How did the Germans let Hitler rise to power?

Hey everyone, i found this interesting article in Der Spiegel

How Germans Fell for the 'Feel-Good' Fuehrer

Definately not a subject I think I'll be bringing up at a dinner party any time soon!

Just how much self-loathing can a nation's psyche take?

This guy should write scripts for Woody Allen...

According to an interesting article in Der Spiegel (English) online.

...he gave them huge social benefits and made the "feel Good" so much that they blinded their eyes to what they knew was going on.

Good article.

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You must remember at this time, Germany were in huge financial debt from paying for the damages of the first WW, there was high unemployment, (much higher than today) and most of the jobs were being taken by foriegners, hmm, also much like today !

I don't know that the poor economic conditions in Germany prior to Hitler facilitated his rise is a new view, but to say:

and


is a bit odd. Seems to me it's not counting the German Jews as Germans.

...not odd at all. Of course it's not.

While the rush to portray the Germans as victims of Hitler as much as anyone else in the German media of late makes me want to puke this is also seriously dodgy.

keydeck, love, just because I don't post it as bluntly doesn't mean I don't realize that.

Well, i am not sure exactly how trues it is that no-one was going hungry. Mrs G's grandmother used to tell me stories of people eating all sorts of things to stop them from starvng.

@OG: my father in law had to chop wood from the forests too. There was no money about.

Interesting article a while back in the Merkur:
http://www.merkur-online.de/nachrichten/po...281,375331.html

Actually OG, Germany's diet DID get worse immediately after the end of WW2 until Britain started diverting food to Germany: Casuing even bread and spud ratoning in the UK. The reason was that the plundered supplies from eastern Europe were no longer feeding the "Reich".

Part of the blame has to be laid squarely at the feet of the SPD who refused to build an anti-fascist front with the Communists and the Communists who under Stalin's orders refused to build an anti-fascist front with the "social fascists".

Easy to give figures like 95%, but those of us ewho lived through the Thatcher years and hated it could in 50 years time be told that we all like the cow. Figures are misleading.

Oh come on we all love Maggie concha' know!

Seriously, Hitler never gained a majority of votes. After he came to power, people were forced into Nazism becasue he utterly destroyed all other social structures.

That's not the point Jeremy. The accepted story in germany is that he had no support but that people were afraid and nobody knew what was going on in the KZs anyway. I agree that 95% is high but I think her point and viewpoint is still valid.

Many people had an idea what was going on in the KZs though I wonder whether it was a majority. But even those who had an idea or knew were often to terrified. What could they "do" anyway? Even simple leafltetting led to the execution of the Scholls.

That's a cop out. I was recently in Dokumentation Obersalzberg. There was a big Tafel there with the title 'Widerstand in Deutschland' and it was pretty empty. Most of the stuff that was on it was detailing the obvious lack of resistance in germany. My point is that germans often say that they had no idea what was going on in the camps. There is an implication there, that if they had known, they would have done something about it. The point is most people knew and did nothing about it.

Interesting thread.

One could argue that Hitler, and his inner circle of National Socialists, very much worked on the 'fear factor'. I think it is safe to say that because of a- reparations (the re-payments for WWI) and b- the global recession (Wall Street Crash, Etc.) things were very tough here in Germany in the early 30's. The NS managed to get the population to believe that it was certain 'undesirables' who were mainly responsible, then (as proved by history) manipulated those fears by creating incidents to heighten the tension (the Reichstag fire is a good case in point). I refer to some telling quotes by these people:

"Another weapon I discovered early was the power of the printed word to sway souls to me. The newspaper was soon my gun, my flag - a thing with a soul that could mirror my own"
Adolf Hitler

"Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play"
Joseph Goebbels

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger."
Hermann Goering

This is from the Italian side:

"The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of the nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one." "Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise."
Benito Mussolini

But I will leave you with these two, because I believe that they are still relevant today:

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
Benito Mussolini

"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."
Adolf Hitler

Ask a question and we both may learn. Ask none and we are at the mercy of a handful of individuals.

We fear 'fear' itself.

but this is turning full circle now. the atittude is that the allies are responsible, because we must have known and could have specificly bombed the camps rail connections in order to stop them "functioning" properly. (i kid you not, i've read this attitude a few times now). this is the worring trend with alot of germans or rather the german media at the moment. not only is dresden now becoming a place of the cult of the german innocence in war, but it seems so much is being discussed and judged both out of context, with little historical understanding, way to much interpretation according to our modern stadpoint and to much hindsight. i have a feeling in 15 years time most germans will feel that the allies started the war in order to stop the franco-german creation of the european union.

This isn't an attitude and it isn't revisionism. It's a fact. Allied intelligence were fully aware of the existence of the camps.

