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Old March 10th, 2014 #1
Alex Linder
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 45,756
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Default Hitler's Strategy (within party and toward public)

[a couple notes from my continued reading of Fascism by Roger Eatwell]

- the Nazis got 2.6% in the 1928 elections, a nadir
- bismarck created the welfare state to defuse marxism; the people were encouraged to identify economic prosperity with the state: when the state failed to deliver the goods, the people were primed for revolution

INSIDE THE PARTY AND OUT

- nazis were divided into socialists and nationalists. the rising socialist faction led by gregor strasser threatened hitler. he solve the problem by calling a leader in Bamberg:

Quote:
Hitler arrived in an impressive cavalcade of cars, and during a speech which lasted four and a half hours, he argued that the Nazis were not a debating club. The overriding task was to secure power. Hitler had never taken the details of the party's Twenty-Five Point Program very seriously, but he now argued that the document was sacrosanct -- a clear challenge to the radicals who sought a new document. In reply, Strasser made a few weak points, but the force of the Fuehrer's confidence and magnetism seems to have overwhelmed him...

Aware that much remained to be done to consolidate his leadership, Hitler followed up the Bamberg meeting with a series of shrewd decisions. He appointed Strasser Reich propaganda leader, and later, chief of party organization. Strasser took to the task with enthusiasm, consolidating existing developments but setting up new structures where required. The period immediately after 1926 witnessed notable developments in both Nazi propaganda techniques and in its organizational structure. It marked the beginning of the major party rallies -- men gathered in a sea of brown shirts, immersing themselves in emotional ritual and ceremony. It marked a growing attempt to legitimize policies by presenting them as central to German identity and traditions: anti-Semitism, for instance, was presented in Protestant areas as central to Luther's thought. Less ostentatiously, the party began to set up special organizations for doctors, teachers, lawyers, students, women, and others who found it more comfortable to participate among their peers than among the Nazi rank and file - a tactic copied from the left. (p.127)
- a "notable effort to absorb members from the many volkisch and extremist groups, who were attracted by the dynamism of the Nazis.

- after Bamberg, made Goebbels regional head (Gauleiter) of the Nazi Party in Berlin

- Hitler thus won over the main socialist nazis - goebbels and greg strasser

- hitler brought roehm back from bolivia to head the SA

- hitler kicked out OTTO strasser who then formed a national bolshevist group that went nowhere

- in 1928, nazis get 2.6% - in 1930 they get 18.3%. huge economic downturn in agriculture, industry/trade in between.

"The main losers in the 1930 election in terms of votes were the right-wing conservatives (DNVP), who dropped back from 14.2 percent in 1928 to 7 percent. Not all the lost votes were transferred to the Nazis: some went to the more moderate center-right parties...but there is little doubt that the Nazis benefited significantly from teh DNVP's decline.

That's why you attack the conservatives: they take nationalist mind- and market share. The rise of the nationalists is almost a mathematical function of the decline of the conservatives. Both draw from the same mindset and people.

Quote:
"To some extent this was a reflection of the radicalization of politics in the face of depression. More specifically, it stemmed from increasing public awareness of the Nazi Party and especially of Hitler -- a development which owed as much to Hugenberg as to the Nazis' own propaganda efforts.
Let's try to sum this up so we can get our heads around it. After the failed putsch, Hitler goes to jail. He writes his book. He gets out in 1925. He's still banned from speaking the next couple years. His party has rifts between socialist and nationalists. He finishes second volume of his book, he repairs the rift with careful maneuvering above. The party then gets 2.6% of the vote! That's not a good result. It looks like the Weimar democracy is going ok. That's 1928. Then the stock market crashes in US. Germany is a big foreign trader. Decline in global market hurts. Decline in agriculture and industry too. Hitler can now speak. His party becomes better known. He has a professional heading up the NA. He has all the hard chargers from the hard-right joining his crew cuz they're the most dynamic.

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity? That's what happened in 1930. The nazis go from 2.6% to 18.6%. They're back in the game for good.


Message for WN: use economic good times to get your ideology straight, and get your organization ironed out. Your party, your platform, your leaders, your ideology, your memes.

Does the American right look solid to you?

Republicans and Fox News appear to be the only game in town for non-multicultural, non-leftist white men.

What if there were a better option?

What does that even mean?

It means serious, dedicated men with a program. Men willing to contest all fronts: the street, the courtroom, the media, the voting booth.

Golden Dawn and the German NS could do that.

No group in America is close, but it's clear what needs to be done.

And now...back to Hitler...

- the nazis were helped by mass media support from a right-wing conservative who ran a campaign against reparations... he was with DNVP, a conservative nationalist party, but his mere mentioning of Hitler and NSDAP as opponents of Young Plan got them attention and support. Says Eatwell:

During 1929 Germany's reparations payments were reduced by the Young Plan. Radical nationalists opposed any payments, and Hugenberg decided to launch a major campaign linking the main opponents of the new plan. He was in a strong position to influence public opinion, for he had used his wealth to purchase a major newspaper network and the main German film production and distribution company. Already film newsreels had begun to give some coverage to the Nazis. The reparations campaign now launched Hitler as a major national figure, bringing him to the attention especially of a "respectable" middle class that earlier Nazi propaganda had found difficult to penetrate...

That is very significant. it's as if a guy like uber-zionist Murdoch were promoting the Nazis. Golden Dawn, which has traveled a path similar to the Nazis, has not such support among the conservatives. All it has gotten from super-rich conservatives is a respectful nod from billionaire Taki. As far as i know, it has no mainstream media support, and all mentions are critical.

