Hitler and the German People - 3rd Critique

Hitler and the Germans

In the article “Hitler and the Germans,” Ian Kershaw describes seven key contributors to the almost mythological popularity of Adolf Hitler during the rise of Nazi power in Germany. The construction of this “Fuhrer cult around Hitler” is Kershaw’s main theme (p. 43). Kershaw points out how the Nazis used Hitler to consolidate their own power in Germany and how eventually, Hitler “came to believe in his own myth,” which later came to impair his judgment (Kershaw, p. 55). Kershaw suggests that it was Hitler being used by the Nazi party, rather than the more commonly held belief that Hitler used the Nazis to elevate himself to the position of Fuhrer. I had never considered this possibility and found Kershaw’s argument intriguing. I could even detect a hint of sympathy for Hitler in Kershaw’s tone, which is unusual.

Kershaw points out that even with Hitler’s public speaking expertise, his “mediocre,” sometimes “bizarre” and “wholly unpleasant” personality seems unable to account for his “extraordinary impact” (Kershaw, p. 41). Kershaw shows how the Nazi Party turned Hitler into “the Symbol of the Nation” by capitalizing on a few basic facts (eg. he was a solider; he was a common man, etc.) and spinning them into fantastic proportions (p. 46). There is no doubt that propaganda played a key role and Kershaw acknowledges that “Nazi propaganda … enjoyed a virtual monopoly within Germany” (p. 46). Goebbels was responsible for Nazi propaganda, and he claimed “in 1941 that the creation of the Hitler myth was his greatest propaganda achievement” (p. 47). Still, propaganda can only do so much.
For readers already familiar with German history, Kershaw does a decent job of detailing the various factors that bolstered the popularity of Hitler, which simultaneously benefited the Nazi agenda. However, without prior knowledge of the historical background, I’m not sure I would have fully appreciated Kershaw’s view. For example, Kershaw refers to the “Weimar political system and leadership [being] utterly bankrupt,” (p. 45) and to the “extreme fragmentation of Weimar politics” and the “total failure of Weimar democracy” (p. 42), as well as the significance of the “Nazi party’s breakthrough in the 1930 election” (p. 43). However, my prior knowledge of how Germany’s multiple political parties made the Weimar government incapable of making decisions may have helped me recognize the importance of that background information more than Kershaw’s passing comments. To be fair, such in depth detail was probably beyond the scope of this article’s purpose.
In addition, we learned in Lecture 9 of our Class Notes and our other readings this semester that political “disorder” would have been very unsettling to the “orderly” German people (Hoerle). When the Nazis became the largest political party in the Reichstag (Parliament), it seemed like “order had been restored” (Kershaw, p. 46). This accomplishment, coupled with the economic strides being made, would have lent credibility to Hitler’s “Superman” image beyond mere propaganda (Kershaw, p. 41). The Nazis surrounded Hitler with “toadies, flatterers and sycophants,” which “bolstered [his] increasing detachment from reality” (Kershaw, p. 54). Even though a few groups never did support Hitler, it took military defeats, particularly in Stalingrad, to finally turn “the tide of Hitler’s popularity,” and with its decline, the Nazi party also lost its power (Kershaw, p. 53). The two were unalterably linked.

I might have missed something, but I enjoyed this article more than the others we critiqued this semester. It was well-organized and provided a unique perspective (at least one I was unfamiliar with). I found Kershaw’s article very interesting and insightful, and I think it makes a significant contribution to our historical understanding of Hitler and the Third Reich.

Kershaw, Ian. “Hitler and the Germans.” In Richard Bessel, ed.
Life in the Third Reich. Oxford University Press. pp. 41-55.

Hoerle, Dr. W.S. “Guilt and Conformity: The Value Biases of the Stettin Gestapo, 1934-43”
University of Massachusetts Lowell, 43.373 Nazi Germany - Sec 031 SU12R

Embedding in our Webpage

This is our final week.
We learned how to embed games, google maps, news,  and Zoho documents into the web page we started at the beginning of this class.
It really has been an interesting experience.


I also looked through other people's web pages and left feedback for them.  There are several people in this class that are much more experienced than I am.  I had a hard time thinking of an interactive web page, but I thought the idea of an education tool, especially for kids with learning disabilities would be very helpful.  My nephew has a learning disability and likes working on the computer a lot better than trying to do work sheets or read from a book.  The interactive games the school uses are ok, but I think they could probably be more creative.  

I've been reading about kids with autism using computers to communicate with the outside world.  I think that would be a very good application.  Some kids that are autistic cannot speak, so being able to use a touch screen or something that is less difficult than a keyboard, would be very helpful for them.  

