Germany - 1920's & 30's -- What would you have done ... ?

[Beguile's Mistress]

At the end of the First World War, following the Treat of Versailles and in the shadow of the Russian Revolution, Germany was in bad shape.  Heavy sanctions against them for war reparations prevented them from rebuilding economically and unemployment was very high.  The National Socialist German Workers Party gained popularity because it proposed to fight Communism, regain Germany's place in world politics and get the country out from under the oppressive restrictions imposed on them at the end of the war.  Long-standing prejudices such as the belief that the Jews were the root cause of many of their problems were used to work up the populace to gain support.  Patriotism was the siren call and Liebenraum, "room for life," was the excuse the Nazis used for the expansionist policies. 

Not every policy of the new government once the Workers Party came into power was publicized, such as the genocide of various groups of people and nationalities to provide room for the elite Aryan peoples the Germans were supposed to be.  By the time the German citizenry realized what was happening and began to listen to the dissidents events had moved far beyond an easy fix.

I'd like to think that at the point where I realized the true nature of the Nazis and the evil they were doing I would have joined one of those groups who were doing all they could to undermine the Nazis at home so the rest of the world could take them down more easily.  It's hard to tell though when you and your family are hungry and cold and sick.

[gaggedLouise]

I think my point in asking the question was to think about at what point are people supposed to actually stand up and do something.  I am really really really hesitant to use present day examples because I know the kind of absurd rhetoric that will lead to - but let's say some unnamed president of the USA is subverting the Constitution, destroying the environment, destroying the economy, destroying the country, etc .. (for some it could be Bush, for others it could be Obama - let's just call him John Doe) so there's all this talk ... people are really really upset, but so far that's what it is, talk.  Celebrities threaten to leave the country if thus-and-such happens, but when it happens, none of them do.  States threaten to secede, but none of them did. 
(---)

Thus far it looks like we have a couple of people who might have ended up in concentration camps (or simply disappeared in the night) while a few others (maybe me among them) would try to keep their mouths shut and not draw attention to themselves.  I'm wondering if anyone will say "on this date, at this time, because of this incident, I would have grabbed a pitchfork and marched on Berlin, whether anyone came with me or not."

Yup, it's an argument that sounds much stronger than it actually is. I recall one or two with the title of journalist writing opinion pieces in 2003 - here in Sweden, which was never part of the military coalition against Saddam Hussein - erupting "You're saying the free world shouldn't have marched on Saddam, even though you are 'against Saddam' as a political figure? Look here, when did you begin to be against him? I've been against Saddam since the mid-1980s, consistently, so if you're claiming we're not right in wanting to take him out and you are implying some of us actually helped arm him at one point, then you're just talking pay dirt. We've waited long enough!"

The upshot of that one is
a)No one who hasn't been against dictator X since very early on has a right to their own opinion about him, or how we should handle him.
b)Saddam was fully like Hitler and (in 2002/3) the same kind of threat to world peace, to everybody's safety and especially to the safety of Jews as the Nazis had been.

I contested both of those at the time and still do, even though the guy was a dirty and violent dictator. Not going to discuss Saddam specifically in any way here though.

[NiceTexasGuy]

Not going to discuss Saddam specifically in any way here though.

Thanks .. because I suspect that at least a couple of people here have opinions they'd be willing to share if we opened that can of worms.   

[Beguile's Mistress]

Thanks .. because I suspect that at least a couple of people here have opinions they'd be willing to share if we opened that can of worms.   

*pours cement over it and sets a big heavy rock on top*

[NiceTexasGuy]

I'd like to think that at the point where I realized the true nature of the Nazis and the evil they were doing I would have joined one of those groups who were doing all they could to undermine the Nazis at home so the rest of the world could take them down more easily.  It's hard to tell though when you and your family are hungry and cold and sick.

Thank you for that.  I suspect most people who opposed Hitler and the Nazis came to realize how evil they were later rather than earlier for a couple of reasons.   First, their agenda was probably not that well known until later -- and second, because it's easier to ignore someone doing something wrong if they're also enabling you to feed your kids.  That isn't an indictment of the people ... on the contrary, it's totally understandable.

It's easy to read history and say "I would have stood with Travis at the Alamo, I would have stood with Leonidas at the bridge, I would have stood with Gerard Butler at Thermopylae" ... it's a little easier to say those things when you're not especially hot or cold or hungry or thirsty and nobody's actually trying to poke you with sharp pointy things.

