WASHINGTON—Claiming that historians have unfairly vilified the 20th-century German dictator and misrepresented his role in the far-right political party, many conservative pundits and activists argue that Adolf Hitler’s Nazi allegiances have been greatly exaggerated. “Just because Hitler was Führer and Chancellor of the Reich during World War II, liberals are always making him out to be some kind of Nazi,” political commentator Lee Gunderson told reporters Thursday, explaining that as a German politician who rose to power in the 1930s, Hitler certainly had to work with the Nazis, but that did not necessarily mean the group represented his beliefs. “He gets a bad rap because history textbooks are written by elite left-wing professors with a political agenda. Did Hitler attend a Nazi Party meeting or two? Sure. Did he wear a swastika on the arm of his military uniform? Yes, and so did everyone else in Germany back then. Are there films of him giving the Nazi Sieg Heil salute and making speeches in which he rails against the Jews? Most certainly, but are we willing to condemn a man for simply exercising his right to free speech?” Gunderson went on to state that it was obvious Hitler was being discriminated against for belonging to the master race.
