Trudy Gold
Death of a Tyrant: The World of Adolf Hitler
Trudy Gold - Death of a Tyrant: The World of Adolf Hitler
- All right, let me start. Now, why on earth have I gone off programme to talk about Adolf Hitler? Because today is the 79th year since the monster committed suicide, and because he certainly had a huge impact on the 20th and 21st century, his evil fascination. But what I thought I’d discuss today with you was not just the life of Adolf Hitler, because I think it’s very important to understand the kind of factors that made him, but also, just how easily democracy was disbanded in one of the best educated nations in the world. And many times over the past few years we’ve talked about enlightenment, what gives people moral conscience, what makes people behave in a certain way? And one thing we do know, and it’s difficult to take on, it’s got very little to do with level of education. It’s got very little to do with intelligence. It’s got to do with something else, some incredible ingredient. And the point about Adolf Hitler, to quote the late Hugo Gryn, “What the Nazis did was to reverse the moral law. What his philosophy was to unpick all that was decent.” He actually said, “I can never forgive the Jews for inventing moral conscience.” And of course, at the core of this man was his Jew hatred. And another question we have to ask ourselves, and maybe in the world we’re living in today it’s not so difficult to understand, “How did a man whose work was so imbued with Jew hatred nevertheless persuade the German public, using force as well, to elect him into power?” And these are the questions that I hope we can address today. Not necessarily give answers to, but I think it’s very sobering to remember that he did come into power through the ballot box. Anyway, let’s spend a little time on his story. So, can we have the first slide, please?
This is Hitler as a baby. Yeah, sweet little baby. He had a strange parentage. He was the child of a man called Alois Hitler, who was a minor customs official in Austria, in lower Austria. And his wife, who was also his cousin, and who was 22 years younger. Adolf Hitler had half brothers and sisters from previous relationships, previous marriages. And his mother had suffered three either stillbirths, or the babe died very young before Hitler was born. He was her fourth child, and she over loved him. And the father was a drunk, he was a brute. We know that the kid was brutalised, just as his elder brother, his half brother was brutalised, because his half brother talked about it in his memoirs. And of course, he lived in a very… Let’s see this town, the village he came from. Brannau in lower Austria, very grey little town. And the point about it also was that it was a very conservative, remember it’s pre-First World War. He’s born in 1889, it’s very, very conservative. It’s part of the multinational Habsburg Empire. Now, the family kept on moving, and in the end the father dies when he was 13 years old. And the family moved to Linz, to a small apartment in Linz. Can we see the next slide please? Linz, again, a very beautiful city, a very conservative city. And he went to school in Linz, or he went to a very interesting school actually. We know that Wittgenstein was also a pupil there. Rather strange when you think that Wittgenstein comes from one of the richest families in the empire. We also know that Wittgenstein was a genius and books have been written.
Was it seeing Wittgenstein that really began Hitler’s hatred for the Jews? There are books on it. But anyway, in Linz we know a lot about his school school days, because he had a friend called August Kubizek, who wrote about it. And we also know that it’s in Linz he hears his first opera. And his first opera is “Rienzi,” Wagner’s “Rienzi.” And it’s about a young Roman Tribune who sees the decadence of the Roman Empire. He takes control and he saves his people. Later, of course, he is killed, he gets. And evidently, according to Kubizek, after the opera, Hitler was almost in a… The young Hitler was almost in a trance-like state. And they went wandering and he really was imbued with Wagner. And also, we know that the school, his favourite teacher was a German nationalist. Now, important to remember, in the Habsburg multilingual empire, the Habsburgs were ruling over 15 different national groups. For example, in the parliament in Vienna, everyone spoke their own name language. And Hitler later called it the Babel of races. And it was in Austria, in German, Austria that you have one of the most chauvinist areas, because the German Austrians, many of them dream that they should be the superior being within the Habsburg Empire, others already want union with Germany. In 1871 Germany is finally unified after three wars, one with Denmark, one with Austria, and finally the Franco-Prussian War. The brilliant chancellor Bismarck unifies Germany, and many Austrian Germans looked with admiration to Bismarck and to Germany. But others wanted the Germans in Austria to rule supreme. And the chap who taught Hitler was a strong German nationalist, and anti-Semitism was also incredibly high in this particular area of the world. Now, what happens to Hitler is his beloved mother dies when he’s 16 years old.
She dies of cancer. There’s a Jewish doctor who was evidently very kind. And in fact, later on Hitler enabled him to get out of the empire once Hitler had created his evil empire. But the mother died. There’s a small pension, and Hitler goes off where? He goes off to Vienna, because he dreams. He’s a very dreamy kid. He’s already imbued with the music of Wagner. He dreams of becoming an artist. So, where does he go? He goes to the capital of the polyglot empire, glorious, glorious Vienna. Now, let’s have a look at Vienna. Now, is a rather nice drawing of Vienna. What can we say about it? What do we know about Vienna? It it’s the city of Mahler. And ironically, Hitler would have heard, if that’s been cross-referenced, Hitler would have heard Mahler conduct. Hitler went to a few operas. He persuaded Kubizek to come to Vienna with him, and at first they shared, Kubizek was quite a talented musician. Hitler tries to get into the Academy of Art, he fails twice, and it’s going to turn his tortured soul into a violence looking for the scapegoat. Vienna is the city of Freud, it’s the city of Klimt. It’s the city of modernism, for many the most exciting city in the world. But for others it’s at the centre of this polyglot empire with the Babel of races. And we know from Kubizek that Hitler would go to the parliament. Hitler was very lazy, but he would get up in the morning to go to the Parliament, and already he develops a horror of all that he considers the inferior races. Now, he can’t make it as an artist. And in his time in Vienna he’s in flock houses. And in Vienna, Vienna had an anti-Semitic mayor, a man called Karl Lueger.
