The same could be said for the “Worker” part of the name, given the anti-labor laws that the Nazis passed once in power. They outlawed labor unions, prohibited strikes, prohibited advocating for better working conditions, etc.
But the party name still included “Worker”.
Quite interesting, this is the bit about Hitler and England
The main bit is:
|So much for the background. The story itself begins in pre-war Liverpool when young Adolf, still hoping for a career as an artist came to stay at the house of his half brother and his wife in Upper Stanhope Street, in Toxteth, Liverpool. There he stayed for around six months before returning to the men’s hostel in Vienna. As the only source for this is Bridget’s own memoir, it has inevitably undergone thorough analysis. |
Basically Hitler’s older brother married an Irish girl and lived in Liverpool, England.
She and (possibly) her son wrote a memoir in about 1941 which surfaced in 1970
The article is inconclusive, Hitler did go missing for a year, he was not keen on his older brother (an embarrassment) - yet there is no real evidence either way.
I can’t find anything about Goebbels actually being a Communist, although there are snippets about him being regarded as being on the left of the party because of ‘pro-communist’ statements.
He was sent to Berlin to attempt to convert communists
This is quite a good article:
Looking at it rationally, as a rabid anti-semite, he would probably have distanced himself from anything to do with Marx - although he was sufficiently subtle to reason that Marx was not the ‘father’ of communism.
Thanks for the info, FRDE. I’ve read quite a bit about Hitler, Goebbels and the Nazi regime over the years, and have never seen anything to suggest either that Hitler lived in England at any time (color me unpersuaded by Bridget’s memoir) or that Goebbels used to be a Communist. Come to think of it, I saw a very good recent British documentary on Goebbels (narrated by Kenneth Branagh), and there was nothing about any youthful flirtations with Communism. IIRC, he was pretty apolitical until meeting Hitler, who dazzled him.
Who knows,
[snipped some personal revelations]
The past is surreal.
Sometimes I reckon that history is best left to the likes of George McDonald Frazer
I must confess, Goebbels could have been a top class comedian, never spotted it before, but we were directed towards learning things like ‘bad de-mobs (stahlhelm)’ lead to trouble.
Sort of functional stuff, rather than the trivia that really mould events.