Hitler, the Nazis and World War Two etc etc

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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]

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

[Errata]

A Jewish friend once asked me "What's the most anti-semitic country of all?" So I said, "The Germans?" She said no, it was the Poles.

Historically or currently?

Poland is up there in a historical context. So is Russia, and there's an argument to be had that Polish anti-semitism is really Russian anti-semitism.

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

If you want to count Biblical times, it's hard to beat Egypt. The Roman Empire wasn't that great either.

Today it doesn't get much worse than Iran.

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.

[Robert]

A Jewish friend once asked me "What's the most anti-semitic country of all?" So I said, "The Germans?" She said no, it was the Poles.

[Jonathan H]

Adam,

The source you are referring to is Joachim Fest, whose biog. of Hitler (1973) put forward that controversial idea about Hitler and 'greatness' -- if he had died in 1938.

There is an element to this debate which needs to be mentioned, two in fact.

One, is that the phenomenon of National Socialism was essentially created by the mass unemployment of the 1930's, which in itself was triggered by the collapse of American subsidies to the Weimar economy due to the Wall St Crash.

The normal political parties promised more pain, whereas the Communists promised full employment -- and whose pro-Stalinist ambitions were totally unacceptable to the German middle class and farmers.

But full employment was also on offer from the NSDAP, who were acceptable, because this small but dynamic right-wing party was led by a charismatic nobody -- who now could appeal to a distressed nation of 'nobodies'.

In 1928 the Nazi's scored 2.6 per cent of the national vote. They were a fringe, cultish group -- a joke really. By 1930 they had rocketed to 18%, and then by July 1932, 37% (heartbreakingly by Nov '32 their vote was in decline to 31%. If he not been appointed Chancellor on Jan 30th 1933, the party would have collapsed, and Hitler would have shot himself).

The Great Depression catapulted Hitler into contention as a mass party leader because he promised to make Germany a wonderful, powerful place again for human beings, eg. Aryans, and to purge it once and for all of filth and traitors and fake people, eg, the Jews-Communists which were the same thing.

No Depression, no Hitler, and no genocide at home and in the East.

It is such a startling growth, from the fringe to the centre, that it would be like if 'Ripperologists' formed a small, insular political party and then, incredibly, received a third of the vote?!

The other aspect to consider is that, in a sense, the Nazi's never really came to power at all. For Ernst Rohm and Gregor Strasser, at al, it was supposed to be a Stormtropper Nation; thus the factories would be nationalised, and the regular army absorbed into the millions-strong Brownshirts.

None of this ever happened because, if Hitler had tried such 'extreme' measures as Chancellor he would have been removed by the same army caste which finally tried to do him in on July 20th 1944. Instead the Fuhrer ruthlessly moved against his own socailistic wing, in 1934, on the 'Night of the long Knives', which delivered him ultimate power and created not an anti-capitalistic S.A. state but a pro-business S.S./Gestapo police state.

[Adam Went]

Nice work on the new thread and many interesting points have already been raised.

Fleetwood mentioned on the old thread that he disagrees with the view that the Nazis did good things at any point and that they were a "shambles" - this is not true. I cannot stress enough that it is a very touchy subject even now, and far be it from me to compliment anything that horrid party ever did, one needs look no further than their first few years in power to see that they did make some improvements.

As I said in the other thread, unemployment plummeted (admittedly because many people went to work on armaments production, but there was also labor projects, including the manufacturing of cars and roads and similar structures which are iconic to this day - and the unfortunately iconic Hindenburg airship) and national confidence soared - one can't imagine the sufferings the average, innocent German citizen went through in the wake of the World War I defeat and the conditions that were imposed upon them by the victors. The crash of stock markets in 1929 didn't help either.

True, there were already anti-Semitic attacks and fighting even within divisions of the Nazi party (look at what became of Ernst Rohm, SA leader, in 1934) but with the death of Von Hindenburg in 1934, Hitler and his cronies had unlimited power.

I mentioned in the other thread that one commentator once said that if Hitler had died in 1938, he would have been hailed as one of the greatest leaders of his time. I'm not sure if I would go to that extreme but he certainly would have been regarded in a more positive light than his actions and those of the men and women who worked for him over the second half of his reign mean he has now.

Hitler himself was of course born in 1889, just after JTR had finished terrorising London, so he would have grown into adulthood in the lead up years to World War I, and, having lost both of his parents at a fairly young age, he was left to make his own way and form his own ideas during that impressionable time. IMO those experiences of his very early years did something to him which ultimately drove him to do what he did decades later.

Anyway, enough said for now....

Cheers,
Adam.

