Peter Fritzsche (1) (1959–)

Law, Order, National Unity, and Fear Kill Democracy

We often hear how fragile democracy is, especially today when our own nearly 250-year old one is under daily seize by those charged with preserving it. While somewhat flawed by organizational issues and a grayish style, University of Illinois historian Peter Fritzsche nonetheless does readers a great service by illustrating just how fast things can change. The change comes when those with anti-democratic ambitions take over, even when they show more have the support of only the minority, as did Hitler and the Nazis in 1933.

So, how did Hitler and his cohorts do it? For starters, it was their intention to do eliminate fledgling German democracy. Part of Hitler’s genius rested in his insistence on gaining power politically rather than by open revolt. He took full advantage of conflicting political factions in Germany at the time: those wishing authoritarian rule; those continuing with democracy; and those embracing communism. After Hindenburg agreed to his chancellorship, Hitler moved swiftly to rally the skeptical and quash recalcitrant opponents. He sealed the deal by crowning his regime with a sort of democratic legitimacy, the March 5 elections, the last in Germany until after the war.

Hitler benefited from Germany’s seething post war psyche. Onerous conditions placed on Germany by the Allies, a wrecked economy, lots of idle hands, the disbelief of losing, and the belief that a nefarious cabal engineered defeat, these created fertile ground for Hitler’s message, that the country needed to rally around the national spirit and unity of 1914, to recapture it in a new Third Reich (the first two being the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire that ended in 1918). This proved a powerful idea for German’s of every stripe, whether they liked or disliked Hitler’s methods. After Hitler took the reins in 1933, regaining the glory of Germany’s past, its rightful place on the world stage, this became a powerful motivation for unity. The Nazis engineered the expression of this national unity in a variety of ways: masses marching, uniforms, patriotic music, mass gatherings, and focused media messaging, especially via radio.

Then there was people’s desire for law, order, and stability. The years after WWI ended were pretty tumultuous and some would say licentious, especially in Berlin. Political rivalry, as well as poor economic conditions, caused much of this agitation. Street fighting became common and once the Nazis had built up their brown shirt army harassment became common. Ironically, the Nazis, particularly after January 30, 1933, were the ones responsible for most of the ruckus, both spontaneous and state planned and sanctioned.

Fear of others has always proven an effective and useful way to absolve oneself of responsibility and push off frustration and anger onto another. Hitler didn’t invent antisemitism in Germany; it has a long tradition that intensified in the 19th century, when it practically took over German universities. It didn’t require much to convince Germans they lost the war and suffered during the Weimar because a group of Jews and international financiers were manipulating things for their own gain. Immediately after assuming the Chancellorship, Hitler and his Nazis began their legalized and systematic oppression through boycotts, deprivation of goods and livings, and outright murder. Readers will find it interesting that genealogy, that is, proving one’s purity, because a passion for many Germans during the first hundred days.

The question always raised and still unanswered is whether Hitler and the Nazis achieved control through violence or persuasion. Fritzsche doesn’t answer it either, but it appears it was a combination of both, though it would seem that a large portion, though not the majority, were predisposed to authoritarian rule, and Hitler and his gang were the heralds with the most appealing message backed by clinched fists.

Readers will find Hitler’s First Hundred Days a revealing read, especially today. show less

This is not another history of the second world war; in fact it is not really history at all. History may not always be unbiased, but - buttressed by the "20:20 vision" of hindsight, consideration of the "big picture", and above all, by the ability to rationalize, which time and distance from the events afford - it usually assumes an air of objectivity. This book deliberately enshrines the subjective point of view; using diaries, contemporary news stories, books and movies - it opens a show more window into how people living - and dieing - through it, perceived the war at the time it was happening.

This is an important distinction from the point of view of Holocaust literature too; unlike the testimonies of survivors, it resurrects the lived experiences of Jews who did not survive - before, during, and after deportation, and in the ghettos. In one of his many acutely poignant observations, the author says: "... in the most awful places in eastern Europe, surviving pages exceeded surviving people. They wrote with confidence that the words of the victims would overwrite the words of the murderers.. In this regard, Jewish writers felt a tenuous connection to a future humanity."

In some ways, the actual experience of the war was not as bad as people had anticipated; in others it was infinitely worse. During the years immediately before the war, when it was becoming clear that war - if not inevitable - was very likely, popular imagination dwelled on the horrors of aerial bombardment. Impressed by the new technologies of mass destruction that had emerged in Word War 1, delivered from the skies by the air power that had not existed then, the total obliteration of major cities like London or Paris was predicted. While the Blitz or the fire-bombing of Dresden did bring civilian populations majorly into the front line of the war, the destruction was more contained and episodic than had been imagined. In contrast, the inhumanity with which Hitler's war against the Jews was being waged, could not be believed even by its victims; the Holocaust took place at what one survivor described as "at the limits of the mind."

The author deals separately with the different parts of Europe occupied by the Nazis, and highlights the differences in their experience of occupation. Neither of the sections on Poland and France is likely to warm your hearts toward those countries. In France, the wartime literature and that immediately following the war - such as Jean Paul Sartre's "Republic of Silence" - emphasize the role of the French Resistance and minimize the level of collaboration with the Nazi occupiers. The persistence of this heroic "Gaullist" narrative has prevented France from coming to terms with the true extent of its active collusion with the Nazi persecution of Jews, right up to the present time. Unlike France, where there were no mass casualties as a result of the German invasion, Poland has always justifiably described its population as one of the major victims of the war. The author documents however how readily the general Polish population accepted as reasonable the distinction between Jew and Aryan, and therefore also rationalized the isolation, brutalization and eventual annihilation of the Jew, as a logical conclusion of that distinction. In fact it was that distinction that reassured most non-Jewish Poles and gave them a, generally misplaced, sense of security. Rather than resistance to the persecution or even just empathy with its victims, this sense of relief at not being Jewish, and of being safe as a consequence, was the most common sentiment in all of Nazi-occupied Europe.

