Hitler, the Nazis and World War Two etc etc

[Robert]

Hi Fleetwood

I don't think Hitler thought he was on the way out. I think he hoped to conquer the USSR and make the war pay for itself. True, he was a gambler, but each time he gambled and won he felt increasingly invincible, or singled out by Providence. In any case, the man was incapable of consolidating, since he had a kind of mental St Vitus dance.

[Fleetwood Mac]

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.

They were lucky, and played the oldest card.

Germany's economy was recovering prior to their taking of power, and the Nazis knew this, which is why they took power through less than legitimate means.

The economy improved thereafter, granted, but what sort of government makes armament their economic policy? Quite clearly, it meant a war was inevitable; I mean, what were they going to do with all this machinery which cost to keep in service?

So, the Nazis came up with a government based on coercion, war and race. Very stupid in my book, and one that could only have lead to disaster.

In sum: they weren't constructing a healthy, vibrant Germany for the long term; they were leading the country into the abyss, which Hitler didn't care about because he and associates felt there was some sort of glory in going out with a fight. Warped by anyone's standards.

[Fleetwood Mac]

German anti-semitism actually existed in the Middle Ages. There were terrible pogroms against Jews in the Rhineland and elsewhere (Mainz, for example) connected to the Crusades, where "good" Chistians figured why not kill the enemies of Christendom at home before going after those in the Middle East. But this was general throughout Europe. England tossed the Jews out in 1290 and did not let them back in until Cromwell and Charles II showed they were more humane in the 1650s-1660s. And Jews were still second class citizens until the 19th Century (we could not be Jewish Members of the House of Commons until the 1850s - Disraeli and David Ricardo were from Jewish families who had converted, so they were in the House as Christians). France too kicked the Jews out in 1300. Jews found homes in Spain and Eastern Europe, and then got blamed for troubles there and were mistreated again. This was normal unfortunately.

Hi Jeff.

Offering a differing point of view on this:

The pre 1700s were blighted by religious strife that did not only affect 'the Jews'. There were all sorts of people being turfed out for their non conformist views. That was the name of the game then, with the established church being at the head of the state.

In the modern period, Germany had a good record of relations (good in the sense of what was going in elsewhere, granted).

I would agree with Hunter in the main that the majority of Germans weren't anti-semitic. 'Peace and Order' was a phrase dear to the Germans. But there is a contradiction here: Hitler didn't bring 'Peace and Order'; he brought carnage.

It's a bit of a mess to try and figure it out, and I suppose the Nazis played the oldest trick in the book by offering everyone something in a populist extravaganza with little ground in reasoned politics.

But, don't underestimate the part played by street violence and coercion.

[Phil H]

Germany clearly struggled, but through no fault of it's own. Serving two masters pretty much screws everyone over.

Through most of my youth (I was born some 6 years after the war), WEST Germany was regarded as an economic miracle - so I don't know to what you refer.

On building a Berlin Wall in Iraq

I always thought that building the original wall was perceived as the act of a dictatorship, as illiberal and threatening.

But maybe that's the way the US wants to be seen these days!!

Jonathan - I don't think much divides us on this. But I'm not sure that Hitler necessarily "cheated" in his description of his war record (he won the highest level of the Iron Cross, after all) and was wounded in action. I don't think he was in any way a physical coward and I don't think it matters much, anyway.

MANY people believed in a jewish conspiracy post WWI to some extent even in the democracies - I have already mentioned the role of the Protocols (fictitious they may be but they were believed - Stephen Knight, writing about JtR drew on them in the 70s!).

Phil

[Jonathan H]

To Jason C

Roosevelt's New Deal, especially the second phase under left-wing pressure from his rival Senator Huey Long, halved unemployment via the WPA, the TVA et al.

But it was not until WWII that the US economy did what Nazi Germany already had done under Dr. Schacht in peacetime; soak up persistent mass unemployment via massive armaments spending and enlarging the armed forces. Once the US had a planned economy from 1942, with rationing, and built things it then destroyed -- planes, tanks, warships -- then built more of them, you even had underemployment which forced women into 'man's' jobs in factories -- which they dud just as competently if not more so

To Phil H

Your thumbnail of Hitler leaves something out.

The lazy, Austrian drop-out-dreamer proved himself a courageous and reliable soldier in the Great War. True, he lied about being in the trenches for four years when really he was at staff HQ as a messenger -- but most messengers were killed. He earned his medals,a nd refused promotion above Lance Corporal because he did not want to leave the regiment and the only 'family' he knew.

With defeat came a shocked and embittered Hitler's conversion to a grotesque and monstrous, pathological anti-Semitism which became genocidal. He sincerely believed that alleged 'World Jewry' was behind Capitalism and Communism, and Germany's defeat, and the rape of Gentile children and so on, all that disgusting, lunatic tripe.

Fest's point was that such an 'unperson' could never assume the seat of Bismarck unless there was an unprecedented catastrophe which turned Germany into 'Unperson Nation'.

Enter, the Great Depression, and deflation and mass unemployment (hyperinflation in 1923 did not catapult Hitler to power)

[Robert]

Hi Phil

Oh, I'm not suggesting that Hitler's ideas originated with him (except perhaps for his ideas on propaganda). But I think the racial idea was his contribution to German national politics, in the sense that here was a party whose very raison d'etre was race. I cannot imagine a Kaiser Wilhelm or a Bismarck operating a policy of genocide, euthanasia for the unfit, eugenics for the fit (to the point where well-bred babies could literally fall off the backs of lorries), massive use of slave labour, the abduction of "Germanic" children from conquered territories, and that telling remark "we are barbarians. It is an honourable title." Add to this the fact that even within Germany, the "racial idea" was still upheld, not in the old sense of a traditional aristocracy, but simply in the sense that he who got to the top was by definition the most "racially valuable." This may have been circular but it's what the Nazis seem to have believed. I think that if Hitler had managed to achieve this ambitions, the bulk of ordinary Germans would have found their lot to be rather similar to that of the conquered peoples.

[Errata]

Perhaps our forebears were both more forsighted and more realistic - even more practical - than our leaders today?

Phil

Well, pragmatism isn't always a virtue, although certainly Japan fared astonishingly well after what should have been a cataclysmic failure with World War II. Germany clearly struggled, but through no fault of it's own. Serving two masters pretty much screws everyone over.

Certainly it is vital to preserve a nation's dignity and sense of self determination after a defeat. Sometimes I think that we thought that with Iraq, we would just get to that part at the end, when really we needed to be constantly replacing what we took away.

In a way, the Berlin Wall model could have been a brilliant strategy in Iraq. Having half of the populace feeling rewarded and very lucky could be a useful tool. Having the other half of the population desperately wanting to be on the other side of the wall where things are much better is also useful. There is, in a weird way, no better scenario for introducing Western ideals as something to be coveted. If a small farmer has only ever known the same government, the same social ideals, the same restrictions, then it becomes a tradition he wants to preserve. But as soon as he sees another guy on the other side of the wall who works as much as he does, prays as much as he does, but can afford to send his kids to college, then he's willing to bet on change.

Not that I recommend building a wall in Iraq. It's a terrible thing to do to a country. But from a purely intellectual standpoint it has interesting possibilities.

[Phil H]

I think Hirhito is an example of hardcore real politique at work.

The Americans needed some way to restore an element of normality to the post-war Japanese situation.

I think, given the Japanese regard for "face", preserving the central religious and constitutional figure of the Emperor, traditionally kept out of politics for much of history, the convenient myth that the Hirohito was above wartime events was quite a brilliant move.

In Germany the political leaders were either dead (Hitler, Himmler, Borman) or sentenced to death (or long terms of imprisonment). The myth in Germany was that Nazism had only been "skin deep" - that unless there were exceptional circumstances, ordinary German soldiers and civilians were regarded as "innocent". I don't believe it for a moment, but it was "necessary".

Surely, the vacuum created after the recent invasion of Iraq, with the disbandment of such things as the Army and Police Force because they were perceived as too Ba'athist, was a disaster. In retrospect, some way should have been found of retaining the rank and file (at least) of both Services and maybe some of the leadership cadre.

Perhaps our forebears were both more forsighted and more realistic - even more practical - than our leaders today?

Phil

[Errata]

He's not blameless, but I can't quite put him in the same catagory as the Nazi leadership.

Jeff

It's funny. I can't put him in the same category as the Nazi's either, if I compare the two. However, if you get me started on Nanking (in which Hirohito absolutely took an active role), I will absolutely use words like genocide, evil, monstrous, etc. I will directly compare him to the Nazi leadership and the Final Solution.

So it appears that I DO put them in the same category, when I'm not... taking it personally I guess. More like, If I let my righteousness talk, and not my self-righteousness.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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