Added in a small edit for clarification, but yes, I don't think he was talking about genocide, which is obviously not happening at this point, but rather the attitude of hatred towards success, which was a large part of the propaganda used against Jews.
Hatred against Jews wasn't hatred against success. The Nazis loved wealthy industrialists like Hermann Schmitz who likewise loved the Nazis because they fought the communists and socialists.
The hatred of the Jews has its roots in the blood libel and conspiracy theories but basically boils down to the hatred and suspicion of an "other." Successful Jews were doubly hated because it was evidence of the conspiracies: of course Jews couldn't become wealthy by being Fine Upstanding Germans like Hermann Schmitz.
You could be right, I was not there and only am going off history as I heard it. Here is the relevant bit from the article I linked above:
The economic based hate came from the accusation that they Jews were stealing money from hard-working citizens. This belief was grounded in the fact that despite the depression followed by recession in the early 1930s that crippled the German economy, Jews were relatively well off financially. Because of this, Jews were seen as greedy money mongers who were obtaining their wealth illegally, even though their fortune came from the practice of money lending.
This is part of the negative characterization of Jews, and reflects some historical truth. While German Jews were wealthier than their Polish and Russian counterparts, the majority did not fair better than their Gentile German neighbors. But the most important thing to understand for the Nazi version of jew-hate is the twinned concepts of the "Stab in the Back" Myth and "Volksgeimenschaft", the "People's Community".
Many Germans believed (wrongly) that they were winning WW1, and should have continued to fight– that they were betrayed by their (allegedly socialist, allegedly anti-German) leaders in accepting the Treaty of Versailles. This is the Stab in the Back myth.
This was blamed on the "others" in society the above poster mentioned. In particular, the Jews– in part for their perceived connection with Bolshevism and with international finance, as you mentioned. They were thus the "other" on which the very exclusionary German conception of a "People's Community" was based!
So you're on to something, but as you suggested, the above poster is pretty right. Thanks for reading!
> You could be right, I was not there and only am going off history as I heard it
Personally, for some issues I feel it's important to be sure that we know what we are talking about.
Speculation can lead to widespread misunderstandings. That's no big deal when talking about the latest Chrome update, but it is for serious issues. And consider that in this case and in many others, so many people have suffered based on misunderstandings (sometimes deliberate ones) and people spreading them. For me, it makes a few hairs stand on end!
He also could have chosen any number of other occasions where Jews were persecuted that didn't involve Nazi Germany and industrialized genocide, but he invoked Nazi Germany for a emotive reason.
I don't think any comparison to Jews being persecuted would have been acceptable. It's all emotive and there is no rational basis. Dodgers fans are 'persecuted' in the Bay Area; is that the same too?
Coming from the Bay Area, I think your analogy with the Dodgers is a bit of a stretch. He is talking about people that are hated for being successful. /s
That's true, but I think he invoked Nazi Germany just because he said it without thinking about it much (I am sure if he recognized the backlash it would have caused, he probably would not have said it at all). :)
> attitude of hatred towards success, which was a large part of the propaganda
If success is defined as not working, but parasitically living off the labor time of those of us who do work, as heirs and VCs and their LPs do, then yes, there is a hatred of "success". We who work don't need heirs parasitically living off our work and sweat.
VCs provide a service that is not entirely parasitic (although I do enjoy the term "vulture capital" :) ). They provide funding (good) and they provide an increased ability for you to sell your company at a higher price (good). Take the Oculus situation - Oculus did not need that $75 million off the bat (via VC $), but it did set the bar for their value and acquisition at the order of $2b. Palmer Lucky is now in his early 20s and worth $700m, hard to argue that he did not walk away with a good deal. (And yeah, its not always a good deal, but often times a better deal than founders would get flying solo).
