Nobel Peace Prize 1935/6 - Carl von Ossietzky

[Louis VI the Fat]

The absence of Liu Xiaobo from this year's Nobel prize ceremony has raised the ghost of Carl von Ossietzky, the 1920s/30s German pacifist.


Important to me is that Von Ossietzky in the 1920s and early 1930's was very active in exposing Germany's secret rearmament strategy. In a bid to overthrow the peace of Europe, Germany and the Soviet Union closely co-operated in the 1920s/1930s. Ossietzky showed how Germany in the 1920s transferred American funds to the Soviet Union, rebuild an airforce, and secretly trained a new generation of pilots in Stalinist Soviet Union.

Ossietzky, a pacifist and a man of great insight, saw the storm that was brewing. Alas, his writings could not stop the tide, could not prevent the final act of the German conservatives dangerous game, the installation of their puppet in 1933. This meant game over for Ossietzky, who was almost immediately send to a concentration camp, was miserably tortured for years, and died in 1938.


The Nobel committee was so divided over his Peaze Prize in 1935, that initially no prize was awarded. In the fiercely extremist political climate of the 1930s, Conservatives, including the Norwegian king, oppossed Ossietzky as a traitor to his country, as a Christian from a converted Jewish family, and as an enemy of Germany. Eventually, Ossietzky was awarded the prize in 1936, amidst controversy and great pressure for Germany. It very much resembles the current row over Liu's Prize, and China's fierce, vehement, reaction.


I would say that history has vindicated Ossietzky, but sadly modern popular history has adopted the German ultra-nationalist / nazi concept of Germany suffering as a victim of conspiracy in this period, and, perhaps even more sadly, the German federal court of justice in 1992 upheld the verdict of 1931: Ossietzky's publishing of Germany's secret re-armament was an act of treason. Shame on both accounts.

Mr Liu, 54, is currently serving an eleven-year sentence on the charge of "inciting subversion" after he co-authored a petition for political reform in China.

Mr Ossietzky, a German journalist and pacifist who spoke out against Hitler's rise to power, was convicted of high treason and espionage in 1931 after publishing an article about Germany's efforts to rebuild its air force, in contravention of the Treaty of Versailles.

He was tortured in Spandau prison in 1933, after the Reichstag fire, and was interned in the KZ Esterwegen concentration camp near Oldenburg when he was awarded the prize in 1936.

The Nazi regime put enormous pressure on the Nobel committee not to award him the Peace prize, to the extent that the 1935 Peace prize, which he had been nominated for, was not awarded at all.
It took the Nobel committee a year to work up the courage, and two members withdrew, before it finally announced the 1935 prize to Mr Ossietzky on the same day as awarding the 1936 prize to Carlos Saavedra Lamas, who brokered a truce between Paraguay and Bolivia. Mr Ossietzky's prize was described by newspapers at the time as "a slap in the face of fascism".

King Haakon VII of Norway stayed away from the ceremony, while the award was generally condemned by conservatives. Aftenposten, the Norwegian newspaper, argued that Mr Ossietzky was a criminal who had attacked his country "with the use of methods that violated the law long before Hitler came into power".
One of the German activists supporting Mr Ossietzky in Norway was Herbert Frahm, a 21-year-old exile who took the name Willy Brandt and would eventually become chancellor of West Germany and win the Peace prize himself.

Germany reacted with fury, and an unnamed official called the award "preposterous". The Nazi government told Mr Ossietzky, by then suffering from severe tuberculosis in a hospital bed, that he had to decline the prize, a demand that he refused. A year-and-a-half later he died, at the age of 48.
Meanwhile, Hitler established his own alternative Peace prize and declared that no Germans were to ever accept the Nobel prize again. The University of Oldenburg is now named after Mr Ossietzky.

I was going to put this in the Monastery, but then, a thread touching on Hitler, Chinese Communists, Jews and treacherous kings is a bit Backroomish.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...Ossietzky.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Ossietzky

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

When Carl von Ossietzky, the anti-militarist journalist whom the Nazis had thrown into a concentration camp, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1936, Heinrich Mann wrote, "in one moment the conscience of the world arose, and the name which it spoke was his."

