h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hah! Now there's a

The Nazis succeeded by bringing other organisations under their umbrella. Thus they - and they're ideas - became the mainstream. Which is what I've been talking about on another thread about the creeping tolerance of the previously intolerable.

>The Nazis succeeded by bringing other organisations under their umbrella. Thus they - and they're ideas - became the mainstream. Which is what I've been talking about on another thread about the creeping tolerance of the previously intolerable.

I think that's debatable. For starters, Nazism was less widely-tolerated and widely-popular in Germany between 1933 and 1945 than is often assumed. As soon as Hitler was being pushed-back in the Spring of '45 Germans became a lot more vocal in their opposition to his government than they had been and there was considerable internal opposition (the White Rose Movement for example).

Secondly, as I argued earlier, I think Hitler's main priorities were gaining control of the state and being provided with the military power that he needed to (as he saw it) right the wrongs of the previous war, conquer the Slav lands to the east for German colonisation and destroy the Communist heartland of the USSR. Other than that, unlike Stalin, he doesn't seem to have been that concerned about who he made deals with. The Nazis wooed the German proletariat (especially early on) the middle-class and the powerful industrialists and landowners but they also wooed religious (ie Christian) Germans and even (for a period) monarchists. To some extent, Nazism became the mainstream by co-opting it in a way, for example, the Stalinists never did.

Since I appear to have superficially echoed you I'd better re-state what I mean: the establishment elements the nazis co-opted (or brought under their umbrella as you put it) started to turn against them once the wheels started to fall off Hitler's juggernaut which suggests that they were only tolerating Nazism as long as they thought it was working in their interests. It's notable that some of the first to turn against Hitler were high-ranking German officers, often aristocratic and very much "old establishment", who had only supported him when it looked like he would achieve their dream of negating Germany's humiliation in the 1914-18 war.

Oh, there was indeed opposition. JEllen and I have had a White Rose Guide Entry in preparation for...too long A12961055. And also mine on Georg Elser A3054359 and Youth Resistance Movements A3059255.

(What I'd really like to write is something about the Red Orchestra spy/sabotage networks)


But once more...it's far more complex than even that. For example, when Sophie Scholl was arrested, her Gestapo interrogators genuinely couldn't understand why a nice girl from a good home would want to be involved in all that unpatriotic stuff.

cf the Mitchell and Webb sketch: 'Are we the baddies?'

Zagreb, I was being flippant.

My comment about Nazi nationalisation of out-groups as slave labour comes from a line of rationalisation it amuses me to project onto the Tea Party movement make the equation "Obama = Communist = Hitler" work.

I could have made similar points to you, but that would have verged on plagiarism since I picked much of them up from you in previous debates on fascism vs Nazism here.

At the risk of going off-topic, Zagrebo, I was wondering what you meant by:

"Other than that, unlike Stalin, he doesn't seem to have been that concerned about who he made deals with."

Wasn't one of Stalin's characteristics that he did what he thought would secure the result he wanted, rather than being rigidly consistent ideologically? The Non-Aggression Pact with Germany, for example?

Arguably there was no ideological inconsistency. A good deal of Stalinist ideology was 'Whatever Stalin thinks today.'

Ed, Zagrebo - finging this discussion very interesting - but why do I get the feeling you two are both on favourite themes?

I guess we are...I've written Guide Entries on the topic, after all.

""Other than that, unlike Stalin, he doesn't seem to have been that concerned about who he made deals with."

Wasn't one of Stalin's characteristics that he did what he thought would secure the result he wanted, rather than being rigidly consistent ideologically? The Non-Aggression Pact with Germany, for example?"

I meant more within Germany itself. Stalin was a completely uncompromising Marxist-Leninist as regards what happened within the USSR. He wasn't like, as an obvious examples, modern-day Communists like the rulers of China or Vietnam who allow considerable private enterprise and attempt to wind it into their officially Marxist ideology.

As for the Non-Aggression Pact, I'm in two minds as to whether Stalin was being a hypocrite when he allowed it. On one hand, he was entering a formal pact with his previously-stated sworn enemy in order to carve-up Poland between them. On the other, I doubt he thought it was seriously something that would last (as did Hitler) and he made incursions into Finland around the same time in order to secure strategic land for the expected Nazi invasion.

Hmmm. I'm not sure about that. Stalin jettisoned a fair bit of the standard articles of faith because they seemed to make sense to what he wanted to achieve - consolidating power in the Soviet Union itself, rather than revolution globally springs to mind. Although the market reforms within socialist states aren't something modern to Vietnam or China - that's a large part of what the New Economic Policy was in Russia in the 1920s.

I don't think Stalin believed it the Pact would last - like most observers at the time I'm sure he believed it was coming sooner or later. I think it was simply that at that point, the USSR wasn't prepared for it, and he knew that.

And as for whether Hitler believed the pact would be a lasting thing - I don't think that's true at all. He had his eyes set on the east territorially, he saw them as a fundamental enemy ideologically, and he also took the decision to invade - so I don't think he thought of it as a permanent state of affairs.

Fascinating discussion: so often, conversations about this kind of subject descend quickly into hyperbole.
Just one point: I was taught in GCSE History that there was an increasingly fervent debate in the early National Socialist Party between the left-wing and right-wing factions, the culmination of which was the Night of the Long Knives which targeted especially socialists and homosexuals, as well as a selection of other 'troublemakers'.