“Britain spelt the death of European Fascism”

An analysis of Britain’s role in combating

German Fascism 1920-33

Jamie Daniel Lake

January 31, 2013

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Part I

Introduction

1 Fascism

1.1 What is Fascism?

The term Fascism originates from the Latin word fasces. The civic magistratein ancient Rome had lictors (guards) carry an axe which consisted of rods tiedaround it in a bundle; this weapon was used as a means of capital punishment- at the command of the civic magistrate himself.1 The fasces were a symbolicrepresentation of strength, power and authority through collaborative unity. Asingle entity can be easily broken on its own, multiple entities working together,however, are difficult to break. This was copied by modern Fascists, for example,Benito Mussolini, party leader of the National Fascist Party (Partito NazionaleFascista), in which in both his flag and emblem a fasces can be seen.2

The establishment of Fascism as a practical, modern-day political conceptwas conceived during Word War I (1919) by Mussolini who combined the polit-ical views at the time of both the left and right wings, this gave social scientistsa hard time placing it on the left-right political spectrum.3 Roderick Stackle-berg calls Nazism “a radical variant of Fascism” 4 and places both Nazismand Fascism on the right. His explanation is such that he believes Nazism isoppressing equality and

“the more a person considering inequality to be unavoidable or evendesirable, the further to the right he or she will be.” 4

For a long time, the actual meaning of the word Fascism has been stronglydebated among scholars and political scientists. Fascism is such an incrediblypowerful word that even its more specific forms have a very distinct messagewhich cannot be split into single sentences.5 It’s a complicated issue in a his-torical sense. A single definition cannot be agreed upon by political scientistsand thus the concept must be understood on different levels. The application ofFascism is so vast and it can be thought of as a subsidiary of totalitarian powerpolitics, a method of ruling which retains certain stylistic traits and a politicalideology. Stanley G. Payne developed a listed definition of what he considersFascism to be which he categorised into three separate portions of qualifications,some of the main points are:

• “Creation of a new nationalist authoritarian state not based ontraditional principles or models

1New World, Websters (2005). Webster’s II New College Dictionary. Houghton MifflinReference Books.

2http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=uJFA7AVTGqo#t=129s3Turner, Stephen P., Ksler, Dirk: Sociology Responds to Fascism, Routledge. 2004, p. 2224Stackelberg, Roderick Hitler’s Germany, Routledge, 1999, p 4-65Gregor, A. James (2002). Phoenix: Fascism in Our Time. Transaction Publishers.

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• Positive evaluation and use of, or willingness to use violenceand war

• The goal of empire, expansion, or a radical change in the na-tion’s relationship with other powers

• Anti liberalism

• Anticommunism

• Anticonservatism

• Attempted mass mobilization with militarization of politicalrelationships and style and with the goal of a mass single partymilitia

• Specific tendency toward an authoritarian, charismatic, per-sonal style of command, whether or not the command is tosome degree initially elective” 6

1.2 What causes Fascism?

As mentioned in section 1.1 there are variables and conditions that must bemet in order for Fascism to flourish. These have been well thought about andorganised into different sections of characteristic by Stanley G. Payne. 6 Inorder for Fascism to flourish, a strong sense of national insecurity is neededamong its people. This is commonly used to unite the citizens of the countryin a national front against whomever or whatever they believe is causing theircurrent national decline in: socio-political or economic value or the decline inan indigenous race. This is their civil ethic, which should be established tothe nation, in comradeship and the warrior’s spirit. 6 Generally, but notalways, the country must be in a bad or difficult position for the citizens of thecountry to ‘vote in’ a leader with an often obviously selfish political agenda andill-conceived ideologies. The leader is usually charismatic, a speaker with greatoratorical skills and in a position to‘strike’ an emotional connection with thepublic, a ‘common struggle’. 6 Usually, a political demagogue is created whichexploits the fears and pride of the peoples. Adolf Hitler exploited the peoples’hatred for the Jewish for the unstable Economic position the country was in.Ian Kershaw speaks about this in his book on Hitler.7 8

Hitler had to gain support to get into power, and he didn’t have enoughcontrol to simply form an implemented dictatorship, he had to win the supportof the people. This meant turning them against the out-group. This is verycommon in Fascism and is a form of demagoguery that employs the leader todemonise or dehumanise the group that is at the heart of the problems of thecountry, this can be done through animalistic terminology, which Hitler used, orthrough other methods of dehumanisation. Hitler developed and implemented

6Stanley G. Payne. A History of Fascism, 1914-1945. University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.p. 7.

7Kershaw, Ian Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris, The Penguin Press (1998)8http://www.drw.utexas.edu/roberts-miller/handouts/demagoguery

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a name for the Jews which was Untermenschen, which directly translates tosub-humans.9 Hitler refers to propaganda as an “instrument” 10 and noticesthat

“It was during the War, however, that we had the best chance ofestimating the tremendous results which could be obtained by apropagandist system properly carried out.” 10

These techniques have been employed time and time again under Mussolini inItaly, Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain and Mosley in Great Britain. Thesemen were all very much in support of each other, Hitler is noted saying,

“There’s no doubt at all that Mussolini is the heir of the great menof that period.”11

Here you can see how the leaders of similar political ideologies and agendasunite, in nationalist pride, to protect their countries from the national threat ofdemocracy and communism.

1.3 The essay and cases of Fascism.

The essay will focus on four cases of Fascism and come to a conclusion asto whether Britain did spell the death of European Fascism and the methodsdeployed by the Great British peoples to combat the transnational forces ofFascism present among various countries.