But what the hell could they do? We lived through the Thatcher years and hated the nuclear state. We've just seen our British and American governments go to war against Iraq when they should have gone against Bin Laden. One thing to be brave, the other to be realistic.

I am not much of a reader of the man (never time for this kind of depth of reading) but this quote is from Goethe:

@Gideon

My ex-father in law (RIP) was with the Royal Signals coming up through Italy in 1944. When the Nazis surrendered in '45 he was quickly transferred as a radio operator to high command and entered Dachau soon afterwards. He was just 21 at the time and had never heard of a concentration camp. Only a handful of inmates were left milling around. Most had left on the 'long march'. He was traumatised for the rest of his life. It is entirely possible that Allied High Command knew all about the concentration camps, but the average soldier had no clue unless they 'stumbled' across one.

i know they did.

but why didnt they bomb them then. just saying they should have done is attitude and revisionist. (i'm not trying to wind you up mate, but your falling into the revisionist contextless trap)

@sin the discussion is about military intelligence not your average soilder.

Superb quote jeremy

Even worse, is that Dachu as a camp was already being used as early as 1936, putting in politicials in Germany (to ensure there was no opposition) and then growing from there, Austria politicians, then anyone fighting against Nazism, etc.

JW is right, the Allies KNEW about the camps. Whether they could have done anything about what was going on APART from continuing the war to defeat fascist Germany is another matter. I doubt it personally.

I'm not sure that it would have been logisticly possible to bomb railway junctions at the extermination camps in southern Poland for example given the range of planes coming from SE England.

---------------------------------

VERY interesting about the idea of WW2 being a commercial struggle between a European mainland bloc and and an Anglo-American alternative bloc. And of course the whole very current arguments about the EU and what we want Europe to be. Glance up at Sin's quote from Mussolinni above and then put it all together.

I think WW2 was at least to an extent (though les than WW1) partly about competing buiness interests. And I'm certainly NOT a revisionist.

@Gideon
I think I see your point... Basically the fact that they weren't bombed doesn't justify having built them in the first place, oder?

The intelligence service was indeed in possession of hearsay reports of the camps in 1944 and also a few vague photographs. The problem was that the concept of organised mass murder on this scale was utterly unbelievable. No-one could comprehend that human beings would be capable of doing this and refused to believe.

@grtho
I think that wars are always about geo-political interests in one way or another - which is basically the reason I wasn't that scandalized about the Iraq war. I didn't see what was different about it compared to the average major conflict, not that it means that I agree with the reasoning...

@OG
Point taken, however "undesirables" were going AWOL all over Europe and they weren't coming back! Let's just say that mass killings started as of 1942 (post Wansee Conference)... While we blame the average German for having done nothing and not possibly "not having known", you mean to tell me that Allied intelligence could do no better than that themselves in three plus years of total genocide?

By the way, Allied intelligence had surprisingly accurate aerial photographic evidence of certain camps.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/libra...t/auschwitz.htm

This is just Auschwitz and I can understand that flying that far until the invasion of Italy would've been impossible (someone who knows their military aviation can maybe help me on this?), however there were camps in Germany too and Allied planes were flying over Germany as of 1941...

@ JW, a pleasure to hear intelligent comment from you even if we don't always agree.

<Jesus, I'm being nice today >

My geography lecturer asked us once to name any war not fought over resources. We couldn't.

I find this incomprehension of what was reported in 44/45 totally believeable.

However, now we all know what occured 60-odd years ago, and in places since like Cambodia and Rwanda, with hindsight we all know what can happen.

@ Sin. Yes with hindsight it is comprehensable. But back then nothing like this had ever happened before in living memory.

Falklands, Korea, Yom Kippur, 6 Days War ?

Depends a bit on your definition of 'fighting for resources'

@jeremy what about the european 30 years war? Im sure it could be interpreted in a way to make it sound like it was fought over resources, but I think it was mostly fought over religion. But thats a bit off topic..

Also a lot of wars seem to be more fought over rights or status such as various civil wars in history. And even in cases where countries attack oppresive regimes to free persecuted ethnic groups, like in the former yugoslavia and currently in Iraq? Or to shut down terrorist training areas, like in Afghanistan? Or Vietnam for that matter. That was to halt the spread of communism wasnt it?

Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia (1978?) to stop Pol Pot's genocidal regime?

(But that was of course tied up with the collapse of European colonialism in SE Asia post 1945 and then America's role in the region)

@ Boomtown Rat, long term there's otentially a LOT of oil and gas to be got from territories based on Britain's claim on the Falklands.

Israel's wars against its neighbours may also have to do with water which will become an increasingly scare resource in the region. Indedd one of the main complaints against israel is it's over consumption of water while Palestinians are parched.

And Israel itself could be argued is America's "watchdog state" in the Middle East where there's alot of sticky brown stuff under the sand...

The original question was, however, why the Germans at all came to follow this crazy Austrian as their sacred Führer..

