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Bullock depicted the German dictator as a completely unprincipled opportunist driven solely by lust for power at its most raw and
Some scholars have rightly pointed out that Fest dramatically downplays the role of the conservative elites who ushered Hitler through the doors of
political activity, Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, was focused on the middle classes, which were
“The confidence of the Germans, their pious and intense enthusiasm, is harrowing, but also grand.
Intellectuals, writers and artists were most likely to get caught up in the intoxication of the “August experience.”
Simrthing to think about togrthrt with thomas mann's quote
We don’t know how intensely Hitler studied Schopenhauer’s philosophy, but he was certainly familiar with the basics of The World as Will and Idea, including the notion that all geniuses, and especially artistic ones, were destined to be misunderstood.
“Who cares whether they laugh at us or insult us, treating us as fools or criminals?” Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf. “The point is that they talk about us and constantly think about
Reading through Hitler’s speeches from the period 1920–22, it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences with such repeated mantra-like phrases. But perhaps it was the monotonous repetition of his accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future that was the key to his
be given the power of government one day. He had inherited a “thick peasant’s skull” from his ancestors, he told audiences, and could wait until “Providence deems the time is at hand.” Attentive listeners might have pricked up their ears at Hitler’s
To be perfectly clear, Göring added: “Police officers who use their weapons in the performance of their duties will be covered by me regardless of the consequences. Conversely, those who hesitate to do their duty will suffer disciplinary action.
The SA would stage marches, government offices would be occupied, and the swastika flag raised before public buildings. Under the pretext of having to re-establish “peace and order,” the Reich Interior Ministry would intervene and appoint Reich commissioners.
Erich Ebermayer, one of the few who had retained a measure of critical distance, described the “flip-flop of the middle classes’ as “the most shameful aspect of this entire
Another way of declaring political allegiance was to use the greeting “Heil Hitler,” and Sefton Delmer noted that the people most apt to use the new social address were those who had dismissed Hitler as a “clown” just a few weeks earlier.
On 11 March, Hindenburg ordered that the swastika be flown alongside the black-red-and-white banner of Imperial Germany.
“It feels like there’s an airless layer surrounding the few of us who refuse to convert,” Ebermayer complained in his diary. “The best of my young friends are declaring their allegiance to National Socialism…You can’t talk to them at all. They simply believe. And there are no rational arguments against
the legislation had to be worded broadly enough “so that we can deviate from every provision of the Reich constitution.”
“I understand your internal rationale, and by the way, I myself often suffer under the difficult fate of being forced to make decisions that as a human being I would prefer one thousandfold to
It was particularly easy for the National Socialists to “cleanse” Germany’s universities since German academics were conspicuously willing to bring themselves into line with the regime.
The First Reinhardt Programme introduced interest-free “marriage loans” of up to 1,000 reichsmarks, which were contingent on newly-wed women leaving the workforce on the day of their wedding.
But although two of his closest associates had been murdered, Papen did not consider for a moment breaking with Hitler.
Why? Ulrich says this is a moral low but i dont understand why he would stay. Maybe he thoight it was the right thing?
True socialism means clearing the way for the
The starting point was a cinema on Kurfürstendamm where Jewish patrons had allegedly protested against the showing of the anti-Semitic Swedish film Petterson and Brendel.
“The 1936 Olympics are going to be huge,” Goebbels promised. “We’re really going to beat the drum!
Those who wanted to get ahead in this system could not wait for orders from above, but rather had to anticipate the Führer’s will and take action to prepare and promote what they thought to be Hitler’s intentions. This not only explains why the regime was so dynamic but also why it became more and more radical. In competing for the dictator’s favour, his paladins tried to trump one another with ever more extreme demands and measures.58 Small-time and medium-level NSDAP functionaries—from the block wardens to the cell, local and district leaders—were also convinced that they were “working
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Another important parallel
Paul von Eltz-Rübenach alone refused to accept the accolade, citing the regime’s hostility to the Catholic Church, which horrified the rest of the cabinet.
Führer asked: ‘How high is the hall?’ Speer:
For that reason, the historian James Bentley has rightly argued that Niemöller laid the cornerstone for Church opposition to
Niemöller kept his cool, however.
I want to learn more aboit this guy. Also i find it interesting that i keep siezing on the lone good guys.
All Berlin police officers were called upon to “free Berlin from Jews and in particular the Jewish proletariat as much as possible.” A catalogue encompassing seventy-six points described in detail how officers could put pressure on the defamed minority in daily life without exceeding the limits of the discriminatory laws already in place.
At a conference called in the French spa town of Evian on the initiative of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in July 1938, none of the thirty-two participating countries was willing to significantly raise its quotas for German-Jewish immigration. In this regard they played right into the hands of Nazi propaganda. “No one wants them,” jeered the Völkischer Beobachter
“Plenty of morality,” Hitler scoffed, “but no help at
In June 1926, for instance, the Völkischer Beobachter ran a front-page article by Englishman Henry Hamilton Beamish, who wrote: “Where is the paradise granted to the Jews, where they can live in happiness and peace, keep themselves pure and pursue…their ideals? It’s Madagascar.”
The detailed protocol of the conference has been preserved almost in its entirety. It is a horrific
“In any case, it’s now tabula rasa,” wrote a happy Goebbels. “The radical opinion has emerged
Post kristallnaacht
The writer Carl Zuckmayer, who attended a Hitler event in the autumn of 1923, was struck by the “numbing hammering of repeated phrases in a certain contagious rhythm.” Zuckmayer concluded: “This was practiced and skilled, and it possessed a terrifying, primitive, barbaric effectiveness.” Als wär’s ein Stück von mir, Frankfurt am Main, 1966, pp. 384f.
The Coming of the Third Reich, pp. 392–440 (“Hitler’s Cultural Revolution”).
