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.

If You're Smart, Go Die Now

Dear Comrade Elizabeth,

Intellectuals have an odd habit of stating their opinion. (Trotsky is a good example of such brazen behavior. I doubt he ever imagined his outspokenness would merit an ice pick in his cranium.) The intellectuals who supported the USSR may have been highly influential, but they also lived the most dangerous lives of any of the comrades. When the Bolsheviks first identified the educated, wealthy class as a threat, they began to mobilize against them immediately. There were only two courses of action: either openly support communism or get the hell out of the country, and fast. (Fortunately, an escaping intellectual could use their incredible mental faculties to evade the policemen at the border.) Great-great grandfather on my mother's side was a professor at the University of St. Petersburg and the owner of the Ural Gold Mining Company in Tsarist Russia. Once the Bolsheviks began a series of non-proletariat killings, he realized the urgent need for smart people to flee the country. He split his family in two; my great-great grandmother escaped through Europe with her two eldest children, and he escaped through China with all the young ones, eventually making his way to the United States. Right after they left, there was an attack on St. Petersburg elite. Few survived to see the USSR, although those that did played a huge role in shaping it; in order to enforce the success of the communist state, there couldn't be enough intellectuals to constitute a dissenting class. (God forbid that there would be communist leaders other than Stalin gathering support in the USSR. *cough*Trotsky*cough*)

PS: Our family still doesn't know what came of the people that escaped into Europe. it is possible that we have relatives in France descended from the eldest son, the only member of the family to survive the ordeal.

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.

From the Weimar Republic to Today: Made in Germany

In the early 1920s, after the Great War, the German people overthrew the imperial government. After such an extended and horrible conflict, this political overhaul was relatively painless; however, the resulting Weimar Republic was too weak to support an unstable, losing Germany. During the decade-long attempt at a German democracy, hyperinflation plagued the economy as well as the $33 billion war debt. (The economy seemed to improve for a short period of time, then a state of financial crisis in 1930 caused the Weimar Republic to implode, unable to function because of severe debt.) The humiliation of having lost a war caused the German people to become embittered, blaming the failure of their armies on the plotting of minority groups such as the Jews and socialists. Thus, nationalism became militant.



Now, Germany is experiencing similar economic troubles. Thankfully, militant nationalism is not driving the country toward extremism as it once had; instead, stimulus packages are being distributed in an attempt to jump-start the economy. However, the economic hardship parallels that of the Great Depression in a rather disturbing way. This is the insider's view from Deutsche Welle's Made in Germany. (I would post a RAI Italia video about the present economy in Italy, but Silvio Berlusconi regrettably owns that TV station.)

Lenin's Legacy Continued, or Killing People

Dear Esteemed Partner in Crime AKA Elizabeth,

It's true that the kulaks and Russian intellectuals were not treated as the same kind of population. Stalin would eventually put Kulaks into concentration camps, a measure that was never taken for the educated, noble elite. The elite were still dealt with harshly, in fact, the Bolsheviks adhered to a strict policy of quick arrest and quiet execution. However, both groups proved to be opposition for the new communist regime. This opposition meant that in true communist style, little distinction was made between them. Intellectualism and resources often generate the same sort of power for the lucky holders, so the government's violent course of action seemed quite straightforward. The groups had to be removed. Out of this apparent need came organizations such as the Checka and KGB; such organizations would be most effective after the Kulaks and intellectuals were disposed of because they specialized in picking off dissenting individuals/budding groups. Thus, the communist regime annihilated entire classes without giving the least thought to what distinguished them--in this they accomplished their goals.

Our Least Favorite Moose in the World (913-919)

Italy may have been one of the winners of WWI, but severe debt and loss of life still left it in a difficult predicament; Italy was a much poorer nation than Britain and France, and therefore the debts were more crippling. The country had never been economically strong, and as the debt accumulated, Italy's long standing economic issues were only aggravated. Inflation and unemployment wracked the economy, and soon striking became frequent. On top of these financial troubles, Italy's gains from the war were far fewer than promised. The lands on the west coast of the Adriatic were hotly disputed by Yugoslavia, and even the Austrian territories Italy gained were not enough to compensate for the copious losses. Thus, as a result of the political and financial turmoil, radicalism began to take hold in the hearts of the people, and they turned to socialism for their fix of revolution.

Enter Mussolini, AKA Fascism. The son of a socialist blacksmith, Mussolini went into journalism and was able to rally support among like-minded colleagues. These groups, coincidentally, were called fasci and idealistically preached intense nationalism. When the Fascist Party went public, it held many surprising ideals, such as universal suffrage (for men and women), an eight hour workday, and inheritance taxes. Another platform dropped economic reform, but neither were successful, and it was only their aggressive determination that led to the ultimate success of the party. Once Mussolini began transforming the fascist government into a one-party dictatorship, he built a political foundation in Italy composed of statism, nationalism, and militarism. It was only a matter of time before this new political structure would spread to Italy's unstable neighbor, Germany, which was being upheld by the Weimar Republic. Mussolini's supported dictatorship, in particular, would appeal to a little boy with a taboo mustache...

Welcome to the Blogging Trinity!

Dear Elizabeth and Mr. P Diddy Kong,

Welcome to our "blogging trinity"! (Mr. Diddy Kong, since you are an atheist, we are perfectly willing to refer to this group as a "trio" or "threesome" instead. :P) I am looking forward to writing this experimental research paper with all of you.

On to Lenin's legacy:



In Lenin's Hanging Order (1918), he commands the Bolsheviks to mobilize against one of the largest, most problematic classes in Russian society: the Kulaks. The Kulaks were a wealthy group of peasants, usually landed, with more education that the liberated serfs and strength in numbers. The Kulaks had benefited from the existence of the Tsarist state and would be opposed to its destruction; they had enough resources to actively fight a Bolshevik revolution. Thus, Lenin decreed that the entire class should be disposed of as soon as possible; the nobility and intellectuals would soon follow. The violence of the Bolsheviks would become a commonly used tactic in the USSR and modern-day Russia. Although there is no longer a Kulak class, the intellectual targets have remained the same over the years. The above report on Deutsche Welle illustrates the progression from Lenin's order to the modern day.