Is IDS a Nazi?

[Eurosceptic]

Ian Duncan Smith, the new Work and Pensions Secretary has just been speaking in an interview on TV and guess what he said when referring to the hoards of people sitting on Incapacity Benefit (as it used to be called)? He said, "Work makes you free." Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this the slogan over the concentration camp gates, "Arbeit macht frei"?

[Midas]

Ian Duncan Smith, the new Work and Pensions Secretary has just been speaking in an interview on TV and guess what he said when referring to the hoards of people sitting on Incapacity Benefit (as it used to be called)? He said, "Work makes you free." Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this the slogan over the concentration camp gates, "Arbeit macht frei"?

Yes, it does mean that, and it was certainly over the gates of Auschwitz, however I can't honestly believe that the similarity even entered IDS's head when he said that; if you look hard enough I'm sure you could find many such coincidences of wording in almost all political speeches.

Taken in context, work does indeed make you free, free of having to exist on benefits and free of the limitations of not having much money. OK, there are undoubtedly many people on incapacity benefit (or whatever it's called now) who are there for 100% genuine reasons, but if the number of voluntary claim withdrawals when the last government announced compulsory medical examinations for claimants a while ago - I can't recall the exact number but it was over 30% and might have been nearer 50% - is anything to go by there are a great many people claiming such benefits who are indeed capable of working but choose not to.

[manrow]

Yes, it does mean that, and it was certainly over the gates of Auschwitz, however I can't honestly believe that the similarity even entered IDS's head when he said that; if you look hard enough I'm sure you could find many such coincidences of wording in almost all political speeches.

Taken in context, work does indeed make you free, free of having to exist on benefits and free of the limitations of not having much money. OK, there are undoubtedly many people on incapacity benefit (or whatever it's called now) who are there for 100% genuine reasons, but if the number of voluntary claim withdrawals when the last government announced compulsory medical examinations for claimants a while ago - I can't recall the exact number but it was over 30% and might have been nearer 50% - is anything to go by there are a great many people claiming such benefits who are indeed capable of working but choose not to.

A very good response Midas.

[Opinionated]

The phrase actually has a history predating the Nazi era and was adopted as a slogan by the Weimar Republic. (A similar slogan, arbeit adelt -- work ennobles -- was also a widely known shorthand.) The German Jews, at least, would have been familiar with it as an idiom of social democracy rather than as a jibe directly aimed at them.
Presumed to have been originally intended as a work camp/ standard prison, Auschwitz pre dates the official adoption of the Final Solution, so the phrase's deeper irony was presumably acquired by history rather than as an intentionally grim joke.
With regard to the phrase itself, imo it has more validity than just because it frees one from welfare; work does indeed ennoble - it is good for the soul.

ps. it is recorded that Jews en route to the camp managed to turn the B upside down as a small act of defiance.

[octopus]

Ian Duncan Smith, the new Work and Pensions Secretary has just been speaking in an interview on TV and guess what he said when referring to the hoards of people sitting on Incapacity Benefit (as it used to be called)? He said, "Work makes you free." Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this the slogan over the concentration camp gates, "Arbeit macht frei"?

It was indeed; I think the nazis meant it in a different way, through, all those decades ago. I think we can forgive him this slight slip. After all, work does make you free. If you join the benefit culture you have people constantly interfering in your business, and telling you what to do; the price of lazyness, and living off public money, I"m afraid.