Daniel Hannan: 'Adolph Hitler Was a Progressive'

Source:Lew Rockwell

When I first saw the title of this blog on Lew Rockwell.com, my first thought, to be perfectly frank, was "bullshit." I mean, what is progressive about murdering millions of people simply because of their ethnicity, which is exactly what the German Nazis did in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, I mean, where is the progress in that. What possible good could come from it, with those innocent lives lost simply because they were of Jewish ethnicity and not ethnically German.

But if you go into it deeper, the Nazi Party was a socialist party, not a democratic socialist party, which is more common today, especially in the developed world.  However, they did believe in nationalizing private businesses and industries, and probably even with good intentions.  So with all of this being true, how does this qualify as progressive when those who are actual Progressives don't just call themselves Progressives but do in believe in capitalism and private enterprise.

So maybe "bullshit" is not the correct word even though Nazis were economic socialists, but maybe the word should be "inaccurate" or "misleading" when in fact there wasn't really anything that was progressive, or is progressive, about the Nazi Party either back in Adolph Hitler's time or today in Germany, where the Nazi Party is not much more than a criminal or terrorist organization in the midst of ethnic Germans in Germany who detest Nazism.