Despite the popular perception that WWII was a two-sided war, it's actually a pretty good example of a three-sided war. Two will ally against who they perceive the biggest threat to be. If you would have told anyone in 1936 Britain that five years later they would be sending tanks and airplanes to the Soviet Union, you'd be put away, Kanye-style.
Many would argue that even though Nazi Germany lost the war, the Nazis themselves won the war ideologically, with their stark opposition to the left which protects and uplifts all people being adopted by the entire western world. Eugenics lives on, anti-semitism lives on, reactionary forces live on, genocidal forces live on, imperialism lives on, capitalism lives on and grows ever more attached to the bourgeois state; all of this just to stop communism.
the Nazis themselves won the war ideologically
That's a pretty strange take. Their ideology is reviled throughout the western world and the fastest way to get punched is to say you agree with them. Their very name is an insult. All the other stuff existed long before the Nazis arrived on the scene. They were only around for twelve years. The entire western world united against them and allied with the communists to do so.
It would be more accurate to say that the side of white supremacist, imperialist reaction won in the west. The Nazis were part of that side, but also fought with its most powerful proponents because their ideology was an unhinged death cult. They were crushed, and replaced with a significantly more component liberal-fascist machine that actively realized many of the material goals of the Nazis far more competently than the Nazis ever could.
It would also be accurate to say that many Nazis personally won, since they escaped consequences for their actions and went on to have cushy jobs in the West German government, Interpol, and NATO (and that's just the ones who didn't fuck off to be plantation owners in South America).
WW2 was fascist infighting and the moderate fascists sided with the communists to prevent their working population from revolting and creating a reason for the Soviets to continue rolling tanks west to liberate whatever resistance forces appeared.
That and a healthy dose of realpolitik due to Germany attacking France for basically no reason. If they just pushed east, the Western European governments would have probably avoided joining for as long as possible.
Their ideology is reviled throughout the western world…
Is their ideology really reviled, or is their name? I would argue only the latter.
The entire western world united against them and allied with the communists to do so.
Ok and what happened next?
No need to answer though, I’ll just tell you:
“Ex-”Nazis were put back into positions of power all over the western world. Calling yourself a Nazi will certainly and rightfully get you punched. Getting called a Nazi is absolutely an insult. The ideology lives on, however, not just in groups that openly call themselves Nazis, but in a far more insidious way as well. In the interest of opposing any and all leftist ideals, the seeds which lead to the same monsters as the Nazis were not only not discarded by the west, but sewn intricately into the fabric of how they built their post-war societies. Yes, the ideas of the Nazis have been around long before the Nazis themselves, but the specific framework to streamline oppression, extermination, and exploitation were laid bare more clearly than ever.
Yeah like you cannot just leave off with the ending of WW2, the sequel puts everything into context. We right away started killing communists, put fascists in power every place we could. It is not just supremacy that lived on, the actual regime continued It laid the foundation for stuff like the Phoenix Program and Gladio, it is continued and backed in Italy and Greece, eastern europe post-soviets, Southeast Asia, Latin America, etc. Fascism specifically made the world we live in, they got to design the alignment of power. We are not fighting a rise in fascism, fascism never left, it never left Greece or Italy or Hungary, etc.
