Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
How did Hitler convince so many?
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Message 1.Β
Posted by sleepless-in-battle (U10906104) on Monday, 28th January 2008
I can understand that fear played a major role, that Germany was in a poor state after its defeat in WWI and very much in need of a "pick-me-up" and therefore possibly fairly vulnerable to mass hysteria, and I know that there are lots of nasty people among the human race anyway. But why did so many (not all, I hasten to add) Germans turn so ferociously on fellow human beings?
I'm currently reading "Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust" which contans some horrific accounts of the treatment of Jews, etc during Hitler's "final solution". Most accounts detail the actions of SS officers and the like, but many also refer to the behaviour of German civilians towards what were once their neighbours, pupils, colleagues and friends.
I am curious to know other people's views. How can so many people be so manipulated by one man that they can personally carry out the most violent and barbaric actions in order to assist in the so called cleansing of the German nation? Was it a case of keeping in with the crowd? Can it happen again? Am I missing something?
Many thanks.
(Incidentally, this is my first visit to the message board, so I apologise if this subject has already been covered.) -
Message 2
Posted by cynicaljim (U10860358) on Tuesday, 5th February 2008
As you say, I think fear of the SS / Gestapo played a major role - similarly in Stalin's Russia - where people realised that if they didn't 'grass up' their friends and neighbours it would be them who would be removed - life or death situation in many cases.
I think there may have been also a general belief in Nazi Germany at the time that this was genuinely in the interests of the country as a whole. It may be a radical idea, but I honestly do not think that Hitler was an inherently evil man. However twisted and sick his ideas were, I believe that he felt that he was acting in the best interests of the country - and maybe that seeped into society. -
Message 3
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Tuesday, 5th February 2008
The original core of the Nazi's were attracted probably first and foremost by a desire to belong, to loose their own identity into that of the group and avoid having to be alone, to think for themselves, to bear the anxiety of individual responsibility for their lives. Also group membership blocks out existential fears of death. Live through the group and the group lives on. A form of immortality. The leader comes to be seen as a kind of Ultimate Rescurer. It is the same dynamic as one sees in cults and to a lessor degree in ordinary sports fandom, band groupies, celebrity worship--less militant civilian forms. These are the kind of people who (as demonstated in East Germany after the war) can join one movement as well as another--they just have a psychological need for a movement. Another form that takes today is the excessive obsession with some sort of "cause". Save the (insert whatever here)
With the larger society, support comes after the core group demonstrates their power and cohesion--and a simple clear message blaming all the problems on an enemy. The paranoid message has appeal.
1. It appeals to our narcissistic desire to feel that we, the real folk, are virtuos, and a special people with all our sins being put on a scapegoat. Infantile but still real in adults.
2. It appeals to our laziness, we don't have to think hard and appreciate the complexity of the real world.
3. It avoids the fear that a realization of just how uncertain the future and life in general is will bring. If we have an answer as to whose fault everything is, then we can fix THAT by fixing THEM.
4. The same dynamic with the leader--bolstering our desire for an ultimate rescurer, a God-king, a mother who will save us.
5. It reduces our personal isolation. As socially inept as ever, when we join the crowds and salute the leader, we feel we were part of something and feel close to those around us. It feel intimate actually--even though no reiciprocal social exchange occured at all.
Can it happen again.
It will happen again. It is happening again right now in numerous non-western countries. It can happen to us. We are all people just the same with the same irrational thoughts and fears. Perfectly ordinary sane people sign on to patently irrational conspiracy theories all the time. It is just a matter of the right circumstances and the right leadership to get enough people marching in the same direction at the same time. -
Message 4
Posted by Isaac01 (U5250812) on Wednesday, 6th February 2008
Kurt, well said.
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Message 5
Posted by sleepless-in-battle (U10906104) on Wednesday, 6th February 2008
Lethal concoction! It goes to show that you cannot judge a person by their actions unless you know exactly what it's like to "be in their shoes". That's not to say that a person's actions shouldn't be judged where necessary.
Rather ironic, however, that Hitler was never considered for promotion whilst serving in the armed forces during the Great War because it was felt he didn't possess good leadership qualities. Whatever else can be said of him, he obviously did to some extent. Of course timing was a contributory factor to his leadership success, which leads to the question as to just HOW different things might have been if he had come into power say 15 or 20 years later, after the dust had settled for a little longer. -
Message 6
Posted by Jak (U1158529) on Thursday, 7th February 2008
Can it happen again.
