Republicans have a kind of game they play with Godwin's Law: they like to wait for their liberal opponent to mention actual, real, historical fascists, then they pounce with all the grace of their elephant mascot. You can almost see the glee wash over their faces as the liberal's mention of the name "Hitler" vindicates every factual and rhetorical gaffe they'd made in the argument thus far – the lib'rul said "Hitler," so everything the DFH has ever said about Republican policy being fascist is invalid and wrong. After all, John Boehner is tall, orange, clean-shaven, an omnivore, and a heavy smoker – and since Hitler was none of these, it stands to (conservative) reason that any comparison of Boehner's public policy agenda to Hitler's is just as outrageous as saying that the Speaker of the House is exactly like the Fuehrer
I guess they view it as kind of like crying "uncle" – a liberal who brings up Hitler is signaling that he's finished, that he's been so thoroughly bested by the Randian "logic" and "common sense" "values" of the conservative that he can do no other than throw out a hail-Mary Hitler analogy. And, since everything in the conservative world is a zero-sum game, this "proves" the fact that the leftist lost and that the rightist won, so the stupid hippy might as well "just admit it."
But as we talked about last week, not all fascists arrive waving swastikas – and some do indeed show up carrying the Cross. Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we'll delve once more into the world that got created the last time fascists came to power. I'll leave it to the Gentle Reader to decide if the analogies are apt, or if we should continue to base our regard for Hitler-mentions on contemporary Republican interpretations of the writings of a Hoary Sage from way back in the Usenet Epoch.
Historiorant/Godwin-Proofing: I realize full well that not everything about the rise of the Nazis in Germany is analogous to what is happening in the United States today, but to focus on the mismatches is to ignore the obvious warnings being shouted at us from the past. Nations have been down this path before: dysfunctional legislative bodies unable to deal with economic and political crises, propaganda masters who saturate entire countries with rightist ideology, jingoism as a frightened response to a hostile world – all of it. America, it turns out after all, is no exception, so it behooves us to study the manner in which other nations have fallen under the yoke of fascism.
Fascism was never imposed in the same way twice. Hitler tried to emulate Mussolini's March on Rome with his own Beer Hall Putsch; he failed, and learned that in Germany, fascism could only come to power through the democratic process. Franco launched a military rebellion, an option open to neither Hitler nor Mussolini when they first sought nation-governing authority. Only in the case of Antonio Salazar (Portugal) and Engelbert Dollfuss (Austria) do we find genuine similarities – both were competent government officials with bureaucratic achievements under their belts, they were all about the nationalism and the centralized totalitarian control, and both shared a deep affinity for the Catholic faith (to the point of giving the Church either "state religion" status or something damn close to it).
But there's the rub: in addition to Iberia and Austria, the Church retained powerful influence in parts of Germany and all of Italy – and both Hitler and Mussolini would have to contend with its institutional power. In the 1920s, Mussolini tried to find common ground with the Church whenever he could – usually around social issues like contraception and divorce – but the theocrats and the fascists differed over who should get control of the education system, along with a few other issues. Things were finally smoothed over with the Lateran Pacts of 1929, which instantly created a world market for Vatican City postage stamps in addition to declaring the Church the state religion (duh) but limiting its role in civic governance – though the Church was given full control of the institution of marriage.
Hitler Had Religion, Too
Adolph Hitler was born into a conservative Catholic family in a conservative, Catholic part of Austria. While often described as an atheist or a pagan (due to his associations with the nutjobs who comprised the Thule Society (link is to the Wikipedia entry because…well, just try finding a decently valid source in the first few pages of a Google search), he was neither. He was, rather, a conservative Christian who made a conscious decision to appeal to his following largely through political rhetoric instead of the religious. He could talk the evangelical talk when he needed to, though:
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.
~Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942), via Hitler's religious beliefs and fanaticism (Selected quotes from Mein Kampf), compiled by Jim Walker, 2001
(emphases in quotes throughout this diary are my own, except where otherwise noted; they indicate arguments I have heard emanating from contemporary rightists in either an identical or slightly altered (ie, the proper nouns are different) manner in the recent past. ~ u.m.)
Hitler played this angle quite a bit – the idea that his Jew-hating was nothing new, that he was simply continuing an anti-Semitic tradition begun by others, especially the Church, a millennium-and-a-half before:
I have been attacked because of my handling of the Jewish question. The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc., because it recognized the Jews for what they were. In the epoch of liberalism the danger was no longer recognized. I am moving back toward the time in which a fifteen-hundred-year-long tradition was implemented. I do not set race over religion, but I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the Church, and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.
~Adolph Hitler, April 26, 1933, speaking in reference to the Reichskonkordat agreement between the Nazis and the Catholic Church
Historiorant: The typical Republican reply to this line of argumentation is, "But I ain't no anti-Semite! Some of my best friends is Jews!" To the die-hard literalist, it's an effective means of discounting the Nazi analogy, but it (intentionally) misses the point, as most fallacies do – update only the proper nouns (and the time span, of course) in the above Hitler quotes, and they start to sound more like something we might hear on Rush Limbaugh's program. Kind of like we did on June 29, 2011:
Transcript of the most relevant segment, @0:30-0:59
[President Obama]'s a parasite. He's like all liberals: they're parasites. They wait for everybody else to do the work, then they feed off of it. They assume, like all parasites do, that the host is always gonna just be there…that the host is always going to be growing, doing what it does, to be fed off of. We're just looking at a man and a party that are a bunch of parasites. What he does...(unintelligible muttering) I dunno what he…but he is destroying the host, per se.
…and here's some similar tripe (apologies to tripe) from a minion much further down the conservative food chain, posting on Michelle Malkin's site earlier this week. Ms. Malkin was carping from London about how the teachers and workers staging a one-day strike were interfering with her plans to visit Westminster Abbey, and a brave sockpuppet gave up its e-existence to post an early comment reminding her to thank the unionized pilots, ground crew, and air traffic controllers who were going to see her safely back to the Land of the Free. This poster addressed the heroic sockpuppet:
Troll is too kind of a word for you. If we did as all of you socialist leeches requested and took every dime a producer made and spread it around to all of you parasites, it would not be enough to sustain the benefits you think you’re entitled to. There just isn’t enough money to let your union buddies live that large without paying for it.
Captain Blasto on MichelleMalkin.com, June 30th, 2011, 8:24 AM
The Wall of Church and State
Though he differed from Salazar and Dollfuss (and Franco, for that matter) on the role Christianity was to play in his brand of fascism, Hitler knew he couldn't simply ignore the main churches – especially since a great many of his supporters were devout Catholics and Protestants whose conservatism might make them more predisposed toward his political ideology, but not at the expense of a conversion of faiths:
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
via Hitler's religious beliefs and fanaticism (Selected quotes from Mein Kampf), compiled by Jim Walker, 2001
…and he learned to pull modern life-lessons out of the Bible with the skill of a Pat Robertson or AM-radio preacher-guy. Most of all, he was impressed with the Church's bullheaded inflexibility and violent resistance to change, even as the evidence mounted that Rome was falling further and further behind the philosophical times:
The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12
Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 5
For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? ...Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas... it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith.
- ibid.
Via Adolf Hitler on the Church: Quotes from Hitler on Learning from Christianity
A Nazi flag desecrating the façade of the Cologne Cathedral
And what lessons has the Church gleaned from seeing its historic intransigence singled out for admiration by Adolph Hitler?
...we just as strongly affirm that marriage is the joining of one man and one woman in a lifelong, loving union that is open to children, ordered for the good of those children and the spouses themselves. This definition cannot change, though we realize that our beliefs about the nature of marriage will continue to be ridiculed, and that some will even now attempt to enact government sanctions against churches and religious organizations that preach these timeless truths.
- NY Catholic Bishops on marriage equality, from NY Catholic Bishops Now Expect Efforts 'to Enact Gov't Sanctions Against Churches' Terence P. Jeffrey, Saturday, June 25, 2011
The Nazis enjoyed the support of an evangelical group known as Duetsche Christen, which saw no incongruity between the words "national" and "faith." The pic shows their flags hanging in between some Nazi ones; this quote is from one of their leaders:
“Through God's intercession, our beloved German Fatherland has experienced a mighty exaltation. In this turning point in history we hear, as faithful evangelical Christians, the call of God to a closing of ranks and a return, the call also for a single German Evangelical Church .... The Confessions are its unalterable basis .... A national bishop of the Lutheran confession stands at its head .... Christ comes again and brings an eternal completion in the majesty of His Kingdom”.
Zabel, James A., Nazism and the Pastors: A Study of the Ideas of Three Deutsche Christen Groups. Missoula, Mont. 1976. P.28, via RomanChristendom.blogspot.com - please note that this is a highly pro-Catholic site, to the point that I get the impression the proprietor really, really wants to call Protestants "heretics"
...and here's a picture of the guy being referred to above – National Bishop Friedrich Coch (seriously, but no relation) sieg-heiling some children in Dresden in 1933.
It's not within the scope of this diary to get into the whole of Nazi/Church relations – good pics, some of which were used in this diary, located here – and I'll likewise leave it to historians more knowledgeable than me to explore Nazi racial theories, but I will close this section with a couple of Christianity-related thoughts. The first comes from the Roman Church itself – an Encyclical from Pius XI given at the Vatican on Passion Sunday, 1937, in which His Holiness seems quite circumspect about the power he's watched rising in the north:
You will need to watch carefully, Venerable Brethren, that religious fundamental concepts be not emptied of their content and distorted to profane use. "Revelation" in its Christian sense, means the word of God addressed to man. The use of this word for the "suggestions" of race and blood, for the irradiations of a people's history, is mere equivocation. False coins of this sort do not deserve Christian currency. "Faith" consists in holding as true what God has revealed and proposes through His Church to man's acceptance. It is "the evidence of things that appear not" (Heb. ii. 1). The joyful and proud confidence in the future of one's people, instinct in every heart, is quite a different thing from faith in a religious sense. To substitute the one for the other, and demand on the strength of this, to be numbered among the faithful followers of Christ, is a senseless play on words, if it does not conceal a confusion of concepts, or worse.
Mit Brenneder Sorge: Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on the Church and the German Reich to the Venerable Brethren, the Archbishops and Bishops of Germany and Other Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See, March 14, 1937
The other thought is that people could see this coming from a long way off – exactly a century, if you want to be specific. Heinrich Heine, a German poet of Jewish ancestry who did his ranting in the early half of the 19th century – and gave us the immortal line, "Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people", btw – made this devastatingly prescient observation in 1834:
Christianity - and that is its greatest merit - has somewhat mitigated that brutal Germanic love of war, but it could not destroy it. Should that subduing talisman, the cross, be shattered, the frenzied madness of the ancient warriors, that insane Berserk rage of which Nordic bards have spoken and sung so often, will once more burst into flame. This talisman is fragile, and the day will come when it will collapse miserably. Then the ancient stony gods will rise from the forgotten debris and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes, and finally Thor with his giant hammer will jump up and smash the Gothic cathedrals. (...)
Do not smile at my advice -- the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll."
The History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany, Heinreich Heine, 1834
Everyone knows the formation by which you achieved victory, yet no one knows the formations by which you were able to create victory…Therefore, your strategy for victories in battle is not repetitious, and your formations in response to the enemy are endless. ~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War, ch. 6
Among the many things that Heine's prophecy got right was how fast things were going to happen once the spark was lit – I don't think it was by accident that he chose as his metaphors thunderbolts and things bursting into flame. Heine lived in an age of revolution – he corresponded with Karl Marx, among many others – and understood that change can come in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it happens slowly and methodically, like a streambank eroding its way into a Grand Canyon over the course of millennia. But sometimes change comes like a rainstorm in the desert: rare, violent, fast-moving, and altering the landscape more significantly in a single evening than 1000 years' worth of windblown sand.
