William Tyler
The Rise of Nazism

William Tyler - The Rise of Nazism

- Right, thank you very much indeed. Hello everyone. Welcome back again to our story of Germany. I’ve just seen Wendy on a plane, so that’s a remarkable place to listen to a zoom talk. I’m sat looking out of my window and it’s really sunny here, although cold, but we did walk on the beach with the grandchildren this afternoon, so if I drop off to sleep during the talk, we realise why, or at least those of you with small grandchildren will realise why. Now I’m going talk about the rise of the Nazi party today, I’m taking a story up to 1938. The story goes like this or the story I’m going to tell goes like this. The horror of killings and deaths did not end for Germany and Germans when the armistice at the end of the First World War was signed in November, 1918. As we previously noted, a civil war broke out between far left and far right, as both those wings of politics sought to overthrow the fledgling democracy of the Weimar government. Using Jeremy Black’s Brief history of Germany, black rights in this way, the Weimar Republic established in 1919 with elections returning a clear majority for the Democratic parties, notably the German Democratic Party, the pre-war left liberals, was under pressure from the start. The attempts to seize power present an impression of chaos, which was certainly the case for a number of years. And as we’ve seen previously, chaos is indeed the word to describe not only 1919, 1920, but to a large effect the period of 1920 through to the overthrow of the Weimar Republic by Hitler and the Nazis in 1933. Eventually, of course, it was the far right that presented the greatest threat to the democracy of the Weimar. Why?

Because many unemployed ex soldiers gravitated naturally Rightwards, not wanting to accept that they had failed to win the war, and when the far right gave them an excuse or a reason for why they had been defeated, which was nothing to do with them, but said that they had been betrayed on the home front by socialists and in particular by Jews, what we now call the stab in the back. They weren’t defeated by the allies, they were stabbed in the back, became the message of the far right and therefore many ex soldiers now unemployed in 1919, 1920, drifted to that far right position. Moreover, such ex soldiers in 1919, many joined the Freikorps that were set up, the various groups of ex soldiers, and later many of these were recruited into the Nazi party. As well, I suppose we would say in modern jargon, the muscle on the streets of the Nazi party. Black, I’ve got two final things to read from Jeremy Black’s book. Fears of revolution led many moderates to compromise with the, they’re frightened of a Marxist revolution because of course everyone has is more than aware of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in October, 1917 in Russia, fears of revolution led many moderates to compromise with the Freikorps, as was later to be seen with greater impact with the Nazis. Okay, get the point. People later support the Nazis because they fear the communists more. Now, I’m going to say more about that next week. In practise the fears were exaggerated, but the success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and briefly in Hungary encouraged caution as well as paranoia.

Politics came to be seen as civil war and therefore civil war as politics, a process that made many civilian competence and encouraged a response accordingly. In other words, even though there was a democratically elected Reichstag parliament, the Weimar Republic, nevertheless, there was a lot of politics on the street. We see that as an example today in Paris, France, there’s politics on the streets. Well, here in Germany, there wasn’t one set of politics on the streets. There’s the far left and the far right and trying to hold the middle ground is this fledgling democracy. I mean very, very young democracy attempting to move Germany forward in a positive way. This is finally what Black says about this early post First World War period. He writes the Weimar, a period of both hope and despair faced particular difficult as an expression of the recurrent theme of German state building, which began in the 18 hundreds. In other words, don’t forget that Germany was only unified and became Germany as late as 1871. And so by 1921, were only half a century in not to democracy, but only half a century into a unified Germany. And the idea that Germany could split apart again was very much in people’s minds. After all, there had been the attempt in Munich and Bavaria to establish a Marxist republic. It was in a mess, was Germany. In the end, we know that the experiment in democracy was to failed. But before I look at that period from 1930 to 1938, 1930, three years before the Nazis take power, when they become more powerful and the inevitable, looking back at hindsight is going to happen in ‘33. Before we get to that, perhaps we should talking about the rise of Nazism, say a word about the young life of Adolf Hitler.

He was born not in Germany as you well know, but in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a subject of emperor France, Joseph on the 20th, April, 1889. Dates are important when it comes to people. How old was he when he became leader of Germany? And the answer is 44 years old, relatively young, I would suggest you, 44. Well, if we can, if we’re talking about the Bidens of this world and mere child, but 44 is a young age, but he’d gone through a lot before you reach 44. And always it’s important to look at the background of politicians. If we call Hitler a politician for a moment, if we look at the background which influenced them, he didn’t move to Germany until the year before war began. That is to say he remained in Austria until 1913. His father was born illegitimate in 1837, and his father was unknown, therefore, he bore his mother’s maiden name and his mother’s maiden name was Schicklgruber. And that is often being used to describe Hitler saying he shouldn’t have been called Hitler. Well, that’s a bit of nonsense really, because his mother remarried and he took his stepfather’s surname. It is slightly odd because it changed, it the spelling and so on, but his, let’s leave it at the fact that he took his stepfather’s name and so became Hitler. There’s one other thing I need to say about background. There was a Nazi official called Hanz Frank who suggested that in fact, Hitler’s grandmother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Gratz, Gratz in Austria of course, and that the family’s 19 year old son, Leopold Frankenberg had fathered, had fathered Hitler’s father.

