Episode 5: Script

Hello everyone, and welcome or welcome back to Ordinary Lives Extraordinary Times where we return to the past and experience the rise and fall of the Nazis as seen by real people.

In our previous visit, we explored the basic causes and heard citizens and visitors describe their early struggles during the Great Depression.

 Crime, unemployment, hunger, and a few prophets with premonitions of war.

In this visit we’ll hear from some of those same people. Sebastian Haffner, our old friend in the legal field will be telling us his experiences.

Lady Rumbold, the aristocratic wife of British Ambassador Horace Rumbold, continues to follow the events gripping the country. She sees what is happening an knows change is in the air.

Among European elites, interest in popular politics was considered both polite and important self-preservation. The aristocracy had watched their Russian counterparts dismissed unrest right up until they followed the Tsar into the grave.

We’ll also meet some new people; both Germans and visitors from abroad who recount their lives inside Germany.

First Stop: A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

I titled the segment using a quote by Abraham Lincoln. He understood that a nation cannot have two opposing foundations and still function.

A young citizen of Cologne recalled seeing Nazism surface in mundane life. Even before the Nazi takeover, Party members commonly used the Hitler salute as a standard greeting:

“I will never forget the first time I saw this salute…I stood waiting at a streetcar stop and a young man in normal Sunday clothes stood next to me. A streetcar came and a fellow got out wearing a brown shirt and a red armband with a swastika. The two men looked at each other, threw up their arms, and loudly shouted ‘Heil, Hitler!’ Several older people shook their heads but didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what it meant. When I asked my father he said you can forget about them. Errare Humanum est.

Voices from the Third Reich xxxvi

A book, The Collapse of Complex Societies details the causes how civilizations decline. The author’s observations fit Weimar Germany quite well. The central argument is simple:

A society begins to decline when its people lose faith in the ability of its systems and institutions to solve their problems. It sounds selfish but that is the duty of every government everywhere.

When enough people conclude that the authorities are unable, or unwilling, to meet their basic needs, faith in the system begins to die.

And I mean ‘faith’ in the literal sense of the word. To believe in the System you need it. Why? You cannot know every in and out, motivation and corruption within it. Parts of it are restricted. Others are classified. Others are denied to exist for the collective good.

Granted, they might not be well kept secrets like Area 51. But we, as a culture, seem to have made our peace with that anomaly in pop culture enough to shrug it off.

But when people stop shrugging and start asking whether the system still works for them, trouble begins.

And when enough people reach that conclusion at the same time, history gives that process a different name: revolution.

Notice that a government doesn’t have to fail for a mass of its population to demand a radical change. It simply has to appear incapable.

Notice that a government doesn’t have to fail for a mass of its population to demand a radical change. It simply has to appear incapable.

What did we say last episode? The unemployment rate was 30%? In America it was 25%.

Listener, please remember this: People do not “experience” economic statistics. They experience empty cupboards, overdue bills, and the humiliation of being unable to provide for people who depend on them. Those experiences shape political beliefs far more effectively than any speech can.

Communists wasted no time rushing to the aid of the people.

They recruited! organized rent strikes in working class districts where they could barely afford to pay the rent. The message of class struggle became receptive to more people as they lost jobs or had hours and wages cut.

Traditionalists saw this Red tide as dangerous to the established order inside the home, at the workplace, and on the street. Nowhere was safe from the Communists and that was, in part, thanks to Communist propaganda which tended to paint themselves as all over.

Labor unions began identifying Communists in the workplace so employers could dismiss them, and sometimes even suspicion was enough to cost someone their job.

The hatred didn’t stop at the hyenas in the management office. When Reich Chancellor Bruning stepped up to the podium things were going from bad…to worse.

As debts outpaced incomes across Germany, citizens watched the Reich Chancellor bypass the normal legislature and issue “emergency decrees” that cut their salaries or banned or censored newspapers critical of his financial cuts. The people aptly called him “The Hunger Chancellor.”

I’m going to jump to his defense!

Bruning was stuck in a tight spot. But he had a plan! One way to keep the economy afloat was to export more goods abroad to create a demand for German goods. Sounds intelligent, right? But to do that would require devaluing the Reichsmark to be more competitive on the international market. Bruning refused.