Mann was referring to the international campaign in support of awarding him the prize in which some of the leading figures in the intellectual and political life of the time took part. The Ossietzky prize was one bright moment in the dark days preceding the outbreak of World War II, when the forces for peace and freedom in large sections of the world seemed about to be overwhelmed by ever more powerful forces of totalitarianism and reaction.

In 1936 Nazi Germany was rearming in violation of the Versailles Treaty and in March reoccupied the Rhineland. In the same year Hitler formed the Rome-Berlin axis with Mussolini, who was completing the conquest of Ethiopia, began to aid the rebel generals who were marching to overthrow the Spanish Republic, and entered an agreement with Japan. In the summer of 1936 the Olympic Games in Berlin provided Goebbels with the opportunity to mount a great propaganda show of the "New Germany." Many abroad were dismissing the grim reports of concentration camp atrocities as exaggerated, and statesmen treated them as domestic affairs of no concern to other states.

In the face of this situtation and despite all the efforts of the Nazi propaganda machine and the German Foreign Office, a little band of German emigrès in Paris managed to organize a multinational campaign in behalf of a concentration camp victim little known outside Germany which saved his life, got him released from camp, and won him the Nobel Peace Prize.

http://www.irwinabrams.com/articles/ossietzky.html

What a dreadful age it must have been for the pacificist, the intellectual, the internationalist! To see what was coming, and yet to watch powerless as your entire world comes undone, is put to the flames.

[PanzerJaeger]

He was nothing more than a communist sympathizer and a traitor. He was acting to hurt Germany long before Hitler came to power. In fact, it was people like Ossietzky that spurred the reactionary anti-communist shift to the far Right in Germany that swept Hitler into the Chancellery.

Every nation has the right to defend itself, and German re-armament in particular was in the best interest of the German people. Despite Louis' claims of some conservative conspiracy, most moderate and even many leftist German politicians saw Stalin's military buildup and the growing threat of expansionist international communism and knew that Germany stood helpless against outside threats under the Versailles conditions. That is why re-armament was sought by the Weimar Republic long before the Nazis ever came into existence. Ossietzky, a communist supporter, sought to weaken Germany not under Hitler, but under a democratically-elected representative government.

He received the prize because he later became a victim of the Nazi Party. It was a convenient choice out of thousands of others because of his outspoken anti-Nazi positions. It was also convenient to ignore that he was a traitor to a legal government before he became a victim. The German Federal court, of course, could not ignore that.

According to the case law of the Supreme Court of the German Reich, the illegality of covertly conducted actions did not cancel out the principle of secrecy. According to the opinion of the Supreme Court of the German Reich, every citizen owes his Fatherland a duty of allegiance regarding information, and endeavours towards the enforcement of existing laws may be implemented only through the utilization of responsible domestic state organs, and never by appealing to foreign governments. –Ruling of the Federal Court of Justice, 3 December 1992

[Louis VI the Fat]

Every nation has the right to defend itself, and German re-armament in particular was in the best interest of the German people. Despite Louis' claims of some conservative conspiracy, most moderate and even many leftist German politicians saw Stalin's military buildup and the growing threat of expansionist international communism and knew that Germany stood helpless against outside threats under the Versailles conditions. That is why re-armament was sought by the Weimar Republic long before the Nazis ever came into existence. Ossietzky, a communist supporter, sought to weaken Germany not under Hitler, but under a democratically-elected representative government.

Ah, but Ossietzky was not a Communist. Leftwing, but bourgeois.

The Weltbühne-Prozess, the trial in question is about Ossietzky exposing the cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union! Both countries together ran a secret airbase 400 kilometer from Moscow. Here German pilots were trained, and a new airforce was build. All in secret. Starting in 1925. This is what Ossietzky revealed. Far from being helpless against outside threats, the revelations of Ossietzky showed that Germany was in full co-operation with the Soviet Union, both biding their time to overthrow the peace together.
With the revelation, Ossietzky did not betray German interest to the communists. Not at all. Ossietzky exposed the alliance between the two revisionist powers. He revealed the close co-operation between Germany and the Soviet Union.