But this is nonsense. There was no Frankenberg registered in Gratz during that period and no record has ever been found of anybody called Leopold Frankenberg. In fact, in that part, Austria Jewish residency had been illegal for nearly 400 years and would not become legal again until decades after Hitler’s father’s birth. So all historians now dismiss that as nonsense, there is no Jewish blood in Hitler. Secondly, having mentioned this Jewish story, let me emphasise that I’m not intending to steal Trudy’s thunder and talk about Jews in this talk or other talk I’m giving in this period of history because duplication would be extremely annoying to you and Trudy is the expert and I’m not, and I really don’t want to step on her toes. However, having said that, I will of course mention Jews in this and my other talks around this period because without doing so, it would appear to be sort of make nonsense of the history. But I shall mention, well things like Kristallnacht but not go into detail. All of that, I will leave to Trudy and please leave your questions on that to Trudy because it you’ll get a better answer than you will from me. What did Hitler do as a young man? Well, in 1907 he went to Vienna to study art.

He was financed by orphan benefits. Austria-Hungary was very progressive in the reign of France Joseph, just prior to the first World War, he was supported by orphans benefits plus some money from his mother. While studying art, he applied for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, but he was rejected twice. The director suggested that he should apply to the school of architecture instead, but he couldn’t because he lacked the school examinations, which would’ve allowed him to apply. In that same year that he went to study art in 1907, his mother died of cancer at the young age of 47, whilst he of course was 18. Two years later, he ran out of money and was forced to live a life on the streets and sleep in homeless shelters in Vienna. He earned a little money by casual labouring and by painting and selling watercolours of Vienna to visiting tourists. But it was in Vienna that Hitler first became exposed to anti-Semitic rhetoric. The notorious mayor, Carl Luger exploited the climate of verdant antisemitism and also espouse from time to time German nationalism. In other words, what is to become under the Hitler the anxious the incorporation of German Austria within what we know then and now as Germany. Hitler began to read anti-Semitic magazines and newspapers and accept the view that Christianity, although one would hardly describe Hitler as a Christian, that Christianity, that Christians were fearful of being swamped by Jews from the east.

That was the phrase used, Jews from the east. So at a very young impressionable age and time in his life, he imbibes deeply at the well of anti-Semitism in Vienna. In May, 1913, shortly before moving to well, he moved to Munich from Vienna and shortly afterwards he was conscripted under national service to the Austria-Hungarian army. He went to Saltzburg in February, 1914 for his medical assessment. He failed the medical assessment and returned to Germany to Munich. Hitler later claimed, inverted commerce claimed, that he didn’t wish to serve the Habsburg Empire because of its mixture of races, in particular Slavs and Jews and his belief. He said later that he foresaw the collapse of Austria Hungary was imminent. Well, he went back to Germany and war came in August 14 and he went to a recruitment office in Munich and volunteered to fight for Germany. He was given his interview, if you like, and was accepted into the German army. Two questions arise. One, he wasn’t German and should have been sent back to Austria. But in August, 1914, they asked no questions as in Britain, people signed up who were underage. So in Germany, again, they will take whoever came, but they also didn’t, they also didn’t reject him on medical grounds. So did he have a medical, we don’t know. But it would appear that the medical grounds he was rejected on in Austria were correct and his version of stories that he, he didn’t want have anything to do with this empire which embraced Slavs and Jews was nonsense. Why should he have failed to medical?

Because we know early in his life at school and so on, he’d been excellent in gymnastics and sport. But remember that he’d been living in dos houses in Vienna, had little to eat and was a pretty poor specimen, as indeed were many on all sides who volunteered in 1914. So it looks as though he was genuinely rejected in Austria. After all, that wasn’t war in 1913, but simply national service and conscription. In 1914 in Munich, in Germany, they weren’t interested about whether he was Austria or not. He spoke German, and they weren’t interested in his medical records. He volunteered so into uniform he went, he began as a dispatch rider on the western front. In 1914, he was present at the first battle of Epping and in the same year was decorated with the Iron Cross second class. During the battle of the Psalm in 1916, he was wounded in the left thigh as a shell exploded in the dugout where he was staying. He was present at the Battle of Aras in 1917 and at the horrendous battle of Passchendaele. he received in May, 1918, the black wound badge. He also received on the recommendation of his officer, remember Hitler was a corporal, on the recommendation of his officer, he received the Iron Cross first class. There are ironies in factual history, which in fiction would be objected to, and this is one of those cases. His senior officer who recommended him for the Iron Cross first class was a man called Hugo Gutman, who was a Jew. Who was a Jew.

Finally, just as the armistice was about to happen in October, 1918, he was blinded by a musterd gas attack and was in hospital when the war came to an end in November, 1980. Later, Hitler described the war as the greatest of all experiences. It certainly made him feel more German and the defeat, which of course he blamed on Jews and socialists behind the front line really reinforced his German nationalism and is in due course to lead to the , and that defeat and his bitterness at defeat crept in to what I suppose you might describe as his political ideology. After the war, he returned to Munich. He was unable to find a job, so he stayed in the army and that is the army of the Weimar Republic. And the story here is again an odd one, he was put into an intelligence unit and he was assigned the job of influencing other soldiers. Well, that’s fair enough, but also to infiltrate the German workers party, which is a fringe far right party, he was asked to do it by the Weimar Republic’s army to join this fringe far right party. He, from the very beginning had a gift with words that people would listen to him and the leader of the far ride party, Anton Drexler, whom we mentioned on a previous talk, was most impressed by Hitler because on the orders of the army, he was told to apply to join and thus he joined the German workers party. They thought he was one of them. The army thought he was spying for them, but in fact he was turning to the far right in his own mind and ideology with a view to taking over this far right party. It’s a really odd name.