Hitler's Legacy

This week we were asked if it was fair to remember Hitler only as a monster, when he did so much good for the recovery of Germany after World War I.  


It is totally "appropriate" to remember, and never ever forget the horrific murders Hitler and the Nazis committed. It's a kind of twisted irony that whatever "good" Hitler accomplished for Germany, actually helped him achieve the power he needed to carry out his diabolical plans. Perhaps, as we learned before, his original plan was to just deport all the Jews, but when that didn't work out, Hitler and the Nazis devised the "final solution" and herded helpless people into gas chambers.

From our readings about Hitler's early life in Austria, we know he was exposed to a culture of anti-Semitism and the hatred he absorbed became part of his driving ambition. Sure, Hitler deeply resented the Jews and saw them as very real enemies of Germany and as a threat to their way of life. But that can't possibly justify the cruel torture of children and women. There was great care to keep it as secret as possible, but the executioners and the soldiers involved did know what was going on. When reading about the "inefficiency" of the gas vans, we read that: "Endless screaming and pleading made for a terrible, terrible scene that even willful executioners found difficult to bear" (Hoerle, Lec. 12). But instead of stopping the horrific slaughter, they found a more efficient way to kill Jews more quickly and with less fuss! Cold.

Hitler's true legacy could never be any of the improvements to Germany he made during the Third Reich. His real legacy was that the descendants and relatives of German speaking people would have to live with "guilt by association" for generations.
That is, for those who lived. Millions of peaceful ethnic Germans living outside of Germany were also murdered during a backlash of hostilities toward them after the war, but nobody cares. That's the unfortunate legacy Hitler left for German descendants to deal with ... and to live down.

jQuery

This week we learned about another JavaScript tool called jQuery that was started by John Resig. It's supposed to be a simple way to create interesting websites. We watched a video with instructions and then had to build some of the interactive features into our web page.

I looked at what other people had been doing and tried to get some ideas for a desktop application that could be a good candidate for a website application.   I also left feedback for them on the Discussions Forum. 

When looking at the Demos for jQuery, I did think that the "Dragable" and "Sortable" features would be helpful at work. If we could drag the information from Project Management and see it next to the Shipping and Receiving information, it would be much easier to see what shipments were expected, and which ones were a priority to get out.  Our biggest problem seems to be communication and coordinating between the departments.  The "Dropable" feature would also be really helpful for printing labels, which require certain information be there due to government regulations. The software we have now to do these things is not as efficient.  This would be more of an intranet function.
 
I think doing something web based might be helpful for our clients and customers, to see when there items have been received, or shipped. Something similar to what UPS uses, like a tracking feature for keeping track of shipments.  

Hitler expands Germany while the allies watch

Why didn't the allies stop Hitler when he violated the terms & conditions of the Treaty of Versailles?  Why did they let Germany annex Austria and key parts of Czechoslovakia?

France didn't mind being a bully, and taking over Germany's industrial sector (the Ruhr), by using the treaty of Versailles to justify strangling the German economy. "The Ruhr was the industrial heart of Germany; To cut off these resources from the rest of Germany, as the French proceeded to do, was to bring the economic ife of the whole country to a standstill" (Remak 90). As long as the Germans were willing to submit to the harsh conditions of the treaty, the French were going to take full advantage of it. But when push came to shove, and Hitler stood up to France and her allies at The Disarmament Treaty in 1933, they backed down. France proved they didn't have the stomach to enforce the terms of the treaty. "In March 1935, Hitler declared that Germany was no longer bound by the Versailles strictures regarding its military ...but none of the signatories—first and foremost France—did anything" (Hoerle, Lec. 10).

On top of that, in "the following month Britain went on to negotiate an agreement that would allow Germany to build a navy up to 35% of the size of the British navy" (Hoerle, Lec. 10). France saw as a traitorous move but they were unwilling to take on Germany themselves. It was clear from these reactions that the countries involved in the Treaty did not see Germany's re-armament as a real threat (at that point in time) and they were unwilling to get involved in another war after suffering so many casualties of their own during World War I. It wasn't worth the trouble.

Hitler was allowed to annex Austria because no other European country was willing to join Austria in her fight to stay independent from Germany. "Believing that Austria was not worth a war, Britain and France informed the unfortunate chancellor [Schuschnigg] that they would not help in the event of a German invasion. Schuschnigg then resigned, and Austrian Nazis began to take control of the government. Under the cover of 'preventing violence,' Hitler ordered his troops into Austria" (Hoerle, Lec. 10). So the allies turned their backs on Austria. They weren't worth fighting for.

