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Classical Germany
If anyone were to ask me why I admire Hitler’s Germany, the answer is at once so complex that a proper treatment would extend to fill a bookshelf, yet so simple that it can be expressed in one sentence.� I regard Hitler’s Germany as classical civilization:� A modern classic that belongs in history alongside Graeco-Roman antiquity, which may also be meaningfully compared and contrasted with the cultural recrudescence of the classical world in the Renaissance.
Usually, nobody asks.� People tend to turn automatically—autonomically to insults, ridicule, and other psychologically defensive dismissiveness, as they have been trained by conditioned reflexes.� Nevertheless, it is how I would reply—if anyone were to ask.
If I draw any inspiration from the great ancient cultures of the West, from their poets and thinkers, from their heroes and their battles, and from their political histories, then surely that is deemed respectable by anyone except for those who may call it “Eurocentric”, or even “racist”, to admire “Dead White Men”.� At least, no one would expect for me to march about on the street in a reproduction of an ancient tunic, much less a toga.� When the passage of time makes irrelevant the ephemeral prejudices of today, the lens of historical perspective will see no differently my early recognition of the rebirth of the same civilizational force in German form:� A healthy national atavism which discarded centuries of accumulating errors, and embraced in modern times the Weltanschauung of an ancient civilized people.
For my part, my only “conservativism” is my desire to synthesize the Weltanschauungen of the distant past with modern science and technology.� Hitler’s Germans actually did this—not in theory, but in practice, and on a mass scale.� They broke free all at once from the spell of the Rousseauistic mass-hallucination that has poisoned the modern world ever since the so-called “Enlightenment”; and although a large proportion of Germans were still Christian, year by year, their hearts and souls were ever less beholden to the degenerative moral effects of Christianity.� They collectively embraced an aristocratic morality.� In national spirit, they returned man to his natural state—not according to the nihilistic delusion of the “noble savage”, but as the most civilized, scholarly, and technologically advanced nation on Earth:� A modern people rose spiritually above the status of domestic animals!� And thus did they avoid the nihilism that Nietzsche had believed inevitable for Europe—the nihilism that defines the shape of the world today.
It is natural and inevitable that my mind’s eye is drawn by the beauty of their culture, the glory of their triumphs, and the pathos of their defeat.
An Exemplary Treatment of Germany
If I could discuss my cultural and historical theory of Hitler’s Germany with anyone who has died between 1945 and the present, it would be Revilo P. Oliver.� Although I can only guess and wonder about what his reaction would be, I am morally certain that at the least, he would immediately understand my thinking.� He himself has been a great inspiration to me; and I urge all those who admire Hitler’s Germany to study his example.
Dr.�Oliver was an American Conservative and anti-Communist in the 1950s–60s, with some element of what would now be called “paleolibertarianism”; indeed, he later argued that libertarianism is merely what used to be called American Conservatism.� After American society collapsed in the 1960s, he radicalized in the 1970s; and after he retired from his university professorship, he devoted the rest of his life to political and historical commentary.� Amidst the breathtaking scope of topics that he covered in his column in Liberty Bell, a recurring theme was why America was on the wrong side of Second World War, how Germany almost saved civilization, and what crimes America committed against Germany and against Europe.� Needless to say, he was still a hardline anti-Communist:� He simply admitted that America had fought a war to save the Soviet Union, then turned itself to Communism.
Much though Dr.�Oliver praised the Germans, his writings on that topic were never mere panegyry; and he was politically independent, not himself a National Socialist.� His political opinions sometimes differed drastically from those of the National Socialists (as, I note, do my own).� Although he treated Adolf Hitler with the respect deserved by a great historical leader, he also sometimes constructively criticized him in the same manner as one may expect a professor of the classics to analyze ancient kings and emperors.� His overall treatment of Hitler delivers the impression of a great man, a man of noble character, a man whom the Germans should be proud to have in their history—but a man, an historical man, not a mythical god.
I think that Dr.�Oliver’s treatment of Hitler and the German National Socialists is fully appropriate for a non-German; and moreover, it is a fine antidote both to attempts at real-life historical re-enactment, and to the opposite tendency to disclaim Hitler out of sheer cowardice.