And we know that Hitler listened to him. And we also know that in Vienna, Hitler begins to pick up from all sorts of strange pamphlets. People like George von Liebenfels. There was a whole cult of strange characters in Vienna coming to the end of the century, because on one level Vienna was the glittering city of the intellectuals of Strauss waltzes. But what was it also? The coffee house society was because a lot of people couldn’t afford to rent their flats. And there was huge homelessness. It was very much the rich and the poor. And the poor, particularly the poor Germans, felt themselves to have been displaced. And don’t forget also that in the 19th century you have all these theories of race. Go back to Charles Darwin and his notion of the survival of the fittest. What had happened was that certain theorists had taken the life sciences and transferred them to different groups. Also, the 19th century is a century of nationalisms. Think about the unification of Italy, think about the unification of Germany. Think about the national aspirations of the various groups within the empire, even in Russia the development of Slavism and people wanting to break away from the empires. It’s the century of nationalisms. And out of that nationalism and social Darwinism comes the theory of race, that some groups are better able to survive by blood. And of course, the word anti-Semitism comes out of this. Look, we could spend a lot of time talking about Jew hatred, that 2,000-year-old history. But in the 19th century, the century of Jewish emancipation, where on one level you have a startling Jewish success story, you also have the coining of the word anti-Semitism by a German journalist called Wilhelm Marr.
And make no bones about it, it’s about blood and race. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Karl Marx, a Mahler who converted, Marx, of course was converted by his father. Whether you were a Hasidic Rebbe, or whether you were a total anarchist, it didn’t matter, you were a Jew by blood. And also the view that all Jews must be tied by some sort of bloodline and some sort of, if you like, some sort of conspiratorial force that makes them act as a group. Now the reality, of course, Jews were communists, Jews were capitalists, Jews were rich, Jews were poor, they were just like everyone else. But if you’re looking for a scapegoat in beautiful Vienna, this man who already had a huge inflated notion of his own talent, who listens to the music of Wagner, who believes in the destiny of the Germanic people within the Habsburg empire, who looks across the border to Germany, who dreams, dreams, dreams. But what’s happening, he sees that Vienna, the Babel of races is being corrupted. And who is the major corruption? Karl Lueger, of course, the mayor of Vienna, it’s the Jew. Now, whether Karl Lueger used his anti-Semitism, because in a city of discontent, it’s particularly the lower middle classes who suffer. And we don’t need to use much imagination to understand that when people are politically, socially, or economically challenged, the easy option is always to look for the scapegoat. And tragically the Jew was the perfect scapegoat. So, important to remember that in glittering Vienna, underneath the facade, in the flop houses, in the beer cellars you see these characters who are sitting there musing on the ills of society. And we know that at certain times Hitler was almost on the streets. He was very, very poor. And it’s in this kind of background that he begins to really hate. His anti-Semitism would have been settled for him already in Linz, his father. The fact that the whole Linz, that bourgeois society that was very conservative. And of course, in Vienna it’s reinforced, but he is also aware of the fact that it’s somehow the corruption that he wants to destroy.
And then of course, 1914 World War I erupts. And he has already gone to Munich. And Hitler does not join the Austrian army, he joins the German army. Can we see the next slide please? Here we see a picture of the young Adolf Hitler. Ironically, he was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class against the wish of many of the captains. But it was his Jewish captain, he was a runner who sent information, who decided young adult Hitler should be awarded the Iron Cross. So, in the war, that terrible war, which changed everything. Because if you are looking for the root causes of the show up, I’ve already listed a few of them for you. That 2,000-year-history of anti-Semitism, Jew hatred, which translates into racial hatred. And of course, the collapse of society at the end of World War I. Now, in our series on the Middle East, we’re going to be looking of course at what happened when the Ottoman Empire collapsed. And I’m bringing a few historians to look at what happened in the Balkans, et cetera. But you’ve got to take on, we’re still, the impact of World War I is with us today. It’s with us in the horror that happened, and also the mess that was created in Versailles. If you look at many of the trouble spots of the world, of Europe and Eastern Europe, you can actually go back to the horror of the First World War. And Hitler was actually recovering from a gassing attack when the war is over. And he goes back to Munich. And can we see the next slide please? So, important to remember, there was no great decisive battle. The Germans had signed a deal with the communists. And I want you to imagine, and we’ve looked at it in the past, and I’ve lectured on it, imagine that scene, will you please, when Trotsky and his aide, Jaffe, signed with the German high command?
That image of the Jew and communism. He goes back to Munich where there are three revolutions, one after another. And the leadership of every one of those revolutions in Munich were people of Jewish birth. Now, I want to be very careful here, the majority of Jews were never revolutionaries, but the majority of the leadership at the end of the First World War were. Now, he goes to work for the German Army. He has Captain Mayr, who sends him out to investigate parties. I want you to try and imagine the horror at the end of the First World War. The stab in the back theory, the abdication of the Kaiser. And now the Weimar government had to be established, not in Berlin because of revolution, but in Goethe’s home place in Weimar. So, basically he comes back to Munich. And another point to remember, who else is in Munich? You have all these soldiers coming back from the front, many have lost limbs, they come to a defeated Germany. And not only has Germany been defeated, it’s been humiliated. And also, even British officers are saying, “We were stabbed in the back.” There was no great decisive victim battle. So, they come back to a country that’s being ravaged, a country that is full of revolution. There’s a revolution in Saxony, there’s a revolution in Berlin itself, there’s chaos. And Hitler goes to work for the army, investigating right-wing groups. Because important to remember, in times of chaos people look for extreme solutions. And also, the other thing that’s absolutely fascinating is the number of white Russians who had fled to Germany. When the Germans withdrew from Russia, many of the Russian aristocrats and the whites went back.
And they went to Germany, they went to Munich in particular and they had a whole coterie of them living there. And they brought with them the Russian Protocols of the Elders of Zion in their knapsacks. And there are all sorts of strange esoteric groups, including one called the German Workers’ Party. Hitler is investigating, and he goes to hear them, and where do they work? They work in the beer cellars, and they talk to the disaffected soldiers, the disaffected people. There is the the Weimar government, which is the first democratic elected government in Germany. What happens is, in January, 1919, the Germans go to the poll. And for the first time, this is the first democratic elections Germany has ever held. And the Weimar Constitution, which was in fact created by a Jew called Hugo Preuss. Many international lawyers see it as the most democratic constitution ever. And basically you had a broad left government. And meant, for example, the Weimar government tried to stop private armies, but within the various German states, there were 16 of them, they never really managed to do so. And in Munich in particular, it becomes absolute hotbed of the right. The three revolutions are suppressed by the Freikorps. And you have the most right-wing government in Munich. And the German Workers party is just one of a series of right-wing parties, extreme right-wing parties.
And remember, it’s the German Workers’ Party manifesto. Hitler joins it, he loves it, he joins it, and within six months he becomes head of it. Now, the people who created it, Dieter Eckart and Anton Drexler, these are the dispossessed, the displaced, theoreticians though, who see everything in terms of blood and race. And I’m just going to read you a little from the German Workers’ Party manifesto. “The programme of the German Workers’ Party manifesto is a programme for our time. The leadership projects the establishment of new aims after those set out in the programme. We demand the uniting of all Germans within one greater Germany on the basis of the right to self-determination of peoples.” Of course, this is after Germany has been dismembered. Germany loses, at Versailles and the ensuing conferences, Germany loses an incredible amount of land. Think Polish Corridor. Think of the number of Germans who are now in the newly created state of Poland. Think also, it’s not just about land. They lose a lot of their industrial heartland. It’s going to make German recovery very difficult. Enter Walther Rathenau, the brilliant Jewish economist who is going to be in charge of trying to get Germany back on its feet. Can you imagine how that went down with characters like this? “So, we demand equal rights for the German people, Volk, with respect to other nations. And the annulment of the peace treaties of Versailles and St. Germain. We demand land and soil to feed our people and settle our excess population.
Only nationals can be citizens of the state. Only persons of German blood can be nationals, regardless of religious affiliation. No Jew can be a German national. Or any person who is not a citizen will be able to live in Germany,” et cetera, et cetera. “Now, we demand that the state to make its duty to provide opportunity of employment for its own citizens. If it is not possible to maintain the entire population of the state, then foreign nationals are to be expelled from the Reich. Any further immigration of non-Germans is to be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who went to Germany after August the second, 1914, be forced to leave the Reich.” Now, this is where it gets very interesting. It’s the German Workers’ Party manifesto, remember. It’s appealing to who? The workers, but it’s a very right-wing manifesto. Or is it? Think about it. “It must be the first duty of every citizen to carry out intellectual or physical work. Individual activity must not be harmful to the public interest and must be pursued within the framework of the community and for the general good.” Get rid of this appalling individualism that he saw in Vienna and he’s seeing in Weimar. “We therefore demand the abolition of all income obtained without labour or effort. We demand the large-scale development of old age pension schemes, we’re going to look after our old. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle class. The immediate communization of large department stores.” 80% of the department stores in Germany were owned by Jews.
The Jews are under 1% of the population. Land reform. “We demand the replacement of Roman law, which serves a materialistic world order by Germanic law.” Whatever that is. Think the dreams of Wagner. Think about the old Thor, Odin, the old gods. “Now, in order to make higher education and thereby entry into leading positions available to every able and industrious German, the state must provide a thorough restructuring of our entire public educational system. The course of study at all educational institutes are to be adjusted to meet the requirement of practical life.” These people are not stupid, remember. They might be appalling racists, but they understand. This is appealing to certain people. “Understanding of the concept of the state must be achieved through the schools at the earliest age at which it can be grasped. We demand the education at the public expense of specially gifted children of poor parents. The state must raise the level of national health by means of mother and childcare, banning of juvenile labour, achievement of physical fitness through legislation for compulsory gymnastics and sports. We demand the abolition of hurling troops. We demand laws to fight against deliberate political lies in the press. In order to make it possible to create a German press, all editors, everyone working in the newspaper business must be German. We demand freedom for all religious denominations, provided they do not endanger the existence of the state or offend the concepts of decency and morality of the German race.” In fact, the Nazi corps were violently anti-religious. But later on they’re going to be wise enough to do deals with the church. And in fact, one of the first things that happened when Hitler took power, he signed a Concordat with Rome. Basically, we will leave the Catholic church alone, as long as you leave us alone.
