Did Hitler come to power by chance?

Professor Xavier

It would seem as though it was a combination of unfortunate circumstances and pure chance that Hitler came to power. That's the conclusion I have come to when I examine Hitler's rise to power. I don't think anyone could of anticipated the level of destruction and misery he would bring to people's lives when they voted for him especially the creation of the the final solution.

When Hitler was only starting out many viewed him as an oddball or nutjob so it would be unfair to say that people in the 30s and 40s were anyway more ignorant than they are in the 21st century. But it's scary to see how someone with such evil policies managed to come to power in the 20th century and how that could easily happen again.

So do you think it was a combination of unfortunate circumstances and pure chance that he came to power and that there was no other intent other than his and the Nazis?

jonniebgood1

Professor Xavier wrote: »

It would seem as though it was a combination of unfortunate circumstances and pure chance that Hitler came to power. That's the conclusion I have come to when I examine Hitler's rise to power. I don't think anyone could of anticipated the level of destruction and misery he would bring to people's lives when they voted for him especially the creation of the the final solution.

When Hitler was only starting out many viewed him as an oddball or nutjob so it would be unfair to say that people in the 30s and 40s were anyway more ignorant than they are in the 21st century. But it's scary to see how someone with such evil policies managed to come to power in the 20th century and how that could easily happen again.

So do you think it was a combination of unfortunate circumstances and pure chance that he came to power and that there was no other intent other than his and the Nazis?

Circumstances play a part in all elections. However, Hitlers dislike of the Jewish population was known as it was openly professed. He had also served time in prison. The point being that it was not pure chance that he turned out to be not the great and fullsome leader that may have been required. If we are looking at his rise to power the ease at which the measures he took through the 1930's are possibly more relevent. The gradual ramping up of racism and anti-semitism was largely complied with at this stage when it could be argued that a widespread public opposition to this may have prevented the more extreme actions that followed.

Manach

Prior to WWI, being anti-Semite was almost de-rigeur and very popular in some areas of Central Europe with the Mayor of Vienna embracing the term around 1890s. As well, the defeat of the Central Powers in WWI upended a social hierarchy that had been stable for hundreds of years and the reaction against the Bolshevist revolution and the loss of life that entail would have certain segments of the population fearful. In this milieu, then new and radical ideas that offered a solution to this by blaming the enemy within would have flourished more.
So if any of these props to Hitler's rise was not present, then likely it would not have happened, IMHO.

Professor Xavier

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Circumstances play a part in all elections. However, Hitlers dislike of the Jewish population was known as it was openly professed. He had also served time in prison. The point being that it was not pure chance that he turned out to be not the great and fullsome leader that may have been required. If we are looking at his rise to power the ease at which the measures he took through the 1930's are possibly more relevent. The gradual ramping up of racism and anti-semitism was largely complied with at this stage when it could be argued that a widespread public opposition to this may have prevented the more extreme actions that followed.

So was it Hitler alone who came up with the final solution or did all anti-Semites aspire to kill the Jews? If the latter is the case then it would seem as though all Europeans who held anti-Semitic views are just as culpable as the Nazis for the final solution.

jonniebgood1

Professor Xavier wrote: »

So was it Hitler alone who came up with the final solution or did all anti-Semites aspire to kill the Jews? If the latter is the case then it would seem as though all Europeans who held anti-Semitic views are just as culpable as the Nazis for the final solution.

It is a jump to far to say that 'all europeans' who were anti semitic aspired to kill all Jews. This is most certain.

Also it is clear that the final solution could not have been so far progressed without a far wider support structure willing to partake in this type of action/ procedure.

What is your own view on your own question?

