Chapter Nineteen Continued: Near Victory for Fascist Fanatic

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

After one of the ugliest campaigns in the history of Germany, the 1930 election would end in two surprise victories. The German Communist Party led by Ernst Thalmann* (shown on the right) took the most seats, and Hitler's fascist party came second.

Red had won spectacularly, but twice as sensational was the win of Brown. In the last Reichstag there was a "joke party" of twelve deputies, headed by Austrian-born Herr Adolf Hitler, crony of General Erich von Ludendorv with whom he spilled Bavarian blood in 1923 trying to stage a putsch (revolution). Scorned
as a "wild man," this Fascist fanatic has been storming up and down depressed Germany, promising Prosperity if given enough votes to do two things: 1) replace Germany's "do nothing" Reichstag and President by a Dictator (presumably the "wild man"); 2) Repudiate Germany's obligations under the Young Plan, thus lifting "from bowed and bloody German backs the galling Reparations yoke!"

Result: Demagog Hitler's Fascist party (named "National Socialist" to mislead workmen) rose last week from ninth to second rank, from twelve Reichstag seats to 107, from joke to menace. (1)

And such a gain for Hitler made a lot of people very nervous, and rightfully so. What if he attempted another power grab? Some members of his party were hinting at just such a thing. He had laid down some pretty definitive policies, when it came to the Jewish population:

1) all Jews who have entered Germany since Aug. 2, 1914 would be expelled;
2) the term "Jew" would mean anyone whose ancestors practiced the Mosaic faith after March 11, 1852;
3) Jews would be banned from service in the German army or navy, would pay a special tax by reason of this "exemption";
4) Jews would not be admitted to schools of higher learning, either as teachers or instructors;
5) sales of land to Jews would be void;
6) Jewish-owned newsorgans would be compelled to state that fact in their front-page headline, printing under it the symbolic Mo gen Dovid (Star of David). (2)

Time magazine reported:

With her plump, black-eyed brood, Jewess after rich Jewess scuttled out of Germany last week, filling trains de luxe with wails and confusion. Mother-instinct knew the meaning of Jew-Baiter Adolf Hitler's election victory fortnight ago, when his Fascist "Brown Shirts" leaped fearsomely from ninth to second place among German parties.

To Jew after rich Jew, staying behind to protect their German properties as best they might, occurred a paradoxical but sound idea. Why not contribute to the "Brown Shirt" party fund? Then, in case fiery Herr Hitler should try another coup d'état (like that which he and General von Ludendorü failed to carry through in 1923) surely Jewish contributors would not find Fascist "thunder squads" crashing in their doors. Last week swaggering Hitlerites boasted scornfully of having been offered such "Jew-cash," would not admit to taking it. (2)

But they were not the only ones getting nervous:

Worried Wall Street. Because one of Fascist Hitler's most popular platform points is complete repudiation of all reparations payments, German reparation's bonds sold off last week on all exchanges, declining in London to a figure representing an 11% discount. In Wall Street a recession of some five points in common stocks was charged off by fiscal writers to a whisper among the knowing that "there's revolution in Germany right now, but the censor's sitting on the lid." All the big Berlin banks parried long distance calls from U. S., British and French clients, repeated ad nauseam the belief of their officers that a coalition of Centre" Parties will continue for some time to rule Germany, shutting out the extremists on left and right. (2)

Something big had just taken place. But it was only the beginning.

Chapter Nineteen Continued: A Nation in the Grips of fear

Footnotes:

*When Hitler gained power in 1933, he had Thalmann arrested and held in solitary confinement for 11 years, before finally giving the order to have him shot.

Sources:

1. Red & Brown Winnings, Time Magazine, September 22, 1930

2. Strap Helmets Tighter! Time Magazine, September 29, 1930

Chapter Nineteen: Demagogs and Democracy

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

After the unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, that saw Adolf Hitler arrested, the National Socialist German Worker's Party was in disarray.

Those who weren't arrested were forced underground, and while they still engaged in the odd protest, they were a pretty fractured group.

Hitler had been sentenced to five years, but was released after serving just eight months. One of the conditions was that he broke off all contact with General Ludendorff, his accomplice in the 'coup'.

But if he entered prison as a martyr he left it as a common man. Gone were the throngs of followers hanging off his every word. Many of his former supporters jumped ship and the few hangers on seemed to lack direction.

Part of the problem was that conditions in Germany had improved considerably and the German people were no longer in need of a saviour. Relations had improved with former enemies and American businessmen were now offering loans and investing in the country. It wasn't as easy to rally the troops for a war with no enemy.

When Hitler did speak now it was about threats to the Aryan race, mostly from the Jews.

[Hitler] speaks words of consolation and encouragement to those like him, telling them not to despise themselves, for in reality they are better than the others. You are Aryans. You are the pure blood; that is more, than possessions or rank; it is the highest, and this highest is just what the Jew wants to take away from you and destroy because he has already taken away and destroyed everything else. For the Jew is the type suited to the normal world of today, with its equalization which kills the personality; he is the type who makes the mass dominant in order to kill the outstanding individual; for the outstanding individual might offer resistance to Jewish world domination. In order to kill the people's instincts of defense, the Jew poisons the pure Aryan blood. (1)

Houston Chamberlain had taught him well.