Hitler was allowed to re-claim parts of Czechoslovakia, because the ethnic German people living there (the Sudeten Germans) did not want to be part of a minority in a Slavic country, where they were being subjected to discrimination. The Czech army might have moved against Hitler with some backing, but "British officials believed that the Sudeten Germans were, indeed, a suppressed minority entitled to self-determination... Sudetenland...was not worth a war...[so] they decided to negotiate and convinced the French to do the same" at the Munich conference in 1938. The Czechs just let it go.

In short, the allies did nothing to stop Germany for a couple of key reasons. One, was they figured she was beaten and no real threat anymore. For instance, Britain thought it would take many years for Germany to build up their navy, even to the 35% limit. Secondly, the allies also saw German people wanting to unite with other ethnic German people (Sudetenland and Austria) as "not their problem." It was just a "German" issue and not worth France or Great Britain, or anyone else risking their own people or finances to resolve. No one thought it was worth the trouble.

There was really no way they could have imagined the scope of Hitler's plans at that point, but they also made a conscious choice not to come to the aid of the Austrian chancellor, and that was a weak move.

Javascprit

I posted the link to my javascript page:
http://ceweb.uml.edu/mfroe96697/Internet/javascript.html

as well as my regular index page:
http://ceweb.uml.edu/mfroe96697/Internet/index.html

I included my idea for using an interactive webpage like this for work, where we really need better communication between our departments. Our Project Management team can let us in the warehouse and Receivables know what is going to be delivered, and if we have to have freezer space or other precautions ready. This would also be good for Receivables to stay in touch with Shipping, so that specific requirements could be noted. 

In addition, I posted feedback for three of my classmates.  I was very impressed with the wide range of potential applications people came up with for using this kind of interactive web page.  

This week we were asked to state our reactions to an article about the Gestapo agents at work in a town called Stettin in Germany.  The article painted a picture of "regular," family guys with minimal education , who methodically and obsessively investigated targets of Nazi suspicion, like the Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and of course, Jews.  It was surprising to see that they let some people go, if they were hard working, "orderly" individuals.

I honestly had no idea that there were any Jehovah's Witnesses or Seventh Day Adventists in Germany at that time (or even now). I always thought of those religious sects as American groups, so that was one surprise.

My impression of Gestapo agents conformed to the stereotyped image of merciless Nazi bigots, so Prof. Hoerle's lecture did challenge me to think of them as ordinary people. This week's lecture showed that the Stettin Gestapo officers were just regular guys with an unusual job. As Prof. Hoerle points out in this week's lecture, the strongest Nazi supporters came from "Germany's lower-middle classes" and the Stettin Gestapo agents were representative of this group, valuing "order, familiarity, and consistency" (Lec. 9). I'm only 1/2 German, born in the U.S.A. but I know all about their cultural bias toward "orderliness" and hard work. It was really fascinating to see how their orderly world view affected their decision to arrest a particular suspect or not. Being a lazy mess was even more repugnant to them than being a member of one of their (non-Jewish) targeted groups. I was also not surprised at the realization that the Gestapo, and Germans in general, have an "excessive obsession with details" (Hoerle, Lec. 9). I remember hearing in a movie about the Nuremberg Trials that the German's own meticulous record keeping provided the most startling evidence against them.

It made me think about our people in Homeland Security, the TSA agents at the airport, and how cops use "racial profiling" (even though they're not supposed to) in an effort to keep us all "safe." I'm sure they all bring their own biases and cultural conditioning to their jobs also. They are also typically representative of the lower middle class, like the Stettin Gestapo. It also made me think about that Stanford University psychology experiment where volunteers acted as prisoners and guards. Given human tendencies toward abusing power when given the chance, the Gestapo officers actually showed surprising restraint. I believed they would have been more likely to seize any small opportunity to throw the targets of their persecution into the concentration camps. As it turned out, the only group that was not going to be spared no matter how "orderly" was the Jews. "When it came to the Jews, certain qualities that the Stettin Gestapo upheld in good “Aryans” did not apply" (Hoerle, lec. 9). Apparently, racism trumps orderliness.

JOT FORMS

This week we learned about JotForm which is a free, web based form builder for obtaining feedback, that anyone with an internet connection can use.  It uses drag and drop so it is easy to create feedback forms, integrate them to your site and receive responses by email or by logging into your JotForm account and checking the submissions.   Obtaining feedback is important because you can improve your web page if you get constructive criticism, or at least you'll know that people are finding your information helpful and easy to follow, if you get positive feedback.

Our assignment this week was to build an online feedback form using the JotForm template, and add it to our web site. We also had to post our link to it in the Discussion Forum, to invite our classmates to complete the form.