Professor Xavier

It's difficult for me to say but like you said I think the Nazis couldn't of carried out the final solution without the support base they had. There was a case in the Ukraine when the Nazis had taken over a town and the villagers went about systematically killing Jews. And also there were pogroms against Jews prior to World war II in Russia. So I think its convenient for people to blame the Nazis for the final solution when it couldn't of happened without an already underlying culture of hatred towards the Jews. But I think the question remains whether anti-Semites wanted all the Jews dead or perhaps just deported.

marienbad

Professor Xavier wrote: »

It's difficult for me to say but like you said I think the Nazis couldn't of carried out the final solution without the support base they had. There was a case in the Ukraine when the Nazis had taken over a town and the villagers went about systematically killing Jews. And also there were pogroms against Jews prior to World war II in Russia. So I think its convenient for people to blame the Nazis for the final solution when it couldn't of happened without an already underlying culture of hatred towards the Jews. But I think the question remains whether anti-Semites wanted all the Jews dead or perhaps just deported.

There has always been antsemitism in Europe ( and there still is) and there have always been pogroms , it has been going on for two milienia , but we never has a 'Final Solution' until Hitler and the nazis. That was their unique contribution to history.

Snickers Man

It was all Darwin's fault.

There is perhaps an innate flaw in humankind that we like to band together into peer groups and look down on those clearly identifiable as belonging to mutually exclusive groups.

Catholics and Protestants, Greeks and Trojans, English and Scottish, Corkmen and everybody else.

And of course race, one of the most obvious and immediately identifiable of personal traits, has long provided an excuse for dislike, discrimination and strife. Religions helped to enforce such prejudices by sanctifying them with divine approval.

But just as religion was beginning to lose its credibility in the West along came a scientific debate on the origin of our species and its evolution to its current state. Natural selection, survival of the fittest, the power of genetic inheritance: all this was earnestly taken up by scholars and pseudo scholars who dreamed of perfecting the human race through careful husbandry, rigid selection of breeding partners and tight control of reproduction.

Those considered as not being up to scratch genetically were to be isolated and allowed to die out. They were not to be allowed breed and they were certainly not to be allowed taint the gene pool of those considered more worthy.

The uncomfortable truth from today's perspective is that many who bought into these ideas of eugenics and its inherent racism were not baggy pants wearing German goon squads but some of the most enlightened and admired minds of western civilisation. They include George Bernard Shaw, mainstay of the Fabian Society, the intellectual power house of the British Labour Party; John Maynard Keynes, the economist revered for his theories on Government regulation and fine tuning of an otherwise free market economy, and without whose work the modern Welfare State would not have been possible; and Margaret Sanger, feminist icon, the pioneer of women's sexual freedom in the US, ie the champion of contraceptive and abortion rights.


The idea of identifying, protecting and perfecting one's race, on the grounds that it was materially and verifiably superior to others, was common currency in the first half of the 20th century. And the work of Darwin and the evolutionists seemed to give scientific and progressive credibility to such views.

So when Hitler argued that Jews were a racial contaminant to the Aryan nation, much like the horsemeat in a hamburger today, he was pushing an unlocked door with very well oiled hinges.

The Nuremberg Laws, which comprised two pieces of legislation that effectively dehumanised Jewish people, were almost identical in effect to legislation then in place in the majority of US states.

One Nuremberg law, called the Law for the Protection of Blood and Honour, forbade marriage or sexual relations between Jews and Aryans. In the US such state laws were known collectively as Anti Miscegenation Laws and forbade similar activity between whites and other specified races (always blacks, often Native Americans and sometimes "Malayans" or "Hindus")

The majority of US states at the time of WWII had such laws.

The other Nuremberg Law forbade Jewish participation in government and curtailed civil rights. In the US such laws were known as Jim Crow laws.

The horror of the Nazi experiment discredited eugenics and racial segregation to the point where it is unthinkable for many of us today to tolerate such ideas. But in fact the disappearance of such ideas from the West is quite recent. The current president of the US, who is only 51 years old, had he been born in any one of 24 states in the year that he was, would have been the product of an invalid marriage and an illegal act of consummation.

Makes you think.

Peregrinus

Professor Xavier wrote: »

So was it Hitler alone who came up with the final solution or did all anti-Semites aspire to kill the Jews? If the latter is the case then it would seem as though all Europeans who held anti-Semitic views are just as culpable as the Nazis for the final solution.

