Hitler, the Nazis and World War Two etc etc

[Mayerling]

Hi Adam,

I was imagining a "Ripper Party". What would it's platform be?: "Vote for us and we will clean up 1888 Whitechapel. With your support we will solve the crimes and avenge the Victims!! We also promise to get rid of all the lies and myths about the case - just forget about all other society ills for the next couple of years!!!"

In 1924 Henry Ford (who unfortunately was overly flattered that Hitler admired him for his industrial and engineering genius, and also his anti-Semitism (he reprinted THE PROTOCOLS in The Dearborn Independent in 1920-21)) ran briefly for the Democratic nomination for President. Will Rogers, looking over the Model T Ford that made Ford famous, quipped, "Vote for me folks, and I'll change the front!".

As for Fest's point about Hitler dying in 1938 after his success at Munich, I once considered that if Hitler and his closest associates (Goebbels, Goering, Von Ribbentrop, Streicher, Himmler, Heydrich) had been killed in a plane crash after Munich, the post 1938 reputation of Nevil Chamberlain would have been incredibly high to this day (except in Czechoslavakia). He would have actually succeeded in delivering "Peace in our Times", as he allegedly said.

Churchill might never have become Prime Minister after all.

But few such flukes really occur. There was a joke in the late 1930s about what would be a perfectly good piece of news for the day. It was:
Stalin's widow told Franco on his deathbed that Hitler was assassinated attending Mussolini' funeral.

Again no such luck.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

[QUOTE=Errata;194819]Historically or currently?

France has been pretty consistently awful. Even now it's not super-friendly.
QUOTE]



Hi Errata,

Mixed bag with France - of the main participants of World War II their behavior was scurvy (if partly understandable, due to being occupied). The French in the late 19th Century made anti-Semitism a political football first in the Panama Canal (De Lesseps' attempt at a canal) Scandal, involving a number of Jewish figures as bribers and bribe recipients. It briefly damaged Georges Clemenceau's career. Then came the Dreyfus Affair which split France's society for at least 12 yers (1894-1906). Residue from the latter remained in the far right writings of Maurras and Drumont and Leon Daudet.

But while noting the heavy anti-Semitic feature in the right wing of French politics and culture, in the 1930s the French briefly achieved something yet to be achieved in the U.S.* Their power head of state (the President was more of a figurehead) was the Prime Minister in the 3rd Republic. in 1936 it was Leon Blum. No Jewish politician had reached that post before. Unfortunately Blum' attempts to push his left of center socialist policies met with vicious attacks from the right. "Better Hitler than Blum" was a common remark about the new government, and it did not last as long as it should have. Moreover it's sentiment suggests more of the defeatism of the 1940 French collapse than one would think.

*Aside from the nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964 as Republican candidate (and he had been raised as a Protestant), and the nomination of Joe Lieberman by the Democrats as Albert Gore's running mate for Vice President in 2000, there had been no Jews recommended for the U.S. Presidency or Vice Presidency earlier. And note - neither Goldwater, nor Lieberman won in those elections (though they remained in the U.S. Senate).
The French, by the way, in the 4th Republic had Pierre Mendez-France as Prime Minister too. So they are two up on us. Britain has had Benjamin Disraeli as Prime Minister, although his father converted to Anglicanism when Benjamin was a boy.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Historically or currently?

Although interestingly, if anti-semitism is defined as being against the Jewish religion, it's hard to find a group of people more disdainful of observant Jews than the average Israeli.

You are right about the Israeilis in part - but the religious right parties of extreme Orthodox Jews are pretty intolerant too. There the ones who make it hard for Israel to make any deals with the moderates in the Palestinian groups about land divisions and building on "occupied land". And they are not to pleasant about the definition of "Jew". To them, a Jew is Orthodox - not Reform. They'd consider me hopeless as a Jew, sort of like the way a Mormon classifies the Jews as gentiles with other non-Mormons as opposed to real "Christians" who are only Mormons.

