hardly necessary. Nobody in Germany even cared about it any more, as a cause worth fighting for. There was a partisan resistance called Werwolf, but it did not last long or do much.

Why is that? Was it all too closely bound to Hitler's personality to survive him, or what?

I only wish that that was true! I really think you have your facts wrong. There are lots of neo-nazis in many countries around the world. So I would hardly say that the effects of Hitler etc, have dissipated!

 

[Politruk]

I only wish that that was true! I really think you have your facts wrong. There are lots of neo-nazis in many countries around the world. So I would hardly say that the effects of Hitler etc, have dissipated!

But neo-Nazi movements are about white supremacy internationally -- racists have simply latched on to the glamorous (for certain values) legacy of a movement that had great power once. The original concept of German supremacy has been forgotten. No modern Nazi would regard Russians as subhuman like Hitler did -- he would regard them, rather, as potential allies against the non-white races. See Francis Parker Yockey.

 

[silky52]

But neo-Nazi movements are about white supremacy internationally -- racists have simply latched on to the glamorous (for certain values) legacy of a movement that had great power once. The original concept of German supremacy has been forgotten. No modern Nazi would regard Russians as subhuman like Hitler did -- he would regard them, rather, as potential allies against the non-white races. See Francis Parker Yockey.

There are lots of people who I could quote, but that is simply their opinions! As this is mine, and I believe there is little difference between them. They also feel supreme believe me! Watch them when they come across Jewish people.

 

[Politruk]

In the Presence of Mine Enemies is an alternate-history novel by Harry Turtledove, about secret Jews living in Berlin in a world where Germany won WWII and the Nazi regime has lasted until 2010, but appears on the point of a Soviet-style collapse. The late John J. Reilly wrote a really fascinating review:

The Nazis did not come to power with detailed plans to conquer the world. Hitler did suggest from time to time that the problem for his generation was Russia, and that the problem for the next would be America. This is the framework that Turtledove uses for his novel, and it's perfectly justifiable for fiction. The problem is that it ascribes to the Nazis a unique ability to shape the future according to their designs. History after the Second World War did not turn out quite how the victorious Soviet Union expected. The same was also true for the United States, even after the end of the Cold War. Technological progress had something to do with it, but the differences between one generation and the next were more important. More important still was the fact that styles of life and philosophy continued to change according to the rhythms of modernity, even in the isolated Soviet Union.

Oswald Spengler, to take my favorite macrohistorian, was often wrong, but about the Nazis he was mostly right. He understood that the movement was in many ways simply incompetent. He saw them as nothing more than an incident in the era of Western modernity, an era which he expected to last through the 21st century. The end of the story for the modern world might, he thought, be a new Roman Empire. If it materialized, the sun would set on the West in a kind of political and spiritual peace. The alternative, as he saw it, was mere collapse and barbarian chaos. In either case, he had a lively sense in the 1930s that the end of history was still many generations away, and that the Nazis were dangerously deluded about their own importance.

That, really, is the problem with most stories based on unbroken Nazi success. The premise takes the Nazis at their word about the importance of the movement, and credits them with the ability to make a peaceful desert of a world that should still have several generations of tumult remaining to it. This is anachronistic both forward and backward. It is unreasonable to expect to see Spengler's imperium mundi in any timeline much before the 22nd century. It is equally unreasonable to see the mesmerizing power that political ideology held in the 1920s and '30s transposed to the early 21st century. Even Philip Dick, in The Man in the High Castle, probably stretched a point when he put a world of fanatical Nazis in the 1960s. Certainly we know that, long before the Communist regime collapsed, there were few real Marxists in the Soviet Union.

Popular uprisings rarely overthrow ideologies; rather, even the secret police eventually lose interest.

 

[JohnEngelman]

National Socialism promised to make Germany strong. When Germany was beaten into the ground during World War II it had obviously failed.

 

[Politruk]

It is also strange how fast Communism disappeared as a political force in Russia and Eastern Europe. The Communist Party of Russia still exists, but only as Putin's tame opposition.

 

[000zing]

I only wish that that was true! I really think you have your facts wrong. There are lots of neo-nazis in many countries around the world. So I would hardly say that the effects of Hitler etc, have dissipated!

Not least in the current Israeli government.