True beauty vs. fascist fashion
ilya_sha...@yahoo.com
1990s, in order that it be dealt with once and for all. The idea,
expressed in Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, was that the concept of
beauty was a media-manufactured artifact used for control. Her belief
falls apart when put against historical fact - which says that every
civilization with any kind of accomplishment had a well-defined concept
of beauty; and that this ideal extended not only to female (and male)
form, but also to architecture, music, literature, graphic arts and
nature.
It is true that different civilizations had different concepts of
female beauty. The Greeks worshipped perfection of form; the Japanese,
elegance; the French, delicacy and sensuality; the Russians, tenderness
and voluptuousness; the Africans, fertility; the Latinos and African
Americans, sex appeal. Does that mean that there is no such thing as
beauty? No, it means that beauty takes different forms. And of course
the variety of beauty we see in nature, as well as in people, as well
as in manmade creations, is testimony to that fact. So my stance is:
Yes, there are many different forms of beauty. The only criterion is
that they in fact be beautiful.
The experience (supported by evidence) is that beauty - like
intelligence, like character, like many other abilities that can either
be developed or lay fallow - spans the gamut, from things that nobody
will regard to be beautiful, to things that some and not others will
regard to be beautiful, to things whose beauty everyone will see. In
the same way, we go in art from "Piss Christ" to Jackson Pollock to
the Sistine Chapel. Judith Langlois, a psychologist, conducted a
scientific study in which she showed that faces with certain
proportions invariably were recognized for their beauty by everyone. So
there appears to be a mathematical formula for absolute beauty -
beauty that everyone will recognize as such. What the Renaissance
artists believed ("beauty is a manifestation of the divine") and
what John Keats intuited ("beauty is truth, truth beauty"),
mathematics has now demonstrated to be true: There is a mathematical
formula for absolute beauty - which makes it a logical lead into
further inquiry of cosmic processes.
That of course does not mean that everyone who does not fit those
proportions is forever banned from beauty. That is not true; in
addition to the absolute beauty, there are many relative forms of
beauty that appeal to one or another taste. Nor does that mean that
every cultural conception of beauty is right. That is emphatically not
the case, and I would like to propose a more sane explanation for the
frustration of many women in America, that many people either
mistakenly or manipulatively take to wrong places. That explanation is:
The fashion industry standards of 1990s were, quite simply, evil; and
it is those standards, rather than beauty itself, that anyone with any
kind of honesty should attack.
What standard am I talking about? An exploitative standard. An
unhealthy standard. A horrible standard. Essentially, the emaciated
look: The look that few women could possibly meet at all - and those
of my acquaintance who had, all said, had felt horrible physically the
entire time they had done so.
Now I take an issue with positing an unhealthy standard as beauty of
any kind. It is simply not right to make people live an unhealthy
lifestyle in order that they be seen to be worthy of love. It is not
compassionate, it is not responsible, it is not humane and it is not
ethical. And the effect, far from encouraging women to be thin, instead
was the opposite: Most women decided that they could never be beautiful
and let themselves go. With the result being that, from 1992 to 2004,
the obesity rates in America doubled: a situation for which many people
blame sedentary lifestyles - but for which I blame an impossible,
exploitative and indeed horrible standard of beauty shoved down
people's throats by the media.
The problem once again, is not with the idea of beauty and certainly
not with those who seek beauty and appreciate beauty and value beauty.
The problem is with the garbage spewed out by 1990s fashion industry as
beauty - garbage that, as far as I am concerned, was not beautiful in
any way whatsoever, but rather had the social effect (if not the social
function) of making most women believe that they could never be
beautiful. And while we are at it: No, I do not regard the Kate Moss
look to be beautiful; I regard it as a sick and horrible thing to
inflict upon a woman.
I am encouraged by the more recent trends in the media. They are
finally beginning to market the healthy weight - the weight that is
good for the woman to have; the weight that is healthy for her; the
weight that makes her feel good as well as look good; the weight that
is sustainable, that is achievable, and that is ultimately good for the
woman to have. It is a weight that makes the woman feel good - and,
by likewise making her look good, in a way that is achievable without
self-starvation or self-disfigurement, makes her feel good doubly
(since many women feel good when they look good). It is a weight
standard that is humane, achievable, healthy and indeed benevolent. And
if the feminists had any say on the subject, then it is this change in
standards - and not the baboonish screeching against beautiful women
and men who love them - that is its true achievement on women's
behalf.
Perhaps paradoxically - but not unreasonably - this change from the
impossible standards to healthy standards can and should reduce the
obesity epidemic. With beauty standard more easily achievable (and less
traumatic or unhealthy to keep), more women will see themselves to be
capable of beauty - and would make the requisite effort in that
direction; effort that will make them healthy, make them feel good
physically, and make them feel good likewise by looking good.
I have repeatedly heard intelligent women say that they feel good when
they look good. Being beautiful is one of the greatest joy of being a
woman; and anybody, male or female, on the Right or on the Left, who
seeks to take that away, is a monster. So to the sincerely misinformed
people who claim the idea of beauty to be the cause of social and
self-esteem problems affecting women, my answer is: It is not beauty
you want to attack, any more than you want to attack Yosemite Park or
Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concierto or the Sistine Chapel or the snow
leopard or figure skating. What you want to attack is the malignant,
cruel and exploitative standard created by 1990s fashion industry. It
is them, and not the beautiful women or romantic idealists, that are
responsible for the horrors experienced in 1990s by American women and
girls. And once the media gets a grip on itself, beauty again become
what it was intended to be - a joyous, healthy and bountiful
celebration of life and all that exists in it.
Ilya Shambat.
egorbrandt
correct the same misspellings at, at least, two different places) - and
it doesn't get any better. Why not use capitals, so the reader knows at
first sight that all you do is shouting?
Grizzlie Antagonist
True beauty is best exemplified by a silent ilya shambat.
Topaz
of the 1936 Nuremberg Rally by Dr. Walther Schmitt:
Adolf Hitler's double proclamation to the party rally makes clear the
inner National Socialist unity of political accomplishment and
cultural guidance. That alone says more about the National Socialist
movement than all the intellectual analysts could say with a thousand
essays. The combination of politics and culture in the party rally's
program is clear proof of the enormous confidence that fills the
German renewal movement, and which as always spurs it on to still
greater accomplishments. No matter how splendid and triumphant the
political accomplishments discussed in the morning are, come evening
the party reports on it cultural strengths and achievements. It knows
that great political accomplishments also demand great works of art,
and that only these will justify its position in history. As the
Führer has said, National Socialism sees artistic creations as the
highest expression of a nation's being. This view, which breaks
decisively from the past, was expressed in the conclusion of his
speech about the new German cultural era at Nuremberg in 1936: "Art is
the only truly immortal product of human activity."...
Adolf Hitler announced at the conclusion of the 1936 party rally that
it will in the future become a great German Olympic festival: "What
came of the pitiable rallies of our former opponents! Now we see a
great exhibition of the nation in political, military, spiritual,
cultural and economic arenas. The physical activity of the nation must
also be included in the splendid new facilities of the party rally
grounds. It will be a new Olympia, one in modern form and under a
different name!" Once again the Führer revealed in these words the
greatness of an idea which is not a dead teaching, rather part of our
innermost being, an ever living appeal to all sound feelings and to
the creative strength of each German...
We sense that just as Napoleon transformed Paris into the glittering
center of his state with monumental plans, so too the national capital
of Berlin will become a source of pride and greatness for the entire
nation.
It finally would be improper if the artistic level of the ceremonies
themselves were not of a level keeping with their vast new
surroundings. This was evident both in the youth ceremonies and those
of the Labor Service at the 1936 Party Rally of Honor. Their simple
clarity and almost architectural form were a deep expression of the
new German life. The same was true of the powerful oath of political
leaders of the movement, held under the deep black night sky. As Adolf
Hitler was greeted, spotlights suddenly shot up 150 kilometers into
the heavens, creating a dome of light of unimaginable splendor above
the Zeppelin Field. This political roll call of National Socialism
took place under a symphony of flags, light and disciplined columns,
towered over by the marble platform.
Every moment of this party really demonstrated the creative,
constructive will of the National Socialist movement. Everyone in
Nuremberg felt this and was swept away by its force. The spiritual
strength of the party of construction led to an inevitable
confrontation with Jewish-International Bolshevism, whose systematic
work of destruction has brought one nation after another in Europe to
crisis and misery.
As a proud victor, the Führer in his opening proclamation could list
the accomplishments of his government and the movement, which National
Socialism has done in less than four years since it took power. The
battle against unemployment and the large new economic undertakings
are part of a long series of accomplishments that only four years ago
seemed an impossible dream, but today are already part of a history
that National Socialism hardly speaks about any longer. Yet these
great achievements are not the party's crowning glory. More beautiful
and glorious is the educational work of the movement, its building of
a new German man. The accomplishments thus far have never been rivaled
by any previous government in so short a time..
The Führer spoke of the lessons of political development in recent
years. He spoke as well of the experiences that Germany and the
National Socialist movement have had with the destructive Bolshevist
idea. He proclaimed the iron will of the new Germany to drive back
with force any Bolshevist attack. In this moment the Führer of Germany
became the greatest political prophet in all of Europe.
The National Socialists who heard Germany's Führer know that the words
Adolf Hitler spoke in Nuremberg are the result of serious, mature
reflection, careful observation, and irresistable logic. Here speaks a
man who knows better than anyone else the bestial nature and methods
of Bolshevism. His warning and firm bearing were therefore a political
prophecy that will guide the future development of European politics.
The movement in Nuremberg understood. The thanks and jubilation of his
followers doubled as he called up the old iron laws and virtues of the
National Socialist movement to stand up to Bolshevism, hammering them
once more into the hearts of his followers. Our brown army overcame
Jewish-Bolshevist anarchy in Germany, marching under the eagles of the
National Socialist standards and our red battle flags. The spirit that
led the German war for independence against Moscow will make Germany
strong in the future, defeating any Bolshevist attack on Central
Europe. That is the message of Nuremberg.
http://www.nationalvanguard.org http://www.natvan.com
http://www.thebirdman.org http://www.RealNews247.com
bythepow...@yahoo.com
terrible general - the Russian campaign is one example of his extreme
naivtee and strategic ignorance. His refusal to surrender caused
untold suffering for the German people. He lied to his people about
what he was doing, how well it was going and what his goals were. He
allowed no dissent and prevented better military minds from helping the
Germans. He foolishly provoked countries that were predominantly white
and killed white people without hesitation both at home and abroad.
(And as an aside:the Jewish doctor who helped his mother he saved,
showing that he understood that Jews were people deserving of respect
and capable of good acts, just like all other humans)
I do not share your racist beliefs, nor do I consider German lives more
important than non-white or Jewish lives. But you think they are more
valuable. Well, he is the worst thing that ever happened to the
Germans, and they know it.
AE
There is no reliable way to enforce a fashion.
Designers are able to suggest and so do people in showbusiness, and
media might be able to report in a biased way, but it's the decision of
people to accept a fashion.
catbr...@yahoo.com
>important than non-white or Jewish lives. But you think they are more
>valuable. Well, he is the worst thing that ever happened to the
>Germans, and they know it.
Though I am the living embodiment of the "Aryan Ideal", Norse-Germanic
by ethnicity and appearance, I abhor Fascism and all racist ideologies.
It is humiliating to me that such a narrow ideal of beauty has been so
narrowly focused. And as a socialist, I can only applaud the Red Army's
victory over one of the most evil regimes in all history. (No, I am not
approving of that butcher Stalin. He betrayed communism.)
Cat
rdu...@pdq.net
Communism, like any other system that is not restrained by the rule
of law, always ends up with a ruler like Stalin. He did not betray
communism, he embodied the implications of its doctrines.
In a functioning liberal democratic/parlimentary system, persons
get to the top job by making deals and begging for support from many
other persons and organizations which have power and permanence which
is independent of the power of government. And the top jobs are
temporary. In even the purest form of communism, there are no persons
or organizations which can exist independent of state power because the
state directly controls their access to their means of livelihood.
Dictatorship is the inevitable form of leadership therefore, when
property rights are suppressed.
Also, when power is concentrated at the top and the top jobs are
for life only the most ruthless of individuals will get to the top. A
huge percentage of successful dictators began their careers as assasins
and hit men. Such people have a natural advantage over the more
squeamish when there is a struggle for power going on in a system
without an effective rule of law.
> Cat
Topaz
>
>Though I am the living embodiment of the "Aryan Ideal", Norse-Germanic
>by ethnicity and appearance, I abhor Fascism and all racist ideologies.
>It is humiliating to me that such a narrow ideal of beauty has been so
>narrowly focused. And as a socialist, I can only applaud the Red Army's
>victory over one of the most evil regimes in all history. (No, I am not
>approving of that butcher Stalin. He betrayed communism.)
>
Here are some quotes from a German pamphlet titled "Why the Aryan
Law?":
"In 1793 the famous philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, author of
"Speeches to the German Nation," wrote a pamphlet titled "A
Contribution to Correcting Judgments about the French Revolution." It
contained the following significant sentence:
"In nearly all the nations of Europe, a powerful, hostile government
is growing, and is at war with all the others, and sometimes oppresses
the people in dreadful ways: It is Jewry!"