The particular cases of Fascism that this essay will focus on are those thatwere present in the 1920-45 period that were large, powerful entities in termsof both their intrinsic national influence and their extrinsic socio-political influ-ence. The essay will mainly look at Nazi Germany for the analysis or case studyand use the other cases to define fascism. The reason for the short period isbecause I’m interested in what conditions allow the uprising of fascism to occur.

• Benito Mussolini’s rule over Italy - the founder of Fascism.12

• Adolf Hitler’s rule over Germany - the persuader.13

• Francisco Franco’s military rebellion during the Spanish Civil War.14

• Oswald Mosley as the founder of the BUF (British Union of Fascists).15

9Rosenberg, Alfred (1930) (in German). Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine Wertungder seelischgeistigen Gestaltungskmpfe unserer Zeit [The Myth of the Twentieth Century].Munich: Hoheneichen-Verlag. p. 214.

10Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf, Houghton Mifflin Company, September 15, 199811Trevor-Roper, Hugh. Hitler’s Table Talk 1941-1944, Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd, London,

1953.12Members of Fasci Italiani di Combatimento (Italian Fasci of Combat) , Il Popolo d’Italia

(The People of Italy), 6 June 1919.13Hollander, Ethan J (PDF). Italian Fascism and the Jews. University of California.14Paul Preston, The Spanish Civil War, Harper 2006, p.7915Thorpe, Andrew. (1995) Britain In The 1930s, Blackwell Publishers.

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Part II

Britain versus German Fascism

2 Britain and the Treaties of 1919-1920

Nothing much like the First World War had been seen before in history. Itsconsequences shook the world. A generation of men had perished at the handsof brutal warfare. Political order was disrupted across the world. Empiresdiminished in every way. Germany, Russia, Austro-Hungary, Britain, France,Italy, Romania, Poland and many more felt the effects of this catastrophe.Anglo-American ties had been tested as the US continually kept Britain andFrance from collapsing under the never-ending pressure of financial issues andproblems of resourcing. All countries were at a huge loss, broken Britain, nowthe victors wanted more than just the win; they wanted payback for the hugesacrifices they had taken in order to keep the balances of humanity. Britainmust now avoid war at all cost. This war must be the war to end all war.

As written in section 2 Britain, although the victors, needed payback. Theyneeded to restore their place on the hierarchical powers of Europe. They formu-lated treaties which would have payment of massive reparations and cede ter-ritories occupied under false or illegal pretences. Britain had lost over 650,000men and women with over 1,500,000 men and women wounded according to thereport by the War Office 16- the win alone did not outweigh the massive lossthat the British people had suffered.

On January 18th 1919 the Treaty of Versailles between the Allied powersand Germany was proposed and signed on June 28th. It was a peace treatywith provisions of varying magnitudes. Importantly to the Allied powers andfor this reason rather controversial was a section stating Germany had to acceptfull responsibility for causing the war along with its then Allies.

“The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany ac-cepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all theloss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governmentsand their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the warimposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.”17

There were obvious provisions which required Germany to make certain conces-sions in terms of land. The writers had included clauses of reparations to certainsmaller countries that were affected by the World War and made provisions ofdisarmament - the general idea that Germany must keep a small army, per-manently weakening it or inducing pacifism upon the state. Britain had made

16The Army Council. General Annual Report of the British Army 19121919. ParliamentaryPaper 1921, XX, Cmd.1193.,PartIV

17http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/versailles.html - Peace Treaty of Versailles. PartVIII, Articles 231-247 and Annexes.

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progress in resisting Fascism. At this point, if Britain had followed throughwith its plans of disarmament and weakening, it would have taken away someof the contextual factors that were spoken about in section 1.1 that encouragedor allowed the Fascist ideology to flourish as it did.Britain then proposed that reparations should be made in the order of then £6.6billion, a figure which was at the time incredibly unreasonable and probablylead to frustration and anger on the side of the axis. This sum would crippleGermany forever; it would never be dependent again. John Keynes called it“Carthaginian”18 19 and argued that these terms were just unrealistic and tooharsh. His arguments were convincing too many British and American politi-cians. Due to the originally unrealistic sums for reparations and ever-changingpolitical goals of The Entente Powers 20 it left compromise in places. No coun-try was completely satisfied and this meant Germany never became pacified inthe slightest or even permanently weakened. This compromise is known as the“unhappy compromise” and is written about by Harold Nicolson. 21 22 Thisis where Britain started to lose sight of having hold over Germany, now thatthe monarchy was abolished23 anything could happen. Germany at an immenseloss; any man could now win an election - little did Britain know, it would beHitler. Britain, by not concentrating on the political landscape emerging inGermany allowed certain things to occur which probably wouldn’t have goneahead if political discretion had been taken. Britain had an opportunity here,to avoid war, to make peace, to get reparations and repudiate the birth of Fas-cism. By making unrealistic settlement offers nationalistic passions were keptalive - stimulated by the war - as more and more peoples were aggrieved withthe outcome of the Treaty.

On June 4th 1920 the Treaty of Trianon was signed between Hungary and TheEntente Powers 20 this Treaty defined the borders of Hungary a then state ofAustria-Hungary.24 It meant that because these borders were being redefined,populations had to be moved by certain demographics. This was an opportu-nity for Britain to play monopoly with the businesses and people of Hungary.The idea was to essentially encapsulate Hungary and Austria in a band of coun-tries or political areas which were allied not to the axis25 (thus, establishing a

18Antony. Lentin, ”Germany: a New Carthage?” History Today (Jan. 2012).19This word has a double concept, both of which apply in this instance. Firstly, it can

imply an imposition of a very brutal peace treaty which often implies the total subjigation ofthe country or state under observation. It can also be seen as the imposition of peace upon astate or country and originates from Carthaginian times when Rome burned Carthage to theground, systematically, in 146BC

20Britain, France and Russia21Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 19303922quoted in Derek Drinkwater: Sir Harold Nicolson and International Relations: The Prac-

titioner as Theorist, p 139239 November 1918: Article 227 17 “prosecution of Wilhelm for a supreme offence against

international morality and the sanctity of treaties.”24Treaty of Peace Between The Allied and Associated Powers and Hungary And Protocol

and Declaration - http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Treaty_of_Trianon25Macmillan, Margaret. Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World. Random House.

