Today, I re-read William Shirer's classic Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

[CoffeeAnnan]

I read it over because in this last edition, Shirer raises the question whether Germany is likely to resort to the same barbarism it fell prey to in the twentieth century.He comes to the conclusion that it will not do so simply because the consequences for the German people will be even more horrendous than they were before the advent of nuclear weapons.

It is a measure of how far we have come from the heady days of Nuremberg that the appropriate question for us would be whether the United States, as it has done so in Iraq and other assorted places since WWII, is likely to go down the road taken by the Nazi barbarians.I hope we have enough wisdom to pull back from that road so the twenty first century does not overtake the twentieth in its bloodshed of innocents.

I raise this question because yesterday, DU had a post on a new proposal by Vladimir Putin to bring Russia, China,India and Brazil in what is currently being billed as an economic alliance.I see in it the nucleus of a formidable alliance that would dwarf the US in the next few decades.It could very well develop into a military alliance.Given the fact these countries comprise more than fifty percent of the world's population and command a vast array of resources and brainpower, it would be wise of us to pull back from the militaristic road we have embarked on.Otherwise, given the anger aroused by Bush and his minions the world over, we are likely to meet a fate similar to the Germans in their headlong march to folly.

[ET Awful]

1. You read it TODAY????

That's a hell of a read for one day :)

[efhmc]

2. My thoughts exactly! Interesting comments though.

[onecitizen]

36. I was thinking the same

thing! Now THAT'S some readin'! woohoo

[UNIXcock]

48. Me too, wow - and I thought I was a fast reader

... :thumbsup:

[fujiyama]

4. I wa thinkin the same thing

THat's a big book.

I gotta read that one.

[notadmblnd]

6. The book took me a year to get through.

but it's always worth a re-read.

[pretzel4gore]

15. a year! haha

i read it in 3 days....fascinating stuff. For the setup of the nazi era, Robert Massie's 'Nicholas and Alexandra' truly describes the impossible situation so many little people (including the tsar and family) found themselves in...
in 'rise and fall of 3rd reich' one of the most amazing facts (since then confirmed repeatedly by some of the 3 stooges shows!) and recently talked about by Jeanne Garafalo and Sam Seder on AAR was the fact that 13 years before adolph hitler's birth his father changed his name from 'schicklegruber' to hitler in order to collect on an inheritance of a couple acres of land....! holy fukk!
why wasn't that included in the history books? 'schicklegruber!' mygod
- if i remember correctly, bugs bunny mentioned 'schicklegruber' a few time too, but the name meant nothing then!
sheese

[notadmblnd]

18. Well I had a husband a small child and a job at the time.

even if I had made reading it my first priority in life, I wouldn't of had time to sit for 3 days and read. I get my reading in where and when I can, places like waiting in my car when I pick up my child from school or while sitting in a Dr. or dentist office or at lunch. Reading in the evening or on weekends consist of news or family reading (they like for me to read aloud to them).

Indeed the book was a fasinating read and brought to light for me the fact that it was not only jews (as we have been led to believe)that hitler had it out for. I took my time with it, I learned a lot, the book is still on my shelf and I've used it as a refrence many times.

[pretzel4gore]

23. good you read it...

i was a sailor on the ship and read more then i should have...lol. i became an expert on everything, so around others i always had to remind myself to shut up...no one cares about the details...haha. btw i once with a group of men talking and one was saying that the reason earth getting warmer is that scientists say the sun's getting closer to earth; i said no no...it's the earth getting closer to the sun!

[CoffeeAnnan]

7. I should have said since yesterday.I started at about 5 AM yesterday and

finsihed just a while ago.Again,I need to say that I have read it many times before so I am fully familiar with many of the contents.This made my task a lot easier.I should also stress that the main purpose of my re-read was to look again at what Shirer had to say about the aftermath of Nuremberg in his Epilog.

Hope I have corrected any misimpressions from my post.

[fujiyama]

14. Don't worry about it

I don't think anyone was seriously doubting that you read it....just friendly teasing ;) ....you gotta be a speed reader to go that fast!

Anyways, I think you're right with much of what you had to say. While I don't see Bush as Hitler, I see too many elements of totalitarianism and fascism running through our society.

