‘Hitler was a lazy criminal who slept in until noon’: why most of what we think we know about the rise of the Nazis is wrong • Philipp Ruch argues that viewing the ascent of Hitler’s NSDAP through the prism of the Third Reich has distorted our understanding of fascism’s electoral breakthrough
Frank_Melena | 20 days ago
The NSDAP arose in a time where Germans had grown up under a literal monarch, in a society that believed aggressive nationalism was good, backed up by science, and achieved tangible and rapid results on the map, and who followed it up by sending the entirety of their youth to be traumatized for years on end in a war beyond our understanding.
Furthermore, not only was liberalism not their received narrative at birth, it was seen to have evidentially failed with the massive inequality rampant through the early 1900s and climaxing with the Depression, and all the new ideas for society coalesced along lines of collectivism, either economic or ethnic. To anyone who rejected the anti-traditionalism and expropriation of Communism, Fascism was the mass politic of choice.
The past is a foreign country, 1920s Germany particularly so, and the lessons we take from it are only those of human psychology we can apply generally through history.
ghu79421 | 20 days ago
The vast majority of voters thought that the Depression meant liberalism had completely failed (conservative and center-right parties more or less support a form of liberalism that's more tolerant of tradition). Hindenburg was a monarchist.
Even when Germany was a liberal democracy, academia and the legal profession including judges was overwhelmingly conservative nationalists, not liberals or democratic socialists.
Germany was already pretty much not a democracy in January 1933. In July 1932, Papen used a decree to depose the Social Democratic government of Prussia and give himself direct control over the Prussian police force. Papen openly promoted proposals to essentially turn Germany into a conservative dictatorship.
In October 1932, the Constitutional Court ruled that the deposition of the government of Prussia was illegal but allowed Papen to retain control. The Nazis won the most votes in the November 1932 elections but did lost seats with only 33% of the vote. The Nazis never won more than 40% of the vote (40% is seen as "winning" in a parliamentary system because you can probably easily make some deal with 10% of the parliament to give you over 50%).
Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor based on a backroom deal with other conservative elites. Conservatives thought they could control the Nazis and that the alternative to working with the Nazis was a military dictatorship that completely bypassed popular political parties. They thought working with the Nazis would create a stronger illusion of popular support for the government.
Cute-Boobie777 | 20 days ago
Makes is so utterly embarrassing to see americans falling for siniliar fascistic thinking without ANYYHING like a comparable context. I suppose social media algos actively convincing people of insane things may qualify, though now that I think about it...
prazosins | 20 days ago
This article is great. I’m currently reading Goebbel’s Diaries, and it’s an original copy. Not only does it shed light on some of the content of this article, it also contains something special. On the very first page, a glowing review from Nazi collaborator Allen Dulles! He calls Goebbels brilliant, which ironically confirms how influential American politicians have been in this regard. Insidious propaganda has fooled many millions for generations into believing that we were sooo close to living in a totally Nazi world. In reality, these motherfuckers just were as incompetent and inept as their ideological descendants are today.
weeBaaDoo | 20 days ago
It seemed like a lot of Americans and European leaders at the time very much liked the idea of a strong leader in Europe. There was a lot af admiration in many countries towards Germany and the strong mand in charge at the time.
specialpatrol | 21 days ago
Dark af; the reason they were so popular was because they advocated violence.
LoneRonin | 20 days ago
Pre-WWII Germany/countries that would become Germany was a very militaristic society, statesmen like Frederick the Great didn't just come out of thin air, hence the whole 'army with a state' cliche. The British Empire hired Hessians to help them in multiple wars, including the American Revolution.
This also created a large German diaspora as many left the country to keep their men from being conscripted.
ayoungmanfromtheuk | 20 days ago
They liked to do wars eh?
Aluxanatomy | 20 days ago
When the Allied powers crafted the new German state in the wake of WWII, they specifically broke Prussia into multiple German states in the Federation to dilute its culture.
Specialist_Owl3045 | 20 days ago
It's not that different to now.