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geo-political shift, spreading the power across multiple entities to avoid anotherwar). These political areas would need to be larger than both Hungary andAustria thus eliminating any kind of civil war/coup-like backlash from disillu-sionment; although it was known what was going on, due to its clear proposalin the Treaty itself. Its advantages were clearly on the allies side and Hungarydidn’t seem to mind. Austria-Hungary, being a supporter of the axis had to bedissolved: It was growing at a trumendous rate due to its autarkic26 economy:27

during the early 20th century its GNP28 grew by 1.76%.29 This rapid economicexpansion meant that if Germany wanted to reacquire influence they knew whoto go to. This was a threat to Britain and the rest of The Entente Powers 20

and their intentions, at the time, were correctly placed - their execution leftHungary in an economic depression, however. In the Coolidge Report ProfessorCoolidge noted that there were propagating economic issues.30 This, obviously,left both Hungary and Austria in a situation which evoked a national sense ofseeking payback. Unemployment rates were incredibly high in both states andindustrial output dropped by more than 65%.31 At this point, both states hadlittle to lose going into another war - and Britain didn’t address the issues.Perhaps, if Britain had addressed such issues, then Hungary and Austria wouldhave not been so quick to aid the axis in the soon-to-come war: this would havebeen another step in reducing fascist ideologies.

3 From Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany

3.1 Context

According to Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party, Germany’s economic down-fall was simply due to the harshness of the Treaty of Versailles, problems withdemocracy and on the stab-in-the-back myth.32 This was partly true, someof it, however was just falsified information propagated and supported by theright-wing circles of Germany during the periods of 1918 and onwards. Duringthe uprising of the Nazis they made the myth an integral part of their history,labelling the Weimar Republic 33 as the “November Criminals”, who exploitedthe stab-in-the-back to gain power - whilst betraying the nation for their own,personal gain. They portrayed the Weimar Republic 33 as:

26An economy or state which is considered self-sufficient.27Britannica 1911: Hungary/Commerce - http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Hungary#

Commerce28Gross National Product - the sum of the market value of the countries residents prod-

ucts and services in one year. Varying from GDP in the sense that it is not geographicallydependent

29Good, David. The Economic Rise of the Habsburg Empire30Francis Deak, Hungary at the Paris Peace Conference. The Diplomatic History of the

Treaty of Trianon (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942) p 4531K. Rotschild, Austria’s Economic Development Between the Two Wars (London, 1946).32The Dolchstoßlegende - Translates to myth despite the similarity between legende (Ger-

man) and legend (English).33The federal republic and parliamentary representative democracy formed in 1919 in Ger-

many replacing the imperial form of government.

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“a morass of corruption, degeneracy, national humiliation, ruthlesspersecution of the honest ’national opposition’ fourteen years of ruleby Jews, Marxists and ’cultural Bolsheviks’, who had at last beenswept away by the National Socialist movement under Adolf Hitlerand the victory of the ’national revolution’ of 1933.”34

The 14 years that the Weimar Republic was in power were not easy. AfterWorld War I they faced a constant uphill battle against hyperinflation, extrem-ism - paramilitaries and keeping the general population happy whilst repairingcontentious relationships with those involved in World War I. The governmentdidn’t do a terrible job, things in Germany were as they were everywhere else,in fact, and restructuring Germany’s debt through the Dawes Plan35 and Youngplan36 meant that the country paid a fraction of what they were originally in-tended to payback. Payments were reduced twice through these acts of fiscalrestructuring.38The last payment ever to be paid was on the 3rd of October2010.39The British continually conciliated the German’s here - constantly letthem off the hook. This caused tensions in Britain to rise between the nationsonce again, the British people had an image of the government appeasing theGerman government and allowing them to quite literally, get away with murder.This alleviation was somewhat necessary, however, the reparations were too highto start with in the Treaty of Versailles and they were reduced incrementally.Britain, once again, should have stuck to a particular course of action. It gavethe idea of a weak nation, needy, willing to take anything it could get. The ballwas in the German’s court and they had too much control.

3.2 The Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (“German Workers’ Party”)

On March 7th 1918 a German nationalist formed a branch of a league known as‘Freier Ausschuss fur einen deutschen Arbeiterfrieden‘.40 The branch formedwas “the Committee of Independent Workmen”. 41 The views of this branchwere those of a militant nationalist, the extreme opposition of the armistice42,Treaty of Versailles 41 , anti-Semitism43, authoritarianism45, anti-monarchist46,

34Kolb, Eberhard. The Weimar Republic New York: Routledge, 2005. p.14035Proposed by the Dawes Committee attempting to solve the reparations problems. Its

failure allowed the Young plan’s adoption.36The Young plan was successful in making incrementally decreasing reparation demands3738Marks, Sally, The Illusion of Peace: International Relations in Europe, 1918-1933, St.

