“Why not give the National
Socialists a chance?” a prominent banker said of the Nazis. “They seem
pretty gutsy to me.”.... A new biography portrays Hitler as a clownish, deceitful narcissist who took control of a
powerful nation thanks to slick propaganda and a dysfunctional elite that failed to block his rise.... Hitler as a politician who rose to
power through demagoguery, showmanship and nativist appeals to the
masses. ... Mr.
Ullrich, like other biographers, provides vivid insight into some
factors that helped turn a “Munich rabble-rouser” — regarded by many as a
self-obsessed “clown” with a strangely “scattershot, impulsive style” —
into “the lord and master of the German Reich.”.... NY Times, review of “Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939,” by Volker Ullrich
Ahhh, a new Hitler bio -- I wonder why now? - a good way to start my return to blogging. I'm back from a week away. Internet was at times spotty and besides I was too busy having fun to think about blogging, probably the longest stretch of non-blogging since I began in August 2006 - yes 10 years ago and over 6500 posts with another 1300 in draft. I'll talk about what I learned on our trip where we were with over 30 people from around the nation for almost every meal over 5 days -- and with no tv in the rooms people had to watch the debate in groups. Trying to figure out where people from Idaho, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois - key states - were coming from was a challenge since everyone was on their best behavior. That I bonded with some people who were undoubtedly Trump supporters or sympathizers gave me some insight to political realities.
I want to write about the trip - there was so much and I should have written something everyday before I lose all the things I learned.
Meantime, I just got up to get a glass of water at 5AM and came across this piece in the Times about the rise of Hitler and how he was viewed and the tactics he used which - which echoes stuff I have often said to skeptical Trump supporters. Below I yank out some of the clearly aimed comparisons between Hitler and Trump - except Hitler was so much smarter.
More than once I heard the statement "
Why not give Trump a chance? He will shake things up."
Read the entire review
here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/books/hitler-ascent-volker-ullrich.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share
Comparing conditions in Germany - we are nowhere in as bad a shape but
if that turns we may see a "improved" version of Trump demagoguery.
How
did Adolf Hitler — described by one eminent magazine editor in 1930 as a
“half-insane rascal,” a “pathetic dunderhead,” a “nowhere fool,” a “big
mouth” — rise to power in the land of Goethe and Beethoven? What
persuaded millions of ordinary Germans to embrace him and his doctrine
of hatred? How did this “most unlikely pretender to high state office”
achieve absolute power in a once democratic country and set it on a
course of monstrous horror?
social
and political conditions in post-World War I Germany, which Hitler
expertly exploited — bitterness over the harsh terms of the Treaty of
Versailles and a yearning for a return to German greatness; unemployment
and economic distress amid the worldwide Depression of the early 1930s;
and longstanding ethnic prejudices and fears of “foreignization.”
The reviewer is clearly making some political points about Trump's tactics and the political class that supports him thinking they can control him. I've often heard people say we have democratic institutions - checks and balances - so even if Trump wins he will be constricted. Germany had democratic controls -- within a few months they were gone as Hitlter stripped them away, often using "terrorist-type" actions by dissidents as excuses - a Reichstag fire anyone? or using the actions of a Jewish assasin of one of his aids as an excuse for Kristalnacht. Look at this checklist:
•
Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who “only loved himself” — a
narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and what Mr. Ullrich
calls a “characteristic fondness for superlatives.” His manic speeches
and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his
capacity for self-control, even his sanity. But Mr. Ullrich underscores
Hitler’s shrewdness as a politician — with a “keen eye for the strengths
and weaknesses of other people” and an ability to “instantaneously
analyze and exploit situations.”
•
Hitler was known, among colleagues, for a “bottomless mendacity” that
would later be magnified by a slick propaganda machine that used the
latest technology (radio, gramophone records, film) to spread his
message. A former finance minister wrote that Hitler “was so thoroughly
untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies
and truth” and editors of one edition of “Mein Kampf” described it as a
“swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.”
•
Hitler was an effective orator and actor, Mr. Ullrich reminds readers,
adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his
audiences. Although he concealed his anti-Semitism beneath a “mask of
moderation” when trying to win the support of the socially liberal
middle classes, he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with
spectacular elements borrowed from the circus. Here, “Hitler adapted the
content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class,
nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners,”
Mr. Ullrich writes. He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and
put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds’
fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who
could restore law and order.
•
Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising “to
lead Germany to a new era of national greatness,” though he was
typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a golden
age for the country, Mr. Ullrich says, the better “to paint the present
day in hues that were all the darker. Everywhere you looked now, there
was only decline and decay.”
