The Appeal of Nazism

Germany’s defeated in the Great War humiliated and impoverished the German people, first with the crushing terms of the Treaty of Versailles, then again by the Great Depression. The social and economic upheavals of this period set the stage for Adolph Hitler, the leader of a fringe right-wing party, to gain power through parliamentary elections. In his book Requiem for a German Past A Boyhood Among the Nazis, Jurgen Herbst describes how the Nazis gained and maintained power by manipulating public opinion through their promise of a better future, the pervasiveness of their messages and the use of coercion against their political opponents. Adolph Hitler’s radical vision of a revitalized Germany directed by a single leader allowed them to gain power, but once in office, they maintained it by dominating public discourse and institutions.

The seeds of Nazism were sown in the days after the end of the Great War. The Treaty of Versailles emasculated Germany’s military, stripped away her colonies and eastern territories and burdened her with astronomical reparation payments. Germany could not afford the terms of the Treaty of Versailles; its economy was already weakened by the war. Jurgen’s mother told him about the “terrible winters of 1917 and 1918” where all there was to eat were “boiled turnips and cabbage with frozen potatoes and no meat or fat to speak of.” His mother told him how inflation during the post-war period made her money worthless and “she had rushed out in the mornings when the stores opened to buy a head of cabbage for a million marks, afraid that if she was late or she had to stand in line, the price would go up to a million and a half”. The democratic Weimar Republic of the time was blamed for Germany’s defeat and economic collapse. Its failure to stand up to France when it occupied the Ruhr Basin when Germany failed to make its reparation payments bitterly reminded Germans of their pitiful state.

The failure of the “Beer Hall Putsch” and the attempted Communist revolutions taught Hitler that he could not overthrow the Weimar Republic by force. Even though the Nazis were authoritarian and openly despised democracy, it must be noted that they came to power constitutionally. Though the relative prosperity of the mid to late 1920s took the steam out of Communist and Nazi revolution, the Weimar Republic’s reprieve was only temporary. Before the Great Depression, the Nazis were a fringe party with only 12 parliamentary seats and 2.6% of the vote in 1928 and up until 1931, people dared to boo or whistle at passing Brown Shirts (SA), the “foot soldiers” of the Nazi Party who were mostly veterans from the Great War. The Great Depression threw millions of Germans out of work and millions more were disillusioned with the Weimar Republic and the principles of democracy and capitalism. The Nazis thrived in this gloomy environment. In 1931, Uncle Gerhard told Jurgen how “thirteen horrible years [of the Weimar Republic] were enough, what with inflation after the Great War when there was never enough money to buy food and clothing, the moral filth in the big cities, and the incompetence of the politicians.” While democratic parties could not promise a better future, Adolph Hitler’s vision was no longer considered radical. He wrote Mein Kampf (My Struggle), a novel about his life and his political thoughts, which later became the Bible of Nazism, during his imprisonment for his role in the failed “Beer Hall Putsch”. The Nazi platform celebrated nationalism, anti-capitalism, anti-Semitism (which was related to the latter, as Jews were prominent in business) and called for the rearmament of Germany and the restoration of its former glory. Adolph Hitler had a bold vision of a racially pure, prosperous, militaristic Germany that would be feared on the world stage. The Nazis’ lack of faith in democracy was reflected in their use of violence to achieve political ends. The SA grew exponentially from 100,000 members in 1930 to 1 million in 1933 and they expressed Nazi might through rallies, marches and street battles.

Hitler’s message resonated in the hearts of the downtrodden German people and they gave his party the largest number of seats in the 1933 elections, while traditional democratic parties won only 30% of the vote. Hitler exploited fears of Bolshevik revolution and the growing strength of the other major anti-democratic party – the German Communist Party. The conservative political elites of the Weimar Republic decided that Adolph Hitler was controllable, so President Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor in January 1933. Initially the Nazi government operated within democratic restraints. The burning of the Reichstag (supposedly) by a deranged Dutch Communist on February 27, 1933 provided an excuse for the passage of the Enabling Act, which gave Hitler emergency powers used to dissolve the Reichstag and rule by decree.

The passage of the Enabling Act marked the end of the Weimar Republic that the Nazis so loathed and the beginning of the National-Socialist reign of terror. They wasted no time to consolidate their grip on power and persecute their political opponents. Communists, labour leaders and dissidents were arrested and their assets seized and by July 1933, all other political parties were banned or dissolved. One of the Nazis’ first acts after taking power was the expulsion of Jews from the civil service and in 1935 wre the Nuremburg laws prohibiting them from joining a profession, owning property or having sexual relations with Aryans. Jurgen’s father’s refusal to join the SA or the Nazi Party effectively destroyed any chance of becoming Director of Duke Library. During Jurgen’s father’s first leave from the war, Hitler dismissed several army generals and took personal command of the army, which was one of the few institutions to continue to (quietly) resist Nazism. Hitler’s distrust of the army was vindicated by two assassination attempts against him by army officers later in the war.