Oh and BTW welcome to DU.

[ET Awful]

16. I figured that, I was just messin' with ya anyway :)

It just sounded funny.

[notadmblnd]

3. it's not the Germans in Germany we have to worry about

repeating history. I've always been struck by the number of Germans involved right here in the US. Bush, Rumsfeld etc.. They all have German ancestry.

[immoderate]

5. Scary, isn't it?

Reminds you that Hitler was elected.

--IMM

[azoth]

11. A little old lady at the Y and I struck up a conversation once re: Hitler.

She was born and raised in Germany and apparently voted for Hitler. (damn it makes me wince just to type that) She got this weird look in her eyes as she talked about it - very faroff and almost dreamy - and kept repeating "you just don't know...you just don't know..." Then she launched into this little rant about how at the time Hitler was the best choice in their elections "for the country", etc. This conversation happened months ago and even at the time it made me nervous for our own elections.

I should add that in *one* conversation - the first and only I've had with her - she also slammed Jews, people of color, and women who work instead of "rearing their children." Substitute Muslims, gays, and the non-Promise Keeper types and...well...there you have it, eh?

[CoffeeAnnan]

12. In many ways we are treading a parallel road.The external threat

that Germany supposedly faced in the 30's has now metamophosed into the Terror threat from the Muslims.It has further been reinforced by our own racist past.This is what you are seing in the conversation you had.

[notadmblnd]

20. both the Nazi and Neo-con regimes seem to be

psychotic in their quest to secure all the worlds recources for the Homeland/Fatherland. It is scary to know that if Hitler had been allowed to succeed, most of us would not exist today and those of us who did, would be speaking German.

[toska]

8. I thought I was fast reader

I started a year ago and I'm only half way through. Then again, its not the only book I'm reading.

[CoffeeAnnan]

9. Please read my post above.Hope that clears it up.

[Cleita]

10. Wow, you're a fast reader!

I was just reading the last two pages of Goetterdaemmerung: The Last Days were he summarizes the end of the dark ages of the Thousand-Year Reich and how completely it was destroyed, unlike the aftermath of WWI where many of the institutions survived from the reign of the Kaiser, when the Nazis were gone nothing survived and Germany was completely governed by the conquering enemy. The last two paragraphs said:

The people were there, and the land--the first dazed and bleeding and hungry, and, when winter came shivering in their rags in the hovels which the bombings had made of their homes: the second a vast wasteland of rubble. The German poeple had not been destroyed, as Hitler, who had tried to destroy so many other peoples and, in the end, when the war was lost, themselves, had wished.

But the Third Reich had passed into history.

When I read this last chapter I wonder if this is what is to become of us?

[CoffeeAnnan]

13. I think Vladimir Putin's initiative and his warning that Russia has

developed a new type of nuclear missile should be taken as the first steps in what will become the resistance to American Hegemony envisioned by the PNAC.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. China and Japan have bought up most of our debt.

All they have to do is convert it to Euros or Yen instead of the dollar and the dollar plummets in value. Which would force the government to hit the printing presses which would induce hyper-inflation. Not unlike what happened to Germany in the years before Hitler.

The "borrow and spend" tactics of the administration has a down side when the bills come due. But, the fatcats get their tax break and the generals get more toys to play with in Iraq. And, we get in the ass.

It sure is nice to see our Democratic "leaders" talking this up and strongly opposing the budget. Aren't they?

[Cleita]

19. Yes, as Shirer pointed out, life savings became so worthless

that they couldn't buy a sack of potatoes.

[CoffeeAnnan]

21. To me the ominous signs of an alignment both in EU and the latest

initiative by Putin are the stirrings of the other peoples of the world against us.I am afraid that in our hubris we will become as isolated as Germany became when it strutted its military light against weak nations.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

22. For a more "on the ground" perspective, try "I Will Bear Witness"

By Victor Klemperer. I'm rereading that now. 2 volumes of his diaries from 1933 to 1945. A German/Jew who converted to Christianity and married an "Aryan". A professor of French Literature and a WWI veteran who considered himself German. Quit conservative politically.

It is the most chilling book about the rise of fascism I've ever read. Even many Jews considered Hitler, at worst, a short term anomoly. From 1933 the word was "it can't last much longer" all the way to the end. And, some even thought that Hitler did well to crush the "threat of Bolshevism".

If you should ever want to understand how Germans fell under Hitler's spell of "patriotism" from the eyes of a knowledgeable and rather average citizen, try it.

No death camps, ovens, or any of that, just the daily grind of being a Jew in Germany and witnessing in detail what happened, and the vain belief that "it can't happen here" and "It must end soon."

The parallels are striking.

[CoffeeAnnan]

24. Thank you for the reference.Will read it soon.I am assisting my

daughter right now in her Speech class with an excerpt from John O'Hara's classic novel Appointment in Samarra, which too, I might add, has parallels to our current condition.I recommend it highly.

The parallels with Germany go beyond the invasion of weak countries like Afghanistan and Iraq on trumped up pretexts.The 9/11 event which laid the groundwork is clearly a suspicious event of the same order as the Reichstag Fire and the Gulf of Tonkin "Incident".The linking of Saddam Hussein to "terror" and his apparent possession of WMD's were very similar to the pretexts Hitler used to invade Poland and Czechoslavakia.The role of our supine media in demonizing and the open contempt exhibited toward Arabs and other Untermenschen, the ruthless and illegal treatment of prisoners and the barbarism in leveling a whole city to rubble to deal with "insurgents" are all torn out of the playbook of the Nazis.

Your comment about Klemperer's situation, hoping against hope, for sanity to dawn on the Nazis and for them to treat him as one of them also reminds me that the Godfather of the PNAC, Leo Strauss, a jew who escaped from the Nazi clutches and made his way to Chicago was also an admirer of the Nietzschean concept of Superman.He believed that only certain well endowed people with intelligence were capable of governig the masses who he deemed to be ignorant.His main complaint with the Nazis seems to have been that they did not include him as one of the superior people.This is the mindset of the Neo Con cabal that has come to identify with men like Rumsfreld and Cheney who do not wish them well.They have also made common cause with the Fundamentalist Christian sects that want to see the Jews destroyed in an orgy worthy of Hitler's Gotterdammerung.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

27. Please do.

I'm a big fan of diaries and memoirs to get a view of how the doings of the mighty effect "ordinary" people. I learned more about slavery from the combination of slave "narratives" and diaries/memoirs of plantation owners than any "study" of the same. Not to say that I haven't read a great deal of those also. There are several good memoirs/diaries by "ordinary Germans" also, not all of which play the "good German" "I opposed Hitler" tune. Also, an extremely good biography of Hitler is the two volume set by Ian Kershaw. Scholarly but highly readable.

Though Bush isn't Hitler, the mood of the country that gave Hitler power is very like that now. Mostly in the "common enemy" theme. For the Germans Bolshevism. For us, "the Terrorists", are the bogeyman.

[justgamma]

29. Who are the "jews"

In the new world order? The thing that frightens me, is hate radio. The ltte, the news. I feel like I'm personally being attacked for my beliefs. For being a democrat.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. In my opinion, for what it's worth...

Here, in America, it is the dissenting voices. The ones who won't keep quiet while BushCo builds their empire. The minority that will not give in. Hitler went after the Communists, the Socialists, and the trade unions, before he went after the Jews. Right now, the Muslims (the "Terrorists") are serving the purpose of being the bogeyman. Watch for lumping together the "Terrorists" with any group, or people, that oppose the regime. i.e. The Palistinian Terrorists, The Iranian Terrorists, The Columbian, Peruvian, Guatamalan, etc Terrorists. There are a whole spectrum of likely candidates.

It's the "you are either with us ("patriots") or against us (everybody else) methodology of dictators throughout history.

The good news is, they always lose.

[Razorback_Democrat]

33. I was wandering around the bookstore yesterday and saw a book

titled something like "Islamic terrorists and Liberals, what they share in common" by some right wing nut.

But it occurs to me that the Muslims, then the gays, then mentally ill, then liberals........

It could all happen. It never seemed very real to me until after this election it hit me, most Americans have been snookered into believing that the ** way is the best way.

It is the wrong direction for America, but then, I'm preaching to the choir.

