The green side of Nazism..

[undergroundpanther]

Also Did you know Nazis had a "green side"

..Ask yourselves Does this romantic idealization of nature ect..sound Familiar?


At the very outset of the nineteenth century the deadly connection between love of land and militant racist nationalism was firmly set in place.

Riehl, a student of Arndt, further developed this sinister tradition. In some respects his 'green' streak went significantly deeper than Arndt's; presaging certain tendencies in recent environmental activism, his 1853 essay Field and Forest ended with a call to fight for "the rights of wilderness." But even here nationalist pathos set the tone: "We must save the forest, not only so that our ovens do not become cold in winter, but also so that the pulse of life of the people continues to beat warm and joyfully, so that Germany remains German." 6 Riehl was an implacable opponent of the rise of industrialism and urbanization; his overtly antisemitic glorification of rural peasant values and undifferentiated condemnation of modernity established him as the "founder of agrarian romanticism and anti-urbanism." 7

These latter two fixations matured in the second half of the nineteenth century in the context of the völkisch movement, a powerful cultural disposition and social tendency which united ethnocentric populism with nature mysticism. At the heart of the völkisch temptation was a pathological response to modernity. In the face of the very real dislocations brought on by the triumph of industrial capitalism and national unification, völkisch thinkers preached a return to the land, to the simplicity and wholeness of a life attuned to nature's purity. The mystical effusiveness of this perverted utopianism was matched by its political vulgarity. While "the Volkish movement aspired to reconstruct the society that was sanctioned by history, rooted in nature, and in communion with the cosmic life spirit," 8 it pointedly refused to locate the sources of alienation, rootlessness and environmental destruction in social structures, laying the blame instead to rationalism, cosmopolitanism, and urban civilization. The stand-in for all of these was the age-old object of peasant hatred and middle-class resentment: the Jews. "The Germans were in search of a mysterious wholeness that would restore them to primeval happiness, destroying the hostile milieu of urban industrial civilization that the Jewish conspiracy had foisted on them." 9

Reformulating traditional German antisemitism into nature-friendly terms, the völkisch movement carried a volatile amalgam of nineteenth century cultural prejudices, Romantic obsessions with purity, and anti-Enlightenment sentiment into twentieth century political discourse. The emergence of modern ecology forged the final link in the fateful chain which bound together aggressive nationalism, mystically charged racism, and environmentalist predilections. In 1867 the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel coined the term 'ecology' and began to establish it as a scientific discipline dedicated to studying the interactions between organism and environment. Haeckel was also the chief popularizer of Darwin and evolutionary theory for the German-speaking world, and developed a peculiar sort of social darwinist philosophy he called 'monism.' The German Monist League he founded combined scientifically based ecological holism with völkisch social views. Haeckel believed in nordic racial superiority, strenuously opposed race mixing and enthusiastically supported racial eugenics. His fervent nationalism became fanatical with the onset of World War I, and he fulminated in antisemitic tones against the post-war Council Republic in Bavaria.

http://www.spunk.org/texts/places/germany/sp001630/peter.html

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=518
http://www.waldorfcritics.org/active/articles/Staudenmaier.html
http://www.social-ecology.org/article.php?mode=print&story=20031202115218246
http://www.anti-rev.org/textes/Sontag74a/index.html

[Lisa]

1. for some more historical background, Schama's "Landscape and Memory"

... is a great read. He discusses the Romantic-era origins of German environmentalism, and how the Nazis attempted to hijack it, with some more examples.

Geographer William Rollins also did a study of how Germany's award-winning Autobahn system was co-opted, touching on some of the same concepts.
http://www.jstor.org/view/00045608/di010516/01p0041l/0


Thanks for posting!

