Noam Chomsky Quotes About Nazis

• When I was growing up in the 1930s and '40s anti-Semitism was rampant. It wasn't like Nazi Germany but it was pretty serious - it was part of life.

  Noam Chomsky

  Growing Up, Germany, Serious

  Source: thehumanist.com

• It's a lesser-known story, but the Japanese government (after the Russian-Nazi pact, which split Poland) did allow Polish Jews to come to Japan, with the expectation that they would then be sent to the United States. But they weren't accepted, so they stayed in Japan.

  Noam Chomsky

  Government, Japan, Expectations

  Source: thehumanist.com

• No liberal newspaper ever talked about the invasion of Vietnam; they talked about the defense of Vietnam. And then they were saying, "well, it's not going well." Ok, that make them liberal. It's like, it's if we were to say, that going back to, say, Nazi Germany, that Hitler's general staff was liberal after Stalingrad because they were criticizing his tactics: "It was a mistake to fight a two front war, we should've knocked off Englad first," or something.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Mistake, Fighting

  Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

• Some international law specialists compare the invasion of Iraq to the 'crimes against the peace' for which Nazi leaders were indicted at Nuremberg.

  Noam Chomsky

  Law, Iraq, Leader

• The reaction we should be having to [rich liberals] is not ridicule, but rather self-criticism. Why aren't we organizing them? I mean, we are the ones that ought to be organizing them, not Rush Limbaugh. There are historical analogs, which are not exact, of course, but are close enough to be worrisome. This is a whiff of early Nazi Germany.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Self, Historical

  Source: www.iww.org

• When Nazi emissaries came to the United States, they were welcomed at Harvard.

  Noam Chomsky

  United States, Nazi, Harvard

  Source: thehumanist.com

• There are historical analogs, which are not exact, of course, but are close enough to be worrisome. This is a whiff of early Nazi Germany. [Adolf] Hitler was appealing to groups with similar grievances, and giving them crazy answers, but at least they were answers; these groups weren't getting them anywhere else. It was the Jews and the Bolsheviks [that were the problem].

  Noam Chomsky

  Crazy, Giving, Historical

  Source: www.iww.org

• In general, the attitude towards Nazi Germany was not that hostile, especially if you look at the U.S. State Department reports. In 1937 the State Department was describing Adolf Hitler as a "moderate" who was holding off the forces of the right and the left.

  Noam Chomsky

  Attitude, Germany, Looks

  Source: thehumanist.com

• You can read it in history books now, but they often suppress the fact that the U.S. government tolerated [Nazi]. It's really remarkable because they claim that [Franklin] Roosevelt was impeded by the Neutrality Act. On the other hand, he bitterly condemned a Mexican businessman for sending several guns to the Republic. If you look back, oil was the one commodity that [Francisco] Franco could not receive from the Germans and the Italians, so that was quite significant.

  Noam Chomsky

  Book, Gun, Government

  Source: thehumanist.com

• It was reported in the left-wing press in the late 1930s that the Texas Company (Texaco), headed by the Nazi sympathizer Torkild Rieber, diverted its oil shipments from the Republic, with which it had contracts, to [Francisco] Franco.

  Noam Chomsky

  Texas, Wings, Oil

  Source: thehumanist.com

• I suspect most likely that more Nazis came to America. I was a student at Harvard during the early 1950s. There was practically no Jewish faculty there.

  Noam Chomsky

  America, Students, Nazi

  Source: thehumanist.com

• Take like, say, Obama, he's called "liberal" and he's praised for his "principled objection to the Iraq war". What was his "principled objection"? He says it was a "strategic blunder," like Nazi generals after Stalingrad.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Iraq, Nazi

  Source: theanarchistlibrary.org

• George Kennan is another extreme case. He was the American consul in Berlin until the war between Germany and the United States broke out in December 1941. And until then he was writing pretty supportive statements back stressing that we shouldn't be so hard on the Nazis if they were doing something we didn't agree with - basically repeating the idea that they were people we could do business with.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Stress, Writing

  Source: thehumanist.com

• The British had an even stronger [then America] business interest in Nazi Germany. And Benito Mussolini was greatly admired.

  Noam Chomsky

  America, Stronger, Germany

  Source: thehumanist.com

• There's an interesting book about that called The Third Reich and the Ivory Tower, written by Stephen H. Norwood. It has a long discussion about Harvard, and indeed the school's president, James Conant, did block Jewish faculty. He was the one who prevented European Jews from being admitted to the chemistry department - his field - and also had pretty good relations with the Nazis.

  Noam Chomsky

  Block, Book, School

  Source: thehumanist.com

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