Does anyone know how intelligent, engaged Germans responded to early Hitler?

[LAS14]

Does humor help?
Do incisive columns help?

It's worth looking at, because whatever they did wasn't effective.

[The Blue Flower]

1. They thought he was an ignorant boor and didn't take him seriously

That began to change when he organized his followers into units of uniformed thugs who literally grabbed people off the streets and beat them half to death. Then the fear set in among those who had their eyes open, and they cowered.

So we can't let this orange anus wear us down or create despair. We can't afford the thought that our beloved country is doomed and circling the drain. That is an untrue thought if we maintain courage and clear heads.

[LAS14]

9. Anyone who can get thousands of young boys to boo Clinton and Obama needs to be taken seriously.

Has anyone written about what these intelligent people might have done differently, had they recognized the threat?

[LAS14]

12. What do you think would happen if Trump did that here? nt

[roamer65]

20. Secession and civil war.

[The_Casual_Observer]

28. Its called the antifa its very effective where they are working.

It is growing too.

[ecstatic]

35. We'd still have clowns on TV weighing the pros and cons of genocide,

and ending the segment by issuing an online poll for viewers to join in the discussion.

Or they'd show us interviews with Trump voters who still support him. This is our reality now. There's no right and wrong. Everything's up for debate.

[LAS14]

39. I'm afraid that may be true. You paint such an accurate picture...

[FrodosNewPet]

31. Alas, that happened in America in 2016

Here on DU, if someone expressed any fear that the iDJT could get elected, that we need to take this man and his followers seriously, they were given a dismissive "thank you for your concern".

But what happened is in the past. We need to learn to NEVER BE COMPLACENT.

People are already doing that here in Michigan with Kid Rock running for the Senate. We can say, we can YELL, "pay attention, resist, this man could be our next Senator!". Alas, too many people are not taking it seriously.

[Arazi]

33. Agreed 100%. "Concern troll" was levied hard and heavy here

Expecially at Sanders supporters who were on the ground.

ALL allies are needed in this fight. It's way past time for sniping

[BigmanPigman]

2. It depended on different factors.

The intelligent ones often tried to "resist" civilly when it was still legal. When they saw that didn't work they often fled the country. The ones that didn't learned who their friends were quickly and altered their actions to protect themselves and families. And of course many of the intellectuals were Jewish and knew that they were in more danger early on and if they were able they too fled, often without any of their money and belongings. The German government was glad since they got more revenue for their party from the confiscated money, etc.

[defacto7]

5. Many intellecual Jews actually voted for him,

because they never thought he could possibly follow through with his plans. They thought it was politics as usual.

[uponit7771]

8. Yeap, saw that in a AHC documentary the Jewish upper class thought they were different and were...

... protected and so did some blacks I know of when it came to Red Dons "stop and frisk" promise claiming they didn't live in "those neighborhoods" I replied he didn't delineate the neighborhoods he just said "inner city" which we know is code word for black and brown everywhere.

[defacto7]

13. I read it in the book On Tyrany...

Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder. Page 15 and 16 is the quote from a leading Jewish newspaper in 1933.

"We do not subscribe to the view that Mr. Hitler and his friends, now finally in possession of the power they have so long desired, will implement the proposals circulating in [Nazi newspapers]; they will not suddenly deprive German Jews of their constitutional rights, nor enclose them in ghettos, nor subject them to the jealous and murderous impulses of the mob. They cannot do this because a number of crucial factors hold powers in check…and they clearly do not want to go down that road. When one acts as a European power, the whole atmosphere tends towards ethical reflection upon one’s better self and away from revisiting one’s earlier oppositional posture."

[speaktruthtopower]

16. Wealthy people..

in general were scared of being dispossessed by the Communists, some of them saw him as the lesser of two evils.

[uponit7771]

17. Ahhhhh, good point ... I remember how people in Europe were afraid of

... what happened to the upper class in Russia.

[uponit7771]

3. First reply AND they thought they had enough stop gaps until he suspended civil liberties after ...

... Reichstag fire.

The German democracy in 1920 - 25 had around the same amount of protections the US has today ... not that much different ... maybe a peripheral here and there relative to US government would've stopped Hitler but after he declared similar to marshal law the country was done.

The one thing we have today that they didn't have then is an opposition awareness here in the US that is mobilized; there were NOT 3 million people marches against Hitler.

There wasn't mass mediums watching him tooth an nail and he didn't have a federal investigation watching his every step either.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

15. Which raises the question

2018 midterms. Yes? No? Maybe?

[mahina]

4. They left.

[NeoGreen]

11. Ditto. I had the same immediate two-word response form in my head.

[Voltaire2]

38. ya, that.

