blame hitler?

[Kralizec]

You can draw a line between Hitler's promises of a better economy and the war. Once in power he pumped millions into the arms industry and raised a larger army then was allowed under the Versailles treaty. Since you can't hold up the facade of a working economy by building up forces indefinitely (there's a point where your warehouses are full of ammunition and tanks are simply parked and gathering dust, and people will start wondering what the justification for all that is), he had to go to war. That simple. If WWII hadn't happened at all and Germany remained peaceful, its economy would have collapsed like a cardhouse.
You could say it's somewhat similar to the decline of the Soviet Union, wich started to weaken under the pressure of keeping up with America in the arms race, while the people saw little improvement in wealth over all these years and began questioning the system.

WW2 was really part deux of the first, and cannot be totally blamed on Hitler, but Hitler is of course responsible for the Shoah.

Good words, I agree totally.

[Kralizec]

On WWI I blame: .... GAVRILO PRINCEP

A Serbian student caused 15 million deaths by killing a foreign overlord? That's viewing things in black and white plus being ignorant difference between the two.

If I would have to point out a single, major cause for WW1, it would be the trend of making alliances and support pacts. In this time many people had begun to believe that by using treaties and international politics war could be banished and their country secured. Add to that all the trouble that had been going on in the Balkans and you have a recipe for disaster. Individual people are merely catalysts.

[Geoffrey S]

Geoffrey : But that delivery was a very short term "fix" that would lead to an even bigger problem in the medium term .

Hasn't stopped many nations since from focusing more on the short term than on the medium to long term, since short term fixes often seem more appealing when opposed to long term sacrifices; this is most obvious in the growing deficits of various countries nowadays.

[Craterus]

Thing is, the Nazi party was delivering on its promises of a stronger German economy. People are all too often to overlook the bad sides of a political party if that party increases the personal standard of living. This tendency is most certainly not limited to Germany in the '30s.

Bingo! Hitler had an answer to most people's problems. Economically, or to get rid of Communism etc. and many overlooked his other policies concerning Jews.

Although, some did agree with the racial policies and some just wanted someone to blame for their problems.

[Gregoshi]

I don't agree with some of the premises put forth that earlier events (WW1, etc) made Hitler's rise inevitable. They certainly increased the chances of an unfavourable government seizing power, but Hitler wasn't the only possible result. Hitler was the wrong man at the right time. Compare Hitler turning Germany around with Franklin Roosevelt pulling the US out of the Great Depression. I'll grant you that the situation in Germany was much worse than it ever was in the US, but the problems were similar. And each chose a different means to tackle their problems. What if there was a Roosevelt-like politician in Germany in the 20's?

[Meneldil]

[B]
I wonder , do you think that this Schikelbruger (Hitler) could have succeed if he had an American audience , or an English , or a French ? Imho , the German people (let say , a big part of it) in the 30' was the best audience that Hitler could have . On second though , how it came to be that (maybe) the most advanced society at the time received in such enthusiasm this Mambo Jumbo about the Aryan race , Superhumans , subhumans etc' ?

He sure would have seized power in France, or in the US, or in any western country.
In France, both extreme right and extreme left represented a large part of the voters (if not the major part). The 6th of february 1934, 'riots' organised by the extreme right led to a major political crisis (people thought there would be another Revolution).
If I'm not fooling myself, extreme right groups were also quite influencial too in the US, right after the Crisis (the KKK, the Aryan Alliance, etc. Funnilly, I just read a novel on that topic - K, by Daniel Easterman).

[Adrian II]

Thing is, the Nazi party was delivering on its promises of a stronger German economy. People are all too often to overlook the bad sides of a political party if that party increases the personal standard of living. This tendency is most certainly not limited to Germany in the '30s.

Sorry, but isn't this exactly what I wrote in post #49, only much more elaborately?

[Adrian II]

I don't agree with some of the premises put forth that earlier events (WW1, etc) made Hitler's rise inevitable.

