The Conundrum of Nazi Supporters and Sympathizers at Substack
What should be prioritized first, principles or profits?
Adolf Hitler with Gertrud Deetz—the wife of Gauleiter Albert Forster (Gauleiter & Reichsstatthalter of Danzig-West Prussia), at the Berghof, Hitler's estate in Upper Bavaria in the late 1930s.
“Democracies base their education on the doctrine that man is a being who has reached perfection through culture. This grievous mistake, monstrous as it is, is superseded by another-—the illusion that spiritual culture can provide a nation with the stability which in reality can be obtained only through the political deeds of a great personality.” [Rust]
These deeds, of course, are conquests, the great personality is Hitler.
The keynote of the whole doctrine as expounded by Rust can be found on page ten. [The Official Teachers Manual of the Nazi Education Systems written by Rust] It is bitterly simple. The aim of education is not culture; it is not spiritual freedom; it is not emancipation of the mind. Education is training for a life of Might. And this Might can only be snatched from the hands of Fate only through the political conquests of the Fuehrer.
What tremendous importance Rust places on this education for Power becomes more clear on the next page: “Before we can have a new education of Might, before we can rightfully discuss a new system of culture, there must be a new order, a new regime inspired by the Will for Power and Might…” [pg. 18]1
[Bernhard Rust, Reich Minister of Science, Education and Culture]
I have to wonder about and ask the following questions to those who think it is acceptable to allow Nazism to have a voice in a free democratic society, that rightfully condemns its ideology of “Might makes Right,” as being in complete opposition to America’s Declaration of Independence and its subsequent egalitarian constitution.
Are you aware of the fact that a public-facing business platform such as Substack, where the first amendment right to free speech is curtailed by the fact that it is a private business, is not obligated to provide a completely censor-free environment?
And more to the point:
What if Adolf Hitler—
or any one of his immediate associates, Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Albert Speer, or Eva Braun, or any number of other historic Nazi facilitators, for example, Adolf Eichmann, Martin Bormann, Karl Brandt, Theodor Eicke, Reinhard Heydrich, Herbert Lange, Alfred Rosenberg, etcetera and the list goes into hundreds of individuals all of whom fully supported the NAZI Regime and its most well known genocide attempt of an entire class of persons, who all self-identified with their historic ancestral religion Judaism,
—started a Substack and actively began promoting and writing about the correctness of applying a Nazi worldview to American society?
Would that writing about and its promotion of Nazism as a correct and acceptable worldview be deemed worthy of being characterized as an acceptable use of free speech?
Train disembarkation at Auschwitz, date unknown. Contrary to popular conceptions of Auschwitz as a killing center its ultimate purpose was actually to be a profit center, where enslaved disposable labor was its primary function. The Cunning of History: The Holocaust and the American Future by Richard L. Rubenstein discusses this perspective with exceptional clarity and depth.
From my perspective for Substack as a business the bottom line is its profit margin; unfortunately money matters, for without funding Substack would have no reason to provide the advertisement-free service that they offer and many who have something that they want to write about would not have this platform to use, via which many also happen to earn money from their use of the subscription service.
What I have also noticed is that Substack manages (algorithmically in all likelihood) to keep its many publishers politically separated and more or less unable to see and become aware of their opposing perspective holders, this again is probably a profit driven decision, as it simply would not do to lose any great number of publishers from either side of the political spectrum, due to precisely the simple questions being asked in the recent Substackers Against Nazis letter to Substack Leadership.
Of course those who are open about their choice of Nazism as an acceptable worldview are not the least bit concerned about the fact that they share this platform with Liberal non-violent worldview holders and could care less about these issues.
And so the likelihood that the platform would lose any Nazis having any “qualms of conscious” is extremely low.
The simple fact of the matter is that this letter is not making any demands of Substack as a business other than to simply answer the questions posed; after that the individual publishers can make their own decisions about whether they want to remain and continue to be associated with a business model that profits from its association with publishers that support Nazism, who also use the same subscription service which results in their profiting from promoting the evil ideology of Nazism.
Other websites are taking note of this issue and bringing attention to it for their readers, for instance at Forbes Magazine the following article briefly discusses the matter:
Over 100 Substack Writers Sign Letter Condemning Site For Hosting Nazi And White Supremacist Newsletters Forbes Magazine
My personal perspective is that NAZISM is straight-up unquestionably evil, and should not be allowed any opportunities to be resurrected.
Perhaps some of Substack’s most well respected and prominent publisher’s might push for some answers to these questions. Or, perhaps they might even decide to look into starting an alternate platform for writers where they would place principles first and profits second. Now there is a thought. Let us ask them-
Adolf Hitler dining with Eva Braun at his Berghof residence.
The presence of Nazi supporters and sympathizers at Substack clearly presents a conundrum for those publishers who do care more about principles being prioritized first over and above profits.
Robert J. Rei, December 15, 2023
“Education For Death, the Making of the Nazi” Gregor Ziemer, 1941, Octagon Books, New York, 1972 Reprint, Pg 18
Freedom of speech does not equal freedom to spread racism and hatred online.
It's evil to profit from hate.