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shawnmmcc
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Techmseh, thank you for that quote - it was one of two meetings I wanted to cite, that and one earlier one back in roughly 1929 where a small cadre of wealthy and industrialist types who genuinely supported Hitler gave him that initial seed money.
Gepap and Techmseh, thanks for actually making my point about the Hitler state and Barbarrosa - any State with Hitler as dictator was going to war, and going to invade the Slavic states, including the Soviet Union. Che, you are simply wrong. As both Gepap and Techumseh show, and as I made the point, the actions of the other actor's in Hitler's Germany (after 1938) are moot (unless you kill Hitler, then you can go back to having a genuine Facist State unless Himler gets control, that could be even worse). The Hitler state after 1938 was no longer facist, per se, but a cult of personality sharing more with today's North Korea.
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shawnmmcc
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OK - so the book doesn't really deal with much that is new if you have already read some of the books concerning the Nazi military-industrial complex and how both French and US companies helped them out. What you just posted matched everything I've read.
However, from my understanding the purge of Rohm was primarily due to Hitler consolidating power, and also making the Wehrmacht happy (which with hindsight we know was appalling short-sighted and stupid on their part.). Would you agree that after Hitler replaced Blomberg and General Fritsch that Hitler had consolidated all power? I'm wondering if anyone esle agrees with my 1938 date, even if they disagree with my conclusion that was the point Germany ceased to be a Facist state and instead became a cult centered around Hitler.
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techumseh
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of the frozen North.
Apr 1999
time: 22:24
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There's no doubt that Hitler had enormous power. He aquired this power because he had the support of 3 key groups. His hold on the first - the Nazi Party - was unquestioned. The second, big business and the German capitalists, he won over by promising to save them from Communism (as above). The army was won over by implementing a massive rearmament program.
What your theory fails to take into account is that Hitler needed to continue to satisfy the interests of these groups if he was to retain their support, and hence, the basis of his power. So almost all of what he did corresponded to the interests of these groups. Destroying world communism was HUGE with all three. Eliminating the Soviet military threat was important to the army. Aquiring more land, cheap labor and looting the capital wealth of other European countries, including the Soviet Union, was particularly beneficial to German industrialists.
So quibbling about whether Hitler forced the army or German business into attacking the Soviet Union is not relevent. They went willingly, for the most part, because they perceived it was in their interests to do so.
Was it a cult? Sure. In what way did that change the result, is the question. One thing I know is that this theory is very convenient for those amoung the army and German elite who enthusiastically supported Hitler and his plans. And that's MOST of them, BTW. It allows them to say, "he made us do it". "We had no choice." And that was the refrain of literally thousands of them after the war was lost. Hey - west of the Elbe at least - they got to keep their factories.
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shawnmmcc
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Techumseh - I'm about to go to sleep but you deserve a response. BTW, I have been enjoying your disagrement with GePap on the actual definitiion of Facism, it's made me reexamine my own definition. That's why I've avoided your argument on that, it's been very interesting.
I will however disagree with you on the Hitler state. That is an illusion many people have about the Hitler state needing the support of anyone after 1938. It may have been nice, but between Goering, Heydrich, and Himmler it was moot. They had utter control of the mechanisms of the state, opposition was both futile and fatal, and those three men (along with Goebels, the other power broker) were disciples of Hitler. Che, that's why I choose 1938, after that point the fangs of the military were pulled, and IMHO Hilter has consolidated power.
There was no "axis of power." All power was vested in Hitler, through those priests, if you wish, of his beliefs. That is why talking about the Nazi regime as a facist state, versus something much more akin to North Korea, produces a series of bad models. There was no way for anyone to challenge Hitler's power except through Hitler himself, in which case one could "redirect" his attention. One could not "challenge" his power, that was fatal.
BeBro - the difference between Hitler and Stalin is that Stalin had no "cult" worshipping him, he reigned almost solely through terror. North Korea today is the closest state we have to Nazi Germany. You could also make an argument for Mao's China, where he become the new God(philosopher)-King. And that is why so much of modern analysis of the Hitler state fails, like you they argue cult is not an accepted category for political systems in 20th century societies. But that is exactly what is was, and not accepting that has produced some of the more macabre assertions like the German people could have stopped Hitler after 1933 (which they couldn't have). Many tried, and ended up in the camps. In fact for some reason, as fatigued as I am, I am thinking of the Inca and their god-kings. I think they were much closer to the Hitler-state than Mussolini's Facism - at least we ALL agree that was a facist state. 
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BeBro
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of the Krauts
Mar 2000
time: 06:24
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnmmcc
BeBro - the difference between Hitler and Stalin is that Stalin had no "cult" worshipping him, he reigned almost solely through terror. |
I strongly disagree. IMO there was absolutely this cult for Stalin too. There are contemporary quotes from media and people in Russia about Stalin which are absolutely on the same level of craziness with the stuff you can see today in NK, and there is no reason to assume that everything was made just due to fear of Stalin (in part may be). This is mentioned in literature about Stalin as well. It's a while since I read about him, but I just remember a part from a book by Robert Conquest about Stalin which stated many grotesque things: not only that newspapers published all kinds of exaggerated praises about Stalin, even intelectuals like Tolstoi wrote the most absurd hymns about him. There were also reports about party members falling into hysteria similar to the scenes we know from Hitler's public speeches in Germany. One story I particularly found absurd was how a speech of Stalin was recorded, and the entire last record contained only the applause.
