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TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
Sun Aug 27, 2017, 02:04 PM Aug 2017

If You Were A German In the 1920s and Saw the Rise of the Nazis, What Would You Do?

Last edited Sun Aug 27, 2017, 03:15 PM - Edit history (1)

Would you flee? Or, with that knowledge, would you fight against the rise of the Nazis armed with your fore-knowledge of what would occur?

After all, the Nazis were not preaching genocide in the 1920s and 1930s. Indeed, the Nazis initially pushed a policy of forced emigration where Jews were forced to emigrate under the slogan: Germany for Germans! Later, the Nazis began to deport Jews from the German-controlled areas to ghettos in Poland and Russia.

Here, in the U.S., you have Trump pushing "America First," building a wall, and actively encouraging deportation, rather than merely creating incentive for emigration (think of Romney's self-deportation proposals).

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If You Were A German In the 1920s and Saw the Rise of the Nazis, What Would You Do? (Original Post) TomCADem Aug 2017 OP
Correct, Germany was a slow boil and Hitler had a higher approval rating then Benedict Donald does uponit7771 Aug 2017 #1
Point taken... even without answering the question. defacto7 Aug 2017 #2
Many Jews, intellectuals, etc. stayed until it was too late because they no_hypocrisy Aug 2017 #3
NY Times - The Jew Who Fought to Stay German (During Nazi Germany) TomCADem Aug 2017 #4
"If Klemperer, in his isolation, knew, most Germans must have known, too." dalton99a Aug 2017 #13
Yet, "He deluded himself..." TomCADem Aug 2017 #16
"White Rose" started too late. moondust Aug 2017 #5
If I had the advantage sarisataka Aug 2017 #6
The socialists stayed, fought the nazis, lost Voltaire2 Aug 2017 #7
It's one of the hardest parts of resistance Kentonio Aug 2017 #8
Remember what Germany was like in the 1920's FLPanhandle Aug 2017 #9
It Is A Mistake To Think That Economic Progress Will Erase Sexism and Racism TomCADem Aug 2017 #10
There is also a growth in far right wing parties during and after economic downturns mythology Aug 2017 #11
Perhaps Because Racism and Sexism Are Also Used to Exploit Working Class Whites... TomCADem Aug 2017 #12
Exactly. Populism is great for the 'default race/gender' radius777 Aug 2017 #17
Desperate people will turn to anyone who offers them hope FLPanhandle Aug 2017 #19
write snarky memes nt Dreamer Tatum Aug 2017 #14
Leave Europe and move to Tahiti yuiyoshida Aug 2017 #15
Die Welle Kogaratsu72 Aug 2017 #18
Hard one to answer, as I have already taken up residence in Germany. DFW Aug 2017 #20
Probably try to work through the army or one of the more mainstream conservative parties. Willie Pep Aug 2017 #21

uponit7771

(90,225 posts)
1. Correct, Germany was a slow boil and Hitler had a higher approval rating then Benedict Donald does
Sun Aug 27, 2017, 02:08 PM
Aug 2017

... right now.

no_hypocrisy

(45,774 posts)
3. Many Jews, intellectuals, etc. stayed until it was too late because they
Sun Aug 27, 2017, 03:10 PM
Aug 2017

truly believed that Hitler was temporary, that he was blowing off steam for the sake of his supporters. They never imagined concentration camps and ovens. It was the metaphor of a frog slowly dying in a pot of cold to warm to hot water.

TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
4. NY Times - The Jew Who Fought to Stay German (During Nazi Germany)
Sun Aug 27, 2017, 03:23 PM
Aug 2017

Think of Kushner, Cohn, Carson and other racial and religious minorities who continue to support the Trump administration.

Victor Klemperer, a Dresden Jew, a veteran of World War I, wrote a vivid account of everyday life in Hitler's Germany, "I Will Bear Witness, Volume 1: A Diary of the Nazi Years: 1933-1941" He loses first his professorship and then his car, his phone, his house, even his typewriter, and is forced to move into a Jews' House (the last step before the camps), put his cat to death (Jews may not own pets), and suffer countless other indignities.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/22/specials/elon-klemperer.html

Even after Hitler's victory in the elections of 1933, Klemperer continued to consider himself a German patriot, referring often to his Deutschtum, or German-ness. ("I am forever German, a German 'nationalist,' " he wrote in July 1935. "The Nazis are un-German.&quot A year after being compelled, to his utter horror, to display the yellow Judenstern on his outer coat, he wrote: "I am now fighting the hardest battle for my Deutschtum. I must hold on to it: I am German. The others are not. I must hold on to it. The spirit decides, not the blood. I must hold on to it: Zionism on my part would have been a comedy which baptism was not."