The French Revolution, with its "ideas for the improvement of
humanity" thundered past, and in the noise the people who had believed
in world brotherhood entirely missed this serious warning. What Fichte
warned the word about then has today become fact in nearly all the
nations of the world. The Jewish people, once only tolerated, knew how
to raise a hue and cry about discrimination and persecution, winning
the sympathy of the world for the "poor Jews." They increasingly
infiltrated deep within our national organism, growing to have power
over every single area of our national life. The old saga, the "Edda,"
observes that one blocks a river at its source. The failure to do that
was the great mistake of the German people. Thank God, it is not too
late. Our Fuehrer Adolf Hitler recognized the importance of the
problem for Germany's rebirth, and outlined its solution in his
program.
Martin Luther wrote this of the Jews in his book "The Jews and their
Lies": "They hold we Christians captive in our own land. They have
seized our goods by their cursed usury, they mock and insult us
because we work. They are our lords, and we and our goods belong to
them." If in the coming days the Jewish race is driven out of the
non-Jewish world, it will have at least this consolation: It has made
clear to them for all time the value of maintaining the purity of race
and blood in clear, understandable and unforgettable ways.
National Socialist racial legislation has reduced the influence of
Jewry in all professions, and above all excluded them from the leading
offices of the nation. That is an important step in the relationship
between Germans and Jews, but one cannot ignore the fact that we have
not yet fully eliminated the influence of the Jewish foreign body in
German national life. It is not a question of German-Jewish
coexistence, rather of making as great as possible a separation
between blood and blood.
Three things are involved here:
A knowledge of the basic principles of National Socialist racial
thinking,
An understanding of the growth and expansion of Jewry,
The dominant sociological position of Jewry, to show how it dominated
the German people economically, intellectually and politically..."
"In discussing the Jewish Question, even today one encounters
resistance and misunderstandings, especially in intellectual circles.
This can only be explained by the intellectual education of the
political past. This is especially evident when one discusses the
fundamental issues.
Whenever a new thought arises in the world and calls people to
practical action, the old world resists because it feels its
foundations threatened. Its old standpoint has ruled for decades, and
it looks uncomprehendingly at a new idea that does not fit into the
accustomed patterns of thinking. That is natural. When the new idea
and worldview are truly revolutionary, they are on a different level
of human thought and feeling, and there can be no compromise. Its
realization depends on people who support it, and who are ready to
fight to transform the life of the individual and of the nation in
every way..."
"In the long run, no idea is better suited to guarantee peace between
nations than National Socialist racial thinking, which calls for the
furtherance and maintenance of one's own race and one's own people,
and supports similar efforts on the part of other nations..."
"The new Germany that views its own race and ethnicity positively must
therefore distinguish within its territory between one race and
another, between one people and another. Mixing of blood harms both
sides. Race is an issue for every people if they are to live according
to their nature. The German people is not so arrogant as to believe
that is is the chosen people. The familiar quotation from Geibel, "The
world should enjoy German ways," should be understood in the context
of the dreams of world betterment of those past days.
The National Socialist racial viewpoint has clear consequences for the
relationship between Germans and Jews. People have often said that
National Socialism's approach to the racial question is purely
negative and destructive, and that its essential characteristic is
radical anti-Semitism. One must grant that we made the Jewish question
clearer than anyone else, and taught an entire generation that had
been taught to see all people the same to recognize the importance of
the Jewish question not only for our people, but for the entire world.
Our treatment of the Jewish problem in the years before we took power
must be seen as the political education of the German people, which
had lost its racial instincts to a dangerous degree.
The question took on its own nature in Germany, Many citizens had
their eyes opened, and the simultaneous appeal to all the heroic and
manly virtues of the German man resulted in a racial selection of
political fighters who today stand at the head of the new state.
Formerly, the Jewish question, as seen by the state, was a matter of
complete equality and the unhindered immigration of Jews from the
East. This is the best proof of how racial feeling and consciousness
had been lost. Our tone was not purely negative or the simple
rejection of others, rather the emphasis was on the positive values of
our own people. This does require noting that Jewry through its
Marxist class struggle leadership role and its international financial
measures aimed at Germany supported every kind of anti-national action
in the cultural and political fields. Jewry should not complain if its
anti-German activities, which have no counterpart in any other
country, call forth from the people the defensive reaction of
anti-Semitism.
The starting point of the discussion is the scientific fact that the
Jew is different than the German. This is neither arrogant nor
boastful, it simply is the way things are. For us, the Jewish question
is a question between two peoples. Its characteristics are determined
by the racially determined differences between the two, and through
the unusual sociological and numerical development of Jewry in the
course of its history, developments that are particularly evident in
the last decades through a constantly growing process of foreign
infiltration that has reached an intolerable level for the German
people.
More than once over its history, the German people has absorbed
foreign elements, but they were racially identical or similar
population groups, as for example was the case with the Huguenots.
With the Jews, things are fundamentally different. They are seen
everywhere as foreigners, and see themselves that way as well. Walter
Rathenau said it most clearly as early as 1897: "How strange! In the
middle of German life there is a separate, foreign tribe that stands
out in every way with its hot-tempered behavior. An Asiatic horde has
settled on the sands of Mark Brandenburg." Einstein said something in
1931: "I have to laugh when I hear the phrase 'German citizen of the
Jewish faith.' These citizens first of all want nothing to do with my
poor Eastern European brothers, and second do not want to be sons of
my (Jewish) people, but only members of the Jewish cultural community.
Is that honest? Can a non-Jew respect such people? I am not a German
citizen. I am a Jew, and am happy to belong to the Jewish people."
The most remarkable thing about Jewry is that it has not disappeared
over the millennia, even though it lacks its own territory and
language. Even more remarkable is that it lacks the main
characteristic of a minority population, its own pockets of settlement
to which it could if necessary retreat. Only time will tell if
Palestine will someday fill this gap. That question is made more
difficult by the fact that the Arabs maintain their claim on
Palestine. Whatever the twists of history, the Jew has always remained
the same, whether as a grain speculator in ancient Rome or as a bank
or stock exchange potentate in the modern era. They were always able
to control the wealth of whole nations. Nations and peoples once their
contemporaries have vanished, leaving only words and crumbled
monuments behind; only the Jew remains. In ancient days we see him
carrying on his business in the trading centers of the Mediterranean.
In the Middle Ages he provided money for German nobles and free
cities. Today he rules the banks and stock exchanges of the whole
world, forcing the nations under the yoke of financial capitalism. The
power of this people of 15 million rests on these international
relations. This is how they seem to fulfill the commandment of Jehovah
- the world domination of the chosen people.
The secret of the Jewish people, which has enabled them to survive
through all of history's twists and turns, is that it has always
recognized the laws of blood, even anchoring them in the laws of its
religion. The consciousness of blood and family that believing Jews
have has been stronger than all the other forces of history, giving us
a unique example of a people without its own land and language, which
still meets the criteria for being a people, and which has outlasted
many other peoples.
This historic manifestation of Jewry, which is unique, brings to the
fore the question of the relationship between the host and guest
peoples. It has been answered in differing ways throughout history,
depending on the worldview and thinking then predominant.
Since the Jews were dispersed they have been held together by the laws
of their religion and their faith that they were the chosen people.
Until the middle of the 18th Century, Germans and Jews lived apart
from each other. The Jews had no opportunity to become involved in the
religious of political-intellectual life of their host people. On the
other hand, they could practice their own customs without
interference. They had their own religion and their own laws. During
the Middle Ages, the Ghetto was the way Jewry could maintain itself in
the midst of other peoples and fulfill its Jewish duties, which grew
out of its race, origins and laws. The values and ideals of other
peoples were not affected. This separation was only possible because
the views of the host people were as strong as those of the Jews.
According to the writer Grau: "There was no racial defilement or
baptism, no attempt to join a nation that one could never be a member
of, and no attempt to intellectually silence the host people." In the
Ghetto of the Middle Ages, the Jew developed his nature and
characteristics, which were later to become significant, while
maintaining the community of blood and race. The latter is
particularly important, since the strict physical separation between
the host and guest peoples maintained the foreign nature that we daily
see so clearly, now that the barriers between have long since fallen.
Even in the Middle Ages, the most important thing was not the
difference between the Christian and Mosaic faiths. Rather, there was
on the one hand the natural sense that the Jew was of a foreign race,
and on the other hand the strict law of blood which demanded a clear
separation if the Jews were to fulfill Jehovah's mission, which had
guided them from the beginning. Just this has always been kept in the
background by historians, who present the Ghetto as a tolerated asylum
for Jewish martyrs persecuted on account of their faith. There is a
gap to be filled here. The task of historians writing from our new
viewpoint will be to examine the portrait of the Ghetto of the Middle
Ages to discover its importance for the development of Jewry and the
relationship between the guest and host peoples. Even the Jewish side
is demanding that. O. Karbach criticizes historical writing because it
"in significant ways conceals the historical fact that the Jews in the
centuries before their emancipation possessed a legal standing that
was better than the greater part of the rest of the population, namely
complete or partial agricultural freedom. (Ordnung in der Judenfrage,
edited by E. Czermak, Reinhold, Vienna, 1933).
The barriers between Germans and Jews fell as a result of the
Enlightenment and the French Revolution. The path to Jewish world
domination would take a different direction than pious, observant Jews
had expected. Emancipation made it possible to build Jewish dominance
through secular means. With the disappearance of racial consciousness,
only religious differences seemed to remain. It seemed at the time
unjust to give someone a preferred position only because of his
religious beliefs, which are an entirely personal matter. At the time,
this was tied to a belief in human equality and freedom. It was
revolutionary. It shattered the church dogmas that had ruled for
centuries and was the foundation of liberal thinking during the last
two hundred years. The new goal was humanity itself, and nothing stood
in the way of racial mixing. Some had the quiet hope that assimilation
would mean the absorption of Jewry. Jewry itself, however, was more
than willing to use the opportunities of religious assimilation, which
opened the path to all important positions, even to political
leadership. As H. Heine said, "baptism was the ticket to European
culture." Gradually, an intermixing with the German people developed,
particularly in its cultural elite. Foreign blood infiltrated to a
degree that we realize only today now that the "Law to Reestablish a
Professional Bureaucracy" has exposed numerous sources of foreign
blood. This process has greatly accelerated during the last fourteen
years.
Today the age of raceless thinking is being displaced by the ideals of
human variability. Values are rooted in origin and territory, and each
group has a historic mission based on its own unique and eternal
values. Such new racial thinking will of course secure the opposition
of those who either through faith or reason still believe in the unity
of humanity in culture, social order and organization. The Jews will
naturally oppose any discussion of race, since the denial of any
significant differences between people is the foundation of his
infiltration of Western European society. The Jew finds any mention of
the racial question as an attack on his current existence. His leading
role in every anti-national area is characteristic of his mimicry, and
is necessary for his continued existence. That explains the phrase
"German citizen of the Jewish faith."
The recognition that the Jew is of a foreign and different race along
with the reawakening of German racial consciousness must necessarily
lead to a change in the relations between Germans and Jews.
There is one point to keep in mind before examining the statistics.
Only those people who claimed to be Jews and were members of the
Mosaic faith were counted as Jews, not those who for internal or
external reasons belonged to another religion, or those who claimed to
be dissident Jews and therefore did not belong to the standard groups.
This is regrettable for our purposes, since we are interested not in
the influence of those who still claimed the Jewish religion, rather
those who belonged to the Jewish race! That includes all Jews, whether
of the Mosaic faith or baptized Christians. That is just what the
supporters of the Talmud and the Old Testament always said. They
complained that the state opened all offices to those "without
character," to "Christmas Jews," even admitting them to the officer
corps! The statistics given here must therefore be increased
significantly. The Jews are a race, and baptism does not in any way
change the foreign characteristics that are hostile to the German
people..."
Of course, the intellectual atmosphere that enabled the Jew to
infiltrate the German body politic quickly led the Jew himself to see
that conditions for his advancement were favorable, and that the way
to the top was open. He also realized what the population statistics
meant, indeed they were particularly clear to him, since 2/3 of his
kind lived in the big cities, the centers of the liberal worldview..."
"Nothing shows the differences between our people and the Jews more
clearly than their likes and dislikes for certain occupations. In some
occupations, particularly those that are most important for the nation
as a whole, the foreign influence on German life has reached an
intolerable extent not seen elsewhere in Europe. The preference for
certain occupations also gives us an interesting insight into the
spiritual nature of Jewry.
The following figures show how much critical occupations in Germany
have been infiltrated.
112,188 Jews, or 58.8%, far more than half, are employed in the area
of "commerce and transportation, including restaurants and taverns,"
but only 17.11% (3,248,145) of the population as a whole. In the area
of "industry and craft work, including mining and construction,"
19,318 Jews (25.85%) were employed, including 31.82% of foreigners.
For the population as a whole, the figure was 40.94% (7,771,799).
The figures in the field of "public administration, the judiciary, the
army and navy, churches, legal professionals and the independent
professions." 11,324 Jews were employed there, or 5.94% , over against
921,048 (4.85%) in the general population..."
