EmptyTimCup
07-22-2012, 01:14 PM
on Hitler and National Socialists;
Pg 30 Para 1-2
Hermann Rauschning, an early Nazi who broke with Hitler, encapsulated this point when he famously dubbed Hitler's movement "The Revolution of Nihilism." According to Rauschning, Hitler was a pure opportunist devoid of loyalty to men or ideas - unless you call hatred of Jews an idea - and willing to break oaths, liquidate people, and say or do anything to achieve and hold power. "This movement is totally without ideals and lacks even the semblance of a program. Its commitment is entirely to action...the leaders choose action on a cold, calculating and cunning basis. For National Socialists there was and is no aim they would not take up or drop at a moment's notice, their only criterion being the strengthening of the movement." Rauschning exaggerated the case, but it is perfectly true that Nazi ideology cannot be summarized in a program or platform. It can be better understood as a maelstrom of prejudices, passions, hatreds, emotions, resentments, biases, hopes, and attitudes that, when combined, most often resembled a religious crusade wearing the mask of apolitical ideology.
Contrary to his relentless assertions in Mein Kampf, Hitler had no great foundational ideas or ideological system. His genius lay in the realization that people wanted to rally to ideas and symbols. And so his success lay in the quintessential techniques, technologies, and icons of the twentieth century - marketing, advertising, radio, airplanes, TV (he broadcast the Berlin Olympics), film (think Leni Riefenstahl), and. most of all, oratory to massive, exquisitely staged rallies. Time and again in Mein Kampf, Hitler makes it clear that he believed his greatest gift to the party wasn't his ideas but his ability to speak. Conversely, his sharpest criticism of others seems to be that soand- so was not a good speaker. This was more than simple vanity on Hitler's part. In the 1930s, in Germany and America alike, the ability to sway the masses through oratory was often the key to power. "Without the loudspeaker,"
However, saying that Hitler had a pragmatic view of ideology is not to say that he didn't use ideology. Hitler had many ideologies. Indeed he was an ideology peddler. Few "great men" were more adept at adopting, triangulating, and blending different ideological poses for different audiences. This was the man, after all who had campaigned as an ardent anti-Bolshevik, then signed a treaty with Stalin, and convinced Neville Chamberlain as well as Western pacifists that he was a champion of peace while busily (and openly) arming for war.
Nevertheless, the four significant "ideas" we can be sure Hitler treasured in their own right were power concentrated in himself, hatred - and fear - of Jews, faith in the racial superiority of the German Volk, and, ultimately, war to demonstrate and secure the other three.
The popular conception that Hitler was a man of the right is grounded in a rich complex of assumptions and misconceptions about what constitutes left and right, terms that get increasingly slipper}' the more you try to nail them down. This is a problem we will be returning to throughout this book, but we should deal with it here at least as to how it related to Hitler and Nazism.
The conventional story of Hitler's rise to power goes something like this: Hitler and the Nazis exploited popular resentment over Germany's perceived illegitimate defeat in World War I ("the stab in the back" by communists, Jews, and weak politicians) and the unjust "peace" imposed at Versailles. Colluding with capitalists and industrialists eager to defeat the Red menace (including, in some of the more perfervid versions, the Bush family)- the Nazis staged a reactionary coup by exploiting patriotic sentiment and mobilizing the "conservative" - often translated as racist and religious - elements in German society. Once in power, the Nazis established "state capitalism" as a reward to the industrialists, who profited further from the Nazis' push to exterminate the Jews.
who else sounds like this ......... :popcorn:
Pg 30 Para 1-2
Hermann Rauschning, an early Nazi who broke with Hitler, encapsulated this point when he famously dubbed Hitler's movement "The Revolution of Nihilism." According to Rauschning, Hitler was a pure opportunist devoid of loyalty to men or ideas - unless you call hatred of Jews an idea - and willing to break oaths, liquidate people, and say or do anything to achieve and hold power. "This movement is totally without ideals and lacks even the semblance of a program. Its commitment is entirely to action...the leaders choose action on a cold, calculating and cunning basis. For National Socialists there was and is no aim they would not take up or drop at a moment's notice, their only criterion being the strengthening of the movement." Rauschning exaggerated the case, but it is perfectly true that Nazi ideology cannot be summarized in a program or platform. It can be better understood as a maelstrom of prejudices, passions, hatreds, emotions, resentments, biases, hopes, and attitudes that, when combined, most often resembled a religious crusade wearing the mask of apolitical ideology.
Contrary to his relentless assertions in Mein Kampf, Hitler had no great foundational ideas or ideological system. His genius lay in the realization that people wanted to rally to ideas and symbols. And so his success lay in the quintessential techniques, technologies, and icons of the twentieth century - marketing, advertising, radio, airplanes, TV (he broadcast the Berlin Olympics), film (think Leni Riefenstahl), and. most of all, oratory to massive, exquisitely staged rallies. Time and again in Mein Kampf, Hitler makes it clear that he believed his greatest gift to the party wasn't his ideas but his ability to speak. Conversely, his sharpest criticism of others seems to be that soand- so was not a good speaker. This was more than simple vanity on Hitler's part. In the 1930s, in Germany and America alike, the ability to sway the masses through oratory was often the key to power. "Without the loudspeaker,"
However, saying that Hitler had a pragmatic view of ideology is not to say that he didn't use ideology. Hitler had many ideologies. Indeed he was an ideology peddler. Few "great men" were more adept at adopting, triangulating, and blending different ideological poses for different audiences. This was the man, after all who had campaigned as an ardent anti-Bolshevik, then signed a treaty with Stalin, and convinced Neville Chamberlain as well as Western pacifists that he was a champion of peace while busily (and openly) arming for war.
Nevertheless, the four significant "ideas" we can be sure Hitler treasured in their own right were power concentrated in himself, hatred - and fear - of Jews, faith in the racial superiority of the German Volk, and, ultimately, war to demonstrate and secure the other three.
The popular conception that Hitler was a man of the right is grounded in a rich complex of assumptions and misconceptions about what constitutes left and right, terms that get increasingly slipper}' the more you try to nail them down. This is a problem we will be returning to throughout this book, but we should deal with it here at least as to how it related to Hitler and Nazism.
The conventional story of Hitler's rise to power goes something like this: Hitler and the Nazis exploited popular resentment over Germany's perceived illegitimate defeat in World War I ("the stab in the back" by communists, Jews, and weak politicians) and the unjust "peace" imposed at Versailles. Colluding with capitalists and industrialists eager to defeat the Red menace (including, in some of the more perfervid versions, the Bush family)- the Nazis staged a reactionary coup by exploiting patriotic sentiment and mobilizing the "conservative" - often translated as racist and religious - elements in German society. Once in power, the Nazis established "state capitalism" as a reward to the industrialists, who profited further from the Nazis' push to exterminate the Jews.
who else sounds like this ......... :popcorn: