The book outlines how Germany’s political and financial leaders paid dearly for believing they could control a man they knew to be a psychopath.
The parallels with today’s Republican party and Trump’s wealthy backers are astounding. You repeatedly will be reminded, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”–George Santayana,
The Life of Reason, 1905. The MAGA movement allows for no memory of Hitler’s rise to power and his disastrous use of it.
Hitler created a world in which women were transported with their children for days in closed train cars and then had to watch those children die alongside them, naked, gasping for breath in a gas chamber.
Timothy W. Ryback’s choice to make his new book, “Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power” (Knopf), an aggressively specific chronicle of a single year, 1932, seems a wise, even an inspired one.
Ryback details, week by week, day by day, and sometimes hour by hour, how a country with a functional, if flawed, democratic machinery handed absolute power over to someone who could never claim a majority in an actual election and whom the entire conservative political class regarded as a chaotic clown with a violent following.
Ryback shows how major players thought they could find some ulterior advantage in managing him.
Each was sure that, after the passing of a brief storm cloud, so obviously overloaded that it had to expend itself, they would emerge in possession of power.
The corporate bosses thought that, if you looked past the strutting and the performative antisemitism, you had someone who would protect your money.
This is what really matters.
Hello, today’s wealthy people, Elon Musk, Kenny Troutt, Woody Johnson, Geoffrey Harrison, Saul Fox, Howard Lutnick, John Paulson, Mike Hodges, John Blanchard, Scott Bessent, David Frecka, George Bishop, Steven Witkoff, Tim Dunn, Diane Hendricks, Linda and Vince McMahon.
Trump doesn’t care about protecting your money. He cares only about protecting his money.
Many of you are billionaires who’ve supported Trump because he promises to eliminate regulations that protect customers.
Some of you gave to him in return for his political and/or financial support for their schemes.
If you notice any Jewish-sounding names in the bunch, you are right, which I, as a Jew, find particularly ironic and loathsome.
Trump is an undisguised bigot, and history shows that when a group supports bigotry, eventually, they themselves become targets of bigotry.
When a government supports bigotry, no one is spared, but the victims learn their lesson too late.
Communist ideologues thought that, if you peered deeply enough into the strutting and the performative antisemitism, you could spy the pattern of a popular revolution.
The decent right thought that he was too obviously deranged to remain in power long.
The decent left, tempered by earlier fights against different enemies, thought that, if they forcibly stuck to the rule of law, then the law would somehow by itself entrap a lawless leader.
In a now familiar paradox, the rational forces stuck to magical thinking, while the irrational ones were more logical, parsing the brute equations of power. And so the storm never passed. In a way, it still has not.
National Socialist German Workers’ Party (its German initials were N.S.D.A.P.) had been in existence since right after the Great War, as one of many völkisch, or populist, groups; its label, by including “national” and “socialist,” was intended to appeal to both right-wing nationalists and left-wing socialists, who were thought to share a common enemy: the élite class of Jewish bankers who, they said, manipulated Germany behind the scenes and had been responsible for the German surrender.
Those American Jews who support Hitleresque Trump have conveniently forgotten that right-wingers blamed Jews Germany’s loss in WWI.
The lure of money then and now overcomes morals and sense.
The Nazis, as they were called—a put-down made into a popular label, like “Impressionists”—began as one of many fringe and populist antisemitic groups in Germany, including the Thule Society, which was filled with bizarre pre-QAnon conspiracy adepts.
Hitler’s plans were deliberately ambiguous, but his purposes were not. Ever since his unsuccessful putsch in Munich, he had, Ryback writes, “been driven by a single ambition: to destroy the political system that he held responsible for the myriad ills plaguing the German people.”
Trump’s efforts to destroy American democracy and to install himself as dictator are clouded by his frequent changes in publicly stated goals.
Example: His repeated flip-flops about ending or not ending ACA (“Obamacare”).
These changes require his followers repeatedly to go into “What he really meant was” mode to homogenize his extremism for the voting public.
Most recently, many of his acolytes explained that “he really doesn’t intend to deport millions of men, women, and children. He just wants to strengthen the border.” (Then why did he instruct his GOP minions to vote against the bipartisan border-strengthening law created by a Republican?)
Ryback skips past the underlying mechanics of the July, 1932, election on the way to his real subject—Hitler’s manipulation of the conservative politicians and tycoons who thought that they were manipulating him—but there’s a notable academic literature on what actually happened when Germans voted that summer.
The political scientists and historians who study it tell us that the election was a “normal” one, in the sense that the behavior of groups and subgroups proceeded in the usual way, responding more to the perception of political interests than to some convulsions of apocalyptic feeling.
