Two books usefully supplement the state of knowledge on Nazism and its
aftermath. ---- The book proposed by Johann Chapoutot, Christian Ingraoand Nicolas Patin is the result of a synthesis work by the best
French-speaking historians of Nazism. They offer a new perspective on
the research work that has multiplied over the past quarter of a century
and has particularly renewed or at least allowed us to deepen knowledge
of this political system. ---- The book is structured in three main
parts: the formation of Nazism until its rise to power, the first phase
of the dictatorship until the war and finally the war. ---- Nazism is
based on a dual movement: the anti-Semitism of German society and the
exacerbated nationalism, a consequence of the First World War. But the
National Socialist German Workers' Party, which was structured between
1920 and 1928, was initially marginal, even totally insignificant in
German society. The Nazi Party was rather young and interclass. At the
beginning of the 1930s, it received support from the right, whose voters
were switching to vote in its favor and to which several conservative
figures joined. Nazism relied on the street, the ballot box, and a
propaganda machine that was particularly large and rich from the
beginning of the 1930s; activists contributed much more than others to
the finances of their party. If in 1932, it was not in the majority,
Hindenburg appointed the leader of the first party as chancellor, which
was not a seizure of power; the detail is important, contrary to the
legend that was created immediately afterwards by the regime. Playing on
the Reichstag fire and fabricating a plot, they used their position of
strength to establish the dictatorship.
The second part emphasizes that power benefited from a broad consensus,
shared by certain business circles, but based on the agreement and
consent of a large part of the population. The Nazi regime was both a
polycracy where all the executives worked towards and for the Führer,
the NSDAP trying to take control of each segment of German society, but
it also benefited from the support of a part of the population who
accommodated the regime that the authors present as a dictatorship of
participation in which a part of the Germans benefited from hard cash
advantages. Moreover, for its opponents, this dictatorship was
accompanied by a complete, radical and bloody subjugation. Terrible, its
degree of violence remained clearly lower than the period of the war
which freed the impulses. The dictatorship was established by layer
affecting the political adversaries, with the opening of the first camp
in Oranienburg and at the same time the designated enemy, guilty of the
evils of Germany by birth, the Jews. It then extends to the entire
susceptible population, whatever the motive likely to oppose or disturb
order (marginals, vagabonds, beggars). The desire to purify society
extends and serves as an accelerator.
The third stage is the Genocidal War. The latter is both the product of
an ideological logic and the result of circumstances. German society, as
a whole, pursues the military logic of the First World War. The consent
mentioned above favors militarization. It is the war that brings to its
paroxysm the murderous impulses of Nazism and the forced
industrialization that facilitate the different phases of the war of
extermination conducted in the East: the Holocaust by bullets then the
extermination camps represent the culmination.
After four years of mass slaughter and a war of new violence, the regime
collapsed and decomposed at a speed that caused a wave of terror in the
country among its supporters, many of whom preferred to end their lives
rather than face the judgment of their contemporaries. Nazism collapsed,
some, particularly in business circles, managed to survive and adapt, as
David De Jong's book shows.
Nazism also relied on the entrepreneurial community. Some of these
facilitated Hitler's rise to power, especially afterwards. Through the
study of some of the great industrial families Quandt, Flick, Von Finck,
Porsche, Oetker, the journalist shows how these industrialists initially
supported the Nazis' rise to power. The Quandts are one example. A
textile industrialist, one of the sons of the family, Gunther married
Magda Behrend. Although they separated in 1929, Magda married Joseph
Goebbels shortly afterwards. Gunther Quandt showed his support for the
Nazi Party in 1931, financing it extensively. The family firm developed
its activity in the military industry. In exchange for its previous
support, AFA, which manufactured batteries for submarines, received a
number of orders, using the free labor provided by the Nazi
concentration camp system. Gunther Quandt was worried for a few months,
but was able to resume his activity very quickly after the war and pass
on the company's capital to his descendants who, for decades, remained
silent about their ancestor's actions. Second example: the Porsche
family. Support for the regime was just as obvious. In 1933, Ferdinand
suggested to Hitler that he launch a car for the people, the future
Volkswagen Beetle. From 1939, the leader planned the production of
military equipment and, like Quandt, used deported labor. Arrested, he
managed to pass on the company to his son without the latter being
worried and the factories being requisitioned.
Third example among others, Rudolf August Oetker, son of an
industrialist who made his fortune in the food industry, enlisted in the
Waffen SS, he was one of the officers who guarded the Dachau camp. Never
worried, he managed to live until the age of 90 at the head of this company.
The examples used by the author are rich, these families were able to
prosper without the slightest questioning. Money has no smell.
The Nazi world 1919-1945
Johann Chapoutot, Christian Ingrao, Nicolas Patin
Tallandier 2024 630 p. EUR27.50
Nazi billionaires
David De Jong
Nouveau Monde 2024 452 p. EUR24.90
https://monde-libertaire.fr/?articlen=8047
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten