Fascism was a response to Communism and provided both the motive and the method for the fascist

response Discuss this claim made by Ernst Nolte in 1983 as it relates to Nazism and Stalinism. Introduction: Burden of Guilt - Where quote in research question - Schreckbild und Vorbild Communism as something to be feared and imitated - Comparative Analysis two sides of the same totalitarian coin, West Berlin professor Ernst Nolte in Three Faces of Fascism - Peter Gay humanized Nazi atrocities by pointing indignantly at crimes committed by others (Evans, 26) - This is very revisionist view since atrocities of Soviet Union, not fully divulged until it s collapse in 1991 - Purpose is discuss this light of historical evidence of events related to it and place views in historical context in order to come up with balanced conclusion - Historikerstreit Confronting past as part of argument of German Identity, new generation to move on and accept the Nazism and the Holocaust just as they would accept Stalinism and Dekulakisation (broader perspective) - Stumer, opinion polls demonstrated that 80% Americans proud, 50% Britons proud but only 20% Germans proud (Evans, 21) - Topic has been thoroughly debated and is still a topic of extreme controversy to present day - All sources consulted are not very recent since books in this very year are being written on this issue - Trying to decide on Holocaust museum in West Berlin 1st Origins of Anti-Semitism (Anti-Bolshevism) Did the Nazis, did Hitler, only commit an Asiatic deed, perhaps, because they thought that they and those like them were potential or real victims of Asiatic deeds themselves? (Evans, 28) mighty shadow of events in Russia fell more powerfully on Germany , and the bourgeoisies therefore Hitler s anti-communism was understandable, and to a certain point justified (Evans, 28) - Chaim Weizmann s in 1939 official declaration in the first day of September 1939, according to which all Jews would fight on the side of England (Maier, 29) - Needed counterideology to defend Germany against Communist threat Anti-Semitism - Nolte suggests that the continuous revolutions in Munich 1917-1918 allowed for his extermination complex , leading revolutionary figures were Jewish (Evans, 35) - Joachim Fest, even though supporter admits that Hitler s anti-Semitic ideology in Vienna 1914, in which he associated socialism, not Bolshevism with the Jews. Socialism was a conspiracy theory in Austria, where he believed was trying to alienate the German speaking workers of Vienna. (Evans, 35) - Nowhere in Mein Kampf does it hint that Hitler s ideas where formed by observations of Bolshevik Revolution (Evans, 35) Joachim Fest - In Mein Kamf Hitler criticizes the Social Democrats as well as the Bolsheviks fighting against Weimar Democracy and the Versailles System rather than Bolshevism - Nolte is more justified in claiming that Hitler s anti-semitism was strengthened by revolutions in Munich. Also influenced by Alfred Rosemberg, who joined the party in 1920, when he escaped Bolshevik revolution in Russia. (Evans, 35). Nevertheless, Mein Kampf. - In speeches and letters, nowhere does it suggest that Hitler s anti-Semitism stemmed from pathological, let alone justified, fear of Communism (Evans, 36)

Red Terror in Munich, largely creation of fascist propaganda. Rosa Luxembourg, leader and murdered, criticized Red Terror in Russia, Comintern not fully consolidated until mid 1920 s. (Evans,36) Nazi anti-Semitism was gratuitous: it was not provoked by anything, it was not a response to anything. It was born out of a political fantasy, in which the Jews, without a thread of justification, were held responsible for all that the Nazis believed was wrong with the modern world. (Evans, 40) These problems included the rise of a strong communism movement which was not led by Jews, but which was undoubtedly seen as a social and political threat by many of the Nazis. Threat of communism in Germany mostly fascist propaganda: Communist weak in polls half of votes of Nazis in 1932. Reichstag fire, over used by Nolte, was either fascists or one individual. Anti-Semitism in mind long before Bolsheviks came to power (Evans, 41)

2nd Dekulakisation and Racial Cleansing - Same causal nexus both related to problems in industrialization communism and fascism are less radically opposed doctrines than twin products of bourgeois revolution two revolutionary answers to hopelessness of liberal age. (Maier, 27) Wasn t class murder by the Bolsheviks the logical and real precondition of race murder by the Nazis? (Evans, 28) - Final Solution was as the attempt of the complete destruction of a universal race... the exact counter-part of the attempt at the complete destruction of a universal class (Evans, 29) - Identified bourgeoisie as enemy only in different ways Jews were bourgeoisie in Germany. Mainly proletarian movement - Kurt Tucholsky called for gassing of the bourgeoisie (Evans, 37) - For Nolte, the "racial genocide" as he calls the Holocaust was a "punishment and preventive measure" on the part of the Germans for the "class genocide" of the Bolsheviks.[75] 3rd Gulag Archipelago and Concentration Camps Was not the Gulag Archipelago prior in history of Auschwitz? (Evans, 28) Thereby this makes it the original evil - Everything that the Nazis did, with sole exception of gassing had already happened in the Soviet Union. (Evans, 28) - Kurt Tucholsky called for gassing of the bourgeoisie (Evans, 37) - Copy more horrifying than original but nevertheless a copy - Methods - Number of People that Died and Suffered - Some historians such as Hans-Ulrich Wehler were most forceful in arguing that the sufferings of the kulaks deported during the Soviet dekulakization campaign of the early 1930s were in no way analogous to the suffering of the Jews deported in the early 1940s. Many were angered by Nolte's claim that "the so-called annihilation of the Jews under the Third Reich was a reaction or a distorted copy and not a first act or an original" - In the introduction to his book The Harvest of Sorrow, which examines the history of collectivization and the Ukrainian famine of 1932 33, Robert Conquest compares the crimes of Stalinism with those of Nazism: Fifty years ago, as I write these words, the Ukraine and the Ukrainian, Cossack, and other areas to the east a stretch of territory with some forty million inhabitants was like one vast Belsen. A quarter of the rural population, men, women and children, lay dead or dying, the rest in various stages of debilitation with no strength to bury

their families or neighbours. At the same time (as at Belsen), well-fed squads of police or party officials supervised the victims. These people, noted one OGPU report, drove the dekulakized naked in the streets, beat them, organized drinking-bouts in their houses, shot over their heads, forced them to dig their own graves, undressed women and searched them, stole valuables, money, etc. - Between late 1929 and 1932, some ten million kulaks were forced from their homes Conclusion - In comparison to Soviet Union under Stalin, the Nazi regime, according to Nolte, must be termed practically a liberal idyll in which the rule of law obtained (Evans, 39) - Although Nolte often suggests that Auschwitz was unique, he often presents otherwise. Some fear he was trying to normalize or relativise Nazism in order to historicize it allow the German people to move on. (Evans, 33) - Even after collapse of Soviet Union, we know much more about Nazi crimes than we do about the Soviet ones and only full access to archives will allow for thorough analysis - Would Nazism and Final Solution have occurred without the Bolshevik Revolution? The cause and effect must be further examined. - Holocaust victims blaming deniers vs. victims of communism have a hard time understanding the special character of the crimes of Hitler. The Yugoslav writer Danilo Kis (whose father was a Hungarian Jew) writes: Should anyone tell you Kolyma was different from Auschwitz, tell him to go to hell.