I wonder if "Hitler's" people just "burned out" leading to that horror.

[Just Me]

I know we have many who are knowledgeable about those years.

Have any read that the German people simply, "burned out" opposing the evolving oppressive government?

Jus' wonderin'?

[Deja Q]

1. Dunno, but I recall from high school:

Hitler took power and got the German economy rolling again. Due to WW 1, the German economy crumbled. Hitler had both charisma and chutzpah and the people loved it. (and the people were already at rock bottom.)

Funny how people compare Bush to Hitler. It doesn't seem quite right, somehow...

[Just Me]

2. Nothing in history ever perfectly compares, ever.

I just note increasing discontent and burn out via info releases: either they protest or they quit.

Just my personal perception. I am but one person exploring this life (I consider wacko) among billions.

[BrotherBuzz]

9. The Great Depression took Germany down

Germany was making a slow recovery from World War I, but got hit very hard by the Great World Depression, partly brought on by reckless banking practices the US thrust upon Europe after the war.

The U.S. went from being a traditional debtor of Europe before World War I to becoming its creditor: America had financed the war and it was issuing loans for its reconstruction. However, the attitudes in the U.S. were evolving in an unusual direction: an increasing number of American financiers were starting to literally seek potential borrowers which led to competition to among U.S. banks and the spread of unsound lending. The main object was to "do the most business", even at the expense of essential caution.

What seemed like a beginning of recovery from the Great War, was in fact an immense accumulation of debts, which made the international economic order vulnerable to depression. Analyzing these events with the insight we have today, they seem even more unbelievably audacious given the high instability of borrowing nations.

Hitler rose to power during the vacuum of the depression.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. Nah, they were fanatical up until the end.

Even Bush's cronies can see the writing on the wall.

[Kutjara]

4. Not 'burned out' exactly...

...but the German people were certainly desperate after their country's evisceration by the allied powers at Versailles. The 1920s were a difficult time economically and society was crumbling. Communists and anarchists fought proto-fascists in the streets. The currency was in freefall. The global economic collapse that followed the 1929 Stock Market crash was the icing on the cake.

People were tired of the complexities and uncertainties of politics and angry at the erosion of their way of life. When a diminutive Austrian with a comedy moustache turned up and told them that the solution to their problems was very simple and that he was the man with the plan, a lot of people believed him. A few political shenanigans later, and Mr. Hitler is top dog. He then spent lots of money rebuilding Germany's civilian and military infrastructure, which created lots of jobs and improved people's standard of living. This won him a lot more support. The Jews were merely a convenient scapegoat for everything that didn't work out the way the Nazis wanted them. If something worked, it was due to the Nazis. If it failed, it was because of the Jewish conspiracy. To their shame, a lot of people believed this too.

So I don't think it was burnout in the way you mean, but it was certainly desperation, destitution and hoplessness that fuelled the Nazi rise to power.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. "All politics is local" - Tip O'neil - True in Germany, true here.

For most Germans, the doings of the government were of scant interest unless it effected them personally. Hitler was lucky, in many ways, in that after he took power the world economy began to emerge from the depression. Most Germans were glad to be working again and gave the Nazis credit simply because they happened to be in power at the time.

They were not always happy about the doings of the Nazis, the general repression, the persecution of the Jews, the warmongering, the undermining of the church (especially the Catholics), etc, but they accepted their powerlessness and were able to rationalize the rest as necessary to bring order and safety to Germany.

For the best first hand account of what it was like, try reading "I Will Bear Witness" by Victor Klemperer. A very patriotic German Jew who was married to an Aryan and protected (somewhat) from the death camps.

He kept a meticulous, day to day, diary throughout the Nazi years. By far,the most chilling account of how fascism can become "acceptable" to common people.

[Just Me]

6. Germany was the size of,....Texas, maybe?

Your information re the economic accounts is appreciated.

I will acquire your recommended reading "I Will Bear Witness" even though I suspect it will NOT improve my foresight about our country.

Meanwhile, let's just :hug: one another through this life. What better to do other than oppose? :shrug:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. I urge you, and anyone else, to read it.

It's a long read, two volumes, but impossible to put down once started. Klemperer, (cousin of Otto Klemperer the conductor), was a professor of French literature, a decorated WWI veteran, a converted Protestant, and a member of the "Centrum" (Center) party.

If you have any notion that "it can't happen here" his diaries will dispel them.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. delete

It's a long read, two volumes, but impossible to put down once started. Klemperer, (cousin of Otto Klemperer the conductor), was a professor of French literature, a decorated WWI veteran, a converted Protestant, and a member of the "Centrum" (Center) party.

If you have any notion that "it can't happen here" his diaries will dispel them.

[RoyGBiv]

7. I would call it the opposite ...

Not sure what to call the opposite of "burned out," but it's along those lines.

Widespread opposition in Germany was opposition to the Republic and its leaders that were presumably responsible for the loss of WWI. It was also opposition to the British, French, and other Allied powers of the 1st World War who had enforced harsh terms after the war. By extension, Jews and other minorities were used as scapegoats in a local sense, a philosophy imported in an organized form from French radicals who blamed Jews for pretty much everything bad that happened. In short, the Germans by and large didn't oppose Hitler's government. That's what they wanted.

Kutjara's post gives a good summary as well.

[kiraboo]

8. Another very good book is called

"Voices of the Third Reich" by Johannes Steinhoff. It's a series of short essays or comments by people who lived in Germany before, during and after Hitler's rise to power. I remember one contributor who described his son coming home from school and discussing the "Jewish problem". It was then he realized the impact of the gradual but definite changes in the country he grew up in, and he was shocked.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Agreed. To understand the mindset of the people one must read the people.

There are several other books along the same line. They are all chilling in their depiction of how easy it is for the "ordinary" people to be led into, and justify, horrors.

[ComerPerro]

11. Maybe they were tired of being threatened and bullied

I sure as hell am.