[gaggedLouise]

*pours cement over it and sets a big heavy rock on top*

*breaks a sabre in two on the top side of the rock*

[Kythia]

Always kinda suspected I'd've goosestepped and Heil-ed me some Hitlers.  I'm one of nature's joiners.  Don't like it much but what can you do. 

[NiceTexasGuy]

Always kinda suspected I'd've goosestepped and Heil-ed me some Hitlers.  I'm one of nature's joiners.  Don't like it much but what can you do.

Since you asked, and only because you asked ....


... you might consider channeling some of that energy into roleplay.  I have a few ideas if you're interested.   

[gaggedLouise]

Always kinda suspected I'd've goosestepped and Heil-ed me some Hitlers.  I'm one of nature's joiners.  Don't like it much but what can you do.

Join the boys instead!

Maybe you can hire Dad's A-Team

and the original:

Dad's Army - Opening Titles

-couldn't resist, the first clip especially is amazing - but also makes me want to rewatch some Dad's Army. 

[Kythia]

Since you asked, and only because you asked ....


... you might consider channeling some of that energy into roleplay.  I have a few ideas if you're interested.   

Back home tomorrow.  Will be replying then.  Been working on how to organise my RP load today, actually. 

I mean, errrr, Halt die Schnauze, Americaner Schwein.

[Oniya]

Actually, my point was that sixty years after the fact, the natural tendency is to overlook the smaller people and generalize the actions of the 'big people' to the whole.

I was just wondering at what point does something get bad enough for someone to do something other than talk.  AND I'M NOT TRYING TO START A REPUBLICAN VS. DEMOCRAT DEBATE HERE.  I was just thinking about Nazi Germany and AT WHAT POINT do we think people should have done something other than sit there and be compliant.

If you drop a live frog into boiling water, it will jump out.  If you drop it in cool water and slowly heat it, it will sit there and get cooked to death.  Historically, most situations where the populace is accused of being compliant, there are one or both of the following conditions involved:  Great immediate benefit, and a slow increase of bad things happening (usually to people that 'aren't us').

[NiceTexasGuy]

I mean, errrr, Halt die Schnauze, Americaner Schwein.

I love it when you talk dirty to me.   

[Beguile's Mistress]

Information and what is given out and how it is spread is the biggest weapon both sides have in any conflict.  If you can get more people to believe in you than the other side you can start winning.  It's how the Nazi party was elected into power.  It is also how the word was spread once the atrocities of the Nazi party stated coming to light.  In cellars and sub-basements, garrets and posh apartments anti-Nazi pamphlets were written and printed.  Copies were distributed to everyone known to be a friend and pasted up all over town for the general citizen to read.  The army or police pulled them down and they were replaced almost immediately.  The pamphleteers were captured and tortured for information and killed but others took their place.  When the Allies marched into Berlin on one side and the Russians on the other many of the citizens were ready and waiting to welcome them.  That may have been the first chance any of them had to move against the Nazis but because they did the occupation worked.  It's never too late to take up arms against the enemy as long as you have breath left in your body.

[Ephiral]

Thank you for that.  I suspect most people who opposed Hitler and the Nazis came to realize how evil they were later rather than earlier for a couple of reasons.   First, their agenda was probably not that well known until later -- and second, because it's easier to ignore someone doing something wrong if they're also enabling you to feed your kids.  That isn't an indictment of the people ... on the contrary, it's totally understandable.

It's possible to not understand the extent of their evil until later, though, and still oppose early on. The reason I said I'd be an early opponent, for example, had nothing to do with it being the easy or right choice - I'd likely die ineffectively and forgotten, a pretty poor outcome if you're actually trying to stop evil - and more to do with the fact that  I see huge consolidation of power as an enabler of great evils, regardless of how well-meaning the regime that does it may be.

It's easy to read history and say "I would have stood with Travis at the Alamo, I would have stood with Leonidas at the bridge, I would have stood with Gerard Butler at Thermopylae" ... it's a little easier to say those things when you're not especially hot or cold or hungry or thirsty and nobody's actually trying to poke you with sharp pointy things.

For what it's worth, I can't see myself in either of those situations at all. Partly because of my perception of both of those cases, which I don't want to get into, and partly because, while weapons have been used to enable good in the past, they're a dangerous ground I don't care to tread. I fight with words and tools.