Oh good. I was just about to blame Horatio Nelson for making it impossible for Napoleon to conquer Britain and thus allow him to turn all his energy to subduing Prussia, which would have prevented the war of 1870 which would have prevented 'Verdun' and thus preempted Hitler's rise to power in 1933.

[Adrian II]

Once in power he pumped millions into the arms industry and raised a larger army then was allowed under the Versailles treaty.

He didn't. This is one of the myths spread by Hitler's opponents on the left. This myth is also addressed in Haffner's booklet I mentioned. Admittedly, a well-known nazi slogan was 'Kanonen statt Butter!' ('Guns, not butter!'), but in practice it worked the other way round. Hitler initially invested more in civilian industry than in the arms industry. He did produce butter instead of guns. Ironically (in view of what Gregoshi wrote) his favourite economic wizard Hjalmar Schacht applied many Keynesian precepts in the same way Roosevelt did in the United States. Only later could nazi Germany afford to 'militarise' its economy. It did so in close cooperation with the Soviet Union, as has been highlighted in another Haffner book by the way: Der Teufelspakt: Die deutsch-russischen Beziehungen vom Ersten zum Zweiten Weltkrieg (1989). I don't know whether it has been translated.

[Tribesman]

[/B]thats not true, people on their own are inteligent but the mass is stupid
That proves my point precicely , how can people react differently as a mass if they are not stupid individually ? the stupid mass is collective individual stupidity .
Hasn't stopped many nations since from focusing more on the short term than on the medium to long term,
yep , stupid creatures , they don't seem to learn from their mistakes .
Humans eh ?

[Adrian II]

Most studies on this episode run to several hundred pages, often several volumes of several hundred pages all cross referenced to other works of several hundred pages.

The authoritative works often count over a thousand pages (and Byzantine Prince would call the authors lazy...). I find additional reading of interbellum and post-war novelists indispensable (as well as aesthetically gratifying): Döblin, Fallada, Feuchtwanger, Kisch, Mann, Tucholsky. They 'tell' you things you really want to know, if only, sometimes, by omission.

The issue with Hitler and other historical figures and episodes is that they can not be explained, only described and analysed more or less accurately. Is it really possible to 'explain' a murder three blocks from where you live? If so, then multiply by millions, set back the clock and replace 'blocks' by 'nations'. See you in the next millennium.

[Kaiser of Arabia]

A brief summary.

You have got to be kidding Capo .
If not then ask your education authority to check Mr Millers achedemic qualifications .

I think he was trying to be funny
And I forget the exact order of things. Alls I remember is that there were gunmen, bombs bouncing off of cars, wounded civilians, and an idiot walking around with a gun out asking where the Archduke was.

[Adrian II]

Alls I remember is that there were gunmen, bombs bouncing off of cars, wounded civilians, and an idiot walking around with a gun out asking where the Archduke was.

In other words: history in the making. Oh the stories! You gotta love history.

[caesar44]

[B][QUOTE=Tribesman]

you are saying that the Germans did not vote for Hitler because of his Mambo Jumbo but because of his economical program .
Ceasar :But the economical program was inexorably linked to the racist program , everything from finance to education , health , agriculture and......
BTW

Yes , that is exactly what I meant .



[B]44% in the last elections and rising !
where did you get that figure ?

Tribesman , I referred to the last election before WWII .

REICHSTAG ELECTION OF 5 MARCH 1933
====================================================================
Enrolled voters: 44,685,764
Votes cast: 39,655,029 (88.7)
Invalid votes: 311,698 (00.8)
Valid votes: 39,343,331 (99.2)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Party Votes % Seats
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bayrische Volkspartei 1,073,552 02.7 19
DVP-CZVD-DBP-DHP 978,102 02.5 8
Deutsche Zentrumspartei 4,424,905 11.2 73
Kampffront Schwarz-Weiss-Rot 3,136,760 08.0 52
Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands 4,848,058 12.3 81
Landbund 83,839 00.2 1
Nationalsozialisten (NSDAP) 17,277,180 43.9 288Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands 7,516,243 19.1 125
Others 4,692 00.0 -
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 39,343,331 647

You can see , 56% for the ultra right parties !