In 1925, 0.81% of Jews were active as civil servants and the army and
navy, as opposed to 2.3% of the general population. In the church,
religious occupations, the legal system and the other independent
professions, the Jewish percentage is 4.3% as opposed to 2% of the
general population. This shows that the Jews are over-represented when
compared to the general population, particularly in the independent
professions.
The percentage of the Jewish population in government positions may
seem less than that of the general population, but the difference is
not as great as the figures first suggest. The most recent figures,
not yet entirely complete, suggest that a not insignificant number of
them are baptized Jews or dissidents formerly of the Jewish faith who
denied their Jewishness to gain an official position.
4.35% of Jews are employed in the medical and health care system,
including welfare, and 2.0% of foreign Jews. The figure for the
general population is 1.88%. The Jewish percentage is thus 2 1/2 times
as high as that of the general population.
In summary, Jewish occupational patterns differ from those of the rest
of the population. Jewry seems to have an aversion to agricultural
work, industrial labor and crafts. They are greatly over-represented
in commerce and transportation, including the entire banking system.
They are also over-represented in the independent professions and the
health care system. These figures alone demonstrate a clear difference
between the native German population and alien Jewry.
Very similar conditions prevail in all Western European nations and
also in North America, since Jews have spread throughout the world in
areas with growing industry and in cities that are centers of economic
and financial power. It is not true, as is often claimed, that the Jew
was systematically forced into commerce by the laws of the various
nations; rather, commerce particularly suits the Jew's nature. This is
supported by Dr. Arthur Ruppin, a scholar respected by the Jews. He
writes in his book The Jews of the Present (2nd edition, Cologne and
Leipzig, 1911, p. 45):
"Thanks to their significant commercial gifts (!), the Jews soon
enjoyed great success in commerce and industry. For 2000 years they
have seemed predestined to work in commerce. It is false to claim, as
some do, that Jews became merchants primarily because the Christians
denied them other occupations during the Middle Ages. The Jews did not
become merchants in Europe, rather they entered the profession in
growing numbers ever since the Babylonian Captivity in Syria, Egypt
and Babylon [because they dislike labor and prefer to have others work
for them! The Editor]. In Palestine until the dispersion they did live
primarily by agriculture. In the Diaspora, there was hardly anywhere
that the Jews lived by agriculture. The Middle Ages did not make them
into merchants. It only affirmed legally that which history had
already established. It is after all the rule that economic laws
generally do not create new conditions, but only legalize and regulate
that which already exists. The law would never have limited the Jews
to commerce in Europe if they had not already immigrated primarily as
merchants..."
Nearly all national economists agree that the Jews owe their role as
merchants not to chance, but to their excellent abilities as
merchants. As W. Sombart wrote: "The Jewish race is by nature the
incarnation of the capitalism-mercantile spirit." (Der moderne
Kapitalismus, Vol. 2, p. 349. Leipzig, 1902). Many others agree..."
"Similarly differences in the relative proportion of Jews by the
self-employed are evident in the medical field, which employs 0.5% of
the general population but 2.8% of the Jews, nearly six times as many.
Similar statistics are found in the cultural area (theater, film,
radio, education, teaching, etc.). The 0.4% of the general population
are employed there, 2.6% of the Jews, also about six times as many.
In the area of public administration and the judiciary, the percentage
of Jews in high positions is 2.0%, over against 1.3% of the general
population, nearly twice as high. The significance of these figures
becomes clear that when one realizes that the 2.3% of professional
Jews in public administration and the judiciary are in a branch where
the Jewish percentage of employees is only 0.81%. That means that the
Jews are especially represented in the important positions that
influence the whole government and leading branches of the economy.."
"The statistics may be interesting. The Jewish workers included 11,406
in industry, 2,220 in commerce and transportation, and 726 in
agriculture.
The following figures show most clearly the different social structure
of Jewry in Prussia over against the general population, and reveal
clearly Jewry's leading role in public life:.."
"On 19 May 1933 Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler gave an interview to
Bernard Ridder, an American journalist for the New York State
Newspaper. Discussing the Jewish Question in Germany, he said: "Should
I allow thousands of German-blooded people to be destroyed so that the
Jews can live and work in luxury while millions starve, falling victim
to Bolshevism out of desperation?"
Can the justice of his words be doubted when one recalls that,
according to the Prussian census of 16 June 1925 6.9% of all
independent pharmacists, 17.9% of all independent physicians, 4.8% of
all independent artists, 27% of all independent attorneys, 4.6% of
editors, 11% of theater directors, 7.5% of actors, and 14.8% of all
independent dentists were Jews! And these huge figures when the Jews
were only 1% of the population! Is that anything other than a
Jewdification of our entire cultural system?! And what would these
figures look like if one had had the ability to include baptized Jews
and dissidents?..."
"Berlin is the Jewish metropolis in Germany. The process of
Jewdification is considerably further along. That is understandable,
since one is in the immediate vicinity of the protective arms of
democracy and social democracy, where developments can occur
unhindered. Thus in Berlin on 16 June 1925 32.2% of the pharmacists
were Jews, as were 49.9% of the physicians, 7.5 of the graphic
artists, 50.2% of the attorneys, 8.5% of the editors, 14.2% of the
directors and theater heads, 12.3% of the actors and 37.5% of the
dentists.
These figures cry out for legal limitations on Jewry, and it is
surprising that former governments did not take the appropriate action
to tell the Jews "this far and no further."
The Jewish influence gave the rest of the world an entirely false
impression of the nature of the German people. Inside the Reich, they
poisoned the soul of the people, and all social and political
relationships. Until the national uprising, the leaders of the
National Socialist movement were persecuted, defamed and suppressed by
a system that was a willing tool in the hands of a foreign and
different race. The national revolution freed the German people from
this foreign influence, which had also dominated and ruined the German
press and public life in significant ways.
He who wants to understand the German revolution of 1933 must
understand that it had this goal: 'Germany must be governed by Germans
for Germans.' The central idea of the National Socialist revolution
was the longing of the German people to once more be master in every
area of its own life. As a great, confident people, we demand only
this of the other peoples: that they permit us, as their equals, to
govern ourselves as we wish and find our own way to happiness (Reich
Minister of the Interior Dr. Frick)..."
"The Jewdification of our colleges and universities over the years has
reached almost frightening proportions. We begin with a publication
from 1931. Karl Hoppmann, in his volume "On the State of Jewdification
in the Academic professions" found the following figures:
1. University of Berlin:
Medical faculty . . . . over 50%
Philosophical faculty . . . . 25%
2. University of Göttingen, 32% of the professors were Jewish:
Legal Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .47.0%
Medical faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34.0%
Philosophical faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40.0%
Mathematics and Natural Sciences . . . 23.0%
3. University of Breslau
Legal Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30.0%
Medical faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37.0%
Philosophical faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.0%
4. University of Frankfurt (Main)
Legal Faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55.0%
Philosophical faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14.0%
Mathematics and Natural Sciences . . . 28.0%
Medical faculty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.0%
Economics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.0%
Jewry has a dominating role on the stock exchange. The board of the
Berlin stock exchange is almost exclusively Jewish. In the various
committees, the percentage of the Jewish race is sometimes many times
as high as the Aryan. The committees include:
That means that 117 or 147 members are Jews, or nearly 80%.
The extent of the Jewdification of German theater and film is evident
from 1931 figures. Of 234 theater directors, 118 (50.4%) were Jews, 92
(39.3%) were non-Jewish.
Berlin led in this area as well, with 23 of 29 theater directors (80%)
Jewish.
The situation in film is similar. The Viennese Catholic periodical
"Schönere Zukunft," which certainly cannot be accused of
anti-Semitism, wrote the following in its 3 February 1929 issue:
"The percentage of Jewry in today's film industry is so high, at least
by us in Germany, that there is only a tiny part left for Christian
firms."
Jewry has long sought political influence as well. This formerly
happened in covert ways, mostly through direct or indirect control of
money matters. Nearly every noble once had his financial Jew. Since
1848, the birth of political parties in Germany, Jewry has openly
sought to become a political power. The Jew Marx was the founder of
Marxist doctrine, the Jew Lassalle was the founder of the Social
Democratic Party. The founders of the Independent Social Democratic
Party of Germany were the Jews Bernstein, Haase, Kautsky, Hilferding,
Cohn, Davidsohn, Simon, Rosenfeld, Eisner, Levi, etc. Carl Liebknecht
and Rosa Luxemberg were the leaders of the Communist Party, and
recently the Jews Rosenfeld and Seydewitz founded the Socialist
Workers Party. Jews sat in the press offices and the various editorial
offices of party newspapers, and above all in the various
parliamentary factions..."
"We think it necessary to mention that the Communist wave that
threatened to destroy Germany politically, economically and
intellectually can primarily be traced back to Jewry.
Is it any wonder that the Jew is arrogant? The greater the Jewish
influence the more secure they feel, and the more ominously and
clearly their character and goals becomes clear: Pride, intolerance
and superiority on the one hand, a drive for world domination on the
other. Several pointed Jewish statements are examples:
Hochmut: The familiar "Dorfgeschichte"-Auerbach says: "We Jews are the
most intelligent race." "We are the chosen ones," says Dr. Berhard
Cohn (Jüdisch-Politische Streitfragen, 20, 22). He continues: "We may
carry our head high and demand particular respect. We must not only be
treated equally, but better. We deserve the particular respect of
other peoples."
Rabbi Dr. Rulf wrote a book ("Aruchas bar-Ammni," Israel's Healing,
Frankfurt a. M. 1883) in which he says: "The Jewish people is a
blessing for all peoples. The blessing has followed on the heels of
the Jews. A whole world lives from the Jews, who feed everyone, and
everywhere spread wealth and pleasure, comfort and prosperity. Only
the commerce of the Jews creates value. Work alone does not do that.
Half of the world's population would starve without the Jews."
The Jew Dr. Duschak wrote: "The world could not exist without the
Jews." The well-known Jew Sacher-Masoch explained the hatred of
anti-Semites against the Jews in this way: It is the same hatred a
Negro feels against the whites because of their superiority.
That the Jews even went so far as to suggest to Bismark that he make
the Jewish Day of Atonement a national holiday is certainly no sign of
modesty.
Intolerance: The Jew Klausner (Society, edited by Conrad, Volume 12)
wrote: "Anti-Semitism and criminality are nearly the same thing. There
are criminals who were not anti-Semites, but no anti-Semites who were
not criminals."
The work by Dr. E. Fuchs. "The Future of the Jews," (Berlin,
Philo-Verlag, 1924) judges our greatest historians, Hartmann and
Treitschke, who see the Jews as our misfortune: "Men blinded by
prejudice and hatred. Small, tiny men."
World Domination: The Jewish attorney Maurthner in Vienna said back in
the 1880's: "It is not just a matter of fighting anti-Semitism. We
want to oppose it with Jewish domination!"
They made the attempt. If the German people had not recovered their
senses at the last moment, and if they had not had a Fuehrer and
Chancellor named Adolf Hitler who recognized the danger and woke the
German people, we would have fallen into slavery. As we have already
noted, the Jew has always known how to rouse sympathy when things were
rough for him. Consider this report from the meeting of the PEN Club
in Ragusa at the end of May of last year: "Schalom Asch in his keynote
address noted that the suffering of the Jews in Germany had aroused
the sympathy of the entire world. Only the German government remained
untouched. He claimed the Jews has given Germany its deepest thoughts,
its most beautiful songs, its greatest poets, artists and
philosophers. Today one had crucified them in Germany and covered them
with their own blood." Mr. Schalom Asch began crying in the midst of
these outrageous lies. He spoke in the hope that his words would be
heard for the sake of justice and humanity throughout the world.
The Jew Asch cries! The German people are not moved. They want no
torture or persecution, but also no unjustified sympathy, only
justice! Remember always the worlds of Field Marshall Moltke: "The Jew
is a state within the state." Remember also the works of our great
historian Mommsen: "In antiquity too the Jew was the ferment of
cosmopolitanism and national decomposition." And remember Goethe: "The
Israelites have never done much; they possess few virtues, and most of
the deficiencies of other peoples!"
The Racial Question has an important role in the laws of other
nations, though other peoples and races are affected than in the
German Reich. It is in no way new or unusual that the German Reich is
active in this area. Contrary to opinions that surface here and there,
our laws are in no way directed against the Jewish religion, its
practice, or the freedom of the Jewish faith.
The German Reich has done nothing but introduce constitutional
legislation to provide the kind of civil service necessary to
guarantee the secure administration of the Reich. The laws do not
render it impossible for a citizen of a foreign state to become a
civil servant. Indeed, if he is appointed to such a position, he
receives full citizenship in the Reich. German civil servants should
however be of Aryan descent. The so-called Aryan Law requires that
each civil servant be of German blood. Since the vast majority of
non-Aryan civil servants were Jews, the first guidelines to the law
paid particular attention to those who were members of the Jewish
race. But we did not simply throw out the non-Aryan civil servants,
but retired them with honor and a pension. The people's state could
hardly proceed in a more legal and mild manner. Germany did not want
to attack Jewry wildly, rather only deal with its results, is clear
from the fact that the Law of 7 April 1933 left untouched all
non-Aryan civil servants who had been appointed before 1 August 1914,
and by the fact that the private sphere not affected. Some complain
that the law extends to half and quarter Aryans. The answer is that
the foreign influence in the civil service had grown to such a
dangerous extent that it was almost impossible for young Germans to
enter these professions." (Reich Minister of the Interior Dr.