There were people in Europe - an increasingly lonely, but proud minority - who resisted both the extreme left and the extreme right. For unlike the propaganda of these two, the choice was not at all between either extreme left or extreme right. The real choice in the 1930s was liberal democratic pacifism and moderateness, or either extreme left / right madness. The latter two were merely two cheeks of the same arse. Sadly, this was not understood by most people, the voices of moderation drowned in the sheer volume and vehemence of the extremists.

[Beskar]

Dismissing Louis' post based on "Traitor to his country" =

[PanzerJaeger]

Ah, but Ossietzky was not a Communist. Leftwing, but bourgeois.

Note that I did not say he was a communist. From my understanding of his biography, I believe him to be a communist too savvy to adopt the label (there were many), but IIRC he never joined the party. He certainly played in those social circles and often wrote favorably about the cause.

Further, he was a supporter of Ernst Thälmann, who unlike some of the more organic German communists, took his orders directly from the Soviet Union and Stalin. Had he won, he likely would have mirrored other Stalinist puppets in cruelty and oppression.

The Weltbühne-Prozess, the trial in question is about Ossietzky exposing the cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union!

Of course. His revelations of low level military cooperation between the two international pariahs was meant to have a twofold effect.

It was to first damage and further ostracize Germany in the eyes of the Western Democracies. Second, it was to make the Soviet Union appear to the German people to be a friend, an ally, of Germany; when in actuality the military cooperation was strictly out of necessity, not any grand strategy.

Thus, Ossietzky's piece was no real effort in pacifism, but an effort to keep Germany ostracized from the West and push her closer to the Soviet Union.

There were people in Europe - an increasingly lonely, but proud minority - who resisted both the extreme left and the extreme right.

Indeed there were. Ossietzky was not one of them.

Dismissing Louis' post based on "Traitor to his country" =

I assume this is directed toward me. First, thank you for your contribution. Second, I did not dismiss Louis' post. He elicited opinions about the man's legacy and I gave mine. I appreciate all of Louis' historical posts, despite disagreeing with most of his analyses. Third, you'll note that the German Supreme Court agreed with my position.

[Beskar]

I assume this is directed toward me. First, thank you for your contribution. Second, you'll note the German Supreme Court agreed with my position.

Doesn't mean anything. Especially if you consider the ones who were 'loyal' to the country. They would also rule that Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was a traitor to his country as well, along with Oskar Schindler, Julius Leber and various other big names.

So ultimately going "he is a traitor" =

[PanzerJaeger]

Doesn't mean anything. Especially if you consider the ones who were 'loyal' to the country. They would also rule that Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was a traitor to his country as well, along with Oskar Schindler, Julius Leber and various other big names.

Really? You think the German Supreme Court would rule Stauffenberg a traitor?

The Memorial to the German Resistance (German: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand), is a memorial and museum in Berlin, capital of Germany. It was opened in 1980 in part of the Bendlerblock, a complex of offices in Stauffenbergstrasse (formerly Bendlerstrasse), south of the Tiergarten in western Berlin. It was here that Claus Graf von Stauffenberg and other members of the July 20 plot of 1944 that attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler were executed.

Although the memorial is primarily intended to commemorate those members of the German Army who tried to assassinate Hitler in 1944, it is also a memorial to the German Resistance in the broader sense. Historians agree that there was no united, national resistance movement in Nazi Germany at any time during Hitler's years in power (1933-45). Joachim Fest describes it as "the resistance that never was."[1] Nevertheless, the term German Resistance (Deutscher Widerstand) is now used to describe all elements of opposition and resistance to the Nazi regime, including the underground networks of the Social Democrats and Communists, The White Rose, opposition activities in the Christian churches (e.g. the Confessing Church), and the resistance groups based in the civil service, intelligence organs and armed forces.