Martin’s, NY, 1976, p 96-10539’Germany makes final payment for WWI reparations’ - JPost International. ’http:

//www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=18963740“Free Committee for a German Workers’ Peace”)41Shirer, William L. (1991) [1960]. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. London: Arrow

Books Ltd. p.3342An arrangement that ended the fighting in the World War I going into effect on the 11th

hour of the 11th day of the 11th Month of 191843Hatred or prejudice of the Jews4445Longing for a leader or characterised by submission to authority.46The opposition to monarchy

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anti-Marxist47 as well as the belief of nationalism in that Germans were part ofthe ’Herrenvolk’ or “Master Race” and were entitled ’extra’ rights due to theirsuperiority among other nationals.

In many ways, Drexler set the standard in Germany for the nationalist partyand the term fascist wasn’t employed or applied at any point during his time.During 1919, Drexler broke off from the Free Committee for a German Workers’Peace and formed his own political party based on a uniting of political ideologiesfrom his Committee of Independent Workmen and The Political Worker’s Circlewhich was led by a newspaper reporter Karl Harrer. 48 After the uniting thenew name for the party was the ‘Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, (DAP)’ (“GermanWorkers’ Party”). 48 Those that were deemed part of the Aryan race wouldreceive social welfare - a reward for inheriting characteristics.49 They were asmall part of the many volkisch50 movements taking place. The ideology atthe time was strictly and explicitly anti-Semitic and declared that the “nationalcommunity” must be free of Jewish peoples. They raised money by selling atobacco which they called ‘Anti-Semite.’ 51

The party was extremely opposed to non-nationalist political movements,and opposed strongly the Social Democratic Part of Germany and the newlyformed Community Party of Germany. It was a fight against “Bolshevism”.They were threats, as written in section 1.1 and section 1.2, to Fascism andalthough the party didn’t declare itself Fascist from the beginning, its ideologiesand political mentality certainly fit the descriptions of Fascism written in thisessay - that is to say, Fascism is not something any man can invent, it is anextension of human behaviour and thereby a natural occurrence. The smallsize of the party (less than 60 members 52 ) meant it didn’t reach an audiencebroad enough to cause a wide-spread destruction. It caught the attention ofthe German authorities, however. There is very little evidence to suggest thatBritain had any insight as to what was going on, but the party was causingenough trouble for the authorities to flag them as a party with potentiallysubversive tendencies - so why was Britain not aware, and why did they notintervene?

3.3 Hitler’s first appearance

During 1919 a corporal, Adolf Hitler, was stationed in Munch, 52 was sent byCaptain Mayr, to investigate the DAP.53 A party meeting on the 12th Septem-ber 1919, in which Gottfried Feder was talking about how capitalism can beeliminated, there was a visitor who questioned the validity and soundness of

47Anti-communism - the opposition to communism48Carlsten, F. L. The Rise of Fascism. University of California Press. p 9149Spector, Robert, World Without Civilization: Mass Murder and the Holocaust, History,

and Analysis (University of America Press, 2004), p 13750Populist movement where volkisch means ethnic51Dan van der Vat: The Good Nazi: The Life and Lies of Albert Speer, p 30. George

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 199752Fest, Joachim, The Face of the Third Reich (Penguin books, 1979), p 3753Rees, Laurence, The Nazis A Warning from History (BBC Books, 2 March 2006), p 21

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Gottfried Feder’s arguments. Hitler defended Feder from the opposing attackson the talk, and made somewhat of an impression on the members with his ora-tory skills. Hitler recalls that the “professor” left in acknowledgment of Hitler’soratorical victory. 41 52 There are sources of Drexler informing a close friendthat Hitler has:

“got a gift of the gab.” 52

going on to recognise that

“We [DAP] could use him [Hitler].” 52 54

He was thenceforth invited to join the party and accepted after some thoughtand hesitation.

During his time as a member of the DAP (the seventh executive member)55

he was making a speech in front of a small crowd of 111 people and was thesecond speaker of the event. Hitler is noted as saying this is when he noticedthat he could really “make a good speech” 52 . This was where it began forHitler in many ways. This seems to me to be a particularly proud momentfor Hitler: he’s acknowledged, given power, authority, respect and acceptance.Hitler continued the trend of small-group talks and speeches, no doubt he wasborn with incredibly oratorical skills, but this certainly improved them.

As written in section 1.2 propaganda was a key part of the Nazi Partiesrise. After sometime Hitler became a prominent member of the organisation,in control of propaganda, public speaking and affairs and administration forthe organisation; henceforth he gained larger audiences. 56 Consequently, theparty gained publicity - Hitler opened it up. On the 24th of February 1920 inMunchen Hitler organised a speech that would be heard by 2,000 people. Thiswasn’t in the partys best interest. Harrer, the newspaper reporter, resignedand completely disagreed with the direction the party was heading. 41 Moreimportantly, however, it was this speech, the most important speech for theparty, that attested the 25 point plan that DAP would become famous for. 41

This speech also enunciated the plan of action that DAP would pursue. 56

The 25 point plan formulated by Hitler, Feder and Drexler 41 agrees largelywith the introductory definition of fascism in section 1.1 and was based around

• Anti-Marxist ideologies

• Anti-Democratic ideologies

• Anti-Semitism

• Anti-capitalism

• Anti-liberalism

54Toland, John (1976). Adolf Hitler. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. p94

55Rees, Laurence, The Nazis A Warning from History (BBC Books, 2 March 2006)56T. L. Jaman, The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany (New York University Press, 1956)