Frick..."
bythepow...@yahoo.com
you prefer to reinforce the idea that racists are dupes manipulated by
a few assholes who can manipulate well with words.
Topaz skrev:
catbr...@yahoo.com
Socialism and liberal democracy are not incompatible. If it were, all
of Western Europe would be in ruins.
Cat
Jim Ledford
>
[....]
>
> Socialism and liberal democracy are not incompatible.
there's a truth. more factual though, they are one
in the same when party leaders see themselves as above
the people.
> If it were, all
> of Western Europe would be in ruins.
would that in and of itself be kind of like the over
5000 recently burned out cars in france. buildings too.
seems to me the result of the upper class socialist not
sharing with the lower class socialist and thus leading
to a certain level of dissatisfaction among the rioting
fire starters.
there is no form of government by man where all men will
ever be allowed equal slices of prosperity.
in order for one group of men to enjoy power over another
group of men they the empowered must possess that which the
masses are not entitled. sad it is.
in a prefect world no one would only dream of equality.
>
> Cat
the Danimal
> Though I am the living embodiment of the "Aryan Ideal", Norse-Germanic
> by ethnicity and appearance, I abhor Fascism and all racist ideologies.
Do you also abhor racist practices, such as living in the ethnically
cleansed communities typical of the U.S. (made possible by
reliance on terrorist-supporting automobiles, our motorized
ethnic cleansers), and driving your SUV instead of riding on
public transportation with the homies?
On those occasions when I ride the bus, often mine is the only
white face on board. I look out the window and see lots of white
faces whizzing by in their single-passenger gaswasters.
I would imagine many of them would also hypocritically denounce
the explicit espousal of racist ideologies. With racism, you don't
say it, you just do it.
> It is humiliating to me that such a narrow ideal of beauty has been so
> narrowly focused.
Poor baby! If you live long enough, you'll no longer have that cross to
bear.
But I'm curious---what do you find "humiliating" about the fact that
men from all races want to bang you? Isn't it pretty much up to them
to decide what they consider bang-worthy?
>From a man's point of view, I don't consider it "humiliating" that
women
from all races want to bang rich, successful guys. I find it merely
curious (and a good reason to build sex robots, so average guys can
enjoy the same pleasures as rich guys). Latest example: did you
catch Howard Stern's interview on (US TV show) 60 Minutes? They
showed a picture of Howard's ex-wife (divorced a few years ago
after 20 years of marriage), and then they interviewed Howard and
his new fashion-model girlfriend. Who, I should say, exemplifies
the Aryan ideal of beauty in spades (to mix metaphors a bit).
If the world's most beautiful women want to be gold-diggers, that's
their right. It doesn't "humiliate" me. It merely establishes what I
would have to obtain (namely, wealth and fame) if I wanted to
bang some of those women. The actual women, that is. Technology
may provide an easier alternative. And a more intellectually
satisfying alternative too.
It's interesting to consider which gender's ideal can be realized
first with technology. It should be a lot easier for technology to
simulate Howard Stern's girlfriend (for the satisfaction of men)
than for technology to simulate Howard Stern (for the satisfaction
of women). With Howard Stern, the salient feature is the success,
and the *relative* status. If every man had a $500 million satellite
radio contract, they would all be merely average again in the eyes
of women. (Consider that the average US working stiff is fantastically
wealthy in Medieval terms, but modern US women have simply
raised their materialistic requirements commensurately.)
With Howard Stern's girlfriend, the salient features
are *absolute*: her looks and her receptive behavior.
If every woman looked similarly good, and behaved as adoringly
toward the average working stiff, they would still look good.
(A man can test this hypothesis by viewing photographs of
thousands of attractive women. Even after massive, pervasive
exposure, they still look good. In fact, pornography can be
understood as an attempt by men to democratize the experience
of enjoying beautiful women. So far, technology hasn't been
up to the task---actual beautiful women are still better---but
technology will keep improving.)
I think it is technologically possible for all men to be satisfied, but
satisfying all women would be much harder, because satisfaction
for women depends more on out-competing other women for some
tiny percentage of men who are judged to be the most successful
by the criteria du jour. That is, maximum satisfaction for a woman
is not just a function of what she has, but of what she can prevent
other women from having. That is what the stereotypical female
lust to monopolize successful men represents. It's not necessarily
a woman's conscious plan to thwart her competitors, but her
emotional brain is wired up to drive her to do exactly that.
True, a man might derive *some* pleasure by twitting loserguys
with his trophy woman, but I think most guys would be happy to
lose that small pleasure in exchange for not having to deal with
any more competition. Consider: when men look at porn, they
rarely try to prevent other men from looking at more *copies* of
it. The fact that simulacra are copyable means we can make the
pie bigger. A LOT bigger.
> And as a socialist,
As a socialist you should support efforts to level the sexual playing
field (for men, anyway) with sex robots. From each according to
his technical ability, to each according to his sexual need.
> I can only applaud the Red Army's
> victory over one of the most evil regimes in all history.
If Hitler had won, he also would have scored a victory over one
of the most evil regimes in all of history. By the way, Hitler
was a socialist too.
It was fortunate for the democracies of the world that two
of the most evil socialist regimes in all of history were considerate
enough to decimate each other. 70% of German casualties
in WWII occurred on the Eastern Front. The "Greatest
Generation" is fortunate indeed that it merely faced less
than a third of the full might of Nazi Germany.
> (No, I am not
> approving of that butcher Stalin. He betrayed communism.)
Would you say George W. Bush betrays Republicanism, or
would you instead say George W. Bush illustrates the
inevitable results of Republicanism?
Would you say Islamic suicide bombers betray Islam, or are
they the inevitable products of Islamic ideology?
Would you say abortion-clinic bombers betray Christianity,
or are they the inevitable products of Bible thumping?
Would you say pedophile Roman Catholic priests are
merely individual sinners, or do they reflect some systemic
flaw in Roman Catholic ideology?
Would you say library masturbaters are merely pervs, or are
they the products of Ilyadology?
In general, when partisans of one ideology attack another ideology,
they consider the sins of the rival ideology's followers as indicating
fundamental flaws in the ideology. That is, _ad hominem_ arguments
seem perfectly valid when applied to the opponent.
While on the other hand, most ideologues excuse the sins of
their fellow ideologues as being nothing more than anomalous
deviations from their ideology. The offenders are not "true"
Christians, or "true" Communists, or "true" whatever they
claim to be.
Can you judge the results of every ideology fairly?
Indeed, do you have any concept of the ideology of fairness?
We know people are flawed. We know flawed people will
take advantage of whatever ideology is handy to do what
they want. Therefore, it is reasonable to hold every ideology
accountable for the safeguards it has built in---if any---against
the inevitable abuses which will occur when flawed people
get hold of it. That is, does an ideology acknowledge the
reality that some people will try to misuse it, and does the
ideology have any built-in defenses against this inevitability?
Or does the ideology instead try to pretend that all people
are good?
And does an ideology learn from its mistakes? Or does it
simply make excuses and apply double standards like
you do?
Communism, Catholicism, Islam, Republicanism, etc., each
repeatedly have given rise to their respective types of abuses.
Only the proponents of an ideology could blind themselves
sufficiently to ignore its obvious flaws.
An analogy might help. Suppose a company builds very fine
cutting torches, which are reliable and safe in the hands of
properly trained users. Would handing out these torches to
young boys be a good idea? Because torches are material
objects, it's possible to control who gets hold of them. Ideas,
on the other hand, cannot be so controlled. An idea
which spreads can spread to every type of people, including
the worst type of people. The proper way to judge an ideology
is to see how the worst people handle it.
If an ideology is unsafe for flawed humans to handle, it's a flawed
ideology. And that would be just about every ideology, to date.
Democracy has a better track record than most because of
its notion of division of powers. The problem with absolutist
doctrines such as Islam, Catholicism, Communism, and
evangelical Christianity is that each allows ultimate authority
to rest with one man. Obviously, that attracts men who have
the strongest lust for power. And very often those turn out to
be the worst men.
Democracy, on the other hand, attempts to limit the scope of
evil to the population average. The average person is not as
evil as the average despot. But the average person is still
pretty evil, and it's only a representative form of government
anyway, so democracy cannot be "perfect."
-- the Danimal
rdu...@pdq.net
Western European economies are hardly socialistic by any rational
appraisal. Most of them spent a lot more on welfare and subsidies for
select companies than in the US, but the state does not generally OWN
the enterprises.
In Scandanavian countries in particular, the economy is owned by
stock-issuing, publically traded corporations fully as much as the US.
In the old Soviet Union, there was true socialism; all enterprises,
by law, were owned by the state.
> Cat
Ken Ward
wrote:
In a perfect world there would be no humans. Even excluding religious
philosophies, humans are a complex mixture of traits present in
varying degrees, such that no one social system is wholly compatible
with all of its subject population. What is needed is a plurality of
social structures with ready migration between. Where that falls down
however is that the optimum social system for some people must of
necessity contain others for whom the system is not optimum.
Lady Veteran
Hash: SHA1
Why not enforce fashion? Society enforces appearance. People who do
not look like Nordic Gods and Goddesses succeed in spite of
society-not because of it.
LV
- ------------------------------------------------------
I am anti-idiot, anti nazi and anti communinist.
Frankly, I see no difference between the three.
- -------------------------------------------------
I rode a tank and held a General's rank
When the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank
- - - - Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
- ----------------------------------------
Be who you are and say what you feel, because
those who mind don't matter and those who matter
don't mind.
- --Dr. Seuss
- ----------------------------------------
You are your greatest obstacle.
- - unknown
- ----------------------------------------
Time heals all wounds and wounds all heels.
- - unknown
_________________________________________
It is really too bad that stupidity isn't painful.
- - unknown
- ---------------------------------------------
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Michael Quinn
>>
>
> Western European economies are hardly socialistic by any rational
>appraisal. Most of them spent a lot more on welfare and subsidies for
>select companies than in the US, but the state does not generally OWN
>the enterprises.
> In Scandanavian countries in particular, the economy is owned by
>stock-issuing, publically traded corporations fully as much as the US.
> In the old Soviet Union, there was true socialism; all enterprises,
>by law, were owned by the state.
>
>
How then was Nazi Germany socialist when the bulk of the means of
production, distribution and exchange were in private hands?
rdu...@pdq.net
First of all, I have never mentioned Nazi-ism as an example of
anything. (Although others have - they always do on usenet).
Second, the Nazis were fond of talking about "German Economics"
which basically meant a great deal of government control of prices and
the rationing of all sorts of key materials. And yes, this gave the
state tremendous power to reward some and punish others even before the
advent of harsher methods. It also gave them the opportunity, over the
short term, to borrow and extort the resources needed to prepare for a
war in a way that they could never have acheived if they were limited
to free market based economic approaches. But what they were doing was
borrowing and extorting and it could not have lasted without a war of
plunder to sustain it.
Left unrestrained, most governments would act that way; at least
they did in the past. Go back and read the economic history of medieval
kings.
AE
> AE wrote:
>>
>>I agree with lots of what you've said, but I disagree in one point:
>>There is no reliable way to enforce a fashion.
>>
>>Designers are able to suggest and so do people in showbusiness, and
>>media might be able to report in a biased way, but it's the decision
>>of people to accept a fashion.
>
> Why not enforce fashion?
That's the difference between fashion and a uniform ...
> Society enforces appearance.
Does it? I don't think so. Actually people are following a fashion, but
society is not actually enforcing it. Surely one shouldn't leave the
limits that are defined by customs and still expect to be fully
accepted, but within fairly wide borders we are free.
> People who do not look like Nordic Gods and Goddesses succeed in
> spite of society-not because of it.
They succeed not because of what they look like, but because of their
abilities.
> LV
> ...
Denny Wheeler
wrote:
>>in a prefect world no one would only dream of equality.
>>> Cat
>In a perfect world there would be no humans.
But you didn't address "Cat"'s point, Ken. The subject wasn't a
perfect world, it was a prefect world.
I'm not sure what prefecture that'd be found in...
--
-denny-
"Do your thoughts call ahead or do they just arrive at your mouth unannounced?"
"It's come as you are, baby."
-over the hedge
Ken Ward
<den...@TANSTAAFL.zipcon.net.INVALID> wrote:
>On Mon, 05 Dec 2005 21:42:43 GMT, Ken Ward <kwar...@bigpond.net.au>
>wrote:
>
>>>in a prefect world no one would only dream of equality.
>
>>>> Cat
>>In a perfect world there would be no humans.
>
>But you didn't address "Cat"'s point, Ken. The subject wasn't a
>perfect world, it was a prefect world.
>
>I'm not sure what prefecture that'd be found in...
Damn. Reverse dyslexia - my brain automatically corrected what it
saw.