Alfred Hugenberg was put in as DNVP chairman in 1928. So he's making Hitler into a public figure just before Hitler starts taking all his votes in 1930, as DNVP declines from 14 to 7% while Nazis jump from 3% to 18%. Very interesting. Did Hugenberg intend what happened? I don't know.

Could you imagine any rich conservatives inadvertently or intentionally fulfilling the Hugenberg role? It's an interesting question.


Other factors: the nazis were developing:

- "an increasingly strong local organizational structure, and an
- ability to tailor their message to specific audiences
- Goebbels "brilliantly" choreographed Nazi martyr funerals (think of the two murdered Golden Dawn activists)
- Goebbels called himself, in working-class areas of Berling, the "number one bandit"

- again, key: portraying Nazism as part of the German tradition

Before 1928, nazis aimed at urban areas; in and after 1928, they began to aim at rural areas, which began to swing that way even in 1928 (2.6% vote, remember). Although nothing about peasants in 25 points, they set up an org, began to promote the contrast between healthy, upright farmers and immoral, corrupt cities.

- Eatwell says nazi propaganda is actually underrated - in comparison to economic climate - as party driver
- nazis put "immense efforts" into "local politics" - working through or with local clubs and organizations, winning over local bigwigs
-- example, comparatively well off Schleswig-Holstein (way up north near Denmark) was the "only region where the Nazis were to gain over fifty percent of the vote in free elections." they did it by having good local relations, not because of bad times.

- hitler enters 1932 presidential election with "remarkable energy" - 34,000 public meetings in the campaign, attended by large audiences who often paid entry. pioneering use of aircraft to hit 2-3 big rallies in one day. his main focus was on economic revival more than "pure Nazi ideology". he got 36% on the second ballot.
- so, NS goes from 2.6% in 1928 to 18.6% in 1930 to 36% in 1932. kind of looks like the arc golden dawn is tracing. at 36-37%, nazis became the "largest" party.

Quote:
"The belief has been widespread that the Nazi vote was made up primarily of rural voters, the urban Mittelstand, and various other disaffected sections of the middle class, most notably public employees who had been hit by wage cuts and layoffs. In fact, the Nazis made widespread gains across classes, though the main appeal to the working class came outside the large urban centers. Given their highly male-oriented ideology, the Nazis even performed relatively well among women voters, especially younger ones attracted by Hitler's charisma -- though the appeal of the Nazi trinity of "children, church, and kitchen" to older women should not be underestimated.
- there were "only two main groups" that remained "largely immune" to Nazi appeal to create a "new people's community" (Volksgemeinschaft) (again, similarity to Golden Dawn): "practicing Catholics" and urban leftists/trade union members. These two had "strong, almost ghettoized communities" that the Nazis "could not penetrate." In the case of the catholics, there was often "overt hostility from bishops and priests" - much more than from protestants

- july 1932, 7k SA nazis march thru working-class Hamburg, commies open fire, 17 killed in ensuing battle. "In general the Nazis gained the better of these violent exchanges."
- so, nazis fought it out in the streets, like golden dawn. they didn't just hide and huddle in rented rooms in dingy hotels like conservatives and fake WN
- nazis were helped by moscow's refusal to work with SD (social democrats). so the left wasn't unified

- support from the rich? from corporations? some. but not as much as usually claimed. poet Eckart introduced hitler to rich circles in munich. hitler had some industrialist support by early 1930s, most notably Thyssen, the steel guy
- Goring drew support too
- still, says Eatwell: "in spite of the efforts of Hitler, Goering, and others to paint a respectable face on the NSDAP, most industrialists viewed the party as too unstable, violent and radical to be trusted" (keep that in mind next time you read a leftist saying that hitler was a tool of big business)
- many supported BOTH nazis and consevative nationalists like DVNP

- what undermined democracy? Well, Bruning's "persistent reliance on" presidential decree didn't help.
- Bruning made cuts in middle of economic recession, and nazis responded like golden dawn today responds to troika's austerity measures, calling him "chancellor hunger." thus, the nazis were positioning themselves somewhat as FDR positioned himself against hoover.

- Goebbels thought Nazis had peaked as "catch-all" party in the multiple elections in 1932: he thought "only the imminent seizure of power could halt a further decline" (eatwell). hitler rejected coups in 1923, but the possibility was always there, given the size and ability of the SA

- a "serious economic crisis" was a "precondition to the rise of Nazism"

but

- it "needed a broader set of factors to lead to power"

"In particular, it needed an insurgent party whose leadership could shrewdly use propaganda to portray itself as offering both a radical Third Way alternative and as a central part of national traditions: one that could appeal both to those concerned primarily with economics and to those who sought to restore a more affective community. The latter aspect helped encourage nationalistic conservative elites, who were divided and lacking a popular base, to see Nazism as a vehicle that could provide popular legitimation for a more authoritarian regime that could control the rising left."

- notice, again, the similarities with golden dawn today: both NS and GD aim to revive the nation and get the economy back in order. they both speak to ancient national traditions and the need to cut the nation free of jewish economic control.

- difference is that hitler and NS had much more institutional support on their side than GD does - elements of the press (hugenberg) and many of the courts, and also in the military. GD enjoys only elements in army and police, and nothing in media or courts, which appear to be 100% against them.//

Last edited by Alex Linder; March 10th, 2014 at 05:10 PM.
 
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