Georgy Bovt They are not guilty. He Explained How Democratic Institutions Opened the Way to Disaster in Germany in 1933 January 30, 2023, 08:10

The story of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power is the story of how the political elite of one of Europe’s most advanced countries paved the way for a future national catastrophe that also led to the bloodiest world war. On January 30, 1933, the German president, the aging and decrepit Paul von Hindenburg, appointed Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany, as chancellor of the country. 90 years have passed. A brief moment in history.

All this was done quite legally. Although his party had relatively the highest support at the time, Hitler did not seize power by force. However, if in the parliamentary elections in the summer of 1932 the Nazis took 37% (first place), then in November of that year it was already only 33%, which was the first result, but the trend was not good. I had to hurry.

But just four years ago, in 1928, the NSDAP did not win even three percent. What made him the object of admiration (that’s exactly the word) of millions of Germans? a crisis. And drastic measures in response to this from the German authorities in the spirit of “shock therapy”.

This is what brings to the fore the roles of those who, until recently, the same Germans described as outcasts and extremists. But it was they who began to promise jobs and prosperity. And also to return the “primitive German lands” lost after the First World War. And together with the lands – the old German greatness, which united all the Germans in a single (third and this time already “eternal”) Reich. Hitler did not literally call for the “capture of foreign territories”, he said that it was necessary to return “our own land” to the Germans. But later, the appetite greatly dissipated.

After the defeat in the First World War, the feeling of anger and humiliation was deeply ingrained in the Germans. And the victorious powers (Russia, unjustly excluded from their numbers, as a punishment for the separate peace of Brest and the socialist revolution) imposed on Germany intolerable reparations (the maximum amount that, in case of full payment, they could go up to 1.8). but managed to negotiate some reduction in payments in the mid-20s). All this became the basis for the growth of vengeful feelings on which the Nazis played.

We must pay tribute to the victorious powers in the Second World War: They initially decided that reparations from defeated Germany should be “practicable” so as not to become the basis for revenge again.

The main “criminals” were also appointed – Jews and communists, who “stand” behind all the anti-German intrigues and hostile policies of other states towards the Third Reich.

Was there an alternative to the Nazis? It was For a while the Communists quite realistically competed with them. For example, in the September 1930 Reichstag elections, the NSDAP won 107 seats and the Communists 77 seats (increased from 54). Theoretically, if the communists had formed a single coalition with the social democrats, this could have effectively prevented the Nazis from coming to power. After all, socialist ideas were strong in German society (in part, Hitler borrowed them, perverted them, and transplanted them into the soil of racism). The Communists were confidently ahead of the Nazis in popularity throughout the 1920s. In a number of other European countries, where the Nazis also raised their heads against the backdrop of the global economic crisis, they were able to agree on broad coalitions against them.

But Stalin and the Comintern played their part here. Let’s just say it’s destructive. To say that Stalin played a decisive role in Hitler’s seizure of power would nevertheless be a strong exaggeration.

Therefore, the Soviet leader (as well as the leader of the entire world communist movement) categorically forbade the German communists to enter into an alliance with the Social Democrats, whom Stalin considered almost the main enemy at that time. As for the Nazis, there were no such strict instructions.

And for example, in 1932 the German communists, together with the NSDAP, organized a transport workers’ strike in Berlin. Apparently, the “ghost pains” from the First World War worked out for Stalin when the policy of the same German Social Democrats (and others) caused a sharp negative reaction from Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who believed that it was impossible to support the “imperialists”. but we must strive to turn it into wars, civil and socialist revolutions around the world. Therefore, he demands the “defeat of his government”.

In the 1920s, despite the reparations, Germany started to get back up pretty quickly, especially since its industry was basically preserved (it wasn’t occupied, after all). But the global crisis that began in 1929 interrupted the successful development. The Germans drank to the end: “raids on the banks” of depositors, mass unemployment (a third of the working population), hunger. From 1929 to 1932, GDP fell about 9% per year. Against this background, the economic policy of the German authorities in the spirit of “shock therapy” to combat the crisis can be called nothing but politically suicidal. This was the opposite of, say, what Roosevelt did in America under the New Deal, and laid the foundation for the principle of deficit financing to stimulate the economy and demand. In Germany, unemployment benefits and salaries in the public sector were cut, and state pensions were cut. Healthcare spending fell 15%, education spending a third, and residential construction spending nearly 40% down. Instead, taxes were raised sharply. How can the radical opposition not win the elections?

For many Germans, the Nazis, who promised to fix the economy and lift the country from its knees, seemed like salvation. Although 60% of Germans never voted for them. But the Nazis emerged as the “decisive minority” who changed the course of history. With the help of the country’s elite at that time, of course. Those who helped Hitler come to power first believed that it did not last long – “just a few weeks, maybe months.” Secondly, this “strange corporal” (as Hindenburg was described by Hindenburg himself, who despised Hitler and believed that the ceiling of his career was “to be a minister, not a chancellor”) would be entirely controlled and controlled by the traditional elite. Ah, so many naive “manipulators” in other times and in other countries paid for such stupid calculations!

The person who receives power rarely tries to share it himself. The Hitler-led NSDAP refused from the very beginning to be puppets in the hands of others, but Hitler’s appointment was the result of behind-the-scenes deals with conservatives that the new Chancellor did not observe. long. After Hindenburg’s death in August 1934, Hitler declared himself Führer. Officially, democratic laws were used to establish the Nazi dictatorship.

On this path, he did not encounter any resistance from the German society. After all, economic problems began to recede. I wish any crisis ended at some point. The policy of state dirigism, which the Nazis resorted to, also had an impact, the number of state orders, including military production for the construction of infrastructure, increased. For example, highways. General Eisenhower, who later commanded Allied forces in Europe, was so fascinated by German roads that he embraced the experience for America and initiated the creation of a federal highway system that spanned the entire country. And the Germans in general accepted this exchange of freedom for totalitarianism quite comfortably. Comfortable – until the bombs begin to fall on their heads and the country is defeated and occupied.

Did they feel guilty afterwards? Good question. Representatives of the victorious powers want to give an unequivocally positive answer to this. Successful denazification was accomplished, the nation learned its lessons – and all that.

This is true, but not entirely true. The power of the feeling of “German guilt and collective responsibility” is greatly exaggerated. Yes, the main Nazi criminals were punished, their entire apparatus, including Nazi ideology and the media glorifying Nazism and Hitler, was reduced to zero. But the repressions and purges were far from massive. It would have been impossible to punish anyone who actively collaborated with the Nazi regime. Even those who are members of the NSDAP. At least because there will be nowhere to get “other/alternative” rulers, another elite, or even judges. Until about the 1960s, opinion polls in West Germany continued to show a fairly high level of sympathy for Hitler and the “glorious past” in general. They say, “They lost the war, but a lot of good things were done.” No one particularly regretted it.

The “responsibility” thesis, as politicians later came to define it – for their current political purposes – since the end of the Cold War, was originally replaced by the “deceived Germans” thesis. There can be no such thing as “collectively criminal people”, including Soviet ideology. He could only be “deceived”.

Germany’s denazification was not actually through repression and “collective remorse”, but rather the rapid—historically almost instantaneous—integration of one part of Germany into the socialist camp in the form of East Germany, and the other—the FRG—into the capitalist one. And this could not be done, except that the country was completely occupied and under the control of the new authorities of the victorious forces. In both the GDR and the FRG, the issue of “the nation’s guilt and collective responsibility” has been replaced by an entirely new agenda. This, of course, did not prevent high-brow intellectuals from writing many clever and interesting books on the subject and trying to try the formula they had invented for some other nations.

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.