The Slatest

1922 Hitler Article in Times Suggests Possible Downside to Assuming Fascists Won’t Follow Through on Their Rhetoric

A crowd in Berlin celebrating outside the Hotel Kaiserhof, where Hitler was sworn in as Germany’s imperial chancellor, on Jan. 30, 1933.

Imagno/Getty Images

One thing you will hear people say about Donald Trump is that he might not actually be that terrible a president because he wouldn’t actually follow through on the fascist things he says he is going to do, like deporting 10 million Latinos and banning Muslims from the country. Lots of regular politicians say things they don’t really mean or promise things they couldn’t accomplish to get attention during campaigns, so maybe Trump is the same way, right?

Well, as an old article flagged by the Wall Street Journal’s Jon Ostrower indicates, that line of reasoning was the official New York Times take on actual Hitler. From the 1922 piece, which was the first time that Hitler was mentioned in the paper:

Screenshot/New York Times

Wow! Those “well-informed sources” really ended up with egg on their faces.