Rile people up into a lather via social or traditional media, have a politician point at a scapegoat to distract from the excesses of the moneyed classes, advocate and enact violence.
Classic-Obligation35 | 20 days ago
People forget that violence can take other forms besides the physical.
Shaming and silencing people is also violence.
WorkerWeird9116 | 20 days ago
no, they're bad things, but violence is physical by definition, otherwise anything can be defined as violent, and shaming people is often a good thing, and you would probably agree that certain hate groups should be silenced
TheBlindWatchmaker | 20 days ago
No it isn't
jamisonian123 | 21 days ago
I don’t think he slept all that much as a pure amphetamine addict
OVazisten | 20 days ago
We tend to not see a motive here: they were the fresh faces. Like AfD, they could gather credibility simply by saying that everything is bad, but all these other guys did it, we are the ones who were not part of ruining the country.
crippling_altacct | 20 days ago
The Nazis in general were incredibly incompetent. Most of Hitler's inner circle was just other guys who failed catastrophically in their personal/professional ambitions. They were a bunch of loser creeps. History doesn't repeat but it does rhyme.
Artistic_Influence40 | 20 days ago
Also massive drug addicts. Generally speaking competence and a meth addiction do not go hand in hand.
rmvandink | 20 days ago
So many people just repeat the incorrect “he was elected by a democratic majority” line. Like how Il Duce supposedly made the trains run on time.
prazosins | 20 days ago
Not only this, but the troops. There’s a documentary on Tubi called The Third Reich In Color. At the beginning, you see the triumphant march in 1933. Look at the men marching. They’re just regular assholes! They look like they work at a call center, or a Wendy’s.
trash-juice | 20 days ago
He was an inept stooge, as an artist - couldn’t even get three point perspective right or any perspective for that matter … cause fascism. They teach three pt perspective in HS, I remember the unit. He sunk into criminality cause he was such a loser in most things
God_Bless_A_Merkin | 20 days ago
*sank
detteros | 20 days ago
Maybe sleeping is good, I don't know.
crimson_ghost77 | 20 days ago
Did I miss something or did the article not mention the name of the book? I am having difficulty focus, so I read article three times. I think. 🤔
[OP] Naurgul | 20 days ago
It's mentioned at the end
> Philipp Ruch’s Der Rückfall (The Relapse) is published by Penguin
crimson_ghost77 | 19 days ago
Thank you. No more reading at bed. I went back and looked, and it was right there, staring me in the face. 🤦♂️
whatidoidobc | 20 days ago
When I learned about the I competence of the Nazis, I was incredibly disturbed.
Why on earth were so many people intent on repeating lie after lie about who the Nazis were, in ways that would make uneducated people respect them? The answer is dark.
phenomenomnom | 20 days ago
And what is that dark answer?
tequilablackout | 20 days ago
We are vain, and enjoy the idea that we were incredibly competent in being able to dispatch the power of the Reich, yet we do not enjoy that the structures of our society and the excesses of the moneyed elite ignore or encourage all of the social symptoms that fester and develop into fascism. We don't like to talk about how we definitely made them, and continue to manufacture new "terrorists," inevitably leading to a social reaction toward collectivism along different lines.
Psittacula2 | 19 days ago
Too many responses here are mixing their subjective feelings and vexation with factual neutral reports of the evidence itself.
It cheapens the output -
* Where were the Nazis successful and why?
* Where equally did they fail and why?
Specifically,
* What were some of the main leaders and characters balances of competencies and incompetencies?
Again probing the correct balance of questions without personal bias:
* Were successes accurate calculation and planning or a mixture of accident, circumstances or sheer numbers ie some successes amidst many failures?
The comments here paint silly caricatures of what is a complex larger outcome, a kind of “social virtue signalling of giving it to the evil ones” increases the noise around the subject not lessens it.
My understanding of Fascism in Nazi Germany is that many times it could have failed to come to power. What clinched it or was a tipping point was the much larger fear of Communism approaching from Russia.
That culmination of larger forces frames the Nazis own efforts to come to power imho with a lot more explanation power ultimately than their own methods or successes.