Reductio ad Hitlerum, also argumentum ad Hitlerum,
(Latin for "reduction to" and "argument to" and dog Latin for "Hitler" respectively) is an ad hominem or ad misericordiam argument, and is an informal fallacy. It is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone's origin rather than its current meaning or context. The suggested logic is one of guilt by association, a classic confusion of correlation and causality, as if to say that anything that Adolf Hitler did, no one else should do, for it will obviously or eventually lead to genocide.
Its name is a pun on reductio ad absurdum, and was coined by an academic ethicist, Leo Strauss, in 1953. Engaging in this fallacy is sometimes known as playing the Nazi card,[1] by analogy to playing the race card.
The tactic is often used to derail arguments, because such comparisons tend to distract and anger the opponent.[1]
Fallacious nature of the argument
Reductio ad Hitlerum is no more than guilt by association, a form of association fallacy.[1][2] The fallacy claims that a policy leads to—or is the same as—one advocated or implemented by Adolf Hitler or the Third Reich, and so "proves" that the original policy is undesirable. For example:
"Hitler was a vegetarian, so vegetarianism is wrong [because the things Hitler did were wrong, or because it could lead to results ideologically or morally aligned with Hitler]." Instances of reductio ad Hitlerum are also likely to suffer from the fallacy of begging the question or take the form of slippery slope arguments, which are often false as well.[1] Used broadly enough, ad Hitlerum can encompass more than one questionable cause fallacy type, by both inverting cause and effect and by linking an alleged cause to wholly unrelated consequences. Hitler was fond of dogs and children, but to argue that affection for dogs and children is wrong on this basis is not logically sound.
Various criminals, controversial religious and political figures, regimes, and atrocities other than those caused by Hitler, the Nazis and the Holocaust can be used for the same purposes. For example, a reductio ad Stalinum could assert that atheism is a dangerous philosophy because Stalin was an atheist for most of his life.[3]
The fallacious nature of reductio ad Hitlerum is easily illustrated by identifying X as something that Adolf Hitler or his supporters did promote but which is not considered unethical, such as painting, enjoying classical music, owning dogs, anti-smoking campaigns or opposition to fox hunting.
History of the term
<snip> ...
The phrase was derived from the better known logical argument called reductio ad absurdum. The argumentum variant takes its form from the names of many classic fallacies, such as argumentum ad hominem. The ad Nazium variant may be further derived, humorously, from argumentum ad nauseam.
In 2000 traditionalist Catholic Thomas Fleming described its use against traditional values:
Leo Strauss called it the reductio ad Hitlerum. If Hitler liked neoclassical art, that means that classicism in every form is Nazi; if Hitler wanted to strengthen the German family, that makes the traditional family (and its defenders) Nazi; if Hitler spoke of the "nation" or the "folk," then any invocation of nationality, ethnicity, or even folkishness is Nazi ...[5]