Donald Holmes: The German lesson

Regarding the July 12 letter “Trump a problem-solver”: This letter-writer claimed that Adolf Hitler was a “left-wing demagogue.” The evidence for this claim came from the fact that Hitler’s party used the words “socialism” and “workers” in its name.

That Hitler was left-wing would come as a surprise to the labor leaders, socialists and left-wing intellectuals who were killed, imprisoned or harassed out of Germany by Hitler’s Brownshirts.

Germans advocating for labor rights were as high on Hitler’s hit list as Jews, gays, communists, Roma and Slavs. Hitler only pretended to care about working people, but the decimated left wing in Germany knew what side he was on.

Fortunately, Donald Trump is no Hitler. But Hitler’s blaming the problems of post World War I Germany on foreigners and communists begins to smell familiar in America these days. And the smell is not good.

Germans learned the hard way that blaming immigrants and non-Christians was not a policy but a knee-jerk reaction. Will Americans have to go through a similar disaster to re-learn this truth?

This story was originally published July 13, 2016 at 3:46 PM with the headline "Donald Holmes: The German lesson."