The visitor enters the museum from Stauffenbergstrasse through an archway, on the wall of which is inscribed: "Here in the former Supreme Headquarters of the Army, Germans organized the attempt of 20 July 1944 to end the Nazi rule of injustice. For this, they sacrificed their lives. The Federal Republic of Germany and the State of Berlin created this new memorial place in the year 1980."

[Louis VI the Fat]

Doesn't mean anything. Especially if you consider the ones who were 'loyal' to the country. They would also rule that Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was a traitor to his country as well, along with Oskar Schindler, Julius Leber and various other big names.

I enjoy my little bouts with PJ about the history of this period, even if his ideas differ from mine.

Nor is the case for Ossietzky completely closed. The fact remains that to the German court - of modern, democratic Germany - the man is still a traitor! A travesty, as far as I'm concerned. To no small degree owing to a historical idea about Weimar as a somewhat clumsy, failed, doomed but peaceful Germany. I think that underestimates the incessant agitation of national-conservatives in many sectors of Germany before 1933. Very much so the German judges of this period, who showed as poor judgement before Hitler as they did in the period 1933-1945. which was one long and sad legal travesty.



You do marvelously bring the focus to the essence of this thread, short of the historical details which are perhaps of little interest to most. Namely, what makes a hero, and what a traitor?

Is Liu a traitor, like the Chinese claim? Assange? Sacharov? Mandela? Three of which have won the Nobel Prize, and the fourth, like the other three, a contender for both imprisonment and the Peace Prize itself.


Edit: Also, there is a remarkable similarity in the Prize and the reaction to it by Nazi Germany and Communist China. A shared vehemence, complete with foreign threats, blackmail of third countries, and lots of show and bogus other prizes. By comparison to these two, the reaction of the Soviet Unio to Sacharov's Prize seemed very mellow. The response of the Burma regime to the Prize for what's-her-name-again, that I don't really know, the country is a complete mystery to me.

[HoreTore]

More than a decade in house arrest was Burmas response, Louis.

Though one can of course wonder, would Suu-Kyi have been killed if not for the international focus the peace prize brought? She's still alive, while a lot of Burmas democratic opposition lies in the grave...

[Beskar]

Really? You think the German Supreme Court would rule Stauffenberg a traitor?

Thank you for proving the hypocrisy of the German Supreme Court.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Really? You think the German Supreme Court would rule Stauffenberg a traitor?

Has the GSC ever ruled about Stauffenberg after 1945?

Germany is full of memorials for Ossietzky. Schools, a university, a peace prize, the lot.

The general reverence for Ozzienzky in democratic Germany is not the same as a legal verdict. It is of course a travesty: a German journalist, who exposed plans for German re-armament, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for it, who was so much systematically tortured in a concentration camp over it that he died because of it - and he is still considered a traitor to the German court.

Interesting actually. Has a South African court ever reversed the case against Mandela, or has he been simply released? What of similar cases? I should look that up.

[PanzerJaeger]

Thank you for proving the hypocrisy of the German Supreme Court.

Can you elaborate on that hypocrisy? You are aware that the two acted against completely different governments, correct?

It is of course a travesty: a German journalist, who exposed plans for German re-armament, who received a Nobel Peace Prize for it, who was so much systematically tortured in a concentration camp over it that he died because of it - and he is still considered a traitor to the German court.

His treatment under the Nazis does not change his actions against the previous democratic government. That was the basis of the ruling.

[Hax]

His torture does not change his actions against the previous democratic government. That was the basis of the ruling.

That depends on your own perception fo what is more valuable. Global stability or national stability?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Interesting. It would seem that most, if not all, of what this fellow blew the whistle about were programs conducted under the auspices of the Weimar regime and/or the military operating without official authorization.

Talk about having no chance at all....

Even if this fellow hadn't been a left-wing politician (almost all of whom were silenced by the Nazi regime after 1933) he would probably have been sent off simply for providing any evidence that Hitler had not personally rebuilt the Luftwaffe from scratch (can't have anyone stealing credit from the great leader, now, can we?).

Still, he lasted longer than some of Adolf's ardent supporters like Rohm.

