Hitler, Fascism and Nazism: The Historical Truth
In today’s heated political climate, one of the harshest insults is to be labeled a “Nazi,” “fascist,” or “Hitler.”
Depending on who’s talking, it almost sounds like the Third Reich is alive and well in 21st-century America. But is it?
Let’s revisit what actually happened in the 1930s and early 1940s—how Hitler rose to power, how Nazism reshaped Germany, and how an entire nation eliminated its own people. Let’s return to a time when a charismatic man captivated a wounded nation and a new political philosophy emerged: Nazism. Then, when Germany’s borders proved too small for his ambitions, Hitler’s fascist regime plowed across Europe and pulled the world into war.
Defining “Nazi”
“Nazi” is simply shorthand for the National Socialist Workers Party (German: Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei). Despite popular confusion today, the Nazis were open socialists who built a populist political movement. Hitler became their most effective spokesman. Although he initially wanted to remove the word “socialist” from the party name, he compromised to keep the radical leftist support necessary for his election.
Like most fascists, Hitler began in the moderate middle, gradually tightening control once in power. He exploited emerging technologies—especially radio and film—to spread his message, aided by politicians and a friendly state media that concealed Nazi abuses and promoted a radical agenda.
Nazism wasn’t about improving Germany but controlling Germany
Hitler’s propaganda promised hope, change, renewal, revival, and “national rebirth.” In a 1933 speech, he framed his program this way:
“ … the purpose is to restore and revive the strength of the German fatherland, to bring about a national renewal which will free our Volk from the shackles of ruin and humiliation.”
So, how did Hitler “restore and revive” Germany as a socialist leader?
His first significant act as Chancellor was the introduction of socialized health care (1933). Germans initially welcomed affordable access to medical care, but state-run systems are never truly affordable. Historically, every “socialized” institution eventually collapses under the costs of housing, groceries, energy, and industry. That’s why socialism and communism repeatedly fail. When the economy can’t sustain price controls, the only remaining solution is population control.
And Hitler had a particular population in mind.
He envisioned a “master race,” believing other races and certain categories of people were genetically inferior or socially unnecessary. His ability to communicate this sinister idea was crucial. He proved to be a charismatic speaker whose rhetoric stirred enthusiasm, national pride, and eventually fanaticism. Germany had long been a center of intellectual, scientific, and religious thought—home to Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Einstein, and Luther. Yet many intellectuals and theologians were seduced by Hitler’s winsome rhetoric.
At the heart of Hitler’s delusion was German socialism
As in modern America, many Germans believed government programs could solve every social problem. Socialized health care conditioned the public for further “state solutions.” And because universal health care was expensive, Nazi planners soon decided it was more “practical” to eliminate Germans who weren’t contributing to society.
Hitler’s first targets were the softest: the disabled, elderly, insane, incurable, and demented—people already institutionalized and largely forgotten. Their elimination stirred little resistance; families had already handed them to the state. Under the guise of “social engineering,” the Nazis euthanized these “undesirables.”
The oldest Germans were expensive, but the chronically ill and mentally impaired were also costly “eyesores.” The “merciful” solution, they claimed, was euthanasia—putting them down like sick animals “for the good of Germany.”
Thus, Hitler’s government systematically eliminated anyone deemed lebensunwertes Leben—“life unworthy of life.”
The German Liberal Church
These state-sponsored murders drew criticism from Lutheran and Catholic leaders, but it came too late. Liberal Christianity, influenced by thinkers like Friedrich Schleiermacher, had already weakened the German church. Many Germans were far less religious than their ancestors. Apathy, moral confusion, and growing atheism left the nation without a moral compass.
Once euthanasia conditioned able-bodied Germans to accept killing the weak, Hitler expanded his list of “undesirables” to include beggars, criminals, homosexuals, and the homeless. These groups were executed or sterilized to prevent reproduction. As the weak disappeared, the average white, healthy, working German rose in political value. This made it easy to extend Nazi eugenics to non-German ethnicities: Jews, blacks, Slavs, and Roma (gypsies). Thus, the ideology of an Aryan master race took firm hold.
America’s influence on Adolf Hitler
Few realize that early 20th-century America inspired parts of Hitler’s program. The U.S. eugenics movement aimed to engineer a “perfect” human race by restricting who could reproduce. Influenced by Darwinian ideas and prejudices against southern Europeans and Jews, American eugenicists focused on the blind, deaf, diseased, insane, and poor—but also the “feeble-minded.”
In 1927, an 18-year-old named Carrie Buck, said to have a “mental age of nine,” was scheduled for sterilization in Virginia.[i] Her mother was labeled “feeble-minded” as well. When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court (Buck v. Bell), the Court ruled 8–1 in favor of forced sterilization “for the protection and health of the state.” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., delivered the infamous conclusion: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”[ii]
A Planned Parenthood
One of America’s most influential eugenicists was Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. Modern abortion advocates try to distance themselves from her, claiming she used eugenics only for political leverage. Regardless, her writings spoke plainly. She described eugenics—including “planned parenthood” through birth control—as “the process of weeding out the unfit [and] preventing the birth of defectives.”[iii] The obvious question is: Who defines defective? Hitler’s definition was far broader and bloodier, but the philosophical foundation was similar.
American eugenicists like Sanger caught Hitler’s attention.
To build his “master race,” the Führer embraced forced sterilization and mercy killings. Ironically, some of his earliest allies—the Brownshirts, a militant group filled with radical leftists and homosexuals—helped him rise to power. But once they became politically inconvenient, Hitler eliminated them during the “Night of the Long Knives” (June 30–July 2, 1934). Through the 1930s, Hitler’s fascist Third Reich suppressed dissent, silenced critics, and eradicated “undesirables” until German politics became a single-party state.
The Disarming of the German People
Once in power, the Nazis changed the rules to cement control. With total media dominance, the public heard only what the Party approved.
Hitler then moved to disarm ordinary Germans, leaving them defenseless. Resistance became impossible. Many young Germans, indoctrinated through schools and party youth programs, eagerly died for their Führer. That’s when Hitler unleashed his army across Europe, sparking World War II.
Even in America, pockets of German Americans admired Nazism from afar.
Hitler and the German church
Hitler initially appeared friendly to Christianity, but once secure in power he turned hostile, forcing Nazi ideology upon German Christians. He even embraced Islam as a “useful” religious ally for eliminating enemies and inspiring fanatical support.
But not everyone surrendered.
The Confessing Church
A courageous Protestant movement emerged—the Confessing Church—led by figures like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemöller. Niemöller later summarized the tragedy of silent complicity:
“In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.”[iv]
Fascism always undermines freedoms. America requires freedom of speech, assembly, press, and the Second Amendment to preserve liberty. Cancel culture, media censorship, and government suppression are warning signs of potential tyranny.
The story of Hitler and Nazism is not a distant moral fable.
It can happen again—even in America.
But it won’t, if we open our eyes, tell the truth, and remember real history.
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NOTES:
[i] “Buck v. Bell” (Wikipedia): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell
[ii] “The Supreme Court Ruling That Led To 70,000 Forced Sterilizations,” NPR interview (March 7, 2016) with Andy Cohen, the author of Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck. https://www.npr.org/2017/03/24/521360544/the-supreme-court-ruling-that-led-to-70-000-forced-sterilizations
[iii] “Fact Check: Was Planned Parenthood Started To ‘Control’ The Black Population?” by Amita Killy (August 14, 2015): https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/14/432080520/fact-check-was-planned-parenthood-started-to-control-the-black-population
[iv] Martin Niemoller, as quoted: https://www.nehm.org/the-holocaust/