Drawing Lessons for Today from Hitler's Rise

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Sun, 8 Jan 2006 20:59:47 +0800

Drawing Lessons for Today from Hitler's Rise

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http://rwor.org/a/029/drawing-lessons-hitler-rise.htm

 

 

 

 

Drawing Lessons for Today from Hitler's Rise

 

Sunsara Taylor

 

 

 

Revolution #029, January 8, 2006, posted at revcom.us

 

" People look at all of this and think of Hitler, and they are

right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake the

world, in a fascist way, and for generations to come. "

 

From the Call for The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime

 

" The Bush Administration is the most dangerous force that has ever

existed. It is more dangerous than Nazi Germany because of the range

and depth of its activities and its intentions worldwide. I give my

full support to the Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime. "

 

Harold Pinter, Nobel Laureate of Literature

 

Each time people attempt to draw lessons for today from the rise of

Nazi Germany, hysterical pundits and politicians break into a chorus

of condemnations. When Congressman Dick Durbin suggested that the

accounts of Guantanamo could easily have been describing Nazi prisons,

he was forced to tearfully apologize on the floor of the Congress. And

not long ago, when The World Can't Wait Drive Out the Bush Regime ran

a paid full-page ad in the New York Times, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly

blew a gasket and argued that the Times should have refused the ad

because it included this comparison.

 

Even among those who hate the Bush regime, many feel that making this

comparison is too extreme.

 

But the question must be asked, is it true? Are there similarities

that merit recognition? How did a nation of millions come to widely

embrace and otherwise go along with Hitler's openly genocidal,

brutally misogynistic, virulently racist, hatefully anti-gay regime?

FOLLOW THE LOGIC OF THE LOGIC

 

It is easy to look back today and believe that the Nazis were a unique

evil without parallel. But during their rise it was very controversial

for people to correctly identify the direction and the logic of

society as it became dominated by the Nazis, a once-fringe group of

extremists. Even after the first nationwide action where Nazi

Brownshirts were posted at Jewish businesses, it was still the case

that, in the words of one observer, " the majority of the people on the

street were inclined to treat the matter as more or less of a joke. "

 

And despite the Nazis increasing dominance over society and their long

history of fierce anti-communism and anti-Semitism, when the

escalation of terror would taper off for a while people would tell

themselves that the worst was over. For instance, while 60,000 Jews

left Germany during 1933 and 1934, by mid-1935 10,000 of them

returned. All the way to the gates of the death camps, people took

false comfort in the assumption that such things " could never happen

here. "

 

People also told themselves that the traditions of a nation that had

given the world Beethoven, Kant, and Marx, could never do such a

thing. They told themselves that the real powers in Germany were

merely using Hitler and would never let him do anything really

destructive.

 

While the Nazis certainly didn't harbor any moral qualms with it, they

did not actually start out with a plan for mass extermination of Jews.

Their first years of terror were aimed at annihilating the communists

(whom they correctly saw as a political threat) and other political

dissidents and at forcing Jews out of public life. It was not until

1941, eight years after Hitler became Chancellor, and after Hitler

launched WWII, that the Nazis began systematically killing prisoners

and Jews. It wasn't until January 1942 that the " Final Solution " was

discussed by the Nazis at the Wannsee Conference and another six

months before the gas chambers were in operation that took the lives

of millions. Still, the logic and moral justification for such a

program was discernible even in the early days.

 

Today, as in Nazi Germany, when political rhetoric is extreme and even

barbaric, this is not a reason to dismiss it but to take it on all the

more seriously, especially when it is gaining influence.

FALSE CLAIMS OF VICTIMHOOD

 

When he was still a marginal figure, Hitler would openly rant about

his desire to kill Jews and to " purify the German Volk. " But when he

became Chancellor he was acutely aware that this would alienate many.

So he retooled his public image, dropping almost all references to

race and instead focusing on the cause of uplifting the German people

and defending them against all enemies.