[Neysha]

The last time Germans had a real chance of standing up was the 1932 elections when the Nazis were swept into power. Weimar Germany was suffering but by the time of 1932 things were actually improving bith in the realm of the economy and in foreign affairs like in regards to Versailles. If Hitler hadnt been swept into power in 1932 it mightve been the last chance for the existence of a Nazi Germany as opposed to a Nazi Party which couldve meandered along and die a slow death as Germany reverses its tailspin.

But theres an old adage where its theorized that revolts and revolution don't occur when your hitting the bottom, but when things start to improve. Maybe 1932 Germany was an example of it.

Its also a bit misleading to think Nazis were swept into power even significantly due to Aniti Semitism or Communism. The Nazi Party was an ideologically vibrant party that didnt take their voting blocs for granted. They didnt speak to a single demograohic, they spoke to the German people at large and denounced not just Jews and Communists and foreigners who forced Versailles on them. They were critical of the supposed failure of democracy and republicanism since 1918, and of conservatives looking to the past, and of political parties that catered to just farmers or just Catholics or just Trade Unions. And they provided a vision of a strong united Germany. One that wouldnt refound the old German Empire but be a united, technologically advanced, independent and due to their intended economic and military power, would be respected.

They won bevause they attracted socialists, conservatives, farmers, centrists, and so forth. There was even a term for some new voters, saying they were brown on the outside and red on the inside.

[Beguile's Mistress]

The Nazis were good at talking to everyone who would listen.  The knew how to appeal to what was most important to the people: their wallet, their stomachs and their patriotism.  The were even better at keeping their more base agendas hidden from the people until they got what they wanted and should anyone suspect or speak out about their ethnic cleansing or other programs those people were silenced quickly and in ways that intimidated others.

Today's politicians use the character bashing technique in much the same way.  If you oppose them they are perfectly capable of spreading rumor and innuendo when actual facts don't exist to destroy you.

[Neysha]

In a lot of cases they didn't need to supply much innuendo or rumor. Political smear campaigns and fearmongering and making promises isn't just something that automatically wins votes as you well know. They weren't elected just on 'appeal.' That would be minimizing what a threat they were politically. Underestimating them.

After all, they weren't the first political party in Germany at that time to engage in appealing to the masses.

The Nazis took advantage of the fact that there were too many parties that over the past fifteen years had been engaging in extensive politicking, coalition building, horse trading and other dealings. Between 1923-29 the German people, quite rightly, took heart in that they had overcome Versailles largely and what they felt was a War they had never actually lost and that the economy was recovering. Life was good. And yes, when the Great Depression hit and put everything into a tailspin, it was hard. But that alone, or even with the explanation of Versailles and anti-semitism isn't enough to state why the Nazi's earned such a massive amount of the votes in June of 1932. Why them and not the Communists or some other party, right wing or otherwise? Germans weren't exceptionally anti-Jewish... even the more liberal French were by and large more anti-semitic then the Germans through the twenties and early thirties.

The Nazis, using a network of workers, veterans groups, womens associations, and various other grassroots organizations, was able to respond on the street to the Great Depression. Nazi Party members rarely held conferences in the best hotels like other political parties. They were the ones feeding workers and veterans, they were the ones who supported strikers with food and groceries from Nazi owned restaurants and pubs and grocers. They never spoke of 'class struggles' like the Communists and Social Democrats and pointed out how the liberal Weimar Republic was rolling back social welfare programs while they were pushing forward with their own private charity. Meanwhile their radical rebelliousness alienated the conservatives, and other right wing parties, and all of the smaller parties who were dedicated to certain narrow issues were obviously overwhelmed by the party that was going to put an end to political horse trading and the anarchy that was the current government. Combined with their own message of law and order, of national respect, of increasing economic productivity, saving the welfare state through social reform, of taking advantage of German ingenuity and industry with advances in science and technology, and yes, a little Versailles vengeance in erasing the national shame they felt in November of 1918.

The Nazi Party was fueled by the vibrant political situation in the Weimar Republic. When over a third of Germans voted for the Nazis in June of 1932, they did so because the Nazis were able to harness all of that energy that a free democracy had managed to establish. They were innovative enough to attract right and left wing voters with their message. You can't just do that by blaming the economy or blaming the Jews or blaming Versailles. The Nazi Party was the only party that really managed to capture the German desire to see a party that would unify the German people, not divide them like the numerous parties did before whether through ethnic groups, or religious groups, or by catering to particular German states (Bavaria, Prussia etc) or by classes. (like the three rural parties or the Communists and Social Democrats or the German Party for the Middle Class) If the Nazis focused solely on the Social Democrats or Marxists or Jews or Conservatives, they would've stalled like everyone else, but they didn't because there was plenty of blame to go around. Keep in mind Germany was only made a country only sixty years earlier. The differences between a Saxon and a Bavarian and a Prussian could almost be as vast as the difference between the Irish and English or a Ukrainian and a Finn. The Nazi Party message overcame that and wasn't just the Nazi Party. It was the German Party. For many Germans, voting Nazi seemed like the most democratic vote they ever had.