[Adrian II]

REICHSTAG ELECTION OF 5 MARCH 1933

That was after the January 1933 Hitler-'coup'. The last valid election had been in November 1932 when the nazi's got 33 percent of the vote. This was lower than previously and the nazis may have been past their electoral peak since the German economy was picking up. One week before the March 1933 election the Reichstag building burned down. A state of emergency was declared, the Communist and Socialist leaders were arrested, their party organisations outlawed and forbidden to continue campaigning, SA brown shirts roamed the streets and 'convinced' many people to vote for Hitler. Nonetheless he did not get his 50%. It is remarkable that 12 million voted for the outlawed parties anyway.

[caesar44]

Nonetheless he did not get his 50%. It is remarkable that 12 million voted for the outlawed parties anyway.

"he did not get his 50%" - that's make my argument a valid one , it shows that the elections were elections . Plus , you are saying it also - "It is remarkable that 12 million voted for the outlawed parties anyway" , you see ?

Now , at the 11/1932 elections , the ultra right parties got 49.1 % , so we are arguing here about 6 % - pointless . Hitler came to power by the German people , that is the point , he did not took the power as a representative of some kind of junta . I am sure that we are looking at it the same way . And the conclusion is that the responsibility for the victims of WWII is on a big part of the German nation 33-45 .

[Adrian II]

"he did not get his 50%" - that's make my argument a valid one , it shows that the elections were elections.

I just showed you that they were not. Parties outlawed, voters intimidated. The fact that hard-core left voters were determined to make themselves heard does not alter the fact that these elections were heavily manipulated. As I said before, there are indications that the nazis were already past their electoral peak in November of 1932. The burning of the Reichstag was a Godsend for Mr Hitler.

[Geoffrey S]

Sorry, but isn't this exactly what I wrote in post #49, only much more elaborately?

Could be, I was merely stating my view on caesar44's post two posts before mine. Could it be possible that two Dutch are in agreement?

[Adrian II]

Could be, I was merely stating my view on caesar44's post two posts before mine. Could it be possible that two Dutch are in agreement?

You and I could start a political party or a Church, then split into three different currents. Only in The Netherlands...

[caesar44]

[QUOTE=AdrianII]Parties outlawed

No . just after the 1933 elections .
Yes , they were manipulated , but I don't see your point .

[Adrian II]

Yes, they were manipulated, but I don't see your point .

The point is that the Communists were immediately forced to go 'underground' after the Reichstag fire because their leaders and activists were persecuted. They were blamed for the fire by the Hitler government. Its propaganda machine frightened the population with the prospect of an imminent Communist uprising and it made Hitler look like the only real bulwark against it. The Social Democrats could no longer campaign either, their party publications were confiscated and their public manifestations forbidden. Hence these elections were not free, fair or representative. They were, in one word, null.

EDIT
I have reread the whole thread, including your contributions, and frankly I fail to see what your point is. You claim that those 44% of the electorate who voted for the NSDAP in March 1933 knew exactly what Hitler was all about.

I believe that many historians have rightly stated that even Adolf Hitler did not know what Hitler was all about in March of 1933, and in many other instances as well. Ian Kershaw for instance makes a very convincing case that Goebbels had to make a real effort to convince Hitler to adopt some of the more gruesome anti-Jewish measures.

[caesar44]

The point is that the Communists were immediately forced to go 'underground' after the Reichstag fire because their leaders and activists were persecuted. They were blamed for the fire by the Hitler government. Its propaganda machine frightened the population with the prospect of an imminent Communist uprising and it made Hitler look like the only real bulwark against it. The Social Democrats could no longer campaign either, their party publications were confiscated and their public manifestations forbidden. Hence these elections were not free, fair or representative. They were, in one word, null.

EDIT
I have reread the whole thread, including your contributions, and frankly I fail to see what your point is. You claim that those 44% of the electorate who voted for the NSDAP in March 1933 knew exactly what Hitler was all about.

