The word ‘Nazism’ has come to be synonymous with depravity and genocide. Between 1935-45, at the instigation of the German government, 6 million Jews, gypsies, and those the state called degenerates, were slaughtered by Adolph Hitler and his ruling National Socialism party, the Nazis.
But today, four generations later, we’ve lost the memory of its causes…what were the events that gave rise to such depravity? We need to remember! Perhaps, if we recognize its signs, we can avoid it ever happening again.
Early in the 20th century it was common for countries to sign defense treaties with other countries so in 1914 when the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated by a young radical, it launched World War I. Mostly it was England and France facing off against Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany. It was a stupid, needless, war. The Archduke was neither German, English or French…he was Austrian.
Each country mobilized its forces, introduced airplanes, tanks, and gas into their arsenals and lobbed artillery shells against one another while their soldiers huddled in trenches. Neither side made much progress in 1914 or 1915. Not even 1916. It was pretty much a stalemate.
America had been reluctant to enter the war. Woodrow Wilson had been elected President in 1916 on a platform of maintaining our country’s isolationist policies but, finally, in April 1917 he gave in. It would be ‘the war to end all wars’, he asserted. American men and munitions sailed to Europe and altered the balance. 18 months later the war was over. Germany had been defeated. The Kaiser was out and the democratic Weimar Republic was formed.
But all the significant battles of the war had been fought on French soil and France was royally ‘pissed.’ They demanded that Germany assume responsibility and pay them $32 billion in reparations. In today’s dollars that would be $650 billion. Germany didn’t have that kind of money. Its treasury was empty.
Enter Charles Dawes, U.S. Director of the Budget. His plan, approved by the League of Nations, would feed money into the German economy, lower reparation payments, and get Germany moving again. The U.S. lent money to Germany, and the countries that collected reparations payment used that money to pay off United States debts.
Meanwhile the Weimar government was printing huge amounts of money to pay workers. In 1922, 300 German Marks could buy an American dollar. A year later it took 50,000 Marks to buy an American dollar. Soon Germans needed billions of Marks to pay a postage stamp. It took a shopping bag to Marks to get on a streetcar. It was hyperinflation. The country’s currency was worthless.
In 1929, the American stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. America stopped sending money to Germany, aggravating their situation. Businesses failed, unemployment soared, the economy, and the Weimar Republic verged on collapse.
At the same time Germany’s middle class feared that Russia’s Communist revolution could infect their country. In 1927 a fire that destroyed the Reichstag, seat of the country’s Parliament, was started by a Communist sympathizer, adding to those fears. Now, as the country unraveled, the government, led by Hindenburg, looked to the leader of Germany’s largest non-Communist party, Adolph Hitler, to form a new government. At the national elections a year later Adolph Hitler and his National Socialist party swept into power. By 1933 anyone associated with the Communist party had been thrown out of public office. In 1934 a law was passed allowing Hitler to pursue any policy he chose without consent of Parliament or the courts. Nazism had arrived, ready to feed on the collapse of national self-confidence.
It wasn’t the fault of the Germans, they shouted. It was the Communists…it was the bankers…it was the Jews…it was the degenerates. If Germany cleansed itself of these elements, it would be a proud Aryan nation once again. Hitler was a powerful speaker and he drummed these themes over and over again. The lies, repeated often enough, came to be believed. They must be true…everyone said so!
The rest is history, Jewish genocide, World War II, 60 million killed. Have we learned anything? There will always be zealots; there will always be lies and exaggerations. Hopefully, there will always be those who champion calm and reason.
My thanks to a friend, Alan Greenberg, for his valuable input.