The Hitler Card

Alias:

  • Argumentum ad Nazium1
  • Playing the Hitler/Nazi Card2
  • Reductio ad Hitlerum3

Taxonomy: Logical Fallacy > Informal Fallacy > Red Herring > Guilt by Association > The Hitler Card < Weak Analogy < Informal Fallacy < Logical Fallacy

Exposition:

In almost every heated debate, one side or the other—often both—plays the "Hitler card", that is, criticizes their opponent's position or the opponents themselves by associating them in some way with Adolf Hitler or the Nazis. This move is so common that it led Mike Godwin to develop "Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies": "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.4"

There are two related logical fallacies that fall under the term "the Hitler card", depending on whether it is an idea or a person or group that is linked to the Nazis:

  1. Ideas: Criticizing or rejecting an idea simply because Adolf Hitler or the Nazis espoused it5.
    Forms
    Adolf Hitler accepted idea I.
    Therefore, I must be wrong.    		 The Nazis accepted idea I.
    Therefore, I must be wrong.
    Examples
    The Nazis engaged in euthanasia6.
    Therefore, euthanasia is wrong.    		 The Nazis favored eugenics.
    Therefore, eugenics is wrong.
    Counter-Examples
    Hitler was a vegetarian7.
    Therefore, vegetarianism is wrong.    		 The Nazis were conservationists.
    Therefore, conservationism is wrong.
  2. People: Criticizing or rejecting persons or groups simply because they accept some idea associated with Hitler and the Nazis, or because of some superficial similarities. Often politicians or political groups are attacked in this way. When directed at a person, it is a form of the abusive ad hominem, since few want to be associated with Nazism or Hitler.
    Forms
    Adolf Hitler accepted idea I.
    Person P accepts I.
    Therefore, P is as bad as Hitler.    		 The Nazis accepted idea I.
    Group G accepts I.
    Therefore, G is a bunch of Nazis.
    Examples
    There are many examples of the Hitler Card in American politics as this is written; so many, in fact, that you can easily find examples with a quick search of the news. The current president has been accused of being a Nazi or a fascist, which is much the same thing, for many years. A more recent victim is Elon Musk, who supported the current president during last year's election. Prior to that support, no one suggested that he might be a Nazi, but since then his every comment and even gesture has been closely scrutinized for evidence of Nazi-ness. Support an alleged Nazi and that makes you an alleged Nazi, I guess.

    While a bit amusing, it's also pathetic that our politics is so debased that such examples are frequent enough to be boring. So, rather than boring myself and you with one that will be forgotten in a month, I thought I'd cite a meta-example. Less than two weeks ago, Newsweek published an opinion piece titled "Trump Is Not Hitler". When did that become news? What's next? "The Earth is Not Flat"? "The Moon is Not Made of Cheese?" "Two Plus Two Does Not Equal Five"?

    Here's an excerpt:

    …[W]e do ourselves no favors by falling into the habit of labeling every political figure we dislike as a new Hitler. [Throat-clearing omitted.] It's…a lazy, sensationalist, and manipulative comparison that stirs emotions, bypasses critical thinking, and ultimately damages the quality of public discourse. … When we casually throw around the Hitler comparison, we trivialize the industrialized slaughter of millions and the global devastation caused by that particularly monstrous figure. Worse, we shut down any possibility of a thoughtful, fact-based critique of today's political leaders. Instead of holding them accountable for their specific actions and policies, we reduce the conversation to cartoonish hysteria.

    If the goal is to persuade others―or even simply to have a productive discussion―hyperbole is counterproductive. Imagine being someone who supports Trump or is on the fence about him. Once you hear the Hitler comparison, you're not likely to listen to anything else, right? Any legitimate critique that might have resonated is drowned out by outrage. Similarly, …equating political opponents with supporters of a Hitler-like figure doesn't change minds. It only hardens divisions, fuels resentment, and drives people deeper into their respective camps. …[S]o long as we keep relying on extreme labels and comparisons, we're only going to continue deepening the political divide and making it even harder to find any common ground. … We must keep talking to each other, not just slinging mud across the aisle.8

    Well said, but all of that should have gone without saying.

