Hitler's Rise to Power (where's Mark when you need him?)

This week, we discuss the events that led to Hitler and the Nazi's rise to power in 1920s and 1930s Germany.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to an hour of Our Time, the podcast where
we pick a topic, study it, and come back to
tell you what we've learned. Today, we're talking about the
rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi Party, how
they used pseudo legal means to gain power, consolidate it,
and eventually launch World War two.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm Joe and I'm Dave. Well you ready to talk
some Hitler? I?

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Well, I mean no, it's.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
We'll get ready. I had to make myself a stiff
drink of hot cocoa to get through this.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yeah, the hard stuff, the hot coco. I am drinking
a it's not from Germany, say, German style beer from
Sounder Brewing. Sounder Brewing which is in Mason, Ohio. This
is a William goat Bach beer, which is a multi

(01:17):
logger originally from Germany. And I my initial thought was, oh,
I should drink a German beer because we're talking about
German history. And then I thought, like, wait, is that
weird because they don't want to, like, I don't know,
celebrate this. And then I realized, like I'm thinking about

(01:37):
it too hard, and also like I didn't originate this idea,
but you know, the first the first country that the
Nazis conquered was.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Germany was their own, as they say, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
So which is which is mainly what we're talking about here,
So I don't know, yeah whatever. Also, like you said, yeah,
I mean stiff drink is uh is warranted here because
as we have danced around kind of, we are talking
about the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi Party.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, And you know, we for reasons, we haven't really
been able to completely understand our most popular episode. I mean,
I guess I get why it's like popular, Like I
understand why people think it's interesting, but it's been our
most popular one every month for a couple like four
years something like that since we put it out, which

(02:39):
is about Nazi hunters. So it seems like whenever we
do a Nazi based episode or a World War two
based episode, they're very popular. But that's not why we're
doing this one. You know, there's been a lot of
conversation in this country, specifically you know, recently about you know,
how can a group with such a radical agenda take hold?

(03:06):
And I felt like I knew a good bit about
how Hitler came to power, but it seemed like something
that would be interesting to kind of revisit because it
does sort of show you how that sort of thing
can happen. It takes time, but it also takes the
right atmosphere to develop and someone to know how to

(03:31):
push people and you know, towards their agenda as it
relates to that atmosphere. And I kind of think that that's,
you know, in a roundabout way, kind of where we
are now.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well, it's important to talk about this because yes, we
are obviously are you know, it is impossible not to
draw parallels to our topic for this episode and what
is happening in America right now, and if you are
listening to this at some point in the future, it

(04:08):
is March twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Well, Joe, you know, it's funny because I don't think
that there will be at a point where people are like, oh,
I wonder what then they're referring to. It's like the pandemic.
If you make any sort of like remark about it,
even fifty years from now, people will know what you're
talking about. And I'm a little bit afraid that the
things that are happening now will continue to happen, will
be significant enough that it will follow a similar pattern.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Well, I'm fair enough. I mean, I think regardless, it's
going to be like, this will be a time and
history that people will be discussing, even if it, you know,
doesn't end up in the fall of American democracy. And
I have to say I still remain optimistic. Is not
the phrase, because optimism is very difficult right now. I

(04:57):
don't want people to think, well, we're doing this upside
because we think that this exact thing is happening.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
No, no, no, I'm not saying that.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
But rather it's important to understand. Yeah, it's important to
understand this process of the Nazis taking power, for for
all of us to understand this so that we may
prevent this from happening. Because I think people assume, if
they are not very versed in history, that the Nazis

(05:28):
took over in some sort of violent, bloody revolution.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah. In fact, they tried that and it didn't That's
what they tried that and it didn't work, and so
then they went the route of actually winning elections or
you know, in the case of Germany, we'll talk about
the Weimar Republic in the way that the political structure
is set up, which is also part of the issue.
But yeah, I'm not saying that this is a one

(05:53):
to one comparison, but here in Columbus we've got neo
Nazi Nazis marching around and and I think it's important
to recognize the signs well.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
And we also have I mean, Elon Musk giving a
Nazi salute after the inauguration. So I think like, let's
just put let's just put a point on it. Yeah,
but uh, I think another thing, if you, if you're
interested in this topic, I want to kind of like
learn more. I also think a modern piece of history

(06:25):
would be looking at.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Hungary, Okaya, say more.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
And what had what what happened, what happened and what
continues to happen in that country right now because they
have they are on paper a democracy or like officially
a democracy, but they are not very democratic at this point.

(06:52):
The Prime Minister Victor Orbon has done a lot of
the things that the Nazi Party did in Germany, like
consolidating the media into a propaganda uh wing of his party,
and you know things like this, Yeah, which is why,

(07:15):
which is why our president loves Victor. Oh there you go,
all right, So I guess it's strapping. So you can
talk about.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Hitler, and we're focusing on This is not an episode
on World War Two as a whole. It's really Hitler's
rise to power. So we're going to focus our time
basically between the Treaty of Versailles and the Nazis invading Poland,
so which is you know, twenty years of time. But

(07:41):
that that's our focus. So I don't want to get
too bogged down in like where Hitler was born and
what his parents were like, although there are some important
things to mention there. One is that his Hitler was Austrian.
He was born in Austria, Hungary later moved to Germany.