He did so by influencing it, first of all, to change its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party, what we know is the Nazi party. He also designed a new party banner for this newly named party. We have a swastika in a white circle on a red background that we’re only too familiar with. He was discharged from the army of March, 1920 and began working full-time for the Nazi party. The parties headquarters were in Munich and Munich had seen before, you remember from an earlier talk, the short lived communist regime. And so Munich was a real hotbed of extreme right, extreme left within the Democratic republic of Weimar. He began to speak and his first major speech was in early 1921 to a crowd of 6,000. He had a gift of manipulating crowds. Also, at that meeting we get a taste, a fore taste of what is to come because the bully boys at the Nazi party, remember the Freikorps that supported the Nazis? Were now the bully boys on the street of Munich who went round in trucks waving swastikas and distributing leaflets in support of Hitler and his speeches. He gained fame or notoriety, however you wish to put it, with these polemical speeches attacking the Treaty of Versailles, which he said humiliated Germany attacking rival politicians of the right as well as the left and attacking Jews.

So it’s all there early in 1921, which is what, 12 years before he takes power in Germany in 1933. During 1921, he went on a fundraising trip from Munich to Berlin whilst he was in Berlin, an argument ensued within the Nazi party back in Munich and members of the executive, or at least some members of the executive, wanted to merge with a Nuremberg party called the German socialist party. Hitler returned post has of Munich and offered his resignation. The executive realised that without Hitler they would be nothing. Hitler was the main spring of this Nazi party. In the end, they said, please come back. And he said, only on two conditions, one that I become head of the party and you get rid of Drexel. And second, that the party’s headquarters remain in Munich. They readily agreed, they had no choice. Hitler went on making speeches used, usually called the beer hall speeches because beer halls were the places that he made them. They were suitably large places where men, many ex soldiers, congregated it. It was a ready audience and a ready venue and he began attracting regular audiences and large audiences. He, his speeches were full of the sort of stuff we are familiar with, that Germany was in a position it was because it’d been stabbed in the back. The allies who treated Germany appallingly at the Treaty of Versailles and Germany must stand up for itself. And the economic hardships were really the cause and the fault of the governing Democratic Weimar Republic or parties within the Reichstag. He had enormous, he had enormous personality.

It is said that to large audiences listening to him, he was hypnotic. And in small groups people couldn’t take their eyes off him. A former member of the Hitler youth later record, a man called Al Franso Hek said, we erupted into a frenzy of nationalistic pride that bordered on hysteria. For minutes on end we shouted at the top of our lungs with tears streaming down our faces, . From that moment on, I belong to Adolf Hitler, body and soul. Some commentators use a word I’m not happy about, but use the word that he was Messianic. What I do know is I had, when I was principal at the city lit, a Jewish friend, much older of course called Ava. And Ava had escaped from Germany before the, just before the war as a young woman, not as a child, as a young woman. And she told me once that she was taken to one of the Nuremberg rallies when she was at university by a friend who was a non-Jew. And Ava said, I knew what it was going to be like and I knew at that stage how evil this man was. But she said, when everybody said and put their arms up, she said, I felt with them, my arm going up. And I said, really Ava, and you knew? And she said, but William, you don’t understand. He was so hypnotic I could not take my eyes off his. She was an educated German Jew who knew. And people ask, why did people follow Hitler? Well, Ava, Ava never forgot how easy it was for ordinary Germans to be caught up in the moment of hysteria. Hysteria was the word used by Hek, the Hitler youth that I quoted from just now, so that’s a real story and I’ve remembered it ever since.

He did have that mesmerising effect. But of course that was also underlined by fear of what would happen. My predecessor, now sadly no longer with us, when I was vice principal of the College of Adult Education in Manchester, was a Scot, Ronald Wilson. He was a German scholar before the war and before the war, he went on an exchange visit to the university in Hamburg. And one day he was sat on a bench having his lunch in the open air when a German came and sat on the other end of the bench and said, you are British and speaking perfect German. Ronald said, yes, I’m British. And it turned out that the German on the other end of the bench was a Democratic politician and told Ronald how dangerous Hitler was and said, I don’t think I’m going to survive. And then simply left. He wanted to say something to someone he could trust and he could only trust Ronald because he wasn’t German. If he’d been German, he wouldn’t quite have known. Well, he certainly wouldn’t have known to trust him. And if you say, well, what happened to the German that spoke to my friend Ronald? The answer is Ronald never found out but assumed that he’d been murdered by the Nazis. He, Ronald was in Germany after the war as part of the Denazification programme of the allies and tried to find him and there was no record of him.

