THE MEANING of HITLER Cesses" Were Carried out in the Shadow of Future Renaissance Or Re-Damnation? Bloodshed

Volume XXXV No. I January 1980 INFORMATION iSSUfD By THE ASSOOAim OF JEWBH RBIKECS IN tREAT BRITJUH Eva G. Reichman extent his own. Intent on recording first the posi tive accomplishments, if possible without their darker implications, he chooses to ignore in this context that all these "Achievements and Suc THE MEANING OF HITLER cesses" were carried out in the shadow of future Renaissance or Re-Damnation? bloodshed. He enthuses, e.g. about Hitler's "econo mic miracle" his "positive achievement" "out shining all others". "The term did not then exist," Another Hitler-Book in Germany? Yet another orator of an almost hypnotic potency, his uncanny he writes. "It was coined much later for the product of that ominous Nazi Renaissance in gift to play with the collective unconscious where- astonishingly rapid reconstruction feat of the Germany of which we have heard too much ever he gets hold of it, and his total lack of self- Erhard era after the Second World War, but it already? criticism which is a great help in achieving the applies even better to what was taking place under Don't let us be rash, dear readers: another unthinkable. Hitler during the mid thirties. There was then a Hitler book all right (Sebastian Haffner, The Not surprisingly, decisive importance is given to Meaning of Hitler, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, much deeper and stronger impression that a real Hitler's antisemitism which will have to be men miracle was being accomplished, and that the London 1979, £5.95, translated by Ewald Osers tioned in several contexts. Sceptical though Haffner from: .^nmerkungen zu Hitler, Munich 1978). man who accomplished it. Hitler, was a miracle is with regard to his sociaUst leanings, anti worker." "Helplessness and hopelessness had "hat is less sure is whether it contributes to a semitism he regards—together with a vague Hhler "re-born" or rather a Hitler "re-destroyed". given way to confidence and self-assurance," nationalism destined to evaporate hopelessly in Haffner rejoices. "Even more miraculous was the What we have come to regard as the Nazi- the hour of crucial national danger—as "the real Renaissance in Germany—for the time being fact that the transition from depression to econo Hitlerian bedrock, his primal and lowest layer". mic boom had been accomplished without infla almost exclusively in the literary, not the political Less convincing is Haffner's insistence on the "sld, although even there a number of trouble- tion. Not even Erhard succeeded in doing nature of this antisemitism as a typical East Euro that later in post-war Western Germany." ^me symptoms are discernible—is a highly pean product. In his opinion antisemitism in Ger ambiguous phenomenon. According to the laws many was on the wane during the relevant period, It is true, he has to admit, there existed at the Pertaining to the history of ideas, it had to be its remnants being directed towards assimilation time those concentration camps and there was the ^''Pected that some time or other there would and integration rather than towards the elimina fear, cunningly nurtured and dispelled simul arise a new questioning about one of the most tion of the Jews—a daring statement in the light taneously, that opposition was likely to land any 'Ormidable happenings of recent history: the Nazi of what was to happen. Unlike this—in Haffner's one there if he was careless enough to vent it. But âtastrophe. A new sceptical generation was opinion—German brand of antisemitism. Eastem in Haffner's opinion "there was even a certain ''ound to emerge anxious to leam more about its European antisemitism was "endemic and mur logic on the side of those who, for the sake of the 'Origins, its meaning, its consequences. There is derous", directed towards "liquidation and exter economic miracle, were prepared to accept the Nothing unnatural or frightening in the wish to mination". As to how Hitler picked it up, Haffner concentration camps." "A certain logic"? Is it Penetrate, after the passage of some 40 years, the confesses ignorance. "There is," he says, "no not perhaps a rather inappropriate euphemism to 'ayer of oblivion which had darkened and dis- record of any disagreeable personal experience." abuse one of the supreme gifts of the human 'orted the events, still topical and consequential. The statement is, to say the least, surprising. In mind for the sake of tolerating one of the most *nd to find out what really happened. Regrettable "Mein Kampf" Hitler enlarges on flve whole pages notorious Nazi inhumanities? •hough it is that part of that new zeal favours a (372/376 edition, pp. 59-63) on how he became Haffner denies furthermore one of the most '^Semblance of whitewash, most of it is devoted an antisemite ending up (p. 