[Cleita]

25. We're doing the same head in the sand thinking.

Everytime someone tries to bring up the startling parallels, many jump in with; Nazi is too strong a word, call them fascist; but we don't have concentration camps; there are no jackboots in the streets, and so on.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

28. Quite right. Ignoring the imprisoned Muslims and Homeland Security.

Guantanamo. The "roundup" of Muslims. The endless trumpeting of the "terrorist" threat as justification for damned near any measure. The mood of much of the public, either flag flying "patriotism" or silent acquiescence. The demands for a return to "traditional" values (echoes of the "Volk" society), the cooperation of the capitalists and the military.

Klemperer was in his '50s in 1933. I'm now 60. The thought gives me pause.

[m berst]

38. you hit the nail on the head

In the early 30's in Germany there was less of an obvious police state then we have today in the lives of the average person. We look back and wonder why the Germans couldn't see the early warning signs with the Nazis rounding up the Jews, yet claim that we are nowhere near that bad here. I see more hatred towards Arabs here today and more acceptance of the detentions and mistreatment than you see when you read first hand reports from German citizens duiring the actions there against the Jews.

When I draw parallels between our situation today and the situation the Germans were in during the early 30's, 9 out of 10 people respond that they don't think it is that bad. Yet, aside from the fact that any degree of similarity should be alarming - and at one time would have been for most Americans - in my heart I believe that I am dramatically understating the case.

[Cleita]

40. Remember, we on the left are also in the crosshairs of the

right wing. They will look for any charges to trump up against us to make it all seem legal. If you don't believe me, why is Martha Stewart in jail and Ken Lay free?

[m berst]

42. yes, and what is a liberal?

A "liberal" in the eyes of the repressive forces is anyone who defies or criticizes the administration. That is why people who think they can be a liberal and not defy the administration are confused. At some point, you will have to either acquiesce to tyranny, or oppose it and be targeted. "Liberal" isn't a uniform we put on with a big "L" on the jersey for purposes of being on the team and facilitating self-identification. Anyone who opposes the tyrants in any way is the enemy of the tyrant, and "liberal" - like "Jewish Bolshevists" is just the handy label for the fascists.

True liberalism is a spiritual and political antidote to tyranny and a tradition and a set of ideas and actions to combat and overcome tyranny. We choose true liberalism because of our opposition to tyranny. This is why the notion of being a "team player" with and loyal to those "wearing the jersey" but who will not stand forthrightly against tyranny is foolish, and why being a "moderate" or a "centrist" and urging cooperation and compromise are suicidal.

Liberal means stand in opposition to tyranny, watch and report on tyranny and work to build a society that is immune to tyranny and that responds strongly to it when it arises.

(note - in the past when I or others use the word "we" when referring to liberals or Democrats, there is usually at least one poster who says "who died and appointed you boss of who is or who isn't a liberal?" By "we" I mean all liberal thinkers over the past few centuries, which I think is not in the least bit controversial and until recently rather self-evident, but nevertheless what I am describing as "we" is no more and no less than my opinion, and arguments over various people's credibility as to is or isn't a liberal, or has the "right" to describe liberals as "we" aren't very constructive - again IMHO and YMMV.)

[natrat]

45. i think they may install "loyalists"

in the IRS and audit people based on data mined characteristics---that will scare people

[m berst]

31. just read "I Will Bear Witness"

Stunning isn't it?

There is one observation he made that I think will haunt me for a long time. For those who haven't read the book, it is a professor's diary starting in the early 30's and running 'til the end of the war. He lived in Dresden, and survived.

After witnessing years of barbarity and abuse, and knowing that most of the members of the Jewish community had been arrested, murdered or had just simply disappeared, people were still reluctant to face the full truth. As late as 1944, every time someone was arrested, Klemperer would still hear people say "well, he must have done something wrong. The Gestapo wouldn't just arrest him for nothing."

[CoffeeAnnan]

32. You have stirred my curiosity even more. I will pick it up tomorrow.

Thanks. In our quest for the familiar and secure, we become blind to reality.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

35. Stunning and chilling.

I've never read a book that brought home what fascism really means so tellingly.

