I came to a conclusion about thirty years ago that the various explanations given by text books and college professors in explaining the 'path years' to WW II was inadequate. In fact, the explanation for WW I, in most cases....was dismal. Then I came to read around over the various conflicts of the 1800s with Germany and France....coming to a conclusion that I really needed more details. The text-book folks and the general historians weren't really filling in the gaps.
So I divided the topics into four pieces, and spent much of a decade reading and surveying history.
The four pieces?
1. The Roman era.
2. The Catholic Church era, ending at the conclusion of the Thirty Years War
3. Kaiser Wilhelm I/II, Prussia, the 1800s wars
4. Something I would describe as the 'Path Years', covering 1919 to 1938, the Weimar Republic, and the chaos in Munich (youthful Hitler period). This is the essay piece to discuss that period.
I often center a fair dialog on the 'Path Years' because a handful of things could have gone totally in a different way, and zeroed out the potential for 1938 to 1945.
As WW I came to a close....three dramatic things fell into play. The Kaiser was exited out of the picture. A weak marginalized Weimar Republic was the solution without the Kaiser. With reparations owed to France and England....the economy was basically screwed up for the next five years. These three pieces really open up a vast door for political chaos.
Adding to this environment....by unleashing the Communist change in Russia, there was a new fear confronting Germans...a Communist revolution on their front-door step. Trade unions? They were identified as potential threats. The soldiers who'd returned from WW I with their weapons? It's rarely mentioned but the Weimar Republic labeled this as a major problem and set up various weapon regulations (way ahead of the Nazis).
As for the economic rebuilding process? It would come, but only after a couple of years of personal suffering for Germans across of society.
The fact that 2-million German men didn't return from the war? It was a dramatic point and weighed upon society. Blame got shifted around over their demise. You can find small villages in the middle of rural Germany today, with monuments in the local cemetery to note the local guys who didn't come back. The Germans had not had a war like this, with serious death-counts for over a hundred years.
At the end of this first couple of years after WW I....the suggestion of who had real money after the war ended....would be wrongly suggested as the Jews. The beginning of Holocaust event? I would suggest going back to 1098 (read up on Speyer and the Catholic Church) and examine the significant number of attacks by Germans on Jews over a period here. This period starting in 1938....was really the second Holocaust period (my humble opinion).
So these pieces started to come together. Enter the Hitler-character. A corporal of Austrian citizenship servicing in the German Army....dismissed....showing back up in Munich. His buddies from the old unit were connected to the German police of Munich. He asked for work, and their offer was to serve in the secret police....to monitor a small political party....the Nationalists Socialists. So begins the brief career of 'agent' Hitler.
He shows up at the first meeting....sips beer with the guys, chats around with them and gives them his personal view. They like his chat, and he's invited at the next monthly meeting to give a 'presentation'. No historian ever goes back to this moment, and how he explained this to the secret police handlers. Maybe they were pleased. Maybe they were questioning where this would lead onto. But you just don't know.
The speech there in the basement of the Hofbrau Haus? It went well, and drummed up a lot of support. They asked Hitler to come back to the next month's meeting, and they'd get the bigger hall up on the ground level (an impressive area, I've been there). There, he delivers speech number two, and at this point....the Nazis realize he's the dynamic person they needed to front the organization.
Over the next two years, if you go and reflect upon Italian events.....Mussolini is continually in the news, and by the fall of 1922....he's the Prime Minister of Italy. By the summer of 1923, the pro-Hitler focus is aimed at some type of repeat of Mussolini-style government change. So the Beer Hall Putsch falls into play on 8/9 November 1923. The government of Bavaria will realize the threat of Hitler and rush to arrest him, and figure some time in jail will cool him off. They guessed wrong.
The five-year sentence for Hitler? He actually walked out of prison after eight months. Few people realize the missing four years. If they'd kept him there....the Nazi Party would have stumbled and eventually collapsed.
The German national election of 1930? It's a lousy win for the SPD....getting 24.5-percent of the vote. There are eleven parties which get 2-percent or more in this election. The fractured nature of the Bundestag is such....that it's weakened the core. The Nazis, with Hitler take 18-percent of the national vote. To build a coalition, the SPD has no choice....they can't deal with the Communist Party....so the Hitler group is the only real choice.
From that point, the Bundestag....whether they were anti-Hitler or aware of the threat....had no choice but to entertain the political party as a national trend.
The chief selling stance of the Nazi group? Well....talk about losing WW I (blame toward the French and British)....talk over socialized things that can be delivered (via taxation)....and be proud to be a German. With newspapers, radio and speeches....the proudness angle was a major part of the message to the public.
How did Austrian Hitler get around the citizenship thing? It's a little rule written into the Bavarian Constitution at the time....if you are a cop from Austria (even just for one day)....you qualify for Bavarian residency and thus German citizenship. It's laughable today, but it was the short path to being a German in the 1930s.
March 1933 was the last real open party election in Germany. Few today will grasp that. Hitler's group did win, but only with 33-percent of the national vote. No, it was not overwhelming.
The election in November of 1933 basically finishes off all opposition. The only party to vote for? The Nazis. Anyone sitting in Germany by the fall of 1933....would come to realize that they've opened up a Pandora's Box. It can't be closed now. They are stuck with the results.
Five years will pass with the new style government, and then the first real military action will occur....the invasion into the Sudetenland. It will take ten days....ending on 10 October. A festive national trend starts up....finally something to be happy about since 1919.
It was a nineteen year waiting period for the grief of losing WW I. Things were back on track.....at least in the minds who were frustrated over the loss.
No comments:
Post a Comment