The popular picture of the decline of the Weimar Republic—in which hyperinflation produced mass unemployment, which produced an unstoppable wave of fascism—is far from the truth. The hyperinflation had ended in 1923, and the period right afterward, in the mid-twenties, was, in Germany as elsewhere, golden.
Still, the results of the July, 1932, election weren’t obviously catastrophic. Both Hitler and Goebbels were bitterly disappointed by their standing.
As was Trump following the 2020 election– so disappointed he denied the results.
The unemployed actually opposed Hitler and voted en masse for the parties of the left.
What was once called the petite bourgeoisie, then, was key to his support—not people feeling the brunt of economic precarity but people feeling the possibility of it.
Having nothing to fear but fear itself is having something significant to fear.
Trump, like Hitler before him, is a fear-monger.
He sows fear of “marauding immigrant gangs and rapists.”
Trump also promulgates the lies that immigrants don’t pay taxes and that they take jobs from native-born American workers.
Claiming that immigrants are making things worse for U.S.-born workers is often used as an intentional distraction from dynamics that are actually hurting working people—such as weak labor standards and enforcement, anti-worker deregulation, weak labor law that fails to protect workers’ rights to unions and collective bargaining in the face of coordinated and well-funded attacks, and other dynamics that result in too much power in the hands of corporations and employers.
A newstudy from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that undocumented immigrants actually contributed almost $100 billion in taxes during 2022 while not being able to use many of the programs they thought their tax dollars funded.
It is Trump and his wealthy backers who favor laws that weaken American workers while benefiting the rich.
The Germans were voting, in the absent-minded way of democratic voters everywhere, for easy reassurances, for stability, with classes siding against their historical enemies.
They weren’t wild-eyed nationalists voting for a millennial authoritarian regime that would rule forever and restore Germany to glory, and, certainly, they weren’t voting for an apocalyptic nightmare that would leave tens of millions of people dead and the cities of Germany destroyed.
This is how we cast our vote.
They were voting for specific programs that they thought would benefit them, and for a year’s insurance against the people they feared.
The rich give their money and votes to Trump because they believe he will make them even richer.
The not-rich vote for Trump because they fear the imaginary dangers Trump claims immigrants and liberals pose.
Ryback, focussing on the self-entrapped German conservatives, generally avoids the question that seems most obvious to a contemporary reader: Given that Hitler had repeatedly vowed to use the democratic process in order to destroy democracy, why did the people committed to democracy let him do it?
That is the key question even today.
Given that Trump attempted to overturn an election he lost in both the electoral college and by 7 million popular votes, why would people committed to democracy now vote for him?
Many historians have jousted with this question, but perhaps the most piercing account remains an early one, written less than a decade after the war by the émigré German scholar Lewis Edinger, who had known the leaders of the Social Democrats well and consulted them directly—the ones who had survived, that is—for his study.
His conclusion was that they simply “trusted that constitutional processes and the return of reason and fair play would assure the survival of the Weimar Republic and its chief supporters.”
Trump’s followers burn “woke” books to avoid discussing bigotry
Most Americans understand Trump’s faults and ambitions.
Still, they cannot believe that he actually could do what he repeatedly says he will do: Destroy the legal system that protects democracy (He calls it “draining the swamp.”) and install himself as dictator.
Most Americans have a deep faith that democracy will always survive here and that we’re not like those foreign countries.
Yet, democracy constantly teeters on the edge, and we have been remarkably fortunate so far despite our individual foolishness. Today, the election is predicted to be a close call even though:
Trump disparages blacks as coming from “shithole countries” and being criminals
He disparages browns as being “rapists and criminals.”
He is supported by right-wing Christian nationalists who believe in the virtual enslavement of women and who oppose women even having voting or abortion rights.
He openly expresses his bigotry toward all religions other than Christian nationalism.
His followers engage in book burning and other anti-free-speech efforts.
He disparages gays.
He disparages women.
He opposes unions and worker’s rights while supporting rich business owners.
He repeatedly has tried to end ACA (Obamacare), even going so far as repeatedly to reach out to the Supreme Court.
He admires dictators like Putin and Kim and has admitted he would be a dictator if elected.
He has committed and been convicted by juries of many crimes, including tax fraud and other forms of fraud (for instance, Trump U., cheating his foreign workers, etc.)
He made repeated attempts to overthrow the U.S. government and continues to claim the election was tainted despite his loss of 60+ lawsuits proving otherwise.
His endless lying has become crazier and crazier, indicating his mental deterioration.
By any rational measure, Trump would not receive a single vote other than from the greedy rich and the Christian nationalists, none of whom seem to worry about democracy.
