How Did The Nazi Party Come To Power?

[KennDodd]

Am I naive in thinking most people in Germany, even in the 1930s must have been good kind people, no different to us? How did they persuade people to vote for them?

[Gustavo1]

Adolf Hitler never hid his anti-semitism. Granted, he didn’t take to his foray podium declaring plans for the “final solution” but he always made it clear that he felt the Jewish people were the cause of the hardships facing Germany and the German people.

[Hoppinggreen]

Gustavo I did probe this with the rellies ( 10 years or more ago, they are in their 90s now) and they certainly weren’t anti Semitic
Auntie said that she didn’t even properly understand what Jewish meant, she didn’t understand why a teacher warned her it would be better not to walk to school with her best friend anymore. From what she understood the anger at Jews meant the bankers in the big cities not the family who had lived in their village for generations and ran the local shop
Unfortunately by the time they did realise this it was too late and they preferred not to really think about where that family were being “resettled” to

[Gustavo1]

@hoppinggreen, it must have been an awful time for your relatives to have lived through. I was by no means accusing them of being anti-Semitic or playing any part in what happened to the Jewish people.

[Helmetbymidnight]

What's with the posters on here who don't seem to like people discussing this?
What IS your problem?

[Hoppinggreen]

It’s ok, I didn’t think that, I was just trying to explain how ordinarily people “went along” with Hitler
It’s interesting that they hold no animosity at all to the British (2 married soldiers after the war but that’s a whole other story) but to this day they hate The Russians

[MargoLovebutter]

I did my uni thesis on this a million years ago.

Basically, it was economic collapse, resentment over the way the end of WW1 was handled, a power vacuum and the personal charisma of Hitler.

People are never good or bad. The Germans back then were no more good or bad than we are today.

There are parallels to today. However, the most important factor I think will be the state of the economy. Relatively comfortably off people do not seek desperate measures. If Brexit happens and we fall into the economic abyss, then it could be a different story.

[Hoppinggreen]

Agree margot due to the dc heritage it’s always been very important for us to emphasise that Germans = Baddies isn’t actually true
They DO get a bit of stick at school when they study WW1/2 but I think they understand that it’s not as black and white as we are taught
Last year we took them to Zeppelin platz and they stood in the exact spot Hitler did to deliver many of his most famous speeches and while they know he was an evil man I felt it was important for them to know how ordinary people could have been sucked in by him. DH had family who were Nazi party members (including the Hitler Youth) and some who were killed for resisting, we didn’t know most of them but a couple are still alive and happy to talk about it
I tell the dc that if I had been alive in post ww1 Germany I can’t honestly say that I definitely wouldn’t have voted for Hitler

[SmartPlay]

I don't know if anyone wrote that yet, because I haven't read all the answers. Anyway: You can watch in real time how they came to power. Just look around the world - including the UK! - and look at what all the populist right-wing parties are doing, who are rising almost everywhere in the West since a few years back.
That was exactly how the Nazis did it back then ... only without the internet.

[bakedbeanzontoast]

@KennDodd me too, same thing with Rwanda for example. How people can behave in such ways. The conditions and mindset that lead to genocide is fascinating if rather unsettling.

[ThatCurlyGirl]

Obviously much more intelligent people than me will be able to write a reply with much more kudos.

But for me, it was a combination of factors that individually are scarily common but combined to make a perfect storm that still fills me with horror whenever I think about how relatively recently it was:

• Poor country
• None to very little social mobility
• An evil leader who was a great orator
• Charisma (evil yes but apparently this in spades in person)
• Absolute singlemindness of the higher ups
• Divide and conquer the population by making it "us" vs "them"
• Choose who is in the "them" category by othering and dehumanising them to those in the "us" category
• Control of official news and all other communications channels
• Utter fear and the knowledge of you don't tow the line, you and your family are in grave danger

It's terrifying how all these factors could be stirred in the same pot today and still light a fire of biblical proportions.

My grandparents generation really didn't live that long ago at all. I can't imagine how terrifying a time it must have been. And is now, in other places across the world. There but for the grace of god...

Disclaimer IMO if there was a god how could he have watched this atrocity happen.

[Paddington68]

Good men did nothing.

[MargoLovebutter]

Good men did plenty - they just couldn't do enough. Many of them paid for 'doing' with their lives.

The biggest contributing factor IMO was the Wall Street crash in 1929 followed by the global economic downturn. Had that not happened, I think the Nazis would have grumbled on for a while, a bit like various nationalist parties have done over the years without gaining significant foothold.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

The Russian Revolution in 1917 must have had an effect. There was a shortlived attempt to have a Communist Revolution in Germany too, not long after the end of WW1. It's hard to imagine now how different life was then right across the world, with minimal welfare provision for the poor. Taxes were low by our standards, but still greatly resented.

And then suddenly in Russia the Communists took power by force and confiscated assets from almost everyone. The peasants were delighted because their lives had been utterly wretched and now they were a bit better off. But for everyone else it was a frightening and turbulent time and a lot of rich and middle-class Russians fled the country and lost everything as a result. There was much sympathy for them in their new countries.

