You can read the first few pages of this book (see below), written by a Communist economist, stating his the belief that there were (at the time) no more pure examples of the Marxist ideal of the State than Russia and Germany.

http://blog.mises.org/archives/006248.asp

W.E.B. Debois, H.G. Wells, and many other intellectuals of the Progressive era (whose names escape me at the moment) visited both Italy and Germany, and regarded them as Marxist states. The intellectual history goes back to Hegel and Nietzsche, Saint-Simone, Comte, and the earlier socialists. It was the ideal of the State before the people, which goes back to, oh, say Hobbes.

I will defend the use of my words fascist and socialist, because I have studied their intellectual origins and theories of economy. And in practice, although the technic may have been marginally different, both system end with bureaucratic planning of the economy. From the perspective of a citizen, it matters very little how my rulers justify their totalitarian tyranny; be it the omnipotence of the State over the individual, or the Marxist dialectic.

When I said the Nazi ethos was a fusion of paganism and Marxism, it was meant, primarily, to show that Nazism was anything but Christian – as both those belief systems are explicitly anti-Christian. I did not mean to imply that the two (paganism, Marxism) were otherwise interconnected.

Hitler, for his part, was class-conscious only to the extent that he hated intellectuals and people more sophisticated or educated than himself. He actively courted both large corporations such as Krupp and Bayer and preserved the estates of the landed Junkers when they came under the threat of land reform.

Orthodox Marxism is decidedly international, the Nazi movement by its very nomenclature was xenophobic and nationalistic.

Orthodox Marxism ascribes to a class-based, non-ethnic, teleological view of history, Nazi ideology was explicitly racial and emphasized the work of “great men” as the shapers of events.

Regarding religion, Hitler was inconsistent. When he needed the support of the Church and the Catholic Center party, he actively courted them, portraying himself as a bulwark for Christian Europe against the godless Soviet hordes. When they had outlived their political convenience, he disposed of them alongside the countless other betrayed allies who facilitated his rise to power. If he was antagonistic to religion, it was in the same way that he set himself as an enemy of any interest group that detracted from the all-encompassing service and worship of the totalitarian State. While you are totally correct in asserting the pagan origins of Nazi ceremonies and holidays, I think it’s erroneous in the extreme to somehow conflate Nazi paganism and anticlericalism with the rabid, unyielding hatred that Marx and his ideological heirs have of religion in any form. The ends may be similar, but they arrive there on two totally different ideological roads.

Words like “Marxist”, “socialist”, “fascist”, etc., are so overly and poorly used that they have lost practically all of their meaning, and now signify little more than “someone we don’t like”. I hate to call you out on that when your history is, as I said, otherwise flawless, but words do HAVE meanings, and it’s important to understand what those are before we throw them around carelessly.

The Holocaust is, of course, not exactly WWII. Addressing specifically that atrocity, we should remember that dictators regularly make use of old hatreds. We can see that right now in our own country, as the president regularly attacks the successful with Marxist rhetoric. Sure, Antisemitism is largely a European brainchild. In the 13th century, it was Aquinas who espoused tolerance of different creeds, but death to the heretics [i.e., Christians who were not in line with official Dogma]. I don’t think the casuistry of Antisemitism of the Christian ages leads, necessarily, to the Holocaust. You should also remember that it was not only Jews who were targeted, but the Roma, the infirm, and anyone else who fell outside the Nazi eugenic ideal.

The Nazi religious ceremonies and holidays, like I said before, were primarily pagan. And to the extent that the National Socialists were Marxists, they detested religion in general.

Nor am I laying the blame for the Holocaust at anyone’s feet but the Nazis and the bulk of the German people who went along with them and followed all their orders willingly. But don’t tell a millenia of anti-Semitism, most of it theologically inspired, didn’t provide fertile soil for this horror to happen.

I would still call the centrist wing of the party to move beyond drafting manifestos, and begin to take stances going forward. Given the implosion of the Democratic party, there is a wide swath of ideological terrain to cover.

Part of building a consensus means staking a claim on that territory, and defending it. If the “new majority” movement has a lingering fault, it is that it has skipped the claiming part, and moved right to the defense. The result is rather, erm, defensive.

So let’s call a truce. I’ll quit calling the Conor Friedersdorfs of the world RINOs, hipsters, and dummy farts, and they can quit evoking Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin at every turn. Sound fair?

Hitler was not a modern (in the vulgar sense) Catholic dictator. He was a Nazi dictator, which was an entirely different ethos, and mainly pagan.

Aquinas referenced the pagan Aristotle approvingly.

Hitler banned the Church all but in name, subsuming it into the Nazi machinery.

Jesus, being the Prince of Peace, and an observant Jew, would generally be against tyranny, and likewise the things you apparently like:

1) Gun control 2) High taxes 3) Compulsory health insurance

It is a bit disingenuous to start slurring earlier Christians, when in fact, politically speaking, they existed in the same world as the rest of humanity. Every creed has had periods of tyranny; that Christians were far and away the largest religious group in Europe lends it to more criticism by virtue of the fact that it had more followers – i.e., people identifiable as “Christians.”

I told you – you like to discuss religion. I am not a comparative religious scholar, and do not spend very much time investigating the religious roots of political movements (though I can tell you in no uncertain terms that Hitler was not some sort of modernist Catholic dictator… modernism, born out of Germany, was actually a target of the Church, if I’m not mistaken).

I suggest you occupy your time on a forum where you’ll have all sorts of nuts eager to engage you in inflammatory religious dialogue. That seems to be what you’re looking for.

Pointing out that Hitler was a Catholic, who did not ban the Church as you claim, just demonstrates the innate anti-semitism that Catholicism engendered. He grew around Jew hatred so it was second nature for Adolph to hate Jews. Pointing out that most of the Protestant churches in Germany initially supported Hitler and the Nazis later co-opted many of them is simply a fact. Do you remember Pastor Neimoller? So Christianity is not some tyrant repellent as some cons like to claim, or we wouldn’t have had those Spanish emperors or Russian Tsars too.

I also acknowledge, to their credit, the Church & most Christians in general has moved moutains to repudiate and reverse anti-semitism, as well as their history of laudable service to the poor and underprivileged.

Finally it’s a bit silly and disingenuous to parade one’s conservative Christian creds while tallking about strong military, pro gun, anti-health care, and tax cut positions, I have only read small parts of the Gospels but I don’t recollect Jesus’s taking a stand on any of those issues. My bet is that he would’ve felt differently about them. Jesus wasn’t even a Zionist.

If what I said is riling people up, I think it is because I have made a good point they refuse to acknowledge. Not because I am some alleged Christian hating Jewish golem.