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The party, in hind sight and existentially was incredibly fascist already.The organization at this time was renamed again to include “National So-

cialist” and thus incorporate more of the low-middle classes of Germany. It wasnow known as NSDAP or Nazis, Hitler’s proposition for the renaming was the“Social Revolutionary Party” but another party member pushed and persuadedHitler to follow the NSDAP naming. 57 Notice how Hitler is not consideredthe leader of the party now, people were coming to him to clarify and agreethings. The member of this party truly looked up to Hitler as a political strate-gist and philosopher. This speech was heard by 2,000 people, the ideologieswere reaching massive audiences now and Hitler’s party NSDAP was the talk ofthe country. How could Britain now pick up on this? What could Britain havedone? Perhaps Britain felt that getting involved with newly emerging politicalparties stepped the line of their democratic styles, perhaps they didn’t thinkthe party would amount to a force that was to be reckoned with. Either way,fascism, being a fact of modern political history, may not have had alarm bellsringing among politicians as it does now, in hindsight. During the months of1920 many historians consider the party not to have had any real significancein terms of political revolution. 41 I, personally, find this hard to believeconsidering the party had 3,000 members in the closing months of 1920 52 - Idon’t see how the party went unnoticed by British politicians and authorities.

3.3.1 Establishing Hitler as the problem of German’s Fascism

Hitler, being a young corporal, was obviously in contact with many people in thearmy. This would aid the party in the later militarisation of the organisation.In fact, during Hitler’s early days of speaking publically, there were obivously,many objectors, but, Hitler’s ‘military friends’ promptly defended him, ejectingthem by force, and any disrupters “flew down the stairs with gashed heads.”As mentioned in section 3.3 Hitler held a speech to over 2,000 people and washeckled by protesters from the opposing political wing, but his ‘military friends’were there once again, this time armed with truncheons and once again ejectedby force. This was the basis for the SA which will be spoken about later.58

Hitler was the reason of most German’s association with the NSDAP, he was apowerful speaker. 52 Hitler motivated nationalistic ideologies among the nowmouldable minds of post-World War I Germany.

His characteristic ruthlessness, gave the German people the idea that hewas a dominant figure, a man that was straight and had no doubts about hisabilities in fixing the countries problems. Hitler was named party chairmanon July the 28th 1921 and took full advantage of this: scrapped the rulesof democratic election from the party, named himself the Fuhrer60 and gavehimself the power of full governance over the party’s policies and strategy. Itwas now that he realised that the party could be much more than a voice for

57Heiden, Konrad (15 September 1933-09-15). ”Les dbuts du national-socialisme” (inFrench).

5859

60“Leader”

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the minority. He could make this a revolution. The next ambition of his was tooverthrow the Weimar Republic. Around this time, the SA (Sturmabteilung -“Storm Troopers”), established themselves as a kind of party militia and startedtheir violent attacks on other parties, most of which were on the grounds of libel.Other parties conjured disparaging statements about the NSDAP, whether trueor false, they gave the party a negative, inferior image in terms of the validity oftheir partys ideologies and the party itself. Britain should have had an eye onthe political landscape of Germany. It was as if the period of time between theFirst World War and the approaching Second World War Britain were ignoringthe emerging socio-political backlashes of their treaties and influence upon thecountries economic, social and political landscape.

Hitler externalised. He externalised the problems that Germany were facing.He externalised his hatred for his lack of attention as a child. He externalisedthe pain he felt at the hands of cold, unloving parents. He externalised hishatred for certain walks of life. He externalised his hatred for the reasons hewas not successful in early life. He externalised all of this. Thus, the problemwas not with the Germans, in his mind, Germany was well within reason instarting The First World War and shouldn’t be facing the problems that theywere. It was Britain’s fault, France’s fault, the Soviet Union’s fault. Thesesystematic externalisations lead him to extreme ideologies that were illogicaland displayed the perverted nature of Hitler’s inner workings. Britain, Franceand the Soviet Union were, in Hitler’s eyes, being dictated to by the Jews.61 Externalisation was the root of Hitler’s evil: anti-Semitism and Germany’senemies. The two goals of elimination existed always in the mind of Hitler andthe minds of his principal lieutenants. These nationalistic and racial ideologieswere ever-dominant in the nature of the parties doings and ever-present inthe nature of the parties wrong-doings.

4 The NSDAP gains prominence

During the month of January 1923 Ruhr was occupied by the French army asa warning to Germany’s government in its failiure to provide the axis’ end ofthe reparation payments. The government at the time resigned, economic chaosstruck the country acutely, once again and the then German Communist Partyattempted to start a revolution of sorts - this failed. The German peoples,outraged at the foreign militirisation of their land, they were struck by nation-alistic sentiment. The Nazi party was finally of interest to the masses and gainedprominance as its membership count now rose sharply to 20,000. 62

61Hakim, Joy (1995). A History of Us: War, Peace and all that Jazz. New York: OxfordUniversity Press.

62Kershaw, Ian (2008). Hitler: A Biography. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

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4.1 The Beer Hall Putsch

On September the 27th 1923 Hitler released news that the NSDAP would beholding 14 large-scale meeting with party members and the public. These14, large-scale meetings were heard by many people across Germany, why notBritain? An advantageous moment in time Hitler had grasped. His plan was tosimply stage a coup 63 against the November criminals, spoken about in section3.1 and the current German National Government. The ideal scenario beingthat the putsch would spread to Berlin. On 26th September 1923 the thenBavarian Prime Minister, Eugen von Knilling, declared a state of emergencyover Bavaria following a series of systematically violent instances of politicalunrest. The Bavarian government declare the state of emergency to hinderHitler’s putsch. Knilling appointed Gustav von Kahr the state commissionerand granted him full dictatorial governing powers. Kahr, Otto von Lossow andHans Ritter von Seisser formed a trimvirate64 against Hitler’s plans. 62 Inlight of the news released on the 27th Kahr instantly banned the meetings. 62

