Only one of my ten Nazi friends saw Nazism as we—you and I—saw it in any respect. This was Hildebrandt, the teacher. And even he then believed, and still believes, in part of its program and practice, “the democratic part.” The other nine, decent, hard-working, ordinarily intelligent and honest men, did not know before 1933 that Nazism was evil. They did not know between 1933 and 1945 that it was evil. And they do not know it now. None of them ever knew, or now knows, Nazism as we knew and know it; and they lived under it, served it, and, indeed, made it.
As we know Nazism, it was a naked, total tyranny which degraded its adherents and enslaved its opponents and adherents alike; terrorism and terror in daily life, private and public; brute personal and mob injustice at every level of association; a flank attack upon God and a frontal attack upon the worth of the human person and the rights which that worth implies. These nine ordinary Germans knew it absolutely otherwise, and they still know it otherwise. If our view of National Socialism is a little simple, so is theirs. An autocracy? Yes, of course, an autocracy, as in the fabled days of “the golden time” our parents knew. But a tyranny, as you Americans use the term? Nonsense.
When I asked Herr Wedekind, the baker, why he had believed in National Socialism, he said, “Because it promised to solve the unemployment problem. And it did. But I never imagined what it would lead to. Nobody did.” I thought I had struck pay dirt, and I said, “What do you mean, ‘what it would lead to,’ Herr Wedekind?” “War,” he said. “Nobody ever imagined it would lead to war.”
The evil of National Socialism began on September 1, 1939; and that was my friend the baker.
Remember—none of these nine Germans had ever traveled abroad (except in war); none had ever known or talked with a foreigner or read the foreign press; none ever wanted to listen to the foreign radio when it was legal to do so, and none (except, oddly enough, the policeman) listened to it when it was illegal. They were as uninterested in the outside world as their contemporaries in France—or America. None of them ever heard anything bad about the Nazi regime except, as they believed, from Germany’s enemies, and Germany’s enemies were theirs. “Everything the Russians and the Americans said about us,” said Cabinetmaker Klingelhöfer, “they now say about each other.”
Men think first of the lives they lead and the things they see; and not, among the things they see, of the extraordinary sights, but of the sights which meet them in their daily rounds. The lives of my nine friends—and even of the tenth, the teacher—were lightened and brightened by National Socialism as they knew it. And they look back at it now—nine of them, certainly—as the best time of their lives; for what are men’s lives? There were jobs and job security, summer camps for the children and the Hitler Jugend to keep them off the streets. What does a mother want to know? She wants to know where her children are, and with whom, and what they are doing. In those days she knew or thought she did; what difference does it make? So things went better at home, and when things go better at home, and on the job, what more does a husband and father want to know? The best time of their lives.
There were wonderful ten-dollar holiday trips for the family in the “Strength through Joy” program, to Norway in the summer and Spain in the winter, for people who had never dreamed of a real holiday trip at home or abroad. And in Kronenberg “nobody” (nobody my friends knew) went cold, nobody went hungry, nobody went ill and uncared for. For whom do men know? They know people of their own neighborhood, of their own station and occupation, of their own political (or nonpolitical) views, of their own religion and race. All the blessings of the New Order, advertised everywhere, reached “everybody.”
There were horrors, too, but these were advertised nowhere, reached “nobody.” Once in a while (and only once in a while) a single crusading or sensation-mongering newspaper in America exposes the inhuman conditions of the local county jail; but none of my friends had ever read such a newspaper when there were such in Germany (far fewer there than here), and now there were none. None of the horrors impinged upon the day-to-day lives of my ten friends or was ever called to their attention. There was “some sort of trouble” on the streets of Kronenberg as one or another of my friends was passing by on a couple of occasions, but the police dispersed the crowd and there was nothing in the local paper. You and I leave “some sort of trouble on the streets” to the police; so did my friends in Kronenberg.
Except, here in the US, the neo-nazis aren’t even concerned with making their constituents’ lives better. They make them as bad as they possibly can, and their cult still doesn’t believe it
Populism is always bad. Be it left or right, conservative or liberal, socialist or capitalist. It is always reactionary and never leads anywhere sane or sober.
Can you please define what you view as “populism”? For whatever reason every time someone says it they either mean a definition so vague and broad that it means almost any mass movement or definition different from any other I’ve heard.
I have spent the past few weeks constantly getting more and more confused.
Is a very good book and movie that shows the nightmare unfolding and how the main characters react to WW1, and the horror at the end when they see it all new again for the leading up to WW2. Best movie besides Das Boot to humanize the enemy and get into their lives to see how the majority of them were tricked into war
The movie always stands out in my mind. Its beautifully shot and the respect that the director gave to the material is very iconic to me. I have only listened to an audio book of it, so I cant say that I really trudged through reading it. The message about trying to empathize with the enemy is something that I feel close to. My grandfathers mother remembered her grandfather Red Cloud in stories that she told her grandchildren and were told to me. I think about how close those historical people like my grandfather Red Cloud or Sitting Bull or Crazyhorse and how they are not that far away from me today. My mothers cousins remember their grandmother talking about being at Wounded Knee looking for survivors with her mother. The idea behind the pain and suffering that war brings to everyone is a good reminder that most people are caught in a situation and its always good to think about walking a mile in their shoes before you judge them and then take up arms to kill them.
