Travellers in the Third Reich: The Rise of Fascism Through the Eyes of Everyday People

by Julia Boyd

Any derogatory comment regarding the persecution of Jews invited comparison with the United States’ treatment of its black population – an avenue that few ordinary Americans were anxious to explore.

‘Now we must drill hatred into our children from their earliest age, so that in thirty years, when the time is ripe….’

After the treaty and Germany’s entry into the League of Nations in 1926, the recovery gathered pace with such speed that only ten years after the Armistice Germany could claim to be the world’s second-greatest industrial power.

But, as Mowrer realised, the fatal flaw in this ‘carnival of public spending’ was its dependence on short-term American loans so that, when the bubble burst and the debts were called in, the consequences for Germany were catastrophic.

The Berlin brew seethed with unemployment, malnutrition, stock market panic, hatred of the Versailles treaty and other potent ingredients.’31 In other words, exactly the conditions required by the National Socialists to convince voters that Hitler’s own brew of dictatorship, hatred and perverted patriotism offered their only hope of national renewal.

Heinrich Heine’s famous words: ‘Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen [Where they burn books, they will end by burning people].’

Women too seemed happy to give up the freedoms that they had so recently won under Weimar. Not only were they now discouraged from working, but they were also heavily censured if they smoked in public or wore makeup.

The German press was quick to note the unsegregated presence of thirty African-American ministers at the Congress. One of them, Michael King Sr, was so inspired by his visit to Germany – and in particular by the reforming example of Martin Luther – that on returning to Atlanta he changed both his and his son’s name to Martin Luther King.

One odd thing Yencken noticed was how much blonder the nation had become since he was last there. According to official statistics over 10 million packets of hair dye were sold in 1934 while ‘lipstick so beloved of Jewesses’ had been deemed un-German and relegated to the dustbin.

Nearly every German we have met excuses the rape of Czechoslovakia because its existence was a menace to Germany who must have ‘security’. They are so living in the grievances of the past twenty years that they ignore the sufferings of other nations. You simply can’t get them to look at things from a European viewpoint. They are really suffering from a resentment and inferiority complex. As one hardminded German said to me ‘my nation is at the moment mentally ill, they can’t see straight’.