(08:03):
He when he was very young, as was sort of
common for Austrian Germans at the time, he began to
develop nationalistic ideas about Germany very young, you know, expressing

(08:24):
loyalty to Germany, only despising the decline of the Habsburg monarchy.
I don't know a lot about the Habsburg monarchy. I
know we've talked about the jaw.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Yeah, I was just thinking, that's like the main thing
that we talked about. Is there a their like incestuous.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Facial But he you know, he despised the I said,
the decline of the declining Habsburg monarchy because they ruled
over a very large empire. That was because it was
large inherently ethnic diverse.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
Yeah, So you know, we in an episode we did
and Joe, I don't think you were on this one,
but we did one a long time ago about the
Spanish American War, and we talked about the word jingoism,
which is like extreme nationalism. In fact, I want to

(09:24):
look up the actual definition here extreme patriotism, especially in
the form of aggressive or warlike foreign policy. So I
think jingoism is a good word to describe Hitler's view
of Germany.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Oh yeah, Actually, before you know, we always talked about
what did we know before we started studying this topic.
I actually thought jingoism was when you have like a
key ring for work with like a lot of keys,
and when you walk down the hallway you jingle.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
I went, I thought it was rumming pool, like the
wrong rectangular prism from a stack and it all falls over.
But that's jengaism. Yeah. A couple other things to say
about Hitler. He apparently his mother kind of I don't

(10:27):
know coddled is the right word, but kind of gave
him the impression that he was you know, destined for
great things and and sort of you know, may have
instilled a little bit of a complex on him which
made it difficult for him when he failed at things
like you know, art school and what have you. But

(10:49):
the other thing here is that Hitler serves in the
German Army during World War One. He's decorated when it's
an Iron Cross or is awarded an Iron Cross. Not
a lot more to say to not get us bought
down about his time during the war. But the important
thing here, as I'm sure most of our listeners are

(11:10):
well aware, Germany was on the losing side of World
War One.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, we've mentioned this before, that the outcome of World
War One like almost I mean, I don't know, you
can't say, like what something in history was inevitable, so
I certainly I don't want to say that, but outcome
of World one for me, world War one directly set

(11:37):
the stage for War one.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Oh yes, I think we talked about the end of
World War One last when we did our Nuremberg Trial episode.
But you know, World War one ends with the Treaty
of Versailles that was signed on June twenty eighth, nineteen nineteen,
which I believe. Is is it like five seven years

(12:03):
to the day of the assassination of Archduke Frans Ferdinand,
like I would like to the day just oddly enough, Yeah, exactly, Sorry,
it's exactly five years after the assassination of Frans Ferdinand.
It started World War One. But this treaty really I

(12:27):
don't want to put this. It requires many things of Germany.
It requires them to disarm. It causes them to really
really only maintain a very small military. They're only allowed
one hundred thousand soldiers. They can't build tanks and other

(12:48):
armored vehicles. Only a certain number of factories are able
to build ammunition or develop ammunition create ammunition. But the
bigger thing is that they have something in it called
Article two thirty one, which is colloquially known as the
war guilt Clause. Essentially, Germany and its allies are forced

(13:10):
to take all of the blame for starting the war
and all the damage it caused, and are made to
pay reparations. And you might think, well, why would they
agree to all this? Well, Germany was not at the table.
Other powers came up with the treaty and then made
Germany sign it. Yep, anything to add there, Joe.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Well, I mean it crippled the Germany commy. Oh, yes,
because of the the war reparations.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yes, it definitely crippled their economy. The dollar, the German
deutsche mark, basically amounted to nothing. I read somewhere that
it was like one American dollar was like equivalent to
ten thousand deutsch mark, and people would have to go
to the store to get like something, and they would
have to take like a WLD barrel full of money.

(14:06):
There was even a video I saw of kids playing
with like wrapped stacks of money like building blocks, because
the paper money had become that useless.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Yeah, that's that's like the the commonly cited analogy.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
I guess it's funny though.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
And well, I was just gonna say that there were
there were nearly uh it was nearly a revolution in
Germany just immediately at the end of the war. So
there's a lot of a lot of unrest, and the

(14:54):
German Communist Party was sort of gaining ground. H Communist
parties were getting grounded in a lot of different countries
in Europe. Yeah, at this time, the Russian Revolution had
happened just about a you know, like a year prior
in nineteen seventeen, so there was like a great fear

(15:15):
that there would be a communist uprising Karl Marx famously
from Germany. You know this kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, yeah, you know. The one of the other provisions
of the Treaty of Versailles is that Kaiser Wilhelm, Kaiser
Wilhelm had to abdicate the throne, and I believe he escaped,
he left, but he abdicated. He was supposed to be
put on trial. That was actually the provision of the treaty,

(15:45):
but he like fucked off.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Well, there were two there were two things that that
Germany refused to do, and one of them was giving trial.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
But after he abdicates, the Weimar Republic or what is
known as the German Reich, is formed, and this is
a constitutional republic for the first time in German history
that is set upright after the war. I think that
the the the setup of the government is important to understand.

