Too Much Talk About Hitler Makes Lolotte a Dull Girl (919-926)

In 1928, the struggling Weimar Republic finally went sour. An election was held that year which shifted the political poles from right to left, making it impossible for the Republic to drum up any more support. In addition to this loss of support, alienated voters, mostly of the peasantry, started backing "specialized interests" such as those of the Nazi party. The Nazis identified this electoral splintering as profitable, and with the stunning propaganda of Goebbels, their party led the way towards the inevitable splintering of the Weimar. They painted themselves as a young, hip contingent concerned with Germany's well-being, and even during the Depression they were well-funded enough to organize the rallies that won them 18.3 percent of the vote early on. The presence of the Nazi party in the Reichstag prevented other groups, such as the National Socialists, from becoming an overpowering majority; the Nazis only followed Hitler, and refused to partake in other areas of government. Hitler, however, could not win the majority required to become president electorally. Thus, after a Dutch anarchist and pyromaniac did his worst on the Reichstag, Hitler seized the opportunity to create "The Third Reich" under Nazi jurisdiction.

In 1933, Germany officially became a one-party Nazi state. The left was crushed by Hitler's regime, and all non-Nazi organizations were forced to assimilate. If the Nazi state was efficient, perhaps the autocracy would be justified, but the bureaucracy was so complicated that very little was accomplished. In fact, Hitler's biggest challenges came from within the Nazi party at the end of his first term; these internal difficulties led to the creation of the infamous Nazi secret police, the SS. Headed by Himmler, the most feared Nazi next to Hitler, the SS invented the Nazi concentration camp. Still, the regime enjoyed a certain amount of popular support that cut across class lines. Hitler admired and emulated Mussolini in this regard by attempting to infuse a universal nationalism into the German people and reaching out to the country's youth. The main staple of the party's politics was racism, and for this issue I recommend reading the two posts preceding this one.

Introducing the Reich

Unfortunately, Hitler's ideology did not stay confined to the incendiary pages of Mein Kampf. A series of Nuremberg Laws were drawn up in to enforce the "protection of German blood and German honor." The first law separates Jews from Germans and establishes harsh consequences for those who refuse to acknowledge legislative xenophobia. It's a perfect case of the "separate but equal" syndrome; the law prevents Germans from marrying Jews, Jews from employing Germans, and German-Jew extramarital sex. However, Jews can display their own flag if not the German one, which is apparently a protected "exercise of right." Thus, some pretense of legality is established, only to be further deconstructed by subsequent laws denying Jews as citizens of the Reich. The third Nuremberg measure replacing the German flag with the Nazi swastika fully incorporated xenophobia into the sociopolitical structure of Germany.

Mein Kampf.

In Hitler's mind, there was only one type of people in the world: the Aryan race. The rest, well, they're not quite human, and therefore they are not protected by Hitler's fascism. (He also happened to admire the Japanese for their racial purity. In his mind, their island home and lack of genetic exposure to the outside world mad them superior to their fellows, although not equal to the Germanic greatness of the Aryans.) In his text Mein Kampf, he bluntly and clinically outlines the threatening inferiority of two specific races--the Slavs and the Jews. Fate, apparently, has sent Hitler a sign of Germany's future action through the Prussia's submission to Bolshevism, and this sign indicates the eminent fall of the Russian state. "For centuries Russia drew nourishment from this Germanic nucleus of its upper leading strata," Hitler says. He attributes the construction of the Russian state not to Slavic but Germanic leadership of "the inferior race." Once Germanic leadership let go of the Slav's hand, the Jew immediately snatched up a position of leadership and began to demolish all of the glorious work of the master race, thus leaving Russia "exterminated and extinguished." In fact, he goes as far as to label this process "Jewish world Bolshevization."

In these (extremely racist) statements, Hitler proves his knowledge of German history. As we examined during World War I, Tsar Nicholas and Kaiser Wilhelm III were first cousins; hence, Hitler claims that the Tsardom was, in fact, a position held by traditionally Germanic leaders. However, his connection between Bolshevism and Judaism is far from accurate. Fortunately, Hitler's aim in Mein Kampf was not political accuracy; the purpose of the text is to rationalize and construct xenophobia. Poland and Russia found Hitler's claims to be frightening and offensive, but to many German fascists who were still experiencing the shame of WWI, his arguments were inspirational. The idea of a misunderstood yet superior Germanic race was a glorious dream that negated the failure of the Weimar Republic, incredible debt, and loss of the Great War. Plus, this superiority was effortless--it came of Fate and lineage rather than merit. Hitler's seemingly rational presentation of his ideas only added to the appeal of Nazism for Germany. Hitler seemed like the kind of assertive leader a weakened and embittered Germany needed, and lo, they were stuck with him.