So from the very beginning, people had the opportunity to be aware, but the democratic politicians and the right wing politicians in particular rather looked down upon Hitler. Why? Well, because they thought he was unintellectual, which he was. They thought in him as a peasant, but which indeed he was. And they didn’t really think that when they used Hitler, later at the end of the 20 beginning of the thirties, when they begin to use Hitler, they think they can play him like a puppet on a string because he isn’t as intelligent as them. He doesn’t have their class. We’re talking about Prussians, Prussian yonkers look down their noses at this and he isn’t even German. Well, if you think they were stupid, well you could say that. But on the other hand, we have a quotation from the British Prime Minister, the British Prime Minister. That is to say, and Chamberlain said in 1938, the commonest little dog I have ever seen, the commonest little dog I’ve ever seen, my despair of Chamberlin. That’s 1938 Munich. I mean, he might have been common, but he was a dangerous dog. So, so dangerous. In November, 1923, a decade before taking power, Hitler attempted an archetypal right wing coup d'etat, we call it today the Munich Beer Hall Push because that’s where it began. It was crushed by the Bavarian police acting on behalf of the Weimar Republic. It led 20, left 20 dead, including four policemen. Hitler was arrested, put on trial and found guilty of treason. He was sent to prison for five years where he wrote Mein Kampf, but was released after only about six months.

He was given such a light sentence and such a short actual imprisonment because the Bavarian judiciary system wanted to put, bluntly speaking, two fingers up to the administration in Berlin. Ludendorff, one of the great generals of Germany in World War, also now on the far right was involved with the Munich Beer Hall Push and Ludendorff’s involvement gave Hitler more national coverage. He, as it were, hooked his star to that of Ludendorff. Ludendorff dies before the World War II happens. But he must carry some blame for maybe the phrases, whitewashing of Hitler. In James Hall’s book, the shortest history of Germany, which we’ve used once or twice, I’ve gone quote here, being close to Ludendorff, gave Hitler priceless respectability and more importantly, wealthy sponsors for the Nazi party. It also changes owned thinking in a fateful way. It was only now that the arch Prussian ideal, Ludendorff was Prussian, the arch Prussian idea of living space, , in the East became a central part of Hitler’s ideology. It wasn’t mentioned in the political manifesto of the Nazi party in 1920, but now it is. And that of course is to lead Hitler to operation Barbarossa in the war and the invasion of Russia.

When logistically he should have concentrated on the defeat of Britain rather than an invasion of Russia. He could have invaded Russia later, although many historians, they think Russia would inevitably have won. It was more powerful then than it is now. And it had, it has just like now the Stalin in like Putin, it was quite prepared to lose thousands and thousands and thousands of his fellow citizens, but he didn’t, and he did invade. And so in a sense, you can blame Ludendorff for that. Remember that pressure emerged out of the teutonic knights. They have a deep rooted historical hatred of Slavs. It’s built into their political DNA and Hitler within the Austria-Hungarian empire obviously we’ve just said, didn’t like the Slavi parts, but it was nothing to the view of Prussia that Germany must expand into Russia. So that is all happening and changing as Hitler grows into the monster that he becomes. Then in 1929 comes that great economic crash, not only in the United States but across Europe. And it was in particular impact, you remember from what I said last time in Germany because the Americans withdrew their loans and it is in a real, real mess, is Germany unemployment surged to 1.6 million and by 1933 the critical year unemployment is over 6 million. It’s the, it’s the economy, stupid said Clinton, perhaps the wisest thing he’d ever said. And politically, if you don’t get the economy right, you can get nothing right. People will almost forgive anything and forget anything, but they cannot and will not forget because they’re suffering economic crisis and they will turn to anyone pretty well, that says, I have the answer.

A year before the crash came, that is to say in 1928 the Nazi party had allied itself with the DNVP, the German National Peoples Party. That had been formed in the aftermath of the First World War and it opposed the Weimar Constitution, it opposed the Treaty of Versailles but gradually it came more centre right than far right. And in the mid 1920s it moderated its views and even participated into some central right governments of the Weimar Republic. But then he was taken over by a rich media mogul, a man called Alfred Hoberg in 1928, and he took the German National People’s Party back to its basics, anti Versailles. He believed that also of the stab in the back, he regarded the solution to be an authoritarian president. The president of Germany at the time was Vaughn Hindenberg, another military commander, another Prussian. He regarded a strong president as the answer, but he also entered maybe reluctantly, into an alliance with the Nazi party and very soon Hitler out shone Hoberg, even though Hoberg had the money and he had the membership, Hitler had the oratorical skills and Hitler had the muscle on the streets. One of Hoberg’s own supporters said he had no political sex appeal and Hitler did. In fact, Hoberg never spoke in the Reichstag because he spoke so badly people laughed at him. One of the other leaders of the German workers party was Admiral Tirpitz, another wartime hero. And he began to appear on platforms with Hitler.