The Nazi Party considered the education system to be another vehicle for indoctrinating young Germans. The Braunschweig ministry officials did not like the democratic nature of the student society, the Gymnasial Turn Gemeinde, so they pressured the school board to have the society brought under the control of the Hitler Youth. Teachers taught unapproved material at great personal risk. The religion teacher at the Groß Schule, Ernest “Parson” Wille, took a great risk by refusing “to present the doctrines of the Nazi-sponsored German Christians, and instead had taught [Martin] Luther’s catechism and scripture.” The Braunschweig school board considered the teaching of Martin Luther’s humanitarian beliefs to be an act of “religiously-motivated insubordination against the regime.” The school board sent officials with party emblems to the school to interview upper-year students and teachers about “Parson” Wille. Several of his students were expelled and forbidden to attend high school in the state of Braunschweig and while others were subjected to an ideological test upon completion of their final examinations. Director Herman Lampe was fired from his post for “failure to prevent a religious conspiracy”. Jurgen never saw “Parson” Wille again.

Once organized dissent was quelled, the Nazis and the Gestapo turned their attentions to the Jews. The government’s involvement in Kristallnacht made it clear that Jews were not welcome in Germany. Some shops had signs in their windows that read: “Juden Unerwunscht” (Jews not desired) and municipalities would forbid the entry of Jews and post signs declaring “Judenrein” (free of Jews). One day as Jurgen was walking to school, he noticed the windows of a (Jewish) leather goods store was broken by anti-Semitic thugs and in the corner of the window was a red and white card that said “Germans: Buy German – Don’t Patronize a Jewish Business”. During the same walk, Jurgen saw the smouldering remains of the synagogue while the firefighters just “sat or leaned against their truck, dozing or staring wordlessly at the scarred ruin” and an SS soldier calmly smoked a cigarette. While Jurgen had heard the fire engine racing towards the fire earlier on his walk to school, the SS soldier made sure that they did nothing so much as perform their job and put out the burning synagogue. That same day, Jurgen heard that the police took a classmate, Albert Morgenstern, and his mother away while Brown Shirts wrecked their home. The plight of the Jews served as a graphic example of what happened to the “enemies” of the German people. Only when Jurgen visited Poland did he realize what probably happened to them. There he saw hundreds of Jews “volunteering” to mine coal for a steel mill. Only after the war would Jurgen realize the true horror the Nazis inflicted upon the Jews.

The Nazis treated non-Aryan foreigners as poorly as the Jews. Jurgen and several other boys from the Jungvollk were sent to Poland to instruct local boys at Camp Birkental in Poland to go on marches and teach them songs. Instead, they were assigned to guard the Polish boys who were apprentices in the coalmines. The Polish boys had to spend their two weeks of vacation in a barbed wire surrounded camp receiving paramilitary training from harsh Nazi supervisors. When Jurgen met his father in Poland, he told Jurgen how the locals had initially welcomed the Germans as liberators from Bolshevik terror, but the Germans quickly wore out their welcome. Jurgen’s father asked him “Do you know why I am sad and angry? Because we are now doing the same to them.” He said there were people who only wanted to enrich themselves and who terrorized and looked down upon the locals. The Nazis made few friends in the Occupied (Eastern) Territories and only the use of terror preserved their rule there.

Nazi repression created “the poison of fear and suspicion that pervades every totalitarian society” that existed even in the classroom. People were afraid to say what they think, “afraid to betray your friends or be betrayed by them.” When Jurgen visited Dr. Duesberg for a check-up, he overheard the doctor hum a popular tune to his mother with the modified lyrics,

Everything passes, everything ends, So will Adolph Hitler and his party friends.

Jurgen was outraged by this blatant act of treason and asked his mother whether he should tell the police. His mother asked Jurgen whether he “wanted to send her and Dr. Duesberg to a concentration camp.” Jurgen realized why people were afraid to speak their minds. In the summer of 1944 during an air raid, a student carelessly said, “Herman Goering said that no British bomber will ever fly over our country,” prompting other students to repeat other hollow Nazi boasts such as “the Hakenkreuz will forever wave over the Caucasus” and “Our U-boats will totally isolate England” until Jurgen shouted “This is how they lie!” When he looked at the son of the local SS chief he feared for his life. The Nazis succeeded in creating a climate of fear by ruthlessly persecuting political opponents, so that few people dared to challenge the Nazis.