(16:29):
So it's a constitutional, constitutional republic, but it has a
president and then beneath the president is the chancellor, which
is like the prime minister, and that chancellor is appointed
by the president. But it was traditionally the the head

(16:50):
of the party that held the most seats in their parliament,
which is called the Reichstag.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, they had a parliamentary system that's like many parliamentary
systems in modern Europe called proportional representation. So in this
kind of system, you don't you don't vote for people,
you vote for parties.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
Well, well, in some cases, I mean you still vote
for you vote for people in the presidential election. You
don't vote for people in parliament or for as chancellor.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
I'm sorry, yes, yes, for for chancellor. You are for parliament.
You don't. You vote for the party that you prefer,
and then the parties gain seats in proportion to the
percentage of votes cast for them, which is like something
that we don't like understand in America, even though we
basically vote for a party here in the US at

(17:42):
this point, although I am continually amazed at people that's
what their party ticket.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
But that's yeah, well put it this way. You know,
you could have a system, or you could have a
situation where you have a president from one party, but
maybe his party is not the majority party in parliament.
Therefore a party the leader of a different party is, uh,
you know, is who the chancellor is aligned with and

(18:10):
then you have the parliament in itself, so you have
you know, you have this I guess kind of a hierarchy,
but it's a little bit it's a little bit complex
at least things comparing it to our system in a way.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, did you know why the why the name Weymar Republic.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Was Wasn't it because I was given that name from
the city of Ymar, Right because they hosted the con
the Constituent Assembly, like they they that was where the government.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
They were meeting in Vimar, because Berlin, they were trying
to stifle a revolution that was threatening tap right, right, Berlin.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
I was trying to look, I was trying to think
of the name of what kind of system of government
this is. They call it a semi presidential system, and
there are also dual presidential systems apparently, but this is
a semi presidential system because you have a president, but
then you have a chancellor and they somewhat share powers,
like their their powers are somewhat different. So you have

(19:14):
like a semi president because he doesn't have like all
of the powers of the executive branch.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Yeah. The the chancellor is kind of like the he's
the prime minister, Prime the prime minister.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
And would you say that the prime minister in England
is basically like the president because they don't have a
another figurehead that is of the same power.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Well, they just don't have a president.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Right, But I'm saying in terms of like where power
is consolidated.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Is in terms of like who is the most important
figure Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, right.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
But this is well, I guess I'm saying is that
this is a somewhat unique system at the time.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, so the this is this is going to be
important in the establishing of the constitution of the Weimar Republic.
There were two houses, the Reichstag and the Reichsrat.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
And the Reichstag is the lower house.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Yes, the Chancellor was the leader of the reichs Dog. Yeah.
But also crucially the presidents elected every seven years. And
it's uh, it was a you know, a constitutional republic.
So the president had you know, checks and supposedly had
checks and balances imposed upon them by the Reichstag. But

(20:44):
in Article forty eight of their constitution, in a state
of emergency, the constitution actually explicitly in the constitution gave
the president authority to rule by a decree again and
if the if a state of emergence is declared, that
will become important, that.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Will become very important. So let's talk about you know,
Hitler and all this. So after the war, he becomes
involved with the German Workers Party, which is a kind
of a fledgling political party in Germany. It would eventually
become the Nazi Party, but at the time it's this
small political party. Starts going to meetings. He's not leading

(21:23):
the party or anything like that, but when he goes
to meetings he tends to be very outspoken. I guess
that's not a big shock. And this outspoken nature sort
of gets the attention of the people who are leading
the party and they realize, hey, we can we can
use this guy. He's got a lot of charisma, and
so Hitler sort of becomes more involved, and in nineteen

(21:45):
twenty three, he, among other party leaders, leads an attempted coup,
what they call the Beer Hall pushed in Munich, where
they try to violently overthrow the government. It doesn't work,
and Hitler is imprisoned. He's put on trial, I should say,

(22:05):
and then in prison during his trial, he speaks very
very aggressively about you know, German nationalism and a lot
of the judges kind of like admire him and don't
really want to put him in prison, so they ultimately
give him a sentence of five years in prison, but
serves only nine months. But in his in prison is
when he writes mind komf which is sort of his manifesto.

(22:30):
It sells really well and he becomes fairly wealthy from
those sales. But you know, while he's in prison, something
else interesting happens, which is that the German economy starts
to recover.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, and as you yeah, because they actually recruited it
was the the chancellor at the time, Gustav Streissman. We
need we need her, old buddy Mark. Yeah, really to
pronounce these German names, because I yeah, when we do

(23:02):
an episode about Mussolini, I'll be just fine, or Franco
the other two dictators. But anyway, he instituted a policy
call fulfillment where he was basically like, let's just try
to fulfill the the strictures of the Treaty Versailles and

(23:23):
then we can basically play nice and then they'll give us, like,
you know, a better deal, Like we'll renegotiate the deal
and Dave sorry, just to go back a step with
the hyper inflation that we talked about. In nineteen twenty three,
a loaf of bread cost two hundred million Deutsche marks.

(23:46):
So when we talk about like the wheelbarrow, wheel barrow
full of paper money, that's what we're talking about. Yeah. So, actually,
like this policy started to work in nineteen twenty four,
an American economist named Charles Dawes. They actually recruited him
to set a new realistic target for Germany's reparations. It

(24:10):
was called the Dawes Plan. And so they reduced the
number of reparations from fifty million marks a year for
five years and then one hundred and twenty five million
marks following that, and then reorganized the banks.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
And they gave loans to Germany.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
They America gave them loans exactly. There was like a
lot of there was a large German immigrant population in
the United States, and there was generally like you know,
they were they were helping a lot at that point.
And then yes, that led to the years between nineteen
twenty four and eight twenty nine becoming known as the

(24:48):
Golden Years, as you're mentioning.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Yeah, so although the economy recovers it's the the collapse
of the stock market in the United States and the
Great Depression and that follows that actually is what sends
Germany and in much of Europe back, you know, into
a depression and economic depression.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
And it's in in this environment that the Nazis start
to kind of adjust their their plan a bit. So,
you know, they tried the violent overthrow of the government.
That didn't go so well. So the next thing they
try is trying to win elections, you know, kind of