(Consults dictionary - Pre = of order or rank, before in order of
importance, superior to; fect = facere L to make) so this is a world
made before in order of importance, or made superior to. Hmm.
Superior to what? - our current world? OK. Then I don't need a
perfect world, just a prefect world. Either way, there won't be any
humans on it.
Topaz
wrote:
>
>How then was Nazi Germany socialist when the bulk of the means of
>production, distribution and exchange were in private hands?
Here is part of an essay by Dr. Robert Ley:
"Who concerned himself with creating good workplaces before? Today the
"Beauty in Labor Office" sees to it that productive people work in
worthy surroundings, not in dirty workplaces. The "Kraft durch Freude"
organization provides German workers with vacations and relaxation.
They travel to the mountains and the beach, and have the chance, often
for the first time, to explore their beautiful fatherland. They travel
in their own ships to the magical southern seas and countries, or to
the splendid beauty of the north. Each German citizen today enjoys the
wonderful achievements of German theater and German music, the best
German orchestras, the best German operas, theaters and films.
Citizens listen to the radio, and play any kind of sport they wish.
There new activities result not in dissipation, distraction and carnal
pleasure, rather in genuine pleasure in physical activity, nature and
culture. He who works hard should be able to enjoy life too so that he
better appreciates his people. The specter of unemployment no longer
haunts the nation. Millions have already found work again, and those
who still have not are cared for by the entire nation. Labor
representatives see to it that the rights of workers and their honor
are not violated, and the factory manager is as responsible for his
employees and they are responsible with him for the success of the
plant in which they together work...
Everyone knows that there is only one man to thank, Adolf Hitler, the
creator of National Socialism, who put the common good above the
individual good, who replaced class struggle of "above and below" and
"right and left" with a new message of the honor of labor and of
service to the people. The National Socialist Labor Service will see
to it that this teaching that makes the German worker the bearer of
the state never vanishes. It is seeing to it that every German
citizen, whatever his occupation may be, first works with his hands
for the good of the nation."
Topaz
>
> First of all, I have never mentioned Nazi-ism as an example of
>anything. (Although others have - they always do on usenet).
> Second, the Nazis were fond of talking about "German Economics"
>which basically meant a great deal of government control of prices and
>the rationing of all sorts of key materials. And yes, this gave the
>state tremendous power to reward some and punish others even before the
>advent of harsher methods. It also gave them the opportunity, over the
>short term, to borrow and extort the resources needed to prepare for a
>war in a way that they could never have acheived if they were limited
>to free market based economic approaches. But what they were doing was
>borrowing and extorting and it could not have lasted without a war of
>plunder to sustain it.
> Left unrestrained, most governments would act that way; at least
>they did in the past. Go back and read the economic history of medieval
>kings.
Jew propaganda.
Leon Degrelle
"We have the power. Now our gigantic work begins."
Those were Hitler's words on the night of January 30, 1933, as
cheering crowds surged past him, for five long hours, beneath the
windows of the Chancellery in Berlin.
His political struggle had lasted 14 years. He himself was 43, that
is, physically and intellectually at the peak of his powers. He had
won over millions of Germans and organized them into Germany's largest
and most dynamic political party, a party girded by a human rampart of
hundreds of thousands of storm troopers, three fourths of them members
of the working class. He had been extremely shrewd. All but toying
with his adversaries, Hitler had, one after another, vanquished them
all.
Standing there at the window, his arm raised to the delirious throng,
he must have known a feeling of triumph. But he seemed almost torpid,
absorbed, as if lost in another world.
It was a world far removed from the delirium in the street, a world of
65 million citizens who loved him or hated him, but all of whom, from
that night on, had become his responsibility. And as he knew -- as
almost all Germans knew on January 1933 -- that this was a crushing,
an almost desperate responsibility.
Half a century later, few people understand the crisis Germany faced
at that time. Today, it's easy to assume that Germans have always been
well-fed and even plump. But the Germans Hitler inherited were virtual
skeletons.
During the preceding years, a score of "democratic" governments had
come and gone, often in utter confusion. Instead of alleviating the
people's misery, they had increased it, due to their own instability:
it was impossible for them to pursue any given plan for more than a
year or two. Germany had arrived at a dead end. In just a few years
there had been 224,000 suicides - a horrifying figure, bespeaking a
state of misery even more horrifying.
By the beginning of 1933, the misery of the German people was
virtually universal. At least six million unemployed and hungry
workers roamed aimlessly through the streets, receiving a pitiful
unemployment benefit of less than 42 marks per month. Many of those
out of work had families to feed, so that altogether some 20 million
Germans, a third of the country's population, were reduced to trying
to survive on about 40 pfennigs per person per day.
Unemployment benefits, moreover, were limited to a period of six
months. After that came only the meager misery allowance dispensed by
the welfare offices.
Notwithstanding the gross inadequacy of this assistance, by trying to
save the six million unemployed from total destruction, even for just
six months, both the state and local branches of the German government
saw themselves brought to ruin: in 1932 alone such aid had swallowed
up four billion marks, 57 percent of the total tax revenues of the
federal government and the regional states. A good many German
municipalities were bankrupt.
Those still lucky enough to have some kind of job were not much better
off. Workers and employees had taken a cut of 25 percent in their
wages and salaries. Twenty-one percent of them were earning between
100 and 250 marks per month; 69.2 percent of them, in January of 1933,
were being paid less than 1,200 marks annually. No more than about
100,000 Germans, it was estimated, were able to live without financial
worries.
During the three years before Hitler came to power, total earnings had
fallen by more than half, from 23 billion marks to 11 billion. The
average per capita income had dropped from 1,187 marks in 1929 to 627
marks, a scarcely tolerable level, in 1932. By January 1933, when
Hitler took office, 90 percent of the German people were destitute.
No one escaped the strangling effects of the unemployment. The
intellectuals were hit as hard as the working class. Of the 135,000
university graduates, 60 percent were without jobs. Only a tiny
minority was receiving unemployment benefits.
"The others," wrote one foreign observer, Marcel Laloire (in his book
New Germany), "are dependent on their parents or are sleeping in
flophouses. In the daytime they can be seen on the boulevards of
Berlin wearing signs on their backs to the effect that they will
accept any kind of work."
But there was no longer any kind of work.
The same drastic fall-off had hit Germany's cottage industry, which
comprised some four million workers. Its turnover had declined 55
percent, with total sales plunging from 22 billion to 10 billion
marks.
Hardest hit of all were construction workers; 90 percent of them were
unemployed.
Farmers, too, had been ruined, crushed by losses amounting to 12
billion marks. Many had been forced to mortgage their homes and their
land. In 1932 just the interest on the loans they had incurred due to
the crash was equivalent to 20 percent of the value of the
agricultural production of the entire country. Those who were no
longer able to meet the interest payments saw their farms auctioned
off in legal proceedings: in the years 1931-1932, 17,157 farms -- with
a combined total area of 462,485 hectares - were liquidated in this
way.
The "democracy" of Germany's "Weimar Republic" (1918 -1933) had proven
utterly ineffective in addressing such flagrant wrongs as this
impoverishment of millions of farm workers, even though they were the
nation's most stable and hardest working citizens. Plundered,
dispossessed, abandoned: small wonder they heeded Hitler's call.
Their situation on January 30, 1933, was tragic. Like the rest of
Germany's working class, they had been betrayed by their political
leaders, reduced to the alternatives of miserable wages, paltry and
uncertain benefit payments, or the outright humiliation of begging.
Germany's industries, once renowned everywhere in the world, were no
longer prosperous, despite the millions of marks in gratuities that
the financial magnates felt obliged to pour into the coffers of the
parties in power before each election in order to secure their
cooperation. For 14 years the well-blinkered conservatives and
Christian democrats of the political center had been feeding at the
trough just as greedily as their adversaries of the left…
One inevitable consequence of this ever-increasing misery and
uncertainty about the future was an abrupt decline in the birthrate.
When your household savings are wiped out, and when you fear even
greater calamities in the days ahead, you do not risk adding to the
number of your dependents.
In those days the birth rate was a reliable barometer of a country's
prosperity. A child is a joy, unless you have nothing but a crust of
bread to put in its little hand. And that's just the way it was with
hundreds of thousands of German families in 1932…
Hitler knew that he would be starting from zero. From less than zero.
But he was also confident of his strength of will to create Germany
anew -- politically, socially, financially, and economically. Now
legally and officially in power, he was sure that he could quickly
convert that cipher into a Germany more powerful than ever before.
What support did he have?
For one thing, he could count on the absolute support of millions of
fanatical disciples. And on that January evening, they joyfully shared
in the great thrill of victory. Some thirteen million Germans, many of
them former Socialists and Communists, had voted for his party.
But millions of Germans were still his adversaries, disconcerted
adversaries, to be sure, whom their own political parties had
betrayed, but who had still not been won over to National Socialism.
The two sides -- those for and those against Hitler -- were very
nearly equal in numbers. But whereas those on the left were divided
among themselves, Hitler's disciples were strongly united. And in one
thing above all, the National Socialists had an incomparable
advantage: in their convictions and in their total faith in a leader.
Their highly organized and well-disciplined party had contented with
the worst kind of obstacles, and had overcome them…
In the eyes of the capitalists, money was the sole active element in
the flourishing of a country's economy. To Hitler's way of thinking,
that conception was radically wrong: capital, on the contrary, was
only an instrument. Work was the essential element: man's endeavor,
man's honor, blood, muscles and soul.
Hitler wanted not just to put an to the class struggle, but to
reestablish the priority of the human being, in justice and respect,
as the principal factor in production…
For the worker's trust in the fatherland to be restored, he had to
feel that from now on he was to be (and to be treated) as an equal,
instead of remaining a social inferior. Under the governments of the
so-called democratic parties of both the left and the right, he had
remained an inferior; for none of them had understood that in the
hierarchy of national values, work is the very essence of life; …
The objective, then, was far greater than merely getting six million
unemployed back to work. It was to achieve a total revolution.
"The people," Hitler declared, "were not put here on earth for the
sake of the economy, and the economy doesn't exist for the sake of
capital. On the contrary, capital is meant to serve the economy, and
the economy in turn to serve the people."
It would not be enough merely to reopen the thousands of closed
factories and fill them with workers. If the old concepts still ruled,
the workers would once again be nothing more than living machines,
faceless and interchangeable…
Nowhere in twentieth-century Europe had the authority of a head of
state ever been based on such overwhelming and freely given national
consent. Prior to Hitler, from 1919 to 1932, those governments piously
styling themselves democratic had usually come to power by meager
majorities, sometimes as low as 51 or 52 percent.
"I am not a dictator," Hitler had often affirmed, "and I never will
be. Democracy will be rigorously enforced by National Socialism."
Authority does not mean tyranny. A tyrant is someone who puts himself
in power without the will of the people or against the will of the
people. A democrat is placed in power by the people. But democracy is
not limited to a single formula. It may be partisan or parliamentary.
Or it may be authoritarian. The important thing is that the people
have wished it, chosen it, established it in its given form.
That was the case with Hitler. He came to power in an essentially
democratic way. Whether one likes it or not, this fact is undeniable.
And after coming to power, his popular support measurably increased
from year to year. The more intelligent and honest of his enemies have
been obliged to admit this, men such as the declared anti-Nazi
historian and professor Joachim Fest, who wrote:
For Hitler was never interested in establishing a mere tyranny. Sheer
greed for power will not suffice as explanation for his personality
and energy -- He was not born to be a mere tyrant. He was fixated upon
his mission of defending Europe and the Aryan race ... Never had he
felt so dependent upon the masses as he did at this time, and he
watched their reactions with anxious concern.
These lines weren't written by Dr. Goebbels, but by a stern critic of
Hitler and his career…
When it came time to vote, Hitler was granted plenary powers with a
sweeping majority of 441 votes to 94: he had won not just two thirds,
but 82.44 percent of the assembly's votes. This "Enabling Act" granted
Hitler for four years virtually absolute authority over the
legislative as well as the executive affairs of the government…
After 1945 the explanation that was routinely offered for all this was
that the Germans had lost their heads. Whatever the case, it is a
historical fact that they acted of their own free will. Far from being
resigned, they were enthusiastic. "For the first time since the last
days of the monarchy," historian Joachim Fest has conceded, "the
majority of the Germans now had the feeling that they could identify
with the state."…
"You talk about persecution!" he thundered in an impromptu response to
an address by the Social Democratic speaker. "I think that there are
only a few of us [in our party] here who did not have to suffer
persecutions in prison from your side ... You seem to have totally
forgotten that for years our shirts were ripped off our backs because
you did not like the color . . . We have outgrown your persecutions!"
"In those days," he scathingly continued, "our newspapers were banned
and banned and again banned, our meetings were forbidden, and we were
forbidden to speak, I was forbidden to speak, for years on. And now
you say that criticism is salutary!"…
Hitler's millions of followers had rediscovered the primal strength of
rough, uncitified man, of a time when men still had backbone…
Gustav Noske, the lumberjack who became defense minister - and the
most valiant defender of the embattled republic in the tumultuous
months immediately following the collapse of 1918 - acknowledged
honestly in 1944, when the Third Reich was already rapidly breaking
down, that the great majority of the German people still remained true
to Hitler because of the social renewal he had brought to the working
class…
Here again, well before the collapse of party-ridden Weimar Republic,
disillusion with the unions had become widespread among the working
masses. They were starving. The hundreds of Socialist and Communist
deputies stood idly by, impotent to provide any meaningful help to the
desperate proletariat.