Why? There are a number of reasons but the major one is: To intentionally devalue the currency would break the terms of several foreign loan agreements. And to break the terms was the same as saying Germany can no longer be trusted to meet her obligations. It was a risk he couldn’t take. Foreign credit kept much of the economy alive.

Option 2 was cut spending even further. How do you do that when you already cut the budget? Let this next part be a cautionary tale:

He cut the unemployment benefits. Again. If you held part-time employment or a third-party contract…I’m sorry. You’re no longer eligible to collect government benefits. Don’t panic, there’re other ways to get help. State and county benefits existed alongside help from the Church. But they don’t have the ability to cope with the mass influx of needs.

And just like that, millions were thrown into poverty.

A year later, 2 of the country’s largest banks went under. Poof! Ceased to exist!

Germany was standing on the edge of a cliff. Her national debt jumped higher and higher until it exceeded the amount of gold held inside the US Reserve.  

Needless to say, this was the least popular administration in the history of Weimar.

There is a dandy little poem written to honor Reich Chancellor Bruning which made the rounds among the rank-and-file:

Wait a while and just you’ll see,

And Bruning will come up to you

With the ninth emergency decree

And make mincemeat out of you.

Coming of the Third Reich, 254.

It takes a dark turn there at the end but I think that is the most important part of the entire parody. They feel like the politicians are feeding you through the meat grinder to benefit off their labor.

But Brüning did try his own methods to dig Germany out of the hole in which she found herself. While people like you and me, Listener, were trying to keep our families off the street, the Reich Chancellor was attempting to cancel the Versailles reparations and quietly laying plans to rearm Germany.

If successful, rearmament might have taken the wind out of one of the Nazis’ strongest arguments: that only they could restore Germany’s pride and honor.

Before you say anything, hear me out.

A larger army meant jobs. Soldiers would need food, uniforms, housing, weapons, and training. Farmers would see greater demand for their crops. Textile mills would receive contracts. Engineers, carpenters, cobblers, and factory workers would find steady employment supporting the expansion.

Brüning’s reasoning seemed straightforward enough. If the Allies had failed to disarm themselves—as many Germans pointed out they had promised to do—then Germany should be allowed to expand her own defenses. So Brüning went to the Allies and asked for permission. They said no. I’m pretty sure I read somebody laughed.

The newspapers reported every step of the affair. Germans could read exactly what had happened. Yet facts and public relations are not always the same thing.

What people saw was not a statesman fighting diplomatic battles abroad. They saw an empty pantry, an overdue rent bill, and a government that seemed incapable of improving their lives.

Worse still, the same government that had cut wages and benefits now appeared unable to act without foreign approval. The question began to spread: Who is really running Germany?

A government does not have to fail for people to demand a radical change; it only has to appear powerless. Typical. While politicians argued over treaties, reparations, and military restrictions, many ordinary people felt their own needs had become an afterthought.

Before we go further, let’s define what people actually need. It’s remarkably little.

Most listeners have probably encountered the psychologist Abraham Maslow at some point while in school. His famous hierarchy of needs isn’t perfect but it’s pretty useful.

Human beings generally require:

1. Food
2. Shelter
3. Belonging (Like part of a group)
4. Respect/recognition
5. A sense of purpose

Basic! But the ruling parties showed themselves to be unable to keep up with the emergencies as they kept piling up.

In her book, Hitler’s Path to Power, Isabella Hayes argues the failure of the Republic’s ability to manage the needs of the people, QUOTE “…reinforced the appeal of authoritarian rule as a more ‘authentic’ expression of the German spirit. Fascism presented itself as the [solution].”  END QUOTE

Citizens abandoned mainstream politicians for more effective leadership. Geoffrey Cox’s landlady, who’d lost both her husband and all three sons in the Great War, was crippled by the high taxes and looked at the Brownshirts as potential saviors. Did she think them thugs before things went belly up? Maybe. These Germans are not stone monoliths.

There were those who’d take their support too far though. Cox’s professor was so vehemently pro-Nazi he was arrested and spent 3 weeks in prison [Travellers in the Third Reich 95].

