I couldn’t agree more, Grace Omalley, when you talk about how Rockefeller is used to associate Hitler with American conservatism. The obvious problem is that Rockefeller wasn’t a conservative at all, but rather the opposite, a progressive. They also trot out Henry Ford for the same purpose. Hitler admired Ford, and in fact had a portrait of him hung his office. Ford also operated an important factory in Germany. But Henry Ford was, like Rockefeller, a dyed-in-the-wool progressive rather than a conservative. Ford paid for an elaborate Peace Ship publicity stunt to further the Progressive cause and also elect Woodrow Wilson, king of the Progressives. By the way, check out Wilson’s own book “The State” where he argues in favor of the superiority of Aryan ways. Jaw-dropping stuff. Ford’s own company took paternalistic control of their employees’ lives in large company compounds, another quite progressive and anti-conservative effort. Ford also was a gung-ho eugenicist, a signal characteristic of progressives. Ford also was an anti-semite who published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and this must have further endeared him to Hitler’s heart. That’s cause the Nazis were progressives, not conservatives, and this was in fact one of the defences they mounted at Nuremburg. “We got all this from your own progressives, you Americans!”

It’s one of the reasons there ceased to be any progressives after about 1941. They all started calling themselves by another name. “Liberals”, which by the way copted the term. Prior to 1941, when you see the word “liberal”, it means someone beholden to laissez faire ideas. Afterwards, it means someone more enamored of socialism.