But his audience was now mostly the dregs of society, and if he had any hope at all of achieving his former status, he would have to find a way to appeal to a broader base. Alfred Rosenberg and Rudolf Hess had remained loyal, and he was able to draw in a few more who believed in the movement.

The party was legitimized in 1925, and began to create a coalition of smaller groups, mostly anti-communism and of course anti-Semitics. Soon Hitler was named leader of a party with 4,000 members. And instead of just gong after the enemy from within, he began to attack Germany's foreign policy, once again getting his name in the paper, and by 1927 he was speaking to crowds of 20,000.

And no longer just from the lower classes, but from all levels of society. After the fate of the Romanovs in Russia and the abdication of the Kaiser, many of the upper echelon felt threatened by Bolshevism, and they saw in Hitler someone who could restore their place. And to the average German he was a "God-given form of supreme authority, which could now be clothed in new, more populist garb." (2)

By the time the election rolled around in 1930, he was ready and Time magazine had their story:

In 1920 Demagog Hitler and General Erich von Ludendorff gath ered the nucleus of the present German Fascist party, attempted a revolution in 1923 which they hoped would make them Germany's dictators but which unhappily only brought them to trial for treason. Ludendorff was released, retired to obscurity and the private worship of Norse war gods. Hitler, sentenced to five years of military imprisonment, was released at the end of eight months, so completely destitue of a following did he seem.

Personally attractive for his 41 years, virile, an orator comparable to Kerensky, Trotzky or Mussolini, Demagog Hitler soon reclaimed his old position. To his cause have flocked many an adoring Jungfraulein and hot-blooded youngster. The latter he has organized into clean-up gangs called "storm squads," comparable to the Communist "Red Front Squads." So closely do the Fascist tenets resemble those of Communism that many of his disciples are onetime Communists, grown weary of their cabal's inactivity.

The platform on which the National Socialists hope to seat themselves in the Reichstag next month is, basically, built on these planks:

1) annulment of the Versailles and St. Germain treaties

2) abandonment of reparations payments

3) dissolution of the Reichswehr (volunteer army) and
organization of a strong conscripted German army

4) restoration of all colonies

5) socialization of all basic industry

6) disfranchisement of all Jews,

7) expulsion of all non-Germans who have immigrated since Aug. 2, 1914

If such an extraordinary program should win the Fascists a large block of seats in the Reichstag old President Paul von Hindenburg would have an extremely ticklish time organizing his government. To gain Hitler's support, Chancellor Heinrich Briining would doubtless be forced to turn over the minister of interior to a Fascist, placing police power in Demagog Hitler's hands just as it now is in Thuringia. That, believe lovers of Democracy, would ring the knell of the Republic. (3)

Chapter Nineteen: Near Victory for Fascist Fanatic

Sources:

1. Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944, Pg. 259

2. Hitler: Profiles in Power, by: Ian Kershaw, Longman House UK, 1991, ISBN: 0-582-08053-3, Pg. 12

3. National Socialists, Time Magazine, August 25, 1930

Chapter Sixteen: The Makings of a Political Party

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

After the first world war, Adolf Hitler may have felt a sense of abandonment. Throughout the war years, he was at home in the military, but Germany's defeat left it's scars. He would have preferred to fight to the last man for the Fatherland.

Now a civilian employee with the German Army, his duties were to rout out dissidents to the new regime, but his heart wasn't it.

Eventually he joined a group of ex-soldiers called the Freikorps ("Free Corps") or "Iron Fists", a paramilitary organization with little sense of loyalty to the government of the day.

Another member of this rowdy bunch, was Rudolf Hess, though he claimed not to remember seeing Hitler at any of the meetings or excursions.

This wasn't unusual. Hitler was quite forgettable in the early days.

Hess was also a member of the Thule Society, though he didn't join the affiliated German Worker's Party (future Nazis) until May of 1920, after hearing Adolf Hitler speak.

By then the formerly sullen Adolf, had undergone his transformation at the hands of Dietrich Eckart, one of the most successful directors in Germany at the time. Speech lessons from Eckart and others experienced at elocution; his performances now took on a theatrical air. The resulting, almost hypnotic voice, was in part due the effects of the mustard gas, that meant he had to use extra force to get the words out. (1)

The photo above with his 'brown shirts', almost looks like a poster for a play, with exaggerated anger and staged positioning. You could envision them bursting through the facade, and breaking into a little soft shoe or sand slide with Eckart calling out "Brush back, Pull back, spank..."

Of course the end results of this movement was anything but a tap dance, as Adolf learned how to emote anger too well, and was no longer acting.

Below is just a small sampling of his theatrical speaking, though I'm sure most people are far too familiar with it already.



It might seem odd, comparing the rise of Adolf Hitler to the rise of neoconservatism, but it's important to remember that both Leo Strauss; the undisputed father of the movement, and Friedrich Hayek; the undisputed father of the associated Libertarian movement; were both directly affected by the Nazis.