The fascists knew they were not popular – only Engelbert Dollfuss could lay claim to genuine affection from his nation's people (true, Mussolini enjoyed popularity in the early days of his regime, but this waned as Italians increasingly realized that he was a dumbass), and even that high regard was based more upon Dollfuss' unflinching Austrian patriotism than his winning them over to Austrofascism. This lack-of-popular-popularity led to one of the few traits shared by all fascist regimes: they are highly opportunistic. Here's a brief (!) rundown the timeline of Hitler's rise to power after the 1929 Stock Market Crash – observe how he works the political dysfunction of the late Weimer Republic (some of which he and his Nazi legislators helped to create) to his advantage:
- 1930 -
The crisis of the Great Depression brought disunity to the political parties in the Reichstag. Instead of forging an alliance to enact desperately need legislation, they broke up into squabbling, uncompromising groups
The History Place
- July, 1930 - Chancellor Bruening's attempt to rule by decree is withdrawn; Bruening asks President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag, with new elections to be held in September. Once the idea was broached, however, it didn't go away – both Bruening and his successor later ruled by decree, laying the groundwork for the even more egregious totalitarian laws promulgated by Hitler.
- Late Summer, 1930 -
Adolf Hitler and the Nazis waged a modern whirlwind campaign in 1930 unlike anything ever seen in Germany. Hitler traveled the country delivering dozens of major speeches, attending meetings, shaking hands, signing autographs, posing for pictures, and even kissing babies.
Joseph Goebbels brilliantly organized thousands of meetings, torchlight parades, plastered posters everywhere and printed millions of special edition Nazi newspapers.
Germany was in the grip of the Great Depression with a population suffering from poverty, misery, and uncertainty, amid increasing political instability. (…)
In his speeches, Hitler offered the Germans what they needed most, encouragement. He gave them heaps of vague promises while avoiding the details. He used simple catchphrases, repeated over and over.
Ibid.
- September 14, 1930 - Nazis receive 6.3 million votes (18%) and 107 seats in the Reichstag. Hitler is instantly catapulted to political prominence. When the Nazi parliamentarians take their seats in October, they answer the first roll call with "Heil Hitler," plus…
They had no intention of cooperating with the democratic government, knowing it was to their advantage to let things get worse in Germany, thus increasing the appeal of Hitler to an ever more miserable people.
Ibid. - and if this doesn't sound familiar, have another look at the New York Times of June 23, 2011
- 1931 -
Money was flowing in from German industrialists who saw the Nazis as the wave of the future. They invested in Hitler in the hope of getting favors when he came to power. Their money was used to help pay the growing numbers of salaried Nazis and fuel Goebbels' propaganda machine.
Ibid.
- September, 1931- Hitler's personal life is shattered when his 20-year-old niece/lover/object of perverse stalkerish affections shot herself in the heart after an argument with her uncle/rapist/captor. The suicide affected Hitler profoundly – they say he was never quite the same afterwards – and among other things, turned him to vegetarianism.
- Early 1932 - with mandated presidential elections approaching, Hitler presses for a seat at the king-making table:
…Hitler received a telegram from Chancellor Bruening inviting him to come to Berlin to discuss the possibility of extending Hindenburg's present term. Hitler was delighted at the invitation. "Now I have them in my pocket! They have recognized me as a partner in their negotiations!" Hitler told Rudolf Hess.
Ibid.
-
- March, 1932 - after his swelling ranks plastered Germany in "Hitler for President!" posters, Hitler polls 30% in national elections. The 84-year-old Hindenburg, who had run a front-porch campaign consisting of a couple of radio addresses and meet-n-greets at aristocratic parties, failed to receive a 50% majority, forcing a runoff between he and second-place finisher Hitler.
- April, 1932 - Hitler whistle-stops all of Germany by flying around in a plane (part of a coordinated effort with future Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels to utilize all the most modern technologies for voter outreach, including film and radio), while Hindenburg made even less of an effort than before. Hitler is forced to deal with a sex scandal when it is revealed that SA commander Ernst Roehm is gay; Hitler stands by Roehm (for now…), and the scandal abates. Hindenburg wins the election with 53% of the vote. Hitler pulls down 36%, but this is one of those instances where a tactical defeat equates to a strategic victory – the Nazis were now the preeminent political power-brokers in Berlin.
