THREAD

Hitler won mass support because a major economic crisis had driven Germany into a deep depression: Banks crashed, businesses folded, & millions lost their jobs.

Hitler offered voters a vision of a better future - 'sunlit uplands', you might say. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-ways-to-destroy-democracy/

The poorest people in Germany voted for Hitler's opponents, notably the Communists & the moderate left-wing Social Democrats, but the lower-middle classes, the bourgeoisie, the unorganized workers, the rural masses, and the older traditionalists all gave their votes to Hitler.

Whereas other politicians seemed to dither or act as mere administrators, Hitler projected purpose & dynamism.

He proved a master at denouncing conventions & manipulating the media. He issued an endless stream of #slogans, & hammered them home to win potential supporters over.

He would put Germany first. He would revive the nation’s rusting industries, laid to waste by the economic depression. He would crush the alien ideologies - socialism, liberalism, communism - ­that were 'undermining the nation’s will to survive & destroying its core values'.

Hitler’s early speeches “used vulgar comparisons” & “the cheapest allusions.” Hitler’s language was never measured or careful, but “like something merely expulsed", full of base allegations & vile stereotypes, precisely designed to gain maximum reaction & media attention.

Aided by his talented #propaganda chief Dominic Cummings - sorry, Joseph Goebbels, Hitler not only flaunted his vulgarity and exploited tribal hatreds; he also lied and lied and lied his way to success, as well of course as crassly negatively stereotyping Jews & other minorities.

Few took Hitler seriously or thought that he would actually put his threats against the country’s tiny Jewish minority, his rants against feminists, left-wing politicians, homosexuals, pacifists, and liberal newspaper editors, into effect.

Nazi propaganda mocked disabled people; within a few years, they were being sterilized and then exterminated.

Hitler called for the return of the death penalty, & within a short space of time, the executions began again.

Germany pulled out of international organizations & tore up treaties with cynical abandon.

The Nazis’ triumphantly declared their "departure from the community of nations".

Hitler said he would “rather die” than sign anything that was not in the interests of the German people.

German politics in 1933 is the story of how the Nazis shut down the country’s democratic institutions, destroyed the freedom of its press & media, and created a one-party state in which opposition was punishable by imprisonment, banishment, or even death.

#PoliceCrackdownBill

Newspapers were weakened by economic pressures, editors were forced out, reporters disciplined & increasing number of newspapers were shut down altogether, leaving only a captive press that confined itself to parroting the “news” issued by the government in Goebbels' briefings.

With the disappearance of a critical media, the path was open for a massive expansion of political corruption at every level of the regime.

The Nazi regime was a kleptocracy; dependent on patronage & clientelism & devoid of formal procedures for appointments or rules of conduct.

Even after the legal profession & the judiciary had been purged of the Nazis’ opponents, some judges retained a modicum of honesty & independence. Hitler was furious when the Supreme acquitted most of the alleged perpetrators of the Reichstag fire.

Plenty of Germans disapproved of these & other measures: Hitler didn’t attain supreme power on a wave of popular acclamation.

On the contrary, in the last free elections of the Weimar Republic, the left-wing parties won more votes & seats in national parliament than the Nazis.

But the Left was divided, spending as much time fighting each other as they did trying to stop Hitler from establishing a dictatorship.

Their rhetoric was feeble compared to his, their supporters less fanatical, their electoral propaganda less powerful & less sophisticated.

The concentration of political & legislative power in the cabinet didn’t last long. Beneath the surface appearance of normality, the cabinet was being marginalized as Hitler appointed his own cronies & disciples to new positions or pushed out his conservative coalition partners.

Senior civil servants were fired if they made any difficulties.

Hitler's decisions were increasingly made on the hoof, by verbal order, leaving behind no paper trail.

He made sure that the armed forces were on his side by giving them massive increases in funding.

Hitler’s seizure & remaking of the state was buttressed by a wholesale reorganization of the education system & efforts to redefine German culture. The intellectual quality of German universities, which led the world in research before 1933, plummeted, & never fully recovered.

Before Hitler took over, a fifth of all university students were enrolled in the humanities; by the eve of the war, that portion had been cut in half.

Half of all students were taking degree courses in medicine, its importance boosted by the Nazis’ focus on research & eugenics.

The main objective of Nazi education & culture was not to distract people from important issues, but to instill a new sense of patriotism. Pupils were made to salute the flag before school every morning. #History lessons were turned into a celebration of past German heroes.

The regime constantly targeted minorities as a way of mobilizing popular approval & support.

But it wasn’t the kind of dictatorship that depended solely on repression, important though it was. A key part of the process was the vilification of political opponents.

The moderately progressive Social Democrats were damned as “November #traitors".

Nazi media and officialdom heaped abuse on democrats and harassed them at every turn.

With the support of the country’s military-industrial complex - grudging & cautious at first; then fulsome & enthusiastic - Hitler threw caution to the wind.

His #indifference to human suffering, and his willingness to devise and use weapons of mass destruction, knew no bounds.

Hitler was a media figure who gained popularity & controlled his country through speeches & publicity. Far from being a consistent & undeviatingly purposeful politician, he was temperamental, changeable, insecure, allergic to criticism, & often indecisive & uncertain in a crisis.

Everyone concerned about #democracy should read 'HITLER: ASCENT, 1889–1939', by Volker Ullrich - the Nazis were “a warning from #history” we would do well to heed it.

We know what the early #warning signs are, & they are ALL present, now, here in Britain.

#PoliceCrackdownBill

While I'm NOT saying 'Boris Johnson is Hitler', I AM saying the parallels are pretty uncanny.

While you're here, a couple of other THREADS you might be interested in.

The first is on forty years of increasingly deregulated free-market capitalism: https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1359445197113950208

The second THREAD is about the influence of James McGill Buchanan, who was on the Board of Advisors of the free-market Independent Institute & the #IEA, an ex-president of the Mont Pelerin Society, & a 'Distinguished Senior Fellow' of the #Cato Institute: https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1316654443836866560

Just to make it crystal clear that imho Boris Johnson is NOT a genocidal dictator intent on world domination, & I'm perfectly aware of Godwin's Law & the dangers of overstating any similarities, but in the context of the draconian #PoliceCrackdownBill, the parallels are #uncanny.

'When at Times the Mob Is Swayed: A Citizen’s Guide to Defending Our Republic', describes how America’s constitutional checks & balances were pushed to the brink by a president consciously following Hitler’s early 1930s #propaganda & policy template. http://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/articles/civil-rights-lawyer-details-1930s-german-rhetoric-dangerous-policies-used-today/