Some people in the West were delighted and fell for the propaganda that the USSR was a workers' paradise but most people, I suspect, were aghast at the idea that modest homes and savings could be taken by government. The USSR led the way in totalitarian government, sending dissidents off to the gulag, indoctrinating children to report on their parents, withholding public jobs from people who didn't toe the party line, etc etc. Quite a lot of that leaked out.

I surmise that a lot of people who supported Fascism were in fact looking for the party most likely to keep Communism out of their country. All through the inter-war period the USSR was the bogeyman for lots in the rest of Europe and the USA. It was a near thing in the UK. Mosley and his Blackshirts had a lot of support for a time. Even in the US there was strong support for Communism in some quarters, which swelled during WW2 when the USSR eventually joined the Allies and the US belatedly entered the war.

Look at what happened after the war - Nazi scientists whisked away to the US to work on military projects, Cold War under way as soon as WW2 ended, McCarthy cracked down on Communists in the US. Back to the old enemy, not nearly enough effort made to counter the root causes of fascism.

Doesn't do to underestimate the extent of antisemitism all through the world before WW2. Plenty of it around even now. Dispiriting.

[KennDodd]

I'm also going to Berlin this summer, on the same trip as Poland. I might try to visit some of the WW11 history while there. I think the parallels with today are chilling, I don't understand how some people, nice, ordinary good people, really genuinely can't see them. How can they not think Trump and Farage (I think the worst offenders with real political power and a large faithful following) aren't racist when they say such blatantly racist stuff? Maybe it's me and I'm just seeing things that just aren't there, reading too much into things?

[KennDodd]

Thank you all for contributing, interesting reading and viewing for me.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

No, it's not just you, Kenn. I find the parallels very troubling.

@Atticus2019, I see what you did there!

[KennDodd]

Interesting too how some posters seem to want to shut down discussion of this.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Yes.

[MargoLovebutter]

Yes Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g it did have an impact. Germany pretty much had a civil war going on between the KPD (communists) and the Nazis after the Wall Street Crash. Extremism became appealing because it appeared that the centrist way wasn't working. It often happens in times of severe economic crisis.

KennDodd people like Trump & Farage are always there but during normal times their power is curtailed through democratic process. Trump is having a real struggle to get anything done in the US, despite his endlessly divisive rhetoric. Farage has yet to get himself elected to the British Parliament - despite decades of trying.

However, when economies crash and people get desperate they starting thinking "oh maybe that twatty fucker was right after all and the reason my money that I've been saving all my life is now worth less than a tube of Smarties, is because of the blacks /Jews / women / gays / communists / liberals etc. I worked all my life but now I'm hungry, my kids are hungry, the bank has seized my home, I have no prospects, so I'm going to sign up to join a neo-military party because I want to eat again."

[Gustavo1]

I’m reading this wondering who is shutting down the conversation but I’m not noticing that ... does that mean it’s me?

[DuchessDumbarton]

I think the parallels with today are chilling, I don't understand how some people, nice, ordinary good people, really genuinely can't see them

I agree that there are parallels, Kenn. I've read a bit, over the past few days, about the slaughter in the Bosnian conflict. It's very similar in its origins.
So also, the genocide in Rwanda.

As someone sharply aptly said upthread, you can research this on the internet.

The parallels are clear, to anyone with eyes open and an interest in watching and listening.

As to why "nice ordinary good people" can't see the parallels....
It often surprises me how we can be bystanders in everyday situations.

Recently, in our Irish abortion referendum, I found myself in a situation where I had to sit through a "pro-life" talk in a setting where it would have been embarrassing to leave or make a protest (think something similar to attending church for a family event and the minister deciding to have a rant).
So, in essence, I became complicit in a viewpoint with which I did not agree.
Anyone else sitting there and disagreeing, would have felt isolated. If I had had the strength to discreetly leave, it might have emboldened others instead of angry whispers in the carpark later.
That's how it starts..... someone with a minor position of authority says something not quite right, and in the name of good manners, we allow it to pass because "it doesn't really matter".
Until it does.

Trump should have been stopped long before he got on the ballot paper for the Republican nomination. No-one took the threat seriously.

Brexit (in my view) should have been properly debated before the referendum was hijacked by bus posters. No-one took the threat seriously.

Boris (in my view) is unfit for a leadership position. He may be authoritative but he's not a leader of people. No-one appears to take the threat seriously.

[DuchessDumbarton]

(Hope I haven't killed the thread again, with my long posts)

[Helmetbymidnight]

The Nazis gradually gained control of much of the media and the judiciary.

This was very important -

A weakened press, ('fake news') powerless judges ('enemies of the people') and the civil service (lies and leaks) make checks on power and dissent less likely.

[MargoLovebutter]

Whilst Goebbels had his own paper and the Nazis were notable for their pamphletering, in their rise to power they didn't really control the media or the judiciary - that happened after their rise to power.

[Hoppinggreen]

I’ve seen some newspapers and pamphlets from the time.
They start subtle and get more blatantly anti Semitic over time, slowly dehumanising Jews. It was a creeping process