- 1932 - is dominated by political intrigue peculiar to the parliamentary system of the Weimer Republic – there aren't a lot of analogies to be had in the blow-by-blow (The Republic Collapses at The History Place does a good job of synopsizing the power plays), but there are a couple of events that we moderns might find a little familiar:
…Bruening also made an error in proposing that the huge estates of bankrupt aristocrats be divided up and given to peasants, sounding like a Marxist. Those same aristocrats, along with big industrialists, had scraped together the money to buy Hindenburg an estate of his own. When Hindenburg took his Easter vacation there in mid-May [1932], he had to listen to their complaints about Bruening. (…)
The aristocratic Papen assembled a cabinet of men like himself. This ineffective cabinet of aristocrats and industrialists presided over a nation that would soon be on the verge of anarchy. (…)
Big bankers and industrialists, including Krupp and I. G. Farben, lobbied Hindenburg and schemed behind the scenes on behalf of Hitler because they were convinced he would be good for business. He promised to be for free enterprise and keep down Communism and the trade union movements. (…)
In the small German state of Lippe, local elections were scheduled for January 15. Hitler and the Nazis took this opportunity to make a big impression. They saturated the place with propaganda and campaigned heavily, hoping to win big and prove they had regained momentum.
They received a small increase in votes over their previous election total. But they used their own widely circulated Nazi newspapers to exaggerate the significance and to once again lay claim that Hitler and the Nazis were the wave of the future. It worked well and even impressed President Hindenburg. (…)
But word of [a proposal to suspend elections, dissolve the Reichstag, and suppress the Nazi Party] leaked out, bringing Schleicher the wrath of the liberal and centrist parties. Schleicher then backed down, bringing him the wrath of anti-Nazi conservatives. His position was hopeless. (…)
Ibid.
1932 is also plagued by political violence, in which Nazi SA street thugs engaged members of the Communist Red Front in shootouts and beer-hall brawls. The Nazis in the Reichstag use the death tolls and the violence – which was often instigated by the Nazis on the street – as a political weapon against their enemies, proclaiming that they are being unjustly persecuted for their political beliefs.
-
- Early 1933 -
By [January, 1933], the economic pressures of the Great Depression combined with the indecisive, self-serving nature of its elected politicians had brought government in Germany to a complete standstill. The people were without jobs, without food, quite afraid and desperate for relief.
Now, the man who had spent his entire political career denouncing and attempting to destroy the Republic, was its leader.
Ibid.
Erich von Ludendorff, who, like Hindenburg, had commanded German forces during the Great War, telegrams the President: "By appointing Hitler Chancellor of the Reich you have handed over our sacred German Fatherland to one of the greatest demagogues of all time. I prophesy to you this evil man will plunge our Reich into the abyss and will inflict immeasurable woe on our nation. Future generations will curse you in your grave for this action."
[Coalition cabinet member and Vice Chancellor Franz] Papen and many non-Nazis thought having Hitler as chancellor was to their advantage. Conservative members of the former aristocratic ruling class desired an end to the republic and a return to an authoritarian government that would restore Germany to glory and bring back their old privileges. They wanted to go back to the days of the Kaiser. For them, putting Hitler in power was just the first step toward achieving that goal. They knew it was likely he would wreck the republic. Then once the republic was abolished, they could put in someone of their own choosing, perhaps even a descendant of the Kaiser.
Ibid.
- January 31, 1933 - Hitler manipulates Hindenburg into dissolving the Reichstag and calls for new elections, to be held on March 5. Later, he meets with military leaders and promises re-armament, eastward expansion, and Lebensraum while assuring them that the SA would not be elevated to some sort of replacement military. The photo below shows Nazi stormtroopers marching in celebration beneath the Brandenburg Gate the night Hitler became Chancellor.
Mach Schnell! Mach Schnell!
In last week's episode, I made a little fun of the leftist predilection for seeking consensus whenever we want to make a decision. It's the way we do things, and I've gotten used to it (after a fashion): our regard for democracy is such that we actually employ it in our decision-making processes. The thing we leftists often don't get is that fascists are utterly contemptuous of democracy – since the leader (or, in America's case, leadership) is the embodiment of the national will, why should he/they pay any heed to some douchebag (that would be us)'s opinion? Hitler understood this:
"The young [Nazi] movement is in its nature and inner organization anti-parliamentarian; that is, it rejects… a principle of majority rule in which the leader is degraded to the level of mere executant of other people's wills and opinion."
-- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 344
"By rejecting the authority of the individual and replacing it by the numbers of some momentary mob, the parliamentary principle of majority rule sins against the basic aristocratic principle of Nature…"
-- Ibid., p. 81
"For there is one thing we must never forget… the majority can never replace the man. And no more than a hundred empty heads make one wise man will an heroic decision arise from a hundred cowards."
-- Ibid., p. 82
Oh, sure, the Republicans and American Fascists will talk a good game (in campaign speeches and the like) about how their love of democracy is surpassed only by their love of Christ, their stupefying respect for the "government of our Founders," and the drooling pool of reverence they become every time they so much as think about the US Constitution – but it's all a lie. To the fascist, democracy is a tool constructed by suckers to enable themselves to feel good about their own demise. Fascists are all about twisting the meanings of democracy's most sacred precepts and using its rhetoric to inspire the Useful Idiots of their base, but only until a small knot of them actually achieves power. At that point – say, the next time the Fascists control all three branches of our government (and consider this: they've already got one-and-a-half in hand) – democracy will become a cumbersome, weak, and ineffectual means of governance, and they will simply do away with it.
Enough folks have pointed out the parallels (CT and otherwise) between the Reichstag Fire and Decree and 9/11 and the USA PATRIOT Act that I feel released from my obligations to rehash them here, but I do think it's worth looking at some of the things Hitler did once he had the dictatorial powers the Decree granted. Right off the bat, for example, he gave his people a target for their anger:
"The German people have been soft too long. Every Communist official must be shot. All Communist deputies must be hanged this very night. All friends of the Communists must be locked up. And that goes for the Social Democrats and the Reichsbanner as well!"
-- attributed by The History Place to Adolph Hitler, February 27, 1933
And in a move familiar to residents of certain towns in Michigan and elsewhere that are currently under the thumb of "Emergency Financial Managers," Hitler moved fast in depriving local governments of their traditional power and authority:
MARCH 31, 1933 - NAZI GOVERNORS APPOINTED TO GOVERN GERMAN STATES
Adolf Hitler replaces elected officials in state governments with Nazi appointees. One of the first steps in establishing centralized Nazi control in Germany is the elimination of state governments. Hermann Goering, a leading Nazi, becomes minister-president of Prussia, the largest German state. By 1935, state administrations are transferred to the central government in Berlin.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
There were other facets to the fascist consolidation of power in Germany - FSM, I didn't even get to Gleichschaltung! - but this is getting a little lengthy, even by moonbat standards. Guess we'll have to leave Mussolini's education policies for another time...
Historiorant
It doesn't really matter that we don't (yet) have a charismatic demagogue to order us into ranks in the name of a mythical past and a heroic, expansionist future (or do we?)…nor SA-style gangs roaming the streets, beating up whoever they please…nor moves to deputize teabaggers into an auxiliary police force…nor a president empowered to dissolve Congress. The precedents behind these actions would be particular to Germany in the early 1930s – to expect a precise repetition of events as this New Order of Fascists takes power here is to fail to understand how historical analogies work.
Some aspects of American Fascism are similar to Nazi Germany: the propaganda masters (Ailes, Murdoch); the opportunism, speed, and focus of attack (Govs. Walker, Christie, Kasich, et al); the intentional paralysis of government to the detriment of the people (Congressional Republicans re/ the nation's debt limit). NOTE: I am not calling Republicans as a whole, nor any individual members of their caucus, Nazis. They are not. Afaik, there are no Nazis in our government. Nazi doctrine contains a specific set of beliefs pertaining to race that were not shared (and were even abhorred) by other fascist leaders of the time. I repeat: none of our federal politicians are Nazis – but some of them are fascist.
While some aspects of the American descent into totalitarian rule resemble what happened in Germany, the clever New Order Fascist – and they are clever – will take his lessons from other countries, too. The application of religion as a tool of the state can be learned from the study of Dollfuss and Salazar; the forced consolidation and coordination of splintered rightist groups from Franco; how to use bullying, bluster, and public posturing in swaying the national mood from Hitler and Mussolini. This is what we've got to be on the lookout for as we man the barricades against the attacks of the Amerfascists: not a repetition of the single notes of history, but a chorus of analogies.