I think US mafia families were as good or better about loyalty among their peers than were the Nazis.


Still, the Weimar regime was the duly elected government and he blew the whistle on secret policy decisions they'd made. Any in-power government would label that treason. After Hitler's deal with the Army for power, there was no way they were going to show mercy to a leftist who'd ticked off the Army Junkers.

As whistle-blowers of all stripes must determine for themselves, "Is revealing the truth of enough value to you that you will sacrifice your freedom or your life to reveal it?" The wages of such efforts are well known, however noble the intent.

[Louis VI the Fat]

His treatment under the Nazis does not change his actions against the previous democratic government. That was the basis of the ruling.

Indeed. Which of course touches on a pet peeve of mine: has history too much overlooked the agitation within the Weimar Republic? In this case, it were not the Nazis, it was democratic Weimar which incarcerated this man, the (national-conservative) politicians and judges and military who closely co-operated in censoring the whistleblower.

Germany's legal system acknowledges Weimar as democratic, and will uphold its legal decisions. Unlike Germany's two dictatorial regimes, of which especially the legality of the legal order of the Nazi period is mostly unrecognised.
Ah well, add in an autocratic Kaiser and not much democratic history remains. A country can not undo all of its history.

That depends on your own perception fo what is more valuable. Global stability or national stability?

Excellent.

An overwhelming amount of later Germans would wish their history had listened to Ossietzky, instead of to the national-conservatives. Who is the traitor of Germany? The man who warns for the coming catastrophe, the whistleblower, or the people striving towards the catastrophe?

Who is a traitor to the Chinese people? Who is the traitor to our societies?

two international pariahs

Quod non. Weimar Germany was a member of the League of nations. Enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in Europe. Received massive foreign loans. Was fully embedded in the western legal, economic, scientific and cultural order.
The Soviet Union was none of that. Its only friends were foreign communists, and German nationalists. Germany has always been the patron saint of the Soviet Union, from installing it, to allying with it in the 1920s, to overrunning Eastern Europe together with it in 1939. Only Hitler was a brief interlude, his virulent anti-communism nearly undid all the hard work of German diplomacy of the fifteen years before. Silly man, even after he had renewed the alliance with the Soviet Union, he couldn't resist the temptation to challenge Stalin, his superior by far.

Why were German nationalists and the Soviet Union such good friends? Because only together could they ever hope to stand a whiff of a chance against the rock-solid alliance of the three western powers, who would of course never be so stupid as to undo their succesful alliance and let themselves be picked off one by one. .

[Louis VI the Fat]

Still, the Weimar regime was the duly elected government and he blew the whistle on secret policy decisions they'd made. Any in-power government would label that treason. After Hitler's deal with the Army for power, there was no way they were going to show mercy to a leftist who'd ticked off the Army Junkers.

As whistle-blowers of all stripes must determine for themselves, "Is revealing the truth of enough value to you that you will sacrifice your freedom or your life to reveal it?" The wages of such efforts are well known, however noble the intent.

What this does show, is the extent of the continuation between (an undercurrent of) Weimar and Nazi Germany.

It is common that after a revolution, a true coup, much is reversed. What was black before, is white now,. Who was a traitor, is now a hero. After 1945, everything was different. The Traitor to the Nazi was the hero to both West and East Germany. After 1989, the traitor to East Germany was the hero to unified Germany. Not so in 1933. The traitor to Weimar was still the traitor to Nazi Germany. A chilling thought, one which serves as a reminder to Weimar's dark undercurrent.

[PanzerJaeger]

It is common that after a revolution, a true coup, much is reversed. What was black before, is white now,. Who was a traitor, is now a hero. After 1945, everything was different. The Traitor to the Nazi was the hero to both West and East Germany. After 1989, the traitor to East Germany was the hero to unified Germany. Not so in 1933. The traitor to Weimar was still the traitor to Nazi Germany. A chilling thought, one which serves as a reminder to Weimar's dark undercurrent.

Allow me to point out, one more time, that you are confusing two separate incidents.

