Tracing the Rise of the Nazis in Nürnberg

Mein-Kampf.jpg
Politicians writing a book before running for the highest office in the land is nothing new. Hitler did it with Mein Kampf — the sale of which is still forbidden in Germany.

My latest visit to Nürnberg — with its excellent Nazi Documentation Center — got me thinking about ways that Germany is still grappling with its Nazi past.

Spending the day with my German guide at the Documentation Center was intellectually exhausting. We explored Hitler-mania and the methods used to create the cult of Hitler (such as placing the dictator alongside Goethe and Beethoven in the pantheon of great Germans).

I find that older guides in Germany are less comfortable talking about the Nazi period. My guide was young and had plenty of ideas to share. Looking back on German society since World War II, he said, “There were three generations: the participants, the generation of unknowns, and the current curious and educated generation.” Today’s young Germans see the end of WWII as a liberation rather than a defeat.

The exhibits at Nürnberg’s Documentation Center illustrate how extremists rise in bad times. They offer easy solutions and scapegoats. And they push fear. In Germany’s roaring ’20s, Hitler’s support was at 2%. When the Great Depression hit in 1929, suddenly Hitler had a 37% approval rating.

The exhibits also show how totalitarian societies take over part of the parenting role and give kids hope for the future. Nazi youth organizations created a frame of reference. They dealt with the complexities of teenage life pre-emptively and on their terms.

I asked my guide about the “socialism” part of National Socialism (Nazism). He explained that National Socialism was born in the trenches of World War I. Germany was very developed around 1900, and its workers’ economy should have been ripe for Marx’s idea of a proletarian revolt. But WWI trenches brought together all levels of society (farmers, factory workers, teachers, doctors). The enemy of the people became not the owners of das Kapital, but foreign nations. It was workers as a nation against exterior threats spearheaded by a presumed Jewish conspiracy (as it was believed that Britain, France, and the USA all had Jewish power-brokers). And that’s where the “socialism” in National Socialism came from.

Discussing how post-WWII Europe compares with the mess in Iraq today, we considered how while the Nazi leadership was defeated, Nazi infrastructure survived the war and helped rebuild German society. In the case of Iraq, no societal infrastructure survived Saddam Hussein. While post-Hitler Germany became strong, post-Saddam Iraq faces a more difficult path.

So much can be learned from history. But too often, those who make it took other classes.

Comments

8 Replies to “Tracing the Rise of the Nazis in Nürnberg”

  1. A really excellent book that captures the German experience from the turn of the century to 1945 is actually a work of fiction – ‘Winter – A Berlin Family 1899-1945’ by Len Deighton.

    I read my copy over and over until it literally fell apart. I once spent an evening describing what I learned about German history from the book with a history professor at a local university whose area of expertise was the same time period of German history and he was so impressed with what I described he said he was going to read it with the intent of using it in his class.

  2. This blog was very well written and insightful. Thank you for opening up a new experience for me.

  3. I enjoy and read all your blogs, PBS shows and just bought another of your guide books. No one does it better.
    I think that socialism is an economic and not a political system. It involves government ownership of utilities and basic industry. In National Socialism, the government did not own but controlled the industries, It could efficiently direct them to produce what was needed for the war and the final solution. At least that was how it was defined in the 1930s.
    Americans often incorrectly think of socialism as communism light.

  4. I don’t know if your blog tomorrow will center on the Nuremberg Trials, but the a visit to the Palace of Justice, with its outstanding and informative exhibits, is highly recommended.

  5. I think that socialism is an economic and not a political system. It involves government ownership of utilities and basic industry. In National Socialism, the government did not own but controlled the industries, It could efficiently direct them to produce what was needed for the war and the final solution.
    Thank you for your writings.

  6. I think that socialism is an economic and not a political system. It involves government ownership of utilities and basic industry. In National Socialism, the government did not own but controlled the industries, It could efficiently direct them to produce what was needed for the war and the final solution.
    Thank you for your writing.

  7. Great blog. And I’m stealing that final line–just kidding, you’ll get the credit Rick ;)…

  8. I’m a little uncomfortable with the characterization that the Nazi leadership was defeated, Nazi infrastructure survived the war and helped rebuild German society. A key point of Ian Kershaw’s “The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944-1945” is that Hitler demanded there be “no cowardly surrender” as there was in 1918. To the last day, SS bitter-enders executed anyone they could lay their hands on who sought to surrender a town or themselves. There were thousands of Nazi suicides. While it was imperfect, there was a real de-nazification program run by the allies.

    In the case of Iraq, no societal infrastructure survived Saddam Hussein? Who then then were the Sunni that fought the American occupying forces so hard and then allied with the Americans during the Sunni awakening?

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