Learning from History

This is a comment on the letter to the editor last week from Doug Snider (who I do not know). The history referenced is from “Hitler’s First Hundred Days,” by Peter Fritzsche, 2020.

Winston Churchill said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Kaiser Wilhelm, as the monarch of Germany, together with his generals, declared and prosecuted World War I. Until defeat was certain in 1918, the people were assured victory was at hand. The Versailles Treaty ending the war was shocking, humbling and economically devastating. A democratic republic was formed with a Reichstag legislature consisting of two houses elected by the people and a president elected by the people.

On Jan. 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler, a 43 year old, uneducated, former army corporal, known only for his book “Mein Kampf” and “the noise he makes” was appointed chancellor of the German Republic.

At the time, he was the leader of a small, populist workers party (then unknown as the Nazi party) with an energized following.

Four weeks after being sworn in, the Reichstag/legislative building was destroyed by fire.

Hitler blamed the Communists and had the Reich president decree that many civil liberties were nullified, opponents jailed and the press censored.

The federal states ceased to function independently.

The one-party Nazi state had begun.

By March 23, Hitler was successful in having passed the Enabling Act, which empowered him, as chancellor, to by-pass the Reichstag and override the constitution.

How was the Weimar Democratic Republic subverted so quickly?

1. The German economy was devasted by the aftermath of WW I, the terms of the Versailles Treaty and the Great Depression.

2. The social and political systems were fractured and deadlocked to the point of paralysis.

3. Hitler, a mesmerizing orator, together with his propaganda machine, manipulated a vulnerable public with a campaign of blame: of Communists and the Soviet Union, of Jews, of threats to Aryan purity.

4. In addition to the blame game, Hitler conducted a campaign of chaos and persecution, while glorifying and promoting himself and the Nazis as the warriors and saviors to make Germany “great again.” The paradox inherent in the plan was his aim to unify the country by creating and magnifying divisions between friends and foes.

5. How could the German people support or submit to such a person as Hitler, and to his Nazi party? They were not necessarily believers, but they willingly suspended their disbelief, or chose to deceive themselves into belief out of fear and need. Without 231 years of democratic, constitutional history as a bedrock of belief in their government, they were susceptible to being duped by a con man.

Buz Humphrey, Anacortes