Thread by @MikeStuchbery_

Here's why @RealCandaceO's words on Hitler and 'dreams outside Germany' are so utterly ignorant, abhorrent and dangerous - they betray a lack of understanding of what Nazism, and Fascism is. /1

Central to those who began the German Worker's Party (DAP) in Munich in the dying months of 1919 was the idea that Germany was now severed from territory that had always belonged to her, that she was now constrained by the Allies. /2

The country's loss manifested in many ways. Some saw their situation as being due to an ageing population, & a replacement by Jews and Slavic races - sound familiar?

Books came out, such as Frederick Burgdorfer's 'Volk Ohne Jugend' - 'People Without Youth', supporting this. /3

Long before this, Imperial Germany had held the idea of 'lebensraum', or 'living space' as one of a few motivators for their colonial expansion.

Now the Nazi Party made the idea of reconquest and expansion an essential part of their ideological platform. /4

A significant proportion of Nazi propaganda, when not dehumanising Jews and Slavs made the case that:

- Germany was too crowded.

- Germany needed room to grow, and to regain 'the old ways'.

- Germany needed to rejoin with Austria, as in the days of the Holy Roman Empire. /5

Nazi Germany's re-militarisation was solely predicated on a drive eastwards, first to claim traditionally 'German' lands, then secure vast new farmlands and natural resources for a 'Greater German Reich'. /6

When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, they were putting into motion 'Generalplan Ost' - the military takeover, pacification and elimination of populations, starting with Jews, and aiming at various figures of depopulation. /7

Killing millions of innocents was not only part of Hitler's dreams of 'lebensraum' - it was the point!

33,000 killed by Nazi soldiers in one day at Babi Use, for example, was the first step in depopulating areas, ready for colonisation by settlers from Germany. /8

I haven't even touched the foul crimes perpetrated against German Jews in this thread, as I'm focusing on the conquest drive inherent in Nazism & fascism.

An outside other that needs to be subjugated & eliminated is at the root of the ideology. It cannot exist without it! /9

To speak of the Nazis and think that they could somehow have been contained shows a staggering lack of awareness of history, and a dangerous recklessness for someone who seeks to influence policy in multiple countries! /10

We are at a stage in history - which is still very much fucking with us, by the way - where forgetting the horrors of the past could doom many.

We have no future if we start forgetting the past. So many who lived through the horrors of the last war tried to tell us that. /11

It's not only embarrassing for @TPUSA to keep @RealCandaceO around if she's going to act as a water-carrier for xenophobic nationalism, and Hitler apologetics - it's actively dangerous. /FIN