Jeff

[Robert]

Recently on the news here there has been film of some orthodox Israeli schoolgirls having to run the gauntlet of ultra-orthodox "protesters" every time they go into school. The ultra-orthodox ones don't like the girls' clothes! All pretty wacko but that's what you get with religion.

[Errata]

You are right about the Israeilis in part - but the religious right parties of extreme Orthodox Jews are pretty intolerant too. There the ones who make it hard for Israel to make any deals with the moderates in the Palestinian groups about land divisions and building on "occupied land". And they are not to pleasant about the definition of "Jew". To them, a Jew is Orthodox - not Reform. They'd consider me hopeless as a Jew, sort of like the way a Mormon classifies the Jews as gentiles with other non-Mormons as opposed to real "Christians" who are only Mormons.

Jeff

Well, the extreme orthodox don't believe in Israel as a state, and tend not to live there. Something like if the messiah didn't lead us there then we are trespassing (not to mention flouting G-d's will or some such). As if it would have been all that different to Israel's neighbors if the messiah built a gate around the country with his bare hands... The Orthodoxy in Israel is problematic not because they are ultra right-wing, but because they feel entitled. They have that annoying " if god is for us who can be against us" mentality that screwed over Jerusalem during the Crusades.

Here in the American South, we're really all Jews together, so we don't have a lot of the judgmental crap. I mean kids do. Kids always do. I was raised Conservative, and as such there was not a little jealousy that the Reform kids barely had to learn any Hebrew, and a LOT of muffled giggles when the Reform Cantor whipped out a guitar for what we called "one of his slow jams". But as an adult it's different. We've never seen it as who is right and who is wrong. Or even who is MORE Jewish. It's who is more traditional and who is less. I give the Orthodox props for the language skills, but the division of the congregation isn't for me. And while nowadays I would probably be Reform if anything, I'm glad I wasn't brought up Reform because I want to choose for myself which traditions I want to keep or discard. But in the end, there just aren't enough of us for the three Jewish kids in a High School to be able to afford prejudice where other Jews are concerned. You aren't necessarily friends, but there is literally no one who is going to listen to you talk about how the other Jewish kid "isn't really a Jew". Southern Baptists as a whole don't care.

[Zodiac]

Hi Robert, et al,

Yes, I saw that report too Robert, unbelievable, but SNAFU it seems for that part of the world!!! Someone, on another thread, a while back imagined travelling back in time, catching Jack "in the act" and giving him a taste of his own medicine. In the same manner, I would be sore tempted to go back in time and despatch that tent dwelling, psycho, "It was God who told me to kill you son.... no really... he did." Abraham. Bang!!! Three religions offed for the price of one!!! :-) It wouldn't do any good though, I'd probably end up getting back only to find the world at war with its self over Orthodox Dagonism vs Reformed Dagonism or Roman Mithraism vs Protestant Mithraism! Oh and no doubt there would have been some towel-headed chap, with an unhealthy interest in prepubescent girls, who would have founded his own world religion by claiming to be the last, final, fully revised and annotated, with footnotes, only true prophet of Mithra, i.e. God, or "Alohah" peas be upon him, but hold the beans please, as he would have us all call him!!! ;-)

Best wishes,
Zodiac.

[Roy Corduroy]

The rise of the Nazi party in Germany, the resulting war and Holocaust was an unmitigated disaster. And it was a precipitating event that affected the future course of history.

By attacking the USSR, Hitler unleashed the Soviet bear which emerged victorious and threw the "Iron Curtain" over Eastern Europe. The Cold War then exacerbated the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the superpowers taking sides. With Soviet backing, the Arab world declared total war on the West in 1973 with oil. Economic warfare on a scale not seen before.

Roy

[Adam Went]

Hey all,

Jonathan H:

Thanks for pointing out the words of Joachim Fest, though it must have been written elsewhere too, because i've never read Joachim Fest's book.