(25:36):
you know, coming to power quote unquote Legitimately that becomes
their focus.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
Well, I mean that's that's yeah, that that's like the
ultimate I think lesson of this is that they gained
power by means that were within the within the the
like I mean, the obviously did things like you know,

(26:07):
street violence and things like that, but like I said,
it did not come to power through some sort of
bloody revolution. They tried that, it failed, and so Hitler
learned that lesson and attempted successfully to take power by
democratic means. They won elections.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
You know, it's slow at first, you know, in nineteen
twenty eight, this was just before the Wall Street crash,
the Nazis only had twelve seats in the Reichstag. Party
membership was recorded at around one hundred and thirty thousand,
but it's growing. After the stock market crash Hitler and

(26:53):
the party, they start to use rhetoric that relates to
the economic depression. Namely, they start to sow the seeds
of really two things, one that there could be a
communist revolution, so very anti communist rhetoric, very pro business rhetoric,
and of anti Jewish rhetoric. They need escapegoats. They start

(27:17):
blaming you know, eastern Central European Jews for the economic
plight of the area.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
Yeah. Well, and there was also you know, like we
talked about there being like a period of you know,
a Golden age quote unquote relative economic stability. They changed
their currency and they were under this plan, but there
were still you know, problems. For instance, they weren't going
to fully repay the reparations until nineteen eighty eight, is

(27:48):
when they were projected. There was also like high inflation,
but I think a lot of the things that the
Nazis pointed to were communists, like you said, said Dave,
But also there was a flourishing or in the Weimar

(28:08):
Republic of a lot of different art forms like jazz.
There was a thought that Germany was being influenced by
Western culture and decadence, and so a lot of the
rhetoric of the Nazi Party, this may sound familiar to you,

(28:30):
was them attempting to reassert traditional gender roles, getting rid
of this weird art and music that's, you know, contrary
to our traditional culture and things like that.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yeah, this is the jingoism thing. It's chilling, So you know, yeah,
I mean, I guess that's a third thing that they
focused on. But I think it relates to the anti
Semitic messaging because it's oh, it sets up in us.
This is this is very similar what's happening now. It
inherently sets up in US versus them mentality.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Absolutely, And and there was a they're tapping into a
long tradition of anti Semitism.

Speaker 2 (29:13):
Oh yes, oh yes, yeah, this is not and this
is not new. Anti Semitism in Europe had really been
building up since the late nineteenth century. Yeah, I mean,
and well, and and in thousands of years before that.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
But I know what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
But there there's I guess, I guess it had really
ramped up at the end of the nineteenth century. Uh sure,
you know, it'd always sort of been there, but it
it was building up. And so they're not they're not
developing this idea, they're just jumping on it.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
And there was also Hitler's pointed to this idea that
of the stab in the back m that Jewish people
had somehow caused Germany to capitulate in World War One,

(30:08):
putting them in this situation that they're in.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Now, and not not just the Jewish population, but also
so in the seeds of like not trusting the current
government the Weimar Republic, saying that these people are the
ones that like gave away the farm so to speak,
they signed the treaty. They you know, we would have
won had they not given up that that's sort of exactly. Yeah. Yeah,

(30:37):
So I mentioned nineteen twenty eight, they only had twelve
seats in the reichs Dog. But by nineteen thirty two
July nineteen thirty two, there's federal elections and the Nazis
become the largest party in the reichs Dog. It's but
they still don't have a majority. So they are the

(30:57):
biggest party, but they don't have a majority of the seats.
If that makes sense. It sounds weird to say it,
but but yeah, yeah, you almost need like a visual aid.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
The Nazis had a paramilitary organization. These were like so
and in this group the Sturm I belong the SA
formed in nineteen twenty one. And there these are the
guys called the brown Shirts, yeah, because they wore a
brown uniform. These were like the group, the core kind

(31:28):
of group of people that formed around Hitler. They were
mostly ex soldiers from World War One and most of
them were unemployed. So these were these guys who were
participating in like the beer hall push and things like
that because they they didn't have jobs. They were incredibly violent.

(31:49):
These were like street thugs.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Yeah, I think that's fair.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah, and so the they eventually though, started to become
a problem for Hitler in the Nazis because they had
this reputation as being these violent thugs because that's what
they were. In nineteen twenty five, Hitler established a different group,
the Schutzstaffel, which is the SS. So they were originally

(32:22):
his personal bodyguards, but then they kind of became the
you know, the the a small organization, but then they became,
you know, the large organization across the entire Third Reich.
So they started off with like about three hundred members
until nineteen twenty nine, and at that point Heinrich Himmler

(32:47):
took over, and you know, they expanded dramatically. By nineteen
thirty three, the SS had thirty five thousand member and
they were chosen based on racial purity. So they used
both of these forces to, you know, cause terror beat

(33:09):
people up things like that. Well, I'm sorry, David kind
of lost travel a year. We are in here.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Well, you know, I give statistics in nineteen thirty two.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
But okay, in nineteen thirty two they suspended reparations. And
this is kind of like when the UH I don't know,
I guess like a crisis started. The crisis started to happen.
I think it's also important to talk about Hitler consolidating

(33:48):
the old conservative elite.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Yeah, I think I think it's also important to talk
about that the the people in charge our republic clearly
saw the threat of the Nazis. In April of nineteen
thirty two, they banned the paramilitary, the Essay and the
SS using the Emergency Decree for the Preservation of State Authority.

