Some conservative prankster thought that he would embarrass the leftist audience at an “Impeach Trump March” in Chicago by addressing to them a speech consisting of alleged Hitler-quotes.
I can tell that he is a conservative because (1) he knows nothing about Hitler, and (2) he still thinks that responding positively to anything said by Hitler should be a source of shame.
The shame is his. It is bad enough to adopt such a cowardly and self-crippling form of rhetoric as The leftists are the real Nazis or The Democrats are the real racists, but beyond that, the alleged Hitler-quotes that he used are mostly fake.
Here is the text of that short speech, with footnotes and color-code indicating the real sources, where I could determine them. Only the green text represents authentic Hitler-quotes.
Ladies, Gentleman, and non-binary members of this congregation:I would like to thank everyone for coming out today to support the constitutional rule of law, I stand here today, a veteran of these United States armed forces, and a proud 21st century patriot. I would like to take this opportunity to talk about this oppressive regime, and the repressive regime that constitutes capitalism as a whole.We are Socialists, we are enemies of the capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with it’s unfair salaries, rights it’s unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.[1]Benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual… The state should retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by the state. It is his duty not to use his property against the interests of others among his own people. This is the crucial matter. This American Nation will always retain its right to control the owners of property…[2] A policy of laissez faire in this sphere is not only cruelty to the individual guiltless victims but also to the nation as a whole.[3]For there is one thing we must never forget… the majority can never replace the man.[4]Life is like a mirror, if you frown at it, it frowns back, if you smile it returns the greeting.[5]Donald Trump seems to think that if you tell a big enough lie, and tell it frequently enough, that it will be believed.[6] It’s not the truth that matters, but victory.[7]The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of flowing passion, but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others.[4]
LIST OF SOURCES
[1] Gregor Strasser, Thoughts about the Task of the Future, speech delivered on 15 June 1926. Strasser was a member of the NSDAP but distinctly to the left of Hitler. Hitler would not have expressed himself in such terms.[2] This is from an alleged interview that Hitler supposedly gave to Richard Breiting in 1931, which did not however surface until the 1960s. This interview is now generally regarded as a hoax.
[3] Distortion of a statement from Hitler’s speech of 30 January 1934. The original sentence was not about economic policy, much less about “laissez faire,” but about prevention of birth-defects through eugenic sterilization. Hitler’s words were: “Im übrigen ist das Geschehenlassen auf diesem Gebiet nicht nur eine Grausamkeit gegen die einzelnen unschuldigen Opfer, sondern auch eine Grausamkeit gegen die Gesamtheit des Volkes.” Geschehenlassen could be rendered quite literally as laisser-faire in French, but laissez faire in English refers to an economic doctrine. This is clearly what our conservative prankster intended, but it is not at all what Hitler meant.[4] Genuine, from Mein Kampf.[5] William Makepeace Thakeray. If Hitler ever said this, he was quoting Thackeray.[6] Misleading paraphrase of something said in Mein Kampf. Hitler was warning against the big lie, not advocating it.
[7] From a novel, Mist of Love, Fog of War, by Alain J. Zgheib (2016). This novel is also the source of a more widely circulated formulation of the same sentiment: “And the victor will never be asked if he told the truth.” It is remarkable that a piece of dialog from a novel could become widely disseminated in a very short time as an alleged quote.
Thus, in the entire 299-word screed, supposed to consist entirely of Hitler-quotes, there are only two sentences that Hitler actually uttered.
None of the big-name media that ran with the story caught that. Neither Salon nor World Net Daily, nor the Gateway Pundit. This shows once again how easy it is to lie to the media when the lie is about Hitler.