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that neither fascism nor genocide were unique . This, to a large extent,
caused the famous
Historikerstreit
in the 1980s and generated many attacks
from outside Germany. More recently, Nolte has received substantial
support in his own country from a younger generation of writers who
accepted his nationalist writings as a liberating act.
Furet thinks highly of Nolte's accomplishment ("one of the most
profound of the last half-century"), though he regrets Nolte's
"exaggeration" on Jewish subjects. We shall leave aside Nolte's "Jewish"
obiter dicta;
they are not relevant in the present context. What remains
are Nolte's theses on the relationship between Bolshevism and Nazism
(and fascism in general). They can be summarized as follows: Nazism was
a reply, a justified reaction to Bolshevism. Asiatic barbarism was imported
to Germany from the East - the party discipline, the Gulag, the Purges,
the Terror. Nazi violence was almost always preventive; the Nazi policy
of extermination in the East was a copy of the Bolshevik extermination
of the
kulaks
and other class enemies. Gestapo methods were a copy of
the GPU, the Russian political police. There was a real threat of a
Communist takeover in Germany in 1932-1933, and later in Europe, of
which Hitler was mortally afraid - hence Hitler's defensive policy of
forestalling the Bolsheviks in 1941. Seen in this light, Hitler and also
Mussolini appear as (reluctant) pupils or at least imitators of Lenin and
Stalin. Given the realities of world affairs, did they have any alternative
but to combat Asian barbarism by the same atrocious means? It is intel–
ligible that views of this kind should be voiced by a German nationalist
eager
to
reduce Nazi and German responsibility for the crimes commit–
ted in peace and war. It is less obvious why anyone not belonging to
this category should accept such versions (or perversions) of history.
Arendt argued the opposite case, in her preface to Part Three of
The
Origins oj Totalitarianism:
If towards the end of his life Stalin was about
to engage in a major anti-Semitic campaign, this showed to what an ex–
tent he had been influenced by Hitler. In fact, there is no evidence that
Stalin needed Hitler's inspiration, and vice versa; their crimes came to
them quite naturally. They were home-grown, and no foreign importa–
tions were needed. What evidence is there for the Nazis' (and the fas–
cists') mortal fear of Soviet Communism and their apprenticeship at the
knees of Lenin and Stalin? In the very early days , there was a limited
Russian impact on the Nazi leaders when refugees from Russia brought
the
Protocols oj the Elders
if
Zion
to Germany; however, these gurus were
not Communists but belonged to the extreme right. Readers will look
in vain for any mention of Lenin in Hitler's
Mein Kampf.
Marxism does
appear a few times, but Hitler makes it clear that he refers to the Social