I believe that many historians have rightly stated that even Adolf Hitler did not know what Hitler was all about in March of 1933, and in many other instances as well. Ian Kershaw for instance makes a very convincing case that Goebbels had to make a real effort to convince Hitler to adopt some of the more gruesome anti-Jewish measures.

"...and frankly I fail to see what your point is ."

Post no. 6 - "Hitler was not responsible for the death of (20 , 30 , 40 , 50 or 60) millions , it was he , his party , his army , a big part of his nation , and so many collaborators ."
Post no. 46 - "Imho , the German people (let say , a big part of it) in the 30' was the best audience that Hitler could have ."
Post no. 54 - "Yes , you (AdrianII)are saying that the Germans did not vote for Hitler because of his Mambo Jumbo but because of his economical program . Correct ? If so , Tribesman is right , they did not know anything about his militarism , imperialism , racism , hatred etc' ? I say , give them the credit , they knew exactly what Hitler stands for ."
Post no. 74 - (quoting tribesman) "Ceasar :But the economical program was inexorably linked to the racist program , everything from finance to education , health , agriculture and......
(me) "Yes , that is exactly what I meant ."
Post no. 76 - "Hitler came to power by the German people , that is the point , he did not took the power as a representative of some kind of junta . I am sure that we(me and you AdrianII) are looking at it the same way . And the conclusion is that the responsibility for the victims of WWII is on a big part of the German nation 33-45 ."

I can't make my self more clear than that .
Now I admit , I was wrong by saying that we are in agreement on the subject , you , apparently , clear the German nation from its responsibility of rising Hitler to power by saying that they did not know what he was , that they voted for him just because he promised them jobs and cars . More than that , you are saying that the 56% in 3/1933 were a lie (although I have showed that they achieved 49% in 11/1932) .
My point is very clear - Hitler was a man of the people and the German aristocracy , and my (and many others) conclusion is - the German nation was responsible for the crimes and the victims of WWII .

[Adrian II]

you, apparently, clear the German nation from its responsibility (..)

Aha, so that is what is bugging you. Well, no, I merely claim that many Germans who voted for him in 1932 and 1933 probably did not know that Hitler was serious about some of his wildest claims with regard to war, Jews or Lebensraum.

As I said before, if Hitler himself was apparently unsure about his true aims, how could those voters have been aware of them? You seem to be stuck in an extreme intentionalist view, i.e that Hitler and all his followers knew from the start everything that transpired between 1933 and 1945.

I also wrote that he 'converted' many more during the later 1930's because of his economic achievements. This does not absolve anyone from particular responsibilities. On the other hand, the 1932 or 1933 election results do not justify your claim that the whole German nation was responsible for Hitler's crimes and victims. It is much more complicated than that.

[caesar44]

Aha, so that is what is bugging you. Well, no, I merely claim that many Germans who voted for him in 1932 and 1933 probably did not know that Hitler was serious about some of his wildest claims with regard to war, Jews or Lebensraum.

As I said before, if Hitler himself was apparently unsure about his true aims, how could those voters have been aware of them? You seem to be stuck in an extreme intentionalist view, i.e that Hitler and all his followers knew from the start everything that transpired between 1933 and 1945.

I also wrote that he 'converted' many more during the later 1930's because of his economic achievements. This does not absolve anyone from particular responsibilities. On the other hand, the 1932 or 1933 election results do not justify your claim that the whole German nation was responsible for Hitler's crimes and victims. It is much more complicated than that.

AdrianII , "Aha, so that is what is bugging you." Do you really think so ? To make myself clear - You can think enything about the subject , I am not your "big brother" , ha ?

