Where does this myth that 1930s-40s fascists were hyper-efficient arise from? They made many catastrophic errors in domestic policy, not to mention warfare. Do we keep repeating the idea that they were efficient solely because they excelled at using industrial tools for genocide?
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Replying to @magi_jay
My understanding was it’s a misunderstanding of ironic commentary at the time. So the classic “at least they made the trains run on time” was actually a sarcastic refrain, the trains were late as ever, things were just as dysfunctional, they just lied about it.
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Replying to @MarkHoofnagle @magi_jay
Ian Kershaw is great at describing how chaotic the government was under Hitler, who liked to set different departments competing with each other on the same issues to see who could most please him, often with no clear delineation of responsibility.
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Kershaw called this “working toward the Führer.” Basically, Hitler would set the priorities and goals, and he’d let his ministers and underlings fight it out to determine how to get it done. The result was often anything but efficient.
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A byproduct of “working towards the Führer” was that his underlings’ competition often resulted in ever more radical policies to implement Hitler’s goals.
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That statement basically sums everything we learned studying the rise, while I was at school. IIRC a lot of things ended up just happening, without any planning or efficiency. Personally the only efficiency I remember was the Germans as a racial stereotype, not Nazis
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It should be pointed out that certain parts of the Nazi government were indeed very efficient. The Gestapo, for instance. The military, as well. However, huge swaths of the government were not because different leaders were basically put into competition for Hitler's favor.
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