Hitler's Rise to Power

Phot courtesy of Rupert Colley's Flickr Page - Hitler and Rohm, leader of the Nazi SA: https://www.flickr.com/photos/historyinanhour/4810258592

Creative Commons License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Not sure why it took me so many weeks, and really even months, to add these to the collection of World War II anniversary blog entries.

But here they are.

These are of a different sort. They are anniversaries of an event that actually predates World War II, but which were nonetheless huge in leading up to the outbreak of World War II.

I was reminded of them earlier today, when I heard on NPR a piece about some controversial art in Germany from the Nazi era. The debate was whether to destroy the art or not, but apparently, Germans have come to terms with the notion that they come from a dark chapter in their history, but destroying everything from then is not the answer.

It was mentioned during this debate that Hitler had a significant, and fairly reputable, group of followers prior to 1940. In fact, I heard an argument on the radio this morning that I had heard before: namely, that had Hitler died in 1939 or 1940, he might very well have gone down in history in a very different manner, regarded as one of the great European statesmen in history.

Remember, Germany was on it's knees in 1933, when he ascended to power. The country was a defeated and deflated nation, forced to accepting sole. It was still reeling from the record economic disaster of the 1920's, when even a barrel full of cash might buy you a loaf of bread. Many people had lost everything -their life savings, their jobs, their hopes and dreams.

In comes Hitler, and soon, people were saying that he made the trains run on time. Germany rose from it's defeated status, and he tore up the Treaty of Versailles, and restored German power and pride. The balance of power in Europe once again shifted more favorably for Germany. Within years, while the rest of the world was dealing with it's own economic problems during the days of the Great Depression, Hitler's Germany marched ever more confidently. Sure, he was viewed as a growing threat by some, but many believed that this threat was an exaggeration, that he probably was not all that bad.

And remember, he kept acquiring land for Germany, with no loss of life (often, without even a shot being fired), or with minimal loss of life. First, German troops occupied and rearmed the Saar, which had been a demilitarized zone. Next, came the Anschluss with Austria, a bloodless takeover through plebescite. Then, came the Munich Pact, and Hitler was given the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovakia by the Western powers. He took all of Czechoslovakia, and nothing happened. Then, he took Poland after a few weeks of fighting, and Germany suddenly occupied a lot of territory. After the so-called "Sitzkrieg (Sitting war) part of World War II during the winter of 1939-40, Germany went on the offensive in the spring of 1940, and quickly took over a lot more countries - Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, and France.

At that point, standing as the victor, having been congratulated by Stalin, Hitler appealed to Britain for peace, essentially saying the war was over, Germany had won. Britain resisted, and the war continued. Remember, nobody knew that Hitler would go on to make the disastrous mistake of invading the USSR the next year. No, in 1940, it indeed looked like Hitler had won the war.

You see the images nowadays, and it is easy to put those next to Germany's ultimate fate of being blasted to rubble a few years later, of Soviet tanks and troops storming in and forcing Germany, once again, on it's knees. It is easy to remember the Nazis as monsters, responsible for the Holocaust, which still ranks as the most extreme crime against humanity that people have ever been responsible for.

If you can divorce all of that, which still la in the future when we revisit 1940, then indeed, that genius part of Hitler, the big gambled who always won and never seemed to lose, the man with a plan that most of the world would have doubted, but which had made these tremendous reversals in Germany's favor possible, then you can imagine what Hitler looked like to Germans, who remembered only too clearly the desolation the nation was under just a few short years before.

Indeed, Hitler looked almost like a miracle worker.

Only later, when he began to lose his gambles, gambles where he had put Germany itself on the line, did Germans begin to question his sanity. Only later, when Soviet tanks first stopped the German war machine dead in it's tracks, then began to beat the Germans back from the frozen tundra of Stalingrad and the rest of the Eastern Front, back westward, towards the borders of the Reich itself and, ultimately, back into Berlin, the capital of the Reich, where the final curtain call of the European part of World War II was played out, did Germans realize just how costly their faith in him had been. Only later, when the horrors of the Holocaust began to be uncovered by the Allied forces as the Germans retreated in haste, did Germans truly recognize that this man had been bad news all along.

Before all of that, however, Hitler seemed for a while to be Germany's savior. The man of the hour, exactly who Germany needed to restore their former status of greatness back to them. They were a powerful nation again, a nation still on the rise. In the spring of 1940, it appeared that the wrongs of the past had been righted (at least from a German perspective), and Hitler was the man of the hour.

Funnily enough, at first, Hitler was seen as a wild card, and many people assumed that corporate interests would be able to keep him in check, that they ultimately controlled him.

Obviously, that proved to hardly be the case.

But it is an interesting story, how Hitler got to power and, ultimately, seized complete control of Germany through entirely legal means.

How did Hitler rise to power in the first place? That in itself is a fascinating history that needs to be understood. Much of it remains in obscurity, including the role of a certain prominent family in American politics today. Yes, there have long been rumors that the Bush family, now a political dynasty that American voters always seem to bring back to prominence, in fact helped bring about the rise of Hitler so many decades ago. It is amazing that this unique story remains largely hidden in the background, and we Americans should come to terms with some of the roles that we played not only with Hitler's rise to power, but with subsequent dark chapters of the Holocaust that Americans influenced, which included euthanasia, the influence of the Jim Crow laws and segregation on the Nuremberg laws. Hell, the leader of the Hitler Youth even said that this movement was influenced by the Boys Scouts here in the United States.

Yet, the ties that the Bush family apparently had with Hitler's rise to power have clearly been swept under the rug here in the United States, but we need to make sure that people understand this chapter in history.

Here are some articles relating to the anniversary of Hitler's rise, as well as one that explores, from a credible website, the role of the Bush family in helping Hitler to rise in power:




Berlin marks Hitler's rise to power  

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/30/berlin-marks-hitler-rise-power



Hitler came to power 80 years ago. I remember it like yesterday

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/30/hitler-80-years-warning



How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar