Modern Euro, Week Eight: Fascism

First Period:

A few weeks ago, I saw that Rick Steves (the Travels in Europe guy) had put together a special program on The Story of Fascism in Europe. These days, when one hears the term "fascism" they immediately think of Nazis and the Third Reich. Its beginnings, however, were with Benito Mussolini (one more link from the Great War user on youtube and not used in class today) in Italy about 1915. Rick Steves' program lays out the rise of fascism and the direction it took millions of people in the post World War I years. The link (above) is 56 minutes long and well worth the time. We covered about 30 minutes of the video. Bonus material: Fascism and Mussolini 

The Weimar Republic was the government of Germany following WWI. As the link says, the government lacked the ability to make any real change or efficiently help the country in post-war reconstruction. There was no majority of any party, and as such, there was no majority vote, stagnating the leadership. In fact, the Weimar Republic had over 40 political parties. Here are a few of the "main" parties, and for each one there was a handful of splintered groups as most parties could not maintain any type of agreed upon platform (hence the plethora of parties): KPD- Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Communist), SPD- Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Socialist), DDP- Deutsche Demokratische (pro-Weimar), Zentrumpartei (Center), DVP- Deutsche Volkspartei (moderate, anti-Weimar), DAP- Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Worker's Party, became the NSDAP in 1920), NSDAP- Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, Nazis), DSP- Deutschesozialistische Partei (Julius Streicher, a name to look out for next semester, merged this party with the Nazi Party in 1922, and the Spartakusbund (Communist, led by Rosa Luxemburg).

Fascism grew out of the waste and want of war, a decimated economy, war reparations, loss of territory, hunger, and unemployment. Germany's "stab in the back" mentality was vehemently against the Weimar Republic, as they felt they had been betrayed by this government and President Ebert who signed the Treaty of Versailles. Not only was he to blame, but specifically Jews, Socialists, and Communists. Italy had a similar feeling of discontent over how the war ended for them, the "mutilation of victory. Fascist governments were violently encouraged by the roving paramilitaries (Black Shirts in Italy and Brown Shirts in Germany). The Freikorps were the paramilitary group comprised of German soldiers returning from the front. They were nationalist, anti-Communist, anti-Semitic, and desperate for the order and conformity they had experienced in the military. In essence, the perfect fit for enforcing Nazi ideology.

In the first five years of the Weimar Republic, two coup d'etat attempts were made against the Republic, The Kapp Putsch of 1920 and the Munich/Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. In 1919, a young, new member of the DAP Adolf Hitler made his first speech in a beer hall in Munich. By 1923, he had the support and the gall to march on Munich. The men surrounding Hitler in his march, had served in the Great War, and would continue to support the goals of the Nazi Party, many until the end of their lives. Here is a list of men involved with Hitler at the Beer Hall Putsch: 

1. Adolf Hitler: WWI, infantry
2. General Erich von Ludendorff: WWI general, died of liver cancer in 1937, age 72
3. Ernst Röhm: WWI, Freikorps member and future co-founder of the SA (Sturmabteilung), killed during The Night of the Long Knives as he was perceived to be a threat to Hitler
4. Rudolf Hess: WWI, infantry; loyal until 1941when he flew to Scotland in hopes of making peace with the Allies. He was tried at Nuremberg after the Second World War, convicted, and sentenced to life in Spandau Prison, where he hanged himself in 1987, upon which Spandau was demolished for the belief that it would be made into a neo-Nazi shrine if it were left intact.
5. Hermann Goring: WWI fighter ace, creator of the Gestapo (secret police), convicted of crimes at the Nuremberg Trials post WWII, sentenced to hang but committed suicide by taking cyanide.
6. Max Scheubner-Richter: WWI, served as German diplomat in Ottoman controlled Turkey, shot in the lung during the Beer Hall Putsch.
7. Alfred Rosenberg: son of a German Baltic father and an Estonian mother, he spent the war years in Russia, fleeing the Russian Revolution in 1918. He wrote The Myth of the Twentieth Century and many other tenants of Nazi ideology (repudiating the Treaty of Versailles, racial theory, persecution of Jews, and Lebensraum (living space). He was editor of the Völkischer Beobachter, the Nazi newspaper, and he was with Hitler in his hatred for "degenerate" art (what we call Modern Art). He was hanged for his crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.
8. Julius Streicher: WWI, infantry, Iron Cross recipient. He believed it was his destiny to serve Hitler, and did so in a grotesquely virulent manner. He published Der Stürmer, an anti-Semitic paper that later became a staple of Josef Goebbles propaganda machine. He was convicted and hanged at Nuremberg.
9. Heinrich Himmler: WWI, infantry. However, war ended before he saw action. He was 17 when he joined up. Creator of the Einsatzgruppen (the paramilitary Death Squads) and concentration camps, the main architect of the Holocaust. He was captured a month after the fall of the Third Reich, where he was interrogated by the British, but committed suicide by cyanide.