And ironically, the man who later became Pius XII was the papal nuncio for foreign affairs who signed that. And he had been in Bavaria during those three Jewish revolutions, and he wrote the most incredibly antisemitic letters back home. So, this is what you’re up against. Now, why have I read you so much? So that you get a picture of, because they’re never going to renege from this. This is the German Workers’ Party manifesto. And in the hothouse atmosphere of Weimar, Germany, it does attract a certain following. Hitler emerges as an incredibly powerful speaker. He had a hypnotic quality. I know when you see him on screen, there’s many, many, many, many, many examples of this. He had hypnotic quality, and of course, by 1926 he’s going to attract the propaganda genius of the 20th century, Joseph Goebbels, who understood the power of the crowd. Read Elias Canetti on “Crowds and Power,” what happens to the crowd? So, this is, and also he took acting lessons, ironically from a Jew. But that’s another story. So, can we see the next slide please? Now, I’m telling you a lot of what you know in a lot of detail and I have lectured on it in the past. So, what I’m trying to do is to pull together the major threads. Because it’s the 79th anniversary of the monster’s death. And we need to really come to grips with how democracy is dismantled. Now, to look at Weimar, Germany, on one level it was the most exciting place if you loved avant-garde in the world.
Weimar Cinema, think Fritz Lang. Think, oh, think so many of them. Think writers, think artists, think Otto Dix. Now, the triptych, have a look at that very carefully. In the middle panel you have jazz, you have cross dressing, it’s decadent. You have a wounded soldier, legless. You see prostitutes. This is Weimar from the point of view of those who hate, because Weimar was a society where anything goes, there was no censorship. But on the other hand, there was appalling poverty. In 1922 after the murder of Walther Rathenau, the currency was already slipping. Walther Rathenau, who was the foreign minister, he was never forgiven for signing a treaty with the Soviets. He was executed, believe it or not, as a sacrifice to the Nordic sun god. You’ve got to understand that many of these esoteric right-wing groups, and the German workers party at this stage is just one of them. Although, Hitler’s emerging as a brilliant speaker, they were sort of peopled by these extraordinary individuals with the most bizarre ideas. And as I said, many of them were completely irreligious and they wanted a different kind of world order. They wanted to get rid of the degeneracy of Weimar. Now, the currency is already slipping. But in 1922, at the beginning of 1922, a dollar would buy you 18,000 Marks. By the end of 1922 a dollar would buy you 4 billion Marks.
And you don’t have to use much imagination to understand what happens to a society when that occurs. Now, what is ironic is the working classes are not going to desert the left. But Hitler at this stage, he believes it’s right for revolution. He’s already attracting an incredible following in Weimar, in, I beg your pardon, in Munich. He’s managed to make inroads into high society, very right-wing high society. He’s mixing with the Russian aristocrats through cooching Hanfstaengl, who was half American. He’s introduced, and half German. He meets all sorts of interesting individuals. He also attracts the attention of Ludendorff, who of course was one of the great generals of World War I. Ludendorff, a great war hero who believed very right wing. And Goring joins the party early on. He’s a war hero, he was a great flying ace. So, characters are coming to Hitler, and because Weimar, and because Munich has the most right-wing government of any of the German states with a great detachment of Freikorps, led by a man called Ernst Röhm, who Hitler does a deal with, a great brute of a man, they decide to go for putsch. And in November, 1923, they go for putsch. They try to take over the state. Mussolini has taken over Italy, he’s got a huge following now. And he believes he can, in the most right wing of the states he can actually take power by force. Ironically, and this is, I had a big debate with William about this, why didn’t it succeed? And William said the irony as far as he was concerned is, the Germans were too well educated for it. Now, I’m just leaving that thought with you, but it fails.
And let’s see the next slide please? He’s put on trial, and this is where he really attracts fame. Now, having said that, the Weimar Constitution was incredibly liberal. The judiciary was a well left over from Kaiser’s time. And some historians have looked at the convictions of people on the left fought. Because you’ve got to understand, with that kind of collapse of the currency, there are six million unemployed, there’s poverty, there’s deprivation, there is total disillusionment with society, it’s falling apart. There’s no law and order. You’ve got the right and the left fighting on the streets. And in this kind of foetid atmosphere, Hitler believes he can take power. But the judiciary is very right wing. As I said, left wing character is guilty of treason, some of them were executed. But if you look at the right wingers, and Hitler goes for putsch, in the end the police shoot, they actually shoot the rioters. And the man next to Adolf Hitler is shot, killed about six inches from Hitler’s chest, kills. And Goring is very badly wounded. It leads to him actually becoming a drug addict, but that’s another story. So, basically he’s put on trial, but he uses it to talk about German patriotism. And the very, very right-wing judiciary, they sentence him, they sentence him to five years in Landsberg castle, which later becomes the great rallying point of the SS. But in fact, he only serves nine months, and he’s given freedom of the castle. He’s given his dog-like devoted secretary, Rudolf Hess.