[FreepFryer]

6. Here's a good book on the topic.

https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/dead-funny-humour-in-hitler-s-germany-1.362127

[FreepFryer]

7. A relevant excerpt

Some of Herzog's most interesting observations deal with this weird and precarious dividing line between what the Nazi leadership would and would not tolerate. The key, it turns out, was often not the material but the jokester: people suspected of hostility towards the regime were often arrested for making jokes or comments that would have been overlooked if made by the party faithful. "The line between harmless kidding and defamatory jokes full of resentment was blurry," Herzog says, and his pages contain many examples of Third Reich eavesdroppers fastening on innocent banter to complete a sedition case against some citizen. As Herzog explains, "Merely telling a political joke did not put the joke teller's life at risk. The real risk arose when the Nazis were looking for an excuse to remove an unwanted member of the community."

[L. Coyote]

10. How American Journalists Reported the Rise of Hitler

Early Warnings: How American Journalists Reported the Rise of Hitler
Jennie Rothenberg Gritz Mar 13, 2012

[Algernon Moncrieff]

14. One key difference in Germany (and Russia)

Neither nation had a long tradition of democracy or political freedom. It's easier to install facism in nations whose people aren't accustomed to having free media. The people of the US have proven perfectly willing to engage in peaceful and violent rebellion against the government. It is in our national DNA.

It is true that rights for all is a continuing work in progress. The constitution has always stacked the deck to the benefit of white men.

Germany w/Hitler was less than 15 years removed from the Kaiser, and Russia has only had two brief flirtations with representative democracy.

[LeftInTX]

18. Exactly

[LAS14]

25. Those are reassuring thoughts.

[Kaleva]

19. Humans are not rational animals. We can convince ourselves that we are.

[Baclava]

21. They praised him because the Nazi's promised to put them back to work - 1932

National Socialist German Workers' Party

During 1930–1933, the mood in Germany was grim. The worldwide economic depression had hit the country hard, and millions of people were out of work. The unemployed were joined by millions of others who linked the Depression to Germany's national humiliation after defeat in World War I.

Many Germans perceived the parliamentary government coalition as weak and unable to alleviate the economic crisis. Widespread economic misery, fear, and perception of worse times to come, as well as anger and impatience with the apparent failure of the government to manage the crisis, offered fertile ground for the rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party.

Hitler was a powerful and spellbinding orator who, by tapping into the anger and helplessness felt by a large number of voters, attracted a wide following of Germans desperate for change. Nazi electoral propaganda promised to pull Germany out of the Depression.

The Nazis pledged to restore German cultural values, reverse the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, turn back the perceived threat of a Communist uprising, put the German people back to work, and restore Germany to its "rightful position" as a world power.

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10008206

[Takket]

24. all he was missing was a red trucker hat that said Make Germany Great Again

[pansypoo53219]

22. i had several + have 1 or 2 milwaukee german almanac books. at least one had an old pic of hitler,

but in german. did not show up in my 1929/30 LANDS & PEOPLES set.

[lunasun]

27. Side note I have a partial set of Lands and Peoples. So interesting !

[NotASurfer]

23. I know how intelligent, engaged Americans are responding to this Hitler

And it gives me hope.

Not this time.

Not on our watch.

[rzemanfl]

26. The industrialists and generals sucked up to him and thought they could control him.

The average German was dirt poor. The first thing Hitler did was get cheap radios onto the market so he could propagandize.

The professional class was happy to take things away from the Jews.

What is going on here is similar in so many ways. It may boil down to whether the police and military side with the Orange Anus or the people.

[ananda]

29. This is exactly what happened when Tom Delay sent his thugs..

.. to the Dade County elections office to stop the recount process in FL 2000.

And it worked.

Reep/fascist thuggery has worked ever since.

[DefenseLawyer]

30. Not exactly the model I think we should be following. n/t

[LAS14]

32. Exactly. Let's learn from their mistakes.... E.g., not taking him seriously won't work. nt

[Boomerproud]

34. I don't know if this answers the OP's question but the White Rose Society

of young intellectuals (led by Sophie and Hans Scholl and Cristoph Probst) was brutally squashed. "The Last Days of Sophie Scholl" is one of the most powerful films I've ever seen.

[58Sunliner]

37. Agreed. Haunting.

[Blaukraut]

36. Speaking for my family only

My grandfather was a staunch Social Democrat and thought of Hitler as a stupid buffoon. He was pretty outspoken throughout but he also had 'friends in high places' who protected him and my grandmother, who was Jewish. Once Hitler came fully into power, my grandparents laid low, to protect their families. (not all of them made it through). There came a point where people had a choice: Speak out and risk your, and your family's life, or just try to go unnoticed and hope it passes.