I found it interesting that the Nazi’s were able to gain strength when the economy was weak from hyperinflation however, after the economy stabilized Nazi (around 1923) membership and successes were decreased. The attempts and failures to stabilize the Germany, and more specifically the world after WWI are important in understanding the rise of the Nazi party later in history. By 1929 the Nazi party had regained strength and membership. However, the party was completely different than it had been and that’s what is so interesting to me. The Nazi party was so rigid in its beliefs of anti-semitism but they changed their organization and composition in order to gain membership and appease what people wanted. I find it intriguing that political parties change their presentations in order target different people. What is also so amazing to me is that the Nazi’s made promises and followed through with them which, is different then our political system today. Parties that pander to individual desires in our Democratic government never follow through. So although the Nazi party was based purely on racial discrimination sometimes I wonder if the parties in our society could learn from the Nazi’s in their technique to follow through after gaining their memberships.
Whatever one can say about Hitler’s personal motives for unifying his party – by now it’s pretty hard to dispute that they came out of anything other than his ego and hunger for power – it is still remarkable the extent to which he really rallied all the different local leaders behind him and achieved a sort of homogeneity that our own government would be pretty jealous of. I was especially impressed with the scheming he undertook to cut Ludendorff out of the picture, convincing him to stand as the candidate for the National Socialists in the elections following the death of Ebert. A move like that, which basically ruined Ludendorff, took an amazing amount of foresight and confidence to be able to predict what would come out of it, even with his political cronies telling him that such a move was dangerous.
ReplyDeleteA very intriguing aspect to consider Jaimie. And I think Mason brings up an excellent point about the Ludendorff campaign and the fact that the result caused a crippling loss of faith in him from local volkisch leaders who could then be easily convinced to support Hitler so that the movement would not fall apart. Kershaw still points out that the party did remain vulnerable to breaking apart, yet Hitler definitely seemed to know how to play his cards right and keep the party alive.
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that party membership thrived in the economic downturn, as Jaimie pointed out, is an indication of the people's need for the kind of radical follow-through that the Nazi party professed. Professor Ertman brought up that a good percentage of those who eventually signed on for the Nazi movement did not hold with it's rabid anti-semite ideologies but rather sought the opportunity to see some significant change in their government. Kershaw discusses the distress and misery Brunning's government caused and the backlash and increasing loss of faith in the possibility of a "recovery democracy" (Kershaw 356). Then Hitler becomes a leader of the National Opposition, reminding the people that he, and the Nazi party, are aggressively against the present situation and thus he is able to gain support from all forms of societal groupings: from big business to the unemployed. Pandering, promising, and then providing could have been the three P's of the Nazi Party that was undeniably effective in bolstering their support.
So in terms of a 'how-to' on gaining public popularity in dire times, the Nazis/Hitler wrote a pretty good manual. As Jaimie mentioned it's a rare case that politicians are able to follow through on what they promised and that is certainly something that ought to be more of a crucial factor in democratic governments these days. But of course, the problem we'll never be able to overlook regarding the Nazi party, are aspects of the party platform, namely the SA and racism and bigotry, that one would hope could never possibly gain footing in our politics today, no matter what the rest of the appeal of that party might be.
Cat Crowley