Am reading an interesting book currently by an Author called "Rafael Seligmann". The book is called "Hitler - die Deutschen und ihr Führer". He is jewish. He believes that the reason for Hitler getting such power over the Germans in such a short time lies within the general fear of Germans towards change and towards modernization. And if you look at what's happening in Germany today again, them having the highest unemployment rates since the 2nd world war and the sudden surge in numbers in favour or right-wing parties noted in places like Saxony for instance, it seems that history is repeating itself. This is their way of clinging onto their security and their ways. They fear the influx from the new European Member States, they fear foreigners, they fear change, they want their lives the way they were. That is also why you even have some of the highest rates of attacks aimed at foreigners in a state such as Baden-Württemberg - the richest state in Germany with the lowest rates of unemployment. They fear anything different to them, the modern, the new, change..
I think this Seligmann guy might have a point.

and what could the allies have realistically done? The best way to alleviate the suffering of those in the camps was to win the war as quickly as possible. It may sound harsh but time spent bombing the camps supplies would not have helped the people suffering. This would have extedended the war by removing valuable resources from frontline fighting.

genau! but it places the blame for their efficent fuctioning squarley at the feet of the allies!
iof the top of my head following reasons not to bomb them.

as OG said disbelief that they were so bad.

as grtho said inability to carry it out (remember a bomb which was within a mile of the target was a hit)

intelligence theory. read any book about ienigma and you'll realise the allies were shit scared of reacting out off the blue on secret intelligence material. if we'd bombed the seemling harmless barack complexes, which were handeled as top secret, then german intelligence could have got wind that their codes ahd been broken and changed their proceedures. such an information black had already before proved very damadging, and with normandy coming up there was no way that the allies could afford to have an information blackout. (an american sub captain nearly got court martialed because he captured a german sub in 44. the argument was if the germans knew we knew...)

cold hearted, but make sense if youre trying to end a worls war theory. the whole process of exterminating millions of people sucked up vital men material and logistics which otherwise could have been put to better use to fight the war. the same logic was used in the air bombing campaign. why not with auschwitz.

and guys i was joking about the anglo-american bloc trying to stop ther franco-german creation of the eu. but i just feel if germany's mass media (i say this on purpose as there are some bloody good german historians) keep's on revising history at the rate we're going to end up with some pseudo conspiracy theory.

Isn't that called conservatism?

Sorry I was beaten to that one.

Antarctic oil. Simple.

It's not the same thing at all. What the hell could they do? A thousand different things. My point is different though.

My point is that the 2 commonest excuses in germany are:
1. that they didn't have an idea what was going on and that they would have done something if they had known about it
2. that people knew but were in fear for their lives if they showed any resistance.

The biggest problem is the inconsistency. The second problem is that #1 is just plain untrue and that #2 doesn't excuse anybody of anything. #1 is generally spouted by the postwar generations. People who were alive at the time generally use #2. Resistance is NEVER risk and danger free.
But I think that the truth is different. It is closer to what was stated in the article I posted. People knew what was going on and were not particularly against it. A large portion of the Dokumentation Salzburg centre is devoted to the 'Cult' of hitler. His base / holiday home there was a popular pilgramage destination. He had HUGE support and was adored by a large percent of the population. I recommend a visit.

why did hitler come to power? because the germans loved him. he gave them instant wealth. just look at the financial killings made with the ayranisation of shops, just think how much profit you'd make as a doctor when all your competition couldn't work anymore becasue they were jewish. you were maybe an undeucated manual worker, but now your a blockwart! everybody got something out of it! and most people were happy about the war untill we started bombing the b' jesus out of every town.

This is just too complicated to get involved any further.

thats why people dont realy discuss it. and just use standard robot replies.

well, as I say, you can make almost any war out to be a war on resources if you want too. I still don't see that as the prime reason behind the Falklands war though, from either side. And potential Antarctic oil isn't really affected by ownership of the Falklands. Drilling still hasn't uncovered much around the Falklands either.
Still, bit off topic really.

exactly...and he gave them hope too. hope of a better future for themselves and their families.

MysteryMan, don't forget the resistance during the war too, not least the assassination attempts on Hitler himself. rather ironic that one of the attempts that came closest to succeeding was from the German Army itself.

@BR: Weren't you the chap who yesterday said he was down in the Falklands? If so huge respect to you and those who served down there. Although I do believe it was for oil, I also believe a part motive in that war lay in the "Fuck off Argentine its British" argument, to which I lend my aupport.

nope wasn't me jeremy (I'm a skinny little bugger and wouldn't last more than a few hundred metres of yomping), although you can give me huge respect anyway if you want to

Nope egg on face it was Johnny English who served there. Respect to him. He was moaning about me not coming out for a curry (hopefully the chains will be unlocked next week)