The vision of Hitler’s Germans strikes an indescribably deep chord with many people who have no organic connection to German National Socialism; and even excluding nihilistic dullards who seek symbols of rebellion without understanding, there is a tendency to attempt imitating the German National Socialists in form and function.� Hitler himself warned against such types of imitation, in his derision of völkisch activists who dressed in costumes of ancient Germanics and waved about reproductions of ancient swords; but perhaps, to read what the Führer wrote and to apply the same abstract principles in new situations may be beyond some people.� Although I could never criticize the authenticity of any activists who have some organic connection to Hitler, that is a quite limited subset of people who talk about National Socialism.� Whereas Ersatz National Socialists do no honor to the historical National Socialists, and much less to themselves.
For my part, I will admit that my discovery of Dr.�Oliver moderated the instinctively passionate enthusiasm that I myself had initially felt for Hitler, the historical truth of whom I had discovered somewhat earlier.� By placing the German National Socialists in the historical context that they deserve, Dr.�Oliver’s writings did not decrease my respect or support for them, but rather, tempered the raw, molten ideas of my changing worldview into an enduring steel.� If I were to list my philosophic influences today, I would say that I derive about 10%–20% from the German National Socialists, 30%–40% from Dr.�Oliver, 10%–20% from Nietzsche, and the rest from various others—including a significant proportion of original thinking.� I am proud to say that Adolf Hitler is one of my single biggest intellectual influences.
Those who avoid the trap of imitativeness or monomania too oft run in the opposite direction—run, run with fright at being called “Nazis”, and leap reflexively to disclaim Hitler, or even to condemn him.� Perhaps they imagine that if they act like trained dogs, the masters whom they fear may give them a treat for their obedient performance of ritualized denunciations—what Dr.�Oliver called a “ritual spit” at Hitler.� In the context of discussing immigration restrictionists in America, I have remarked before that “Hitler’s revenge” is, in essence, that those who so compromise themselves can never win.� Left clinging to the fig leaf of “Hispanic crime”, the immigration restrictionists are trounced in debates because they refuse to say that (1)�they they want their own country, and (2)�they don’t want their children and grandchildren to marry racial aliens.� That would be an undeniably Hitlerian position.� There does not exist any credibly conservative argument, and all the moreso any nationalist argument, which is logically separable from an admission that regardless of whether one agrees with the particulars of how the Germans ran their own government, they were right to declare that they had their own country, and to institute a racial policy in their country however they saw fit.
A few authors have escaped this dichotomy; but it seems that their wider cultural influence has been limited by being tied to definite political and organizational programs—in some cases, even to new religious movements.� Although the importance of such organizing cannot be discounted, it is a double-edged sword.� In this particular context, it is difficult to take the leader of a political organization as exemplary without evoking red-herring arguments about his political strategy, his organization, or his religious beliefs.� By contrast, perpend the widespread influence of left-leaning cultural commentators who have no apparent political ties; some of them even pretend not to have any political agenda at all.
Dr.�Oliver deliberately avoided political attachments.� After he resigned from the John Birch Society in 1966, he fiercely guarded his independence.� He refused to join any membership-based political organization, although he lent his public or private support to several such organizations in the United States and in Europe.� Although he sometimes contributed articles to various alternative media publications, he primarily wrote for Liberty Bell for the express reason that its publisher had promised him absolute freedom of speech, with no editorial interference and no party line.[1]Dr.�Oliver declared his political independence many times over the years.� In this context, most significant is his public explanation of why he wrote for Liberty Bell.� Quoting him from Liberty Bell, April 1992, pp. 3f.:� “Liberty Bell is totally independent.� It represents no organization or clique…� There is no editorial tampering with what I write.� What is published is what I have written…� There is no propaganda line.� Periodicals that are published by organizations that try to recruit members justifiably insist that their articles conform to the organization’s principles and propaganda, and contain nothing, however factual or logical, that would offend members or potential recruits…� The policy of Liberty Bell is to shirk no demonstrable fact or logically drawn opinion: ‘straight ahead and damn the torpedoes.’� This may not be profitable, but it is not disingenuous, and will (or should!) win the confidence of realists.”
I think it is significant that in the same breath as he declared that he wrote for Liberty Bell due to its lack of any editorial party line, Dr.�Oliver also said, “There has never been a suggestion that I reduce the English language to the small part of it that is currently used and abused in newspapers, which are necessarily addressed to a multitude of semi-literate readers.”