You make some very good points and are quite right - the Nazi's played on the insecurities of the average German at the time, promised them everything, and almost brainwashed them - indeed, if you read any of the books by younger Germans who grew up during the 20's and particularly the 30's, they state almost unanimously that they were brought up to believe in their own greatness and superiority and the inferiority of other countries and races. This was an issue that had been smoldering away since the end of WWI and the Versailles Treaty, the Nazis used it to their advantage and turned it into a roaring fire.

You also raise the very interesting point that the national vote for the Nazis had actually dropped a little before Hitler was appointed Chancellor, but once he was in that position, there was no stopping him.

Many people had misgivings about Hitler and his tactics from very early on in the piece....

Mayerling:

Yes it really is a case of "What if?" scenarios, isn't it? And I love the quote from the 1930's....what about Hirohito though?

Look, we've all been brought up to believe that the Nazis are the most evil bunch of animals probably at any point in history - and they aren't undeserving of that title - but I think we also need to look at things from an historically objective point of view, and that being the case, despite the early persecutions which were going on even in their own ranks in the first few years from, say, 1933-37, it was also during that period of time that they did achieve SOME good things. It pains me even to say this because anybody who does it runs the risk of being seen as a sympathiser, which I most definitely am not.

Look at it like this: Germany was in an enormously better condition in 1937 than she had been in 1927, and war was not yet on the horizon.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Errata]

Look, we've all been brought up to believe that the Nazis are the most evil bunch of animals probably at any point in history - and they aren't undeserving of that title - but I think we also need to look at things from an historically objective point of view, and that being the case, despite the early persecutions which were going on even in their own ranks in the first few years from, say, 1933-37, it was also during that period of time that they did achieve SOME good things. It pains me even to say this because anybody who does it runs the risk of being seen as a sympathiser, which I most definitely am not.

As a representative of the Jewish peoples, I absolve you of sympathizer status. The fact is any political party completely without positive attributes cannot claim power for any length of time. It has to benefit a certain amount of the populace in order to sustain office. So of course they did some things really well. If they didn't, they never would have gotten to 1937.

[Mayerling]

Hey all,

Jonathan H:

Thanks for pointing out the words of Joachim Fest, though it must have been written elsewhere too, because i've never read Joachim Fest's book.

You make some very good points and are quite right - the Nazi's played on the insecurities of the average German at the time, promised them everything, and almost brainwashed them - indeed, if you read any of the books by younger Germans who grew up during the 20's and particularly the 30's, they state almost unanimously that they were brought up to believe in their own greatness and superiority and the inferiority of other countries and races. This was an issue that had been smoldering away since the end of WWI and the Versailles Treaty, the Nazis used it to their advantage and turned it into a roaring fire.

You also raise the very interesting point that the national vote for the Nazis had actually dropped a little before Hitler was appointed Chancellor, but once he was in that position, there was no stopping him.

Many people had misgivings about Hitler and his tactics from very early on in the piece....

Mayerling:

Yes it really is a case of "What if?" scenarios, isn't it? And I love the quote from the 1930's....what about Hirohito though?

Look, we've all been brought up to believe that the Nazis are the most evil bunch of animals probably at any point in history - and they aren't undeserving of that title - but I think we also need to look at things from an historically objective point of view, and that being the case, despite the early persecutions which were going on even in their own ranks in the first few years from, say, 1933-37, it was also during that period of time that they did achieve SOME good things. It pains me even to say this because anybody who does it runs the risk of being seen as a sympathiser, which I most definitely am not.

Look at it like this: Germany was in an enormously better condition in 1937 than she had been in 1927, and war was not yet on the horizon.

Cheers,
Adam.

Hi Adam and Jonathan,

The odd thing is I can be objective to a point, but the point would be I would not be so objective that I can see myself willingly entering one of Auschwitz's showers or crematories.

