blame hitler?

[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.