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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMueller, She Wrote: A gentle reminder
A gentle reminder
— Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.com) 2026-05-24T17:59:56.223Z
— Essence of RBG ð¦ (@rbgprevails.bsky.social) 2026-05-24T19:17:10.422Z
And then they came like the ones they fought.
— Kyle Ruggles ð¨ð¦ (@kyleruggles.bsky.social) 2026-05-24T20:00:39.526Z
Hitlers overriding strategic goal in launching World War II was stretching Germanys borders eastward to encompass most of Europe. This quest for Lebensraum, or living space, to the east was his central preoccupation. He envisioned a vast German empire extending through the Baltics, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia all the way to Europes end at the Ural Mountains. This empire would be gradually cleared of its former inhabitants and populated instead by rugged, self-reliant German farmers growing food to feed a great continental power.
World War II, then, was above all a war of colonial expansion. At a time when European countries still ruled much of the world, justifying such rule by claims of racial superiority and using brutal methods to extract wealth and crush dissent, Hitler had many models to look to for inspiration. Belgium, for instance, killed or worked to death an estimated 10 million people during its four decades ruling Congo.
His focus, however, was not on overseas colonies, which Germany had never acquired to the same extent as other powers, but on a contiguous, land-based empire annexed to the German homeland itself. As Hitler said, Our colonial territory is in the east. His was a vision of what historians call settler colonialism, in which an areas original inhabitants may be exploited temporarily but are ultimately replaced by the conquering countrys own people.
https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/10/hitler-found-blueprint-german-empire-in-the-american-west/
brer cat
(27,696 posts)sheshe2
(98,528 posts)SheltieLover
(81,820 posts)LetMyPeopleVote
(182,351 posts)MorbidButterflyTat
(4,769 posts)toward Native Americans as a model for their murderous campaign..."
Also, eugenics.
Buck v. Bell: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
"Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., in which the Court ruled that a state statute permitting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the intellectually disabled, "for the protection and health of the state" did not violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell
DemocracyForever
(206 posts)against African Americans in addition to the genocide committed against Native Americans.
lapucelle
(21,132 posts)She was featured in the documentary that led Graham Platner to mock and blame sexual assault victims for the crimes committed against them.
What gives me special insight is that Iâm a Military Sexual Assault survivor, and that I was in that documentary about it that he made fun of
— Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.com) 2026-03-01T18:47:04.263Z
sheshe2
(98,528 posts)It is heartbreaking what she went through then and now. Scoffed at because boys will be boys, dontcha know and the danged girls/women need to take a little responsibility for gettin' raped. It is all their fault after all.
I however have read a lot about Platner...a lot.
niyad
(134,102 posts)Some time back I read a book about IBM's connection to hitler's campaign against the Jews. "IBM And The Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Betwen Nazi Germany And America's Most Powerful Corporation" by Edwin Black.
orthoclad
(4,849 posts)with Hitler.
Corporate sponsorship of Nazism survived WWII in the form of armaments and automotive companies in Germany, with many tentacles into foreign corporations.
At the root, capitalism is based on stolen labor, originally the labor of enslaved people in Brazil, the Caribbean, and the South. The labor camps of WWII derived from this tradition.
LetMyPeopleVote
(182,351 posts)
BeneteauBum
(797 posts)Its tough dealing with the atrocious government policy on this holiday honoring those sacrificed for our freedom. They are the true heroes
..not losers as iterated by the idiot in charge. He still doesnt get it
..so sad!
Peace ☮️
orthoclad
(4,849 posts)He sought to exterminate the Slavic "Untermenschen" in order to create his Lebensraum for his Aryans. The Soviet Union lost 20 MILLION people as the Nazi war machine killed everyone in their way - and this doesn't count the non-Soviet Slavs of Poland and other countries.
This campaign of extermination was the central theater of European WWII. I read recently that about 90% of German casualties were on the Eastern Front.
US racial laws inspired the Nuremberg Laws. per wiki:
"... antisemitic and racist laws introduced in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935 at a special session of the Reichstag during the annual Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party. The legislation comprised two measures. The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour prohibited marriages and sexual relations between Jews and Germans..." Professor Whitman goes into this in depth in his book cited in the OP.
The US STILL had such laws until 1967, when the Supreme Court ruled them unconstitutional, 22 years after the defeat of Hitler.
The roots of fascism are deep in this country. Let's consider well which "normal" we hope to return to post-Trump.
sheshe2
(98,528 posts)Ours isn't all that pretty either, you are right on that.
orthoclad
(4,849 posts)has inspired so many of the worst actors in the world.
sheshe2
(98,528 posts)misanthrope
(9,639 posts)The Nazis didn't hide how they were inspired by Jim Crow America, except they declined to implement "one-drop" standards and the segregation of water fountains as being too extreme and trivial.
That's right: Nazi Germany found the Jim Crow South to be too extreme. Now modern conservatives, tell us again how Reconstruction was too onerous. For my money, the U.S. should have told every last treasonous Confederate that they had a choice between exile or execution at the Civil War's end.
orthoclad
(4,849 posts)Reconstruction ended. Much too soon.
It truly is mind-boggling that the Nazis considered US racial laws too extreme.
Maybe we should chant "USA!" with umlauts.
misanthrope
(9,639 posts)It has been steadily waged in other ways since Appomattox.
orthoclad
(4,849 posts)say something to this effect. The shooting stopped, but the South won the peace when that compromise election killed Reconstruction. We were making good progress to a post-slavery world until then.
misanthrope
(9,639 posts)Having been in a state nicknamed the Heart of Dixie since about the time the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, I couldn't have ignored the Cold Civil War if I tried.
orthoclad
(4,849 posts)Hitler's extermination of the Slavs sounds an awful lot like the extermination of native Americans and the theft of their lands. Lebensraum resembles Manifest Destiny.
Cha
(320,793 posts)sheshe2
(98,528 posts)Cha
(320,793 posts)sheshe2
(98,528 posts)Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone
Long time ago?
Where have all the young men gone?
They're all in uniform
Oh, when will you ever learn?
Oh, when will you ever learn?
Cha
(320,793 posts)Power now don't care. Nor does their cult..
Mahalo for the song by Peter Paul and Mary
💔💙 ☮️
sheshe2
(98,528 posts)I read somewhere today that the military losses we had in Iran could easily been avoided but good old Pete had no clue what he was doing.
Cha
(320,793 posts)Weapons of Mass Distraction. Epstein Files.
I was just remembering that I saw Peter Paul and Marl at Cheesman Park in Denver when I was in Jr High.
Pic at the link, I couldn't get a direct photo..
https://www.dwell-denver.com/blog/cheesemanpark-neighborhood
'Weapons of Mass Distraction'...perfect, you nailed it.