Their leaders had no proposals to remedy, even partially, the great
distress of the people; no plans for large-scale public works, no
industrial restructuring, no search for markets abroad.
Moreover, they offered no energetic resistance to the pillaging by
foreign countries of the Reich's last financial resources: this a
consequence of the Treaty of Versailles that the German Socialists had
voted to ratify in June of 1919, and which they had never since had
the courage effectively to oppose…
In 1930, 1931 and 1932, German workers had watched the disaster grow:
the number of unemployed rose from two million to three, to four, to
five, then to six million. At the same time, unemployment benefits
fell lower and lower, finally to disappear completely. Everywhere one
saw dejection and privation: emaciated mothers, children wasting away
in sordid lodgings, and thousands of beggars in long sad lines.
The failure, or incapacity, of the leftist leaders to act, not to
mention their insensitivity, had stupefied the working class. Of what
use were such leaders with their empty heads and empty hearts -- and,
often enough, full pockets?
Well before January 30, thousands of workers had already joined up
with Hitler's dynamic formations, which were always hard at it where
they were most needed. Many joined the National Socialists when they
went on strike. Hitler, himself a former worker and a plain man like
themselves, was determined to eliminate unemployment root and branch.
He wanted not merely to defend the laborer's right to work, but to
make his calling one of honor, to insure him respect and to integrate
him fully into a living community of all the Germans, who had been
divided class against class.
In January 1933, Hitler's victorious troops were already largely
proletarian in character, including numerous hardfisted street
brawlers, many unemployed, who no longer counted economically or
socially.
Meanwhile, membership in the Marxist labor unions had fallen off
enormously: among thirteen million socialist and Communist voters in
1932, no more than five million were union members. Indifference and
discouragement had reached such levels that many members no longer
paid their union dues. Many increasingly dispirited Marxist leaders
began to wonder if perhaps the millions of deserters were the ones who
saw things clearly. Soon they wouldn't wonder any longer.
Even before Hitler won Reichstag backing for his "Enabling Act,"
Germany's giant labor union federation, the ADGB, had begun to rally
to the National Socialist cause. As historian Joachim Fest
acknowledged: "On March 20, the labor federation's executive committee
addressed a kind of declaration of loyalty to Hitler." (J. Fest,
Hitler, p. 413.)
Hitler than took a bold and clever step. The unions had always
clamored to have the First of May recognized as a worker's holiday,
but the Weimar Republic had never acceded to their request. Hitler,
never missing an opportunity, grasped this one with both hands. He did
more than grant this reasonable demand: he proclaimed the First of May
a national holiday…
I myself attended the memorable meeting at the Tempelhof field in
1933. By nine o'clock that morning, giant columns, some of workers,
others of youth groups, marching in cadence down the pavement of
Berlin's great avenues, had started off towards the airfield to which
Hitler had called together all Germans. All Germany would follow the
rally as it was transmitted nationwide by radio…
In the dark, a group of determined opponents could easily have heckled
Hitler or otherwise sabotaged the meeting. Perhaps a third of the
onlookers had been Socialists or Communists only three months
previously. But not a single hostile voice was raised during the
entire ceremony. There was only universal acclamation.
Ceremony is the right word for it. It was an almost magical rite.
Hitler and Goebbels had no equals in the arranging of dedicatory
ceremonies of this sort. First there were popular songs, then great
Wagnerian hymns to grip the audience. Germany has a passion for
orchestral music, and Wagner taps the deepest and most secret vein of
the German soul, its romanticism, its inborn sense of the powerful and
the grand.
Meanwhile the hundreds of flags floated above the rostrum, redeemed
from the darkness by arrows of light.
Now Hitler strode to the rostrum. For those standing at the of the
field, his face must have appeared vanishingly small, but his words
flooded instantaneously across the acres of people in his audience.
A Latin audience would have preferred a voice less harsh, more
delicately expressive. But there was no doubt that Hitler spoke to the
psyche of the German people.
Germans have rarely had the good fortune to experience the enchantment
of the spoken word. In Germany, the tone has always been set by
ponderous speakers, more fond of elephantine pedantry than oratorical
passion. Hitler, as a speaker, was a prodigy, the greatest orator of
his century. He possessed, above all, what the ordinary speaker lacks:
a mysterious ability to project power.
A bit like a medium or sorcerer, he was seized, even transfixed, as he
addressed a crowd. It responded to Hitler's projection of power,
radiating it back, establishing, in the course of myriad exchanges, a
current that both orator and audience gave to and drew from equally.
One had to personally experience him speaking to understand this
phenomenon.
This special gift is what lay at the basis of Hitler's ability to win
over the masses. His high-voltage, lightning-like projection
transported and transformed all who experienced it. Tens of millions
were enlightened, riveted and inflamed by the fire of his anger,
irony, and passion.
By the time the cheering died away that May first evening, hundreds of
thousands of previously indifferent or even hostile workers who had
come to Tempelhof at the urging of their labor federation leaders were
now won over. They had become followers, like the SA stormtroopers
whom so many there that evening had brawled with in recent years.
The great human sea surged back from Tempelhof to Berlin. A million
and a half people had arrived in perfect order, and their departure
was just as orderly. No bottlenecks halted the cars and busses. For
those of us who witnessed it, this rigorous, yet joyful, discipline of
a contented people was in itself a source of wonder. Everything about
the May Day mass meeting had come off as smoothly clockwork.
The memory of that fabulous crowd thronging back to the center of
Berlin will never leave me. A great many were on foot. Their faces
were now different faces, as though they had been imbued with a
strange and totally new spirit. The non-Germans in the crowd were as
if stunned, and no less impressed than Hitler's fellow countrymen.
The French ambassador, André François-Poncet, noted:
The foreigners on the speaker's platform as guests of honor were not
alone in carrying away the impression of a truly beautiful and
wonderful public festival, an impression that was created by the
regime's genius for organization, by the night time display of
uniforms, by the play of lights, the rhythm of the music, by the flags
and the colorful fireworks; and they were not alone in thinking that a
breath of reconciliation and unity was passing over the Third Reich.
"It is our wish," Hitler had exclaimed, as though taking heaven as his
witness, "to get along together and to struggle together as brothers,
so that at the hour when we shall come before God, we might say to
him: 'See, Lord, we have changed. The German people are no longer a
people ashamed, a people mean and cowardly and divided. No, Lord! The
German people have become strong in their spirit, in their will, in
their perseverance, in their acceptance of any sacrifice. Lord, we
remain faithful to Thee! Bless our struggle!" (A. François-Poncet,
Souvenirs d'une ambassade à Berlin, p. 128.)
Who else could have made such an incantatory appeal without making
himself look ridiculous?
No politician had ever spoken of the rights of workers with such faith
and such force, or had laid out in such clear terms the social plan he
pledged to carry out on behalf of the common people.
The next day, the newspaper of the proletarian left, the "Union
Journal," reported on this mass meeting at which at least two thirds
-- a million -- of those attending were workers. "This May First was
victory day," the paper summed up.
With the workers thus won over, what further need was there for the
thousands of labor union locals that for so long had poisoned the
social life of the Reich and which, in any case, had accomplished
nothing of a lasting, positive nature?
Within hours of the conclusion of that "victory" meeting at the
Tempelhof field, the National Socialists were able to peacefully take
complete control of Germany's entire labor union organization,
including all its buildings, enterprises and banks. An era of Marxist
obstruction abruptly came to an end : from now on, a single national
organization would embody the collective will and interests of all of
Germany's workers.
Although he was now well on his way to creating what he pledged would
be a true "government of the people," Hitler also realized that great
obstacles remained. For one thing, the Communist rulers in Moscow had
not dropped their guard -- or their guns. Restoring the nation would
take more than words and promises, it would take solid achievements.
Only then would the enthusiasm shown by the working class at the May
First mass meeting be an expression of lasting victory.
How could Hitler solve the great problem that had defied solution by
everyone else (both in Germany and abroad): putting millions of
unemployed back to work?
What would Hitler do about wages? Working hours? Leisure time?
Housing? How would he succeed in winning, at long last, respect for
the rights and dignity of the worker?
How could men's lives be improved -- materially, morally, and, one
might even say, spiritually? How would he proceed to build a new
society fit for human beings, free of the inertia, injustices and
prejudices of the past?
"National Socialism," Hitler had declared at the outset, "has its
mission and its hour; it is not just a passing movement but a phase of
history."
The instruments of real power now in his hands -- an authoritarian
state, its provinces subordinate but nonetheless organic parts of the
national whole -- Hitler had acted quickly to shake himself free of
the last constraints of the impotent sectarian political parties.
Moreover, he was now able to direct a cohesive labor force that was no
longer split into a thousand rivulets but flowed as a single, mighty
current.
Hitler was self-confident, sure of the power of his own conviction. He
had no intention, or need, to resort to the use of physical force.
Instead, he intended to win over, one by one, the millions of Germans
who were still his adversaries, and even those who still hated him.
His conquest of Germany had taken years of careful planning and hard
work. Similarly, he would now realize his carefully worked out plans
for transforming the state and society. This meant not merely changes
in administrative or governmental structures, but far-reaching social
programs.
He had once vowed: "The hour will come when the 15 million people who
now hate us will be solidly behind us and will acclaim with us the new
revival we shall create together." Eventually he would succeed in
winning over even many of his most refractory skeptics and
adversaries.
His army of converts was already forming ranks. In a remarkable
tribute, historian Joachim Fest felt obliged to acknowledge
unequivocally:
Hitler had moved rapidly from the status of a demagogue to that of a
respected statesman. The craving to join the ranks of the victors was
spreading like an epidemic, and the shrunken minority of those who
resisted the urge were being visibly pushed into isolation -- The past
was dead. The future, it seemed, belonged to the regime, which had
more and more followers, which was being hailed everywhere and
suddenly had sound reasons on its side.
And even the prominent leftist writer Kurt Tucholsky, sensing the
direction of the inexorable tide that was sweeping Germany, vividly
commented: "You don't go railing against the ocean." (J. Fest, Hitler,
pp. 415 f.)
"Our power," Hitler was now able to declare, "no longer belongs to any
territorial fraction of the Reich, nor to any single class of the
nation, but to the people in its totality."
Much still remained to be done, however. So far, Hitler had succeeded
in clearing the way of obstacles to his program. Now the time to build
had arrived.
So many others had failed to tackle the many daunting problems that
were now his responsibility. Above all, the nation demanded a solution
to the great problem of unemployment. Could Hitler now succeed where
others had so dismally failed?…
Unemployment could be combated and eliminated only by giving industry
the financial means to start up anew, to modernize, thus creating
millions of new jobs.
The normal rate of consumption would not be restored, let alone
increased, unless one first raised the starvation-level allowances
that were making purchases of any kind a virtual impossibility. On the
contrary, production and sales would have to be restored before the
six million unemployed could once again become purchasers.
The great economic depression could be overcome only by restimulating
industry, by bringing industry into step with the times, and by
promoting the development of new products…
Nearly ten years earlier, while in his prison cell, Hitler had already
envisioned a formidable system of national highways. He had also
conceived of a small, easily affordable automobile (later known as the
"Volkswagen"), and had even suggested its outline. It should have the
shape of a June bug, he proposed. Nature itself suggested the car's
aerodynamic line.
Until Hitler came to power, a car was the privilege of the rich. It
was not financially within the reach of the middle class, much less of
the worker. The "Volkswagen," costing one-tenth as much as the
standard automobile of earlier years, would eventually become a
popular work vehicle and a source of pleasure after work: a way to
unwind and get some fresh air, and of discovering, thanks to the new
Autobahn highway network, a magnificent country that then, in its
totality, was virtually unknown to the German worker.
From the beginning, Hitler wanted this economical new car to be built
for the millions. The production works would also become one of
Germany's most important industrial centers and employers.
During his imprisonment, Hitler had also drawn up plans for the
construction of popular housing developments and majestic public
buildings.
Some of Hitler's rough sketches still survive. They include groups of
individual worker's houses with their own gardens (which were to be
built in the hundreds of thousands), a plan for a covered stadium in
Berlin, and a vast congress hall, unlike any other in the world, that
would symbolize the grandeur of the National Socialist revolution.
"A building with a monumental dome," historian Werner Maser has
explained, "the plan of which he drew while he was writing Mein Kampf,
would have a span of 46 meters, a height of 220 meters, a diameter of
250 meters, and a capacity of 150 to 190 thousand people standing. The
interior of the building would have been 17 times larger than Saint
Peter's Cathedral in Rome." (W. Maser, Hitler, Adolf, p. 100.)
"That hall," architect Albert Speer has pointed out, "was not just an
idle dream impossible of achievement."
Hitler's imagination, therefore, had long been teeming with a number
of ambitious projects, many of which would eventually be realized.
Fortunately, the needed entrepreneurs, managers and technicians were
on hand. Hitler would not have to improvise.