Ossietzky published Weimar state secrets and was tried and convicted for it. After being released, he came out as a supporter of Comintern puppet Ernst Thälmann and was an outspoken critic of the Communist's biggest opponent, the Nazi Party. After Hitler came to power, Ossietzky, like many other communists and their sympathizers, was arrested and sent to a concentration camp. The Nazi's did not arrest him as a carry-over from his troubles with the Republic.

Ossietzky's supporters tried to get his treason conviction overturned using guilt and the hero status he has gained in some circles due to his treatment under the Nazi regime. It did not work.

While Ossietzky's case brings up some pet peeves of yours, it also touches on one of mine. That being the post-war deification of practically anyone who opposed the Nazis, including the beloved Stauffenberg, regardless of their motivations. Germany is filled with memorials to men who opposed the Nazis out of self interest, because they had no choice, and most annoyingly, because they supported a different totalitarian ideology.

Then again, in my own city I can stroll through my choice of Confederate Park, Jefferson Davis Park, and even Nathan Bedford Forrest Park, where the good general and KKK Grand Master lies in rest - and I wouldn't have it any other way. I guess you cannot put much stock in memorials.

[Husar]

Germany's two dictatorial regimes, of which especially the legality of the legal order of the Nazi period is mostly unrecognised.
Ah well, add in an autocratic Kaiser and not much democratic history remains.

Two? You mean the Kaiser was a dictator? By the people he was seen as a benevolent monarch, his internal policies are often seen as better than Bismarck's.
Sure, I'm no fan of his, but that's mostly because I blame him for our involvement in the war and a failed foreign policy, nothing to do with him being an evil dictator(except that he booted Bismarck ).

An overwhelming amount of later Germans would wish their history had listened to Ossietzky, instead of to the national-conservatives.

An overwhelming amount of Germans also wished that history had let them keep their Kaiser, and I think that is especially a high amount of those who still lived under the Kaiser. The Kaiser was so sad about being away from his beloved people that he died of misery not too long after the war, one could speculate that things could have gone a much better path had he been left in power.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Kaiser Wilhelm II died in exile in the Netherlands in 1941 at the age of 82.

According to some, he had hoped for a return of the monarchy following the Nazi takeover in the early 30s. Hitler had no use for the man, so any such thoughts were wasted. He was not a fan of the Nazi policies towards Jews.

[Hax]

Kaiser Wilhelm II died in exile in the Netherlands in 1941 at the age of 82.

Yeah, I live not five kilometers from the house where he lived and died!

[Louis VI the Fat]

Two? You mean the Kaiser

No, the two 'German dictatorships' are Nazi Germany and the German Democratic Republic, East Germany.

The Kaiser was so sad about being away from his beloved people that he died of misery not too long after the war

Are you sure you are not mixing that up with a Disney fairy tale about some poor king who died of grief? The one where all the people cry when the king leaves and the evil stepmother is installed on the throne, until the squirrels and the frog prince set the kingdom free.


I must inform you that reports about your beloved Kaiser soon having died of grief because he missed his people are greatly exaggerated.
Your exiled Kaiser lived on for decades after the war, in good health, well into his eighties. Although I think we can safely assume he did grief over his lost empire and collection of pointy helmets.



Here's your beloved moustached one:

During his last year at Doorn, Wilhelm believed that Germany was the land of monarchy and therefore of Christ and that England was the land of Liberalism and therefore of Satan and the Anti-Christ. He argued that the English ruling classes were "Freemasons thoroughly infected by Juda". Wilhelm asserted that the "British people must be liberated from Antichrist Juda. We must drive Juda out of England just as he has been chased out of the Continent."[42]

He believed the Freemasons and Jews had caused the two world wars, aiming at a world Jewish empire with British and American gold, but that "Juda's plan has been smashed to pieces and they themselves swept out of the European Continent!"
Continental Europe was now, Wilhelm wrote, "consolidating and closing itself off from British influences after the elimination of the British and the Jews!" The end result would be a "U.S. of Europe!"[42] In a letter to his sister Princess Margaret in 1940, Wilhelm wrote: "The hand of God is creating a new world & working miracles ... We are becoming the U.S. of Europe under German leadership, a united European Continent." He added: "The Jews [are] being thrust out of their nefarious positions in all countries, whom they have driven to hostility for centuries."

