I’m anxiously waiting for a new movie on TNT about the Nuremburg trials, so thinking about it I recall some questions I’ve always had that were neve answered:
What were the economic policies of National Socialism? How does it work, and how differently is it from regular socialism? Primarily, what were the tax/wealth/private ownership policies of NS? And are there any countries today that have anything close to this? Does it work?
2)Why exactly did Time Magazine name Hitler Man of the Year? What made him better than others that year? Can anyone supply a link with the time article. I can’t find one.
3)What was Hitlers total goal? Had he been victorious in all the battles Germany fought, would he kept going until he had the entire world, or stopped at a certain point?
Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” is not supposed to be a hero- he’s supposed to be the most important person in the news for a given year. Quite a few “bad guys” have been Time’s Man of the Year, including Hitler, Josef Stalin (3 times), and the Ayatollah Khomeini. (Depending on your point of you, you might add Richard Nixon or Le Duc Tho to that list).
Hitler was not “better” than other people the year he was named Man of the Year. Henry Luce simply decided that Adolf was the most important man in the world… and it’s hard to say he was wrong.
I believe he just wanted Europe. He bombed England because they were attacking Germany – I don’t think he really wanted the British Isles, nor Russia east of Moscow, for that matter, too. As moronic and dumb and stupid as he was, I don’t really think he thought he could easily or theoretically conquer the whole world. It’s gotten a lot bigger since that guy Alexander did.
First, let me refer you to your preferred search engine. Use the words ‘national+socialism’. There are links to every bit of information you may want, including the specific:
As I understand it, the economic policies of the Nazi party include private ownership of capital, but the government essentially controlled what is done with the capital. The system is not necessesarily inefficient. “At least they make the trains run on time,” was a common refrain in the years just before the war began. Of course if the train didn’t run on time, it was off to the concentration camp with the engineer. The site http://www.kmf.org/malecki/cockroach/cr0037-1.txt says
Does any other country have a similar system? I may get in trouble with my fellow dopers for saying so, but it always seemed to me that France’s dirigisme has a lot in common with the Nazi economic policy, except for their stance toward labor unions. France’s social policy, however, is far removed from that of the Nazis.
As for number 3 of the original question, didn’t he intend to rid most of Eastern Europe of the “inferior” Slavic people and set up an agrarian utopia for the returning troops?
He did. And it really irritated him to have to sign a treaty with Stalin to divvy up Poland.
He didn’t just intend to do it, he did it - in Poland, perhaps not for troops but for a number of regular German people. Just simply kicked the local Poles out of their homes and moved the Germans in.
As for his attitude to the rest of the world, the country Hitler most admired was Britain and especially its empire. He saw their class system (based on supposed natural superiority) as a perfect model for his new Reich and fostered this admiration in his subordinates. Fox-hunting became a popular sport for high-ranking Nazi officials.
Part of his desire to emulate Imperial Britain was realised in his plan for Grosse Deutschland, to ‘unite all German-speaking people’. This was not quite the case, for as soon as he had annexed the Sudetenland, he then went and took over the non-German speaking rest of Czechoslovakia.
Hitler was clearly not content with just Europe. Taking control of oilfields in Russia and the Middle East was a key military and economic objective.
Prior to WWI, Germany had colonies and territories all over the globe (not quite as many as other countries but still). Hitler wanted to return Germany to its former glory. Had he succeeded in his European campaigns, it’s hard to believe he wouldn’t have tried to reclaim those lost territories, or at least go after new ones.