Was there an equivalent to the Democratic Party in Nazi Germany ??

[kentuck]

Who believed it was not really that bad - some folks in their own Party exaggerated the seriousness and danger of the Nazi regime? As their friends rationalized and explained it away as simple "partisan politics"? Who never imagined anything so terrible could really happen - until it was too late?

Because everything is relative, especially in politics. They had the first Social Security system in Germany, well before the US thought about it. They were advanced socially and philosophically. Any "politics" that replaced what they knew might be a little different but it would be relative to what they had known, they thought. But when it was not relative to their vision of government, they could not understand what was happening. It was a vincible ignorance. They knew they did not know but they did not think it mattered.

[oscar111]

1. Free DR'S too, since about 1884

in germany. add that to the list of things they were good in doing before the nazi catastrophe.

[htuttle]

2. I think the SDP was sort of like that in the early '30's

The Social Democrats were the largest party in Germany before 1932. They were the status quo party after WWI, and had done the 'crush the far left' business -- mostly the Communists -- until the Nazis came to power in '32. They voted against the Enabling Act that made Hitler a dictator in 1933, and were banned shortly thereafter, also in 1933.

At least that's how I've read it (though I admit, my reading of German history 'between the wars' hasn't been that extensive).

[oscar111]

3. Last 2 sentences convoluted: can u edit?

or am i just sleepy LOL?

PS wasnt the bad gov of the WW1 Kaisar a precedent in their frame of mental reference? Which could/should have led them to think that Nazis were really possible? ie, that bad gov could happen to them... again.

so they had a warning. we do not have such a clear warning in our history... unless you have had contact with lives lived at the bottom, on skid row, where it has been Third World horrors forever, since 1776. As far as i can tell.

[kentuck]

4. Vincible ignorance ?

You know that you don't know but you don't think it matters..??

[Village Idiot]

5. Wrong!!! We have a CLEAR WARNING...

Many of them, in fact, as well as the bad example of many right-wing dictatorships during the 20th century...

It still doesn't mean that we will be able to prevent like occurrances from happening in the US...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. There were a number of parties under the Kaiser.

He was in constant dispute with the SPD for instance.

Hitler's rise isn't as simple as many think. It was a convergence of many factors. Hyper-inflation, unemployment, the Treaty of Versailles, financing by the industrialists, corruption, labor strife, super nationatalism, a perceived "Jewish bolshevik threat", and many more.

A real witches brew that ripe for a "Leader" (Fuehrer).

And, it didn't happen all at once. By the time the people were starting to complain, it was too late. The left was crushed and the war started.

Realistically, there was little that the average Germans could do except try to survive. Not to let them off the hook entirely. Most stood by apathetically and let the monster grow.

I suggest that you read a long, but incredibly readible diary kept by a middle class, intellectual, patriotic, conservative, German Jew named Victor Klemperer who had converted to Christianity and married an Aryan. Which saved him from the concentration or extermination camps. "I Shall Bear Witness". It gives an excellent account of how the Germans, even many Jews, believed that "it can't happen here" until the late '30s and beyond. It's a great book but has a lot of bad news for those who think America is immune from fascism.

[BiggJawn]

12. You mentioned a book I was thinking of.

"It Can't Happen HERE!" by Sinclair Lewis.
It's about a dumb-fuck puppet who gets elected President in the early 30's on a platform of "Mo Money for EVERYONE!" and proceeds to turn America into the most hated, isolated dictatorship in the world. College professors are turned out and sent to "camps", Military training in College becomes mandatory, the Press is controlled, and these civilian groups called "Minutemen Marching Clubs" provide the brownshirt function. Local governements are overturned, officials sent to the camps and Minutemen officers installed as area commandants.

And forget trying to leave the country, we're at war with Mexico, and all paths leading to Canada are watched....

[noiretextatique]

8. (s)election 2000 was a clear warning eom

[damntexdem]

6. Well, there was certainly an equivalent of the current GOP:

The Nazi Party.

[Cocoa]

9. Hitler's opposition was split

instead of uniting to oppose Hitler, they squabbled amongst themselves.