[Louis VI the Fat]

Ossietzky published Weimar state secrets and was tried and convicted for it. After being released, he came out as a supporter of Comintern puppet Ernst Thälmann and was an outspoken critic of the Communist's biggest opponent, the Nazi Party. After Hitler came to power, Ossietzky, like many other communists and their sympathizers, was arrested and sent to a concentration camp. The Nazi's did not arrest him as a carry-over from his troubles with the Republic.

Naturally, I do not share your opinion that Ozzietzky was a tool for the communists because he oppossed the 'greatest opponnents' of communism, the Nazis.

By this reasoning, all communism is off the hook because it was the greatest opponent of Nazism.

That is the whole trap, that sad mistake of the 1930s. 'This opposses totalitarianism version X, so this good'.

The real struggle of the 1930s was not between nazism and communism, it was between the totalitarian ideologies and liberal democracy. Internal power struggles within the totalitarian world - fascism vs nazism, nazism vs communism, Leninist-Trostkyism vs Stalinism - are of secondary interest.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Husar, I must say I am surprised to see that you voted that Ossietzky is a traitor, who deserved death.


Brave journalists like him exposed to the German people what was happening in the 1920s. He and like-minded reporters warned about German secret re-armament, about the plots and the agitation and the schemes to overthrow German democracy and re-start a war. They warned Germany for the coming catastrophe. Ozzietzky was also one of the first to understand in 1933 what was happening.

Who is the traitor? The national-conservative powers who secretly (secret for the German people) build a clone army in the Soviet Union, or the reporter who exposed that to the German people?
It is owing to the work of brave reporters like him that the German people were informed, that a majority of Germans understood the attack against German democracy, that the German people have the historical dignity that their democracy was not voted out of existence by themselves, but had to be overthrown in a coup.


Are you not a democrat? Do you support the concentration camps? Do you seriously support that this should've been the fate of this man: The International Red Cross representative allowed to visit him in November 1935 found "a trembling, deadly pale something, a creature that appeared to be without feeling, one eye swollen, teeth knocked out, dragging a broken, badly healed leg . . . a human being who had reached the uttermost limits of what could be borne."

[Husar]

You compare my hyperbole to fairy tales and then suggest that I should not see him as a traitor because he was treated badly by the Nazis?

That the Nazis treated him badly has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he was a traitor, I also thought cloning was not possible back then, so maybe you pulled that out of your own fairy tales? He revealed a plot that was essentially meant to benefit his nation in the long run, that makes him a traitor, whether a frenchman thinks this revelation was a good thing is completely irrelevant as one man's traitor is usually another man's freedom fighter. That the german people had no big problems voting those secretly training nutcases into office was shown a few years later, when new secret training programs were established and cheered by the german people.
So yes, he was a traitor, maybe not to you or me, but apparently to the german people and government of the time.

The only reason Assange isn't a traitor is that he isn't an American, otherwise he'd be a traitor, too, regardless of whether I approve of his leaking or not.
The clever traitor gets out of the country before he can be caught.

[Louis VI the Fat]

You compare my hyperbole to fairy tales and then suggest that I should not see him as a traitor because he was treated badly by the Nazis?

PJ made the same point. It is correct, one should not confound Ossietzky's incarceration by Weimar with his being slowly tortured to death in a Nazi concentration camp.
But neither should one regard both as separate events either. Ossietzky was released at Christmas 1932 by Weimar, only to be send to the camps a few months later by Nazi Germany, for the same 'crimes'. The Nazi coup was in this respect, as in so many others, not a ceasure but a continuation. A mere intensification.

That the Nazis treated him badly has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he was a traitor, I also thought cloning was not possible back then, so maybe you pulled that out of your own fairy tales?

You're not a Star Wars fan, I take it.