And what happens when he is in Landsberg castle? Can we see the next slide please? He writes “Mein Kampf,” my struggle, where he puts down everything he is going to do in the future. And at the core is his deep anti-Semitism. He comes out of prison. And his freedom of the castle, it’s fascinating who visits him. People like Winifred Wagner, the singer also, he’s already in with the Aristos. He comes out of prison, where he’s treated royally, many of the guards are supportive of him, and he decides he’s going to destroy democracy through democracy. And he’s going to try and do it through the ballot box. This is actually a decision that the totally undemocratic Hitler decides he’s going to use the system. Now, the Nazi Party, they grab… Of course, the name’s been changed to the Nazi party. They don’t do very well at first. Why? The Dawes Plan. Germany’s currency is stabilised by the Americans. And between 1924 and 1928 there’s a stabilisation of the currency and a stabilisation of society. And Hitler, if you actually look at the voting figures at that particular period, the Nazis are not doing very well at all. But on the other hand, he’s attracting a following. Or he creates the SA, the Storm Troopers, Ernst Röhm runs it. And this is a very good vehicle for the poor, the dispossessed. Put people in uniforms and tell them they’re lords of the Earth. He’s got, as I’ve said, he’s got Goebbels behind him. He has his own paper with a man called Julius Streicher. Der Stürmer, one of the most evil propagandists we have ever known. You know, when he was executed at Nuremberg, his words on the scaffold was, “Purimfest.”
Now, these characters, they’re absolutely imbued with Jew hatred. They are not in any way Christian, they believe in a different kind of deity, no deity at all. They believe in blood, and soil, and race, and the power of strength. And now they’re trying to do it through the ballot box. But they don’t do very well until, think. Can we see the next slide please? The Wall Street crash, 1929. October, 1929, the Wall Street crash. Germany cannot be propped up by America anymore. I want you to understand the absolute horror of the Wall Street crash, particularly in a country like Germany that had only recently returned to some sort of normalcy. And please don’t forget what’s been going on in Weimar, the great music, the great art, the great literature, but many right wing, lower middle class types in particular, they hated it. They wanted a more ordered society. But after the Wall Street crash, of course everything goes crazy. Unemployment, the left and the right fighting it out, the horror story. And it’s at this stage, oh, and by the way, the president of Germany was a man called Hindenburg, and I’ll come on to him in a minute. But it’s at this stage that certain individuals, huge industrialists, like Crook, like Tyson, they decide they need someone to stop what? Communism. Go back to the Russian Revolution. Go back to the domino theory. Characters like Trotsky had dreamt of perpetual revolution that was spread from country to country.
Think of the first line of the communist manifesto. “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.” They want to break down all the barriers. And communism, it was a terrible fear in the West, even in America. Don’t forget that America had tightened up its restrictions on immigration so tight by 1924. And in fact, many Eastern Europeans were repatriated. People like Emma Goldman for example, and Carley and her boyfriend, I can’t remember his name at the moment. They were repatriated along with 35,000 other Eastern Europeans, majority Jewish, the image of the Jew as the troublemaker. Look, what was the reality in Germany at this stage of the Jews? 1% of the population, of course higher in the cities. I think in Berlin it was about 5%. But in Berlin, 50% of the doctors, 50% of the lawyers, the usual occupation patterns on what I call the service industries, disproportionate in journalism, disproportionate in the arts, particularly in cinema actually. But many of these characters saw themselves as what? They saw themselves as international figures. Their Jewishness was imposed on them, not their Judaism, their Jewishness by the other. So, as a result of the Wall Street crash, just to pull that together, you have all these characters who are now prepared to give Hitler a lot of money. And he’s becoming more and more, he’s being cleaned up, his image has being cleaned up, and he attracts an awful lot of followers.
Now, the President Hindenburg, now having said, can we see the next slide please? Having said that, when Hindenburg, look, Hindenburg was president, by 1933 he was 80, he was actually 84, 83 years old, he’s going to die 85. Look, just to give you an idea of the Nazi Party. When it first went to the polls in 1924, they polled 6% of the vote. In the elections of 1928 it had gone down to 2.6% of the vote. After the Wall Street crash, it goes up to 18.3% of the vote. By July, 1932, it’s gone up to 37% of the vote. So, why? Because of the horror of Germany and because Hitler is very seductive. Look, we might find that almost difficult to understand, but have a look at the footage. And not only that, he promises everything to everyone. He promises the big bosses that there will be no trouble with the unions. In fact, one of the things he does was to abolish all the trade unions and establish workers’ camps, Labour Through Joy. President Hindenburg was an arch conservative anyway. Now, there was one flaw in the Weimar Constitution, and that gave huge power to the president in times of crisis. And under Chancellor Bruning, between 1930 to 1932, because of the huge instability he had actually governed with Hindenburg’s approval by emergency decrees, Hindenburg would issue the emergency decrees. So, under Bruning you could begin to say, “This is really the destabilisation of democracy.” In fact, it lasted until 32 when his land distribution so offended Hindenburg that in fact Bruning resigned. And after that, what happened to him?