That was a specifically Nazi thing. And, furthermore, they didn't come up with it until late 1941, so nobody who supported them in elections and referendums in the 20s and 30s would have had any idea that they might do such a thing.

I think everyone who expressed antisemitic ideas (or indeed more broadly fascist ideas) does share in responsiblity for the holocaust, since they helped to create a climate in which such a thing became possible. But I don't see them as having the same degree of responsiblity as the people who actually planned and implemented the holocaust. If, in the 1920s and 1930s, you had suggested to people what was going to happen in the 1940s, they would have flatly disbelieved you.

nuac

Some points

1. WW2 was always likely to start, whether or not Hitler came to power.

E.g neither the Weimar Republic, military nor political, nor German industrials had really accepted defeat.

E.g even before the Treaty of Versailles in 1921 the Germans were actively getting around the disarmenent imposed by the allies. In William Mancester's book on the history of Krupps he details how Krupps pretended to have withdrawn from arms manufacture but did not.

Krupps moved their arms design teams from Essen to Berlin, where they could work with German military on new designs. The Allied inspectors of Krupps were confined to Essen. Krupps obtained control of Bofors in Sweden. They set up various dummy companies in Holland and Denmark. Krupps staff were working under various cover names from Spain to Finland building U-boats etc. They had a venture with the Russians building "tractors" which carried large cannon. They maintained practice firing ranges there

Thru these means by the time Hitler came to power, Krupps were ready to gear up for arms.

2. The NAZIs were only a small party to start with, and regarded by the Ruhr industrialists as a maverick splinter group. As their strength increased they obtained support from business. According to Manchester Krupp up t 1932 was favouring and financing others, including Hugenburg, a political leader who had been once a Krupps director.

Maybe "Heil Hugenburg" did not sound as inspiring as "Heil Hitler"?

In 1932 Goebbels was complaining that the party was running short of money.

In teh 1932 election, the Nazis lost some ground, and the communists gained.

It seems the Communist gains swung Krupp behind the Nazis for the 1933 election. Krupp was one of the last of the Ruhr barons to support Hitler, but his support was decisive. With Krupps finance, and finance from other industrialists encouraged by him the Nazis gained power in the 1933 election. They passed an Act enabling them to ban all the other parties, all the trade unions, and all further elections.

Even in 1933 other politicians such a Von Papen thought that by making Hitler Chancellor that they could influence him. Not so.

3. Racial theories

there were a lot of crackpot racial theories about at the time, and a lot of anti-Jewish prejudice.

With full power, and t he chances of grabbing Jewish property, the Nazis cut loose on the unfortunate Jews with the known results

If Hitler had just left the General staff fight the war without interfering with them, he might have won. He could have obtained support from some of the countries invaded in East Europe, but instead persecuted them

4. Schickelgruber?

The above was said to be the Hitlers' original family name.

Would "Heil Schickelgruber" have worked as well?

Snickers Man

nuac wrote: »

Some points

1. WW2 was always likely to start, whether or not Hitler came to power.

E.g neither the Weimar Republic, military nor political, nor German industrials had really accepted defeat.

It's true that few Germans ever accepted the Eastern boundaries imposed on them by Versailles. The transfer of large parts of Prussia to Poland to create the Danzig corridor was particularly galling to them.

Not even Gustav Stresseman, Chancellor and Foreign Minister in the 1920s who won the Nobel Peace Prize for patching things up with France, which included relinquishing the German claim on Alsace Lorraine, ever accepted Germany's eastern boundaries. That question was likely to flare up again.

nuac wrote: »

4. Schickelgruber?

The above was said to be the Hitlers' original family name.

Would "Heil Schickelgruber" have worked as well?

That was indeed Hitler's father's name at birth. The British knew this and did try to gain maximum ridicule from the fact at the time but it doesn't seem to have caught on. Bit like the Americans renaming Sauerkraut "Liberty Cabbage" in the First World War and French Fries (ie chips) "Freedom Fries" in the Gulf War.