Hitler was put in a difficult position, severe relations with a respected dictatorialgoverning power and break the law, or, lose the trust of some followers and risktheir memberships at the hands of the Communists - Hitler knew that somepeople would inevitably join the Communist party if the Nazi party showedweakness. 62 As written in section 1.3 Hitler was some what of a persuaderand he set to work on Kahr and his triumvirate, he needed their support. Thetriumvirate had their own ideas, they were looking to form a nationalistic formof dictatorship without the help of Hitler. 62

Hitler, angered at the rejection of Kahr and his triumvirate saw this criticalmoment and noticed the opportunity to gain support through successful popularagitation. 62 Hitler took the SA to the Burgerbraukeller, a beer hall situatedin Munich where Kahr was making a speech in front of a 3,000 man audience.65 As night drew over Munich over 600 SA stormed the beer hall and machineguns were installed around the auditorium. Hitler could not be heard over the3,000 man crowd, one shot was fired from Hitler’s pistol - into the ceiling, hejumped up onto a table and yelled:

“The national revolution has broken out! The hall is filled with sixhundred men. Nobody is allowed to leave!”

Going on to state that the current Bavarian government was to be deposed andthe formation of a new government with Ludendorff was underway. 62 Kahrand the triumvirate were ushered into a separate room at gunpoint and Hitlermade demands that they support the putsch. 65

Just three days ago Hitler had made a promise not to go ahead with hisplans. Hitler said to Lossow that he wouldn’t attempt a coup d’Etat. 63 66 The

63A coup d’Etat is an attempt at overthrowing the current government, usually by mili-tarised means, or force. It is also known as a putsch in German.

64A regime, typically political, that is lead or formulated by three powerful individuals.65Piers Brendon, The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s, p 3666Knickerbocker, H. R. (1941). Is Tomorrow Hitler’s? 200 Questions on the Battle of

Mankind. Reynal & Hitchcock. p 12

13

notion of collaboration was now unavailable, he had just been escorted out ofthe beer hall under the command of a man with a group of guns trained on him.

Present at the time was Dr. Karl Alexander von M’uller, a professor ofmodern history at the University of Munich, and he recalls that the speech was

“an oratorical masterpiece, which any actor might well envy. Hebegan quietly, without any pathos... I cannot remember in my entirelife such a change in attitude of a crowed in a few minutes, almosta few seconds. There were certainly many who were not convertedyet. But the sense of the majority had fully reversed itself. Hitlerhad turned them inside out, as one turns a glove inside out, witha few sentences. It had almost something of hocus-pocus, or magicabout it. Loud approval roared forth, no further opposition was tobe heard.”67

Despite Hitler’s efforts and oratorical prowess on the morning of 9th Novem-ber 1923 it came to Hitler’s realisation that the coup wasn’t successful andthat the Putschists68 did not know who or what they were fighting for any-more and this eventually lead to a lot of people giving up. This in mind, Hitlerand his then associates had to formulate a plan to rekindle the flame of na-tionalism inside these followers’ souls. Ludendorff is claimed to have shouted“Wir marschieren!” or “We will march!”. At this point, all forces combined ina nationalist front of approximately 2,000 men and marched to the BavarianDefence Ministry at which point they were greeted by 100 soldiers. The feudbegan and it is not known who fired the first bullet but it resulted in the deathof 4 state officers and 16 Nazis. 41 This was printed in newspapers and heardof globally, if Britain had no idea what was emerging now, they would surelyremain ignorant until the problem was staring them in the face.

This gained the NSDAP incredibly bad press not just on a national stage,but to the whole world. The Western democratic countries were well aware ofthe political implications of a right-wing nationalist government gaining power.At the moment, it looked like things were settling down and that maybe therewould be no need for intervention. Both Hitler and Goring were injured quiteseverely, the full extent of the injuries sustained by both men is unkown butit is documented that Goring was shot in the groin. The some 2,000 men andwomen fled and many were later arrested, that included Hitler who was arrestedon the 10th of November 1923. 41

4.1.1 Hitler: Trial and Prison

On the 10th of November 1923, two days after the Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler wasarrested. He was tried with high treason in a People’s Court.69 There weresome semi-strict punishments that the NSDAP and Hitler had to pay. At thispoint, Goring had fled the country to Austria where he could not be tried or

67Alexander von M’uller, Karl Im Wandel einer Zeit - In the Change of Time. 1966.68Those involved with the Putsch/Coup69[The Hitler Trial Before the People’s Court in Munich]. 1924.

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Figure 1:The bottom plate commemorating the deaths of the state policemen who diedon the day of the Beer Hall Putsch. “To the members of the Bavarian Police,

who gave their lives opposing the National Socialist coup on 9 November 1923”

charged.70 Hitler’s sentence was not a major issue, it was light, but the NSDAPno longer had any means of spreading its propagandised ideologies due to theirnewspaper, the Volkischer Beobachter being shut down.71 One of the few timesHitler’s anti-Semitic messages did not shine through - he moderated his toneand pleaded to the judge that his actions were all in selfless devotion to the Volk.72 Rather admirably, and like any good leader, Hitler took full responsibilityfor the events that unfolded the previous days leading up to the trial. Thislead to more and more people calling him the Furher due to this somewhatselfless act.73 He was, on the other hand, just telling the truth, it was his soleresponsibility that events unfolded as they did.