[cascadiance]

10. Ralph Nader anyone?...

[Cocoa]

11. I wonder if the Communists used Nader style rhetoric

"there's not a dime's worth of difference between the Nazis and the Social Democrats."

[noiretextatique]

13. conservative democrats...

the active enablers some democrats love to forget :eyes:

[Cocoa]

15. I have forgotten them

who were the Conservative Democrats, and what role did they play in Nazi Germany?

[noiretextatique]

16. miller, lieberman, et al

being the group of elected ones...unlike nader.
quite a few unelected ones too...they helped bush "win" florida in 2000. mighty convenient of you to "forget" about them, but they exist nonetheless....right here and now.
continue nader bitching....now.

[Cocoa]

17. I was talking about Germany

I was talking about how the German communists focused on the German demcrats instead of on Hitler.

[noiretextatique]

18. right...thanks for the clarification. eom

[Cocoa]

19. one more thing about Lieberman

he and Gore ran against Bush, not against Nader.

Nader, on the other hand, ran against Gore and Lieberman, not so much against Bush.

[noiretextatique]

20. utter, complete and total

:hurts: lieberman, etal are bush enablers. i have much respect for gore and nader, who have been critical of bush, inc.

[Yupster]

21. Under the German (Weimar) System

It was a pretty classical parliamentary system.

There would be Parliamentary (Reichstag) elections, and then the President (Old General Hindenburg) would ask a leader to form a cabinet and a government that would have a majority of lawmakers favoring it.

Normally this is not a big deal. Whichever party wins is asked to form the government which is usually easy enough, or they may have to make a deal with a smaller party to get over the magic 50 % mark.

The problem in Germany was that there were many many small parties, and there were also two fringe parties, one on the right (Nazis) and one on the left (Communists).

For the five years before Hitler was named as Chancellor (Prime Minister), there were parliamentary elections over and over again as Hindenburg would choose a leader of one of the small center parties to form a new government. He might be the leader of a party with just 5 % of the seats in the Reichstag. That seems crazy, but Hindenburg was in a real pickle. He couldn't choose a Communist or a Nazi, so that meant that he had to hope the rest of the small parties could work together against the two fringes.

The governments were of course weak and each quickly fell, but something bad kept happening. The Communists and Nazis kept increasing their support each election. When the Nazis and Communists each got up to 20 %, that meant the middle parties would have to get 51 % of the remaining 60 % to agree on a new government which was next to impossible.

Then it got a lot worse when the Nazis and Communists went to 60 % of the seats. It then became impossible for any government to be formed without including either the Nazis or the Communists.

What a horrible decision for 80 + year old Field Marshall Hindenburg to make.

He decided the Nazis were less of a threat to the nation's democracy than the Communists were, and he invited Hitler to form a government which he was able to do by including a few of the center parties in his coalition.

Within a few months came the Reichstag fire, the Enabling Acts, and the opposition members of the Reichstag were arrested and thrown in concentration camps. It was a dictatorship within a year.

[Cocoa]

23. thanks for the background

that's definitely an important period to study.

[LSK]

14. uh oh, somebody said "NAZI" again

I hope your wearing your tinfoil hat!!! :sarcasm:

[Octafish]

22. Why? DUers can't say Bush is a NAZI scumbucket?

This is from the oldest newspaper in the United States:

“Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951” - Federal Documents

By John Buchanan and Stacey Michael
from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 3, November 7, 2003

After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.
Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.

Bush's partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from 1924-1951, were conducted by the New York private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman.

The White House did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Although the additional seizures under the Trading with the Enemy Act did not take place until after the war, documents from The National Archives and Library of Congress confirm that Bush and his partners continued their Nazi dealings unabated. These activities included a financial relationship with the German city of Hanover and several industrial concerns. They went undetected by investigators until after World War Two.

At the same time Bush and the Harrimans were profiting from their Nazi partnerships, W. Averell Harriman was serving as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's personal emissary to the United Kingdom during the toughest years of the war. On October 28, 1942, the same day two key Bush-Harriman-run businesses were being seized by the U.S. government, Harriman was meeting in London with Field Marshall Smuts to discuss the war effort.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_2

If the Truth doesn't do it, what's it going to take to convince Liberals and Progressives and Democrats that the Bushes are NAZI scum?