Btw , as you know , in july 18 1925 , Hitler published his "Mein Kampf" which contained :
Here I inteded to write a long artical about the book , actualy about the Nazi program to eliminate the Jews and other minorities , to create a Lebensraum , to crash the Treaty of Versailles etc' , but , what is the use , just read what the man said just 8 years before 1933 -
"At the beginning of the [First World] War, or even during the War, if twelve or fifteen thousand of these Jews who were corrupting the nation had been forced to submit to poison-gas... ...then the millions of sacrifices made at the front would not have been in vain." (Volume II, Chapter 15 : The Right to Self-Defence)
"These tactics are based on an accurate estimation of human frailties and must lead to success, with almost mathematical certainty, unless the other side also learns how to fight poison gas with poison gas. The weaker natures must be told that here it is a case of to be or not to be." (Volume I, Chapter 2 : Years of Study and Suffering in Vienna)

Well , I belive The German historian Andreas Hillgruber when he labelled the plans contained in Mein Kampf as Hitler's Stufenplan (Stage-by-stage plan). But no , the Germans waited for the cars...

"Well, no, I merely claim that..." Me too , just merely claim...
You know the facts , I know the facts , we don't share the same conclusions , period . let us move on .

[Adrian II]

(..) read what the man said just 8 years before 1933 -"At the beginning of the [First World] War, or even during the War, if twelve or fifteen thousand of these Jews who were corrupting the nation had been forced to submit to poison-gas... ...then the millions of sacrifices made at the front would not have been in vain."

Caesar44, you are out of luck. I happen to have read the whole damn book in the original language.

In that passage Hitler was writing about the Social Democratic leadership, the 'Marxist leaders' mentioned in the previous sentence. He meant to say that if only 'these Jews' (who in his view led the nation to disaster and defeat in 1918) had shared the fate of the ordinary German worker in the trenches, they would not have been able to perform their betrayal behind the lines (the infamous 'Dolchstoss legend'). The passage does not call for the gassing of Jews, let alone of all the Jews.

Such issues have been addressed extentively in Hitler-scholarship, particularly in Werner Maser's commented version of the book titled Hitler's Mein Kampf.

The earliest recorded word of Hitler with regard to the 'Jewish question' was in a letter which he wrote when a corporal and Vertrauensmann in the German Army in 1919. In it, he wrote that there was an essential difference between 'sentimental antisemitism' and 'rational antisemitism'. The first was content to merely attack individual Jews in pogroms. The latter (his preferred version) would see to the removal ('Entfernung') of all Jews from society. Not destruction, removal.

The remarkable fact about Mein Kampf is that it lays out a lot of plans that later materialised (totalitarian rule, foreign conquest, etcetera) but not the mass murder of the Jews. That whole issue is conspicuously absent from the book. And the fact of the matter is that Mein Kampf was not taken very seriously by anyone at the time.

Of course you may refer to Hillgruber, who was an extreme intentionalist writing before the fall of the Berlin Wall, but if you want to paint a credible picture you will have to address more recent findings such as those brought up by Kershaw, as I mentioned, in particular the fact that Hitler himself had to be convinced of instituting various 'Stufen' of the Holocaust. Even at the start of the war, the nazi leadership harboured plans for a forced emigration of all Jews from German and occupied territory, for a mass 'sale'' of Jews to foreign countries, or for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Poland or Madagascar.

Haffner maintains that the decision to destroy Jewry was a consequence of the lost battles in Russia, which made Hitler realise that he would lose the war. The murder of the Jews, on the other hand, was at least something he could accomplish... It became a substitute victory for Hitler, as it were, which seems to be in line with what most biographers state about his character. I suppose we will never really know what went on inside his head.

[Kralizec]

He didn't. This is one of the myths spread by Hitler's opponents on the left. This myth is also addressed in Haffner's booklet I mentioned. Admittedly, a well-known nazi slogan was 'Kanonen statt Butter!' ('Guns, not butter!'), but in practice it worked the other way round. Hitler initially invested more in civilian industry than in the arms industry. He did produce butter instead of guns. Ironically (in view of what Gregoshi wrote) his favourite economic wizard Hjalmar Schacht applied many Keynesian precepts in the same way Roosevelt did in the United States. Only later could nazi Germany afford to 'militarise' its economy. It did so in close cooperation with the Soviet Union, as has been highlighted in another Haffner book by the way: Der Teufelspakt: Die deutsch-russischen Beziehungen vom Ersten zum Zweiten Weltkrieg (1989). I don't know whether it has been translated.