The words used in the letter, according to author Juliet Boyd, were Nazi prison but this was written well before the Nazis came to power. This archivist believes he might have been held by police and thrown into detention for his Nazi affiliations or agitation during one of the many riots. Police might have even had the foresight to separate the two sides while in the clink. For this archivist it’s all conjecture. But I will point out it seems logical, does it not?

Some people began to wonder what it meant to be a German. People rarely stop to define their identity when life is going well. They ask such questions when the world around them stops making sense.

Society increasingly polarized between the authoritarian Right and the revolutionary Left, each offering its own answer to the same question: Who are we?

With 1932 being an election year there would be ample chance for the People to weigh in on that thought at the ballot box.

Second Stop: Hard Times for the Soul

Hitler’s wild orations attracted more followers than conventional right-wing champions who used long words with flat dull monotones. Hitler gained much of his attention by telling people what they liked to hear, appealing to religious archetypes of suffering and humiliation.

Antisemitic slogans would be use where they would have the best results on the audience and left out when it might hinder. It was one of their strengths; they paid attention to their focus groups, so to speak – each were won over by the posters and leaflets designed to seduce their demographic specifically.

Among the hardest hit by the financial crisis were rural farmers and Germany had millions of ‘em. They witness the price for wheat, milk, livestock and all drop off a cliff. That means with each harvest, less money comes in profit – if any. But you still need fertilizer and feed. Then you’re shackled by taxes. You can’t pay the taxes because you don’t have money. Then the tax man comes calling and the bank throws you out on the street.

I’m not talking about a single farmer and his family. It takes labor to run a farm. Back then without the benefits of mass-produced farm equipment, A LOT of labor. With each farm that went under meant the hands employed there now found themselves without work. And back then unemployment wasn’t generally a “big issue” in small towns, so this was…a new experience for many. With these farmhands now out of work the strain on smaller, local economies began to buckle as bad as those in the major cities [Evans 236].

Among the hardest hit the Nazis found those more receptive to a message which offered simple explanations to complex (to put it lightly) problems and more important: someone to blame! Foreign bankers, Communists, liberals, and [pause] Jews.

In 1930 the Volksblatt, a local Northeim newspaper, reported:

“A worker who had been employed every harvest season for the past twenty years was now turned down because he was a [leftist]. The worker stated the employment chief told him he would have to change his politics if he wanted work.”

The Nazi Seizure of Power. 71

Granted, not all farmers helped the Nazis from sheer conviction. Police had evidence farm owners around Northeim were forced into the Party under threat of boycott. Farmers were required to pay the Party dues of the farm hands so if you were a lowly laborer a member of the Party and a bunch of others were members of the Party, you could save yourself a few marks a month blackmailing or extorting your boss to joining “for his own good” of course. But the reverse was also true. Farm laborers could also be forced to join up by their boss or risk termination [Nazi Seizure of Power 76].

Their country was in the throes of the Great Depression and things were just starting to heat up. Some cities and towns did their best to soften the burdens of the unemployed. Cultural films were shown for pennies or free in some instances.

The town of Northeim began vocational training for young unemployed, and families could lease city-owned land for growing vegetables and other foodstuffs. [The Nazi Seizure of Power. 72]

But it was all too little too late. People began looking for alternative arrangements for governance. The debate for change didn’t end with adults and the workplaces. Thanks to a tidal wave of propaganda, extremist politics found its way into the classroom.

Citizen Theo Hufauer had his own brushes with it while at University:

In the end there were no longer political assemblies…but parades like military maneuvers and large-scale street fights. All the young men were involved. That’s when I joined the Nazi party, in 1930. To me, the old-line conservative parties were too tame; too establishment. They were for old men who’d lost their fire.

Voices from the Third Reich, xxvi

A visiting American diplomat likened the National Socialist movement to a religion based on pseudoscience and tribal psychology with an immense contempt for compromise-based politics.

These emotions resonate deep within the people and can be pretty easy to generate when you know which buttons to push. The Great Depression did most of the heavy lifting in that department. Tell an unemployed man he’s being humiliated and he’ll probably listen. Tell the same thing to a man able to pay his bills and he’s likely to laugh at you.

