Background to Nazism
Background to Nazism
The Paris Peace Conference (1919) and its treatment of Germany.
War reparations, fixed at over $33 billion in 1921.
Humiliation at losing the war.
The Weimar Republic (1918-33)
After the war was over, a republican government was established in Germany with a constitution drawn up at Weimar, Germany, hence its name. This republican government, however, was shaky from the very start. The right wing charged the Social Democratic Party, which was the majority in the Weimar government, with losing the war, the left wing charged it as social fascists. To many Germans, it was simply not a very effective government.
The French occupation and hyperinflation.
1923, the French occupation of the Ruhr Valley, because they could not get sufficient reparations from Germany, decided to extract reparations in the form of coal. Passive resistance from German workers led to downfall of German economy. This prepared the way for a popular acceptance of Hitler's behavior when he tried to storm the democratic government in Munich.
Exchange rate between US dollar and Deutsch mark:
$1=4.6M (early 1923)
$1=800 million M (Nov.1923)
$1=4 trillion M (later)
The rise of Nazism
The rise of Hitler (1889-1945)
Social background: Industrialization and modernization in Europe in the late 19th century.
The collapse of the German Reich after WWI and the right wings lamentation, blaming it on the socialists and everything modern.
Hitlers youthful exposure to anti-Semitism in Vienna, and his conservatism.
Hitlers alliance with the right wing in the Weimar Republic
Joining the German Workers Party (1919), and reorganizing it into the National Socialist Workers Party (NAZI) in 1920.
In 1923, Hitler and war hero Ludendorff marched on the Munich government and was put in prison. He became an instant hero and wrote "My Struggle" in prison.
Hitlers goals of expansion
Hitler capitalized on the German sense of grievance over WWI settlement against Germany, and projected an "autarchy," a self-autonomous country that did not have anything to do with the West, which comprised eastern Europe including Poland and Russia.
Hitlers vision for the Nazi state
It was anti-modern and anti-monopolies.
Pure Germans.
Strong state intervention in society.
Territorial expansion.
Anti-Semitism
Hitlers racism was both real and strategically placed. His anti-Semitism was closely related to his identification of the Jew as the embodiment of the modern. Also, he gave a racial explanation of the Jew.
Hitlers racism did not prevent him from forming an alliance with the Japanese to jointly attack the USSR. He called the Japanese the "honorary Aryans."
While Hitler was conservative in outlook, he also used his conservatism strategically, knowing that many Germans after the Great Depression of 1929 shared with him nostalgia for a "golden past." He appealed to their anger over German surrender in 1918 and their belief that it was the modern society that brought about the degeneration of the German state.
Joining the right wing belief that Germany was "stabbed in the back" by socialists in 1918, Hitler opposed both domestic and international socialism (USSR); he also condemned Jews for being responsible for everything modern, as well as for causing socialism in Germany and internationally.
Hitler as a propagandist
Hitler was an amazing propagandist, which to a great extent explained his hold on the German population. He said that it was important to limit the number of enemies to make them believable for the masses: "When the vacillating masses see themselves fighting against too many enemies, objectivity at once sets in and raises the question whether really all the others are wrong and only ones own people or ones own movement is right."
"All propaganda has to appeal to the people
.The larger the mass of men to be reached, the lower its purely intellectual level will have to be set."
"The receptive capacity of the great masses is very restricted, its understanding small
, its forgetfulness is great
.[A]ll effective propaganda must restrict itself to very few points and impress these by slogans
."
Hitlers Racism
Hitler's racism was based on his own interpretation of the nature of the Germans, which he described as "noble" through a borrowed word Aryan. The word Aryan comes from Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language, and denoted the white tribe that invaded India 3,500 years ago. In Sanskrit Aryan also meant "noble," as in character, as well as social class. Hitler's use of the word was obviously borrowed from Houston Steward Chamberlain, a naturalized German citizen who used to be an English subject, whose country colonized India.
"Purity of the German blood": Hitler's description of the Germans as a race was inaccurate from an archaeological and biological point of view. The ancient word "Germania" was first used not to refer to a unified people, but territories outside of the Roman Empire in Europe inhabited by foreign tribes. This was a mistake however, committed first by Chamberlain.
What was superior about the German race: to Hitler, the superiority of the Aryan race lay in their "herd-like" group identity and dedication to following a leader, versus individualism, a new idea Hitler hated. It was this "herd-like" quality that would enable the Germans to act as one and conquer new territories.
Comparison of 19th century Racism and Hitlers Racism
Hitlers talk of the Aryan races leadership of civilization in guiding the non-Aryan natives, in comparison with Kiplings "White Mans Burden." In both cases one sees condescension to the non-white races. In Hitler's case, however, the process of the white race's conquest of the rest of the world was perceived more as a life/death struggle to survive for the white race. Their defeat of the other races and greater conquest of the world would prove their superiority hence their adaptation to the social environment.
