Evil Part 5- the Rise of Hitler

If Britain's Prime Minister's reaction to Hitler on the eve of the Second World War was co-called appeasement, than the United State's reaction was indifference, at best. The British, as Hitler asserted German power beyond its borders into Austrian and Czechoslovakia, were virtually alone, unable to count on any outside help against the Germans, accept for France. Both countries economies still reeled from a devastating worldwide depression, but also the loss of millions of men in the First World War, hardly a generation before. Chamberlain and Britain, had to believed that war was still avoidable, at lest in the near term. They did not have the precedent of Hitler's lies, a world wide press or the holocaust to look back on as lesson. History is only apparent to those who survive it.

Was Hitler inevitable? The war, the holocaust and Hitler himself reshaped our entire world, and with it the human psyche. It was as traumatizing to contemporary consciousness as Lisbon was to minds of the Enlightenment 200 years before. As Neiman points out in EVIL IN MODERN THOUGHT, "humankind lost faith in the world at Lisbon, and in itself at Auschwitz.

Was Hitler evil? There are perhaps no better studied, but greater misunderstood characters in history as Adolf Hitler. Biographies by Joachim Fest and William Shirer give us historic context, EXPLAINING HITLER by Rosenbaum, a cultural context, while Redlich's brilliant DIAGNOSIS OF A DESTRUCTIVE PROPHET offers insights into the mind of Hitler. They are pieces of a puzzle all striving to explain and comprehend the butchery of tens of millions of souls, the disruption of the lives of hundred of millions and the near eradication of Europe's Jews.

By focusing on the man there is a danger of narrowing the view too greatly. In that narrow view Hitler's perhaps not-so-unique aberration seems only explainable as that ethereal "evil." But Hitler was not a lone subject in a vacuum. He was part of a larger world and cultural. He was part, and perhaps the leader of a larger system that supported and propped him up, and who facilitated his rise, and protected him through that rise and the criminal and immoral nature of his regime.

Again, history is clear only to those who have survived it. Hitler's rise to power seems, in hindsight fateful. Much as the steps or choices before an accident seem preordained, though in reality a virtually infinite number of variable, the long histories of other participants, the weather and a myriad other variables were necessary at a precise moment. Change even the smallest variable and the entire equation changes fundamentally. In reality Hitler might have been stopped any number of times. His fate might have been diverted and we would not today know the name Hitler, for he would have passed away in obscurity.

In Ernst Hanfstaengl's HITLER:THE MISSING YEARS, he relates his efforts during the 1920s and early 1930s as part of Hitler's support network. Did they wish then to eradicate Jews and ignite a World War? There is no evidence. Hitler's MEIN KAMPF is a diatribe, filled with the same bigotries that characterized the many competing nationalist groups vying for power in Germany at the time.

Nationalism follows a predicable pattern. It requires a victimized sub-group within the nation, most often defined by the eternal pressures, and practical traditionalism of the middle or working class. The must be convinced that their lot in life is threatened by an external enemy and can only be improved through the eradication of an internal betrayer. Serbian nationalism had long been defined by the battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389 in which, according to legend a Bosnian Serb Nobleman betrayed the Serbs and beginning Ottoman Turk's long occupation of the Balkans. The truth is more complex, but the reality of the Serbian consciousness is not. In this country the Right raises Al Qa'eda's criminal terrorist network to appear as if the nation and western civilization are under siege by all Muslims, portraying the Left, the ACLU or Michael Moore as betrayers. For Hitler and the Nazis Soviet Bolsheviks were the enemy, with Jews and homegrown communists as betrayers.

Richard Evans' THE COMING OF THE THIRD REICH, Daniel Goldhagan's HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS, or Gellately's BACKING HITLER show us how the Nazi program was less of a takeover as it wove itself into the fabric of German society, gradually spreading and drawing strength from that greater weave. The Nazis enjoyed relative sanctuary in Bavaria because Berlin feared enflaming separatist aspirations in the mainly Catholic state. Their rise was precipitous. Millions of well meaning Germans succumbed to their message of hate and fear, certainly unaware of what was to come. Legislators negotiated deals with the Nazis, not out of support, but for political expediency and favors. Had the German people rejected Hitler and the Nazi program they might have disappeared from history. If German authorities and politicians had taken a harder line against the Nazis history might well have proved different. No other episode shows this like the Enabling Act of 1933.

The Reichstag fire was Germany's September 11, and it couldn't have come at a better time for Hitler and the Nazis. After being appointed Chancellor in January 1933 Hitler asked President von Hindenburg to dissolve parliament and hold a general election. According to German law it was a legal act. Elections to the Reichstag were slated for March 5th. Prior to the elections Nazis and their supported organized street violence to convince the German people of the Communist threat to the country. Then, on February 27th, just a week before the elections fire ravaged the parliamentary chamber of the Reichstag. Germans were stunned. A young man with apparent Communist links was blamed. The Nazis were quick to capitalize on the incident, almost as if they were expecting it to happen.

They claimed the fire was the start of a communist revolution and enacted the Reichstag Fire Decree. it read: ON THE BASIS OF ARTICLE 48 PARAGRAPH 2 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GERMAN REICH THE FOLLOWING IS ORDERED IN DEFENSE AGAINST COMMUNIST STATE-ENDANGERING ACTS OF VIOLENCE: ARTICLES 114, 115, 117, 118, 123,124, AND 153 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GERMAN REICH ARE SUSPENDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE IT IS THEREFORE PERMISSIBLE TO RESTRICT THE RIGHTS OF PERSONAL FREEDOM, FREEDOM OF OPINION, INCLUDING FREEDOM OF THE PRESS, FREEDOM TO ORGANIZE AND ASSEMBLE, THE PRIVACY OF POSTAL, TELEGRAPHIC AND TELEPHONE COMMUNICATION, AND WAR RENTS FOR HOUSE SEARCHES, ORDERS FOR CONFISCATION, AS WELL AS RESTRICTION ON PROPERTY ARE ALSO PERMISSIBLE BEYOND THE LEGAL LIMITS OTHERWISE PRESCRIBED.

The decree eliminated the right of Habeas Corpus. Hitler used it to arrest and eradicate not only Communists, but their supporters in the Reichstag. SA Brownshirts, the thugs of the Nazi party intimidated parliament members in the halls and chambers of the government.

Still, Hitler and his party did not have an absolute majority in the Reichstag. He barely held a slim majority. Still there was nothing illegal, at lest on the surface to all the Nazi's had done. On March 15th, still promoting the fiction that the nation was in crisis and under attack, Hitler proposed the ENABLING ACT, which would give him legislative powers for 4 years. The act would give Hitler the right to make laws without oversight or consultation with the legislature. It was still legal, and a step towards full dictatorship, but to a country increasingly fearful of enemies within and without it almost seemed necessary..

The Act was immediately met with skepticism in the legislature. Hitler reached out to Ludwig Kaas, a prominent Catholic Priest, and Center Party Chairman. Kaas sold his party's vote for promises that the rights of Catholics would be upheld, and that civil servants connected to the party would retain their positions. Kaas sold his party for concessions, allowing the Enabling Act to pass. Had Kaas and the Center Right Party resisted Hitler it might have forced the Nazis hand and revealed their true nature to the German people. But the vote rendered the government powerless and gave Hitler and the Nazi's ultimate power over the state.

NEXT: HITLER'S INNER EVIL