Like many completely assimilated Jews in Wilhelminian and Weimar Germany, he believed that Germans were, as he put it, a "chosen people," culturally and politically superior to others. "I still feel more shame than fear," he wrote in 1934. "Shame for Germany."

Convincing themselves somehow that Nazism would not last, Victor and Eva Klemperer did not emigrate, as his brothers and cousin did. He and his wife even decided in 1935 to build themselves a little house in the village of Dolzschen in the hills above Dresden. At this time they already had to comply with a new Nazi ordinance that all country houses must have a tilted "Germanic" gable (flat roofs were verboten as alien, or "decadent" Bauhaus). The house, though small, had one room large enough to accommodate Eva's grand piano. Klemperer must have been one of the very few people of Jewish origin in Nazi Germany who invested most of their savings in German real estate at a time when others were running for their lives. He deluded himself that converts and war veterans like himself would be spared. Much later he would write: "I escaped, I dug myself into my profession. I held my lectures and obsessively overlooked the fact that the benches before me grew emptier and emptier."

Summarily dismissed from his post as a professor at the university, he filled his free time with getting a driver's license and buying a car, in which he and his wife toured the lovely countryside of Thuringen and Sachsen. In 1937, still proud of the Distinguished Service Medal he had won in World War I, he confessed: "I myself have had too much nationalism in me and I am now being punished for it." In 1938 he felt chastised by the recent Nuremberg racial laws and yet, after driving with his wife through the lovely hill country southeast of Dresden, he noted, "How beautiful this Germany might have been if one could still feel German and be proud of being one." In 1942, already a slave worker relegated to a kind of ghetto on the outskirts of Dresden, he assured one of his fellow inmates that "fanaticism" was "un-German" by definition.

TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
16. Yet, "He deluded himself..."
Mon Aug 28, 2017, 01:21 AM
Aug 2017

"... that converts and war veterans like himself would be spared."

I think a lot of folks who are not resisting, and perhaps even Trump supporters, have deluded themselves into thinking that Trump and other Republicans are not targeting them.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/05/us/undocumented-husband-deported/index.html

Undocumented husband of Indiana Trump supporter deported to Mexico

Helen Beristain voted for Donald Trump even though she is married to an undocumented immigrant.

In November, she thought Trump would deport only people with criminal records -- people he called "bad hombres" -- and that he would leave families intact.

"I don't think ICE is out there to detain anyone and break families, no," Beristain told CNN affiliate WSBT in March, shortly after her husband, Roberto Beristain was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

On Wednesday, Beristain was proven wrong as ICE split her family across two countries.

sarisataka

(18,220 posts)
6. If I had the advantage
Sun Aug 27, 2017, 04:00 PM
Aug 2017

of 20/20 historical hindsight...

In 1929 the Nazi party had about the same influence as the Constitution party has now. The Great Depression pushed people away from mainstream parties towards extreme parties. The Nazis benefited from a strong organization and charismatic leader to turn a plurality of support into dictatorial control.

Even at that point, there wasn't major opposition. True they had some alarming rhetoric, to the general population at the time, but they were turning thing around. Sure you had to wear a uniform to your job and make silly arm gestures, but to someone who was unemployed and had experienced explosive inflation those would be relatively minor concerns.

Our situation is more akin to 1935-36 when the mask of the party in power is being used less and the true agenda is becoming apparent.

Voltaire2

(12,626 posts)
7. The socialists stayed, fought the nazis, lost
Sun Aug 27, 2017, 04:21 PM
Aug 2017

and died for their troubles. In retrospect the smart people got out. The "responsible" center put Hitler in the chancellory.

 

Kentonio

(4,377 posts)
8. It's one of the hardest parts of resistance
Sun Aug 27, 2017, 06:16 PM
Aug 2017

There could have been other Nazi like events in history that we will never know of because they were stopped early. But those doing the stopping aren't remembered because the great evil never happened. Those who resist early are risking everything and will not be thanked for their sacrifices generally. The majority never believe their time is one that can end in great evil.

FLPanhandle

(7,107 posts)
9. Remember what Germany was like in the 1920's
Sun Aug 27, 2017, 06:44 PM
Aug 2017

While the US was having the roaring 20's



Germany was suffering from the after effects of WW1 and crushing reparation payments. They were in the middle of hyper-inflation where their paychecks devalued by the hour.

?330



People's savings were wiped out, many ex-soldiers were injured/maimed, no jobs, all government resources routed to pay foreign reparations.