I can't tell if the Nazis were better economic organizers than their Weimar predecessors or not. Usually the explanation for the boom is that Hitler used rearmament to jump start the economy (as FDR would unintentionally do in 1941-42). Even the building of the autobahn was with a military goal in mind (to enable the speedy transport of troops and supplies in Germany to its various subordinated neighbors.). War certainly was not in the immediate horizon in 1937, but it was in the distant planning stage. Hitler was hoping to have a war about 1943. Events in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland speeded things beyond his control.

And what about Hirohito - who with Franco were the only two Fascists who retained some form of power in their countries after 1945. Franco had to stew in his own juice for awhile, but by 1950 was fairly acceptable again. Hirohito was saved because of Douglas MacArthur realizing the Emperor retained a degree of loyalty and could support a more democratic Japan.

It is now realized that Hirohito was not a puppet exactly - he did learn what were war aims and plans from the General staff and his Prime Ministers (including Tojo). He even appears to have approved some. This is not the same though as deciding to be a real bad-a-- type and ordering atrocities left and right (even the rape of Nanking). I get the impression that Hirohito went along with the militarists to safeguard himself. He had brothers, who would no doubt have willingly accepted being either "regent" for him, or replacing him on the throne. An earlier modern emperor (his predecessor?) had been insane. My guess is that he realized he was protecting his family by going along, and that he would be in a position to stop the madness if Japan really was losing (as he did in the summer of 1945). He's not blameless, but I can't quite put him in the same catagory as the Nazi leadership.

Jeff

[Phil H]

...1933-37, it was also during that period of time that they did achieve SOME good things. It pains me even to say this because anybody who does it runs the risk of being seen as a sympathiser, which I most definitely am not.

You are simply being an historian.

I think a point is being missed in the last page of discussions (I apologise for not yet having read more of what has been posted since I last checked in).

The situation in 1936 or 1939 was NOT that which existed in 1945.

No one knew Hitler and his henchmen would turn out to do the things he did - it would have been almost impossible to conceive of before 1945.

Hitler may have PLANNED aggressive war for the early 40s, but it was Britain and France who declared war ON HIM!! AJP Tayloer was castigated in the 60s for pointing that out. Hitler's actions may have HASTENED the onset of war, but it was NOt he who started it.

In 1939 no one envisaged a WORLD war. Neville Chamberlain, in the late 30s as Chancellor and PM foresaw the danger to Britain of fighting a war on two fronts (hence, in part his appeasement policy) with Germany and Japan, but he was not thinking of what happened post 1941.

Britain and France did not go to war in 1939 over Hitler's internal policies, over his treatment of the Jews, because they thought he was bad, or to overthrow him. They went to war because he invaded Poland (something they could not do anything about directly) and because they were trapped by their own commitments and guarantees. Even on the day war was decared, Chamberlain was still resisting going to war, and Halifax and Hoare had to force his hand.

One could ask the question - if Hitler had resisted his desire for war for a few years, and had attacked Russia rather than the west (given that Stalin and communism were seen as the bigger threat by many) when would the two democracies" ever have found the will to go to war? A regime in the Uk closer to Baldwin and Chamberlain's, rather than to Churchill's, could even have sent troops to assist Hitler - rather like Britain aiding the US post 9/11 - against a common enemy/threat.

Neither do I think Hitler's attack on Russia in mid-1941 as insane as others do. He had no way of predicting Pearl Harbor at that stage, in any case ALMOST won before that event occured, and was not then faced with "war on two fronts". Britain, he had every hope, would see reason, admit the futility of continuing the war, and make peace soon - what were they fighting for? He hoped that someone like Halifax or RA Butler - whom he saw as not unsympathetic to his regime (with some reason) would take over from Churchill.

So for as the future histories are concerned, 1939-45 definitely changed the path of events, but others would have replaced them. Ifa weak Weimar Republic had continued to exist, it is possible that Stalin might have decided to invade, or more plausibly perhaps, foment rebellion and communist risings inside Germany. Eastern Europe might have gone "red" without much effort - France too. Or France might have gone fascist under Petain or de Gaulle (their politics in 1940 were not that different).

