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Yes indeed. The upper crust of German Jewry supported Hitler even after he had laid out what he would do the Jews, given the chance.
(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org), Author: Unknown author of dust jacket; Adolf Hitler author of volume) Details Source DMCA
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
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Sen. Tim Scott and the several other "non-white" candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination find themselves in an interesting position. The Republican Party has been running on racism ever since Nixon announced the "Southern Strategy" in 1969, and on a type of racism, that is xenophobia (very "Trumpy," of course), since its founding in 1856 when certain elements of the "Know-Nothings" joined it from the start. As it happens, in this election season, several persons who are not "white" by the current definition, like Sen. Tim Scott and former Gov. Niki Haley, are in the running for the nomination in the Republican primaries.
They have sketched out a very interesting description of racism within their party and in refence to their own backgrounds. Sen. Scott, reflecting the view of most of his comperes in this regard, has said that the United States has been a racist nation, and talked about racist struggles that ancestors of his had. But, and it is a big BUT, according to Scott neither the nation nor his party is racist now.
Well, Senator Scott, and Gov. Haley (who holds to the same position), and Mr. Ramaswamy (who may or may not hold to it), you might want to take a look at an organization that existed in Nazi Germany before the Nazi takeover on Jan. 30, 1933, right up until the passage of the "Nuremberg Laws" in 1935. Among other things, that set deprived German Jews of their citizenship.
I have previously published a column on an organization colloquially known as "Jews for Hitler," on Buzzflash.com (as well as on OpEdNews, about four years ago: Click Here. Since the topic --- a segment of society that is the target of a political party organizes in support of that party --- is indeed very much current, I thought to re-run that column in this space. I doubt that Scott, Haley, and etc. will pay any attention to it, but readers of OpEdNews.com might once again find it to be of interest.
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"Jews for Hitler? You must be kidding." That's a question that I have come across on a number of occasions as I have studied the history of Nazi Germany over a period of many years. And yes, indeed, there were Jews for Hitler. There were not too many of them. And certainly many Jews who were living in Germany when Hitler was appointed as Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg on Jan. 30, 1933 and then was given dictatorial powers via the "Enabling Act" by the German Reichstag on March 23, 1933, were from those moments on afraid for their employment, their property, and civil rights they may have had under the predecessor Weimar Republic and eventually their lives.
But "Jews for Hitler" there were, and organized too, primarily in an organization called "The Association of German National Jews." As described by the relevant entry in Wikipedia:
The Association of German National Jews (German: Verband nationaldeutscher Juden) was a German Jewish organization during the Weimar Republic and the early years of Nazi Germany that eventually came out in support of Hitler".
It was founded in 1921 by Max Naumann who was chairman until 1926 and again from 1933 to 1935 when the association was dissolved. Politically, the association was close to the national conservative and monarchist German National People's Party which, however, refused affiliation with the Association.
The goal of the Association was the total assimilation of Jews into the German Volksgemeinschaft, self-eradication of Jewish identity, and the expulsion from Germany of the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. [Pro-Nazi German Jews had a particular interest in that one. Sound familiar?] Naumann was especially opposed to Zionists and Eastern European Jews, the former he considered a threat to Jewish integration and to be carriers of a "racist" ideology serving British imperial purposes, while he saw the latter as racially and spiritually inferior. . . .
Among other things, after the Nazis took over, the Association issued a manifesto that stated that the Jews were being fairly treated. [This was at a time, in the summer of 1933, that Jews were already being subject to various types of repression which was being reported abroad by various Jewish organizations and denied as the equivalent of "Fake News" by the Nazi government.]
In 1934 the group made the following statement:
"We have always held the well-being of the German people and the fatherland, to which we feel inextricably linked, above our own well-being. Thus, we greeted the results of January, 1933 [positively], even though it has brought hardship for us personally.' "
A possible reason why some German Jews supported Hitler may have been that they thought that his anti-Semitism only was for the purpose of "stirring up the masses'" . . .
Despite their extreme patriotism, the German government did not accept their goal of assimilation. The Association of German National Jews was declared illegal and dissolved on 18 November 1935. Max Naumann was arrested by the Gestapo the same day and imprisoned at the Columbia concentration camp. He was released after a few weeks, and died of cancer in May 1939.
But why might certain German Jews have been supporters of the Nazis and Hitler, especially since anti-Semitism, very loud anti-Semitism, had been central to Nazi doctrine since the predecessor to the Party had been formally organized in 1919? Well, there is the motivation noted in the Wikipedia excerpt just above. The Prussian Empire had been among the first nations in Europe to grant Jews full civil rights. There had been Jewish generals in the Prussian army in World War I.
So, it has been reported, there was an increasing feeling among the upper levels of German Jewry along the lines of "We are Germans; nothing will happen to us. As for those Jews in the Communist and Socialist Parties, let him go after them. They are our enemies too." Furthermore, while Jews were generally not among the major elements of the German ruling class in heavy industry, they were major factors in real estate, banking, retail, and publishing. Those Jews did not like the trade unions and other anti-Nazi organizations any more than the Nazis did. Of course, what happened to those German Jews who did not manage to emigrate in the early days of the Nazi regime is well-known.