(34:16):
This was because they were starting to believe that those
groups could be used to stage a hostile takeover, and
so they banned them. But Hitler demanded in exchange for
supporting a new cabinet which was happening within the government
after those elections in thirty two, he you know, kind

(34:36):
of said, I'll support this new cabinet publicly if you
lift the ban, and then the law was repealed. So
I only point this out to say that clearly, you know,
the president at the time, Hindenburg and the Chancellor Franz
von Poppin saw the threat of the Nazis here.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Yes, And so it was then in order to gain
like a base of support, Hitler courted, like I said,
the old ruling class and like the business class, because

(35:17):
they were continuing to press for a return to authoritarian
rule away from democracy, and Hindenberg started to use this
article forty eight that we talked about. Nineteen twenty five
to nineteen thirty one, he used a total of sixteen times.

(35:40):
In nineteen thirty one alone, used it forty two times
in comparison to only thirty five laws were passed through
democratic means in that same year. And then by nineteen
thirty two he used this article forty eight, which against
suspends democratic rule, allows the in a state of emergency,

(36:04):
the president to rule or to issue decrees. Essentially used
it fifty two times. So the these conservative elites, their
idea was that they would essentially they could use the
Nazi Party in Hitler to destroy the left wing, including
communists right, and so he courted their support and then

(36:33):
he they thought that you know, once that he had
you know, gotten rid of you know, the socialists and everything,
that they could then like get their own leader in power.
Again sounds kind of familiar.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
But yeah, so suppressing myself here, Yeah, well that you know, again,
this is part of why we're bringing this up.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
I mentioned that the Nazi Party by thirty two had
had the largest They were the largest party in the Reichstag,
and as a result they were entitled to select the
President of the Reichstag, which I guess would sort of
be like the majority leader in our congress. And Hermann
Goering was elected to that post. Hitler was all jazzed

(37:21):
about this and he then said, well, it make me chancellor.
Hindenburg offered him the job of vice chancellor, to be
vice chancellor with pappen Bomb Pappen, but Hitler refused, he
didn't want to be, as he put, its second fiddle.
But as little time goes on and the Nazis still

(37:43):
are the majority party, Chancellor Poppin is leaving office and
supposedly he secretly tells Hitler that he has a lot
of sway still with President Hindenburg and that he would
make Hitler Chancellor as long as Poppin could stay on
as vice Chancellor. So basically he would make that original deal,

(38:04):
but Hitler would be, you know, more chancellor than you
know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (38:10):
Well, they he ye vom Papa met with Hindenburg's son
to back Hitler as Chancellor. And then there was also
this group of industrialists.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
Yes, do you have any idea how to say this word?

Speaker 1 (38:25):
Jal Mar schnacked or yeah, shocked and Gustav Krupp, Well.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Not not their name, anyone, the name of the letter
that they.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Signed, Oh, absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
It's called it it's an industrial petition. But the word
in German where's Mark when you need him?

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Mark?

Speaker 2 (38:42):
But yeah, twenty two of these industrial leaders signed this
letter asking Hinderberg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor. So with
all this pressure, Hindenburg reluctantly does so. After the parliamentary
elections of July and November of nineteen thirty two had

(39:03):
not resulted in the formation of a majority government, Hitler
is appointed Chancellor and is sworn in on what January thirtieth,
nineteen thirty three with the new cabinet.

Speaker 1 (39:19):
So the Nazis are now officially in power as of
nineteen thirty three. So, but the he didn't have they
didn't have a majority in the Reichstag still, so he
immediately called for new elections so that they could try

(39:41):
to you know, gain more seats and consolidate their power.
So there was a campaign. But during the campaign, the Reichstag,
the building where parliament meets, was set on fire and
burned down, and there was panic. And I think it
is still a mystery who act they started the fire.
Obviously there's a lot of people that think that, you know,

(40:04):
the you know, some of the Nazi Party said it themselves.
I just don't think that we'll ever know.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
I don't think we'll ever know either. Obviously, the Nazis
never took credit for it. In fact, they blamed it
on communists.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Well right, yes, and a Dutch communist was vander Lub
was arrested, so they used this panicked. The Nazis used
this panic to their advantage, so they you know, claimed that,
you know, the Communists were trying to you know, overthrow

(40:41):
the Vaimar Republic, which is very ironic because it was
the Nazis who were trying to overthrow and would overthrow
the Vimar Republic. And about four thousand people were imprisoned
during this period of time. The day after the fire,
hinder Her signed the Emergency Decree for the Protection of

(41:03):
the German People. So this gave emergency powers and essentially
suspended all the democratic aspects of the Weimar Republic and
declared this state of emergency. So essentially, like not just
that Article forty eight where we're going to, you know,

(41:25):
suspend democracy for a quick minute so I can issue
some degrees, but like we're pausing democracy for some indeterminate
period of time.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yeah, in fact, I have seems bad. It seems bad.
I have somewhere in my notes here a translation of this.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Are you looking for? Well, I have a poster from
the following election. Sure says the more power you give Hitler,
the easier he will win, and the more independent you
make him from the parties that led the people to
where they are today. You gave these parties fourteen years
to ruin Germany. Give Hitler four years to rebuild it.

