ideology, Communism. But even immediately after the war, though certainly a vicious anti-Semite, he still had not linked the Communists definitively with the Jews. In a guide to army instruction on “the danger of Jewry” that he wrote in September 1919, he called the Jews “a racial tuberculosis of the peoples” but argued for an “anti-Semitism of reason,” which “must lead to the systematic combatting and elimination of Jewish privileges,” with its “ultimate goal . . . the implacable removal of the Jews.”
Defeat in war was followed by widespread German suffering. “The effects of the inflation,” writes historian Anna Bramwell, “were to render fixed incomes and pensions valueless, to bankrupt many creditors, and to interfere with internal trade. This, together with the effects of the wartime blockade, had meant years of hunger and sickness. In 1919, 90 percent of all hospital beds were occupied by [tuberculosis] cases. British observers in Germany such as [John Maynard] Keynes commented on the starving children, their faces yellowed by shortages of fats. One striking feature of photographs of German crowds in the 1920s . . . is the gaunt faces.” The Depression, when seven million Germans were unemployed, finished the job. Humiliation, hyperinflation, hunger, unemployment encouraged messianic agitators such as Hitler.
Hitler “welcomed the misery,” writes one analyst, “. . . declaring the need for pride, will, defiance, and ‘hate, hate, and again hate!’ ” He soon realized, however, that his all-encompassing hatreds were confusing and began to narrow them down. He wanted to hang all the Jews in Germany, he told several interviewers fiercely, and leave them hanging until they stank, “as long as the principles of hygiene permit.” But he also talked calmly of deliberately searching for “the right kind of victim . . . especially one against whom the struggle would make sense, materially speaking,” and coming to the conclusion “that a campaign against the Jews would be as popular as it would be successful. . . . They are totally defenseless, and no one will stand up to protect them.” At another time he added, “Experience teaches us that after every catastrophe a scapegoat is found.”
As his allusion to scapegoating implies, Hitler’s dazzling rise to power, and the charismatic authority his millions of followers ceded to him, derive directly from the religion-like structure of his politics; National Socialism as Hitler organized it was essentially a religious cult. René Girard, a French anthropologist, has proposed that religions arise in times of great social conflict when the community drains its violence into a chosen scapegoat; his summary of the process could be a summary of the rise and triumph of Nazism:
Suddenly the opposition of everyone against everyone else is replaced by the opposition of all against one. Where previously there had been a chaotic ensemble of particular conflicts, there is now the simplicity of a single conflict: the entire community on one side, and on the other, the victim. The nature of this sacrificial resolution is not difficult to comprehend; the community finds itself unified once more at the expense of a victim who is not only incapable of self-defense but is also unable to provoke any reaction of vengeance; the immolation of such a victim would never create fresh conflict or augment the crisis, since the victim has unified the community in its opposition. The sacrifice is simply another act of violence, one that is added to a succession of others; but it is the final act of violence, the last word.
And this scapegoating process not only worked for a significant part, perhaps a majority, of the German public, it also worked personally for Hitler himself. From scattershot contempt for a wide range of persons, concepts and organizations, he began to discover Jews everywhere working devilishly behind the scenes. “The revolution of 1918 and the
Defeat in war was followed by widespread German suffering. “The effects of the inflation,” writes historian Anna Bramwell, “were to render fixed incomes and pensions valueless, to bankrupt many creditors, and to interfere with internal trade. This, together with the effects of the wartime blockade, had meant years of hunger and sickness. In 1919, 90 percent of all hospital beds were occupied by [tuberculosis] cases. British observers in Germany such as [John Maynard] Keynes commented on the starving children, their faces yellowed by shortages of fats. One striking feature of photographs of German crowds in the 1920s . . . is the gaunt faces.” The Depression, when seven million Germans were unemployed, finished the job. Humiliation, hyperinflation, hunger, unemployment encouraged messianic agitators such as Hitler.
Hitler “welcomed the misery,” writes one analyst, “. . . declaring the need for pride, will, defiance, and ‘hate, hate, and again hate!’ ” He soon realized, however, that his all-encompassing hatreds were confusing and began to narrow them down. He wanted to hang all the Jews in Germany, he told several interviewers fiercely, and leave them hanging until they stank, “as long as the principles of hygiene permit.” But he also talked calmly of deliberately searching for “the right kind of victim . . . especially one against whom the struggle would make sense, materially speaking,” and coming to the conclusion “that a campaign against the Jews would be as popular as it would be successful. . . . They are totally defenseless, and no one will stand up to protect them.” At another time he added, “Experience teaches us that after every catastrophe a scapegoat is found.”
As his allusion to scapegoating implies, Hitler’s dazzling rise to power, and the charismatic authority his millions of followers ceded to him, derive directly from the religion-like structure of his politics; National Socialism as Hitler organized it was essentially a religious cult. René Girard, a French anthropologist, has proposed that religions arise in times of great social conflict when the community drains its violence into a chosen scapegoat; his summary of the process could be a summary of the rise and triumph of Nazism:
Suddenly the opposition of everyone against everyone else is replaced by the opposition of all against one. Where previously there had been a chaotic ensemble of particular conflicts, there is now the simplicity of a single conflict: the entire community on one side, and on the other, the victim. The nature of this sacrificial resolution is not difficult to comprehend; the community finds itself unified once more at the expense of a victim who is not only incapable of self-defense but is also unable to provoke any reaction of vengeance; the immolation of such a victim would never create fresh conflict or augment the crisis, since the victim has unified the community in its opposition. The sacrifice is simply another act of violence, one that is added to a succession of others; but it is the final act of violence, the last word.
And this scapegoating process not only worked for a significant part, perhaps a majority, of the German public, it also worked personally for Hitler himself. From scattershot contempt for a wide range of persons, concepts and organizations, he began to discover Jews everywhere working devilishly behind the scenes. “The revolution of 1918 and the
Similar Books
![Training Their Mate [Pack Wars-Book 1]](https://fs.dianahicksbooks.com/559068/thumbs/152x264/training-their-mate-pack-wars-book-1.jpg)