•
Hitler’s repertoire of topics, Mr. Ullrich notes, was limited, and
reading his speeches in retrospect, “it seems amazing that he attracted
larger and larger audiences” with “repeated mantralike phrases”
consisting largely of “accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the
future.”
•
Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who “only loved himself” — a
narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and what Mr. Ullrich
calls a “characteristic fondness for superlatives.” His manic speeches
and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his
capacity for self-control, even his sanity. But Mr. Ullrich underscores
Hitler’s shrewdness as a politician — with a “keen eye for the strengths
and weaknesses of other people” and an ability to “instantaneously
analyze and exploit situations.”
•
Hitler was known, among colleagues, for a “bottomless mendacity” that
would later be magnified by a slick propaganda machine that used the
latest technology (radio, gramophone records, film) to spread his
message. A former finance minister wrote that Hitler “was so thoroughly
untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies
and truth” and editors of one edition of “Mein Kampf” described it as a
“swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.”
•
Hitler was an effective orator and actor, Mr. Ullrich reminds readers,
adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his
audiences. Although he concealed his anti-Semitism beneath a “mask of
moderation” when trying to win the support of the socially liberal
middle classes, he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with
spectacular elements borrowed from the circus. Here, “Hitler adapted the
content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class,
nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners,”
Mr. Ullrich writes. He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and
put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds’
fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who
could restore law and order.
•
Hitler’s repertoire of topics, Mr. Ullrich notes, was limited, and
reading his speeches in retrospect, “it seems amazing that he attracted
larger and larger audiences” with “repeated mantralike phrases”
consisting largely of “accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the
future.” But Hitler virtually wrote the modern playbook on demagoguery,
arguing in “Mein Kampf” that propaganda must appeal to the emotions —
not the reasoning powers — of the crowd. Its “purely intellectual
level,” Hitler said, “will have to be that of the lowest mental common
denominator among the public it is desired to reach.” Because the
understanding of the masses “is feeble,” he went on, effective
propaganda needed to be boiled down to a few slogans that should be
“persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp
the idea that has been put forward.”
•
Hitler’s rise was not inevitable, in Mr. Ullrich’s opinion. There were
numerous points at which his ascent might have been derailed, he
contends; even as late as January 1933, “it would have been eminently
possible to prevent his nomination as Reich chancellor.” He benefited
from a “constellation of crises that he was able to exploit cleverly and
unscrupulously” — in addition to economic woes and unemployment, there
was an “erosion of the political center” and a growing resentment of the
elites. The unwillingness of Germany’s political parties to compromise
had contributed to a perception of government dysfunction, Mr. Ullrich
suggests, and the belief of Hitler supporters that the country needed “a
man of iron” who could shake things up. “Why not give the National
Socialists a chance?” a prominent banker said of the Nazis. “They seem
pretty gutsy to me.”
•
Hitler’s ascension was aided and abetted by the naïveté of domestic
adversaries who failed to appreciate his ruthlessness and tenacity, and
by foreign statesmen who believed they could control his aggression.
Early on, revulsion at Hitler’s style and appearance, Mr. Ullrich
writes, led some critics to underestimate the man and his popularity,
while others dismissed him as a celebrity, a repellent but fascinating
“evening’s entertainment.” Politicians, for their part, suffered from
the delusion that the dominance of traditional conservatives in the
cabinet would neutralize the threat of Nazi abuse of power and “fence
Hitler in.” “As far as Hitler’s long-term wishes were concerned,” Mr.
Ullrich observes, “his conservative coalition partners believed either
that he was not serious or that they could exert a moderating influence
on him. In any case, they were severely mistaken.”
•
Hitler, it became obvious, could not be tamed — he needed only five
months to consolidate absolute power after becoming chancellor.
“Non-National Socialist German states” were brought into line, Mr.
Ullrich writes, “with pressure from the party grass roots combining
effectively with pseudo-legal measures ordered by the Reich government.”
Many Germans jumped on the Nazi bandwagon not out of political
conviction but in hopes of improving their career opportunities, he
argues, while fear kept others from speaking out against the persecution
of the Jews. The independent press was banned or suppressed and books
deemed “un-German” were burned. By March 1933, Hitler had made it clear,
Mr. Ullrich says, “that his government was going to do away with all
norms of separation of powers and the rule of law.”
•
Hitler had a dark, Darwinian view of the world. And he would not only
become, in Mr. Ullrich’s words, “a mouthpiece of the cultural pessimism”
growing in right-wing circles in the Weimar Republic, but also the
avatar of what Thomas Mann identified as a turning away from reason and
the fundamental principles of a civil society — namely, “liberty,
equality, education, optimism and belief in progress.”
James Eterno said...