It speaks volumes that this level of freedom of speech was provided by a man who was organically connected to German National Socialism:� George Dietz, a German-American who grew up in the Hitler Youth, whose father was a member of the SA.� Mr.�Dietz was the editor and publisher of Liberty Bell, a money-losing enterprise on which he essentially spent his life savings as a labor of love.� � And though he overtly had various political sympathies, Oliver never proposed or promoted any particular party, platform, or strategy as “the answer to our problems”.� From the late 1970s until his death in 1994, Oliver could be best described as a public intellectual, a social critic, and a commentator on history and on current events.� (Those who doubt the power of such a rôle should perpend the fact that in the mainstream, it is a rôle dominated by Jews.)
To my knowledge (and I hope my commentators will remark if I have missed anybody), Oliver was the only politically independent American public intellectual of any significance in his day who gave Hitler’s Germany an overtly sympathetic treatment.� He saw Hitler as historically justified, with neither worship nor compromising equivocation; and he reserved his most eloquent odes for the German people, for their heroism in war and for their plight in defeat.� Although he never made such a direct connection as I do here, I think that this professor of the classics wrote of Hitler’s Germans in the same tone as he applied to his beloved heroes of Graeco-Roman antiquity—with the same tone, and with the same depth of historical perspective as I propose must someday become nigh unanimous amongst scholars whom the passage of time has detached from recent events and present-day petty politics.
Of particular note today, Dr.�Oliver was the first politically independent public intellectual whom I have seen treat the Goebbels family fairly, and honor Frau Goebbels rather than vilely traducing her as a murderess.� When I saw Oliver weep for her in print,[2]Liberty Bell, February 1988, p.�8. in full sympathy with a tragic heroine who loved her children, I knew that I had discovered a profound thinker who was detached from the prejudices of his day.� In contemplating any ancient history of a civilized family who died in such a last stand with rapine savages at the gates, with the parents preferring death to slavery for their children and themselves, the classicist would surely treat them no differently.
Someday, their story will be ancient.� Someday, they will be vindicated as standing on the right side of history.� For me, the future begins today.
Dedication
For the occasion of her ninetieth birthday, this essay is dedicated to the memory of Helga Susanne Goebbels, 1.�September 1932 – 1.�May 1945.�®
Notes
[1] Dr.�Oliver declared his political independence many times over the years.� In this context, most significant is his public explanation of why he wrote for Liberty Bell.� Quoting him from Liberty Bell, April 1992, pp. 3f.:� “Liberty Bell is totally independent.� It represents no organization or clique…� There is no editorial tampering with what I write.� What is published is what I have written…� There is no propaganda line.� Periodicals that are published by organizations that try to recruit members justifiably insist that their articles conform to the organization’s principles and propaganda, and contain nothing, however factual or logical, that would offend members or potential recruits…� The policy of Liberty Bell is to shirk no demonstrable fact or logically drawn opinion: ‘straight ahead and damn the torpedoes.’� This may not be profitable, but it is not disingenuous, and will (or should!) win the confidence of realists.”
I think it is significant that in the same breath as he declared that he wrote for Liberty Bell due to its lack of any editorial party line, Dr.�Oliver also said, “There has never been a suggestion that I reduce the English language to the small part of it that is currently used and abused in newspapers, which are necessarily addressed to a multitude of semi-literate readers.”
It speaks volumes that this level of freedom of speech was provided by a man who was organically connected to German National Socialism:� George Dietz, a German-American who grew up in the Hitler Youth, whose father was a member of the SA.� Mr.�Dietz was the editor and publisher of Liberty Bell, a money-losing enterprise on which he essentially spent his life savings as a labor of love.
[2] Liberty Bell, February 1988, p.�8.
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Administrativia:
I request my readers’ patience in potential slowness with moderation.� I was never a part of the perpetually connected social media world; and my time online is somewhat more limited now, for which reason this article is somewhat belated (albeit written yesterday).� Please note that a comment seems to disappear from the queue if I don’t get to it within seven days; I apologize if any comments went missing in these past months.� In the interest of attempting to clear a very long backlog of potential articles under time constraints, I myself will try to engage in the comments less than I used to; regrettable though that may be, it is either one or the other.