Exposure:

  • Some instances of the Hitler card are factually incorrect, or even ludicrous, in ascribing ideas to Hitler or other Nazis that they did not hold. However, from a logical point of view, even if Hitler or other Nazis did accept an idea, this historical fact alone is insufficient to discredit it.
  • The Hitler Card is often combined with other fallacies, for instance, a weak analogy between an opponent and Hitler, or between the opposition political group and the Nazis. A related form of fallacious analogy is that which compares an opponent's actions with the Holocaust. This is the second form of the fallacy because it casts the opposition in the role of Nazi. Not only do such arguments assign guilt by association, but the analogy used to link the opponent's actions with the Holocaust may be superficial or question-begging.
  • Other Hitler cards combine guilt by association with a slippery slope. For instance, it is sometimes argued that the Nazis practised euthanasia, and therefore even voluntary forms of it are a first step onto a slippery slope leading to extermination camps. Like many slippery slope arguments, this is a way of avoiding arguing directly against voluntary euthanasia, instead claiming that it may indirectly lead to something admittedly bad.
  • Playing the Hitler card demonizes opponents in debate by associating them with evil, and almost always derails the discussion. People naturally resent being associated with Nazism, and are usually angered. In this way, playing the card can be an effective distraction in a debate, causing the opponent to lose track of the argument. However, when people become convinced by guilt by association arguments that their political opponents are not just mistaken, but are as evil as Nazis, reasoned debate can give way to violence. So, the Hitler card is more than just a dirty trick in debate, it is often "fighting words" and may lead to the argumentum ad baculum.
  • Germany today bans capital punishment, but the history of this ban is surprising: The government of the former West Germany adopted the ban in 1949 and it continues in effect today in the reunited Germany. The law that banned the death penalty was proposed by a politician sympathetic to the Nazi war criminals who were being executed after World War 2, and was intended to block such executions. Should the disreputable historical origins of the ban influence those Germans who today oppose capital punishment to reconsider their views? Should the ban be repealed simply because it was the brainchild of a Nazi sympathizer? Capital punishment is either right or wrong. If it is right, then the ban should be repealed, regardless of its origins; if it's wrong, then the ban should be continued, despite its origins. While the history of the origins of Germany's ban on capital punishment is interesting, it is irrelevant to the moral and legal question of whether the ban should continue. Those Germans who support capital punishment should resist the temptation to play the Hitler card.9

Notes:

  1. This phrase seems to have been first used with a different meaning, namely, for an argument against ethical relativism that uses Nazism as a counter-example. See, for instance: Piers Benn, Ethics (1998), pp. 16-17. In the years since, it has come to be used as an alias for the Hitler Card fallacy, though I think this use should be resisted.
  2. I don't know where I picked up the phrases "playing the Hitler card" and "playing the Nazi card" for the fallacy that seems to have been first identified by Leo Strauss under the rubric "reductio ad Hitlerum"―see the next note. Unfortunately, I know of no books on the subject of logical fallacies or dictionaries of philosophy that mention it, despite the fact that it is an extremely common political fallacy.
  3. "Unfortunately, it does not go without saying that in our examination we must avoid the fallacy that in the last decades has frequently been used as a substitute for the reductio ad absurdum: the reductio ad Hitlerum. A view is not refuted by the fact that it happens to have been shared by Hitler." From: Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (1976), pp. 42-43.
  4. Mike Godwin, "Meme, Counter-meme", Wired, Issue 2.10, 10/1994. Thanks to Joanna Roberts for reminding me about Godwin's Law.
  5. This is what Leo Strauss appears to have meant by the "reductio ad Hitlerum". See note 3, above.
  6. Michael Berenbaum, "T4 Program", Encyclopaedia Britannica, accessed: 5/11/2025.
  7. John Lukacs & Allan Bullock, "Hitler's life and habits", Encyclopaedia Britannica, 5/8/2025.
  8. Katherine Brodsky, "Trump Is Not Hitler | Opinion", Newsweek, 3/1/2025. Paragraphing suppressed.
  9. "The Paradoxes of a Death Penalty Stance", Washington Post, 6/4/2005.

Revised: 5/13/2025