 

The vicious anti-communism and anti-Semitism continued throughout

Hitler's Party, but Hitler was seen by millions as much more

reasonable and moderate! When Hitler orchestrated the first boycott

against Jews he projected it as a defensive action, taken to stop an

international Jewish campaign against German products and the Nazi regime.

 

By creating a false sense of victimhood, Hitler was able to put his

political opponents on the defensive and confer a sense of selfless

bravery on his Nazi thugs who fought forcefully, often cruelly, to

impose absolute Nazi authority.

A MATTER OF LEGITIMACY

 

Nazi Germany is known for its brutal Brownshirts and its virulent

anti-Semitism. But while these were integral to the establishment of

the Third Reich and in gluing together the base of the Nazi Party,

there was another dynamic at play which helped secure the active

support or tacit compliance of millions more.

 

In The Nazi Conscience, Claudia Koonz describes: " A fateful pattern

was established: after devastating physical violence against Jews, the

regime curbed unsanctioned racial attacks and in their place enacted

anti-Semitic laws. Many victims and bystanders failed to appreciate

the threat of these bureaucratic strategies that in the long run

proved far more lethal than sporadic attacks. "

 

The worst crimes committed by the Nazis came when they changed the

laws and when Hitler grabbed unrestrained power unto himself. This

legality and the sense of order it provided imbued the Nazis use of

force with legitimacy, and disarmed many who otherwise would have

objected. But ease of mind was the last thing that any moral person

should have found in the tightening grip of the Nazis repressive laws.

 

Today, just as in Nazi Germany, the restructuring of laws and

institutions should provoke more alarm, more resistance, and fiercer

opposition because it is these structural changes that are the most

absolute and which could take the greatest toll.

HISTORY WILL JUDGE US SHARPLY SHOULD WE FAIL TO ACT DECISIVELY

 

There is also little understanding about the resistance that was waged

against the Nazis. It was neither the case that no one objected, nor

was it the case that the Nazis were just too powerful and that their

victory was inevitable.

 

During his rise, Hitler and his regime were filled with vulnerability.

Large sections of people were turned off by his hateful rhetoric and

aggressive tactics. Many thousands poured into the streets to protest

and object. But, too many people either waited too long to resist or

confined their objections to the effect of the Nazis only in one

sphere of society.

 

Martin Niemöller was a pastor who originally enthusiastically

supported Hitler. Besides his unconscionable support for Hitler,

Niemöller made a second major error. When he did finally oppose

Hitler, he restricted it to trying only to prevent the Nazis from

interfering with his church. The idea that any arena of society could

be protected from Nazi influence without driving out the whole Nazi

regime proved false.

 

After eight years in Nazi prisons and camps, Niemöller spoke around

the world, teaching the lessons he had learned. He is famous, in part,

for this poem: " First they came for the communists, but I didn't speak

up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, but I

didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade

unionists, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics, but I didn't speak up because I was

a Protestant. Then, they came for me, and by that time no one was left

to speak up. "

 

This poem explains the situation that prevailed by 1943, when a brave

student resistance arose called The White Rose. Though they were

heroic, these students were up against a regime that had consolidated

its fascist state apparatus. And such a chill had set in throughout

society that their movement couldn't take hold on a scale large enough

to challenge the Nazis. Tragically, the leaders of the White Rose were

hunted down and killed.

 

It is urgent that we deepen our understanding of what allowed the

nightmare of Nazi Germany to destroy so much and so many. There are

parallels to the situation we face in the U.S. today. And there are

invaluable lessons we must draw and act upon that can shape the future

for hundreds of millions worldwide.

 

The point is not that Bush is exactly the same as Hitler in some

arbitrary or mechanical sense. Nor is the point that Bush and his

program today are the same as Hitler and his Nazis in their most

gruesome end years.

 

No. As it says in the Call for The World Cant Wait Drive Out the Bush

Regime, " The point is this: history is full of examples where people

who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were

victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping

to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they

ever imagined. The future is unwritten. Which one we get is up to us. "