When you look at the election results, they took votes from the socialists, the liberals, the conservatives, the middle class parties, the protestant parties, and even the rural/farmers parties. You can't win such broad appeal just by rumor and fear mongering. You need a positive platform of your own that is way better then everyone elses without sounding like the second coming of Jesus, because then it'd be fake.

It's telling that the only other party that had any success (and this was due to blaming the Great Depression and the West for Versailles) was the Communist Party in the July 1932 elections. But the Communists (peacefully anyways) would've likely never been able to seize power in Germany. They were crushed in the Spartacist rebellion and even the Socialists saw them as bitter rivals. Plus unlike almost every other party, they would've never earned the support of German businesses and liberals in the government. Added onto that how the class struggle literally alienates significant swaths of the population, they would perpetually face an uphill battle to ever being as popular as the Nazi Party.

[Vekseid]

Since my ethnic heritage puts me on the shortlist for the concentration camps not far behind the Jews, I'd go have a conversation with Einstein and then get the hell out of there. Probably offer my services to the FDR administration when it pops up.

[Skynet]

Well, I have prominent Jewish ancestry on my mother's side, so it's probable that my 1920s/30s self would be more "visibly Jewish."

In Germany my family would be very aware of anti-Semitism, even before Hitler's rise to power.  Jews were treated as a world apart in Europe for the longest time, so the things in propaganda gentile Germans would pass over, my family would pick up.  I'd definitely be interested in politics, as it plays a huge role in shaping our society.  Even though the Nazis touched a lot upon directing hatred at other nations and invoking the national spirit, I would've been turned off by the Reich's values early on.  I'm rather anti-authoritarian and turned on to various left-wing politics, so it's possible I'd have been targeted as a dissident even before Kristallnacht.

I don't know how soon I'd leave.  Definitely after Kristallnacht if I and my family escaped getting targeted for camps, but that would be hard to do for a despised minority in a police state.  If I got outside of German borders, I might have headed out to Britain along with the many other Jewish refugees in the late 30s.

In all likelihood I'd probably end up in a concentration camp.

[Beguile's Mistress]

My German great-grandparents were emigrants to the US.  They had no hopes and no future in their homeland and were frightened of the way things were going in their country.  I heard stories about their lives and read their journals when I was in high school.  I know that a lot of people only repeat what they've learned from history books or online sources, some of which offer spurious content and I wish my mother hadn't disappeared the journals after her parents died.  Their writing and the letters they received from friends and family back home show daily life as it existed.  Real history recorded by people who lived it is very different from what you read in books.

In a lot of cases they didn't need to supply much innuendo or rumor. Political smear campaigns and fearmongering and making promises isn't just something that automatically wins votes as you well know. They weren't elected just on 'appeal.' That would be minimizing what a threat they were politically. Underestimating them.

After all, they weren't the first political party in Germany at that time to engage in appealing to the masses.

I'm not sure if this really adding to what I said or trying to debunk it or even how my remarks about current methods in our country can be construed to be comments about the Nazis.  However, I'll let it pass lest what has happened in other threads happens here. 

[Neysha]

I'm not sure if this really adding to what I said or trying to debunk it or even how my remarks about current methods in our country can be construed to be comments about the Nazis.  However, I'll let it pass lest what has happened in other threads happens here.

So.... did you want me to reply or did you just post this because...?

[Cyrano Johnson]

Re: "the Germans let it happen," BTW: once the Nazis successfully exploited the inter-war chaos, it was difficult for any kind of mass opposition to coalesce to stop them. The "Germans let it happen" meme is probably the founding instance of what would later become a common meme in the kind of strategic bombing which (ironically) the Nazis helped to pioneer: that if you bombed an enemy population enough, it was supposed to "rise up" and throw off its shackles and remove the enemy leadership for you, otherwise it deserved everything it got. (This meme is still in use, despite -- like pretty much any plan which has "and then the people rise up and join us" as the key step -- having worked approximately zero times ever, anywhere.)