And like Ludendorff, Tirpitz gave Hitler respectability. And more than that, I think he gave him clout. People said, this must be a serious man. If Ludendorff and Tirpitz support him. It gave him a little bit of stardust in the Germany of the late 1920s. Let’s turn now to the Reichstag, the parliament of the Weimar Republic. In 1924, that’s one year after the failed Hitler coup d'état in the Beer Hall Push in Munich. In 1924, the Nazi party gained 14 seats, 6.5% of the vote. In 1928, one year before the Wall Street crash, it had dropped to 12 seats and 2.6% of the seats in the Reichstag. In 1930, with unemployment rising a year after the crash, it gained 107 seats and 18.3%. Robert Cole, in his history of Germany writes in this way, politics meanwhile had moved to the streets where chaos, this is 1930 where chaos, violence, murder and polarisation between extreme left and extreme right was undercutting the democratic centre of the republic. Non-union workers, agrarian labourers, white collar workers, craftsman, and artist, and some women moved to the Nazi party in increasing numbers. Hitler left no doubt as to what the party intended for the future. At the trial of three Nazi hooligans in Lipes in 1930, Hitler testified, this is Hitler’s words, 1930, I stand here under oath to God Almighty. I tell you that if I come to power legally, in my legal government, I will set up state tribunals which will be empowered to pass sentences by law on those responsible for the misfortunes of our nation. Possibly then quite a few heads will roll, legally. He also told the Lipes said press reporter at the same time that he favoured the brutality of the proletariat to the apatheticism of the bougie who simply reflected the decadence of cabaret society and are lost to the German nation.

Well, that’s pure Nazism, that’s pure Hitler. In 1931, he was approached by right wing politicians in the Reichstag to consider joining the government. He turned it down. A call again, he was offered the post of postmaster general. After all, both the Nazi movement and Hitler were regarded as abhorrent. They called him the Bohemian corporal, but offering them the post was simply a way to disarm him. Of course, Hitler refused and two weeks later presided over a mass demonstration of 100,000 storm troopers with plane circling overhead trailing swastika banners, and they still didn’t realise he was dangerous. In 1932, Hitler decided to run against Hindenberg in the presidential elections. In the the runoff for the presidency, Hindenberg got 53% of the vote and Hitler 36.8%. But the Nazis gained 33.1% in the elections to the Reichstag with 230 seats. They didn’t have an overall majority, but they had the largest number of seats and effectively controlled the Reichstag, controlled parliament. Had Hitler not said in what I read to you just now, that he said in court in Lipsig, he kept talking about legally. He had come to the realisation that it was better, easier to obtain power through the Reichstag and democracy than it was by coup d'etat tactics on the street. In 1933, the crucial year conservative politicians, democratic politicians, believed that they could control Hitler, but they couldn’t. They sought to do it by making him chancellor. That is to say in British terms, prime minister, president, chancellor. They sought to make him chancellor of a right wing coalition government in the January of 1933, which he accepted.

In February the following month, 1933, there was an arson attack on parliament for which a Dutch communist was arrested, which gave Hitler an opportunity. Hitler says, this is a prelude to a German communist rebellion, a revolution. He launched preemptive strikes against the left. He restricted civil rights and sent many Germans to concentration camps, which had newly been established. Let’s just have a stop there and talk about these pre-war concentrations. This is the BBC History Specialist magazine on Nazi Germany. The concentration camps that began appearing when Hitler seized power in 1933 housed predominantly the Nazis political opponents. But by the summer of 1934, most of the communist social Democrats and trade unionists had been released on the orders of state prosecutors. It was to prove only a brief hiatus as the Nazis set about establishing more rigorous and efficient system of camps, the flagship one and the model being Dachau. And they began to build more. And they began to put into them what the Nazis described as undesirables. And the death rates in these pre-war counts went up. The death, death rate at Bienal, for example, rose from 48 inmates among 2,200 in 1937 to 1,235 deaths in 1939 among 8,390 inmates.

They were run by Himler and the SS. At berkenbaum, the SS said to one group, quote, you are dishonourable and defenceless. You are without rights. Your fate is a slave’s fate. In March of 1933, Hitler introduced an enabling act which gave him power to govern for four years without parliamentary consent. He is in fact, now dictator. The act passed in Reichstag largely because storm troopers intimidated those members on the left. This is a coup by another name. But this enabling act as one British historian has written, is the cornerstone of Hitler’s dictatorship. How easy has it been for Hitler to undermine, within three months of taking office, January to March 33, to undermine the whole basis, the whole basis of democracy? Let me just read you a little bit about that. I don’t, I’m looking at the clock, but I want to read this cause I think it’s important. Five articles of the enabling act destroyed what was left of the German constitutional of Weimar. Article one transferred legislation from the Reichstag to the government in effect to Hitler. Article two gave the administration full part to make constitutional changes, in effect, to Hitler. Article three transferred from president to Chancellor. Okay, the right to draught laws, Hitler, article four provided that the terms of the enabling act applied to treaties with foreign states.