(42:14):
You give Hitler power and time by voting Hitler.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yeah, so this is this is actually text from the
decree on the basis of Article forty eight, paragraph two
of the Constitution of the German Reich. The following is
ordered in defense against communist state endangering acts of violence.
Articles on sorry one, fourteen, fifteen, one, seventeen one, eighteen one,

(42:41):
twenty three, one, twenty four and one fifty three of
the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice.
It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal
freedom habeas corpus, freedom of opinion expression, including the freedom
of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the
privacy of hostal, telegraphic and telephonic communications. Warrants for house searches,

(43:04):
orders to confiscate, as well as restrictions on property are
also permissible, beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed. Yeah, Jesus,
So that spells it out pretty clearly. Yeah, And also
it's indetermined there's no there's no written guidelines for this
from the right government, so there's no end date. Right,

(43:27):
the latitude on it is, you know, it's yeah, there's
no end in sight or something like this.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Yeah, So no more freedom speech, no more right to own.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Property, no more has porpose.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
No more trial before imprisonment. So you so they essentially
jail and then later later execute anyone who you know,
they deemed to be you know, enemy of the state.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
There's also the Enabling Act.

Speaker 1 (43:59):
Yeah, that's next. During the period after the reigkstock fire,
the SA also engaged in a terror campaign, so they
were going around trying intimidating any opponents of the Nazi regime.
So there's a lot of people who were afraid of

(44:20):
voting voted for the Nazi Party out of fear for
their own safety. So the following elections on March fifth,
nineteen thirty three were not actually real fair elections. They
had extremely high turnout because again people were afraid eighty
nine turnout. The Nazis got a higher percentage of the vote,

(44:47):
but they still did not have a majority in the
Reichstaga at this point, and then later at the end
of March nineteen thirty three, Hitler proposed the enabling law,
which you were mentioning, Yeah, do you want to Yeah,
So essentially this just expands on what we talked about before.

(45:08):
This law gives Hitler the power to rule by decree
and he no longer has to pass laws through the
Reichstag and the president. So essentially it it would make
him a dictator.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
Yeah, some pretty good way of putting it.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
And actually Hindenburg and von Poppin supported this, so he
needed Hitler needed two thirds of the Reichstag to vote
for this. It's kind of like passing an amendment in
the United States. Actually, so the Nazis had support of

(45:51):
some of the major party, one of the other major parties.
They banned the Communist Party from attending. And then like
I said that, and SS had been on a campaign
of violence to scare all the other members of all
the other parties. They had actually started. This is where
the first concentration camp DAC how started, right. It opened

(46:15):
just a few days before the election on March twentieth,
and this is where they were putting their political opponents.
So this is the first concentration camp. Right, there was
a like a kind of like a they were called
the Center Party CE and tire the like I don't know,

(46:35):
Moderate Party, I guess they were the ones that were
kind of on the fence. But Hitler promised to protect
the Catholic Church, and so they conceded and voted for
the Enabling Act. So only one of the major parties
that was allowed to be there and not in prison opposed,

(46:55):
and then the law passed with like a near nearly unanimously,
And although the president was still around and the Reichstog
was still around, Hitler had essentially absolute power at this point.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah, So then comes the something you may have heard of.
So you may have heard of the Reichstog fire. If
you've heard of like two things, you've probably heard of,
the Reichstag fire and the Night of the Long Knives, right,
which is also called the Rumpuch. So at this point

(47:37):
they had kind of some you know, they had political control,
but they still, you know, we're not completely control of
the government. And there's a lot of people who are
still very skeptical of Nazi power, especially because of this
group of street thugs that were beating people up and
throwing people in jail.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
The Essa.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
From about in a few days from about June thirtieth
to July second, they used the SS to purge the Essay.
One hundred and fifty people were murdered and hundreds of
people were arrested. In nineteen thirty two, they were about

(48:27):
four about just slightly less than five hundred thousand members
of the Essay. By June nineteen thirty four, there were
three million members, and so they kind of like did
wherever they want, and they were difficult to control, and
so Hitler started to get afraid that they would usurp

(48:51):
his power, especially their leader, Ernst Rome. So and then
he had some of the other leaders, like the leader
of the SS, Himmler kind of like egged him on,
told him that Rome was organizing a coup. And then
also this traditional conservative elite who had given their support

(49:19):
to the Nazis. They hated the Essay because they were
these kind of like rough around the edges thugs. So
after being elected Chancellor, Rome was really keen on continuing
the revolution and purging these conservative elites. The Hitler and
the rest of the Nazi leadership realized that they needed

(49:41):
these people like the business elite and things like that,
some of the old aristocracy, and so they decided that
if somebody, if some group was gonna have to go,
it's gonna have to be the Essay. So they asked
them to go to a meeting at a hotel in Bavaria.

(50:01):
Hitler shows up and personally puts Rom and the rest
of the leadership of the essay under arrest, and then,
like I said, over the next two days, most of
their leadership were placed under arrest and summarily executed. Originally
they pardoned Rom, but then they gave him the choice
to either commit suicide or be shot. He refused, and

(50:27):
he was shot on July first, nineteen thirty four by
two SS guards. So with the Essay gone, now the
powers consolidated in the SS and the Nazi Party, and
then later they passed the law through the reichs Dog

(50:51):
or retroactively approving the purge.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
I love that, I know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
So then most of the process of taking over all
aspects of Germany was something called gleisch Gli like Chautung
or not sification. This is like the basically the next
two years nineteen thirty three to nineteen thirty four. So

(51:18):
they this is like painful to talk about, Dave. They
issued the Act for the restoration of the professional civil service,
where they purged the civil service the like career bureaucrats
from the government and replaced them with loyalists who had

(51:43):
to have been of Aryan descent. They started removing judges
that didn't rule on or didn't like rule on their behalf.
They created a completely different court called the People's Court
in April nineteen thirty four, with judges specifically chosen for
their Nazi beliefs, and then they completely replaced the Supreme