It is likely that once Hitler was truly ensconced in power, the only way he could be removed was if one of his own people killed him, which was tried many times:



... but never seemed to quite work, or if he picked a fight with precisely the wrong person*, the latter of which of course eventually happened.

*CONTENT WARNING & DISCLAIMER: The Hitler vs. Stalin comic this links to is a rather tasteless piece of Russian propaganda depicting Stalin laying a Dr. Strange-style supernatural beatdown on his enemy. It is included as an interesting piece of cultural arcana and for its connection to the "punching Hitler" theme of this post. We do not otherwise endorse the author's views of Stalin, Hitler, German commandos or the laws of physics. Thank you.

I would really love my answer to have been: "Dude, when they tried that Reichstag Fire false-flag scheisse I would be all like, 'No way, Fritz!' And then I'd totally lay the smack down on some German dudes and then sock Hitler in the jaw and then I'd be all dancing and laughing like: 'Hah! How you like me now, Der Fuehrer?!'" But according to the historical record, that method also had been tried, many times:



And he must have had an abnormally tough jaw, because it never seemed to settle anything:







Not even when the Wandering Jew got in on the act and took matters into his own hands:

"You may want to view this some time after you've eaten. WELL after."

However, having said all that -- and used this thread as a blatant excuse to post a bunch of Hitler-getting-punched pictures, because I love those -- it is also true that many people saw the ugliness and madness underlying Hitler's vision a long time before the war. There just wasn't enough of a critical mass of them to be able to counter the German hunger for a figure with Hitler's other apparent qualities.

[Beguile's Mistress]

Because this is a subject that many of us take seriously I went and looked for the following.  I'm quoting it in reference to the OP's question and not to be a source of debate about anything.

Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) was a prominent Protestant pastor who emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps.

Niemöller is perhaps best remembered for the quotation:

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew."

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

The quotation stems from Niemöller's lectures during the early postwar period. Different versions of the quotation exist. These can be attributed to the fact that Niemöller spoke extemporaneously and in a number of settings. Much controversy surrounds the content of the poem as it has been printed in varying forms, referring to diverse groups such as Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, Trade Unionists, or Communists depending upon the version. Nonetheless his point was that Germans--in particular, he believed, the leaders of the Protestant churches--had been complicit through their silence in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people.

Only in 1963, in a West German television interview, did Niemöller acknowledge and make a statement of regret about his own antisemitism (see Gerlach, 2000, p. 47). Nonetheless, Martin Niemöller was one of the earliest Germans to talk publicly about broader complicity in the Holocaust and guilt for what had happened to the Jews. In his book Über die deutsche Schuld, Not und Hoffnung (published in English as Of Guilt and Hope)--which appeared in January 1946--Niemöller wrote: "Thus, whenever I chance to meet a Jew known to me before, then, as a Christian, I cannot but tell him: 'Dear Friend, I stand in front of you, but we can not get together, for there is guilt between us. I have sinned and my people has sinned against thy people and against thyself.'"

Source

[Neysha]

The best part about the quote is how its chronologically correct, as following Hitler's Chancellorship in January of 1933 to the March 1933 elections and onward the Nazis and their support base did basically target the Communists and Social Democrats and Trade Unionists first. The Jews actually came in fourth, aft, to speak in extremely broad terms.

The KPD was organized and have a few hundred thousand active members, including a militant paramilitary wing (the RFB or Red Front Fighters) that was larger then the Versailles limited German Army. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), the RFB were banned in 1930 and so when Hitler gained the Chancellorship, he had the formidable power of the State (army and police) as well as almost a half million strong paramilitary army in the form of the SA backing his efforts. Needless to say, none of the other factions could match that kind of force or power. But it certainly wasn't for a lack of trying on the part of the KPD. They essentially declared war on the Nazis years before anyone else did and tens of thousands of them were in resistance organizations long before any German troops entered the Rhineland or invaded Poland.

By then said Communist resistance had been crushed and dismantled by the formidable growing power of Nazi Germany backed by the state (thanks to Goering becoming the Interior Minister at the time), the SA and SS, and their newly formed Gestapo organization.

So maybe some of you braver types didn't just end up in Concentration Camps. Maybe you were beaten to death in some working class district outside of a Nazi-owned pub!

Or shot dead during a street battle!

Or maybe executed by the police after being arrested/captured as opposed to whisked off to the camps!

[The Dark Raven]

Just for some levity...