Hitler's political beliefs
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Historians and biographers note some difficulty in attributing the political beliefs of Adolf Hitler. His writings and methods were often adapted to need and circumstance although anti-Semitism, anti-communism, anti-parliamentarianism, German expansionism, belief in the superiority of an "Aryan race" and an extreme form of German nationalism were steady themes. Hitler personally claimed he was fighting against Jewish Marxism.
His views were more or less formed during three periods:
- His poverty stricken years as a young adult in Vienna and Munich prior to World War I during which he read many political pamphlets and anti-semitic tabloids.
- The closing months of World War I when Germany lost the war and Hitler is said to have developed his extreme nationalism and a desire to "save" Germany from both external enemies and internal ones who in his view betrayed it.
- The 1920s, during which his early political career began and he wrote Mein Kampf.
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[edit] V-Mann for the army
After the war, Hitler stayed in the army, which was mainly engaged in suppressing socialist uprisings across Germany including in Munich, where Hitler returned in 1919. He took part in "national thinking" courses organized by the Education and Propaganda Department (Dept Ib/P) of the Bavarian Reichswehr Group, Headquarters 4 under Captain Mayr, which helped popularize the notion that there was a scapegoat responsible for the outbreak of war and Germany's defeat. Suspicion of those with mixed loyalties was a fixture in German culture and due to their influence in financial matters and anti-semitism, Jewish people were the obvious choice for a scapegoat. International Jewry was described as a scourge composed of communists and other politicians across the party spectrum.
This was essential to Hitler's political career and it seems that he genuinely believed in Jewish responsibility, becoming an efficient voice for the propaganda conceived by Mayr and his superiors. In July 1919 Hitler was appointed a V-Mann of an "Enlightenment Commando" for the purpose of influencing other soldiers with these ideas. [1]
[edit] German Workers Party
- Main article: Adolf Hitler's inspection of the German Workers' Party
He was assigned to infiltrate the small, nationalist German Workers' Party (DAP). He soon held sway over its affairs and joined as member number 555 (numbering began at 500 to make the party seem larger) in September 1919. He was supported by Dietrich Eckart, an anti-Semite and key early member.
That same month Hitler wrote what is often deemed his first anti-Semitic text, requested by Mayr for one Adolf Gemlich, who participated in the same "educational courses" Hitler had taken part in. In this report Hitler argued for a "rational anti-Semitism" which would not resort to pogroms, but instead "legally fight and remove the privileges enjoyed by the Jews as opposed to other foreigners living among us. Its final goal, however, must be the irrevocable removal of the Jews themselves." [2]
Most people at the time understood this as a call for forced expulsion. Europe has a long history of expelling Jews and the auto-da-fe, along with a history of genocides of various ethnic groups, including Jews.
Hitler was discharged from the army in 1920 and with its continued support took full part in the DAP's activities. He soon became its leader and changed the name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - NSDAP), usually known as the Nazi party from National Sozialistische (in contrast to Sozi, a term used for the Social Democrats). Under his influence they adopted a modified swastika (a well-known good luck charm which had previously been used in Germany as a mark of volkishness and "Aryanism") along with the Roman salute used by Italian fascists.
At this time the Nazi party was one of many small extremist groups in Munich, but Hitler soon discovered he had two remarkable talents, one for public oratory and another for inspiring personal loyalty. His street-corner oratory, attacking Jews, socialists and liberals, capitalists and Communists, began attracting adherents.
Early followers included
- Rudolf Hess,
- Hermann Göring,
- Ernst Röhm, head of the Nazis' paramilitary organization, the SA
- wartime Field-Marshall Erich Ludendorff
[edit] The Beer Hall Putsch
Hitler decided to use Ludendorff as a front to seize power in Munich (the capital of Bavaria), in an attempt later known as the Beer Hall Putsch of November 8, 1923. Nazis marched from a beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry, intending to overthrow Bavaria's government and march on Berlin. The army quickly dispersed them and Hitler initially contemplated suicide. He was soon arrested. Fearing "left-wing" members of the Nazi party might try to seize leadership from him during his incarceration, Hitler quickly appointed Alfred Rosenberg temporary leader.
[edit] Mein Kampf
(English translation: My Struggle, My Battle or My Fight) Hitler was tried for the German equivalent of high treason and used his trial as an opportunity to spread his message throughout Germany. In April 1924 he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in Landsberg Prison where he received preferential treatment from sympthetic guards and received substantial quantities of fan mail including funds and other assistance. During 1923 and 1924 at Landsberg he dictated a book called Mein Kampf (My Struggle) to his faithful deputy Rudolf Hess.
In Mein Kampf Hitler speaks at length about his youth, early days in the Nazi Party, future plans for Germany and general ideas on politics and race. The original title Hitler chose was Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice. His nationalist publisher knew better and shortened this to Mein Kampf.
Hitler wrote of his hatred towards what he believed were the world's twin evils: communism and Judaism. He said his aim was to eradicate both from the face of the earth.
He also wrote that Germany needed to obtain new soil, called lebensraum, which would properly nurture the "historic destiny" of the German people. This was envisioned to encompass vast regions of eastern Europe. Hitler also presented himself as the Übermensch (Overman or Superman) earlier referred to by Friedrich Nietzsche.
[edit] Distrust of democracy
Hitler blamed Germany's parliamentary government for many of the nation's ills and wrote that he would destroy that form of government. Many historians have asserted that Hitler's essential character can be discovered in Mein Kampf. In it, he categorized human beings by their physical attributes, claiming German or Nordic "Aryans" were at the top of the hierarchy while assigning the bottom orders to Jews and Roma (Gypsies). Hitler also claimed that dominated peoples benefit by learning from superior Aryans, and said the Jews were conspiring to keep this "master race" from rightfully ruling the world by diluting its racial and cultural purity, and exhorting Aryans to believe in equality rather than superiority and inferiority. He described a struggle for world domination, an ongoing racial, cultural, and political battle between Aryans and Jews. This perspective was already widely accepted by the German population, and Hitler exploited a long tradition of anti-semitism.
Considered relatively harmless, Hitler was given an early amnesty from prison and released in December 1924. Hitler began a long effort to rebuild the Nazi party. Meanwhile, as Röhm's Sturmabteilung ("Stormtroopers" or SA) gradually became a separate base of power within the party, Hitler established a personal bodyguard, the Schutzstaffel ("Protection Unit" or SS). This elite, black-uniformed corps was commanded by Heinrich Himmler, who became the principal administrator of his plans with respect to the "Jewish Question" during World War II.
[edit] Laying blame on the November Criminals
A key element of Hitler's popular appeal was his charismatic ability to convey wounded national pride caused by the Treaty of Versailles, imposed on a defeated German Empire by the Allies. The German Empire had lost territory to France, Poland, Belgium and Denmark along with admitting sole responsibility for the war, giving up her colonies and her Navy and paying a staggering reparations bill. Since most Germans did not believe that the German Empire had started the war (and did not clearly understand until later they had been defeated) they bitterly resented the terms. The party's early attempts to garner votes by blaming these humiliations unilaterally on "international Jewry" were not successful with the electorate, but the party's propaganda wing learned quickly and began a more subtle propaganda combining anti-semitism with a spirited attack on the failures of the "Weimar system" and the parties supporting it, calling them the November Criminals.
See also Nazi Party, anti-semitism.
[edit] References
- Hitler, Adolf, Mein Kampf (first published in German in 1925)
[edit] Bibliography
- Haffner, Sebastian, The Meaning of Hitler (first published in German in 1978)
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