The Nazi's were promising to fix all that. Without knowing what we know now, would I fight them? Nope. I wouldn't believe them anymore than I would have believed the Communist Party in Germany at the time, but fight them without the knowledge we have from the future? No, probably not.

TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
10. It Is A Mistake To Think That Economic Progress Will Erase Sexism and Racism
Sun Aug 27, 2017, 10:57 PM
Aug 2017

Last edited Sun Aug 27, 2017, 11:31 PM - Edit history (1)

I hear this on both the left and right. The idea is that we should disregard social justice issues and focus on the economic well-being of working class white males, and once they no longer feel economically threatened, there will be less racism and sexism. Finally, there is typically a positive correlation between immigration and economic growth, particularly in the U.S. where you have an aging population.



If we crack down on immigration with an aging population, not sure how folks expect to continue to fund programs like social security and Medicare, which depend on income taxes.

 

mythology

(9,527 posts)
11. There is also a growth in far right wing parties during and after economic downturns
Sun Aug 27, 2017, 11:20 PM
Aug 2017
https://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/news/far-right-parties-always-gain-support-after-financial-crises-report-finds/

Likewise movements like the Civil Rights movement happened during and after a period of robust economic growth in the U.S. Largely due to the increased economic ability of a minority group to fund things that let them not use the bus system for example and pay for lawyer fees. But I would argue that it's fairly logical that a significant growth in the economy would reduce the appearance of a "threat" from a minority group.

TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
12. Perhaps Because Racism and Sexism Are Also Used to Exploit Working Class Whites...
Sun Aug 27, 2017, 11:37 PM
Aug 2017

Last edited Mon Aug 28, 2017, 01:21 AM - Edit history (1)

In the 1960s, both Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King recognized how some on the right use racism and sexism to scapegoat classes of people, rather than offer real solutions. Trump is proposing to cut health care, worker protections, and benefits, which hurts working class whites, but in return he offers scapegoats.



So, during an economic downturn, are people susceptible to racist and sexist demagogues? Yes. However, you can't just ignore social justice like many Germans during the 1920s and 1930s in the hopes that it will blow over. Rather, you have to deal with the racism and sexism head on to show how people are being exploited through their hate.

radius777

(3,624 posts)
17. Exactly. Populism is great for the 'default race/gender'
Mon Aug 28, 2017, 02:19 AM
Aug 2017

of any given society, which it tends to mythologize as the very essence of what the nation is about, eg. Blood and Soil.

Of course, a populus is less inclined to scapegoat minority groups if the economy is good, but without a social justice component, the underlying issue is still there.

FLPanhandle

(7,107 posts)
19. Desperate people will turn to anyone who offers them hope
Mon Aug 28, 2017, 09:59 AM
Aug 2017

Bill Clinton's campaign had it right, "It's the economy stupid".

Kogaratsu72

(53 posts)
18. Die Welle
Mon Aug 28, 2017, 09:56 AM
Aug 2017

There is a very confronting movie, called 'Die Welle' (The Wave) that tells the story about a sociologic experiment, performed by a psychology teacher and his class in a German college, that went horribly wrong. He wanted to prove that every social structure is susceptible to what happened in nazi Germany, and he did... I recommend the movie, though quite sobering.

DFW

(54,056 posts)
20. Hard one to answer, as I have already taken up residence in Germany.
Mon Aug 28, 2017, 10:07 AM
Aug 2017

My German wife was tired of the commute (more me than her, but even so, apart is still apart), and she did not want to move to America while her mom, our last surviving parent, was still alive. In the meantime, one of our daughters found a high-paying job here in Germany as well, so I'm going to be here for a while.

If I were a German in the 1920s, I guess it would depend on my situation. If I had been wiped out by the inflation of 1922-23, I don't know if I would even have had the means to move across the street, let alone out of the country. It would also depend on what languages I had learned. If all I spoke was German, Switzerland here I come. A German Jewish friend of ours born in 1928 made it out of Frankfurt in 1938 at age 10, passing through France and Switzerland. At age 20, she was a sniper for the Israeli independence movement in Palestine, then left for Canada, eventually settling in the USA as a sex therapist. Each story is thus unique. I couldn't say what mine would have been.

Willie Pep

(841 posts)
21. Probably try to work through the army or one of the more mainstream conservative parties.
Mon Aug 28, 2017, 10:12 AM
Aug 2017

Nazism and Fascism in Italy would have likely failed without the collaboration of elements of the traditional Right, including the military. Too many establishment conservatives were willing to go along with fascists because they thought they were useful for putting down the far left.

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