But these are not rational times, and sadly, history is filled with horrifying examples of what happens to a population that departs from rationality.
Evil cannot be prevented by those who claim evil does not exist.
Are Americans a moral people, today?
Many years ago, my wife and I visited the Dachau camp, the first of the more than forty thousand (!) concentration camps and other incarceration sites run by Hitler’s Nazis.
For my wife and me, it was an amazing experience.
Every nation has dark chapters in its history, some darker than others.
Russia’s Stalin, China’s Mao, Germany’s Hitler, Italy’s Mussolini, all killed millions of innocents.
They are examples, but not exceptions. We, humans, have a unique proclivity for killing our own.
Did you ever hear of China’s Qin Shi Huang? Anyone who disagreed with him was sentenced to death.
Books that criticized him were burned. (Sound familiar?). He castrated prisoners of war and enslaved those who survived.
Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Uganda’s Idi Amin, Cambodia’s Pol Pot, the genocides of Rwanda — the list truly is endless.
While we were in Dachau, we saw a movie about the horrors that took place there — the murders, tortures, medical experiments. The movie, which was created by the Allies, made no excuses for the Germans.
It said that the German people cannot claim ignorance; they knew exactly what was being done, but did nothing to interfere.
The amazing part of our experience was the busloads of German schoolchildren being brought there, day after day, to see what their ancestors had inflicted on innocents.
Today’s Germany is determined to prevent a repeat. Germans know prevention only can be accomplished by revealing, not by hiding, the truth.
It especially is important that the childrencould see and understand the horrors of Germany’s dark chapters, the horrors that bigotry creates, lest new generations of bigots fill the information vacuum.
Just a few crazies, or do they represent today’s white-supremacist political party?
Thus, there are no statues of Hitler in Germany.
America too has had our dark chapters. Slavery was among the darkest.
Like the Holocaust, slavery is an extermination, but slavery is an extermination of the mind, spirit and soul, leaving only the body to labor.
For years, many (especially in the South) refused to recognize that slavery even was a dark chapter.
It was termed a “proud Southern heritage,” and statues were erected to the “heroes” who fought to continue it.
Most of the statues have come down now, but the bigotry remains.
The confederate flags still fly from right-wing hands, to remind slavery’s children of yesterday’s bondage.
The Republican party, which has been captured by the white supremacist, religious right, is enacting laws to deny history.
Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis proudly claims his state is where “woke” comes to die.
But what is “woke” that so frightens and antagonizes DeSantis and the religious right?
To be “woke” means to be informed, educated and conscious of social injustice and racial inequality.
Those German children, who saw the movie describing the terrors of Dachau, were being “informed, educated and conscious of social injustice and racial inequality.”
They were “woke” and thus, far less likely to repeat Hitler’s abomination.
DeSantis and the GOP do not want America’s children to have such knowledge. They want to deny America’s slavery past, and in denial, assure perpetuation of the underlying bigotry.
Woke is defined by the DeSantis administrationas “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them,” according to DeSantis’ own general counsel.
“We reject woke ideology,” DeSantis said in his election night speech. “We will never ever surrender to the woke agenda. People have come here because of our policies.”
The pressure against “woke”-ness in Florida has already led to the apparent erasure of race-related content in education, including the rejection of an AP African American history course in state high schools and vows from college presidents against including some race-related content.
Do the great masses of Republicans truly believe there are not “systematic injustices in American society and the need to address them”?
Do they truly believe that blacks are not disproportionately mistreated by police? Or, that women are not paid less than men for doing the same jobs?
Or that indigenous Americans are cheated out of their land, again and again by lying American politicians and broken treaties?
Or that Americans of Japanese heritage were cheated out of their freedoms during the internments of World War II?
Or that Jews, blacks, gays, Muslims, and Orientals are not discriminated against by juries, judges, police, insurance companies, banks, law firms, realtors?
Do they truly believe the way to combat prejudice is to hide its existence from our children and to punish anyone who reveals it? Or is combating prejudice not the goal?
Republican racial denial seems part of a greater pattern, in which everything that does not comport with the official line is denied.
The Republicans are the party of denial. They deny global warming. They deny the benefits of wind and solar energy. They denied the seriousness of COVID. They deny the benefits of vaccination.
They deny the January 6th coup even took place, and instead claim it was a normal tourist day.
They deny the benefits of Obamacare. They deny they gave a tax break that primarily aided the rich. They currently deny they wish to cut the benefits from Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare and other social programs.
They deny every Trump negative, from his cheating on three wives to his Trump University cheating, to his Trump Foundation lies, to his bribing of his whores to lie.
