A written version of their (by which I mean Strossen and other's like Haidt involved in FIRE movement) "anti-hate laws helped the Nazis" argument is found here:

https://www.thefire.org/would-censorship-have-stopped-the-ri...

> Considering the Nazi movement’s core ideology, as espoused by Hitler in “Mein Kampf,” rested on an alleged conspiracy between Jews and their sympathizers in government to politically disempower Aryan Germans, it is not surprising that the Nazis were able to spin government censorship into propaganda victories and seeming confirmation of their claims that they were speaking truth to power, and that power was aligned against them.

I don't find it particularly convincing, but it does explain the strategy of complaining about free speech and censorship by "the jews" has a long history of success, with Nazis. Everyone else thinks, "oh these people are Nazis". But Nazis think, "It's a Jewish Conspiracy to silence the truth", because they are Nazis.

> I don't find it particularly convincing

Can you elaborate on what you find unconvincing about appeals to open discourse? Are you saying you think censorship is more effective?

The Nazis were helped by a lot of things.

Suggesting that anti-hate speech laws are worth bringing up in this context is like mentioning Hitler was a vegetarian or banned smoking and seems to be sourced to a cartoonist, rather than a historian.

Hitler went to jail for 'high treason' after an attempted coup.

> Goebbels' tactic of using provocation to bring attention to the Nazi Party, along with violence at the public party meetings and demonstrations, led the Berlin police to ban the Nazi Party from the city on 5 May 1927.[65][66] Violent incidents continued, including young Nazis randomly attacking Jews in the streets.[62] Goebbels was subjected to a public speaking ban until the end of October.[67]

Goebbels, the victim of oppressive laws that stop you from randomly attacking people in the street. Why have we not learned this lesson from history? If you stop them attacking people violently in the streets, and removing the government, then it's your own fault what happens next.

I mentioned Evans’ The Coming of the Third Reich because it’s critical for understanding what happened here to know the historical context. Those measures were not targeted at the Nazis specifically, nor were the tactics developed by the Nazis in a vacuum.. Organized political street violence was already normal in Weimar Germany before the Nazis had more than a dozen members. They came into existence at a time when violence was a socially acceptable method to shut people up. They faced political/legal repression, censorship, and arrests before the coup.

I don’t know if it helped them amass the numbers/backing and cement the ideology that led to the attempted coup, but it definitely didn’t stop it. You can definitely see how pre-existing political street gangs made it easier to justify forming their own street gangs.