"well, he must have done something wrong.." How easily people accept tyranny. When you consider that in Dresden, in those years, "Something wrong" cost people their lives and the "something wrong" was as innocuous as "covering the star" or saying "good morning" to an Aryan or having a cigarette in your possession.

[Dangerman]

26. All I know that I'm really scared.

That's the real reason why I bought those "friendly fascism" stickers.

Are we going down the same road of destruction as the German people in the 1930s?

I'm afraid so.

As long as Bush and the neocons are in office.

[m berst]

34. another recommendation

"Last Train from Berlin" by Howard K. Smith.

I have probably read over 100 books about the history of the Nazi party over the years, and Smith brings a perspective that I haven't seen from anyone else. The book is extremely valuable in my opinion for liberals to read now, because Smith describes both the realities of surviving in a police state and also contrasts and defines liberalism as opposed to totalitarianism with passion and brilliance. He connects American political trends seamlessly to the horrors of the Nazis, and advocates unapologetically for liberalism. Many of us are struggling to make these connections now, and reading the book and seeing how strongly and effortlessly Smith did that was very inspiring and eye-opening for me.

If you get a chance, you may also want to read Shirer's memoirs and read how this staunch and courageous advocate for freedom and passionate anti-fascist was blacklisted when he got home by the red scare fanatics and had his career and his life destroyed. He was, after all, a liberal, and that made him anti-American. The irony of this is staggering - a man who braved Nazi Germany and risked his life in the 30's to report on the rise of the Nazis being driven out of his profession when he returned home.

Reading Shirer's memoirs and Smith's book makes it abundantly clear that the whole point of liberalism is to fight the ever-present danger of Nazi politics. Yet we have so many liberals today who are denying the danger, or are seeing liberalism as a more mundane or less militant political position than effectively confronting the threat required. That represents a weakness that will be ruthlessly exploited by the neo-Nazis running the Republican party.

[CoffeeAnnan]

37. A great and thoughtful post.Will take up your recommendation.I

remember that Howard K.Smith was not thought of highly because of his
support for Nixon.I might have misjudged him by my ignorance of his true allegiance to Liberal thought. Looks like I am going to have a good Thanksgiving holiday reading I will bear Witness, The Last Train from Berlin and of course Bill Shirer's Memoirs.

Want to wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving too.

[m berst]

39. The way you read..

... you should get through "Last Train from Berlin" in about 20 minutes. :-)

[CoffeeAnnan]

41. What I neglected to mention was that I originally read bill shirer's book

in 1970 and have gone back to it many many times.When the last edition
before his death came out, I heard that he had written a new Epilog.I decide to get that edition just to see what he thought after all these years.This is why my latest reading was not a thorough first time read.I highly recommend the new Epilog too because of his thoughts on Vietnam, our Press and the courtiers in Washington.

As for the Last Train from Berlin, I will clock it and let you know.

[m berst]

43. just kidding with you

I have read Rise and Fall 4 times myself over a 35 year stretch. I get something new from it every time.

[CoffeeAnnan]

44. I knew you were kidding but I probably can recite many chapters from that

work.In the Epilog to the last edition he sees many similarities between the courtiers of our Press and the ones he encountered in Berlin in Hitler's heyday. He was particularly offended by the way the Vietnam War was covered by knownothings who had no idea of Vietnam's history vis-a-vis China.As astute as he was, Bill Shirer could not possibly have foreseen our decline to this level in the Era of Bush. I am sorry we do not have men of his wisdom and insight with us any more.But, we do have Andrea Mitchell,Ann Coulter whose vision stops around East 57th Street at the nearest bars.

[m berst]

47. we do have many brilliant writers, I think

Many of them are right here. The sad thing is that the clear true voices and brilliant minds have been marginalized, ignored and go unsupported - which reminds me I promised myself I would send Skinner a few dollars today.

The right wing puts any and all people with any talent immediately to work promoting their agenda, with salaries and perks and and resources and credibility. Yet so many talented people right here are living in poverty and obscurity, and are not getting the attention and support from the liberal community that people here give "tweety" and whomever else the corporate media gives us.

The two things that mass media pundits have that many DU writers do not, are access to the public and celebrity status. Both of these can be overcome. Celebrity status just means buzz about a person, and access to the public is attainable in many ways other than being hired by NYT or MSNBC. The idea that only corporations can anoint a person with fame and that only corporations have access to the public can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, I think.