This particular thread is a memorial thread, and will therefore be subject to the traditional censorship rules for that.� Consider it my own version of a “memory law”.� I will soon be posting some other articles, which I expect to be controversial; I seem to disagree with approximately 95% of Unz Review commentators and 100% of other UR authors, which I find disturbing in itself as I have never seen UR so nearly unanimous on any controversial topic.� I will adopt a more “libertarian” policy there in the hope of inviting a lively discussion, although I also hope to preserve the quality of discourse from degenerating into mere name-calling and mudslinging.
I deeply and profusely apologize for using the etymological miscarriage, “administrativia”.� I will try not to let it happen again.
My thanks to those of my readers who have remembered me fondly.�®
Welcome back!
“…Hitler’s revenge is, in essence, that those who so compromise themselves can never win.
Immigration restrictionists are trounced in debates because they refuse to say that (1) they want their own country.”
This reminds me of the line from the movie Good Will Hunting where the psychologist asks Will: “What do you want?” Even though he’s a genius, Will pretends that he’s happy being a janitor at M.I.T. because he’s too afraid to say what he really wants.
People who remember fondly the way the U.S. used to be come out with slogans such as “Make America Great Again”. But what does that really mean? What is it that made it so great?
Spell out in plain English what you really want.
I am very glad to see back.
Your view of Hitler’s Germany as a classical civilization is very interesting, and makes it possible to get an understanding of how revolutionary this new Germany was; to understand how tragic Germany’s defeat was, and is. Through this defeat he western parliamentary-democratic system was set on course to consummate its fate as a system that has not as its goal elevation of the individual through the elevation of the community, but rather the comfort and unassailability of an upper, moneyed, blase class that consumes everything and may be described as brutally indolent and coldly primitive in its desires.
Hitler’s National Socialism opened a view, showed the way into an attainable new era not anymore bound to the self-destructive and inherently senseless ideology of blind progress towards a meaningless future.
It was something entirely different, something entirely new. Emblematic was the emphasis on architecture and the striving to achieve harmony between human projects, human activity and nature. This was the goal, not the occasion for making profit as in the current economic and political system.
Dr. Goebbels had his last radio broadcast on April 21, 1945. One can hear several times a deep rumble in the background, explosions of shells o the outside of the Bunker close to the zoo in central Berlin from where he made the broadcast. He did not give up and rather perished than be a denizen of a world that he had no part of.
My respects to this man.
Thanks for this fine article. I look forward to the day also when the true story of that remarkable state will be allowed to be spoken. The pressure from certain quarters on professional historians in academia not to dissent from the party line remains very strong. Among other things, the “good war” myth is the foundational rationale for the fake news apparatus and the military-industrial complex that overwhelmed our fragile republic, just as some Founders predicted would be the result of “going abroad seeking monsters to destroy.” So it must remain sacrosanct if that state is to retain its dubious claim to legitimacy today.
It is astonishing how much positive good the German government accomplished for its people in such a short time, and how bloody murderous the reaction of the imperialist powers was. Essentially they brought their centuries of expertise of dealing death and destruction in the Third World to a First World rival. They were so frightened that they teamed up with their mortal enemy Stalin to eradicate a nation they outnumbered by some fifteen to one, which sought not conquest but recognition of its right to national sovereignty. The nonstop barrage of lies about German “aggression” we see repeated, most ironically, today about Russia’s needful action in Ukraine. It so parallels what Germany undertook in Poland to deal with another throwaway client state of the great powers, also governed by arrogant, corrupt fools. And I’ve long noted as a fascinating sociological phenomenon that alienated souls you have succinctly described as “nihilistic dullards who seek symbols of rebellion without understanding” are irresistibly attracted to the propaganda construct of Germany as evil with a capital “E”, and the best way to cheese off mom and dad (and everyone else) to boot.
My first “red pill” moment came in the 1980s when I bought a hoard of Signal magazines and found in them entirely credible alternative explanations of Germany’s values and wartime efforts. Here’s a link to the text of Richard Tedor’s study “Hitler’s Revolution,” a very good one-volume account of National Socialism and what it accomplished: https://archive.org/details/HitlersRevolutionByRichardTedor_383 The print version is still currently available on Amazon.
