I found the title now, thank you. I have overlooked it 3 times when looking for it. I found it at once in the other link you provided. Apparently the book is only in German.
I'm happy to discuss anything, just note that I'm quite cautious when it comes to making bold statements, as this is the internet and things easily get out of hand here.
I agree with you that some the statements seem to approve of fascism, or at least not discard it, for Germany in the 1930s. To quote another part of the Independent article:
" Oliver Ulbrich, the publisher of the diary excerpts, said he did not believe Kennedy admired Hitler, but was rather fascinated by him. “Kennedy was trying to understand the fascination that was still surrounding Hitler,” he said."
As mentioned before, he was young, exploring the world and letting new impressions, also from travels to Germany, shape him, defining his views and, given that his father clearly was approving of fascism (the impact of nurture on a young one, as I see it), it is of course logical that he wasn't very negative about fascism at that point in time. Again, that does not make one automatically a fascist in my book. Just like my approval of, for example, the Danish society doesn't automatically make me a Dane or a socialist. History books are full of information that would have been very helpful if it was known on beforehand. On the other hand, history books are always written by those who win the war, so they might provide a crooked image of history in itself.
I do believe that Kennedy significantly changed his point of view before the end of the War, as also is stated in the article: "But by 1945, Kennedy was clearly put off by the defeated Germans and their total acceptance of authority." I think that supports my idea that the War in itself changed a lot, opened the eyes of a lot of people, and also to his points of view. We people learn with time, we cannot foresee the future. It's easy to draw conclusions in hindsight, but as long as we don't have a time machine, it's too easy to convict based on that, but also quite pointless. Remember that we didn't have internet then and that access to worldwide real-time information, as we have nowadays, wasn't available then. I believe that our nowadays information overload also significantly changes the way we perceive the world.
Fascism isn't about the Endlosnung, as you seem to interpret me. That's not what I wrote. To me, that's more like executing a part of Nazism, but there's much more to the Nazi philosophy than just killing Jews, in the same fashion as that Salafism isn't just about beheading 'infidels'. I don't think a sane person would have voted for Hitler if his only policy would have been to kill Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and intellectuals in order to get the economy going again. Nazism includes fascism as part of the philosophy, but Nazism and fascism are two different things, really.
I do fully agree with you that Mussolini was a fascist, at least according to my ideas of what fascism is about. But Mussolini was not much a Nazi, for what I know about him.
I'm still interested in learning from you what you believe fascism (and now also Nazism) are, as you've coined the term initially.
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@comrade_Comrade
I found the title now, thank you. I have overlooked it 3 times when looking for it. I found it at once in the other link you provided. Apparently the book is only in German.
I'm happy to discuss anything, just note that I'm quite cautious when it comes to making bold statements, as this is the internet and things easily get out of hand here.
I agree with you that some the statements seem to approve of fascism, or at least not discard it, for Germany in the 1930s. To quote another part of the Independent article:
" Oliver Ulbrich, the publisher of the diary excerpts, said he did not believe Kennedy admired Hitler, but was rather fascinated by him. “Kennedy was trying to understand the fascination that was still surrounding Hitler,” he said."
As mentioned before, he was young, exploring the world and letting new impressions, also from travels to Germany, shape him, defining his views and, given that his father clearly was approving of fascism (the impact of nurture on a young one, as I see it), it is of course logical that he wasn't very negative about fascism at that point in time. Again, that does not make one automatically a fascist in my book. Just like my approval of, for example, the Danish society doesn't automatically make me a Dane or a socialist. History books are full of information that would have been very helpful if it was known on beforehand. On the other hand, history books are always written by those who win the war, so they might provide a crooked image of history in itself.
I do believe that Kennedy significantly changed his point of view before the end of the War, as also is stated in the article: "But by 1945, Kennedy was clearly put off by the defeated Germans and their total acceptance of authority." I think that supports my idea that the War in itself changed a lot, opened the eyes of a lot of people, and also to his points of view. We people learn with time, we cannot foresee the future. It's easy to draw conclusions in hindsight, but as long as we don't have a time machine, it's too easy to convict based on that, but also quite pointless. Remember that we didn't have internet then and that access to worldwide real-time information, as we have nowadays, wasn't available then. I believe that our nowadays information overload also significantly changes the way we perceive the world.
Fascism isn't about the Endlosnung, as you seem to interpret me. That's not what I wrote. To me, that's more like executing a part of Nazism, but there's much more to the Nazi philosophy than just killing Jews, in the same fashion as that Salafism isn't just about beheading 'infidels'. I don't think a sane person would have voted for Hitler if his only policy would have been to kill Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and intellectuals in order to get the economy going again. Nazism includes fascism as part of the philosophy, but Nazism and fascism are two different things, really.
I do fully agree with you that Mussolini was a fascist, at least according to my ideas of what fascism is about. But Mussolini was not much a Nazi, for what I know about him.
I'm still interested in learning from you what you believe fascism (and now also Nazism) are, as you've coined the term initially.