LogFAQs > #911933939

Lokarin posted...

_AdjI_ posted...

darkknight109 posted...

That being said, the communists were generally more equal-opportunity-slaughterers where the Nazis opted to single out specific groups for butchery - specifically Jews, non-whites, the Romani, and gays (as well as leftists and intellectuals, if we're counting those imprisoned and killed for their opinions rather than for who they were). Accordingly, that's how their symbols are frequently used today - Nazi symbols are used by hate groups to rally for white supremacy, while Communist symbols are usually used to agitate (sometimes violently) for equality and economic change. Hence why communist symbols are generally more tolerated than Nazi iconography.

Basically. Communism's association with genocide was a matter of the Soviet's practices, not the ideology itself. Nazism's association with genocide was entirely a matter of the ideology. As such, Communism's more acceptable as an ideology than Nazism, and their respective symbols follow suit.

There's a slippery slope here... because without the genocide, if that was kept wholly secret, people would still be praising the Nazis. Hilter was TIME's Man of the Year, they hosted an Olympics, they were one the strongest economies on the Earth.

This is a bit of revisionist history hard at work. People like to say that Hitler's government was the one that lifted Germany out of its post-WW1 economic malaise, but that would more rightly be attributed to the governments that preceded him, particularly under Paul von Hindenburg.

Not to mention, Hitler was far from universally revered, even back before the atrocities he committed came to light. American conservatives loved him because he was seen as one of the most ardently anti-communist leaders in Europe. That said, even early on he was seen as a warmonger who played pretty fast-and-loose with human rights and had the nasty tendency to murder, attack, or otherwise intimidate any opposition to his rule (and even after killing off most of the opposition, he still hung around 40% in the polls, and never managed to secure an actual elected majority within the Reichstag).
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Kill 1 man: You are a murderer. Kill 10 men: You are a monster.
Kill 100 men: You are a hero. Kill 10,000 men, you are a conqueror!