It will happen again. It is happening again right now ... It can happen to us. We are all people just the same with the same irrational thoughts and fears...Β
I've often wondered, if we'd been born a few hundred miles further east - say in Germany, around 1900 - how many of us would have been ardent Nazis? Many more of us than we would like to think, I fear.
And next time they won't be conveniently recognisable with swastika armbands and using the Jews as a scapegoat, it'll be something else.
Worrying. -
Message 7
Posted by Colquhoun (U3935535) on Thursday, 7th February 2008
And yet even in Germany in the 30s and 40s there were those, even students, who recognised the Nazis for what they were.
Nazi followers cannot absolve themsleves of guilt by saying that cercumstances made them do it.
Timing was crucial in Hitler's rise to power, his popularity was already begining to drop when he took power. A few months delay and the economy would have started to recover and his moment would have been lost. -
Message 8
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Thursday, 7th February 2008
watch this and u can understand a bit of the physche
st -
Message 9
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Thursday, 7th February 2008
Hitler didn't possess the leadership qualities that the army was seeking in one of its officers. He was not the type to serve an organizational machinery well
He was a narcissistic leader--the type to be served by an organizational machinery--to give it a fixed point, a fulcrum upon which to turn. Conflating his identity with, not just the state as does a monarch, but with the nation, with Germany itself and all it's people and leading not by conventional leadership qualities buy through a personality cult.
It is probably a blessing that in this age of mass communication, the more shallow minded members of our community, the most fertile soil for this sort of thing, find their herd membership in the various personality cults of the entertainment and sports industries rather than political movements. As disgusting as it is to see humans deny the potential of their existence in that way, it is probably better that the Oprah groupies are sitting about thumbing their Oprah magazines, wearing their Oprah marketed clothing, eagerly waiting for the next episode of Oprah, after which they will call their buddy and chat about the show--better than having them wandering the streets looking for some more active way of quenching their existential anxieties. -
Message 10
Posted by RainbowFfolly (U3345048) on Friday, 8th February 2008
Hi Sleepless-In-Battle,
If you get the chance, try to see the Leni Riefenstahl films "Triumph of the Will" and "Olympia" to understand how propaganda was used in film by the Nazis. They're absolutely breathtaking as works of art - the camera work is stunning and innovative - and it's easy to understand how powerful their impact must have been on the average German.
Leni Riefenstahl - great film director but absolute scum as a human being.
Cheers,
RF -
Message 11
Posted by Johnlvsall (U5330593) on Friday, 8th February 2008
First: PLEASE forgive my spelling. In Shakespear's "Julius Ceaser" Mark Anthony's famous speech to the mob are Ceasar's funeral was, IMO, designed to show how a cleaver politician can manipulate a crowd. How someone with caresima can accomplish acts the majority would never agree with. Take a look at the world today. The U.S. was once a light of decency and justice that shown around the world. Now the U.S. holds prisoners with even releasing their names. We torture and bomb innocents in the name of national defense. From what I have observed, it is no secret how Hitler was able to accomplish what he did.
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Message 12
Posted by dancingevahannah (U7408712) on Friday, 8th February 2008
i think that your comments are a bit strong in reference to torture etc, innocent people will die but unfortunatly that is the nature of the beast of war, a nation has to protect its interests and not lay down to terrisim we cannot be held to ransom by anybody, the terror was brought to the u.s and not the other way around on 9/11 those people were just doing their business providing for their familys doing their job, why pick on them and not a military target
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Message 13
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Saturday, 9th February 2008
Johnisvall
In drawing comparison's between the current US government and the Nazi's you are so far off base, that it begs belief.
In which of the several wars that the US fought has it uniformly treated uniniformed combatants with the all the consideration of uniformed regular soldiers? In which war has it at least not sometimes engaged (as has probably every nation) in painful of spies or sabateurs (terrorists)? In which war has it uniformly publicized the names of irregular combatants, spies, and sabateurs except when it thought it in it's interest to do so?
If you are looking back on some idyllic "decent" time when those things were not done, you are looking back on some fantasy world. In WW2, Uncle Sam interrogated German submariners with simulated drownings, suffocation to the point of passing out, and electric shocks. That is now clearly established in the historical record. Less formal and documented to my knowledge only anectodally--but done so by far too many to deny it's reality, was rough interrogation of the few Japanese soldiers captured alive on Saipan and Okinawa.
We have video footage of American submariners shooting Japanese seaman in the water after their vessels were sunk.
And of course we have bombed innocents since we had the technology to do so. The city I live in today was shelled by the US Navy as a punitive measure AFTER it was captured the the US as punishment for nearby Confederate guerilla activity. As clear a war crime as might be commited and one for which the US would hang an enemy.
If you will look in the current edition of American Scholar, you find in that unlikely journal a detailed account of the code that the United States government wrote for itself and on which the "light of decency" Lincoln signed off---which treated ununiformed combatants in the South as "pirates" subject neither to the respect of POW status nor the rights of common criminals but subject to immediate execution by hanging or bullet. By that rule many a Southern farmer who served not the Confederacy but sought only to defend his crops and home, and perhaps his wife and daughter from the depredation of foraging troops was summarily shot or hung. Even the guerillas themselves were only fighting because they didn't want to be American citizens any longer while the government, insisting that they were, even treated them far worse than we do our worst foreign enemies today. The right argued for non-citizen terrorists who attempt to make war bombing and radiating civilians were not accorded Americans defending their homes.
The US brought the plains Indians to heel by starving them down--and made war on the women and children. We addressed terroristic acts by indians by punishing entire tribes for the deeds of a few. It worked.
We suppressed rebellion in the Phillipines by taking a lesson from our good host's experience in South Africa and rounding up the population in concentration camps and making war on the civilians--probably resulting in about 250,000 deaths. But it worked. Is that the age of decency you are talking about?
If we were like the Nazi's, we would already have harvested and long since consumed the crops fertiized with the ashes of the 6 million or so American Muslims. But we are not. But the US has always done whatever it needs to do to win. Nothing wrong with that. A virtuous loser is still a loser with all the consequences of that unmitgated by his self-satifaction--which is thin comfort to those suffering the consequences. It is the ever present Yankee hypocrisy of pretending to be holier than thou about it which sickens me.
Yes we are more decent than most victors--but not by making war like lawyers and preachers--rather more often like Sherman and Sheridan and LeMay. We are more decent than most because usually after we win--in the most recent century--we try not to seize and loot territory or enslave people but rather create a lasting and stable peace by giving them a hand up.
What is different now is that instead of just doing they have to do and keeping mum about it, the boys in Washington now feel that they have make it legal and open. My own opinion is that it is a mistake to do so. Better to do like Lincoln and just do what is needed to win without attempting to establish it in law. If he had endeavored to establish his actions as law, we would long since have become a tyranny. -
Message 14
Posted by dancingevahannah (U7408712) on Saturday, 9th February 2008
i think he led by fear,it was mass hysteria if you had a different opinion than your neighbour you would be picked upon, hitler also believed in the master race, what rubbish, the jews owned buisness and they were very true to their religion, and sometimes people who are not jewish are afraid of the unknown, i think the ss officers were just nasty and tried to outnast each other, just to show they are hard, a lot of hitlers underdogs were just mean and nasty in their caracters and he lead by fear, they stole off the jews so did they really believe in hitler or did they just want to be as rich as the jews but were too lazy to work the long hours the jews did. we will never know
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Message 15
Posted by dancingevahannah (U7408712) on Saturday, 9th February 2008
where do you get your information from i suggest u need to get out more, i understand that things happened but that was a long time ago.
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Message 16
Posted by Isaac01 (U5250812) on Sunday, 10th February 2008
Kurt, you're too much. Yet another battleaxe swipe of knowledge-based reasoning. Well said, as usual.
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Message 17
Posted by Killfacer (U8855584) on Monday, 11th February 2008
people are too unwilling to blaime the Germans themselves. Yes fear had a part and the political undecurrents of the time played a part but many of you seem to use this as a part excuse. Hitler for a start was a massively charismatic leader and an excellent orator. To say that propaganda, such as "the triumph of the will" played that large a part is a fallacy. Although it is an excellent film, this alone is not enough to lead millions of people to support nazi policy. It is a question that i'm afraid has no proper answer. No one, no matter how knowledgeable, will ever be able to understand why anyone would ever think this is ok:
No amount of propaganda, terror, poverty can explain that. -
Message 18
Posted by Isaac01 (U5250812) on Monday, 11th February 2008
dancing said:
where do you get your information from i suggest u need to get out more, i understand that things happened but that was a long time ago.Β
dancing;
Don't you think that's an odd statement for a history forum. Generally, the people who post here agree that history is critical to mankind's understanding of the present. -
Message 19
Posted by Isaac01 (U5250812) on Monday, 11th February 2008
Killfacer;
Yes, you highlight an often forgotten (perhaps intentionally) element. Discussions on this topic often revolve around the mechanics of how a population can be motivated to move in one direction or another. But, when all is said and done, the German people cannot escape direct and explicit blame for their actions. And, that does not at all mean just for genocide but also, and perhaps more clearly, for agressive warfare.
