Adolf Hitler

In the first of two articles Gary Fraser examines why so many ordinary people were prepared to follow Adolf Hitler. Part one discusses the rise of Adolf Hitler. Part two takes issue with the Marxist method of studying history and will feature in the next issue of the DGS.

The twentieth century is Hitler’s century. It is hard to think of any other politician with the same impact on world affairs, or who holds the same place in the public consciousness as Adolf Hitler. Yes there have been other tyrants and fanatics, from left and right of the political spectrum, but the names of Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, and Mao, all of whom presided over totalitarian regimes of their own, compare little to Hitler in terms of the public’s imagination. Hitler, according to popular narrative, is the personification of evil. In these two articles I want to argue that simplistic perspectives on history which overestimate the role played by individuals are absurd. Marxist historical analysis, what Marxists call Historical Materialism, has been, and hopefully will continue to be, a corrective to the methods of individual psychology. In the much quoted phrase, Marx notes that it is not the consciousness of men that determines their reality but their reality that determines consciousness, or words to that effect. Marx’s insight (although he was not the first to make this point) has enriched the study of history and is the premise upon which any serious attempts to understand the past should be made. But at the same time, Marx’s famous passage has resulted in Marxists falling into the trap of economic determinism. The consequence of this line of thought is an interpretation of history which is once again absurd. Reading some Marxist literature often leaves me with the impression that there are no individuals or real peoples in history but only ‘economic laws’, which can change ‘epochs’ and the ‘consciousness’ of the ‘masses’. For some Marxists, there is no concrete individual who exists independent of the mass. The individual constructed by Marxism is either ‘bourgeoisie’ or ‘proletarian’. That human individuals are complex beings, influenced by a range of factors beyond their relationship to the means of production possessing the capacity for rationality (and irrationality) is neither here nor there for many Marxists. In the final analysis, Marxists argue that ‘subjectivity’ is determined by ‘economic forces’. The one sidedness of economic determinism results in humanity becoming dehumanised. It was this mistaken philosophical standpoint which led to many on the left in the late 1920s and early 1930s underestimating both Hitler and the Nazi movement. The criticisms I have of Marxism, chief among them that Marxism has no theory of human psychology I will leave until part two. The starting point here is to begin to explore the life and times of Adolf Hitler.

The Myth of Adolf Hitler

Before the cult of the Hitler myth began to take root in the Nazi movement in the 1920s, and then in large sections of the German people in the 1930s, Adolf Hitler was an insignificant individual. In fact rather than possessing any qualities that hinted at future greatness he was something of a social failure. In everything he did, the young Hitler failed; as an artist or as a budding architect or in his schemes to make money, all of his efforts came to nothing. He failed at writing (Mien Kampf, published in 1923 was not taken seriously beyond the hardcore of the still insignificant Nazi movement) and it was clear from anyone who has ever read the book that Hitler was neither an original thinker nor an intellectual heavyweight.

In 1918, Adolf Hitler, only nineteen years old, experienced by far and large his biggest failure, this time as a defeated soldier in the First World War. He joined the National Socialist German Worker Party (the Nazis) in 1919 and up until this point he continued to play the part of an individual and social misfit. However it was following his introduction to party politics that Hitler, the man who had failed at almost everything else discovered that he had a talent for public speaking. What Hitler said was unremarkable and in content was no different from what other right wing German groups were already arguing. A typical Hitler speech would involve an attack on the supposed traitors who had brought shame on Germany by surrendering during the First World War and agreeing to the Treaty of Versailles. At some point he would usually say that the Jews were to blame for Germany’s surrender and in addition to this he would argue that Communism was a Jewish conspiracy. Simplicity and repetition were key features of his speeches. Hitler had no particular talents for party organisation or devising political strategies, this he could leave to others. Alongside a gift for oration, what he specialised in was the presentation of Nazi politics, what today we would call marketing and publicity. Hitler, from very early on in his career, had an instinct for manipulating the masses and arousing the pent up emotions of his audience. In Mein Kampf he notes that a ‘personality cult’ would be useful in stupefying the masses. Public speaking was to give him a sense of achievement that he lacked in any other aspect of his life.

Public speaking was only one part of why Hitler was able to arouse great devotion and loyalty amongst his followers. The discourse of National Socialism encouraged a sense of belonging within the ranks of the Nazi movement and provided its followers with a ‘mission’. National Socialism, Hitler argued, would win the workers away from class struggle and integrate them into the nation state. Nazism, like its ideological opponent Communism, was able to gain mass appeal because it offered comforting single answer solutions to complex social and political problems. Whilst the Communists asserted that all history was ‘class struggle’, the National Socialists argued that it was a ‘racial struggle’. Hitler knew intuitively that the mystical bonds of ‘nationhood’ were more prevalent in the psyche of people than the Communists appeal to class. Hitler like most fanatics was a utopian and a dreamer. He instilled in his followers a sense that any price was worth paying to achieve the end goal of establishing a new social order in which Germanic culture would reign supreme. Promoting fear at every opportunity enabled him to win the support of his audience. Hitler argued that the great Germanic social order was threatened by Slavs and Jews. In addition to this he played on the fear of Bolshevism which was widespread in rural Germany, particularly amongst the middle classes. Bolshevism, Hitler concluded was a sinister plot to rule the world and to fuel his paranoia he would point to the writings of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky all of whom argued that Communism would only ever be complete when it was established on a worldwide basis.