To encapsulate the anger many people felt toward the establishment there was a feeling of hopelessness. Radical problems, some argued, required radical solutions.

My friends wanted Germany purified…of the politicians. Of all the politicians. They wanted a representative leader in a place of unrepresentative representatives.

They Thought They Were Free 101

My friends, if this sounds familiar at all, it is a common symptom of hopelessness. I cannot speak for everyone but it is times like these people lose their faith in compromise and debates and want someone to cut through the red tape.

There were countless journalists and editors working overtime to expose the Nazis. Fritz Gerlich (shot, 1934), Carl von Ossietzky (Nobel laureate), and others. Newspapers across Germany accused Party leaders of corruption, thuggery, abuse of power, and just about every other charge imaginable. But for many ordinary Germans, none of it mattered enough. They might not have liked the Nazis. They might not have trusted them. But they were still willing to listen.

Hitlerism had to answer Communism with something just as radical. Communism always used force! Hitlerism answered it with force. The…absolute enemy of Communism…was National Socialism.

They Thought They Were Free 95.

The atmosphere began to change. Not just politically. Culturally. Socially. Even linguistically! The language of extremism seeped into daily life.

Sebastian Haffner remembered the shift vividly:

“We felt the tide rise around us…Words like strike force, pledge… subhuman – [all of it] a revolting jargon; every syllable of which implied a world of violent stupidity.”

Victor Klemperer, notable sociologist studied this political socialization in detail after being on the receiving end of it, argued Nazi language seeped into daily speech “drop by drop”. You hear it once. Thrice. Then you hear it more frequently and tune it out. Then you might find yourself using words like Aryan and racial hygiene.

That‘s the point! The vocabulary is constructed to sound like something you’re supposed to want because it can mean whatever you want. If you wanted a strong people’s community to challenge the French all you gotta do is exclude groups of people living on the fringes of society. If you want a ‘resurrection’ of the army then the shops might carry fewer radios and cookware.

I want to point out here this strategy is used repeatedly in marketing and politics. Called the ‘false dilemma’, this tactic strips any other possible alternatives. The Nazis presented themselves as the only protectors in the world of militant politics which they themselves participated.

As for their choice in the word ‘free’ seems like a contradiction in terms. But we have the benefit of looking back in hindsight. People like throwing the word around without the slightest understanding of what it means.

It’s one of those words it seems people can wear like a superman cape and pretend they are protecting law and order.

Political speeches became something of a national pastime during the Great Depression. Most parties still behaved like it was 1900. The Nazis behaved like it was 1950 because they understood something their opponents did not. Modern politics wasn’t just about ideas. It was about generating attention and telling a story. They got the story down with enough versions and variations to satisfy a wide stratum of society but it wasn’t enough. One has to know how to get the word out in today’s modern age. Technology recently gave mass communication a boost in the form of radio!

Sure, they also kept things old school using volunteers going door-to-door. Leaflets glued to pedestrian walls. Loudspeakers also blasted speeches into public squares. Radio broadcasts carried Nazi messages inside homes across the country.

All this generated a lot of attention. Familiarity, however, didn’t necessarily breed affection. Many Germans found Hitler personally off-putting, even grotesque. It was a far cry from the typical clean-cut aristocratic politicians of yester-year. Yet that revulsion was often accompanied by something else entirely: fascination.

Stop Three: Elections to the Third Exponent

The slogan for the 1932 Nazi Party was:

If you want your country to go Bolshevik vote Communist. If you want to remain free Germans, vote Nazi!

They Thought They Were Free 95

I want to point out here this strategy is used repeatedly in marketing and politics. Called the ‘false dilemma’, this tactic strips any other possible alternatives. The Nazis presented themselves as the only protectors in the world of militant politics which they themselves participated.

As for their choice in the word ‘free’ seems like a contradiction in terms. But we have the benefit of looking back in hindsight. People like throwing the word around without the slightest understanding of what it means.

It’s one of those words it seems people can wear like a superman cape and pretend they are protecting law and order.

Political speeches became something of a national pastime during the Great Depression.

Most parties still behaved like it was 1900.

