12.28.16

Downfall

Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Decline and Fall, Extremism at 2:47 pm by George Smith

From a book I’m reading over the holiday, “Hitler: Ascent – 1889 – 1939” by Volker Ullrich. You’ll notice there are still a good many differences between these passages and the psychology of 2016-17 America. Still, the Volksgemeinschaft and “storms of applause” resonate.

Excerpted:

“The psychological consequences [of 1930] were overwhelming. The trying experiences of the post-war period of turmoil and hyperinflation had left many Germans without the emotional strength to deal with an economic crisis that exceeded everything that had come before. An apocalyptic mood of hopelessness began to take hold, even among those segments of the populace that were not primarily affected by the Depression. Faith in democratic institutions and democratic political parties dissolved, and anti-parliamentary sentiment, already rife in the Weimar Republic, was given a huge boost. Those in power appeared to have no solutions to the crisis, and the more helpless they seemed to be, the greater the demand became for a ‘strong man,’ a political messiah who would lead Germany out of economic misery and point the way towards renewed national greatness.”

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“Hitler’s campaign speeches followed the same pattern. He began with a polemic against the Weimar ‘system’ which he blamed for Germany’s decline and decay, comparing Western parliamentarianism to a ‘worn-out tailcoat.’??? Democracy, Hitler claimed, was fundamentally unable to solve Germany’s problems ecause it privileged the rule of the majority over ‘“the authority of personality.’ Hitler then went after the other political parties, which, he claimed, represented only special interests and never the people as a whole. ‘Twelve years of unlimited rule by the old parliamentary parties have turned Germany into an object for exploitation and made it the laughing stock of the entire world,’ Hitler thundered. The NSDAP, he told his audience, represented a ‘new popular German movement’ that overcame class conflicts and the selfish interests of specific social castes: “There is only one movement that recognises the German people as a whole, rather than individual groups, and that movement is ours.??? In this respect, the NSDAP was a model for what Hitler had in store for all of Germany: the creation of a Volksgemeinschaft, a racially defined ethnic-popular community. This Hitler defined as a form of social ‘organisation that no longer knows proletarians, bourgeois, farmers, artisans, etc. but rather is constituted by people from all parts of Germany and all groups of [its] population.’ The idea of the Volksgemeinschaft seems to have particularly fascinated Hitler’s audience. He could count on storms of applause every time he invoked it. The concept was inseparably linked with the promise of national revival …”

The author continues, noting further on that it was still be no means certain that Hitler would attain power three years later.

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