When Hitler came to power, he fled to America. And you will be pleased to know that between 1937 and 1952, he actually became a, Bruning became a professor at Harvard University. A very, very controversial figure. But what happens is, by the summer of 1932 the Nazi Party are the largest party in the Reichstag. Having said that, the Social Democratic Party polled 21% of the votes, and the extreme left polled 14% of the vote. It’s the middle parties, when there’s huge dissent in society, and you know, all we have to do is look around the world today, people look for extreme solutions. And Hitler has this brilliant propagandist. And not only that, he’s got his SA, he’s got his Storm Troopers. And it’s at this stage that the Nazis are… There are so many of them in parliament that three of them are invited into government. And on the, can we see the next slide please? And on the next slide, and on January the 30th, 1933, Hitler becomes chancellor. And then everything plays into his hands. Why? Because on the 27th of February, 1933, what happens? Let’s see the next slide please? The Reichstag burns down. I want you to imagine what would happen if parliament burnt down in Britain.
There would immediately be the suspension of civil liberties. And that’s exactly what happened. He persuaded Hindenburg that he needed to pass the Enabling Act. And the Enabling Act took away freedom of communication. It took away freedom of assembly. And so as a result, when he goes to the next elections in March, 1933 with the SA at the ballot boxes and all the violence, plus the fact he’s made so many promises to so many people and they want law and order, that Hitler polls 44% of the vote. And then with an extreme right-wing party, another extreme right-wing party will have 8% of the vote, he has the majority. So, what happens is, in the last election, which is in November, 1933, the Nazi party is the state. Because Hitler, what is the combination? Hitler is now the state and the Führer principle. After the death of Hindenburg in 1934, he also becomes president. And from then on, after the elections of November where you only have the Nazi Party to vote for, that’s when he took over the state. So, it’s important to remember also who voted for Hitler? It was across the board. Teachers, academics, lawyers, doctors, and also they voted for a man who was an insane racist. It was all written down in “Mein Kampf.” And from the beginning, you know, one of the first acts was the boycott of all Jewish places of work and offices, the boycott. All the propaganda is against the Jews, and yet, ordinary people voted for it. He also used force to remove opposition. Who were the opposition? Well, there were a lot of liberals in Germany.
There were a lot of communists in Germany. Dachau, the first concentration camp was established not for Jews, it was established for dissidents. And it was actually noticed on the front page of “The times.” The world knew what was going on in Germany. Please don’t forget that all the foreign press had offices there. So, basically Hitler takes power. It takes him five years to Nazify the state. Interesting, because in his home country, Austria, the Anschluss, when, and I should point out that in 1919 the Austrians had asked for Anschluss with Germany. After the Habsburg empire was dismembered, tiny little Austria of 7 million people with a huge capital, which had once been the centre of an empire, is now the centre of this tiny little state. And they’d asked for Anschluss, it was denied them. And in March, 1938, Hitler goes home, the Anschluss. And it took him five months to Nazify properly Vienna and Austria. So, basically that is how the Nazis took over power. Through the ballot box by promising, promising. It also has to be said though that the Democratic tradition in Germany, it was only in January, 1919 that you had the first ever democratic elections in Germany. And also, there were so many social economic problems. And many historians will say that it was actually the Great Depression, the disillusionment. And what Hitler did. you see in the German workers party, he promised he would throw, he withdrew from the League of Nations, he promised to throw the Treaty of Versailles back into the face of the allies.
He took, and he took, and he took, and the world didn’t stop him. The doctrine of appeasement. And in many ways you can understand it because of the horror of the First World War. So, basically that is how the evil dictator took over. Now, I want to also, because we have to go back to the Jewish issue, because along with everything else, of course, out of this insane racism comes the attempt to wipe people off the face of the world. And it was a long, slow process. Between ‘33 and '39 it’s the legal, social, and political exclusion of the Jews from Germany. After the invasion of Poland it’s the ghettoization, the terror that went through all the way from '33, murder. But it’s only after the invasion of Russia that the implementation of the wholesale murder of the Jews. And because it is the anniversary of the coward’s death, I’m going to read to you from his testament. His testament was found. In fact, Helen Fry’s written a very interesting book about it. And this is Hitler’s testament. If you remember, and there are so many films and documentaries on what happened in the last days in the mad bunker. So, he’s in the bunker in Berlin. He refuses to leave. He wanted Gotterdammerung, just as in “Rienzi.” In the end he wanted to bring Germany down with him, because the German people had, they’d let him down. And don’t forget that he’d created the SS out of the SA.
And another question, the majority of the high-ranking members of the SS never forgets that the Einsatzgruppen, and the majority have PhDs from top German universities. It’s not about education. Let me just, I’m just reading you extracts. This is the end of his manifesto, which he dictated to his secretary. And this is just an extract, remember. “It’s untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted war in 1939. But nor have I left any doubt that if the nations of Europe are once more to be treated only as a collection of stocks and shares of those international conspirators in money and finance, then those who carry the real guilt for this murderous struggle, this people will also be held responsible, the Jews.” Now, remember, this is after he has attempted to wipe them off the face of the Earth. There is no rationality, because he realises their powerlessness. “I have further left no one in doubt that this time it will not only be millions of childrens of Europeans, of the Aryan people who were starved to death. Not only millions of grown men who will suffer death, and not only hundreds of thousands of women and children who will be burned and bombed to death in the cities, without those who are really responsible also having to atone for their crime, even if by more humane means.