It starts with support of our own in every way, and with a moratorium on attacks against our own over loyalty test issues and credibility issues. We give those in the corporate mass media - who don't need anything from us and care not at all for us - tremendous benefit of the doubt, but pick apart and destroy our own over the tiniest disagreements or errors.

We think of William Shirer as a celebrity who gained access to the public, yet he struggled broke and half-starved for years to complete his work, got very little support from others in the liberal and academic communities, had difficulty finding a publisher, was trashed out by many academic historians out of pure jealousy, and spent his final years in quiet obscurity.

When talking with friends and neighbors about politics, rather than saying "did you hear what tweety said today?" why not "did you read what Will Pitt wrote today?" and when they say "who is that?" tell them, by God, and tell them that everyone should know who he is. Everyone should know who he is, after all. When they ask "why have I never heard of him" you should have no problem explaining how the corporate dominated media is blocking out the journalists who won't promote their agenda.

Tweety doesn't have the credibility that comes with access and celebrity merely because a network hired him, but also - and more importantly for us - because people think the fact that a network hired him gives him those things, and so then act and speak accordingly in their daily lives. Credibility and celebrity ultimately and quite surely happen primarily by word of mouth, person-to-person, as does the dissemination of ideas through the public.

Sam Adams and his cohorts spread the seeds of dissent and built a mass movement with less efficient tools than we have at our disposal, and against as much opposition as we now face. They had a clarity of purpose, a willingness to operate outside of the bounds of approval from authority, and a fierce loyalty to each other as kindred spirits that transcended social status and allegiance to petty factions.

[Garbo 2004]

50. I've really liked Shirer's books. Haven't reread Rise & Fall recently..

Unfortunately it appears it's still a timely and instructive work for the present and the future.

[CoffeeAnnan]

51. One of the great things about Bill Shirer was that he was a keen

observer of human beings and wrote the truth.That gave him a power that is beyond the reach of people who only imagine things.

[banana republican]

46. I read "THE NATURE OF FASCISM"

It was a compendium from a seminar held at Reading University in 1967 during the height of the Viet Nam War. Some of the quites are very telling:


Let us begin with a model that encompasses the major patterns that bring fascist systems into existence. Three patterns seem to characterize the period preceding the fascist power takeover:

1) Clearly detectable, long-range, rapid economic growth;

2) Large scale social mobilization with a heavy component of rural to city migration;

3) Vast and rapid political mobilization, particularly acute just before the fascist take power. This is understandable, because the fascist party is a form of mobilization in response to the mobilization of others, and fascist mobilization in turn triggers off a heightened mobilization of other political movements.



<snip> 

The idea of class equilibrium within an imperialist economy sums up, in my opinion, the basic political conditions for the birth of fascism as a political system. This equilibrium is typified by a ruling class unable to settle the crisis by ordinary means and a working class unable to bring about a socialist revolution. That was the position of Italy at the beginning of 1920 and in Germany after the great crisis of 1929. the labor movement frightened the ruling class but was incapable of changing the existing order in any way. This situation drastically increased class conflicts, and particularly affected the middle classes and the petty bourgeoisie, crushed between monopolistic capitalism and the prospect of a socialist revolution which they found deeply repugnant.

<snip>

Fascism is therefore unstable and of brief duration. For the distribution of power that permits fascism to come to power is overturned as the modern sector is permitted to continue growing, and once it is no longer weaker it will no longer accept a secondary position in the society or constraints that prevent it from tapping the unused resources of the traditional sector. In view of the position of the society when fascism comes to power this period is relatively brief. It is unlikely that fascism will outlive its original leader.

<snip>

In conclusion fascism is part of the process of transition from a limited participation to a mass system, and, fascism is a last ditch stand by the elites, both modern and traditional, to prevent the expansion of a system over which they exercise hegemony. The attempt always fails and in some ways the fascist system merely postpones some of the effects it seeks to prevent.


The Nature of Fascism
Edited by S.J Woolf
Random House, New York, NY
1968

[RhodaGrits]

49. Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here" is also

a good read for these times.