Article five required renewal in four years. In fact, the enabling law was renewed for act, throughout the time of Nazi Germany. Renewed in 1937, 1939, and finally in 1942. Goodbye democracy, hello fascism. The Reichstag indeed continued, I read, in existence as a constitutional fiction, meeting only a dozen times up to 1939. It passed only four laws, all without a vote. And the only speeches it heard were from Adolf Hitler and other leading Nazis. The enabling act of March, 1933 should be taught in every democracy in the western world today, how easy to destroy democracy from inside, not from outside. It was truly dreadful. April, 1933, antisemitism reaches a new height with the persecution of Jews. A boycott of all Jewish owned businesses. Of all Jewish owned businesses. What a year, 1933 was six years before the war, and there were still people talking in Britain about appeasing this man. One of the few voices speaking out is Churchill, who had spoken about the danger of Nazism before he came to power, let alone when he did. In 1934, Hitler purged his own, he purged the storm Troopers. Recruited by Rome in 1921 to protect Nazi speakers at rallies, but they were almost a law unto themselves. By 1933, there was just under half a million of them, they were becoming uncontrollable. And in June, 1934, Hitler acted in what we now know and call the night of the long knives, the night of the long knives in June of 1934, and I just read a little bit on the right page and I will read it to you. Rohm’s claim that the storm troopers were the true national army. The army Rohm insisted, should be confined to a training function. General Bloomberg, the minister, demanded a ruling from Hitler who tried to compromise.

Fear of the storm troopers now grew, drawing together the army, the Nazi party, and the SS, into an alliance, for months Hitler hesitated then warned of danger by Goebbels, Goring, and other party leaders. Hitler sought the connivance of the army and ordered the SS to destroy them in June 34, in the night of the long knives. There were other pressures on Hitler in the summer of 1934, and I read, President Hindenberg was dying and without him, the traditionist in the army might call for a return to monarchy, but the leading candidate for the throne, the Kaiser’s son, or Gustus Wilhelm, was a member of the stormtroopers. At the same time, the Deputy Chancellor Bon Papper made a speech at Marburg University, denouncing the methods of the Nazis, their violation of human rights and their anti Christianity. A purge of the storm troopers at the SA would make them by implication, responsible for all the brutalities of the Nazi past. Hitler’s washing his hands, finding a scapegoat in his own storm troopers. That year, 1934, Hindenberg died and Hitler is chancellor with the powers given him by the enabling act. Constitutional powers that could change the Constitution simply got rid of the office of Chancellor and he become, oh, sorry, oh President. President Hindenberg, Hitler got rid of the office of President and declares himself, Fuhrer and Chancellor. The following year, 1935, Hitler introduces a whole raft of anti-Semitic laws. This is long before the Holocaust. In creating their racial state, the Nazis passed a raft of anti-Semitic laws, which served the further isolated marginalised German’s Jewish population, denying Jews citizenship rights, defining Jewishness and outlawing marriage and sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews.

In 1936, Hitler sends German troops into the demilitarised Rhineland to test Western resolve. The troops were ordered to withdraw if confronted by allied troops. Entering the Rhineland was a direct breach of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and France and Britain did nothing. Nothing. Appeasement is the word of the day. Historians have argued long and hard over whether Britain and France had stood up to Hitler in the Rhineland. Whether that might have made Hitler think twice about war, I don’t think it would. I think they would’ve withdrawn, but I don’t think that would ever have stopped them. It would’ve meant he would’ve. He might have taken longer to begin the war than he did, and he might have made different preparations for it, but I don’t think it would’ve stopped him. Also, in 1936, we get the Berlin Olympics standout is the four gold medals awarded to Black American, Jesse Owen. Interestingly, Owen said afterwards, despite the Western propaganda, Hitler actually met him afterwards to congratulating him through clench teeth no doubt. But Owen said afterwards, well it was at least more than the American president did, because he was black. He was not, he was not welcomed by FDR into the White House as white American victors of the games were. And 1936 sees the beginning of what will develop now, with hindsight, into World War II. In March, 1938, Hitler marches into Austria. The an Austria is unified, not conquered, unified. It becomes Germany, just another bit of Germany.

And don’t forget the welcome that Nazi troops had in Germany. Even Hitler was surprised at the welcome that he received, the soldiers received. And 1938 sees invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the disgraceful behaviour by France and Britain and by Chamberlain washing our hands of it. Do remember, Chamberlain said a country far away, of which we know little. I know there are people who wish to defend Chamberlain today and good luck to them. Sorry, I can’t, I can’t. And of course there was a horror of Kristallnacht on the 10th November, 1938. That will be spoken about by Trudy. I will speak about and so on I think at some future date. I’ve got to come to an end. And I found the end a bit difficult for this because it isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning of World War II and the end of Marxism. But I came across a quotation by the British historian, Richard Evans, and I thought it was good, and I thought, this is really what I want to say. So I’m finishing with a quotation from historian Richard J. Evans, who wrote, what happened when the Nazis set up their one party dictatorship is perhaps more relevant to today’s authoritarian regimes.

When the rule of law is destroyed, when the press and the judiciary become mere tools of the government, massive corruption and the perversion of justice inevitably follow. The third reich became a kleptocracy as leading Nazis enriched themselves at the expense of others with impunity. Far more seriously, they were responsible for the murder of up to 2000 mentally ill and disabled people, and launched a campaign of genocide that killed six million of Europe’s Jews. When democracy is silenced, who knows what the consequences will be? And we live in 2023 in a western liberal democratic world where liberal values are challenged on the streets of Paris and by governments in Britain, and in the United States. Democracy is a tender plant. We all, as citizens of the democracy, hold a responsibility to shelter that plant, to let it grow and flourish because Hitler teaches us that democracy can be killed from the inside out and it will be killed very quickly. I’m going to stop there and I can’t say I hope you enjoyed it, but I hope you found it interesting and maybe even heard and learned something that you’ve not heard or learned before. So thanks for listening. I’ll look at the questions now and see.