A Clone Army was build in the outer rim. Initially secret, later approved by the democratically elected Republican Senate. However, the idea had always been to use the army to overthrow the Republic. This was the work of those who secretly conspired to overthrow the Republic, the Sith. The dark Sith lord was eventually installed as Emperor. The Senate granted him emergency powers, because it thought it could contain him. However, the clone army was now used by the Emperor to overthrow the very Republic.
Apparantly George Lucas has read the same history books as I have.

He revealed a plot that was essentially meant to benefit his nation in the long run, that makes him a traitor

The intention was to violently overthrow the peace. To create the possibility of a violent take-over of the German state. The plot was kept secret to the German people, of whom never a majority voted in favour of hard right extremism.

Did this all benefit Germany in the long run? Well if one considers 'May 8th 1945' the long run, then obviously not. It was a catastrophic game they played. It led to a destruction of Germany that was total, and that was complete - moral, poltical, militarily, economically, physically. Some 'benefit for the nation in the long run'. They were all dead, and those Germans left alive by 1945 by the violence of other Germans and foreign retaliations had a Russian in the barn molesting their daughter. Well done. What a great plot, what great benefit to the German nation!

My traitor are the plotters, those who sought to end democracy and plunge Germany into war again. These are the traitors to Germany. The reporter who reported it, deserved a Nobel Prize for exposing it.

[Husar]

PJ made the same point. It is correct, one should not confound Ossietzky's incarceration by Weimar with his being slowly tortured to death in a Nazi concentration camp.
But neither should one regard both as separate events either. Ossietzky was released at Christmas 1932 by Weimar, only to be send to the camps a few months later by Nazi Germany, for the same 'crimes'. The Nazi coup was in this respect, as in so many others, not a ceasure but a continuation. A mere intensification.

It still doesn't absolve him from being a traitor.

You're not a Star Wars fan, I take it.

Not really, though I knew most of the things about the clone army, Star Wars is still a fairy tale though.

The intention was to violently overthrow the peace. To create the possibility of a violent take-over of the German state. The plot was kept secret to the German people, of whom never a majority voted in favour of hard right extremism.

Where were the huge protests when Hitler came to power if the majority didn't like him at all? And how big was this secretly trained army that it could have been used for a violent take-over? How come the families of the hundred thousands of soldiers never noticed or told anyone?

Did this all benefit Germany in the long run? Well if one considers 'May 8th 1945' the long run, then obviously not. It was a catastrophic game they played. It led to a destruction of Germany that was total, and that was complete - moral, poltical, militarily, economically, physically. Some 'benefit for the nation in the long run'. They were all dead, and those Germans left alive by 1945 by the violence of other Germans and foreign retaliations had a Russian in the barn molesting their daughter. Well done. What a great plot, what great benefit to the German nation!

So you think the intention of the right wingers was to destroy Germany?
And this particular plot wasn't what lead to the takeover by the Nazis as it was reported, that's what this thread is about, isn't it?

My traitor are the plotters, those who sought to end democracy and plunge Germany into war again. These are the traitors to Germany. The reporter who reported it, deserved a Nobel Prize for exposing it.

Had the allies not removed the Kaiser, then there had never been a reason for the Monarchists to try and overthrow the government again.

[Louis VI the Fat]

traitor

We disagree.


To me, the German (Ossietzky) who warned in 1933 what was coming is not a traitor. Those who silenced him are.
The German who exposed Auschwitz is not a traitor. The German who refused to murder civilians is not a traitor. The German who would not fight for Hitler is not a traitor.

One is not a traitor to Germany for refusing to raise one's right arm, start goosestepping, and go off to kill some Jews. However un-German it may sound, even a German must sometimes disobey orders.

[Hax]

He was a traitor to the Nazi-controlled late Weimar Republic. He was a hero and a patriot to the later BRD and modern state of Germany. Maybe that's the best way to see it, then?

[Husar]

He was a traitor to the Nazi-controlled late Weimar Republic. He was a hero and a patriot to the later BRD and modern state of Germany. Maybe that's the best way to see it, then?

Pretty much.

[Hax]

See, I knew we'd all agree.