Though the Nazis ruthlessly crushed their enemies, they enjoyed a fair amount of public support and a sizable following. They were credited with Germany’s economic revival in the 30s that brought prosperity to many Germans. Uncle Gerhard told Jurgen how “Hitler had made us human beings again”. The use of violence and repression permitted the Nazis to dominate public discourse. The Nazis were farsighted enough to recognize that the Nazis of tomorrow must be conditioned today, so they created youth organizations such as the Hitler Youth, the Jungvolk and the Jungmädel. By 1937, enrolment in the Jungvolk or the Jungmädel was compulsory for children 10-13 years of age. The Jungvolk and the Hitler Youth were vehicles for indoctrinating German children with Nazi ideals and providing paramilitary training to prepare them for future military service. Heimabend (evenings at home) at the Jungvolk were little more than twice weekly brainwashing sessions where children learned about the heroes of the party and learned to identify “minderwertige” (undesirable races).

The education system was subverted into a mouthpiece for the Nazi Party. Messrs Fuchtel and Adenstedt at Herbst’s school were devoted Nazis and they did not think twice about spreading the views of the party to their students. The party tightly and inflexibly controlled the curriculum. Jurgen read in his textbooks that Jews “were [his] enemies and [he] must always be on guard against them.” The religion teacher Mr. Wille lost his job and perhaps his freedom because he taught unapproved scripture.

The newspapers and the radios talked about how Germans needed to learn how to hate their enemies from the depths of their souls. The SS newspaper was little more than an outlet for anti-Semitism and self-aggrandisement. Young boys were bombarded with propaganda glorifying the Armed SS, which was represented as “combining the most desirable qualities of army and party”, another Nazi celebration of militarism. One of the most important developments for the Nazis was nurturing a sense of victimization and a siege mentality. The media, schools and the Jungvolk taught suspicion and hatred of foreigners as a way to strengthen Germany against its enemies. Germany was depicted as being surrounded by hostile and jealous foreigners and infiltrated by conspirators. The French and British were portrayed as treacherous and spiteful, only interested in weakening Germany.

Yet (supposedly) the most dangerous enemies were the Jews and the Nazis reserved their greatest loathing for them.  The “Jewish danger” was a common topic at school and the Jungvolk. The Nazis declared that Germans should “send Jews to Jerusalem” and on Jungvolk marches, the boys would sometimes sing about sending the Jews to Jerusalem and cutting off their legs so they could not return. The Nazis legitimated these repulsive beliefs with pseudoscience that supposedly demonstrated the physiological inferiority of the Jews, Slavs, etc. Jurgen was taught in school and at Jungvolk “Jews looked dark and hook-nosed, always talked fast, and waved their hands when they did.” When Jurgen noticed a Jewish man covering up his Star of David while walking down the street, he felt he had to spit on his feet, tear away his package and tell him to get off the street like he was told to do in the Jungvolk. This externalization of Germany’s problems allowed the Nazis to present themselves as champions of Germany against the parasitic Jew.

Germany’s early victories strengthened the fortunes of the Nazi Party. Germany’s invincible army was finally taking back what rightfully belonged to them and reclaiming their place at the head of Europe. When Jurgen’s Fahlein marched, they would sing “And today Germany listens to us, and tomorrow the whole world” or sometimes they would change it to “And today Germany belongs to us, and tomorrow the whole world.” Once the war started to turn against Germany, the Nazi Party used these defeats to encourage people to rally behind the swastika to face their external enemies with a united front. The Soviets were demonized as cruel and barbaric monsters that would show no mercy to a honourable German. To an extent this worked, as the Army continued to fight until the very end, despite their antipathy towards Nazism. The Nazi philosophy of indoctrination is best summed up by the words of school leader at Jurgen’s training camp in the Harz Mountains,

The infallibility of the Fuhrer and his teachings that cannot be shaken by anything are the best guarantees for our final victory. That is why we have to drum our creed again and again into the minds of our trainees until it has become their own unerasable conviction. Ideological training, every National Socialist should know this, is the alpha and omega of our movement. We believe in the power of the idea. That is why we are so much stronger than the Bolsheviks and the Western materialists. Idea, faith, and fanatical will to translate our creed into reality are the pillars of our National Socialism.

Nazism was a jealous ideology and it tolerated no rivals. Even though it was undemocratic in nature, the Nazi Party did not rule by might of arms alone.  They gained power by riding the massive wave of discontent spawned by the Great Depression. Germany’s defeat in the Great War by a coalition of European powers (and the United States) as well as the unjust terms of the Treat of Versailles created feelings of victimhood, which they used to their advantage. Once they acquired power, their rule brought tangible benefits to normal Germans. Their zero employment policies, while enacted at the cost of ruthless wage suppression, lifted millions of Germans out of poverty. The Nazis hijacked the civil service and used it as an instrument of political patronage to reward supporters with sinecures and purge political opponents. Their political opponents were branded as traitors and Germans were taught how to hate their enemies from the depths of their souls. Yet people resisted. Though Jurgen’s father was afraid to speak out against the Nazis, he did his best to raise Jurgen with the wissenschaft of Prussian tradition and Lutheranism. Only Germany’s defeat in World War 2 revealed Nazi rule to be based on illusions and fear.