NYT OP: 1918 Germany Has a Warning for America

[My Pet Orangutan]

No myth has such an irresistible appeal for the right as 'The stab in the back'.

1918 Germany Has a Warning for America

Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign recalls one of the most disastrous political lies of the 20th century.



HAMBURG, Germany — It may well be that Germans have a special inclination to panic at specters from the past, and I admit that this alarmism annoys me at times. Yet watching President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign since Election Day, I can’t help but see a parallel to one of the most dreadful episodes from Germany’s history.

One hundred years ago, amid the implosions of Imperial Germany, powerful conservatives who led the country into war refused to accept that they had lost. Their denial gave birth to arguably the most potent and disastrous political lie of the 20th century — the Dolchstosslegende, or stab-in-the-back myth.

Its core claim was that Imperial Germany never lost World War I. Defeat, its proponents said, was declared but not warranted. It was a conspiracy, a con, a capitulation — a grave betrayal that forever stained the nation. That the claim was palpably false didn’t matter. Among a sizable number of Germans, it stirred resentment, humiliation and anger. And the one figure who knew best how to exploit their frustration was Adolf Hitler.

Don’t get me wrong: This is not about comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler, which would be absurd. But the Dolchstosslegende provides a warning. It’s tempting to dismiss Mr. Trump’s irrational claim that the election was “rigged” as a laughable last convulsion of his reign or a cynical bid to heighten the market value for the TV personality he might once again intend to become, especially as he appears to be giving up on his effort to overturn the election result.

But that would be a grave error. Instead, the campaign should be seen as what it is: an attempt to elevate “They stole it” to the level of legend, perhaps seeding for the future social polarization and division on a scale America has never seen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/opinion/trump-conspiracy-germany-1918.html

[The Jungle 1]

1. Stop the squeal!!!

[TheRealNorth]

14. Lol

I like this and may use this not time I see a chat board flooded with a Trump dingbat spamming chat.

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Very Important Piece

Mythos moves humanity.

[thucythucy]

3. Added to the absurdity and criminality of the "stab in the back" myth

was the fact that it was promulgated by the very people most responsible for Germany's crashing defeat: namely Ludendorf and the right wing military junta that controlled Germany at the end of the war, and decided to try for all out victory in the summer of 1918, rather than a negotiated settlement.

It was Ludendorf who backed the decision to go to unrestricted submarine warfare (which brought the US into the war}, negotiated the ultra harsh terms Germany imposed on revolutionary Russia (which soured the Allies on negotiations) and ordered the final German offensive in 1918, which lead to a catastrophic military defeat. Finally, it was German militarists who ordered the fleet to "go down fighting" in a suicidal attack on the British fleet in the North Sea. The attack never happened because the sailors mutinied, which in turn led to the wider revolt that overthrew the Kaiser.

And after all that, the militarists had the temerity (and cowardice) to shift the blame to Social Democrats who inherited the mess they'd made and tried their best to pull the country together.

Ludendorf then went on to participate in Hitler's "Beer Hall putsch" which turned Hitler from a local fringe politician to a national figure.

Truly a miserable wretch of a man.

[Ponietz]

4. Another warning -- Hitler and accomplices got very little prison time for the Beer Hall Putsch

Going easy on traitors will boomerang to our detriment.

[dalton99a]

5. +1

[My Pet Orangutan]

7. +!

[triron]

13. Will we pay heed? I have my doubts.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

16. Been preaching this all over...

I can’t believe some people just want this to fade away. “For the good of the nation” That excuse is the weakest argument made.

Letting this administration’s crimes go unpunished is a model someone will use to push the trump agenda further.
Why not? I’ll never get into trouble so let’s lie and cheat and come outta this presidency richer!

Trump set the standard and precedent...Crime does pay!

[Ponietz]

18. In September, 1939 Hitler would have had 4 years remaining on a 20-year sentence

[Initech]

6. Lugenpresse!!!!!

Don't forget that Trump's attacks on the press are extremely Hitler-esque. Another parallel to make.

[leighbythesea2]

8. Yes

This is interesting. We keep hearing about comparisons to Hitler and the regime further along in the process of corrupting a populace.
I didnt not get as much in-depth history education as I would have liked, but have read a bit on this in the past. It's a hard topic to "pleasure" read up on, of course. But this makes sense.
There's a book by the author of "Devil in the White City" about the US embassy in Germany in the time frame before the US entered WWII. Chilling.

[JHB]

9. "Stabbed in the back" has been part of the Republican toolbox since the 70's

It's how we lost Vietnam, according to them. Lost because we were stabbed in the back by dirty hippies, a lying liberal press, and craven politicians who pandered to them.

And there are plenty of more iterations on that theme. It's part of how they turned their base into axe-grinding junkies and outrage addicts. They're already primed to go down that road.

[Hotler]

10. It was an attempted fascist coup and should be treated as such.

The orange one and his henchmen need to stand trail.

[bucolic_frolic]

11. The debts on tax returns might reveal

who is paying him to do this.

[Muriel]

12. I agree. It is an error to laugh at this pos and his enablers.Hopefully he will die soon.

But will the pestilence of lies and division? No rest yet.

[nuxvomica]

15. Trump may be more like Kaiser Wilhelm

Who fled to exile in Holland at the end of the war. He and his followers, which included evangelical Christians, kept the lie alive, leading to the rise of the Nazis. The Treaty of Versailles played into this by gutting the German economy but the Allies didn't make the same mistake after WWII. They had the Marshall Plan and the Nuremberg Trials, so recovery and reckoning, the pincers of defeating a nascent authoritarian revival. Biden's "Build Back Better" will be the former and whatever investigations are warranted, and there are a lot at both the state and federal levels, should be the latter.

[kairos12]

17. Stop the whine.

[triron]

19. knr