Strauss actually wanted to join the party (during these days), but was turned away because he was Jewish. And Hayek after serving as director of the Austrian Institute in the late 1920's, before moving to the London School; decided not to return home because the Nazis then had control of Austria.

In his book The Road to Serfdom, that has become the Bible to free marketeers, like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Stephen Harper; Hayek includes a chapter: "The Socialist Roots of Nazism." Adolf Hitler was part of his history.

Leo Strauss detested liberalism and claimed that he was not a conservative. So in that way, neoconservatism was perfect, because it was not liberal or conservative. It's principles are loosely based on a fascist model, that supports a centralized authority, censorship and "the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong." (2)

The fact that Strauss suggested adding "religious fervour" to "control the ignorant masses", fits with the social conservative elements of William Aberhart and his Social Credit Party.

They all share a history whether we like it or not.

Chapter Sixteen Continued: Armed Intellectuals

Sources:

1. Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944, pg. 87

2. Ethics and political theory. By: Joseph Grcic, University of America, Inc, 2000. pg. 120

Chapter Fourteen Continued: The Power of the Mustache

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"He is an absolute genius, and he may, says Soloviev, wear a small mustache." Konrad Heiden

When Adolf Hitler joined the German Army, he sported a large mustache. But later, when the German troops were provided with respirator masks, in response to the use of mustard gas by the British, he was told to trim it, so that the mask could be worn properly. (1)

Some men may have simply shaved theirs off, but Hitler instead just clipped the sides until it fit, giving him a rather unusual appearance.

And it was that unusual appearance; of a man with a 'small mustache', as described by Vladimir Solovyov (aka: Soloviev); that led Dietrich Eckart to believe that he had found the Antichrist.

Or had he just found his Antichrist?

And would the most "noble lie" that Leo Strauss so often expounded, be Hitler himself?

Dietrich Eckart and the "Genius Superman"

Dietrich Eckart was not an ordinary man. Born into an affluent family in 1868, in the small port town of Neumarkt in Bavaria; he had planned on becoming a doctor.

However, he was a failure as a student, largely due to a problem that would plague him throughout his life. Dietrich liked to drink too much.

His mother had died when he was ten, and his father when he was twenty-seven; leaving him a fairly wealthy young man, but he would quickly spend his way through his fortune.

Sleeping in flop houses or on park benches, he had already developed a morphine habit, and soon found himself in an asylum for the mentally diseased. And it was there that he found his niche. (2)

He began writing plays that he would have the inmates act out, and on his release in 1899, he settled in Berlin; where before long, he developed a reputation as one of the best playwrights in the city.

Back on top once again, his wealth and notoriety allowed him to move in prominent social circles, and he would lead a charmed life for more than a decade.

But during that time he also began studying some of the more controversial philosophers, including Hitler's favourite, and one of Leo Strauss's, Arthur Schopenhauer; and developed a keen interest in races.

Other thinkers of interest to Eckart included Adolf Josef Lanz, who in his 1904 book, "Theozoology", advocated sterilization of the sick and the "lower races" as well as forced labour for "castrated chandals", and glorified the "Aryan race" as "Gottmenschen" ("god-men"). Lanz also published a magazine, which Eckart subscribed to, and would later introduce to his protege.

Angelus Silesius rounded out Ekarts's influences. Silesius had once written; "I am like God and God like me. I am as large as God. He is as small as I. He cannot above me nor I beneath him be." This may have been the inspiration for Ekart's ideology of creating a "Genius Superman."

In 1913, Eckart joined the Thule society, and moved with it in 1917 to Munich. The following year, the original group joined with a more radical one, and the nature of the society changed, becoming more political.

They operated as counter revolutionaries, carrying out targeted assassinations and making life as miserable as possible for the Jewish people.

The new group now included Alfred Rosenberg, who had brought back the Protocols of the Elders of Zion from Russia. Eckart was already putting out an anti-Semitic magazine and was more than happy to include the Protocols.

There has been a lot of speculation about the influence of the Thule society, which often goes into mystical theories; but I think it was just a white supremacist organization, that wanted to protect and promote their concept of a Nordic heritage.

And while they apparently dabbled in the occult, I think their primary interest was eugenics, under the tutelage of the master white supremacist, Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

But more than just being white supremacists, they held that the Aryan race was supreme, and that was the race they were going to engineer to supremacy. But first they had to deal with the Jewish question.

The Protocols of Zion, provided a vehicle for fear mongering, by establishing the false notion of a Jewish conspiracy, plotting to rule the world. And it also gave rise to the belief in the Antichrist, who was described in great detail by Vladimir Solovyov.

And I believe that when Adolf Hitler walked into the meeting of the German Worker's Party, where the playwright and director Dietrich Eckart was speaking, he had just auditioned for a part in Eckart's next play, and he would win the leading role as the Antichrist.

Chapter fourteen Continued: A Star is Born

Sources:

1. The Unknown Private - Personal Memories of Hitler, By: Alexander Moritz Frey

2. Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944, Pg. 100