Causes (Direct and Indirect) of Nazi/Hitler Takeover in Germany

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Duptar
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Joined: 06 Jul 2020, 23:33
Location: USA

Causes (Direct and Indirect) of Nazi/Hitler Takeover in Germany

#1

Post by Duptar » 06 Jul 2020, 23:38

Hello,

I am unsure what section of the forum to post this in but thought this would be a good website to have discussion on the topic. Below is a post I made elsewhere and while I will admit I am not well read on the subject of Hitler and Nazi Germany, I am interested to hear opinions.
There is little historical inquiry that has attracted so much debate as the direct causes of Hitler and the Nazi Party’s rise to power. Much scholarship has been written on the subject and far too much to master in one’s own lifetime. I was struck recently by Peter Watson’s contention in his book The German Genius that German cultural and intellectual achievement leading up to Nazi Germany far excelled its British and American counterparts. Five marks of modern German culture are given that give credence both to German excellence and its devastating fall:


An Educated Middle Class
“Inwardness” (Innerlichkeit)
Bildung
Research, the PhD, Scholarship and Modernity
The Longing for a Redemptive Community


Watson centers in on the concept of an educated, secular middle class:

Quote Originally Posted by Page 840
But the overwhelming reality is that, in the face of the advances being made by science, especially in the forty to fifty years before World War I, the educated middle classes in Germany, the traditionally educated middle classes, the “Bildung classes” as we can call them, suffered two crucial setbacks, setbacks that were exacerbated in the 1920s in the Weimar Republic. First, they lost status and influence, finding their traditional intellectual interests downgraded and marginalized in the newer, mass urban spaces, and then, in the great inflation, they found their economic interests decimated. Second, in Germany in particular, the traditionally educated Bildung class found itself estranged from- and replaced by- the scientifically educated middle classes. This was of crucial importance because, when it came to the crunch, when the Naxis began to flex their muscles, there simply was not in Germany a critical mass of educated people in positions of power and responsibility to provide any resistance.


The failure of the educated middle class, Watson argues, is the crucial failure in leading to Hitler’s Germany.

Although the above concepts do not appear in Richard Evans’ monumental The Third Reich trilogy, his exhaustive survey of the existing literature points to multiple theses. Early on, German historian Friedrick Meinecke “blamed the rise of the Third Reich above all on Germany’s growing obsession with world power from the late nineteenth century onward, beginning with Bismarck and getting more intense in the age of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the First World War.” (The Coming of the Third Reich, xxi). Others, like William Shirer and A.J.P. Taylor, say the democratic and human rights spirit never became an active force in German life, somewhat related to Thomas Mann’s belief of minimal interest in politics among Germans. Then of course, there is the upheaval of law and order brought about by defeat in the First World War and the subsequent Weimar hyperinflation. All of these causes have been proposed, with debates surrounding their level of relevance.

What factors played the greatest role in the takeover of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany? And how can we relate to it in the twenty-first century?

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