The Nazis behaved like it was 1950 because they understood something their opponents did not. Modern politics wasn’t just about ideas. It was about generating attention and telling a story. They got the story down with enough versions and variations to satisfy a wide stratum of society but it wasn’t enough. One has to know how to get the word out in today’s modern age. Technology recently gave mass communication a boost in the form of radio!

Sure, they also kept things old school using volunteers going door-to-door. Leaflets glued to pedestrian walls.

But!

Loudspeakers also blasted speeches into public squares. Radio broadcasts carried Nazi messages inside homes across the country.

It was his ability to make people believe he alone had the answers.

Political slogans like Honor and Freedom. Work and Bread! Were humble and strong enough to attract the attention and support of many generous voters

Herr Haffner shares his own words about the future dictator:

To ordinary Germans, his personal appearance was thoroughly repellent; the hoodlum’s elegance, Viennese suburban accent, interminable speechifying, epileptic behavior with its wild gesticulations and foaming at the mouth, and the alternately shifty and staring eyes… That was the strange thing. Their fascination with the cesspool he represented, repulsiveness taken into extremes.

Defying Hitler. 87

And! Adolf Hitler himself traveled the campaign train in his own private airplane – not bad for a former unemployed street artist. Membership dues and generous corporate contributions kept the Nazis’ wheels running before they had the wealth of Germany to play with.

A citizen might attend a rally at noon to hear Hitler speak in person, return home, and then listen to another speech broadcast from hundreds of miles away later that evening.

The man seemed to be everywhere at once. And that was exactly the point!

The campaign was called Hitler über Deutschland, “Hitler Over Germany.”

The symbolism mattered almost as much as the speeches themselves; Germans suffered. They felt left behind. And here was a politician literally coming from the sky like a messenger from the future.

Newspapers covered every stop. Supporters flocked to rallies and brought curious friends. The number of people able to hear from his Bavarian upstart rose exponentially.

Our young friend, Gunther Goldschmidt, is a young man of 18 now and remains in Oldenburg with his family. Herr Goldschmidt came across one of Hitler’s election campaign speeches while heading to an appointment:

Hitler attacked the Republic. He denounced the Versailles Treaty. He praised the German people. He blamed political opponents and Jews for the nation’s suffering. Each grievance became a symptom of a bigger story. Each frustrated was given a villain to blame. Each problem had a solution. What was the response? Herr Goldschmidt will tell you in his own words.

Pandemonium. The crowd…surged forward, [people] in the windows seemed to swoop down. The Nazis in their brown uniforms closed protectively around their leader and bore him to the backseat of a convertible automobile nearby. There he stood and reviewed a parade of his followers as they passed by, his upraised right arm returning their salute…the whole mesmerizing spectacle a curious combination of calm confidence and bitter resentment.

[Goldsmith 27]

It was theater! The Nazis were building an emotional experience. And emotional experiences are often remembered long after facts are forgotten. To Herr Goldschmidt, the spectacle was both mesmerizing and unsettling. That combination would become one of the most powerful tools in modern politics.

The Nazis understood this. Many of their opponents did not.

And while those opponents argued over policy, procedure, and constitutional details, the Nazis were busy capturing the public imagination.

A frequently asked question is why didn’t the Opposition rally around someone? A German anti-Hitler to defeat and save the Republic?

There was no one. The Left was too fractured to stage any real electoral resistance. There was little hope for a new organized force to emerge to combat the Nazis with symbols and words.

In June, there was an urgent call to the Social Democrats and the Communists to form a collective list of candidates which would form a united bloc against the Nazis. I’m going to have an excerpt here but you can find a link to the full text on my blog.

Urgent Appeal!

The annihilation of all personal and political freedom
in Germany is imminent, if there is not success at the last minute,
without prejudice to the principles of opposites, to consolidate
all forces that are united in the rejection of fascism.

In a world without cell phones, internet, and other forms of remote communication, popular demonstrations like picketing and marches were a common sight during the Great Depression.