Edit: Generally speaking it can also be doubted that any rule can rely exclusively on terror without any consensual elements at least in certain parts of the society.
Last edited by BeBro on 13-09-2005 at 22:52
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techumseh
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of the frozen North.
Apr 1999
time: 22:24
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Stalin had established his 'cult of personality' before Hitler had even taken power. Here's an excerpt from Kruschev's secret speech to the XX Communist Party Congress in 1956, in which he denounced Stalin:
quote:
Comrades, the cult of the individual acquired such monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself, using all conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his own person. This is supported by numerous facts. One of the most characteristic examples of Stalin's self -glorification and of his lack of even elementary modesty is the edition of his Short Biography, which was published in 1948.
This book is an expression of the most dissolute flattery, an example of making a man into a godhead, of transforming him into an infallible sage, "the greatest leader," "sublime strategist of all times and nations." Finally no other words could be found with which to lift Stalin up to the heavens.
We need not give here examples of the loathsome adulation filling this book. All we need to add is that they all were approved and edited by Stalin personally and some of them were added in his own handwriting to the draft text of the book. . . .
Comrades, if we sharply criticize today the cult of the individual which was so widespread during Stalin's life and if we speak about the many negative phenomena generated by this cult which is so alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism, various persons may ask: How could it be? Stalin headed the party and the country for 30 years and many victories were gained during his lifetime. Can we deny this? In my opinion, the question can be asked in this manner only by those who are blinded and hopelessly hypnotized by the cult of the individual, only by those who do not understand the essence of the revolution and of the Soviet State, only by those who do not understand, in a Leninist manner, the role of the party and of the nation in the development of the Soviet society. . . .
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http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/...ev-secret1.html
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techumseh
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of the frozen North.
Apr 1999
time: 22:24
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As I interpret Kruschev's criticism in the (whole) speech, the 'cult of the individual' under Stalin did not fundamentally betray socialism, ie. Stalin did not attempt to reintroduce private enterprise, or sell out the USSR to foreign powers, etc. It did, however betray the spirit of socialism, with the following effects:
1. All defered to Stalin's 'wisdom' with the results that decisons were poorer due to lack of all round debate.
2. Scientifically, culturally and intellectually, the society was poorer. Critical thinking was severely weakened, and culture became a Soviet version of 'happy days'.
3. Lack of due process lead to the arbitrary arrest, detention and/or execution of hundreds of thousands of real and imagined 'enemies of the people'.
4. As a result of the purges, the armed forces and the Party became greatly weakened.
I suspect that the effect of Hitler's 'cult of personality' was much the same on Nazi Germany. It did not change the essence of the regime, or it's nature. It remained fundamentally a fascist regime. But it probably made Nazi rule even more arbitrary, dogmatic, irrational and error prone.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:24
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnmmcc
OK - so the book doesn't really deal with much that is new if you have already read some of the books concerning the Nazi military-industrial complex and how both French and US companies helped them out. What you just posted matched everything I've read.
However, from my understanding the purge of Rohm was primarily due to Hitler consolidating power, and also making the Wehrmacht happy (which with hindsight we know was appalling short-sighted and stupid on their part.). Would you agree that after Hitler replaced Blomberg and General Fritsch that Hitler had consolidated all power? I'm wondering if anyone esle agrees with my 1938 date, even if they disagree with my conclusion that was the point Germany ceased to be a Facist state and instead became a cult centered around Hitler. |
It's an interesting point that you raise, but uncannily enough we've just had the first episode of a series on the S.S. shown on Channel 4 over here- and it outlines the power struggle between Himmler and the S.S. and Rohm and the S.A.- it even had a photograph of Himmler serving as 'office boy' to the head of the Berlin S. A. .
It went into some detail about the propaganda campaign designed to show how lovely and warm the S.S. were in comparison to the street fighting men of the more avowedly proletarian S. A. - ludicrous images of S.S. men doing their civic duty taking German children horse riding in German parks and cities- so much more gemutlich than those book burning bully boys in brown.
I don't think that Nazi Germany ever ceased to be a Fascist state, despite the cult of personality focussed on Hitler- at least not by the useful definition of Fascism given by Walter Laqueur in 'Fascism: A Reader's Guide', which I'll try to find for you in my notes.
Oh, and shock, shock, horror, horror- Nazi ideologue Rosenberg was a Baltic German who fled Russia...
