“Hitler Was(n’t) a Socialist” – adaptation of Prokofiev’s “Dance of the Knights by The Marsh Family

This song and video, putting claims about Hitler’s ‘socialism’ into historical context and debunking some of the myths shared about it, was blocked by YouTube and TikTok for violating their ‘Hate Speech’ policy. We were very sad and surprised by this, as the whole point of the project was to use the overwhelming consensus of professional historians to challenge conspiracy theories (which abound on YouTube and TikTok). It is another worrying sign that social media platforms and AI are inhibiting the expression of satire and information. So we’ve put it here for those interested in the subject or the censorship.

The Marsh Family

Original YouTube Descriptor

TITLE: “Hitler Was(n’t) Socialist” – adaptation of Prokofiev’s “Dance of the Knights” by The Marsh Family

Eighty years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the survivors of the horrors perpetrated there by the Nazis had a very clear and moving message to the world. It was summarised by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum: “This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence.” The descent began by selling racial hate and nationalist hope through misinformation, and exploiting economic miseries and technological upheavals. It deepened by normalising abuses and violence in the public sphere, and by deliberately rotting democratic mechanisms from within to replace them with industrial levels of propaganda and brutality.

History is about evidence, interpretation, and argument – in order to build understanding. It’s complicated. The gaps in evidence, the differences in interpretation, and the implications of arguments all afford space for dispute. But there are some things that are beyond credible dispute. When the perpetrators of great evils have their actions or intentions wilfully aped, sanitised, justified, or mischaracterised – or when professional expertise is afforded the same weight as conspiracy theories – alarm bells should ring.

The point of this song is to skewer some of the nonsense about Hitler and the Nazis – most prominently aired again by Alice Weidel, co-chairwoman of the growing “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) party, in a fawning conversation with Elon Musk earlier this month. We counterpose these claims & their precursors against the best scholarship & biographies assembled by internationally-acclaimed historians in recent years.

For the music, the good news is the audio on our laptop is fixed, the bad that we took on a challenging sing: “Dance of the Knights” has no words (mostly crazy aggravated orchestral flurries). We chose Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet “Romeo and Juliet” – written in 1935, and premiered in Czechoslovakia in 1938, a few months before German troops marched in – because of its epic style, topical relevance (the composer was born in the Donetsk region, and had a conflicted relationship with the murderous propagandistic Soviet regime), and subject matter (tragic battle between factions that ultimately overtakes the lives of innocents).

LYRICS

Hitler was a socialist yes Adolph was a leftie

He was collectivist, he weaponised the state

He would be “woke” now

Now he’d call his party “woke” – he’d

Wear rainbows

Use pronouns

The Nazis were …

A bunch of socialists – the word is in their name!

Why would they have put it there if they were not?

They weren’t into propaganda… no!

They weren’t all mental …

Maybe it’s a little bit more complicated when you think that

Hitler chose a deliberate misnomer designed

To pull support and votes from lower classes quite fed up with

Terrible inflation and the failure of the state – though

The workers shunned it

So he allied with the army

Setting up the first of many concentration camps like Dachau

Socialists were among the very first to be

Rounded up in 1933 as Nazis took control

Hitler purged any radical dissent, even

Murdering the Nazis known as Strasserists he disagreed with

Hitler wasn’t socialist – he made it very clear, he

Just used the label as a kind of a veneer

Don’t judge the labels Left and right can both abuse them

Judge actions

With facts and

Steer clear

SOURCES:

Footage:

  • United States Holocaust Memorial Musuem
  • Wiener Holocaust Library
  • National WW2 Museum
  • Martin Niemöller

Scholarship:

  • Richard J. Evans
  • Ian Kershaw
  • Nikolaus Wachsmann
  • Volker Ullrich
  • Thomas Sandkühlwer
  • Michael Wildt

Media:

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