[undergroundpanther]

2. This green ness bothers me because

The fundie right is picking it up and republican shithead..
Huckabee too

Huckabee hit on conservative themes that resonated with attendees at Sioux Center High School. An "Amen" rang out after he spoke against abortion. He spoke frequently on his faith, the need to rise above the morass of coarse popular culture, and elicited a laugh when calling U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy a "gas bag" for his questioning last week of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

While discussing how people are concerned about their personal health, he added, "America needs to take a very long, hard look at its moral health, its spiritual health."

http://mikehuckabeepresident2008.blogspot.com/2006/01/sioux-city-iowa-journal-huckabee-hits.html

On Friday, I was dispatched to the National Press Club, where Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the current chair of the National Governors' Association, was set to launch the NGA's Healthy America campaign. Huckabee is a hot commodity in today's political circles, and it's not just because he's a dark horse in a time when everyone is seeking out dark horses.

Huckabee's story is perfect for a political consultant. Diagnosed with Type II Diabetes in 2003, he went on a mission to change his life, lost 110 pounds just by watching his diet and running (something he'd promised himself to do "only if I was being chased by something very scary"), and made it through the 2005 Little Rock Marathon in reasonably impressive time. Now, he's a health nut, and he's embarked on a campaign to change the way Americans think about the things they put on the table.

To be sure, the last thing Americans want is a politician calling them all fat. But Huckabee points out serious health problems in a disarming way.

http://www.jordomedia.com/RSS/l_op=viewrss/lid=33354.html

Thuis huckabee fucker is a dangerous control freak as well as the "green fundies" wanting to be Earths"stewards".
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/42510/

[Lisa]

3. like all really ugly rumors, it's got some truthful stuff thrown in ...

I totally agree, undergroundpanther. The Nazi-environmentalist story has just enough historical fact to befuddle those who haven't done their homework. This allows the "Swift-boating" types to sneak in a lot of other things which aren't at all substantiated, since some parts appear (on the surface) to check out. Since fascism was a social movement, there were plenty of background factors involved, if only because so many people took part in it, unwittingly or deliberately. If one wanted to, one could drum up a Nazi connection for modern highway networks, science education in the public schools, or urban design and planning. All those things were part of what the Nazis implemented, at one time or another, and the fact that they all got started before Hitler rose to power can be bypassed by a clever wordsmith -- after all, many of the people who later became Nazis were around during that earlier era too. (Hitler was a health nut who disliked smoking -- but of course, not all such people are fascists!)

As part of my job, I teach a course on historical attitudes about environmental preservation at a local university -- some of my students did some research, and found out that many different organizations in the late 1800s and early 1900s had educational/recreational outdoors groups aimed at young people, including the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church! It was part of social trends at the time, and not all the groups involved had the same goals and agendas. So it's a logical fallacy to conclude that all environmentalists are Nazis -- just as it is to argue that only Bush supporters have the right to display an American flag. Of course, poor reasoning isn't an impediment to conservative thought, as we've seen.

I am hoping to screen a video in class next week, from PBS, that looks at a small town in Montana that recently had some trouble -- a right-wing talk radio host was stirring up trouble, using the same "green Nazi" argument that you decribed. I expect this will really get the class thinking about these issues. So I'm glad you posted all those links!

[Solon]

4. This is a bunch of bullshit, who gives a shit if Nazis were enviromentalists?

I mean, seriously, even Mussolini made the trains run on time, does that mean we should make sure trains are always late just so we can't be like him? This is frankly stupid.

[undergroundpanther]

5. Solon you misunderstand

One way nature appreciation is applied is through respect each has their own way. Part of not being a "green Nazi" is not forcing other people to be as self conscious about diet,purity, lifestyles,ecology or things along those lines.We all do not have to look the same or be in agreement on these things relating to personal "health" choices.

For Example some people eat meat.They eat it because they have to, some eat it because they like to, some both reasons.Some meat eaters eat whatever, some seek out"free range" organic" meats,others hunt(for food),And they do what they do.Some are aware of the cruelty of factory farms and try to get meat other ways, others cannot do anything about it so they deal with it their own way but do not become vegetarians.Some meat eaters feel that "health nuts" telling them what to eat is really offensive arrogant and controlling.Our Government is leaning twords controlling people's lifestyles. And this is"health intrusion,"compassionate coercion" or Green Nazism.

On the other hand,vegetarians are vegetarian by choice others health others take their vegetarian lifestyles and get self righteous and pushy they take what they choose to not eat and make it an almost evangelical because mission based in a belief they have of purity and nature,a mythical romanticism.