It is difficult to pick out, in a book like this, a topic that is more distressing than others; but the chapter entitled "the Destruction of Humanity" is probably it. It starts with Elie Wiesel's retort to the question about belief in God after the Holocaust; "The question is how can one believe in man". As well as documenting the lack of empathy towards the fate of the Jews, it also describes the progressive breakdown of any sense of community under the pressure of Nazi brutality. In the Polish ghetto, Jewish policemen were feared and reviled as collaborators; the middle class Polish-speaking members of the Judenrat, the Jewish council, saw the poorer Yiddish speakers as different, perhaps more expendable. Polish Jews pitied, but were generally unwilling to help the German and other Jews from western Europe, who had been deported and dumped in the ghetto totally without any resources. Even family life broke down, with men and women putting their own needs ahead of those of spouses and children. In my reading, I have previously only ever come across this aspect of the Holocaust in the writings of Primo Levi.

As time takes its inevitable toll on the generation that experienced the war, and of the post-war generation too, a book like this is important in documenting - clouded as it is by "the fog of war" - what it actually felt like to be at war with Hitler. There are people, not too far away from where I write, who are experiencing the unspeakable and the unthinkable right now. We hear their voices and we see their images; we don't need to wait for future historians to tell us about their suffering. This book might just encourage us to do - or at least feel - more than sighing with relief “there, but for the grace of (our) God”. show less

Law, Order, National Unity, and Fear Kill Democracy

We often hear how fragile democracy is, especially today when our own nearly 250-year old one is under daily seize by those charged with preserving it. While somewhat flawed by organizational issues and a grayish style, University of Illinois historian Peter Fritzsche nonetheless does readers a great service by illustrating just how fast things can change. The change comes when those with anti-democratic ambitions take over, even when they show more have the support of only the minority, as did Hitler and the Nazis in 1933.

So, how did Hitler and his cohorts do it? For starters, it was their intention to do eliminate fledgling German democracy. Part of Hitler’s genius rested in his insistence on gaining power politically rather than by open revolt. He took full advantage of conflicting political factions in Germany at the time: those wishing authoritarian rule; those continuing with democracy; and those embracing communism. After Hindenburg agreed to his chancellorship, Hitler moved swiftly to rally the skeptical and quash recalcitrant opponents. He sealed the deal by crowning his regime with a sort of democratic legitimacy, the March 5 elections, the last in Germany until after the war.

Hitler benefited from Germany’s seething post war psyche. Onerous conditions placed on Germany by the Allies, a wrecked economy, lots of idle hands, the disbelief of losing, and the belief that a nefarious cabal engineered defeat, these created fertile ground for Hitler’s message, that the country needed to rally around the national spirit and unity of 1914, to recapture it in a new Third Reich (the first two being the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire that ended in 1918). This proved a powerful idea for German’s of every stripe, whether they liked or disliked Hitler’s methods. After Hitler took the reins in 1933, regaining the glory of Germany’s past, its rightful place on the world stage, this became a powerful motivation for unity. The Nazis engineered the expression of this national unity in a variety of ways: masses marching, uniforms, patriotic music, mass gatherings, and focused media messaging, especially via radio.

Then there was people’s desire for law, order, and stability. The years after WWI ended were pretty tumultuous and some would say licentious, especially in Berlin. Political rivalry, as well as poor economic conditions, caused much of this agitation. Street fighting became common and once the Nazis had built up their brown shirt army harassment became common. Ironically, the Nazis, particularly after January 30, 1933, were the ones responsible for most of the ruckus, both spontaneous and state planned and sanctioned.

Fear of others has always proven an effective and useful way to absolve oneself of responsibility and push off frustration and anger onto another. Hitler didn’t invent antisemitism in Germany; it has a long tradition that intensified in the 19th century, when it practically took over German universities. It didn’t require much to convince Germans they lost the war and suffered during the Weimar because a group of Jews and international financiers were manipulating things for their own gain. Immediately after assuming the Chancellorship, Hitler and his Nazis began their legalized and systematic oppression through boycotts, deprivation of goods and livings, and outright murder. Readers will find it interesting that genealogy, that is, proving one’s purity, because a passion for many Germans during the first hundred days.

The question always raised and still unanswered is whether Hitler and the Nazis achieved control through violence or persuasion. Fritzsche doesn’t answer it either, but it appears it was a combination of both, though it would seem that a large portion, though not the majority, were predisposed to authoritarian rule, and Hitler and his gang were the heralds with the most appealing message backed by clinched fists.

Readers will find Hitler’s First Hundred Days a revealing read, especially today. show less

Fritszche looks at how life continued—and didn’t—for those under Nazi control. French non-Jews crafted narratives of survival through cooperation or resistance as they dealt with the food shortages that dominated everyday life; German non-Jews were proud or conflicted or trying hard not to think about it; Polish non-Jews quickly realized that they were deemed completely expendable, though they were also often happy to take over abandoned Jewish property; Jews felt isolated, outside show more history, deprived of a narrative because a narrative indicates some control over outcomes. Frische emphasizes the ways in which non-Jews’ accounts of ordinary life created a vision in which Frenchness, or Polishness, or Germanness, did not include Jews. Jews left their own records; according to some estimates, one-third of Orthodox Jews lost their faith in the ghettos and camps. He recounts one story that told of the trial and execution of G-d, who was ultimately thrown into the gas chamber. show less