But before everything else, I call upon the leadership of the nation and those who follow it to observe the racial laws most carefully, to fight mercilessly against the poisoners of all the people of the world. International jury set down down in Berlin, April the 29th, 1945 at four o'clock, witnesses Goebbels, Bormann, Burgdorf and Hans Krebs.” And of course, he married his mistress, and the next day he killed her. He killed her and then himself. And what can we say? 79 years on, are we ever going to learn the lessons of how precious democracy is? Are we ever going to learn the lessons of how futile and stupid a policy based on any kind of racism is? And that’s the issue. And in many ways, talking to a group such as you, I’m preaching to the converted, I know that. I just hope that these ideas can be taken forward, because it’s a man wolf, it’s a warning cry of what is possible. Go back to Hugo Gryn, the overturning of the moral law, the overturning of the Ten Commandments. That’s what the Nazis did, and many people have done it since. And it makes us question the human condition. And let me say, I think the future, and I’ve said this to you before, the future of this kind of study is not in history, it’s in psychology. What creates this kind of collective hatred? We know what fans it, but what is it in us that teaches us how to hate? Anyway, I’m going to stop there. Let’s have a look at questions. And tomorrow I’m going on to a completely different subject. We’re going back to the Jews of the Muslim world at a time when things were ironically much better for the Jews under Islam. What a strange history we’d had. Let’s have a look at some of the questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Oh, this is from Marilyn. She’s reading “The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler.” Yes, there are so many hundreds of books on Hitler.
“If it’s Linz internal life speed in the area, nice rolling runs, not too challenging. Wonderful environment.” Thanks, Rochelle. You know the problem with that part of Austria is it’s beautiful and you get this strange feeling when you’re in Linz. I think the highlight of my academic career, I was actually invited to teach the history of anti-Semitism in Linz, and I felt a kind of tiny little victory somehow being able to do that. But it’s very, very beautiful.
Q: “Could he have got people to go along with him,” asked Tim, “because of their own attitudes? or he could have got them to believe or agree with him. I gather he was very charismatic.”
A: Tim, I think it’s, I think it’s a joint message. And don’t forget the great rallies. Don’t forget, he also had people like Leni Riefenstahl, one of the great filmmakers, her film “Triumph of the Will.” People want to belong to winners. You know, the Nazis in their uniforms. And he did give people things, he did. If you were prepared to be totally obedient to the Reich, your lot did get better. And also, appealing to the venal side of people. Let’s say you were desperate to get that great job as a physicist, or that great job as a doctor, or that great job as a filmmaker, or the Jews are expelled from those professions. It’s about, he appealed to the lowest common denominator of greed, everything, so we’ve all got the shadow side.
“Worth remembering, the professor at the Kunz Academy was a Jew.” Yes, of course, that’s a very important point. Oh, that’s a very important point. The chap who didn’t let him in happened to be Jewish. Look, the art scene, not so much the practitioners, but many of the dealers in art were of course Jewish.
“And Luga is pronounced Luga.” Thank you, Peter.
Q: “Did Hitler have anything to do with the burning of the Reichstag?”
A: That is a very contentious issue. We know that it was burnt down by a Dutch anarchist, a man called Marinus van der Lubbe. I think the latest scholarship is they didn’t, but boy, did they benefit from it.
Q: “What was it about the Jews that make us the perfect scapegoat?”
A: Have you got 25 hours, Tim? I’ve given lectures on the history of anti-Semitism. I suggest just go to the website.
This is from Julian. “Not just being different, perhaps eternally through time, maybe having no land meant no strength. Home or roots or a certain sense of homeless wanderers. Also being a minority without full representation created an easy target. Last but not least, being punished by God who exiled the Jews from the land was an excuse.” Oh God, Julian, you are going into theology. Deep, deep stuff.
“I also think one could argue that our second earliest ancestor Isaac was the first scapegoat.” Yes, and we will be delving into these kind of things. There are people far better qualified to deal with that than me, and I will be bringing them in.
Q: Arlene, “It seems to me that history is repeating itself. America feels like Germany in the '30. There are wars in Ukraine, Africa, Haiti in the Middle East, China has one million Muslims in concentration counts. Yet the world currently hates Jews in Israel. The atrocities of October the seventh are dismissed. What has happened to reduce anti-Semitism?”
A: Very dark picture, Arlene.
And Denise agrees with her. “Regarding,” and Denise says, “Regarding the current anti-Israel demonstrations of protesting elite colleges in the U.S., they should see Sheryl Sandberg’s new film released a few days ago, "Screams Before Silence.” The testimonies are horrific, and barbarians are held to be innocent in this war here.“
Q: Marilyn, "Did Hitler in his life have any family collections or was he totally disconnected?”
A: He adored his mother, he hated his father. His mother died when he was young. He took in his half-sister Angela as his housekeeper. Probably the one love of his life was his niece Geli. And she committed, she became his mistress. Evidently he had very strange sexual practises. There are loads of books on that as well if you’re interested, “Dark Side of the Moon.” And she committed suicide. He was a very dark, dislocated character.
Q: “What do you mean about the effects of World War I still being with us?”
A: The peace treaties that tried to divide up the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans are still the issues that are with us today.
Ed Tegan, “Nationalism, which is also an effect of Napoleon’s Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. The common people are given equal rights, instead of the ruling aristocracy of the empires.” Yes, it’s an interesting story. You know, we are really brushing into very, very areas of very deep thought now.
