Thread by @EveKeneinan

@BrassVon I didn’t see this at the time.

Brass, you should know better than to cite Snopes as reliable debunking source.

What Snopes shows is that Strasser said this first. It in no way shows that Hitler didn’t say it.

The premise is “a moral man such as Hitler would never plagiarize.”

@BrassVon The proximate source is Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography; John Toland; 1976, p. 306

Toland doesn’t say where he got it, but does inform us it was at May Day rally during the Nazis rhetorical storming of Berlin.

@BrassVon Speaking like a socialist is one of the modes Hitler “kept in his suitcase.”

@BrassVon Goebbels and Strasser were engaged in a intra-Nazi civil war at the time, and Goebbels was clearly Hitler’s favorite.

∙ Hitler was specifically emphasizing the “socialist” part of Nation Socialist, because it was May Day and the Nazis were at that time sucking up many Marxists

@BrassVon ∙ If Hitler’s needed good words, he would use them.
∙ It certainly isn’t insane that Hitler would use a quote from Strasser, knowingly or unknowingly, perhaps supplied by Goebbels.

@BrassVon Anyway, Snopes makes two arguments, both very bad

1 Strasser said it in 1926; therefore, Hitler didn’t say it in 1927
2 Another prominent Nazi besides Hitler said it; therefore the Nazis didn’t believe it

@BrassVon Wait, I’m wrong. Snopes is actually LYING THROUGH THEIR TEETH (surprise). Watch:

1 “Hitler STATED this.” FALSE
2 Why? Strasser said it first
3 But Hitler did state it. But this was “co-opting.”: link to Toland’s book
4 Toland: gives Hitler quote, NOT identical to Strasser.

@BrassVon So Snopes’ real claim is “The claim that Hitler said this is false because, although Hitler did say this, and we know he did, he didn’t, because Strasser said more or less the same earlier.”

@BrassVon With the conjunction of “But we are going to bury our admission that Hitler did say it in a footnote saying ‘Hitler co-opted it’ because if we said that he did say it on the main page, it might make our FALSE judgment that he said it look wrong.”

@BrassVon Snopes: “Hitler did say this, and we know he did, because we are linking you to the scholarly source, but we are going to say he didn’t say it (or rather, rate the claim that he did say it as ‘FALSE’), because we found an earlier quote where Strasser said it first.”

@BrassVon Snopes: “This will work because no one will bother to fact check the fact checkers!”

Eve: “Hold my beer.”

@BrassVon Note that I’m not saying we factually know whether or not Hitler said it, but the source is one of the best books on Hitler, which unfortunately doesn’t cite any further source.

Snopes hid this fact.

Those who argue it is a misattribution only note that Strasser said it first.

@BrassVon There’s no doubt that Hitler *did* give a May Day speech May 1st, 1927, in “Red Berlin,” at the invitation of Goebbels, with the aim of recruiting radical socialists to the NSDAP, at the Konzerthaus Clou. Here he is leaving it that night:

@BrassVon I went as far as Goebbel’s diaries in German — in which, it turns out, the year 1927 in *inexplicably missing.*

That’s as much as I can do.