Thoughts of Hitler

One thing about Hitler coming to power that amazes me is that he didn’t come to power through some coup de-etat or some national revolution of blood and battle, he won it through the same conventional types of politics as any other person put into political power. While it’s true that the Nazi Party did do some things that were less than ethical, they still put Hitler in power by popularity. The people couldn’t have known what Hitler would eventually do, and he took advantage of this. Another thing that blew me away this week was that the first concentration camp was made only a few months after Hitler’s election.
The power that was given to Hitler by the German people and the German government is unbelievable. While it’s very improbable that the people of Germany had any idea what was going to happen with the election of Hitler, it is strange for me to imagine any country willingly giving over THAT much power to anyone in politics. I realize that this was another time and our country’s view of politicians is probably drastically different than those of others, especially in the 1930s and 40s. As charismatic as Hitler was, I can’t imagine giving over that much power to him. President Obama is charismatic (let’s just be clear: I’m not comparing him to Hitler!), but I still don’t think that we would give him so much power that he could virtually do anything he desired without having to answer to people below him. Given, the background of Germany was a lot less table than ours at the time and all of the various details are different; it’s just beyond imagining to me.
Another thing that we discussed in class is the theory that Goebbels and Goering may have been the power beyond the throne, so to speak. While I do think that that kind of thing is possible, I don’t think that it’s the case here. I can’t really explain why I feel that this is the case definitively, but it seems to me that with an ego like the one that Hitler likely had, he would not allow anyone to behave as though they could control him. I do think that it’s obvious that not ALL Germans wanted Hitler out of the picture. There were attempts to kill him by his fellow Germans in the double digits. The mention in class the other day that a British sniper team also had the chance to kill Hitler seems possible, even though it might be harder to imagine people closer to him would have a better chance than some random sniper team sneaking into the Wolf’s Den. If any of these assassination attempts had actually been successful, Hitler would have surely been seen as a martyr to the Nazis and possibly many other Germans. As much as we might hate to think that more people died in the Holocaust than had to, it may be that Hitler’s eventual fall was the only thing that kept more and more people from dying.

Another game of "what if" and my unoriginal blog titles

As we've learned more and more about the German people's reactions to World War I, my perceptions of events during that time period have changed a great deal. The more that we learn about this, the more I begin to see that after World War I the German people still couldn't see that they had done anything wrong (most German citizens at least). All of the political turmoil going on throughout Germany based on the outcome of the war makes it seem as though many of them look at the ending of the first war to be one of the most insulting things that could have happened to their world. In my opinion, if I had been around at that time the results of Germany’s actions would have been obvious. Where I understand that the German’s saw things like Article 231 as an insult designed to humiliate them (which in many ways it was), the fact that they reacted to it in such a way is beyond me.
For a military society, the loss of territory, no navy, and limiting the army to 100,000 soldiers would have been a devastating blow. However, the sheer number of deaths brought on by their actions seems to have meant nothing to them. I guess it’s just beyond my comprehension that people could not understand how the actions of their government hurt people all over the world in such a way that made their personal honor meaningless. While Article 231 was probably a little bit overboard, I think the fact that many Germans refused to even negotiate made the Article that much more necessary. The concept of Fulfillment should have been something the Germans attached to as the best option available to them for what they had done. I understand that they fought the Article because they saw it as an attack solely to hurt their pride, but couldn’t they see that it wasn’t the responsibility of the rest of the world to clean up the mess they had made? I guess not.
Another thing that I’ve been thinking about is Gustav Stresemann. If he hadn’t died young (or more likely if he had lived in another time in German history) could the things he did be more widely appreciated. He seems to have been another voice of reason and good for the German people if they had only listened to him. From the Dawes Plan, to the Treaty in Locarno, to the Berlin Treaty, it seems as though Stresemann had been setting Germany back on a path that was getting it back onto the world stage without the negativity that went along with the name Germany. I realize that I am constantly thinking of history as the “what of” of my last blog, but if Stresemann had had more time to make changes and attempt to fix some of the fissures within German society, would people have begun to see things his way over the course of time? In all likelihood probably not. If given more time, the people would have probably ousted him and gone about with the things the way they turned out. The German people were just too bitter and angry about how things had turned out for them after the War to end all Wars. Things could have gone along the exact same time line that progressed into WWII even if the Treaty of Versailles hadn't been as heavy handed or Stresemann had never attempted to fix things with German relations throughout the world.

What if?

I was trying to figure out what I was going to write about this week and couldn’t think of anything until I started reading the book “Germans into Nazis.” I haven’t gotten through every last word of it yet but every time I pick it up I tend to fly through a dozen pages or so in a matter of minutes so I’m not too worried. As I read through the introduction I was amazed at the part describing a conversation between the photographer and the Nazi Party leader, Adolf Hitler.
What got me so interested in this was the fact that the photographer had taken a picture of Hitler at a rally in 1914 before the beginning of World War I. Whenever I read history, the thought that rushes through my mind more frequently than any other is the question: “What if?” In the huge mass of people gathered in the picture, where Hitler is seen at such a young age, what would have happened in the twentieth century if things had changed that day? All it would have taken is one person that thought the mindset of Germany was going to a bad place; one mugger in the crowd that would have happened to walk up to a young Adolf Hitler and try to take his wallet. I’ve never seen history as a series of random events, but what if the slightest change had occurred THAT day that killed the man named Adolf Hitler. No one would have known his name and other than maybe the slightest mention in the paper the following morning, there is a good chance that very few people would have even known about some seemingly tiny event that got some stranger killed.
I can’t help but think about those things. The thought that if one person in the crowd that day, one person with a good heart and a good head on their shoulders could have known what the guy next to him would do one day. What would have changed? How different would the world be today? If one person happened to look over, see this young man who probably blended in with every other person in the crowd, and knew what he was going to do in the future. In the fervor of a national pride and the shift in the ideals of Germany in the early 1900’s a man started a course that would change the passage of time.
I know that this thought probably has an effect on all of my blogs, but it’s what makes me like history as much as I do. Looking back on the series of events and seeing times when the slightest event could have changed the world.
As I said earlier on, what if that day in 1914, on his way back to his home or his apartment or wherever, the young man whose name would soon be known by virtually everyone else on the planet ran into an accident: a car crash or a mugging. One simple event that could have prevented all of the things that occurred in the Holocaust and in World War II would have only taken a moment. If you do stop to think about the small details of that day, the possibilities and the way the people were reacting to the changes taking place. Even IF Hitler had met some unfortunate end before he committed all of the deeds that he is famous for today; would someone else have come along to take his place? If not Hitler, would there have been someone else that came along to commit the same kinds of atrocities? Would we have known the same of some other nationalist that came along and changed the course of the Twentieth Century?