I haven’t seen to original 1930 film, but I thought the new one was good, and my impression is that it stayed true to the overarching message of the story in the book. However I’ve heard from others that it isn’t as close to the book in its depiction as the first film.
The old one is truly beautiful in it’s ironic ending. The main character goes home and sees the young being subjected to the propaganda and he is broken by it. And it’s not even aware that WW2 is right around the corner, so it’s point is so strong looking back in hindsight.
It’s the best description I’ve read of how fascism takes hold of a country; essential reading for our times.
If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked— if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non- Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C?
That was a terrible read, but thank you for posting it. It lines up with exactly what I’m seeing now: a sheer and utter lack of being informed. You see it in every poll of what people think, it’s incredible.
This is surely before they started rounding off Jews right? I find it impossible to “not know” such a thing is happening without some cognitive dissonance going on
It is not. The baker he refers to was one of the Nazis who rounded them up; it was more or less an open secret. People just went along:
Anti-Nazis no less than Nazis let the rumors pass—if not rejecting them, certainly not accepting them; either they were enemy propaganda or they sounded like enemy propaganda, and, with one’s country fighting for its life and one’s sons and brothers dying in war, who wants to hear, still less repeat, even what sounds like enemy propaganda?
Who wants to investigate the reports? Who is “looking for trouble”? Who will be the first to undertake (and how undertake it?) to track down the suspicion of governmental wrongdoing under a governmental dictatorship, to occupy himself, in times of turmoil and in wartime with evils, real or rumored, that are wholly outside his own life, outside his own circle, and, above all, outside his own power? After all, what if one found out?
Suppose that you have heard, secondhand, or even firsthand, of an instance in which a man was abused or tortured by the police in a hypothetical American community. You tell a friend whom you are trying to persuade that the police are rotten. He doesn’t believe you. He wants firsthand or, if you got it secondhand, at least secondhand testimony. You go to your original source, who has told you the story only because of his absolute trust in you. You want him now to tell a man he doesn’t trust, a friend of the police. He refuses. And he warns you that if you use his name as authority for the story, he will deny it. Then you will be suspect, suspected of spreading false rumors against the police. And, as it happens, the police in this hypothetical American community, are rotten, and they’ll “get” you somehow.
So, after all, what if one found out in Nazi Germany (which was no hypothetical American community)? What if one came to know? What then?
In illustration of that point:
And the award for the most depressing and paralyzing thing I’ve read all year goes to…
Except, here in the US, the neo-nazis aren’t even concerned with making their constituents’ lives better. They make them as bad as they possibly can, and their cult still doesn’t believe it
That’s the beauty of sado-populism
Enact policy that hurts your constituents
Blame out-group du jour for the problem
Run on “stopping” said out-group
Rinse and repeat, change out-group as necessary.
Populism is always bad. Be it left or right, conservative or liberal, socialist or capitalist. It is always reactionary and never leads anywhere sane or sober.
Can you please define what you view as “populism”? For whatever reason every time someone says it they either mean a definition so vague and broad that it means almost any mass movement or definition different from any other I’ve heard.
I have spent the past few weeks constantly getting more and more confused.
Well that was a hard dose of reality for a Friday afternoon.
*All’s quiet on the Western Front *
Is a very good book and movie that shows the nightmare unfolding and how the main characters react to WW1, and the horror at the end when they see it all new again for the leading up to WW2. Best movie besides Das Boot to humanize the enemy and get into their lives to see how the majority of them were tricked into war
I read All Quiet last year. It’s definitely worth reading if you want to be reminded about just how terrible and ultimately pointless waging war is.
Which version of all quiet on Western front do you like?
The movie always stands out in my mind. Its beautifully shot and the respect that the director gave to the material is very iconic to me. I have only listened to an audio book of it, so I cant say that I really trudged through reading it. The message about trying to empathize with the enemy is something that I feel close to. My grandfathers mother remembered her grandfather Red Cloud in stories that she told her grandchildren and were told to me. I think about how close those historical people like my grandfather Red Cloud or Sitting Bull or Crazyhorse and how they are not that far away from me today. My mothers cousins remember their grandmother talking about being at Wounded Knee looking for survivors with her mother. The idea behind the pain and suffering that war brings to everyone is a good reminder that most people are caught in a situation and its always good to think about walking a mile in their shoes before you judge them and then take up arms to kill them.
There are multiple movies, which year?
the old one, the 1930 film
I havent seen any other. Was the modern remake any good?
I haven’t seen to original 1930 film, but I thought the new one was good, and my impression is that it stayed true to the overarching message of the story in the book. However I’ve heard from others that it isn’t as close to the book in its depiction as the first film.
The old one is truly beautiful in it’s ironic ending. The main character goes home and sees the young being subjected to the propaganda and he is broken by it. And it’s not even aware that WW2 is right around the corner, so it’s point is so strong looking back in hindsight.
Who is the author of this? Great stuff.
Milton Mayer wrote it in 1955.
It’s the best description I’ve read of how fascism takes hold of a country; essential reading for our times.
That was a terrible read, but thank you for posting it. It lines up with exactly what I’m seeing now: a sheer and utter lack of being informed. You see it in every poll of what people think, it’s incredible.
This is surely before they started rounding off Jews right? I find it impossible to “not know” such a thing is happening without some cognitive dissonance going on
It is not. The baker he refers to was one of the Nazis who rounded them up; it was more or less an open secret. People just went along:
They were told the Jews were being relocated.