Q&A and Comments:

Oh, let’s see, Charlotte? Yeah, no, I misread, I read that as 86. I thought, goodness, no, no, it isn’t, 26. Thank you, Lorraine. I wish everyone here happy Passover as well.

Q: Why didn’t the left take the streets? Now they seem to have left revolution to the right parties.

A: Yes, correct. They, they didn’t have the means to do so. They had been crushed by them.

Rita’s given my blog, bless you. I’ve got, there’s a, there’s a piece I wrote about this period on the blog. There’s also a very short book list, but I shall be adding to that book list next week. No, no, no, no.

Stewart, they’re not a far left movement, they’re a far right movement. It’s a complicated argument, but they are by no means a Marxist union. The far left is Marxist, the far right is authoritarian dictatorship, as is Marxism. But it isn’t Marxism, its fascism. The big question is, which I think I may have said before in answering questions, is if you were at university doing this period of his European history, you would have to answer the question, is Nazism fascism? And the answer is, it isn’t. Well, one answer is it isn’t. Why, because Nazism had no policies other than total war. If you look at Franco, Spain or Muslin’s Italy. They had social policies, the Nazis did not. So Nazism is a one-off, but they are not socialists, absolutely not. That’s very nice

Carly, thank you very much Carly. I know who you are, don’t worry, that’s very sweet of you. Thank you.

Q: Arlene wrote, I read somewhere that as a young man Hitler was gripped by Jewish girl named Kim Anne Smitty, is this true?

A: I think not.

Q: What was the reason for failing his health check? Could he be…

A: No, no, no, no. No, no, naughty, naughty. No, it, it is because he was like many young men who came forward in 1914, many in Britain were undernourished, were weak. They simply weren’t fit enough. And in 1930, remember this is not 1914, they were able to reject him.

Oh, bless you all for, bless you all for, well, well, wishing me a nice holiday, but I shall be working on Easter Monday cause I should be back here next Easter Monday. But I’m watching cricket at part of the weekend and I’m seeing my sister-in-law with the family another part of the weekend, so splendid.

Q: Why did they support Hitler? I’m asked, sorry, Shelly, I read your question properly. Why did so many aristocratic Brits like the Mitford sisters, the Duke of Wellington, Alexandra Kersten and Edward VIII, support Hitler and fascism?

A: Because there was a view that the biggest threat was Marxism, that’s true. And that Marxism would’ve destroyed them. Secondly, there was a deep antisemitism amongst the British upper classes. When it comes to Edward VIII, he was German. He was certainly lent towards Hitler. But remember that the real fascist in that relationship was Mrs. Simpson. And so it isn’t entirely British. Shelly, I, I’m guessing you are American. So there is an American involvement there. It’s basically that they feared communism more than they feared fascism. They thought fascism was an answer to the bad politics of the 1920s and thirties, because Britain had suffered economically as well, and so on and so forth. They also had this anti-Semitic, anti-Semitism deep within the upper classes in Britain.

Yes, Michael, I should have said that. I, I love it when the Canadians say, don’t forget about us, because I did know that story. Mackenzie King, the Canadian prime minister, met Hitler in the late 30s, and King described Hitler as a harmless peasant. Exactly the same comment as was made in the 30s by Neville Chamber. I mean, it’s just, it’s just mind bending. Lloyd George, British Prime Minister from World War I visited Hitler and said he was a, he was a rather splendid man. It’s, it’s all, none of us have met Hitler. And so it’s impossible to say, I go back to the story of my lovely Jewish friend Ava, and what she said, and that that, that I think, I think, I think there is something about this hypnotic nature of this man. I don’t like using the word regarding Hitler, who is a monster, but let, let me put it this, let me put an adjective in front of the word, a black charisma around Hitler. Oh, would you care to contrast and or compare the Nazi party, the early 1930s and the MAGA Republican party, the early 2020s, Stan, I wouldn’t dream of doing so as a non-American, but let, let me just repeat what I said earlier. We must be on our guard to safeguard democracy. Was Trump or someone like him to become president of the United States, it raises worrying questions about possible American isolationism from Europe. That would mean possibility of rejoining from NATO, which would leave Europe open. I, I don’t think it would, because I think the Russian army has been so heavily demoralised and decimated in Ukraine that it couldn’t, but potentially could attack the West and democracy could be, and the Americans would have to come in at some point and maybe it would be too late when they did. There’s also the, there’s also this relationship between Trump and America as there, and sorry, Trump’s America and Russia as there it rise in Britain between our governing conservative party and previous Prime Minister Johnson and Russia. After all, we have in the House of Lords now a Russian who is called Lord Siberia. I mean, if you’d have said that to me 10 years ago, I’d have thought you were trying to make a joke, which wasn’t particularly funny, but it’s a reality.

Q: Nanette says, did Hitler write himself? I used to think that we, he was not, but it seems he was quite bright.

A: No, no, he had a lot of help writing that book, Mein Kampf, and it isn’t a great book anyhow. No, he wasn’t well educated. Perhaps I should say he had the intelligence of the gutter and make of that what you will.