Historian Werner Maser, although quite anti-Hitler -- like nearly all
of his colleagues (how else would they have found publishers?) - has
acknowledged: "From the beginning of his political career, he [Hitler]
took great pains systematically to arrange for whatever he was going
to need in order to carry out his plans."
"Hitler was distinguished," Maser has also noted, "by an exceptional
intelligence in technical matters." Hitler had acquired his knowledge
by devoting many thousands of hours to technical studies from the time
of his youth.
"Hitler read an endless number of books," explained Dr. Schacht. "He
acquired a very considerable amount of knowledge and made masterful
use of it in discussions and speeches. In certain respects he was a
man endowed with genius. He had ideas that no one else would ever have
thought of, ideas that resulted in the ending of great difficulties,
sometimes by measures of an astonishing simplicity or brutality."
Many billions of marks would be needed to begin the great
socioeconomic revolution that was destined, as Hitler had always
intended, to make Germany once again the European leader in industry
and commerce and, most urgently, to rapidly wipe out unemployment in
Germany. Where would the money be found? And, once obtained, how would
these funds be allotted to ensure maximum effectiveness in their
investment?
Hitler was by no means a dictator in matters of the economy. He was,
rather, a stimulator. His government would undertake to do only that
which private initiative could not.
Hitler believed in the importance of individual creative imagination
and dynamism, in the need for every person of superior ability and
skill to assume responsibility.
He also recognized the importance of the profit motive. Deprived of
the prospect of having his efforts rewarded, the person of ability
often refrains from running risks. The economic failure of Communism
has demonstrated this. In the absence of personal incentives and the
opportunity for real individual initiative, the Soviet "command
economy" lagged in all but a few fields, its industry years behind its
competitors.
State monopoly tolls the death of all initiative, and hence of all
progress.
For all men selflessly to pool their wealth might be marvelous, but it
is also contrary to human nature. Nearly every man desires that his
labor shall improve his own condition and that of his family, and
feels that his brain, creative imagination, and persistence well
deserve their reward.
Because it disregarded these basic psychological truths, Soviet
Communism, right to the end, wallowed in economic mediocrity, in spite
of its immense reservoir of manpower, its technical expertise, and its
abundant natural resources, all of which ought to have made it an
industrial and technological giant.
Hitler was always adverse to the idea of state management of the
economy. He believed in elites. "A single idea of genius," he used to
say, "has more value than a lifetime of conscientious labor in an
office."
Just as there are political or intellectual elites, so also is there
an industrial elite. A manufacturer of great ability should not be
restrained, hunted down by the internal revenue services like a
criminal, or be unappreciated by the public. On the contrary, it is
important for economic development that the industrialist be
encouraged morally and materially, as much as possible.
The most fruitful initiatives Hitler would take from 1933 on would be
on behalf of private enterprise. He would keep an eye on the quality
of their directors, to be sure, and would shunt aside incompetents,
quite a few of them at times, but he also supported the best ones,
those with the keenest minds, the most imaginative and bold, even if
their political opinions did not always agree with his own.
"There is no question," he stated very firmly, "of dismissing a
factory owner or director under the pretext that he is not a National
Socialist."
Hitler would exercise the same moderation, the same pragmatism, in the
administrative as well as in the industrial sphere.
What he demanded of his co-workers, above all, was competence and
effectiveness. The great majority of Third Reich functionaries - some
80 percent -- were never enrolled in the National Socialist party.
Several of Hitler's ministers, like Konstantin von Neurath and
Schwerin von Krosigk, and ambassadors to such key posts as Prague,
Vienna and Ankara, were not members of the party. But they were
capable…
"Herr Schacht," he said, "we are assuredly in agreement on one point:
no other single task facing the government at the moment can be so
truly urgent as conquering unemployment. That will take a lot of
money. Do you see any possibility of finding it apart from the
Reichsbank?" And after a moment, he added: "How much would it take? Do
you have any idea?"
Wishing to win Schacht over by appealing to his ambition, Hitler
smiled and then asked: "Would you be willing to once again assume
presidency of the Reichsbank?" Schacht let on that he had a
sentimental concern for Dr. Luther, and did not want to hurt the
incumbent's feelings. Playing along, Hitler reassured Schacht that he
would find an appropriate new job elsewhere for Luther.
Schacht then pricked up his ears, drew himself up, and focused his big
round eyes on Hitler: "Well, if that's the way it is," he said, "then
I am ready to assume the presidency of the Reichsbank again."
His great dream was being realized. Schacht had been president of the
Reichsbank between 1923 and 1930, but had been dismissed. Now he would
return in triumph. He felt vindicated. Within weeks, the ingenious
solution to Germany's pressing financial woes would burst forth from
his inventive brain.
"It was necessary," Schacht later explained, "to discover a method
that would avoid inflating the investment holdings of the Reichsbank
immoderately and consequently increasing the circulation of money
excessively."
"Therefore," he went on, "I had to find some means of getting the sums
that were lying idle in pockets and banks, without meaning for it to
be long term and without having it undergo the risk of depreciation.
That was the reasoning behind the Mefo bonds."
What were these "Mefo" bonds? Mefo was a contraction of the
Metallurgische Forschungs-GmbH (Metallurgic Research Company). With a
startup capitalization of one billion marks - which Hitler and Schacht
arranged to be provided by the four giant firms of Krupp, Siemens,
Deutsche Werke and Rheinmetall -- this company would eventually
promote many billions of marks worth of investment.
Enterprises, old and new, that filled government orders had only to
draw drafts on Mefo for the amounts due. These drafts, when presented
to the Reichsbank, were immediately convertible into cash. The success
of the Mefo program depended entirely on public acceptance of the Mefo
bonds. But the wily Schacht had planned well. Since Mefo bonds were
short-term bonds that could be cashed in at any time, there was no
real risk in buying, accepting or holding them. They bore an interest
of four percent -- a quite acceptable figure in those days -- whereas
banknotes hidden under the mattress earned nothing. The public quickly
took all this into consideration and eagerly accepted the bonds.
While the Reichsbank was able to offer from its own treasury a
relatively insignificant 150 million marks for Hitler's war on
unemployment, in just four years the German public subscribed more
than 12 billion marks worth of Mefo bonds!
These billions, the fruit of the combined imagination, ingenuity and
astuteness of Hitler and Schacht, swept away the temporizing and
fearful conservatism of the bankers. Over the next four years, this
enormous credit reserve would make miracles possible.
Soon after the initial billion-mark credit, Schacht added another
credit of 600 million in order to finance the start of Hitler's grand
program for highway construction. This Autobahn program provided
immediate work for 100,000 of the unemployed, and eventually assured
wages for some 500,000 workers.
As large as this outlay was, it was immediately offset by a
corresponding cutback in government unemployment benefits, and by the
additional tax revenue generated as a result of the increase in living
standard (sping) of the newly employed.
Within a few months, thanks to the credit created by the Mefo bonds,
private industry once again dared to assume risks and expand. Germans
returned to work by the hundreds of thousands.
Was Schacht solely responsible for this extraordinary turnaround?
After the war, he answered for himself as a Nuremberg Tribunal
defendant, where he was charged with having made possible the Reich's
economic revival:
I don't think Hitler was reduced to begging for my help. If I had not
served him, he would have found other methods, other means. He was not
a man to give up. It's easy enough for you to say, Mr. Prosecutor,
that I should have watched Hitler die and not lifted a finger. But the
entire working class would have died with him!
Even Marxists recognized Hitler's success, and their own failure. In
the June 1934 issue of the Zeitschrift für Sozialismus, the journal of
the German Social Democrats in exile, this acknowledgement appears:
Faced with the despair of proletarians reduced to joblessness, of
young people with diplomas and no future, of the middle classes of
merchants and artisans condemned to bankruptcy, and of farmers
terribly threatened by the collapse in agricultural prices, we all
failed. We weren't capable of offering the masses anything but
speeches about the glory of socialism.
VI. The Social Revolution
Hitler's tremendous social achievement in putting Germany's six
million unemployed back to work is seldom acknowledged today. Although
it was much more than a transitory achievement, "democratic"
historians routinely dismiss it in just a few lines. Since 1945, not a
single objective scholarly study has been devoted to this highly
significant, indeed unprecedented, historical phenomenon.
Similarly neglected is the body of sweeping reforms that dramatically
changed the condition of the worker in Germany. Factories were
transformed from gloomy caverns to spacious and healthy work centers,
with natural lighting, surrounded by gardens and playing fields.
Hundreds of thousands of attractive houses were built for working
class families. A policy of several weeks of paid vacation was
introduced, along with week and holiday trips by land and sea. A
wide-ranging program of physical and cultural education for young
workers was established, with the world's best system of technical
training. The Third Reich's social security and workers' health
insurance system was the world's most modern and complete.
This remarkable record of social achievement is routinely hushed up
today because it is embarrasses those who uphold the orthodox view of
the Third Reich. Otherwise, readers might begin to think that perhaps
Hitler was the greatest social builder of the twentieth century…
Nevertheless, restoring work and bread to millions of unemployed who
had been living in misery for years; restructuring industrial life;
conceiving and establishing an organization for the effective defense
and betterment of the nation's millions of wage earners; creating a
new bureaucracy and judicial system that guaranteed the civic rights
of each member of the national community, while simultaneously holding
each person to his or her responsibilities as a German citizen: this
organic body of reforms was part of a single, comprehensive plan,
which Hitler had conceived and worked out years earlier.
Without this plan, the nation would have collapsed into anarchy.
All-encompassing, this program included broad industrial recovery as
well as detailed attention to even construction of comfortable inns
along the new highway network.
It took several years for a stable social structure to emerge from the
French Revolution. The Soviets needed even more time: five years after
the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, hundreds of thousands of Russians
were still dying of hunger and disease. In Germany, by contrast, the
great machinery was in motion within months, with organization and
accomplishment quickly meshing together…
Hitler personally dug the first spadeful of earth for the first
Autobahn highway, linking Frankfurt-am-Main with Darmstadt. For the
occasion, he brought along Dr. Schacht, the man whose visionary credit
wizardry had made the project possible. The official procession moved
ahead, three cars abreast in front, then six across, spanning the
entire width of the autobahn…
Hitler's plan to build thousands of low-cost homes also demanded a
vast mobilization of manpower. He had envisioned housing that would be
attractive, cozy, and affordable for millions of ordinary German
working-class families. He had no intention of continuing to tolerate,
as his predecessors had, cramped, ugly "rabbit warren" housing for the
German people. The great barracks-like housing projects on the
outskirts of factory towns, packed with cramped families, disgusted
him.
The greater part of the houses he would build were single story,
detached dwellings, with small yards where children could romp, wives
could grow vegetable and flower gardens, while the bread-winners could
read their newspapers in peace after the day's work. These
single-family homes were built to conform to the architectural styles
of the various German regions, retaining as much as possible the
charming local variants.
Wherever there was no practical alternative to building large
apartment complexes, Hitler saw to it that the individual apartments
were spacious, airy and enhanced by surrounding lawns and gardens
where the children could play safely.
The new housing was, of course, built in conformity with the highest
standards of public health, a consideration notoriously neglected in
previous working-class projects.
Generous loans, amortizable in ten years, were granted to newly
married couples so they could buy their own homes. At the birth of
each child, a fourth of the debt was cancelled. Four children, at the
normal rate of a new arrival every two and a half years, sufficed to
cancel the entire loan debt.
Once, during a conversation with Hitler, I expressed my astonishment
at this policy. "But then, you never get back the total amount of your
loans?," I asked. "How so?" he replied, smiling. "Over a period of ten
years, a family with four children brings in much more than our loans,
through the taxes levied on a hundred different items of consumption."
As it happened, tax revenues increased every year, in proportion to
the rise in expenditures for Hitler's social programs. In just a few
years, revenue from taxes tripled. Hitler's Germany never experienced
a financial crisis.
To stimulate the moribund economy demanded the nerve, which Hitler
had, to invest money that the government didn't yet have, rather than
passively waiting -- in accordance with "sound" financial principles
-- for the economy to revive by itself.
Today, our whole era is dying economically because we have succumbed
to fearful hesitation. Enrichment follows investment, not the other
way around…
Even before the year 1933 had ended, Hitler had succeeded in building
202,119 housing units. Within four years he would provide the German
people with nearly a million and a half (1,458,128) new dwellings!
Moreover, workers would no longer be exploited as they had been. A
month's rent for a worker could not exceed 26 marks, or about an
eighth of the average wage then. Employees with more substantial
salaries paid monthly rents of up to 45 marks maximum.
Equally effective social measures were taken in behalf of farmers, who
had the lowest incomes. In 1933 alone 17,611 new farm houses were
built, each of them surrounded by a parcel of land one thousand square
meters in size. Within three years, Hitler would build 91,000 such
farmhouses…
Everywhere industry was hiring again, with some firms -- like Krupp,
IG Farben and the large automobile manufacturers -- taking on new
workers on a very large scale. As the country became more prosperous,
car sales increased by more than 80,000 units in 1933 alone.
Employment in the auto industry doubled. Germany was gearing up for
full production, with private industry leading the way.