And so, if you have read this far, you know where I am going with this. While, as far as I know, there is certainly no organization in the U.S. equivalent to the Association of German National Jews, there are, without naming names, as the New York Times' Paul Krugman has pointed out numbers of Jews who are prominent financial supporters of our very own fascist President. And there are Jews who are important policy-makers and enablers of Trump as well as prominent propagandists for him. [Just as there are replaced non-Whites, like Scott, in the Republican Party.]
But, some ask, is Trump an anti-Semite? Well, without going into the current litany of his anti-Semitic tropes/concepts (like the concept of Jewish "dual loyalty," see The Protocols of the Elders of Zion), the thought first popped into my head when a couple of years ago, Trump was straight-out asked "are you an Anti-Semite?" "How could I be," he responded, "some of my best children are Jews." Just like the "some of my best friends are Jews" trope that I heard when I was much younger, when anti-Semitism was much more open in this country that it is now. And do you really need much more than an indicator of his now-classic "good people on both sides" to the Charlottesville marchers chanting "Jews will not replace us." [It is notable that in one of the very first foundering messages Trump sent out after the indictments were handed down ("Statement from Donald J Trump, the 45th President of the United States), the magic words "Soros-backed prosecutor" appear."]
As Professor Krugman pointed out in the column cited above: "anyone Jewish has to be completely ignorant of history not to know that when bigotry runs free, we're always next in line for persecution." Anti-Semitism has been the fallback doctrine-of-hatred since St. Augustine codified it for use by the Catholic Church back in the 5th century. But the German Jews who supported Hitler thought that they were "different," even as anti-Semitism was at the center of Nazi doctrine. But of course, for the Nazis they weren't. And so, they were lumped in with all the other Jews, and pretty quickly too (the Nuremberg Laws depriving Jews of German citizenship being invoked in 1935).
Right now, the Jewish supporters of Trump obviously like at least some of what he is doing, This may include the development of, by definition, concentration camps for various categories of immigrants and potential immigrants. (How ironic is this?)
Knowing what happened to the Jewish supporters of Hitler in Nazi Germany will not have one whit of effect upon the beliefs and actions of the Jewish supporters of Trump and enablers of Trumpite 21st-century fascism. But among the Jewish opponents of Trump, it is very important to be aware of those developments in Germany, almost a century ago, so that comparisons can be drawn as appropriate.
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Post Note on Anti-Semitism in current U.S. Politics. To the extent that word "Soros" (signifying George Soros) indicates/signifies political anti-Semitism, it is now firmly in place, at least in the Trump (the currently dominant) wing of the Republican Party. Just randomly, in one of the very first fundraisers post-indictment that Trump sent out he referred to the "Soros-funded" New York State prosecutor Alvin Bragg. At the demonstration outside the Miami courthouse where Trump was to be indicted there were large pro-Trump flags flying that associated a very angry looking portrait of George Soros flanked by, of all things, the Hammer and Sickle (which is really odd, because Soros was a well-known opponent of the Soviet Union). (One does have to wonder who thinks these flags up, who pays for them and where they are made.)
Post Note, II: With The Trump Indictments, Sen. Scott, Gov. Haley, and several other notable Republicans are trying to put some space between themselves and Trump on that issue (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/us/politics/trump-indictment-republican-rivals.html). It's tough; a real challenge. The name "Hillary," in the "whaddabout" category, keeps coming up.
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Steven Jonas, MD, MPH, MS is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at StonyBrookMedicine (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 35 books. In addition to his position on OpEdNews.com as a "Trusted Author," he is a regular contributor to BuzzFlash.com. His own political website, stevenjonaspolitics.com, is an archive of the 1000 or so political columns he has published since 2004, with the current columns being added to it as they appear. He was also a career triathlete, 36 seasons, 256 multi-sport races, and writer on the sport (books and articles). He now is officially retired from racing.
Among Dr. Jonas' books of note on political science and history are: Ending the 'Drug War'; Solving the Drug Problem: The Public Health Approach, Brewster, NY: Punto Press Publishing, (Brewster, NY, 2016, available on Kindle from Amazon, and also in hardcover from Amazon); a "future history" of the United States (originally published in 1996) entitled The 15% Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S., 1981-2022 (Third Version published by Trepper & Katz Impact Books, Punto Press Publishing, 2013, Brewster, NY, and available on Amazon).
His most recent book-set is Trump's Presidential Years: As They Happened, 2015-2021. It is in six volumes, consisting of the 191 columns Dr. Jonas published on Trump, primarily on OpEdNews.com and BuzzFlash.com, from "Hair Trump or Herr Trump?" (10-6-15) to "Xenophobia and Racism: They're in the Republican Party's DNA" (3-19-21). The six volumes are each available separately on Kindle (2022), under "Trump's Presidential Years: As they happened, 2015-2021."
Dr. Jonas has a blind-copy distribution list for his columns. If you would like to be added to it, please send him an email at sjtpj|AT|aol.comEmail address.
(Article changed on Jun 13, 2023 at 6:43 PM EDT)
(Article changed on Jun 14, 2023 at 4:51 PM EDT)
