Germany And The Rise Of Hitler

Comparisons have been made of late between contemporary United States and the rise of Nazi Germany. As I am currently studying that era, I figured I would share remembrances from those who were actually there. I’m not trying to make a value judgment, just passing along quotes that somehow seem applicable to the times. All quotes are taken from How Democracy Failed, published in 1975, so no comparisons are attempted from the book’s author to today’s events.

“People knew that there was a sort of Hitler underground, that kids were being indoctrinated, that democratic teachers were getting fired, that the Nazis were better organized than the newspapers ever told us. And there was a quality of political anger.”

“Of course, hate didn’t really explode suddenly in 1930. Hate for Jews, for ‘traitors”, for the liberal press (which as the bearer of bad news was often regarded as the cause of all the disasters), and for politicians who seemed to promise a better life but couldn’t deliver even a few more jobs, had been smoldering in Germany ever since the end of World War I.”

“Students graduated from college into a world that had no place for them. After working hard to get into the university and then spending many years cramming for tough, ever-recurring competitive examinations, many of these students felt betrayed by their country, as did the thousands of shopkeepers whose businesses failed.”

“By reinforcing all the prejudices of the men whom life had apparently failed, telling them that their inability to find work, to lead a decent life, to support their families, was a planned plot by their old enemies, the liberals, the Jews and the scheming politicians, the Nazi party added thousands of new, fighting mad members to its ranks every month.”

“Few realized that the whole world, America included, was going through a depression. They thought that their country had been singled out for misery by “those foreigners”, who were, of course, becoming rich through Germany’s poverty.

On reading over German papers for the months of June, July, and August, it becomes obvious that the vast majority of political reporters, columnists and editors still considered Hitler and his band of conspicuous followers a very minor menace. There were about thirty daily papers in Berlin, and only those that were specifically oriented toward the Nazi party predicted any significant gains in Hitler’s parliamentary delegation.

Hitler attempted to be all things to all men. To a group of students he could appear as a moderate, rather mild politician. In public he preferred to be seen as a gentle man, who loved children and cared so much for animals that he became a vegetarian. His speeches were often so irrational that politicians flatly refused to take him seriously.

By 1933—still appearing to an objective observer to be an irrational, spiteful, rather unintelligent and uneducated little man—he had become one of the most powerful rulers in history. A lost war, a disastrous inflation, disorder and crime, and many lost German illusions had helped to put him in power. But so had some other rather special German problems: an educational system that emphasized obedience over independent thought; a series of orators who taught the public to distrust a free press; an overwhelming longing for order and stability, even at the expense of freedom and justice.

There were those who had always believed that freedom leads to license, that patriotism means an uncritical attitude toward the state, and finally, that the leadership of that state should not be subjected to public scrutiny.

Usually, the distrust produced indifference. Most Germans simply didn’t want to become involved. They considered all politicians as corrupt or corruptible, newspapers as biased, political speeches as empty promises…

Hilda, of course, didn’t understand that Hitler, himself, was well aware of the drama that the fights created, and that they got for him much needed free space in the press. Hitler was also aware of the distrust of politics and government by most Germans, like Hilda’s parents…

He (Hitler) had come to the simple conclusion that a speech would be remembered more vividly if accompanied by violence. He therefore welcomed violent interruptions, because they gave his bodyguards an excuse to wade through the crowd and engage in savage fighting.”

If the average German was disgusted with the fighting and chaos, Hitler was getting his name in the papers, and his followers were proud of him.

Early in his career, Hitler had learned that his audiences were not interested in closely reasoned ideas. What they liked was pounding repetition : the same attacks against the liberals, the Jews, the press and the pacifists, using the same frightening and passionate phrases, with the same promises of a great and bright future.

“One man, who looked like a student, asked at the meeting I attended why the Communists and the international bankers were working together,” a man who is now a banker reported. “That seemed like a fairly intelligent question to me, but one of Hitler’s guards just walked up to him and hit him in the mouth.”