As always, that is a very different view than usual. I never thought of it like that. But, come to think of it, you are right!
Thanks to the author of this article for espousing TRUTH which I have espoused for my whole life.
It takes approximately 80 to 100 years for “historical records” to finally lose their “winner’s bias” and to become somewhat historically accurate, at least most of the time.
Most 20th-century accusations against the “losers” of these historical events are now losing their “sting”.
Calling a person a “Nazi”, “racist”, “white supremacist” and other formerly derogatory terms no longer has the negative connotation that the “winners” and social manipulators desire.
WW1, WW2, the so-called jewish holohoax (oops, I mean “holocaust™”) and other 20th-century historical events are losing their “winner’s bias”; the real truth is finally coming out.
The same thing is occurring with the (failed) American “civil-rights” movement of the 1950s and 1960s as the leftist jewish manipulation of blacks is finally being recognized for what it was–as a communist-run massive societal destabilization scheme.
Even the 9-11 WTC attacks are being questioned as to who was behind them and the methods used to bring the buildings down. Hint: It wasn’t Saudi Arabia…
The one saving grace of this “outing” of the TRUTH is that the 20th-century “manipulators” of history are finally being exposed for what they are, and they have little or no power to “shut it down”.
The internet plays a large part. Those who want to maintain the “status-quo”, keeping the ordinary citizenry in the dark are having a more difficult time as the internet makes it possible to bypass the “filters” that the “powers that be” used to control.
This is a major reason for the holohoax (oops, I mean “holocaust™”) industry to encourage governments to criminalize any deviation from the present-day official state religion–“holocaustianity™”.
When it comes to conspiracy theories, calling someone a “conspiracy theorist” used to be a political or social “death sentence”. Not any more.
Even the fake “COVID plandemic” and it’s genocidal agents, mRNA “vaccines” are being exposed as well.
As an aside, being around during the Kennedy assassination, I took it upon myself to read the official “Warren Report”. Even at a tender young age, I thought to myself “what a crock of sh!t”…
The idea that threatened the capitalist power structure was the monetization of productive physical labor. Germany did not have any appreciable amount of precious metals or reserve currency, and few natural resources other than water and abundant coal reserves.
Physical labor is the primary source of all economic value, not what some Talmudic gnome sitting on his pile of gold and silver claims it to be. A true national economy must exist to serve the people, not the other way around. No truly sovereign nation would let its citizens starve or suffer degradation and debt slavery simply to appease the lurking market worshiping demons.
The German people was under no imperative whatsoever to starve or turn back to those supposedly idyllic days when Berlin was the cheap sex capital of Europe and women were often forced to prostitute themselves for a cup of sugar or a piece of bread.
Hitler’s great crime (other than having lost the war) was that the National Socialist economic policies worked so well. This no doubt horrified the usurious overlords of Wall St. and the City of London, and enraged FDR , whose so called “New Deal” had been totally ineffective at dealing with the depression in the US.
National Socialism is a viable form of government. That is why it is so demonized and of course inextricably linked to Hitler. Since Hitler is The Worst Man Ever, anything to do with him has to be bad too.
Take the time to go look up the 25 party principles of National Socialism. Excerpt the ones that are specific to the time period and no longer relevant (like repudiation of the WWI Versailles treaty) and you have something that most people would agree with.
Already in the mid 1930’s Churchill is on record taking umbrage at Germany’s government to government foreign trade.
Since this cut out the middleman, the international bankers, from making a profit on foreign trade, Churchill condemned these actions because they cut into the earnings of his financiers.
Thank you for taking this unapologetic stance and putting it here. The history of that time seems to be more in need of rehabilitation even than our own recent warped history (of 21st century USA). Please feel free to give us more. I wonder if you have any opinion on Savitri Devi? Miguel Serrano? I recently began to read The Lightning and the Sun. I am quite pleased with the timeless truths that the author offers so far as I’ve got into it.
[“The Holocaust”? — Moderator]
Once the Germans are no more, the very type of Jewish people who spend their time giving the Germans all sorts of grief about The Holocaust and every other sordid and horrid thing that the Third Reich did; will turn on the British next. They will turn on the English. They will give the English, in particular, all sorts of grief about the genocide of the Irish during the Potato Famine, and every other sordid and horrid thing that the British Empire did. Do not think this could not happen, because it can. And to a certain extent, it is already happening.