It is a pretty basic template with an optional field for your email address, a text area, a ratings box, and a submit button. 

This assignment was not too difficult.  I followed the tutorial and the instructions.  I have submitted feedback forms for three of my classmates, but I'm still waiting for a classmate or two to provide me with feedback about my page.   Since the assignment is due tonight, and we are experiencing thunder storms, I'm hoping I get some feedback soon! 

Consider and evaluate, based on the two lectures I provided this week, the accuracy of the following statement: 
"The history of Nazi actions against the Jews proceeded systematically: Hitler came to power and, as soon as the chance arose, he and his minions began instituting a well determined, preconceived plan that had been drawn up over the past ten years. Between 1923 and 1933, Nazi 'Jewish experts' had ample opportunity to study the true situation of the Jews in Germany and, therefore, were well prepared to proceed based on facts and information derived from an empirical examination of the so-called 'Jewish problem.'"


The quote provided is only partially true. It's no secret that Hitler and the Nazis hated the Jews, and they did seem to proceed "systematically" as soon as "Hitler came to power" to take care of their perceived "Jewish problem." However, the Lecture Notes show how it's not 100% accurate that the Nazis really understood the "situation of the Jews in Germany," or that they were "well prepared to proceed" with their diabolical plans.

The "intentionalist" historians like Lucy Davidowicz have Hitler's own words in "Mein Kampf" to prove that for a long time he had imagined "Hebrew corrupters" being "held under poison gas" (Hoerle, lec. 7). However, most other historians, like Karl Schleunes, show how Nazi plans were actually more "topsy-turvy" and a "disorganized series of actions," or as he called it, a "twisted path" (Hoerle lec. 7). One example was the boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933, which did not work out like the Nazi's intended. The boycott was damaging to Germany's already shaky finances, and the German public found open brutality against the Jews distasteful. At that point, Hitler did not want any opposition from the public, so he stopped the boycott after only a day. Any likely criticism of Nazi activities died with Hindenberg in 1934, and "harrassment of the Jews on the streets" increased (Hoerle, lec. 7). However, even the passage of the "Nuremberg Laws" in 1935, shows a lack of thorough understanding by the so-called "Jewish experts", since just defining what it meant to be considered "Jewish" became so convoluted. It was after 1935 that the Nazis went full throttle against the "Jewish problem," but their "Jewish experts" still didn't really understand the complexities of the German economy. The involvement of Jewish businesses with foreign investors and/or "Aryan" partners made it more difficult for the Nazis to take wealth away from the Jews, and their ignorance delayed their plans for several years. In particular, the "Nazis were surprised to learn that some of Germany's greatest armaments manufacturers were largely owned by 'Jews'" (Hoerle, lec. 8). That certainly weakens the credibility of their alleged "Jewish experts."

The next phase was to get rid of the Jews by forcing them to leave Germany. However, " The problem was—and the Nazis had never thought of this—that no country would take them unless the emigrants could prove that they had resources (i.e., money) equal to their needs" (Hoerle, lec. 8). Since the whole point was to take wealth away from the Jews and keep it inside Germany, their forced "emigration policy ran into obstacle after obstacle" (Hoerle, lec. 8). Again, the Nazi "experts" seemed neither "well prepared" nor especially well-informed about how to accomplish this goal.

Based on this significant error, I wonder if Auschwitz would have even occurred, if other countries had been willing to take in the penniless Jewish refugees? Did those countries ever express any regrets for refusing to grant them asylum? The Nazis seemed intent on getting rid of the Jews, but their objective -- at this point in time -- seemed more focused on expelling them rather than exterminating them.

The Nazis were finally able to get some Jews settled into places like Palestine and Argentina, thanks to the efforts of Adolf Eichmann, but many Jews still remained inside German borders. It was Eichmann who later orchestrated the "final solution" to the "Jewish question" of how to rid Germany of the Jews (Hoerle, lec. 8). The beginning of the end took place on "Kristallnacht" (night of broken glass) in November of 1938, when "the most acute violence against Jews in Germany since the Middle Ages exploded" (Hoerle, lec 8). Auschwitz now loomed around the corner.

After all we've learned, there's little doubt that Hitler and the Nazis couldn't wait to get the Jews out of Germany, and didn't have any qualms at all about using ruthless violence. It's just that their plans and methods were not as well thought out or prepared from the beginning of their fiendish campaign, as this quote claims.

Hoerle, Professor W. Scott. Lecture Notes: 7 "The Twisted Road to Auschwitz" Part I; and 8 "The Twisted Road to Auschwitz" Part II – UML - Nazi Germany. Section 031-SU12R