Just wanted to share a few lesser-known facts about 1930s Germany which given the #CostOfLivingCrisis & a new PM, seem salient, taken predominantly from The Third Reich Trilogy by British historian Richard J. Evans, hailed as a "masterpiece of historical scholarship."
Evans produced the report into the writings of David Irving who had claimed he'd been defamed as a Holocaust denier. The report proved irrefutable: Irving had deliberately distorted & manipulated historical evidence to bring it in line with his prejudices. Irving lost the case.
Almost every day I see the tired old claim that because the Nazis had 'socialist' in their official party name, they *were* socialists - despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including the fact they imprisoned & executed socialists, union organisers & other left-wingers.
The Nazis were hostile to the idea of social welfare in principle, & upheld instead the Social Darwinist concept that the feeble should perish.
They condemned the welfare system of the Weimar Republic as well as private charity, accusing them of supporting the inferior & weak.
Social welfare has been demonised & decimated for decades by those who subscribe to #neoliberal policies: the stated aim of the global network of free-market 'think tanks' (lobbyists) who wield so much influence over the UK & US Governments is to reduce or ideally end welfare.
Over the last fifty years, league tables created to measure such nebulous concepts as "economic freedom" by think tanks (lobbyists) such as the Heritage Foundation, show that neoliberalism is about ringfencing economic power- even at the cost of democracy. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Faced with mass unemployment/poverty during the Great Depression, the Nazis set up charitable institutions to help racially-pure Germans in order to maintain popular support, while arguing it represented "racial self-help", not indiscriminate charity or universal social welfare.
We see echoes of this argument today, on social media & in right-wing national newspapers eg in the dog-whistle calls for only British nationals to receive any benefits, or to have access to social housing or the #NHS, despite Britain's legal responsibilities to no-UK citizens.
The Nazi Winter Relief of the German People & National Socialist People's Welfare (NSV) were quasi-private institutions, which encouraged donations from Germans to help others of their race, but those refusing to donate faced severe consequences, & money was used for rearmament.
Unlike Weimar Republic social welfare institutions, the NSV provided support only to those who were "racially sound, capable of & willing to work, politically reliable, & willing & able to reproduce." Non-Aryans, the "work-shy", "asocials" & the "hereditarily ill" were excluded.
The propagandistic Winter Relief campaigns were a major source of Nazi funding, supplanting tax-funded welfare & freeing up money for rearmament, while the disabled & homeless were actively persecuted, labeled as "life unworthy of life" or "useless eaters. disabilitynewsservice.com/disabled-mans-…
The Nazis banned all trade unions, & replaced them with the German Labour Front (DAF), controlled by the Nazi Party. They also outlawed strikes & lockouts. The stated goal of the German Labour Front was not to protect workers, but to increase output.
William L. Shirer wrote that the German Labour Front was "a vast propaganda organization... a gigantic fraud." A board of trustees run by representatives of the Nazi Party, the DAF & the Chamber of Economics was set up to centralize economic activity.
Real wages in Germany dropped by roughly 25% between 1933 & 1938 - coincidentally, the real wages of UK council workers have fallen by 25% since 2012, & UK academic pay has also fallen behind inflation by 25% since 2009.
Along with the abolition of the right to strike, workers were also in large part rendered unable to quit their jobs. 'Labour books' were introduced in 1935, & the consent of the previous employer was required in order to be hired for another job.
Let us #NeverForget that arguably the biggest single factor which led directly to the rise of the Nazis, was the introduction of economic measures which disproportionately hit the poorest after Germany's economy collapsed in 1928 - what today we might call #austerity.
The Chancellor at the time, Heinrich Brüning, favoured austerity measures & liked to issue "notverordunungen" — emergency decrees. He quickly implemented drastic public spending cuts in an effort to get the country back on track & foolishly centralised important fiscal decisions.
The political ramifications of these measures were almost immediate & went beyond the Nazi Party. The austere fiscal policy combined with a depression-induced public-sector slowdown worsened the economic situation for Germans, & it radicalized people across the social spectrum.
As the German people lost faith in their government's ability to manage the situation, unemployed & low-income Germans became more likely to turn to the Communist Party, whereas middle- & upper-income Germans were more likely to turn to the Nazis.
A dangerously polarised country like ours, increasingly tired of its leadership & losing trust in its democratic institutions' ability to protect citizens, can learn from Germany's example - including how quickly bad policies can push voters to extremes.
More than a year since @elonmusk bought @X with a promise to "defeat the spam bots or die trying", the problem is worse than ever, with much of the bot traffic casting doubt on climate science.
In London, 14.9% of people experienced a crime either to their person or household year ending September 2023, compared to 15.7% nationally.
The latest homicide stats position London not as "crime capital of the world", but as having the 237th most homicides/capita of any city.
When it comes to antisocial behaviour, the crime survey shows London has one of the lowest rates. In the year to September 2023, just 26.4% of people said they’d witnessed or experienced antisocial behaviour, compared with 34.2% across England and Wales.
On 16th June 2016, Nigel Farage launched ’s Breaking Point poster. The same day, Jo Cox was murdered by Thomas Mair who shouted "This is for Britain".
Four days later, UKIP Leader Farage spoke at a public meeting in Gateshead under this backdrop: Leave.EU
Current Reform Party leader, multimillionaire Richard Tice, was a founder & co-Chair of & Leave Means Leave. The similarities between the Breaking Point poster & a Nazi propaganda film picturing large streams of Jewish refugees as a threat, are undeniable. Leave.EU
Witnesses testified that during the attack on Jo Cox, Mair had cried out "This is for Britain", "Keep Britain independent", and "Britain first".
Far-right white supremacist Mair was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and an act of terrorism.
I'm old enough to remember when @BBCPolitics shows had serious panelists on, were well chaired by politically savvy people, & were worthy of being taken seriously.
This week on the increasingly clickbaity #bbcqt, for his TENTH appearance in ten years, is Rod Liddle...
The damaged & troubled Rod Liddle has forged a career by using grotesque rhetoric designed to outrage decent normal people.
A young Liddle considered becoming a teacher, but decided against it on the grounds that he "could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids."
Liddle was the Editor of the @BBC's Today programme from 1998 to 2002.
In 2001, BNP leader Nick Griffin was interviewed in the aftermath of the race riots in Oldham. The BBC was fiercely criticized for giving the BNP publicity and credibility it did not warrant.
The UK Government's new definition of extremism is straight out of Orwell's 1984: its focus is ideas - thoughts - not actions.
Effectively, Thought Police will ban from contact with Govt any groups who exhibit Thought Crime (political thoughts unapproved by the régime).
Michael Gove wants to use parliamentary privilege to name groups under his new definition of extremism, despite government lawyers warning him about the legal implications of doing so.
The @Conservatives are the most dangerous extremist group in Britain.
The Govt’s new preferred option for Anti-Muslim Hate Advisor is Haras Rafiq, former CEO of Quilliam, which was funded by pro-Trump donors, & which worked with US-based anti-Muslim think-tanks that promoted the far-right Great Replacement conspiracy theory.
Ever heard of "campaign organisation" "End Mass Immigration"? Me neither. Until an account under the name of 'Dr Alan Jerome Harper' (a character from Two & a Half Men), which asserts the Govt is "left-wing", replied to a tweet.
What's this got to do with #TuftonStreet?
Anyway, in the @X bio of "Dr Harper", there's a link to something called "End Mass Immigration", which describes itself as "a campaign organisation that has been set up by a group of immigration experts from academia, think tanks, politics and the media."