I thought I'd post this as a reference since we often discuss topics that involve Nazism, whether it's "Pat Buchanan (or Ariel Sharon, or Rudy Giuliani, or whoever) is a Nazi" or "the Nazis were Christians" or "Democrats are Nazis" or "Dictatorship Coming, SHTF Soon".  

The Twenty-Five Points are the platform of the Nazi Party from 1920.  These are the ideas and promises that they offered the German people in their rise to power.

Rather than list the whole thing, here are a couple of links ( [url]http://www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/25point.htm[/url] , [url]http://www.corax.org/revisionism/documents/200224NSDAPprogram.html[/url] ) and some highlights:

Socialist ideas
- We demand that the State shall make it its first duty to promote the industry and livelihood of the citizens of the State.
- The activities of the individual must not clash with the interests of the whole, but must proceed within the framework of the community and must be for the general good.
- We demand that there shall be profit sharing in the great industries.
- We demand a generous development of provision for old age.
-The State must apply itself to raising the standard of health in the nation by protecting mothers and infants, prohibiting child labor, and increasing bodily efficiency by legally obligatory gymnastics and sports, and by extensive support of clubs engaged in the physical training of the young.

You might want to ask a "progressive" friend if he agrees with these ideas, then tell him the source. [}:)]

Religious Ideas
- We demand liberty for all religious denominations in the State, so far as they are not a danger to it and do not militate against the moral and ethical feelings of the German race. The Party, as such, stands for positive Christianity, but does not bind itself in the matter of creed to any particular confession.

Does this mean that the Nazis were Christians?  IMHO, no.  They (the leadership, at least) were just exploiting Christianity as a component of nationalism.

BTW, the rest of the platform consists largely of the sort of nationalist and anti-Semitic material you'd expect.

Disclaimer: the www.corax.org site appears to endorse efforts to deny the Holocaust.  I'm only linking to it because it had the best version of the Twenty-Five Points that I could find.

Oh, people call conservatives Nazis so glibly it doesn't really mean anything.  Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, you have to admit they had some really spiffy uniforms.  Especially the SS and Gestapo guys.  

Silly as it may seem, they were very shrewd in promoting impeccable dress and other sorts of symbolism, thereby generating for themselves more respect.

Himmler was an avowed practitioner of the "Black Arts". occultic. i wonder if there were any connection between Himmler and madame blavtsky.

a Christian group known as the White Rose were executed by the NAZI's for promoting anit-NAZI literature and helping Jews to excape the country. a lot of the members of the White Rose society were enlisted weirmacht and medical students. the White Rose society was primarlily protestant, but had some catholic members as well.

The White Rose society still exists today and promotes democracy versus totaltrarian forms of goverance. they have an official website detaliling thier original members heroic deeds. some of them women.


lib

The White Rose group quoted Goethe in their first leaflet.  How cool is that? [8D]

From Goethe’s The Awakening of Epimenides, Act II, Scene 4.

SPIRITS:  
Though he who has boldly risen from the abyss  
Through an iron will and cunning  
May conquer half the world,  
Yet to the abyss he must return.  
Already a terrible fear has seized him;  
In vain he will resist!  
And all who still stand with him  
Must perish in his fall.  
HOPE:  
Now I find my good men  
Are gathered in the night,  
To wait in silence, not to sleep.  
And the glorious word of liberty  
They whisper and murmur,  
Till in unaccustomed strangeness,  
On the steps of our temple  
Once again in delight they cry:  
Freedom! Freedom!