Netflix has a new Hitler documentary which has a not so subtle implication that Trump is similar to Hitler.  They repeat that Hitler wanted to “make Germany great again,” and imply the Beer Hall Putsch was similar to January 6th.  Other than that, it’s an informative docuseries, with some rare footage of the Nuremberg trials. 

The suggestion is that Trump is analogous to Hitler because, after all, they both wanted to make their respective countries great again.  And perhaps that’s true–but would liberals say that there is inherently something wrong with making a country great again, or a return to greatness in general?  They might think it sounds too nationalistic; it just doesn’t have the right tone for their tastes. 

There aren’t too many parallels between America in the pre-Trump era, the Obama presidency, and Weimar Germany, except a spirit of liberalism and a remembered greatness.  In fact, Hitler and the Nazis takes a more sympathetic view of the Weimar Republic as “a progressive liberal democracy” with “relative political stability” and a “thriving cultural sphere.” It also cites Magnus Hirschfield as bringing to the open studies of homosexuality as well as the first transgender surgeries. So that’s what the Weimar Republic and its luminaries were up to. 

For young Hitler, greatness was prior to WWI when Germany was emerging as a great industrial power, prior to the rampant inflation after their defeat in WWI and the humiliation of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.  For Trump, the time of remembered greatness could simply be the 1980s.  

But that’s about where the similarity ends.  After all, Trump is far from initiating a holocaust; he’s a philosemite if anything.  Aside from his own daughter converting to Judaism, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner as his (ill-advised) advisor, Trump is far from seeking a Hitlerian “final solution.”  

The docuseries further refers to the “forgotten man” of the Weimar Era, the countryfolk who might not have appreciated the sexual innovations of the Weimar Republic.  This is a phrase frequently used by Trump to describe the disaffected White working class; and this phrase, I would suggest, was used intentionally by the documentary.  

Director Joe Berlinger, himself Jewish according to Wikipedia, is quoted in The Times of Israel: 

“How this has been presented in the past is just your information blabbed at you by historians,” Berlinger said. “And there’s no effort to contextualize and to humanize.”

The way to read “contextualize” here is to see that Berlinger has taken this Hitler documentary as an opportunity to compare Hitler to Trump and to push his own leftist politics.  “How this has been presented in the past,” as Belinger puts it, is that honest historians have given the facts and their analysis of events.  His agenda is somewhat different.

You can take this whole insinuation seriously and pick it apart, but imagine the audacity of Netflix to put this insidious contemporary political spin on a Hitler documentary. 

Otherwise, Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial does lay out the facts from a historical perspective despite this politicization, and the quality of the historical footage is impressive.  Berlinger notes that this is part of an effort on behalf of Netflix to delve into historical documentary: 

“This grew out of [Netflix] wanting to try the history bucket, which they hadn’t yet kind of tackled,” he said.

They have touched upon religion; namely Moses.  This effort was equally problematic, which I discussed in a previous video: 

Netflix can keep doing their tricks, and I will continue to document their deceptions. 

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