Why were we able to stamp out Nazism but not the Taliban?

Submitted ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨NathanielThomas@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨nostupidquestions@lemmy.world⁩

It occurred to me that Nazi ideology was entrenched in the German people from as early as the 1920s and officially since 1933 to 1945. You’d think that such a systemic worldview would be difficult to eradicate but it would seem Nazism was quickly removed after the Allies and Russians conquered them.

On the flip side, the Taliban have an entrenched ideology, but despite being occupied for over 20 years they returned to power overnight.

So, I guess two questions: Why didn’t the Nazis wage a guerrilla campaign to retake power? And why were we unable to destroy the Taliban the way we did Nazism?

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Sanctus@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
We didn’t stamp out Nazism. Nobody did.

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- Uranium3006@kbin.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  we should really consider doing it already. I'm real tired of all the nazi shit
  
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  - RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The problem is that ideologies can’t ever really be truly eliminated. Once one is created, it will always be around forever so long as just one human retains knowledge of it.
    
    I too am saddened by the amount of people that hold Nazi (or Nazi-like) ideals, but there is basically nothing you or I can do. Outside of constantly trying to talk to them and convincing them to change their mind, society cannot be rid of ideologies. Even if you outlaw it (which is true in many places already), they will simply go underground to grow in numbers for a later time. Even if you deport them all to an island, they will still exist with hatred to come back later. Even if you genocide all of them, other people will remain that question if those ideals are really good, and some may foolishly think they are and become new Nazis. Now all the genocided ones have become martyrs. Its a neverending game of Whack-A-Mole.
    
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  - fugepe@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Your meds sweetheart, take them.
    
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- Entropy@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I think OP means why didn’t the Nazis retake power after the allies left Germany at the end of world war II. To which I would respond, the nukes we dropped on Japan probably.
  
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RavenFellBlade@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nazism hasn’t been stamped out. It’s just been given a number of new names to make it more palatable. A sizeable percentage of American “Conservatives”, especially in the MAGA cult, subscribe to an ideology that is every bit as fascist, nationalist, white-supremacist, and Christofascist as the Nazis. The only difference is the nation they represent. We’re currently seeing a meteoric rise in antisemitic rhetoric from those same elements.

Nazism is just a specific brand of fascist nationalism. Make no mistake, there’s every bit of effort to push several nations, and especially America, into a new fourth Reich in everything but name and nation.

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- MR_GABARISE@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Indeed, people seem to be blind to the Trump Wall and seem to have completely blanked out on the separated families and forced hysterectomies.
  
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xc2215x@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nazism has not been completely eliminated.

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- postmateDumbass@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Assimilated more than eliminated.
  
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McJonalds@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nazism is alive and well. It’s not about stamping out hate fpr a certain group, it’s about educating people beyond manipulation so they don’t think they have to kill others

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- C4d@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Agree. Ideas, however heinous, never quite die out. But we can educate people so that they can abhorrent ideology for what it is and avoid being radicalised.
  
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Budsofstone@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
By we, I’m assuming you mean the american military complex. Too echo others they didn’t stamp out the Nazis they hired them as “scientists” and higher ups in the intelligence agencies. And the ideology lives on around the world and is on the rise. The Taliban and Isis were essentially created by the CIA, u can read about it on Wikipedia. America isnt in western asia to stop the Taliban, America is there to extract resources. But even if America was in western Asia to stop the Taliban america did little to stop Nazi Germany they didn’t enter the war till close to the end and Soviet union had annexed the capital 3 days before the US military was there

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mymanchris@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The Nazi party was outlawed following the war. The Nazi ideology was not stamped out. The reason why the Nazi party didn’t fight a guerilla war to maintain power was because they didn’t have to. Prominent Nazis with valuable skills were pardoned and welcomed into mainstream life (e.g. Werner von Braun became one of the lead rocket scientists for NASA). I don’t believe they even had to recant their ideology or party affiliation.

One need only watch a few far right rallies before a swastika flag or three will show up and announce that Nazism is still alive and well 80 years later.

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bradorsomething@ttrpg.network ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I have terrible news for you about Nazism.

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Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Because america didnt need more scientists this time to build their space program so they couldnt give jobs to all the taliban

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jantin@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Two things: geography and popular support.

Most of Germany is a massive plain with super-dense settlement network. There is nowhere to hide for a partisan group and by 20th century it’s not possible for local chieftains to hold sovereign power as it’s easy to just move towns/regions. Nazis had no way to hide their potential guerilla operations, no way to rely on sympathetic locals in select places. Afghanistan is sparsely populated, with local communities, which sometimes can be isolated from each other due to terrain and distances. The entire country is mountains which have hardly ever been surveyed and are inhospitable to anyone not born there (and even then it’s just too easy to hide).