(52:06):
Court with that court, so now they controlled the all
branches of government. Then Joseph Gubbles was put in as
Minister for Public Engagement and Propaganda and then began taking
over and controlling all media, film, theater, arts, and all

(52:30):
other aspects of culture. But it's kind of interesting. Even
by the end of nineteen forty five, only sixty percent
of local mayors were Nazi Party members, so it wasn't like, yeah,
it wasn't like a complete process even by nineteen forty five,
but nonetheless they basically had complete power. And then came

(52:54):
the death of Hindenburg on August second, nineteen four so
at that point, without a president, Hitler announced that the
president and the Chancellor were just getting combined into one
position called the fear and Chancellor, and conveniently that's what

(53:16):
he would be. They had a vote on whether people
approved of this or not. Ninety five point seven percent
of the population voted. About ninety percent voted in favor
of Hitler becoming Feur. So he essentially at this point
now he is a dictator the fere ruling over the

(53:40):
Third Reich. Very depressing.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Yeah, there's there's just a there's a lot of parallels
in there.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
Yeah, I do want to just briefly talk about what
happened after that, yes, please, So at this point, so
the German army had been dismantled by the Treaty of Versailles.
But at that point Hitler and the Nazi Party started rebuilding,

(54:21):
rebuilding the military against the Treaty of Versailles. This started
by building up the Wehrmacht and then eventually merging that
with the like with the official army that they were
quoe unquote allowed to have. Then began. Then there was

(54:49):
the policy of Anschluss, or he colluded with Austrian Nazis,
because there were Nazis not just in Germany but also
in Austria to annex Austria to Germany.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yeah, then he set his sights on Czechoslovakia. So Czechoslovakia
was a newly created nation after World War One, which
was a relatively ethnically diverse population, but it had a

(55:25):
region called the Sudaetan Land that was primarily German speaking.
Czechoslovakia actually had like a relatively large military. They had
treaties with Great Britain and France, and so they thought that,
you know, they would be protected against Germany by them.

(55:45):
But when the policy of appeasement at the Munich Conference
in September nineteen thirty eight, representatives of Great Britain and
France met with Hitler. Notably, Czechoslovakian leaders were not part

(56:07):
of that conference. Yeah important, Yeah, the Munich Pact was signed.
So they basically told Hitler, you can have this region
of Czechosovakia, the Sedate and Land, with the promise that
you won't expand territory anymore. After that, and famously, Neville Chamberlain,

(56:32):
the Prime Minister of Britain, went back to his country
holding the piece of paper in his hands, saying that
he had achieved quote peace with honor. I believe it
is peace for our time, and they were even like
there was even an article in the New York Times
that sort of celebrated thus. But within a year or

(56:56):
about about a year later, Germany invaded Poland, starting officially
World War two.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
Yeah, I mean the sedate land. I mean I think
that the Chamberlain and other people felt, you know, if
we these people are a lot of them are ethnically German,
and so if we allowed them to sort of rejoy
in Germany, maybe that will be appeasing enough, not realizing

(57:24):
that the ultimate goal is, you know, domination. There's a
word that that the Third Reich uses that means like room,
like living living space libensraum liibenschrom that's it that they
need more space for like the Aryan race to thrive.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Yeah, that was very much part of their rhetoric to
and like territory expansion. They would keep doing that, which
was kind of like what they would do to sort
of appease the people. Also the time, we didn't mention
this because we were again we're not trying to make
this a like a historical War two episode. Uh. There

(58:14):
was also the the Pact between Germany and Uh. The
ussr Ah. Yes, uh so, having having secured at least
a treaty or a truce at least temporarily with Stalin,

(58:37):
they knew that they could attack Poland and and it
is like, you know, when we look back at appeasement,
it's you know, most people are like think of it
as you know, weakness on the behalf of Neville Chamberlain
certainly his biggest critic Winston Churchill, who was in Else

(59:00):
of Commons at that time. We learn more about his
rise to fame in our episode about the War or War,
because that's how he kind of financed his first bid
to the House of Commons. But he was obviously a
huge critic. But a lot of people at the time,
like were happy about the Munich Pact, and also Britain

(59:23):
and France had not reconstituted their militaries enough to fight
a war by nineteen thirty eight, which I feel like
is important to note. I mean, even Roosevelt sent a
letter to Hitler that was basically like, I hope you
continue to look for a peace right. And it wasn't

(59:44):
until later when he won re election that he was
talking about the United States becoming an arsenal victory or
arsenal democracy, I should say. Yeah, So anyway, it obviously
by this point things were aspiraling, and in nineteen thirty

(01:00:05):
nine when they made a poll and that started World
War one or World War two.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
Yeah, there's a movie that was on Netflix, I don't
know if it still is, in which Jeremy Irons plays
Neville Chamberlain, and it's it's it's a it's about this
meeting with Hitler and the kind of the giving up,
of the allowing of Germany to take the suit date
in the land, and it's it's it's somewhat fictional and

(01:00:33):
that it portrays an aspect of it that like could
have been, you know, but it's interesting if you want
to know more about that. There are some interesting aspects
to that film. It's called Munich The Edge of War.

Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
So, yeah, in hindsight, seems like adding a article to
your constitution that allows said like allows democracy to be
suspended than a quote state of emergency is seems like
a bad move.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Especially if it doesn't make it clear what a state
of emergency is or who actually consolidates that power.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Yeah, and you know, I didn't, I didn't really, we
didn't really checkt with this at the beginning. But as
far as like what we knew about this beforehand, I
knew about things like the Reichstock fire in the light
of the Long Knives and the Enabling Act and things
like that, but I did not realize how much of
a role the United States Wall Street crash played into this.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
I didn't really realize that either. I didn't realize that
the that the German economy was on the mend before
that happened.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Yeah, I think what happens is when you learn this
in like an American history or I'm sorry, like a
like a world history class in like high school or
something like that, I think they tend to like smush
like the immediately post World War One period of bay

(01:02:03):
My Republic and the Hitler rise to power stuff Like.
I think they kind of like smushed that together. Yeah,
And don't you know, it's called like it's called like
at that time a golden age, but they were still
like really high unemployment. There's a lot of wealth disparity.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Oh. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Again, I'm not trying to draw parallels where none exists,
but it's pretty hard not to.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's just important to remember
that like there's a lot of moving parts in the
story because it's fourteen years between the signing of the
Treaty of Versailles and Hitler becoming Chancellor, and it's another
six years from chancellor to him invading Poland. Yeah, so
like it's it happens, it happens fairly slowly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Yeah, it happened gradually. And again it happened like purely
by legal pseudo legal means. A really good resource for
this has been like the websites dedicated to explaining the Holocaust.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
Yeah, I noticed that too.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
So I think, you know, there's a few themes that
if I can kind of like and my final thoughts here, Dave,
and then if you've got anything else to say, there
was like some of the things that they did were
some of the things that we talked about, like terror
in intimidation, Like we talked about the s A and

(01:03:38):
the Brown Shirts and the s S. They harassed people.
They eventually after the enabling law, they were able to
just it was legal for them to like put people
in prison and stuff like that. They they were literally
putting people into camps, as we mentioned, But even just

(01:03:58):
like before that, before it was like kind of like
sanctioned by the state. Having this like paramilitary organizations or
two paramilitary organizations, made people afraid maybe think that they
have to vote for the Nazis. They claimed that they
were moderating themselves, so the Night of the Long Knives

(01:04:21):
was an attempt for them to seem moderate by purging
the Nazi Party of the essay. But what they were
really doing was just consolidating power.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
Right, They were removing a threat essentially.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Yeah, but like oh look we're getting and that was
them allowing them to get themselves into bed with the
traditional elites and the business interests and things like that,
who thought that they could control Hitler and the Nazis.
But lastly, the main things that they did were actually
like legal or sort of legal, like within the democratic

(01:05:00):
uh society of the Weimar Republic. So they you know,
used the panic from the Reichs dog fire to push
forward the enabling law. They got official support from the
then chancellor and from the president. They and then after that,

(01:05:24):
you know, they took they got support from the Catholic
Church and the business interests and the you know, like
previously established aristocracy and did this all sort of legally
to get rid of their opposition.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
They won elections, became the majority party that came with
its own benefits. I mean they they learned a lesson
from the failed coup.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Yeah, just as one example, to be a couple examples,
they on May second, nineteen thirty three, they banned trade
unions because they were like, well, these these people are
like fomenting unrest. They're socialists. Two months later they banned

(01:06:18):
all other political parties beside the Nazi Party. So they
the first step of that is legal, The second step
of that is legal on the basis of the first step.

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
Right, yeah, well yeah, that's that's a good way of
putting it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
And then they got they essentially got rid of the
free press. So anyway, by nineteen thirty five, sixteen hundred
newspapers have been closed down, newspapers being the main source
of journalism and information at that point. So anyway, examples.
But it's like the things that they did were mostly legal.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
Yeah, they work the system. Yeah, so you know, watch
out for that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
Sure. Well I'm thoroughly depressed.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Whoops, all too late.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
We should, as a palate cleanser, do an episode about like,
I don't know, like the Battle of the Bulge or something.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
My grandfather fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
That's amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
Yeah, I think he was wounded in the Battle of
the Bulge.

Speaker 1 (01:07:35):
Yes, yeah, my grandfather was too too young for World
War Two. He fought in Korea.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
Ah, they've forgotten war.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
Yeah, I sorry, I had I had one beer during
filming this, and I just have to say this, my
my grandfather, I am you can cut the sevy one, Dave.
Sometimes I think that I'm happy for him that he
is not here anymore, because he would be so pissed

(01:08:07):
off about what is happening in this country right now.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
Oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
I think a good episode to do in the future
would be to talk about what was happening in the
United States around this time, like the Business plot, because
there was an American Nazi Party and an actual plot
to overthrow the United States government around the same time.

(01:08:37):
It was obviously not successful to the point where most
people haven't heard of it, but still an important and
or not important it's sort of interesting piece of history
to talk about.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Oh yeah, and you know Charles Limberg well on fucking Nazi.

Speaker 1 (01:08:52):
Yep, and Henry Ford yep.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Well, anyway, I think you see why we chose to
do this episode. I don't think there's any reason to
like tiptoe around, you know what we're kind of trying
to illustrate here.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
Yes, it seems trait, but if the you know, it
can't happen here. The folks in the Weimar Republic thought
that it couldn't happen there. They were a democracy as well.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's uh yeah, gotta stay vigilant.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
Yes, all right, next week we'll talk about puppies.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Yeah, the history of lollipops.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
I don't like loudipops. We get the fuck out of here.
It's talking about our patch kids.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
All right, Well, try to find some chrumb of joy
in this god forsaken world, folks.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
Yeah, all right, we'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
Goodbye.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
Thank you for listening to An Hour of Our Time.

Speaker 1 (01:10:10):
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