[Mayerling]

Part II:

The seeming rise of Jews in Germany in the 19th Century is tied to the philosophical underpinnings of Moses Mendelsohn and the "benevolent side effects" of the French Revolution and NapoleonI.* But one has to keep in mind that no advance is smooth anywhere at anytime. Plenty of anti-Semites were prepared in 1815 to send Jews back to the ghettos across Europe. But there was a ne feature involved. It was called Rothschild.

[*Judging from the size of these two messages of mine, this is a big subject, and it would be tremendous to go through figures in country after country who were involved as a friend of Jews or an enemy. France's cultural anti-Semitism seems to go back to Voltaire of all people. But the two men responsible for ending French Ghettoization of Jews are surprising: Maximillian Robespierre got the first law granting equality to Jewish French citizens passed, and Napoleon Bonaparte broke down ghetto walls throughout Europe, and even called a "Sanhedrin" in 1807!]

The phenomenal success and expansion of the five sons of Mayer Rothschild from 1800 to 1814-15 opened doors - possibly more than ten Mendelsohns could have accomplished. One of those doors was the Austrian Chancellor Klause von Metternich. Although he probably was picky about who he personally associated with, Metternich worked closely with the German and Austrian and Neopolitan branches of the bank in developing the Austrian Empire and the German States. He even figured out a way to enable the Rothschilds to be enobled in Austria by special rules and awards (replacing crosses with Jewish stars, ironically enough, for a good reason this time). His form of beneficence actually carried down to later more virulent anti-Semites. Hitler, in his youth, was aware of the most popular mayor in Vienna's history, Karl Lueger, who ran for Mayor (and won) many times on an openly anti-Semitic platform. However, once he was Mayor Lueger would train his racist spleen on left of center Jews (i.e. socialists). Towards figures like the Rothschilds and Baron de Hirsch he was pleasantness personified. When questioned about this Lueger would thunder back, "I'll choose who's Jewish!". **

[**Oddly enough this strange dichotomy existed into World War II. Many Jews got privately protected by well placed Nazi or Axis friends throughout Europe, and lived openly and safely (as long as the friendships lasted). Two who were specifically protected by anti-Semites were the Renaissance scholar and writer Bernard Berenson and the writer and intellectual center of Parisian culture Gertrude Stein. Despite being a Jewish Englishman, Berenson as allowed relative freedom of movement in Italy during the war by Mussolini's orders (Il Duce not being a friend to most Jews). Stein was similarly protected by the Nazi and Vichy governments in Paris and France.]

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Hi all,

If there is a form of Hell in the afterworld, I would like to think of poor Maurice Joly stuck there apologizing to Jewish visitors constantly for the misuse of his attack on Napoleon III in the 1860s. Joly wrote "A dialogue between Montesquois and Machiavelli" Napoleon III was thinly disguised in it as the author of "THE PRINCE", and Monsieur Joly suggested that Nappy III was trying to manipulate Europe so he could take it over. It is this silly satiric jab at the Second Empire that was changed by Okhrana into a conspiracy of the Jewish "Elders of Zion" to take over the globe. It helped Okhrana that in 1897 there was a Jewish based conference in Switzerland called by Theodor Herzl that created Zionism. To ill or vaguely informed people the real incident cemented the Okhrana set of lies into a form of truth. By the way, Arabs and other anti-Semites still market the PROTOCOLS, so there are plenty of boobs still believing them.

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.

But modern German anti-Semitism is from the 1530s. Martin Luther figured that Jews would flock to his form of Protestantism as the great alternative to "evil" Roman Catholicism, and was angered when Jews refused to do so.
So he wrote of Jews as the great evil group in Germany and Europe who were anti-Christ and should be destroyed. He actually is the point where German racism begins here.

Yet, Germany was the location of the creation of my own form of Judaism, Reform Judaism - founded in the late 18th Century by Moses Mendelsohn. Reform suggested (I think sensibly, though Conservative, Orthodox, Chassidic, and Reconstructional Jews would severely question my views) that many of the rules of traditional Judaism should bejettisoned so Jews could be more in tune with the lifestyle of their non-Jewish neighbors (ie. we could eat pork or shell fish, unlike the dietary rules of the Old Testament an Talmud). Mendelsohn was applauded by many in his day for his common sense - which enabled many Jews in Germany to finally leave Ghettos (although the real impetus was Napoleon I when he took over chunks of German and Austrian territories). One of 18th Century Germany's writers, Gottholm Lessing, honored Mendelsohn in his play NATHAN THE WISE, one of the first plays to show a Jewish character as a nice guy (compared with Shylock or Barabas by Shakespear and Marlowe). Mendelsohn's grandson, Felix Mendelsohn - Bartholdi is better recalled these days as a great composer (whose works were forbidden by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s

Jeff