I would add that the German people, to their credit, have not disputed this, have never attempted to whitewash anything, have taken full responsibility, and have honestly faced themselves.
If there is a fly in the ointment it is that the current generations do not feel the same sense of responsibility. They are perhaps resentful and tired of being sorry for acts committed by people before even their parents were born. That's my sense of it and I'm not sure if that is really the prevailing sentiment in Germany. -
Message 20
Posted by sleepless-in-battle (U10906104) on Monday, 11th February 2008
Thanks, RainbowFfolly, "Triumph of the Will" now on pre-order (new formatted DVD due for release on 10th March)!
Perhaps people ARE too unwilling to blame the Germans for their actions. I still can't get one particular story out of my head, I can't repeat it, but if you happen to possess a copy of "Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust", it's on page 113. There is a description by a young Jewish woman of an horrific incident she witnessed involving a young Jewish child. Now, is this really just a case of an SS guard trying to "outnast" his colleagues? This incident took place on a train full of Jewish occupants bound for the "shower rooms". The majority of them were going to be gassed anyway, so why? To personally go to the trouble of carrying out such an act - was it a display of powers, an attempt to frighten and cause as much horror as possible to onlookers? Seems to me that the guard was going above and beyond his orders? -
Message 21
Posted by RainbowFfolly (U3345048) on Tuesday, 12th February 2008
Hi KillfFacer,
...To say that propaganda, such as "the triumph of the will" played that large a part is a fallacy...Β
I was merely stating that the film is an example of the Nazi use of propaganda, and watching it is a chilling effective method of proving your point that "Hitler for a start was a massively charismatic leader and an excellent orator". I do think that propaganada played a role, probably more of a role than you would agree upon, especially in making policy both available and acceptable to the masses. However, it was one of a myriad of factors, and to understand how so many supported Nazi policy is, as you say, "...a question that I'm afraid has no proper answer."
People are too unwilling to blame the Germans themselves.Β
I couldn't agree more, but I think the blame should be aimed only at the relevant generations, and even then not cast as a all-encompassing blanket over the whole nation - there were Germans who were against the Nazis and this should be recognised.
Cheers,
RF -
Message 22
Posted by Isaac01 (U5250812) on Tuesday, 12th February 2008
Rainbow said:
I couldn't agree more, but I think the blame should be aimed only at the relevant generations, and even then not cast as a all-encompassing blanket over the whole nation - there were Germans who were against the Nazis and this should be recognised.Β
And they are recognized: For example, in Israel's 'Yad Vashem', the Jewish nations's (over and above just of the State of Israel) Holocaust remembrance authority:
"In 1963, Yad Vashem embarked upon a worldwide project to grant the title of Righteous Among the Nations to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. To this end, Yad Vashem set up a public committee headed by a retired Supreme Court justice, which is responsible for granting the title. This project is the only one of its kind in the world that honors, using set criteria, the actions of those individuals who rescued Jews during the war. The Righteous program and the trees planted on the Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations have received world coverage, and the concept of Righteous Among the Nations coined in the Yad Vashem Law has become a universal concept and an important symbol. As of January 2007, 21,758 people have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. In addition, Yad Vashem has been developing a comprehensive encyclopedia - The Lexicon of the Righteous Among the Nations - that will eventually include the stories of all the Righteous Among the Nations. The Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations, in which marble plaques have been engraved with the names of the rescuers according to country, was inaugurated in 1996. Ceremonies in which the title of Righteous Among the Nations is granted are held in the Garden."
That said, it would be unjust to let a ratio of 10,000:1 appear as 1:1.
Moreover, if Germany and the German people have a right to claim an identity--a history, a culture, territorial claims, etc., then it's a package deal. One cannot disassociate subsequent generations from the acts of prior ones arbitrarily. Either a nation has an identity through time or it doesn't. Although we consider it unjust to blame the son for the sins of the father, the same thinking does not similarly apply to the nation as a whole. -
Message 23
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Tuesday, 12th February 2008
But what individual person fully integrates all actions of their past into their current self-conception of their identity? Some more than others but none really and most scarcely at all. Selective memory is integral to the formation and maintenance of a cohesive identity. Taken too far it is a form of psychoneurosis, to use an old term but works to some degree in everyone. To have an identity is to have a story. To make a story out of the many actions--many contradictory, incoherent, and frankly irrational--is to pick and chose what dots to connnect to make the picture--and which to allow to fade into the background.
