oh fritzsche

Peter Fritzsche, in the chapter entitled “January 1933” from his Germans into Nazis, makes a few quick arguments that I believe are dubious at best. One of his arguments is that the best place to look at to explain Hitler’s rise to power is Hindenburg’s 1925 election victory. Fritzsche claims that both Hitler and Hindenburg are alike because they are able to motivate the masses, blah blah blah, same thing over and over again. But in looking for ways to make his whole “mobilization of the masses” argument look more solid (and I do think it does look solid already) he tries to stretch it to a link between Hitler and Hindenburg. Firstly, although Hindenburg’s 1925 victory might have roused popular support, a few years later in the 1932 presidential election he is forced to go to a run off because he failed to get a clear majority of the people. Moreover, Hindenburg was only able to initially gain the people’s support in 1925 because he was the only logical and most stable choice. He did not inspire, like Hitler, the people to support him because of his answers or potential solutions. In fact, he didn’t inspire the people at all, believing instead that he should not have to rally for people’s support or even try to win their favor. Sure, there were “grassroots” movements in favor of Hindenburg as Fritzsche claims, but they were grassroots movements not started by Hindenburg himself, but grassroots political movements in general that happened to join his bandwagon. If those grassroots movements had voted for another leader in 1925 I suppose Fritzsche would claim that that new leader is the best place to look at to explain Hitler’s rise, in essence making his argument ridiculous - because people, forming a majority (get out of town Fritzsche, no way! Not a majority!), voted means that people might also vote later for a guy named Hitler. Wow. That is a good argument. Bottom line, Hindenburg was just the best option at the time – nothing like the political force that was Hitler who arose from nothing with a new untested political party to assume control of the people. The other argument that Fritzcshe makes (just so he can make his Hindenburg argument seem more accurate and cutting edge and shiny and new) is that the economic conditions did not predispose Hitler’s assumption of power. Well of course it did not equal Hitler’s rise to power, but the Nazi party was the party who took advantage of the economic situation the best, and had the most inspiring message for recovering from the economic depression. So, in that sense, the economy is important in explaining the rise of the party – would the whole country even look for leadership from an untested and radical party if things were running smoothly? No way. Get out of town Fritzsche. On a more serious note, I believe Fritzsche is being controlled by his thesis. He formed his thesis (mass mobilization = Nazis) before doing the research, or was so excited about his thesis that he tries to force his thesis into every situation – which does not work.

ramblings

Although Fritzsche repeats his main thesis of political mobilization ad nauseam, I was most interested in a point he seemed to make in passing that nevertheless does much explain the progression he seeks to delineate – Germans into Nazis. With the increasing amounts of political participation by the German citizens, another trend emerges simultaneously – the squaring off of “working-class socialists and bourgeois nationalists […] into mutually opposed and increasingly radical camps” – that Fritzsche only briefly touches on. But this point seems extremely important. The political mobilization of the masses would amount to little and would have little historical significance if their new participation was not increasingly extremist and divided. Through all the examples of political participation that Fritzsche gives, it is clear that all participation happened on one extreme side or another. Within these extremes themselves there was obviously much disagreement, but regardless the line had been drawn – nationalists versus socialists. Increasingly the German population seemed to abandon any attempts to stay inbetween these two sides, the middle ground. This large-scale abandonment of the middle ground leads inevitably to the radicalization of each extreme. Now, with two such extremes pitted against each other, when, in the course of events, one of the two groups takes over that group will have taken control without having to compromise any of their positions – literally prying control from the opposing side by sheer political mobilization. Thus the radical agenda they had fostered in order to separate and differentiate themselves from their opponents becomes the dangerous and radical agenda of the state. If, however, one of the two extreme sides fails to take control then the inevitable result will be the flourishing of a new group who arises by pandering to specific radical desires of both sides. Either way, the state becomes controlled by radical thought.

city vice versus rural vice

In German history the city carries the reputation as the vice-creating, underworld-protecting institution that inevitably destroys the historic virtue of the German villages and rural population. The existence of widespread prostitution in during the urbanization in Germany is often pointed to as proof enough of the city’s detrimental effect on the German population. The city, however, in my opinion, does not initiate these vices – they are instead merely an exaggeration from the vices already found in the villages. That the city somehow, once a large numbers of people gather together, creates vices ignores the possibility that these so called vices existed previously but lacked a medium through which to be expressed. The city is that medium, that weaving, nook-and-crannied structure that serves to exaggerate vices that its citizens possessed earlier. Prostitution, an exaggerated form of carnal vice, finds its origins in the oh-so-cleanly villagers. Some of the practices that villagers undertook in the rural areas also reflect a certain carnality that flies in the face of supposed religious doctrine. The practice of letting a couple live together indefinitely until the woman’s father can pay a dowry is one such practice that, after again putting a price on a woman’s body, deliberately abandoning supposedly held virtues. That the villagers themselves could account for the actions of the couple and make sure the marriage came to fruition is undeniable, but with the acceptance of a practice like this in the countryside, when moved into the city the accountability is lost and the “vice” can be exposed, increased, exaggerated. It is not, therefore, the city that creates these vices but rather commonly held practices that let’s these so-called vices sneak into the cities and multiply just as the population itself does.