Finally, I'd offer this - there were not TWO wars in Europe in C20th, but only ONE - it was a single war around the German question (how to contain an expansionist, developing economy in the heart of the continent). The two rounds of fighting were separated by a 20 year armistice (1918-39) and Versailles failed to introduce a settlement that worked for anyone. By that argument, ANY effective German government - even assuming Hitler had never come to power - would eventually have brought about another war simply by existing and prospering. Real politique if you like.

Forces brought Hitler to power (forces of economics, nationalism, power) and they would have created something similar but different eventually anyone. Thus, Adolf was just a puppet, not of a jewish conspiracy, or Prussian militarism, but of geopolitical tides ebbing and flowing and the irresistable power of historical destiny.

Phil

[Jonathan H]

To Phil H

Much of what you write I agree with, especially where foreign policy is concerned.

I disagree with you, somewhat, that the Fuhrer was a generic, Germanic, 'Strong Man' figure, somewhat trapped by impersonal historical forces both long and short term.

You need look no further than Italy as Mussolini and Fascism was similar but also quite different from Hitler and National Socialism, and Spain's Franco and his Phalanagists were different again, and so on.

Hitler was made by the depression, because the Social democrats split over cutting public spending, and Heinrich Bruening's minority conservative government -- which had to rule by presidential decree -- further ruined the economy, and the middle class, by cutting government spending even further to the bone, eg. the 'Hunger Chancellor'.

What Weimar needed was a Roosevelt figure (they had one, in Gustave Stresseman but he had died on the eve of the 1929 crisis) who could have gambled on massive government spending to refloat the economy, say through peacetime armaments production, and then Hitler would have remained a minor figure on the lunatic fringe.

Instead the brilliant banker Dr, Schacht, given free reign by a lazy, disinterested Hitler, created a full employment economy which was terrific -- if you were untroubled by the repression of the Jews, and of political and human rights, and working class power via a free trade union movement.

Many people were untroubled, just grateful for a job, eg. building the Super-highway Autobahn system.

Without the unique, and uniquely evil figure of Hitler you would not have had the Holocaust, or even perhaps the invasion of the Soviet Union at all.

[Robert]

Yes, I realise that a united, economically strong Germany at the heart of Europe was always going to be difficult to contain. But I think one can push the impersonal forces argument too far. Hitler's personal contribution was the racial myth (as applied to Jews and Slavs) and the barbaric ruthlessness which accompanied it. This had all kinds of repercussions. For example, it ensured that the Soviet Union would not stop until it reached Berlin - such was the bitterness engendered by the Nazi atrocities. It also ensured that Germany would not sue for peace but would instead fight to the end, because all the German leaders had put themselves so far beyong the pale, that there was no future for them in politics even under a negotiated peace.
On a more prosaic level it denuded Germany of some of its finest brains - I think someone asked Hilbert what had happened to German mathematics since the Jews left, and he answered that it had ceased to exist. So while I'm pretty cynical about all politicians, including democratic ones, I doubt whether any number of impersonal forces would have led to a Germany of, say, WW1 vintage throwing babies into furnaces or making lampshades from human skin.

[Phil H]

Hitler's personal contribution was the racial myth (as applied to Jews and Slavs) and the barbaric ruthlessness which accompanied it.

I would argue that Hitler simply used things at hand - most of the anti-semitic stuff was around in the politics of hapburg Vienna before WWI, and Hitler would have imbibed some of it then. He was also (maybe without any truth) to have been a proud collector of Ostara the violently anti-semitic magazine of Thuilist cultists.

I doubt Hitler ever had or possessed a unique or original thought - I have seen his reading (I think in Kershaw's first volume, but I may be wrong) as taking from the worlk's of others ideas that bolstered his own, and ownly perceiving material he read in that way. In other words (like some of casebook, with regard to JtR) Hitler did not read to find out what others thought, but simply to extract - at second hand - ideas that matched his own. Hardly very creative.