Conclusion
Like Mussolini, Hitler was a totalitarian ruler, and more so. On the other hand, Hitler also tried to appeal to the German masses. He was a superior propagandist, and had a whole system of philosophy of how to indoctrinate the masses, which he recorded in Mein Kempf. His own conservative outlook shaped his views against big departments, stock markets, and his nostalgia for the Germany in its grand old days--before 1890, when Germany was still quite rural and did not have as many of the institutions and problems which came with industrialization. On the other hand, he also used conservatism to his advantage: he was very self-conscious of what he was doing--he knew after the Great Depression hit home, many Germans longed for stability, the "good old days," and someone to blame for all their misfortune. His conservatism did not prevent him from making full use of modern technology in weaponry and penetration of society by his regime through automobiles, telecommunications, weapons, etc.
His racism was one of his means to appeal to broad masses who felt humiliated by Germany's treatment at the Paris Peace Conference and frustration over their economy in the 1930s: by appealing to their pride through some supposed intrinsic quality they possessed. The Jewish connection to big businesses and socialist movements, including international socialism--Marx, Trotsky (Lenin's contemporary and later Stalin's right hand man), and historical persecution of them by Christians who blamed them for killing Christ, among others, made them the easy target in Hitler's definition of who did not belong in Germany. Hitler's racism also made use of a version of Darwinism to justify territorial expansion: Darwin's argument for adaptation to the environment, was used by Hitler to argue for territorial expansion of the Germans which would prove they adapted well to their environment, hence they were the superior race. The term national socialism (Nazism) that characterized Hitler's regime signified the use of nationalism and socialistic policies (aid to the unemployed, punishment of big businesses, support to small businesses, etc.), although Hitler, like Mussolini, both resorted to the backing of big capitalists for their money. And like in Mussolini's Italy, the supporters of Hitler cut across class lines and formed a wide spectrum of society, which showed Hitler's success in manipulating mass politics.
A Nazi review of "The Eternal Jew"
Background: The following essay was published in the Nazi Partys monthly for propagandists. This article reviews the film Der ewige Jude [The Eternal Jew], the nastiest of several anti-Semitic films of the period. No author is given.
The source: Unser Wille und Weg, 10 (1940), pp. 54-55.
The Eternal Jew:
The Film of a 2000-Year Rat Migration
The Eternal Jew is the first film that not only gives a full picture of Jewry, but provides a broad treatment of the life and effects of this parasitic race using genuine material taken from real life. It also shows why healthy peoples in every age have responded to the Jews with disgust and loathing, often enough expressing their feelings though deeds.
Just like rats, the Jews 2000 years ago moved from the Middle East to Egypt, at that time a flourishing land. Even then they had all the criminal traits they display today, even then they were the enemies of hard-working, creative peoples. In large hordes they migrated from there to the Promised Land, flooded the entire Mediterranean region, broke into Spain, France, and Southern Germany, then followed the German colonists as they moved into the countries of the East. Along they way they remained eternal parasites, haggling and cheating. Poland above all became the enormous reservoir from which Jewry sent its agents to every leading nation of Europe and the world.
The self-portrait Jewry offered the world was disgusting from the beginning. All that is overshadowed by the powerful examples in this new and most valuable film, The Eternal Jew. This film with its persuasive power must be shown everywhere where anti-Semitism is still questioned.
No one will fail to shudder at the sneaking servility and dirty bartering of the Jews when they start out, at the perfidy, insidiousness and vulgarity of their methods, at the brutality and all-devouring hatred they exhibit when they reach their goal and control finance.
The most revolting scenes show Jewish slaughtering methods. These customs, which cast a particularly vivid spotlight on the so-called Jewish religion, are so terrible that it is hard to watch the film as the grinning Jewish butchers carry out their work. It is illuminating to see how stubbornly Jewry holds to its method of slaughter and with which casuistry it defends it against the horror of the civilized world. Rarely will people feel more horror than which watching the desperate and horrible death struggle of the slaughtered animals. Long before the seizure of power, the NSDAP fought against Jewish slaughter. National Socialist representatives in parliament repeatedly introduced legislation to abolish this form of animal torture through a ban on Jewish slaughter. Such proposals were always rejected, since the entire Jewish and Jewish-influenced press ran long articles against them and the so-called German parties refused to support National Socialism in its battle against this evil.
Not only in this regard, but in other areas too we are reminded with a shudder of what once was reality in Germany: the power of the Jews in the economy, finance, culture, theater, film, publishing, press, radio, education and politics. All these Jewish leaders of the Weimar era had their home or their origin in the ****** ghettos of the East.
One has a deep sense of salvation after seeing this film.
We have broken their power over us. We are the initiators of the fight against world Jewry, which now directs its hate, its brutal greed and destructive will toward us. We must win this battle for ourselves, for Europe, for the world. This film will be a valuable tool in that struggle.