Israel does this. Britain does this. The US does this. Everyone does it. It is why some of the most insightful history of the US that I have read was written by British writers. There is therefore naturally tension when Israel strives to keep the holocaust a central part of the German story, while the Germans decide that it isn't their identity but a unfortunate digression from a path of civilized greatness. -
Message 24
Posted by sleepless-in-battle (U10906104) on Tuesday, 12th February 2008
Undoubtedly propaganda must have played a huge role. I have found an interesting website with a large selection of German Anti Semitic propaganda material -
Included is an SS pamphlet outlining Nazi racial theories -
Although it's not certain, it seems likely and is certainly believable that this pamphlet was also aimed at school children, which I think is a clear example of policy being made available to the masses. I wonder what would go through the minds of children in this country these days if there was a photograph of Gordon Brown laughing with children inside all school text books?
I agree with Kurt, I feel enraged when I think about the British slave industry for example, but, as an individual I cannot be made to feel that it's a part of my own identity. -
Message 25
Posted by Isaac01 (U5250812) on Tuesday, 12th February 2008
Kurt;
Another insightful post. However, I find this to be unfair:
There is therefore naturally tension when Israel strives to keep the holocaust a central part of the German story,...Β
Contrary to anti-Israel propaganda, Israel does not strive to this end as a political argument, as I read between the lines is your implication. Germans made the Holocaust a central part of the German story!! It is both important and logical to keep in mind whose role was what.
That Jews everywhere and Israel, as the seat of world Jewry, memorialize the event is hardly unreasonable in light of the fact that there now lives multiple generations who directly still suffer the effects. It would be unreasonable to expect a reaction along the lines of, "oh well, c'est la vie."
Heinous events have their own half-life. Pearl harbour is still relatively vivid in the American psyche and 9/11 is now almost 7 years on, together not totalling 6,000 dead. I should think there is a good while yet to go before the Holocaust is footnoted when a third of one's people is brutally erased. -
Message 26
Posted by Volgadon (U10843893) on Tuesday, 12th February 2008
"Rainbow said:
I couldn't agree more, but I think the blame should be aimed only at the relevant generations, and even then not cast as a all-encompassing blanket over the whole nation - there were Germans who were against the Nazis and this should be recognised.
Quoted from this message
And they are recognized:"
Absolutely. When I went to elementary and highschool and participated in extra-curricular activities related to this, we were always taught that there were plenty of Germans, Poles, Hungarians, etc., who were against Nazism and often paid just as heavy a price. -
Message 27
Posted by cmedog47 (U3614178) on Tuesday, 12th February 2008
It may be unfair, but I don't think it inaccurate. Life is unfair and sometimes, when all parties act in ways that are reasonable and natural to them, tensions occur. It is perfectly reasonable for Jews everywhere to not only commemorate the Holocaust but to use those occasions to remind the world about the enormity of the crime. It is also perfectly natural for Germans who are one or two generations removed from those events yet feel a finger is being pointed at them to roll their eyes and sigh.
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Message 28
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Tuesday, 19th February 2008
Re: Message 3.
Kurt,
being my computer in "treatment" for three weeks about a virus, I was obliged to read books and to look at the tele.
Reading now an interesting book and I present it before even reading the full thread here:
"Who financed Hitler" by James and Suzanne Pool (The Dial Press New York) BTW: just last week in New York and Washington, mingled in the Super Bowl parade in New York.
Read especially in the comments the contribution of Luc Reynaert Beernem Belgium, only 5 miles from here. I am happy that other Belgians also read this book and comment it.
Yes, great post of yours as Isaac says.
I wanted to start a new thread about the book and the fear for Communism in Europe after 1918 but I see here already some thoughts for my new thread.
Yes, it can happen again and I will try to prove it in my thread.
A very warm welcome to the new member too, who started such an interesting question.
Warm regards,
Paul. -
Message 29
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Tuesday, 19th February 2008
Re: Message 8
Stalteri,
the film don't want to play? Or is it me, who is so stupid?
Warm regards,
Paul. -
Message 30
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Tuesday, 19th February 2008
Re: message 24.
Sleepless,
thank you very much for your links.
Warm regards,
Paul. -
Message 31
Posted by sleepless-in-battle (U10906104) on Monday, 25th February 2008
Paul
Thank you for the book referral. I am only just starting to add to my book collection so that it includes more material about Hitler and so if you have any more recommendations, I would be glad to hear them.
Regards
Sleepless
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