These names you will continue to hear in the next semester.

Second Period:

A continuation of themes from the first period:

• The Establishment of the Weimar Republic
• Why Were the Germans Unwilling to Support the Weimar Republic; Rosa Luxemburg of the Spartakusbund (a Communist Party), executed by the Freikorps.
• Problems and Solutions in the Weimar Republic; inflation, reparations, the occupation of the Ruhr industrial region by the French and Belgians; the downfall of President Friedrich Ebert and his replacement by Gustav Stresemann
• How the Depression Helped Hitler Come to Power; the Dawes Plan, continuation of poverty, hunger, and disease; the swamp of political parties in the Weimar Republic
• The Role of Hitler's Public Appeal in the Nazi Rise to Power; unity behind one leader, the lure of one party that can accomplish things and hope for the future; Nazi ideology gave the sense of answers, unity, and help for those in desperate circumstances; Nazis standing in the breach against the Communists; Nazi propaganda
• When Adolf Hitler Declared War on Modern Art; art and politics, "degenerate" art
• Hitler Plans to Stash the Degenerate Art at Goring's; a parody, the subtitles are rewritten and not actual translations
• Bonus Material: German Expressionism: Crash Course Film History; Cinema in Weimar, the immigration of German cinema leaders to Hollywood in the face of anti-Semitic laws
• Adolf Hitler First Speech as Chancellor; Hitler's promises of Lebensraum, a good future, employment, prosperity. Just give him four years...

 The complete playlist for this class is here: Modern European History, WWI. A vast majority of the links used this semester were included in the weekly blog, yet some may have slipped through the cracks. If I only had all the time in the world...

And we finish the semester with a final few quotes from A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War by Joseph Loconte. (At this point, if you have followed along with this blog, you should have this book. Exceptional bit of writing, and, although it doesn't always make the blog notes, it was used excessively in how I structured the class and our class conversations.)

""Only after all the fighting is done, when the bravest have fallen in battle, when the war against evil has been fought to its bitter end-- only after all this-- does the Myth of Fact complete the human story. Only then can joy, "joy beyond the walls of the world," become our permanent possession. There is not shortcut to the Land of Peace, no primrose path to the Mansions of the Blessed. First come tears and suffering in Mordor, heartless violence at Stable Hill-- and horror and death at Golgotha... Perhaps this is why the eucatastrophe is always mixed with grief: the knowledge of sorrows endured in the struggle against evil lingers on in the human heart... The conclusion of the Great War brought its own mix of celebration and sadness. The soldiers of this war had lived through endless days of mud, stench, slaughter, and death. Nothing like it had ever occurred in the history of the world; it shook the very foundations of civilized life... No war could end war for all time; or transform the nations into a brotherhood of man. "It was a loathsome ending to the loathsome tragedy of the last four years, " wrote Siefried Sassoon in his diary. T.S. Eliot saw the postwar world as a wasteland of human weariness. "I think we are in rats' alley, " he wrote, "where the dead men lost their bones." Erich Remarque predicted a generation of men "broken, burnt out, rootless, and without hope." Civilian life, he said, would bring no comfort to the survivors: "We will not be able to find our way any more."... In the end, the creators of Narnia and Middle Earth offer a vision of human life that is at once terrifying and sublime. They insist that every soul is caught up in an epic story of sacrifice and courage and clashing armies: the Return of the King... Here we find, beyond all imagination, the deepest source of hope for the human story. For when the King is revealed, "there will be no more night." The Shadow will finally and forever be lifted from the earth. The Great War will be won."å