In the Nazi propaganda of the interwar period, Marxism and Judaism were seen as two sides of the same coin. In a speech at the 1935 Nazi congress, entitled “Communism with the Mask Off,” Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, listed evil Jewish Marxists from Karl Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle, Leon Trotsky, Karl Radek, and Rosa Luxemburg.

Just as some right-wingers consistently refer to Obama as Barack Hussein Obama, Goebbels insisted on calling Marx by the name Karl Mordechai Marx. He insisted, “It was the Jew who discovered Marxism. It is the Jew who for decades past has endeavored to stir up world revolutions through the medium of Marxism. It is the Jew who is today at the head of Marxism in all the countries of the world. Only in the brain of a nomad who is without nation, race and country could this Satanism have been hatched.”

Such a connection is a well-established part of Nazi ideology. But perhaps the more surprising thing is that such views were not held by Hitler’s men alone. On the contrary, they were widespread across the European right at the time. And not least in the writings of the vehement anticommunist Winston Churchill.