Thank you for correcting me, I didn't know that. I might pick up some of the literature you mentioned when I'm less busy with my current activities

Haffner maintains that the decision to destroy Jewry was a consequence of the lost battles in Russia, which made Hitler realise that he would lose the war. The murder of the Jews, on the other hand, was at least something he could accomplish... It became a substitute victory for Hitler, as it were, which seems to be in line with what most biographers state about his character. I suppose we will never really know what went on inside his head.

But...didn't the meeting in Wannsee where the nazis decided to systematicly eradicate the jewish population occur somewhere in 1942 and thus before the tide had turned against the Germans?

[Adrian II]

But...didn't the meeting in Wannsee where the nazis decided to systematicly eradicate the jewish population occur somewhere in 1942 and thus before the tide had turned against the Germans?

Opinions differ. There are facts, and then there are interpretations.

• Facts
  The Wannsee Conference took place in January of 1942. It was a gathering of representatives of fifteen institutions within the nazi hierarchy presided by Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reichssicherheitsdienst ('Imperial Security Service'). It was the first occasion when the nazi leadership made a concrete plan to eradicate all Jews. There had been no such plans before. The minutes of this (secret) meeting were discovered by the American prosecution in the Neuremberg trial in March 1947, when they secured a file of the former German Foreign Ministry entitled Geheime Reichssache ('secret Imperial matter'). The minutes speak of a plan to 'evacuate' the Jews. No mention is made of extermination, yet the minutiae of the plan are obviously geared to that purpose. This form of bureaucratic hypocrisy was hardly unique in the history of nazi decision-making.
• Interpretations
  Historians disagree about the timing of, as well as the reasons for the 'decision' to start the extermination of the Jews. The two are internonnected.
  Christopher Browning (Fateful Months, 1985) believes that Hitler personally decided on the extermination at the height of his offensive in Russia, in July 1941, in a fit of extreme elation.
  Philippe Burrin (Hitler and the Jews, 1994) thinks he took the decision in August of 1941, when the Russian tide had turned and Hitler was outraged at the thought that his Russian offensive would stall.
  Structuralists such as Raoul Hilberg (The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985) emphasize the gradual and improvised nature of the decision-making process, in which Hitler nearly always approved the 'moderate' options presented by his underlings and discarded the more radical ones. As a consequence, the 'decision' to start extermination was spread out over the year 1942; the extermination camps were gradually opened and the mass deportation of jews was gradually intensified as the Russian campaign turned sour. Finally, after Stalingrad and Kursk, the extermination of the Jews was declared a matter of the greatest urgency, almost as important as the Reich's military defense.
• My interpretation
  Ask yourself: Why was Wannsee a 'secret' meeting? Why were nearly all the policies with regard to a 'final solution' of the 'Jewish question' kept secret from the very start almost to the very end of the Reich? The main reason seems to be that the nazi leadership doubted that Germany had the 'stomach' to carry it out.
  During the first year of the Russian campaign, the German Einsatzgruppen that killed Jews and political opponents behind the frontlines in the East were gradually given more violent instructions as a test, in order to see if they would comply, if the ordinary German army would tolerate their activity, and if there would be enough 'volunteers' to staff the Einsatzgruppen. Only gradually, in the course of 1941-42, did the leadership become confident that they could pull off a policy of a Judenfrei ('Jew-free') Poland and Russia. And only after that did they feel confident that an overall extermination of Jews was politically feasible. The actual implementation of the policy (as opposed to the paper decision reached in Wannsee) did indeed coincide with the onset of military disaster for the Germans in the East. Based on what I know of Hitler's gangster mentality, my 'guestimate' would be that Haffner is right and that the extermination of the Jews was Hitler's Ersatzsieg ('substitute victory') for a military war that was in fact already lost in 1943.