69) with the cate generally accepted facts in the field of Nazi '° responsible research resulting in unequivocal gorical declaration: "From a weakly cosmopolitan achievements, namely that Hitler's "economic 'Condemnation. I had grown info a fanatical antisemite." Not only miracle" and his military miracle, the rearmament, Within this perplexity Sebastian Haffner's book on the preceding pages but ad nauseam throughout were basically the same thing. The enormous re "ômes as a welcome clarification. The author is the book he makes innumerable points on the sub armament on which Hitler started immediately *6ll-known to our circle as the war-time editor of ject. What other explanations or "personal experi after the seizure of power removed in his opinion Oie Zeitung", a German weekly published in ences" may Haffner have expected? Specific "a few hundreds of thousands of potential unem r^^ndon, of an unambiguously anti-Nazi stance. records may be missing but distinct suspicions ployed from the streets ... but the great bulk of °y an original arrangement of his material HafFner suggest themselves. the six million unemployed whom Hitler had in 'Voids the outright damnation straight from the herited found re-employment in entirely normal '^rt of the man of doom. Unlike the usual bio- "Achievements and Successes" civilian industries." Contrary to this view Wolf lâphical progress following the phases of life, From the dismal life of his Viennese youth gang Sauer devotes a whole chapter of the stan fiaffner divides his account in seven chapters giv- Hitler happily escaped to Germany where he met dard work "Die Nationalsozialistische Machter '!'8 an intriguing picture of Hitler's ascent and with the even greater luck that war broke out. To greifung. Studien zur Errichtung des totalitHren ^^cUne. Their headings—"Life. Achievements. him the war years were happy ones. The revolu Herrschaftssystems in Deutschland 1933/34" Recesses. Misconceptions. Mistakes. Crimes, tion of 1918, the "November Crime" as he and (Westdeutscher Veriag, Koln/Opladen 1960, by "etrayal"—provide a startling outline of what to his partisans preferred to call it, was a terrible Karl Dietrich Bracher, Wolfgang Sauer and Ger ^^Pect. In the first place he creates a rather im thunder-clap, but one he determinedly refused to hard Schulz 1960) to the subject "Rearmament pressive portrayal of a man of unpromising begin- take as a fait accompli. He regarded it as a pre and Economic Crisis". He describes in detail that 'ngs as a down-and-out in Vienna, without educa- liminary end to the hostilities, brought about bv as early as on the Sth February 1933 Hitler de clared in a Cabinet Meeting that "all public '01, occupation or definable ambition, who pro- treachery, and therefore only as an odious inter measures that were to serve the re-employment of ,.^^s in the second and third chapters to notable ruption of Germany's ascent to world power. His Achievements" and "Successes". These seem to the unemployed had as a matter of principle to bumptious decision "to become a politician" be judged from the point of view to what extent ôlve from a vacuum unless we attribute to meant that from now on every step he climbed *J'"er's early political passion—the only positive they promoted the rearmament which had to be on the ladder to personal power would mean a accomplished within five years." ^ntent in his otherwise empty personal make- step to the resumption of war. ^ a driving force endowed with the stupendous Haffner classifies these steps as Hitler's Achieve While Hitler was wary of revealing a thing ^^tentialittialitVy ton leaIpaHd him ton prominencer,rnTnin*>nr#> , worldiirnrlH-- ments and Successes. And that is what they were. about his war plans during the first years of his Pow,er—eve n if to lapse eventually in a fathom- But it is here where he sometimes errs on the side rule, Sauer takes it for granted that simul jf^s void Haffner has little hesitation in seeing him of unwarranted credulity. It is to some extent the taneously with the conquest of power in the Reich j^.is Way. The other characteristics he ascribes to credulity of the German people which he uncriti he was determined to prepare for an as yet un- "" as possibly latent abilities are his power as an cally accepts as signs of Hitler's magic, to some Continued at column 1, page 2 Page 2 AJR INFORMATION January 1980 tance on the home-front prevented him from The Meaning of Hitler declaring it. So greaf was his hesitation that even the unforeseen Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour Contd. from page 1 failed to challenge Roosevelt into the war as long limited further conquest. Was it to be Europe? honour it must be said that there is a limit even as Germany kept quiet. But she did the contrary: Was it to be "the world" as his youngsters were to scrupulous objectivity.

Load more