Q: “Hitler was 30 when the war ended. Is there any evidence that Hitler was anti-Semitic before the end of the war?”
A: Oh yes, in “Mein Kampf” he actually says that he first became really anti-Semitic in Linz when he saw a Jew. And he said, “Is this a German?” But no, I think it goes back much earlier. From his teacher in Linz we know a lot about this character. You’ve got to remember Hitler’s life has been totally studied.
“By 1919 Hitler was moving in right-wing, Antisemitic circles.” Yes, of course. In Munich, the German Workers’ Party, it’s deeply antisemitic. It was the common currency. Don’t forget all those Russian aristocrats. They didn’t say, “We’ve been displaced by the communists.” They said, “We’ve been displaced by the Jews.” Look, I can tell you until I go green, blue, and purple. The majority of Jews were never communists. But the point is, Trotsky, number two, who created the Red Army was Lev Davidovich Bronshteyn. The great Jewish historian Dubnow, he actually said, “The Trotskys, and the Bronshteyns and the Beritskis have done more damage to the Jews than anyone.” Interesting.
Oh my, Diane saying, “How timely, repetitive.”
Q: “What was the contribution?” ask Tommy.
A: Hi Tommy, I want to talk to you. I want to have a book launch with you, we must discuss it.
Q: “What were the contribution of the intellect fight between social Democrats and communists in letting Hitler come to the top?”
A: Now, this is very interesting. Stalin really got involved in this, believe it or not, in the elections of 19… From ‘32 onwards he actually told the communists to vote for the Nazis, because we know this now, since the collapse of communism we got a lot more research. He believed, believe it or not, that if Hitler became to power it would all collapse within three months and then communists would roll in. If only they united.
And Rose says, “There is irony in your talk today, Trudy, it’s Yizkor today when we pray for the memories of our masters, including the , such a tragedy, however we decide we survived before and we will despite Hitler.” Yes, of course we will, we are the eternal people. I remember my great friend Robert Wistrich, who tragically passed away much too young. He was the head of the Centre for the Study of anti-Semitism in Jerusalem. And he said, “I can’t predict the future, but I know there will be an outcome. And we are the eternal people, we will be there.” I don’t know how it’s all going to turn out. You see, the problem with history, you can analyse the past, you can analyse trends, but you can’t predict the future. Or we can hope for that people will come along with the touch of greatness about them who will understand the horrors. It’s happened before in history. Churchill was a man who saved a nation, never forget that. And I’m not saying he, look, he had thoughts, warts and all, but he saved a nation. And there are many people like that in history. Napoleon changed the course of history. Hitler changed the course of history for evil. So, did Stalin, so did Mao. But there are people who change it in a different way. And there have been heroes. Think Mandela, think Gandhi. There have been many heroes. And also, think of those who created the State of Israel. Be they to the left or to the right, they were giants. Weren’t they? Giants.
Q: “Why were there three elections in Germany?”
A: There wasn’t one in '38, Edwin, that was in Austria.
Q: Rona, “Do I think Trump has taken many of his ideas and intentions through Hitler?’
A: I can’t answer that, I have absolutely no idea. He is a populist, that is for sure. But there are so many people all over the place who are populists. It’s the lowest, look, I don’t want to get into American or British politics. But what is certainly true is that when times are hard, populism comes to the fore. Thank you, Denise.
Mitzi, "Jews and the canaries in the coal mine.” But it’s time that we stop dying, isn’t it?
Zoom, I dunno your name, “The support of Hamas is getting another overturning of moral law.” Yeah, you see, this is the problem. What creates the moral conscience? It’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Because I was feeling fed up, I went to see my mentor, Anita Laskevalvi. She hates me calling her that. She’s 99 this year, and she has one of the greatest, she’s not listening so I can say this. She’s got such a sense of morality and when I need a bit of clearing, I go to see her. I mean, she was 14 when her life was destroyed by the Nazis. But she was brought up in a pure enlightenment background and she has a huge sense of justice. So, if I’m not sure which way to go on an issue, I go and talk to her. “How would I relate to what is happening?” I am not, all I’m doing is giving you a theory, okay?
Q: “Do you think that if the Catholic church hadn’t promulgated the idea that the Jews called Jews is they have the same?”
A: No, I’m absolutely, it wasn’t just the Catholic church. I’m absolutely sure that Christian anti-Semitism, anti-Judaism is one of the pillars that led to the show, but not the only one, there were loads of them.
Of course, Bob is saying, “It started with Haman and Purim.”
Q: “When did Hitler decide to exterminate?”
A: We don’t know when he gave, Theo, we don’t know. But what is certainly true is it begins, I can tell you exactly when it happens. It begins with the invasion of Russia. Okay, I don’t quite understand this.
“I’d love to see people trivialising the Hitler monster by comparison.” Look, I really don’t want to go down the track of comparing it to political leaders today. It’s a different kind of story than I’m telling. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t lessons for all sorts of areas all over the world. Anyway, I just felt that we should deal with this today, because it is the anniversary, and he did die. And he did kill himself, Götterdämmerung. You know, Speer disobeyed his orders. He wanted to blow up Germany, Speer disobeyed his orders. He’s another controversial character. But I will talk more about these characters at a later day.
So, let me all wish you the best, and I will see you tomorrow evening for a completely different topic. And thank you very much, and God bless everyone.