Even as stupid as Sir Winston Churchill was, he, in all likelihood, realized that much. And, the prospect may have really horrified him. Indeed, however we, as Americans, hate the Germans; Heaven forbid the world runs out of them. For, Americans—Americans of English blood in particular—would know what would happen to them then. The Jews will cry harder about the Irish Potato Famine than the Irish themselves!
I was checking my comment history and saw and remembered I had interesting and fun back and forth with Raches.
That’s a bit weird because I am not much of a nationalist and disagree with him about many things, me being a political ‘normie’ in the west so to speak. I wish he would come back and write more and cause plenty of controversy. At least he had something interesting -and different- to say and often said it quite well, causing armies of neurons in my brain to fire back and forth. Well – what’s left of them.
He was focused on the Third Reich in his articles. Perhaps not interesting today. But I am sure he can write interesting things about recent events and topics we discussed in the comments.
Many, or even most of the allied lies have been exposed, certainly enough to show the conventional Jewish/Allied narrative of WW II is a sham, designed to cover up the allies responsibility for the war and the shit countries that the US and Europe now are since Jewry reshaped these countries since 1945. The material is out there and available for a brave and ambitious producer and director to make the greatest blockbuster film ever made, a documentary perhaps 50 hours long.
If it becomes clear the US has been eclipsed by Russia and China, the dollar ceases being the dominant currency and the US economy suffers a similar fall (it would), the west will be free and the truth to come out.
May I just add that without Hitler, all of Europe would have fallen to Bolshevism by 1935.
Such quality seems like a miracle. It is a commonplace, despite being an unavoidable demostrative requirement of good manners but since it is never an act of full justice to thank for this luminous reflection. When propaganda is exhilarating. Especially when the evidence is clear that the analysis is formulated from an equidistant posicion from de object. Germany, National Socialism, Hitler ando the Goebbels, viewed with the respect without wich any consideration is hoppelessly disposable. Years spent waiting to see equanimous, serious, considerable conclusions embodied. And here they are. How good is this.
Good work sir!
Yes, Yes, more of this. We are so hungry for it. “Hitler’s Revolution” is outstanding. We would see in it what we now need desperately. I can’t get enough of goodness, compassion and honour, wishing it were in our society.
I understand where Mr Raches is coming from. For no particular reason as a child, I was instantly fascinated by the period, the whole thing. Maybe it’s reincarnaton. Or maybe it’s proof o the efficacy of ancient sigil magick.
Somewhere along the way, I got ahold of Butz’s book. Then others. In those days you could get books like that as physical objects. Butz was far too easy on his Germans. “Special handling”, the famous phrase to him meant, ‘the camp with the swimming pool.’ Probably it really meant, “Don’t put this one on coal mine duty ” A lot of revisionist, following Oliver and Yockey hoped to upend the calumnies heaped on the NatSoc government and thereby revive the hard right-which in America and England was attenuated to the point of becoming a ghost. And a forbidden one at that.
Jonathan Bowden pointed out how the Shoah became mechanism by which a hard right political perspective became entirely satanic, mad and beyond polite discourse in the democratic political sphere. He also said that if you’re of a far right bent- say a follower of the thought of Evola or Gentile that when they ask you “what about the Shoah”, you just answer, “We’ve moved beyond that.”
Really you could revive fascism easily by making Jabotinski your icon. A jewish founder of Israel who was very much a fascist as is his political descenadant Netanyahu (whose devolved into cheap gangsterism thus spoiling the brand somewhat).
The popularity of Stalin is akin to that of Hitler – both men are held to have committed the most savage and bestial atrocities. Yet both managed to salvage great nations from devastation and both became touchstones of authoritarian political movements.
I don’t think it qualifies as “the greatest blockbuster film ever made” but, in the event you haven’t watched it, check out “The Greatest Story Never Told” on Bitchute. If I recall correctly, it’s about 6 and one-half hours in length. As one person stated in the comments, the documentary changed his life, and so did its soundtrack. I concur.
Raches: where are you? You’re needed more than ever these days.