Q: Wasn’t Stalin a Georgia? Maybe it didn’t bother him to sacrifice Russian lives.

A: No, no, not because he was a Georgian, because the Russian state, he would’ve regarded himself as a Russian anyhow, Georgia was part of Russia. He, they, it is exactly the same as Putin. They just have no, they just don’t have any feeling of what they’re doing. And remember at the end of World War II, I said, I think I said in relation to the end of World War I, the end of World War II, Stalin goes for Berlin, however many Russian lives it takes. Whereas Eisenhower was much more cautious because he did not want to lose more lives than he absolutely had to. It its a difference in attitude.

John. Yes, oh, well done. There were someone who resisted his mesmerising but completely evil personality such as Sophie Scott, her companions in the white rose movement. She paid it with, with her life when she was 20 terribly, sir. Cruel loss. I’m going to talk about some of that next week. And a hero of mine, Adam von Trot, I’ll talk about the opposition to Hitler when I’m talking about the home front.

Oh, they, they simply hired aircraft. These were civilian aircraft that flew over. They hired them that, that not as you might hire an aircraft to go over a baseball game in America or a football match in Britain, you hire them and hire the pilots.

Q: Was Hitler in the right or the left party, in the right. Was not inflation as much of a factor and unemployment Hitler sport in 1931?

A: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Was the brown shirt force, well, yes and no. As it developed, it was Rohm who did it, but no Hitler had begun it. Essentially ago, Hitler was in jail, this week Trump may be in jail.

Q: When do we buy weapons to protect our families says Sharon, it appear because it appears we may need them. When my sons were born in 1970s, I wonder which of my gentile friends would give them haven.

A: Oh, don’t it, it is an appalling situation. I mean, we look on as as Scots at American politics in Britain, but you can look on as Scots at our politics. The sending of, of those crossing the channel to Rwanda is, is very worrying to me as a lawyer because it’s the breaking of the rule of law. And it’s not because it will be breaking international law, and breaking the rule of law. The rule of law, there are two things that I was taught when I read law at Oxford in the 60s. One is habeas corpus and sending refugees or those claiming refugee status, sending them to Rwanda without the writer Habeas corpus is a breach of democracy, breaking the rule of law. Breaking international law is a breach with democracy. Those two things, habeas corpus and the rule of law central. Whether you are listening in Canada or America or Israel or wherever, those two things are important. And in Canada, in America, you have exactly the same cause it’s come from here and the habeas corpus and the rule of law are so important. That’s what you must guard with whatever it takes to guard them.

Oh, Edmund says a book very interesting about the appeasement that the British thought possible is Coffee with Hitler by Charles Spicer.

Q: Rochelle, are you in inferring a resemblance between Hitler and Trump Republicans with regards to the changing of five constitutional German government articles?

A: Well, I’m saying basically that I’m, I worry that a Trump Republican movement is devil may care with things like the rule of law and habeas corpus. That’s what’s got to be guarded. God help us, God help the West, but I’m, I really shouldn’t, I don’t know about, I would not normally stray into American politics between Democrats and Republicans. All I would say now is as in Britain, many people fear that the conservative party is not the conservative party that we grew up with. And so quite clearly the Republican Trump Republicans are nothing like the Republicans that I learned to grow up with, people like Eisenhower. I mean, for goodness sake, it’s massive, it’s massively away from Reagan. It’s not the same thing at all. Fear, Russia’s possible use of nuclear weapons stopped the Western confronting Russia other than arming the Ukraine. Is that appeasement? No, it isn’t. And I don’t think there is fear. A British expert was on the television at lunchtime saying, we shouldn’t be so concerned about nuclear weapons. There’s this, every indication there is poor quality is everything else about the Russian army. No, no one wants to go to war. I don’t think we’re appeasing Russia. I think quite the reverse. And if you ask Putin, he would definitely say the reverse. Finland, then possibly Sweden, or almost certainly Sweden joining NATO, all the, all the equipment sent to Ukraine. No, you can’t begin to call that appeasement. Now, if Ukraine is about to be defeated, what NATO then does will be interesting. Positive appeasement. Yes, they did Michael talk about positive appeasement.

Oh, that’s, thank you, I’m glad some people felt it was interesting. Oh, well that’s interesting. Yana, that’s a very interesting question.

Q: How is it at a Catholic stronghold like Liberia espouse anti-religion Marxism, even for a short period?

A: Sorry, Alfred, who asked it. I’m not sure there’s easy answers to that. If you take the question of, if I rewrote the question Alfred, as how is it that many Jews espoused anti-religion, Marxism, including the leader in of the Marxist state in Munich, Eisner, even for the shortest period? It is because people flip. They flip from one, they flip from a religious faith, whether it be Catholic Christianity or whether it be Judaism or Protestant Christianity, where they are given the answers to life. Some people flip to Marxism, which I would often describe as having religious, there are many religious traits within Marxism, and it gives answers to people. And so people flip from one extreme to the other. It is interesting, remember that the people around Hitler were largely Protestant. They didn’t like Catholics. Selena, oh, thank you.

• [Woman] William, I’m so sorry to interrupt, but we have another webinar in 40 minutes. I think we best, best stop there, although it is a really interesting and amazing discussion.

• Thanks, thanks everyone for listening. See you next Monday.