At the time, the German prison system offered three types of jail sentencing.Festungshaft was Hitler’s sentence and this was the littlest of the three sentencesa criminal could receive. It meant that Hitler would not be forced to work andlive in a 2 × 3 meter cell. He had decent living conditions, and was allowed avisitor daily for multiple hours. Hitler sentence was cut and he was releasedafter 9 months of imprisonment for good behaviour. 72 74

A failed attempt at coup but it achieved the NSDAP more than nationalexposure. 72 Hitler’s time in jail made him re-think his point of attack. Heknew that the only way he could win the hearts of the German people was toabide by the book, and do everything strictly within the realms of the law. He

70Hermann Goring (German minister) - Britannica Online Encyclopaedia.Britannica.com.http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/239310/Hermann-GoringRetrieved 2013-03-11.

71Volkischer Beobachter - The People’s Observer72Claudia Koonz, The Nazi Conscience. November 30, 2005. Belknap Press of Harvard

University Press.73Piers Brendon, The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s. Vintage (January 8, 2002) p

3874The Hitler Trial before the People’s Court in Munich - Vol. 3 By H. Francis Freniere,

Lucie Karcic, Philip Fandek, Harold J. Gordon Jr. University Publications of America (1976)

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no longer saw violent revolution as a method of coup or winning support. Itwas during this period that many of Hitler’s greatest political ideologies cameinto fruition, given that he had written them down in the semi-autobiographicalpolitical manifesto Mein Kampf 75 10 This book was published and Britain, ifthey were looking at the nationalistic strength of post-World War I Germanywould have gathered this book as an incredibly important piece of intelligencedue to its in-depth depiction of Hitler’s Germany. Britain was really slackinghere and could have done so much more to protect themselves earlier and atleast have been ready for something to occur.

llMein. The German people would go on to refer to him as “Hitler Legalite”which translates exactly to “Hitler the Legal One”.

5 The Rise to Nazi Power: 1925-1933

With Hitler’s release in December 1924 and the NSDAP pretty much non-existent due to the lack of collaboration and input from the leader, Hitler decidedto launch a new party. His name already in the eye of the media for his nation-alistic, right-wing ideologies and strong pan-Germanic views, he founded theNazi Party. It consisted of many of the same people as the NSDAP with thesame views - it was the NSDAP, but with a new start, a less violent beginning.

Britain’s involvement was still minimal during these times, despite the partygaining some kind of political power and prominence among over 800, 000 Ger-man’s. Britain had completely removed itself from the workings of the Germanpolitical, social and economic system and left them to tend for themselves. DidBritain know, once again, that the hooked crosses that were soon to be flauntedin the streets of Germany would become a symbolic representation of evil, op-pression and terror? Hitler was no longer in obscurity, the light was now closeand nobody was stopping him from achieving his goals.

5.1 The German election of May 1928 - Seeking electoralsuccess

On 20th March 1928 the German election was held and the party achieved only12 seats, which then, was 2.6% of the vote. This meant that it had 810, 127voters across the nation. Hitler’s first assumption was that his party would notbe a success; he assumed that his pan-Germanic views did not coincide withthose of its inhabitants. Eventually however, getting over this small downfall hecame to the conclusion that the Germans simply needed to know more aboutthe goals and ambitions of the party. Against the wishes and advice of hispublishers Hitler released a second book. He thought that this would spreadthe word of the NSDAP, “Zweites Buch”. The book gained little attention.

Despite claims of Hitler’s new-found, non-violent viewpoint the SA instigated

75“My Struggle”

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a period of systematic antagonising to the Rot front76 by marching into Com-munist meetings and starting violent altercations with those involved. Nearingthe end of the year of 1928 the party membership showed a record high of130,000 loyal party members. The actions of the SA became more and moreviolent, after the Rot front, in retaliation, interrupted one of Hitler’s speechesthe SA stormed the streets of Nuremberg and killed two bystanders. Hitler hadto straighten the party and its associates out if he wanted to gain any kind ofrecognition from the German people.

5.2 The German referendum of 1929

As spoken about before there was strong opposition to the Young Plan amongGerman Nationalists. The opposition was led by Alfred Hugenberg who setup a league of many right-wing organisations to campaign against, in unity,the Young Plan. The organisation was a congregation of pan-Germanics andNationalists, including the Nazi party. 77 The choice to add the Nazi Party tothe organisation was surprising considering the party’s deployment of the mostviolent of tactics up to this date - not to mention its anti-capitalist rhetoric.Alfred Hugenberg, the leader of the league took note of the dynamism andyouthful enthusiasm shown by the Nazis’. He is noted saying that he wishedto use them as a “drum” in the struggle against the Young Plan.78 Variousalternatives started to shine through such as the right-wing league proposition ofthe ‘Freedom Law‘ 79 80 as an alternative to the Young Plan. 79 It was unlikelythat the vote would pass to renounce the policies put in place by the YoungPlan, and it didn’t, but the very fact that the congregation managed to collectenough signatures in support was a shock - enough to cause a referendum!81

The referendum is of importance to the essay because it was favourable to theNazi Party at the time. It allowed full exposure in Hugenberg’s widely readnewspapers and gave the Nazis free publicity and Hitler became a householdname across Germany, more so than he was already. 77 Moreover, Hitler’spolitical involvement in a controlled, stable, academic and thoughtful way gainedhim credibility which was previously not seen due to his outrageously violentmethods of gaining political fame - or infamy. 77 This credibility and whatHugenberg called “dynamism and youthful enthusiasm” shone through and in1929, the Nazis were seen with 11% of the vote in Thuringia82 83

76Roter Frontkampfer-Bund RFB or Alliance of Red Front-Fighters ARFF was a non-partyin practice a paramilitary organisation under command of the Communist Party of Germany.