Following Germany’s surrender in 1918, which the Nazis referred to the ‘national disgrace’, disdain for Weimar democracy was shared by both the left and the right. The German right detested Social Democrats and had absolute contempt for what they saw as a corrupt system of party politics. The Communists also despised Social Democrats, whom they called ‘social fascists’, and wanted to replace what Leninists call ‘bourgeois democracy’ with their own ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. Whilst the Communists dreamed of a ‘workers revolution’ the German right yearned for a great statesman and ‘strongman’ who could return Germany to her former imperial glory. Notions of heroic leadership would become deeply embedded in the political psyche of the Nazis. Images of a German ‘strongman’ who would rescue the nation were common. For example, the German right promoted the Kaiser as a heroic leader in contrast to images of weak party politicians who they argued had ‘sold out’ Germany. The squabbling politicians of the Weimar era were compared to the ‘national heroes’ of the First World War, the men who had sacrificed their lives in the trenches. According to the narrative, these ‘national heroes’ were betrayed by the ‘cowardly politicians’ of the Weimar democracy. The Protestant Church talked about a new leader bringing about ‘spiritual renewal’ and ‘moral revival’ in Germany. There was a sense that Germany was waiting on a leader, someone who would stand above the ranks of ordinary men and party politics. It was in this context that the beginnings of a Fuhrer cult started in the Nazi Party.

The Hitler Myth and his adulation by millions of Germans who otherwise might have only been marginally committed to Nazism, was a central ingredient in the Nazi system of rule. In 1941 Goebbels, the minister for propaganda proclaimed that his greatest achievement was the construction of a ‘Fuhrer Myth’. The rise of a personality cult surrounding Hitler was a slow process and in the 1920s it did not exist beyond the ranks of Nazis Party members. This was still by and large something of a golden era for Weimar democracy, but its new age of prosperity was soon to be shattered by a crisis in the capitalist economy. The economic effects of the Wall Street crash were felt throughout the west but they resonated in Germany whose system of democracy was unstable. In 1929 the US cancelled all loans to Germany forcing the German economy into meltdown. The economic crisis in capitalism created a new age of political extremes. In Germany two variants of totalitarianism, Communism and Fascism began to compete for the allegiance of the masses.

The crisis in capitalism presented Hitler with an opportunity to make his entrance onto the centre stage of history. ‘Men make their own history’, proclaimed Karl Marx, ‘but not in circumstances of their own choosing’. It is a statement that captures Hitler’s rise to power. Circumstance (capitalist crisis and fear of Communism by German industrialists) enabled the Nazis to gain control of the state apparatus. There was to be no revolution; Hitler did not seize power, and neither was he elected. Instead Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were invited into power. The fear of Communist revolution was enough to tilt the German right towards fascism. Trotsky wrote at the time that Hitler, by expropriating the bourgeoisie politically had in actual fact saved it in the economic sphere. In 1933, the year he became Chancellor, a majority of Germans (most notably industrialised workers) were still unconvinced by Hitler and the Nazis. The historian Ian Kershaw argues that within three years Hitler began to achieve majoritarian support. A number of factors were important in this development; chief among them was the cult of the personality, which we will discuss in part two. But it is also important to note that Nazis social policies played a crucial role in securing political support from beyond their traditional social base.

Many of the domestic policies of the Third Reich were universally popular. Between 1933 and 1935 the Nazis gained support for their efficient campaign against unemployment. With support from the private sector, the new regime embarked on a massive job procurement programme, which included public works projects and subsidised house repairs. As a consequence of these policies the Nazis were able to cut the peak unemployment figure of six million by over forty per cent within one year (Grunberger, 1991). A new study of Nazi social policy by Gotz Aly has highlighted the ways in which the Nazis won the allegiance of sections of the working classes whose political loyalty had hitherto been to the Communists or Social Democrats. The Nazis presided over an increase in the number of consumer goods available to ordinary Germans and for the first time working class Germans were able to own automobiles and to go on vacation.

Tax breaks were introduced for married couples and at the start of the war they announced that creditors could not repossess the belongings of draftees and their families. Nazi social policy guaranteed state support to farmers ensuring their livelihoods were protected against the vagaries of both the weather and the market. According to Grunberger, between 1933 and 1939 overall social mobility in the Third Reich was double that of the last six years of Weimar. The Nazis ruled with the consent of the majority of the population. For many Germans, the mid-1930s were a period of social stability and prosperity. Such was the case that most people did not need to be subjected to either surveillance or detention. Of course there were minorities who would be relentlessly persecuted by the state, the most obvious being Jewish people and the Communists. The first concentration camps in the Reich were used to incarcerate ‘enemies of the state’ most notably Communists. However, in a country of 60 million people only 4,761 were incarnated in the camps (Aly, 2007). In 1937, the Gestapo employed around 7,000 people and this figure includes bureaucrats and secretarial staff. Compare this to the 190,000 staff employed by the Stasi in Communist East Germany after the war.

One of the aims of the Nazis was to achieve the acquiescence of the German working class. In 1933, Hitler remarked that he acknowledged only one nobility, that of labour. A decade before he explained why the Nazis political philosophy was called National Socialism when so much of their message appeared to be anti-socialist. Hitler argued that Marxism was not socialism and that Marxists had stolen the term and confused its meaning. According to Hitler, the Nazis would return socialism to its true meaning. Socialism from Hitler’s perspective was based on common weal; his socialism denied the negation of the personality and most importantly the Nazi version of socialism was patriotic. Race, not class would be the clarifying call to the masses, and the nation state and race were one. But it was more than just pragmatic social policies, and a unifying ideology, which resulted in popular support for the Nazis. There was also the popularity of Adolf Hitler himself; in the mid-1930s he was arguably the most popular politician in the world. To understand how this came about we need to examine the role of the Hitler myth in winning the allegiance of the masses.

Part Two of Deconstructing Hitler will feature in the next issue of Democratic Green Socialist.