I'll offer my own view of Hitler (based on wide reading over about 40 years) that does not rely on personifying him as black or white/good or evil.

He was simply a rather insignificant man, very ordinary, maybe lacking self-confidence, who failed to acquire in youth any moral compass. He may have been homosexual in a society that meant that had to be secret. His strongest characteristic was a supreme egotism - all that mattered to him was what HE thought, HE believed and what HE wanted. He was essentially a loner who needed an audience.

He compensated by having friends who were less egotistical than he, he posed as cultured (Wagner, art) without having any background or depth, and swallowed easily digestible ideas that made him feel better - he was "German" not Austrian (he disliked Hapsburg aristocracy, which looked down on him, and their pro-Slave policies). He could not keep down a job and resented the poverty that claimed him. He may have been a rent boy for older, richer homosexuals in Vienna and Munich which may have further undermined his self-belief and worth.

Then, after war service, where he enjoyed the unfamiliar camaraderie, he discovered one talent that he had few others possessed - an ability to communicate through public speaking. He built on that - perhaps initially manipulated by Thule, Eisner and others.

It was this almost vacuous failure who found himself given power over a people. Most of his "policies" reflected his self-pitying thoughts in Linz and Vianna - epic cities redesigned, men bending to his will, a solution to the jewish problem (how he didn't care), restoring German pride, being an adulated hero - and somehow he achieved them.

But he possessed no over-arching plan - he was sterile intellectually and in terms of relationships. He talked endlessly but was incapable of listening even for a moment, he believed what underpinned and backed-up his own ideas, and was contemptuously dismissive of all else. Most of all, he had no way of telling right from wrong, he lacked some part of the usual nature of man in that the effects of what he caused, the outcomes meant nothing to him. So long as his EGO was served.

So, in the bunker at the end, he was content to destroy Germany and the Germans (his orders to Speer) because they had failed him. They were not worthy as judged by HIm by HIS standards.

The lesson, never let LITTLE men near supreme power.

I'm sure many of you will disagree, but what I have said is not thrown out casually, I have spent a long time trying to work out what made Adolf tick.

Phil

[jason_c]

To Phil H

Much of what you write I agree with, especially where foreign policy is concerned.

I disagree with you, somewhat, that the Fuhrer was a generic, Germanic, 'Strong Man' figure, somewhat trapped by impersonal historical forces both long and short term.

You need look no further than Italy as Mussolini and Fascism was similar but also quite different from Hitler and National Socialism, and Spain's Franco and his Phalanagists were different again, and so on.

Hitler was made by the depression, because the Social democrats split over cutting public spending, and Heinrich Bruening's minority conservative government -- which had to rule by presidential decree -- further ruined the economy, and the middle class, by cutting government spending even further to the bone, eg. the 'Hunger Chancellor'.

What Weimar needed was a Roosevelt figure (they had one, in Gustave Stresseman but he had died on the eve of the 1929 crisis) who could have gambled on massive government spending to refloat the economy, say through peacetime armaments production, and then Hitler would have remained a minor figure on the lunatic fringe.

Instead the brilliant banker Dr, Schacht, given free reign by a lazy, disinterested Hitler, created a full employment economy which was terrific -- if you were untroubled by the repression of the Jews, and of political and human rights, and working class power via a free trade union movement.

Many people were untroubled, just grateful for a job, eg. building the Super-highway Autobahn system.

Without the unique, and uniquely evil figure of Hitler you would not have had the Holocaust, or even perhaps the invasion of the Soviet Union at all.

Except that Roosevelt did very little to aid the economic situation. His massive Government spending did not refloat the economy. It held it back as much as helped it. The German worker would likely have been poorer during the 30's under a Roosevelt figure. This would have lead to the same public strife. Roosevelt was a political genius rather than an economic one. German society was probably too polarized for a uniting democratic figure to emerge. Not for nothing did communist and nationalist thugs kill each other in the streets on a daily basis. This was rarely the case in the US.