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:24
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Here we go, shawn- found that definition of Fascism from the book of essays edited by Walter Laqueur:
quote:
Fascism: a hypernationalist, often pan-nationalist, anti-parliamentary, anti-liberal, anti-communist, populist and therefore anti-proletarian, partly anti-capitalist and anti-bourgeois, anti-clerical, or at least, non-clerical movement, with theaim of national social integration through a single party and corporative representation not always equally emphasized; activist cadres ready for violent action combined with electoral participation to gain power with totalitarian goals by a combination of legal and violent tactics. |
There's usually the espousal of a national cultural tradition- in Hitler's and the Nazis' case, this is a pan-national Volkisch tradition crossing national boundaries, linking the German diaspora from Belgium to the Volga.
It bore a strong resemblance to the political (cultural) goals of the Alldeutsche Verband, or Pan-German League of the nineteenth century, which had as its goal or programme, a union of all members of the German 'race' in a pan-German state- this would incorporate Belgoum, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, Poland, Rumania and Serbia- they had a snazzy catchphrase:
" Dem Deutschen gehort die Welt."
Ludendorff's memoirs revealed the kind of thinking that lay behind this- not too far removed from the thinking of Hitler:
quote:
" Kovno (modern day Kaunas) is a typical Russian town, with low, mean wooden houses...on the further bank of theNiemen there stands the tower of an old German castle of the Teutonic Knights, a symbol of German civilization in the East...
...the population, made up as it is if such a mixture of races, has never produced a culture of its own, and left to itself, would succumb to Polish domination." |
'My War Memoirs', publ. London 1919, vol. 1, pp. 178-9
Clearly in some people the memorializing of Lechfeld and Teutonic Knights' campaigning never faded away.
What is interesting is the imagery used in two separate films in countries either side of Germany- Eisenstein's 'Alexander Nevski' (1938) and Dreyer's 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1927) have similar shots of faceless helmeted militaristic invaders- the Teutonic Knights and the English are both depicted as almost beetle-like in appearance.
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shawnmmcc
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Molly - I'm terrible with names, and had been too lazy to get my books out of storage. I had been trying to remember Ludendorff's name, he was the primary individual I was thinking about as one of Hitler's direct intellectual predecessors. I am familiar with the Pan-German league, which is another of the groups I would include as Hitler's predecessors. However, I will still stand by my statements concerning Barbarossa and the industrialists - it was more of opportunistically taking advantage of Hitler's policies rather than making them.
I agree completely that Hitler coming into power was Facist. But his state, or for that matter, any state, where a single figure consolidates total power (or mistakenly believes he has up to the point of his assassination) has a very strong tendency to become a cult-like state. That's why I use the example of Mao's China, or North Korea - I'm still not completely comfortable with Stalin, I know alot of people deified him, but there were an awfully large number that didn't (I not arguing it yet, I need to do some research before I make up my mind).
That is why Hitler's regime could make so many mistakes. It brings to mind the statement made by Captain Tameichi Hara (Japanese Destroyer Captain) when he described fubars by the Japanese in the beginning of the Pacific conflict - It's not that we were so good, it's that you were so bad. He also states that the Allies started winning when they stopped making more mistakes than the Japanese.
What is amazing about the Hitler state is how it many different things they screwed up and that they got so far. That's why I still tend to agree with those who model it as a cult - proper states have a tendency, note - tendency, not to be quite so self-destructive. When you have a cult-style state, if their Great Leader wants to do something that is destructive of the state itself, it still gets done (or some of his disciples realize he is a nutcase and shoot him).
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:24
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnmmcc
However, I will still stand by my statements concerning Barbarossa and the industrialists - it was more of opportunistically taking advantage of Hitler's policies rather than making them.
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With regards to the deification of Hitler- I've been reading Ian Buruma's 'The Wages of Guilt'
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...092920?v=glance
about post-war education and re-education in Japan. He mentions in passing how envious some Nazis were of the emperor cult in Japan...
With regard to Barbarossa, the chapter on business in Grunberger's book does deal with the active role played by some industrialists in the invasions of other countries-
quote:
In so far as industry disagreed in matters of political policy, it did so constitutionally by submitting memoranda, though even this form of opposition was eschewed in cases involving undue hazard. Thus when Goerdeler and General Thomas of the Wehrmacht's economic office drew up a memorandum designed to convince Hitler that the economic situation made an early termination of the war essential, leading industrialists refused to put their signatures to the document. |
see also: Fabian von Schlabrendorff, 'The Secret War Against Hitler', publ. Hodder and Stoughton, London 1966
Also it's worth remembering the eager participation of industrialists in the dismemberment and cannibalization of the industries (and even the actual buildings and factories) in countrie such as France and the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia- Krupp alone acquired Dutch shipyards, Belgian metalworks, French machine tool manufacturers, Yugoslavian mineral ore deposits, including chromium, nickel mines in Greece, and ironworks and steel plants in the Ukraine.
In fact, a section of big business had been happy to go along with the Four-Year plan, with its programme of 'precipitate industrial mobilization for war'. The mid-Thirties also saw maximum expansion for small businesses too, with many profiting from the Aryanization programme and Nazi restrictions on department stores and the government's refusal to accept tenders from them or from cooperatives.
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13-09-2005 10:01
(but at least you tried)
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