Sat 23 Jan 2010
This film on Hitler and Obamacare would be funny if the real back-story was not so tragic
Posted by Helen Evans under US Healthcare Reforms
[12] Comments
This is a spoof film that purports to show Hitler’s support for Obamacare and the general advancement of the US state.
The problem is that for those who know their history this is all too close to the knuckle. For in Britain the architect of the National Health Service, Sir William Beveridge, told the Daily Telegraph in November 1942 that his proposals would take Britain “…half-way to Moscow”.
More significantly, after the Second World War two papers marked ‘secret’ and providing a detailed commentary on Beveridge’s plan were found in Hitler’s Berlin bunker. One ordered that publicity should be avoided but, if mentioned, the report should be used as “…obvious proof that our enemies are taking over national-socialist ideas”. The other report offered a Nazi assessment of the plan as being no ‘botch-up’. The national socialist analyst wrote that the NHS would be “…a consistent system…of remarkable simplicity…superior to the current German social insurance in almost all points”.
Designed to take Britain half way to Moscow and simultaneously admired by Hitler’s inner coterie, socialised medicine and the Fabian welfare state has a particularly unsavory heritage. It is this history that makes the above film a comedy of human tragedy and one deeply rooted in the darker recesses of coercion.
What is your source for the Hitler’s bunker papers please?
Oh dear God, not this sort of far-right drivel again.
Look, saying that the NHS is a Nazi idea might play well on Fox News or the Rush Limbaugh show, on the other side of the Atlantic from the actual people it relates to, but I think you’ll find that saying it in Britain will cause a lot of NHS employees (myself included) to be extremely offended. People don’t take kindly to being told that they work for a Nazi organisation.
Anyway, a bit of basic politics, in the form of a multiple-choice question. Which of the following are comparable to the Nazis? (Note: only one answer is correct)
(a) Conservatives
(b) Liberals
(c) the NHS
(d) UKIP
(e) the Nazis
I’ve posted a longer critique of your organisation here.
Are you an imbecile? Do you post this moronic, irrelevant, tripe to entertain yourself or for some other sinister purpose. I found this highly insulting, both racially and to my intelligence.
How ludicrous. This amounts to saying “Hitler was in favour of socialised healthcare, so socialised healthcare is wrong”. I might well find some quote from Hitler on the benefits of eating, and claim that all people who eat are Nazis.
PeteB, the reference for the Beveridge quote “…half-way to Moscow” can be found in Nick Timmins, The Five Giants, on page 41. For the quotes concerning Hitler’s bunker have a look on page 25. I hope this helps.
David,
Go take your medicine. I hope you’re not a medical professional. I wouldn’t want someone with such violent moodiness near a patient, even in the NHS.
The history behind the NHS and the eugenics movement does have common elements, to pretend otherwise is to live in a fantasy world.
Specifically, it was the beginning of national health statistics in the late 19th century that led to the moral panic of “degeneracy,” which came from the combination of Darwinian ideas applied to social sciences, and the emergence of medical data about the health of working class people.
One part of this panic was to promote the idea of deliberately removing “undesirables”, a process begun in the USA in the early part of the 20th century, but applied most horrifically in Nazi occupied countries from 1933 onwards.
But the other, whilst less violent, had the same objective: the national improvement of collective healthcare. The Fabians originally believed that the “feeble minded” should be institutionalized (given electro-shock therapy), homosexuality was considered “a mental illness” and state control of hospitals became an ideological programme.
This is why Nazi Germany was the first European country to adopt major campaigns against smoking, and why the various prohibitionist movements were strong in late 19th-early 20th century USA and UK.
What part of the NHS’ rationing of healthcare to deny treatment for old people, or smokers, or the obese, do the commentators above think Hitler would object to? I can think of none. As for the smoking ban in pubs: no fascist dictator would have dared introduced such a thing, but Hitler, would certainly approve.
As for A Davidson, I would merely point out, that it seems wise to ask if the reasons for Hitler’s support for socialized healthcare (which you admit) are bad, shouldn’t we consider them? If Hitler was right to think that socilized medicine would advance racialist policies, are we wrong to make sure this does not happen?
One last thought. Harold Shipman. Clearly, this was an extreme individual, but his attitude towards patients was entirely logical, once one accepted the notion that it is not the patient to control healthcare provision or objectives.
No more Harold Shipmans is bang on. Even those who like the NHS have to accept that it does have some very strange intellectual underpinnings.
It is curious how the existence of an alliance of statist Toryism and Socialism has fallen out of any popular consciousness. One of the few studies can be found in Semmel, B., (1960) Imperialism and State Reform: English Social-Imperial Thought, 1895-1914, Harvard University Press, Cambridge M.A. There is a growing litature on eugenics, ‘right wing’ (that is, anti-capitalist and anti-liberal) social Darwinism and paternalism. See: Searle, G. R, (1971) The Quest for National Efficiency, Oxford Universisty Press, Oxford and (1986) Social Hygiene in Twentieth Century Britain, Croom Helm, London. Soloway, R. A., (1990) Demography and Degeneration: Eugenics and the Declining Birthrate in Twentieth Century Britain, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. Some socialist scholars are also beginning to reconsider the origins and nature of the rise of the welfare state in light of such evidence. See: Skocpol, T., (1992) Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States, Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, Cambridge M.A. Jamieson, L., and Corr, H., (eds) (1990) State, Private Life and Political Change, Macmillan, London. Dwork, D., (1987) War is Good For Babies and Other Young Children, Tavistock Publications, London.
Under analysis, the origins of the welfare state looks less like the pure juice of human kindness and altruism, a liberation of the masses, and increasingly more like authoritarian social engineering for the sake of national strength, war or racial hygiene.
Great article in Today’s Daily Mirror on you getting this history out to the masses. See this:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/01/26/fury-over-nazi-slur-on-nhs-by-tory-ally-115875-21995614/
Having read it, it occurs to me that given the insane way the NHS is run and given its horrendous record on the ground – every UK family now has a horror story to tell about its so called care – its nurses and other staff are increasingly being reduced in stature. Very few nurses are now able to deliver the care and treatment they know is right. Politicians, government and their vote seeking bureaucracy reduces us all to pseudo SS style administrators and watchmen.
This is all crap. It is a disgrace that The Mirror let you lot off the hook so lightly today. They ended up just repeating your propaganda for f**k’s sake:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/01/26/fury-over-nazi-slur-on-nhs-by-tory-ally-115875-21995614/
You should be taken to the forest and shot.
Student Nurse Sarah,
I dont know where you get your information from but your point about every UK family having a horror story is a crock of rubbish. Yes the NHS has made mistakes but I can assure you from personal exerience that the service is generally excellent and most UK families would agree. Your comments about SS style admin is as laughable as this whole website, sorry folks but the UK system does work mostly and to get free at point medical care is something we are proud of. Keep knocking it and putting it down, we just laugh at you wetting your pants at the idea of a fairer medical system being introduced, rather than the current failed system you have with fat cat doctors and drug companies lining their pockets while people die as they cannot afford essential treatment. Keep it up, you talk about eugenics and the removal of undesirables, thats what your system does in a very cynical way.
My god! I have just realised this is a UK based blog, how sad. It If there are righ wing loons like this here then there is no hope for reform in the US.
Ms. Evans
Have you ever heard of Godwin’s Law?