The new government lavished every assistance on the private sector,
the chief factor in employment as well as production. Hitler almost
immediately made available 500 million marks in credits to private
business.
This start-up assistance given to German industry would repay itself
many times over. Soon enough, another two billion marks would be
loaned to the most enterprising companies. Nearly half would go into
new wages and salaries, saving the treasury an estimated three hundred
million marks in unemployment benefits. Added to the hundreds of
millions in tax receipts spurred by the business recovery, the state
quickly recovered its investment, and more.
Hitler's entire economic policy would be based on the following
equation: risk large sums to undertake great public works and to spur
the renewal and modernization of industry, then later recover the
billions invested through invisible and painless tax revenues. It
didn't take long for Germany to see the results of Hitler's recovery
formula.
Economic recovery, as important as it was, nevertheless wasn't
Hitler's only objective. As he strived to restore full employment,
Hitler never lost sight of his goal of creating a organization
powerful enough to stand up to capitalist owners and managers, who had
shown little concern for the health and welfare of the entire national
community.
Hitler would impose on everyone -- powerful boss and lowly wage earner
alike -- his own concept of the organic social community. Only the
loyal collaboration of everyone could assure the prosperity of all
classes and social groups.
Consistent with their doctrine, Germany's Marxist leaders had set
class against class, helping to bring the country to the brink of
economic collapse. Deserting their Marxist unions and political
parties in droves, most workers had come to realize that strikes and
grievances their leaders incited only crippled production, and thus
the workers as well.
By the of 1932, in any case, the discredited labor unions were
drowning in massive debt that realistically could never be repaid.
Some of the less scrupulous union officials, sensing the oncoming
catastrophe, had begun stealing hundreds of thousands of marks from
the workers they represented. The Marxist leaders had failed:
socially, financially and morally.
Every joint human activity requires a leader. The head of a factory or
business is also the person naturally responsible for it. He oversees
every aspect of production and work. In Hitler's Germany, the head of
a business had to be both a capable director and a person concerned
for the social justice and welfare of his employees. Under Hitler,
many owners and managers who had proven to be unjust, incompetent or
recalcitrant lost their jobs, or their businesses.
A considerable number of legal guarantees protected the worker against
any abuse of authority at the workplace. Their purpose was to insure
that the rights of workers were respected, and that workers were
treated as worthy collaborators, not just as animated tools. Each
industrialist was legally obliged to collaborate with worker delegates
in drafting shop regulations that were not imposed from above but
instead adapted to each business enterprise and its particular working
conditions. These regulations had to specify "the length of the
working day, the time and method of paying wages, and the safety
rules, and to be posted throughout the factory," within easy access of
both the worker whose interests might be angered and the owner or
manager whose orders might be subverted.
The thousands of different, individual versions of such regulations
served to create a healthy rivalry, with every factory group vying to
outdo the others in efficiency and justice.
One of the first reforms to benefit German workers was the
establishment of paid vacations. In France, the leftist Popular Front
government would noisily claim, in 1936, to have originated legally
mandated paid vacations -- and stingy ones at that, only one week per
year. But it was actually Hitler who first established them, in 1933
-- and they were two or three times more generous.
Under Hitler, every factory employee had the legal right to paid
vacation. Previously, paid vacations had not normally exceed four or
five days, and nearly half of the younger workers had no vacation time
at all. If anything, Hitler favored younger workers; the youngest
workers received more generous vacations. This was humane and made
sense: a young person has more need of rest and fresh air to develop
his maturing strength and vigor. Thus, they enjoyed a full 18 days of
paid vacation per year.
Today, more than half a century later, these figures have been
surpassed, but in 1933 they far exceeded European norms.
The standard vacation was twelve days. Then, from the age of 25 on, it
went up to 18 days. After ten years with the company, workers got a
still longer vacation: 21 days, or three times what the French
socialists would grant the workers of their country in 1936.
Hitler introduced the standard forty-hour work week in Europe. As for
overtime work, it was now compensated, as nowhere else in the
continent at the time, at an increased pay rate. And with the
eight-hour work day now the norm, overtime work became more readily
available.
In another innovation, work breaks were made longer: two hours each
day, allowing greater opportunity for workers to relax, and to make
use of the playing fields that large industries were now required to
provide.
Whereas a worker's right to job security had been virtually
non-existent, now an employee could no longer be dismissed at the sole
discretion of the employer. Hitler saw to it that workers' rights were
spelled out and enforced. Henceforth, an employer had to give four
weeks notice before firing an employee, who then had up to two months
to appeal the dismissal. Dismissals could also be annulled by the
"Courts of Social Honor" (Ehrengerichte).
This Court was one of three great institutions that were established
to protect German workers. The others were the "Labor Commissions" and
the "Council of Trust."
The "Council of Trust" (Vertrauensrat) was responsible for
establishing and developing a real spirit of community between
management and labor. "In every business enterprise," the 1934 "Labor
Charter" law stipulated, "the employer and head of the enterprise
(Führer), the employees and workers, personnel of the enterprise,
shall work jointly toward the goal of the enterprise and the common
good of the nation."
No longer would either be exploited by the other -- neither the worker
by arbitrary whim of the employer, nor the employer through the
blackmail of strikes for political ends.
Article 35 of the "Labor Charter" law stated: "Every member of an
enterprise community shall assume the responsibility required by his
position in said common enterprise." In short, each enterprise would
be headed by a dynamic executive, charged with a sense of the greater
community -- no longer a selfish capitalist with unconditional,
arbitrary power.
"The interest of the community may require that an incapable or
unworthy employer be relieved of his duties," the "Labor Charter"
stipulated. The employer was no longer unassailable, an all-powerful
boss with the last word on hiring and firing his staff. He, too, would
be subject to the workplace regulations, which he was now obliged to
respect no less than the least of his employees. The law conferred the
honor and responsibility of authority on the employer only insofar as
he merited it…
In the Third Reich, the worker knew that "exploitation of his physical
strength in bad faith or in violation of his honor" was no longer
tolerated. He had obligations to the community, but he shared these
obligations with every other member of the enterprise, from the chief
executive to the messenger boy. Finally, the German worker had clearly
defined social rights, which were arbitrated and enforced by
independent agencies. And while all this had been achieved in an
atmosphere of justice and moderation, it nevertheless constituted a
genuine social revolution…
Factories and shops, large and small, were altered or transformed to
conform to the strictest standards of cleanliness and hygiene:
interiors, so often dark and stifling, were opened up to light;
playing fields were constructed; rest areas where workers could unbend
during break, were set aside; employee cafeterias and respectable
locker rooms were opened. The larger industrial establishments, in
addition to providing the normally required conventional sports
facilities, were obliged to put in swimming pools!
In just three years, these achievements would reach unimagined
heights: more than two thousand factories refitted and beautified;
23,000 work premises modernized; 800 buildings designed exclusively
for meetings; 1,200 playing fields; 13,000 sanitary facilities; 17,000
cafeterias.
To assure the healthy development of the working class, physical
education courses were instituted for younger workers. Some 8,000 were
eventually organized. Technical training was equally emphasized.
Hundreds of work schools, and thousands of technical courses were
created. There were examinations for professional competence, and
competitions in which generous prizes were awarded to outstanding
masters of their craft.
Eight hundred departmental inspectors and 17,300 local inspectors were
employed to conscientiously monitor and promote these improvements.
To provide affordable vacations for German workers on a hitherto
unprecedented scale, Hitler established the "Strength through Joy"
program. As a result, hundreds of thousands of workers were now able
to make relaxing vacation trips on land and sea each summer.
Magnificent cruise ships were built, and special trains brought
vacationers to the mountains and the seashore. In just a few years,
Germany's working-class tourists would log a distance equivalent to 54
times the circumference of the earth! And thanks to generous state
subsidies, the cost to workers of these popular vacation excursions
was nearly insignificant…
Was Hitler's transformation of the lot of the working class
authoritarian? Without a doubt. And yet, for a people that had grown
sick and tired of anarchy, this new authoritarianism wasn't regarded
as an imposition. In fact, people have always accepted a strong man's
leadership.
In any case, there is no doubt that the attitude of the German working
class, which was still two-thirds non-Nazi at the start of 1933, soon
changed completely. As Belgian author Marcel Laloire noted at the
time:
When you make your way through the cities of Germany and go into the
working-class districts, go through the factories, the construction
yards, you are astonished to find so many workers on the job sporting
the Hitler insignia, to see so many flags with the swastika, black on
a bright red background, in the most densely populated districts.
Hitler's "German Labor Front" (Deutsche Arbeitsfront), which
incorporated all workers and employers, was for the most part eagerly
accepted. The steel spades of the sturdy young lads of the "National
Labor Service" (Reichsarbeitsdienst) could also be seen gleaming along
the highways.
Hitler created the National Labor Service not only to alleviate
unemployment, but to bring together, in absolute equality, and in the
same uniform, both the sons of millionaires and the sons of the
poorest families for several months' common labor and living.
All performed the same work, all were subject to the same discipline;
they enjoyed the same pleasures and benefited from the same physical
and moral development. At the same construction sites and in the same
barracks, Germans became conscious of what they had in common, grew to
understand one another, and discarded their old prejudices of class
and caste.
After a hitch in the National Labor Service, a young worker knew that
the rich man's son was not a pampered monster, while the young lad of
wealthy family knew that the worker's son had no less honor than a
nobleman or an heir to riches; they had lived and worked together as
comrades. Social hatred was vanishing, and a socially united people
was being born.
Hitler could go into factories -- something few men of the so-called
Right would have risked in the past -- and hold forth to crowds of
workers, at times in the thousands, as at the huge Siemens works. "In
contrast to the von Papens and other country gentlemen," he might tell
them, "in my youth I was a worker like you. And in my heart of hearts,
I have remained what I was then."
During his twelve years in power, no untoward incident ever occurred
at any factory he visited. Hitler was at home when he went among the
people, and he was received like a member of the family returning home
after making a success of himself.
But the Chancellor of the Third Reich wanted more than popular
approval. He wanted that approval to be freely, widely, and repeatedly
expressed by popular vote. No people was ever be more frequently asked
for their electoral opinion than the German people of that era -- five
times in five years.
For Hitler, it was not enough that the people voted from time to time,
as in the previous democratic system. In those days, voters were
rarely appealed to, and when they expressed an opinion, they were
often ill-informed and apathetic. After an election, years might go
by, during which the politicians were heedless and inaccessible, the
electorate powerless to vote on their actions.
To enable the German public to express its opinion on the occasion of
important events of social, national, or international significance,
Hitler provided the people a new means of approving or rejecting his
own actions as Chancellor: the plebiscite.
Hitler recognized the right of all the people, men and women alike, to
vote by secret ballot: to voice their opinion of his policies, or to
make a well-grounded judgment on this or that great decision in
domestic or foreign affairs. Rather than a formalistic routine,
democracy became a vital, active program of supervision that was
renewed annually.
The articles of the "Plebiscite Law" were brief and clear:
1. The Reich government may ask the people whether or not it
approves of a measure planned by or taken by the government. This may
also apply to a law.
2. A measure submitted to plebiscite will be considered as
established when it receives a simple majority of the votes. This will
apply as well to a law modifying the Constitution.
3. If the people approves the measure in question, it will be
applied in conformity with article III of the Law for Overcoming the
Distress of the People and the Reich.
The Reich Interior Ministry is authorized to take all legal and
administrative measures necessary to carry out this law.
Berlin, July 14, 1933.
Hitler, Frick…
From the first months of 1933, his accomplishments were public fact,
for all to see. Before end of the year, unemployment in Germany had
fallen from more than 6,000,000 to 3,374,000. Thus, 2,627,000 jobs had
been created since the previous February, when Hitler began his
"gigantic task!" A simple question: Who in Europe ever achieved
similar results in so short a time?…
In his detailed and critical biography of Hitler, Joachim Fest limited
his treatment of Hitler's extraordinary social achievements in 1933 to
a few paragraphs. All the same, Fest did not refrain from
acknowledging:
The regime insisted that it was not the rule of one social class above
all others, and by granting everyone opportunities to rise, it in fact
demonstrated class neutrality -- These measures did indeed break
through the old, petrified social structures. They tangibly improved
the material condition of much of the population. (J. Fest, Hitler,
pp. 434-435.)
Not without reason were the swastika banners waving proudly throughout
the working-class districts where, just a year ago, they had been
unceremoniously torn down.
Lady Veteran
Hash: SHA1
In an ideal world that would be true. Discrimination is there and if
it hasn't happened to you, it has happened to someone very close...
LV
- ------------------------------------------------------
I am anti-idiot, anti nazi and anti communist.
Frankly, I see no difference between the three.
- -------------------------------------------------
I rode a tank and held a General's rank
When the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank
- - - - Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
- ----------------------------------------
Be who you are and say what you feel, because
those who mind don't matter and those who matter
don't mind.
- --Dr. Seuss
- ----------------------------------------
You are your greatest obstacle.
- - unknown
- ----------------------------------------
Time heals all wounds and wounds all heels.
- - unknown
_________________________________________
It is really too bad that stupidity isn't painful.
- - unknown
- ---------------------------------------------
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