77Nicholls, A.J, (2000), Weimar and the Rise of Hitler, London: MacMillan Press, Ltd78Nick79Eyck, Erich, (1964), A History of the Weimar Republic, Volume II: From the Locarno

Conference to Hitlers Seizure of Power, Translation, Oxford University Press.80This would renounce the war guilt clause and return the occupied German territories to

Germany. It renounced also the reparations.81Mommsen, Hans, (1996), The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy, Chapel Hill: University

of North Carolina Press.82A federal state of Germany 6,244 sq mi. One of Germany’s 16 states83Kolb, Eberhard, (1988), The Weimar Republic, New York: Routledge

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5.3 Hitler and the Reichstag victory

On September 14th 1930 a milestone in electoral results was reached by theNazi party. They had gained 6,406,397 votes in national polling to emerge asthe second largest party in Germany. They obtained 107 seats in the Reichstag.Hitler had put a lot of money behind the campaign and over 1,000,000 pamphletswere printed and distributed and 60 trucks were commandeered for use in Berlinalone. Hitler’s methods proved successful, in areas where campaigning was lessintensive, the total dipped to 9%. Hitler also used The Great Depression as afactor in gaining his success electorally.

Now, Hitler with 6,406,397 supporters and rising, nearly had the country inhis hands. At this point, Britain had no excuse to not intervene, they could seethat if more power was gained by Hitler he could be a possible threat and he hadclearly voiced his opinions on the reparations and it was clear on more than oneoccasion that his strong nationalism overthrew his ability to think respectivelyof the quantitative proportions of damage that some policies have on his belovedcountry. These non-violent methods that were employed in Hitler’s mind werenot present during and after the election. The SA were now an organised partymilitia and began their first major anti-Jewish action on the 13th of October1930 where they smashed the windows of the stores at Potsdamer Platz whichwere Jewish-owned. 61

During the 10th of April 1931 the Nazi party had around 800,000 mem-bers which were carrying cards and strong supporters of the strong nationalistmovement. The government at the time filed an Emergency decree for thePreservation of State Authority and banned the paramilitaries and party mali-tias associated with the Nazi party, including the SA and SS.84 The anti-Semiticmessages were not received well by the whole of the German population and theabove action was instigated through a trial involving multiple SA men assaultingunarmed Jews in Berlin. This was later repealed by the Chancellor of Germanyon the 30th of May 1931 and is simply due to the ambivalence about the fateof the Jews that was supported by the culture of anti-Semitism that pervadedGermany at the time.85 Another vote was held and at the end of July, the Naziparty gained ≈ 14, 000, 000 votes which secured 230 seats in the Reichstag. 83

On the 28th of February Hitler persuaded Weimar Republic President togrant him as German Chancellor. 83

84http://www.willy-brandt.de/index.php”April 1932: SA and SS banned”. FederalChancellor Willy Brandt Foundation. Retrieved 2013-01-03. ”Basing his actions on the’Emergency Decree for the Preservation of State Authority’, Reich Defence Minister Wil-helm Groener bans Hitlers Sturmabteilung (SA) as well as his Schutzstaffel (SS) on 13 April1932.”

85Goldhagen, Daniel (1996). Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and theHolocaust. New York: Knopf. 28 January 1997

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6 Conclusion

To conclude, I think I have fully explored the social, political and economicreasons for the up rise of Fascism and how this can snowball out of control insome circumstances. I have explored the concept of fascism and have thoughtabout it in different instances where it was prevalent during the periods men-tioned. Britain could have done a lot more in terms of resisting fascism. They’reattempted reparations failed and they should have settled upon a single figureinstead of going through the ’unhappy compromise’. 21 That said, they weresuccessful in other areas which included gaining the signature of the variousTreaties. This allowed Britain some control over Germany which they did notexploit or use to their advantage. Britain was not observant enough of theemerging politics of Germany and was too relaxed about the up rise of far-rightpolitics which obviously later lead to World War II. All of this said, hindsight is20/20 and there were obvious attempts made by the allied powers to diffuse theuproar of fascism: the Treaty of Versailles included provisions of disarmament.17 There was an obvious attempt to induce pacifism upon the state - or atleast an attempt to permanently weaken it - these plans would have removedthe factors that contribute to fascism as a force of coup and encouraged theideals of international unity. The Treaty of Versailles had its flaws and is spo-ken about by Harold Nicolson 21 . He coined the term “unhappy compromise”.This, combined with the “Carthaginian” reparation demand fuelled nationalis-tic passions. In the last section you can really see the numbers of supportersthat Hitler had and one wonders why Britain didn’t act upon this - was therean obvious uprise of nationalistic politics during that era? Yes. So why didn’tBritain respond? Britain never manipulated and took control of the full advan-tages of winning the first war. It, at one point, was able to play monopoly withnations surrounding Hungary - a massive supporter of Germany - to encapsulateAustria-Hungary with a band of politically neutral or allied countries. The con-tinual appeasement the British took part in angered British citizens and madeit seem like we were the losers. Realistically, Britain had its hands behind itsback for a large chunk of this period - it was struggling to make everyone happyand truly suffered from compromise in places.

Britain’s attempts were strong but not strong enough in fighting the transna-tional forces of fascism prevalent in the first half of the mid-20th century.

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[1] [46] [40] [13] [33] [18] [35] [15] [45] [30] [16] [32] [41] [5] [31] [24] [29] [7][25] [3] [12] [6] [36] [22] [26] [37] [4] [38] [39] [47] [9] [34] [42] [17] [14] [19] [2] [20][43] [23] [10] [28] [8] [27] [21] [11] [44]

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