They deny the importance of Trump’s multi-thousand lies, his many bankruptcies, his incompetence, his physical attacks on women and bragging about it, his many attempts to overturn the election, his stealing and hiding of classified documents,
They deny he was a draft dodger who insulted those who gave their lives for America.
They deny he lost the election.
And now, they deny that America has had, and still experiences, “systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.”
The title question was, “Are Americans a moral people, today?”
One measure of morality is a willingness to admit ones misdeeds as a first step toward preventing future misdeeds.All religions involve confessing one’s sins. The Catholics have a formalized process involving a priest. Other religions do it directly to their Gods. Some merely recommend or reference some form of confession as an integral process toward morality.
But all intelligent, reasonable people understand that the cure for bad behavior requires first a recognition and an admission that bad behavior has taken place. Evil cannot be prevented by those who claim evil does not exist.
Denial leads to the acceptance of evil. The first step to morality is enlightenment, and that is a step the Republican party does not wish to take.
DeSantis gives revelations of our past villainy the pejorative, “indoctrination.” He does not want our children to be “indoctrinated” with the facts.
He denies history, to make us forget the bad our ancestors may have done. Right wingers are all too willing to have the evil continue simply by denying it exists.
Ignore, deny, forget. Ignore, deny, forget. It is the proven pattern of the bigot. It is how bigotry lasts through centuries. There is neither logic, nor reason, nor thought.
It is how those who never have known or interacted with a Jew can, through the centuries, despise all Jews, yet claim to love Jesus, who was not only a Jew but a rabbi.
None are responsible for what their forebears have done. Neither blame nor credit should be passed through generations. But that does not include ignorance. We all are responsible for our ignorance.
That a proportionately large number of Jews has won Nobel prices is a source of pride to all Jews. But it does not mean every Jew can take credit.
Similarly, every Italian cannot be blamed for the Mafia. All Japanese cannot be held responsible for Pearl Harbor. But should the Mafia and Pearl Harbor not be mentioned to schoolchildren lest some be embarrassed by the facts?
The learning of factual history does not require any one’s personal shame. It is a necessary rite of passage into teens and adulthood. As George Santayana said, “Those who cannot rememberthe past are condemned to repeat it,” and Winston Churchill said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.
First you must know the past. Then you must learn from it, and finally you must remember it as a foundation for your future actions.
The past is happening right now.
Denial of the past is a danger to America and to our democracy. Our children must know the past and the denials; they must learn from them, and remember them when the past again returns in its ugliness.
Else we are condemned.
Are Americans a moral people, today? Like all people, we are good and we are bad, and in some years we are better than in others. The next few months and years may help answer the question.
They will demonstrate whether childhood ignorance condemns us to repeat our evils
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary SovereigntyTwitter: @rodgermitchellSearch #monetarysovereigntyFacebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.
Every nation has dark chapters in its history, some darker than others.
Russia’s Stalin, China’s Mao, Germany’s Hitler, Italy’s Mussolini, all killed millions of innocents.
They are examples, but not exceptions. We, humans, have a unique proclivity for killing our own.
Did you ever hear of China’s Qin Shi Huang? Anyone who disagreed with him was sentenced to death.
Books that criticized him were burned. (Sound familiar?). He castrated prisoners of war and enslaved those who survived.
Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Uganda’s Idi Amin, Cambodia’s Pol Pot, the genocides of Rwanda — the list truly is endless.
While we were in Dachau, we saw a movie about the horrors that took place there — the murders, tortures, medical experiments. The movie, which was created by the Allies, made no excuses for the Germans.
It said that the German people cannot claim ignorance; they knew exactly what was being done, but did nothing to interfere.
The amazing part of our experience was the busloads of German schoolchildren being brought there, day after day, to see what their ancestors had inflicted on innocents.
Today’s Germany is determined to prevent a repeat. Germans know prevention only can be accomplished by revealing, not by hiding, the truth.
It especially is important that the children could see and understand the horrors of Germany’s dark chapters, the horrors that bigotry creates, lest new generations of bigots fill the information vacuum.
But what is “woke” that so frightens and antagonizes DeSantis and the religious right?
To be “woke” means to be informed, educated and conscious of social injustice and racial inequality.
Those German children, who saw the movie describing the terrors of Dachau, were being “informed, educated and conscious of social injustice and racial inequality.”
They were “woke” and thus, far less likely to repeat Hitler’s abomination.
DeSantis and the GOP do not want America’s children to have such knowledge. They want to deny America’s slavery past, and in denial, assure perpetuation of the underlying bigotry.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 