Yes, millions of Germans supported the Nazi party. But millions more were quietly against it or were “not interested in politics”. After WW2 the Nazi party was soundly beaten and the non-commited/antinazi Germans could build a civil society - in a land which had centuries of civic traditions. Whereas the Taliban have more commited supporters and weaponise the religion which already is very influential in any individual’s life in a land dominated by patriarchal clan social structures.

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ReallyKinda@kbin.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Nazism was quite centralized and therefore easier to target and eliminate. The bureaucratic structure made it easy to find and convict the main players afterwards. The ideology wasn’t totally eliminated, but new laws and such helped tamp it down.

The taliban is much less centralized and on top of that the various governments involved don’t have a lot of incentive to fall into line like Germany (which the US came in and rebuilt with a ton of strings attached so that it wouldn’t lose its German market share).

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Hazdaz@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Lots of comments in here already, but a few things to consider:

one was a highly organized entity, while the other was not. Guerrilla warfare is always feared by armies around the world because there is no one single leader and a specific organizational chart. Also killing off an idea (especially one that evolves) is far more difficult than eliminating an organization’s headquarters.

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Uranium3006@kbin.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
we didn't

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- fugepe@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  mom I’m seeing Nazis everywhere again
  
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loom_in_essence@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Terrorism doesn’t have an empire in the same way. They don’t usually occupy an entire nation with an economy and complex professional society. The empire was crushed.

Terrorism is all underground. Do we know how it’s funded? What are the economics of terrorism? Infrastructure? They’re more slippery.

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C4d@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Sadly the terrible ideas that lead to Nazi Germany and the horrors that came with it still abound.

Wikipedia link to NeoNazism:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Nazism

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- loom_in_essence@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Nazis only lost their empire. They’re basically terrorists themselves now, though not as well funded apparently.
  
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rsuri@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Resources - Germany was occupied by 4 countries, all of which had large, drafted armies. The US didn’t ever really attempt a full occupation of Afghanistan and outsourced the occupation to blatantly unprepared Afghan forces.

Depletion of resistance - As Germany fought almost until the complete end, there just weren’t many young male ardent Nazis left after they lost 2,000,000 people during the war. The Taliban by contrast melted into the South of Afghanistan and eventually Pakistan, and never really went away.

Common enemy - Remember, Germany was divided between east and west for decades. Whatever Nazis were left likely retained their hatred for communism, and had at least that as a reason for collaborating with the western allies. This wasn’t as much of a factor for the Eastern part of Germany, but then again that regime didn’t last either.

Better occupiers? A bit speculative, but one might imagine that the occupying forces would’ve been more sympathetic to Europeans that had more in common with themselves as compared to Afghans from a completely different world. American forces in Afghanistan were rather heavy-handed, walling themselves off from the common Afghan people and building detention and torture centers. The resulting Humiliation and frustration among Afghans may have contributed to sympathy for the Taliban.

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southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The greatest mistake ever made in human history was not killing every single nazi e after ww2.

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- Chickenstalker@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  In America’s case, it was not allowing Gen. Sherman to finish his job properly in the South.
  
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  - southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I can kinda see that. Sure as hell, there wasn’t enough change made, and the same bullshit kept on happening.
    
    I can’t say that it works out exactly the same, but it’s a pretty good pick for a huge mistake that would have made for a better humanity despite the cost of it.
    
    However, I think that if the political and legal pressure to change southern culture had been kept up, it would have been effective eventually in bringing an improvement. Sure as shit, too many of the same assholes kept power and money after the civil war, and that’s a recipe for another hundred plus years of oppression and stomping on the nominally equal (but never truly given the fruits of freedom and equality) freed slaves.
    
    It’s a stain I don’t think the country can ever erase.
    
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- NathanielThomas@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I mean, the question would be who qualifies as a Nazi? The Nuremburg trials did execute the leadership. Others who were in the SS or SA were imprisoned.
  
  But you couldn’t kill the rank and file or that would be potentially killing soldiers just following orders.
  
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  - southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Nah, they should have killed anyone and everyone in the party in germany, and anyone that had beem supporters here in the US, or anywhere. Some things have to be stomped out regardless of the cost.
    
    If they had been less gentle, we wouldn’t have to deal with the resurgences that have happened over the years. If it did come back, it would have been weaker, andn the symbols with less power.
    
    It’s the one extremist thing I am convinced of, that the only acceptable nazi is a dead nazi
    
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