In Nordheim in 1932, every political faction held marches and rallies. At one such event, a member of parliament spoke before a troop of uniformed Brownshirts. He denounced former chancellor Brüning as a failure, dismissed von Papen’s government as merely transitional, and argued that Hitler should be given power legally—remarks that drew thunderous applause and martial music.

Not to be outdone in the wanna-be soldiers department, the Socialist put on their own rally. An advertisement appealed to the ideals of man. In the translation…keep in mind the term Republican refers to all those who favor the Republic. It was not a political party in Weimar Germany.

To all Republicans of Northeim County! On Saturday, […] Demonstration of the Republican Workers […] against fascism. The streets belong to the Republicans! Therefore, all Republicans must march!

The Nazi Seizure of Power

I’ll save you the suspense and tell you the call-to-actions failed. Hard. But this call tells us something. The military wasn’t being seen as defenders of the State. It was a possession of the State. Remember the Army refused to fight the Kapp Putsch a few years before.

It fell to the People themselves to fight for the Republic. But who could they rally behind? The Communists were seen as perpetual losers and existential threats by everyone at the same time. The Social Democrats were isolated from the realities of what Germany had become and looked incompetent to prevent anything that had happened up to this point.

Maybe it was. Maybe political infighting sabotages more than we give credit for. The point is, the mechanics of democracy were now fighting against the Republic. Each side began falling to their respective camps to launch military style raids against the opposition while the important battles took place at the highest levels.

Returning to Cologne, another resident recalled how the two camps descended into casual street violence:

Through the efforts of energetic young people like Otto Kumm, who we met last episode, joined the Nazi Party while at university. Votes were won or secured. But things didn’t just stop at passing out leaflets and standing on soapboxes.

We would go on propaganda marches through all the quarters of Hamburg. And often things would get pretty lively. Hamburg was a Red city even after 1933. I can well remember Bloody Sunday in Hamburg-Alton when entire blocks were occupied by armed Communists shooting into out column from the rooftops; we had 13 or 14 dead that day.

Voices from the Third Reich xxix

That last part is what we will politely call unreliable narration. He isn’t lying per say but he sure as hell ain’t giving us the full truth.

Two big events happened in these endless elections first there was a riot in Altona. There were riots before but this was had a good PR team. 19 Citizens were killed and another 85 injured. The government blamed the Communists despite acting in self-defense.

The heavily industrial region of Hamburg did support the Communists. There had already been clashes here before but not like this. This column of Nazis consisted of thousands of stormtroopers ESCORTED by police. The Communist Party militia, known as the Red Front-Fighters, organized their own supporters.

A man, Richard Krebs, standing on the opposite the Nazi Kumm, commanded 800 dedicated Reds. Stones and other such things were thrown at the parading Brownshirts. According to accounts from men like the Nazi Kumm, the Reds had snipers on the roofs.

Someone, nobody was sure who, fired a shot. The police panicked and opened fire with everything they had; spraying the locality with bullets causing a panicked flight in all directions. The Communists were driven away with all the rest. It was revealed later most of deaths were caused by bullets fired by police revolvers.

Coming of the Third Reich 285

Martial law was declared in the area and sniveling weasel named von Papen was appointed Reich Chancellor.  

This man wasted no time in declaring martial law and suspending the Prussian state assembly. The first one was legal. The second one…less legal.

At the END of July 1932, federal elections saw the Nazis conquer a total of 230 seats in the Reichstag becoming the largest political party in the country. The Communists held 89 seats, making it the third largest party.

End of the Line: Hitler Appointed Reich Chancellor!

Von Papen resigned. The whole fiasco was orchestrated by the Nazis. Through shady political deals it was agreed by the greater conservative faction to appoint Hitler as new Reich Chancellor. President Hindenburg only agreed to the scheme reluctantly.

January 30, 1933: Hitler is appointed Reich Chancellor. He and his conspirators formed something calling itself the Cabinet of National Unity. A corresponding New York Times headline read:              HITLER PUT ASIDE AIM TO BE DICTATOR

Ha!

That same day, Parliament is dissolved by President Hindenburg. That was legal.

The Prussian state parliament is dissolved at the same time. That was…less legal.

New elections are scheduled…again. In earlier drafts I typed that sentence 4 times. It got old.

Hitler’s appointment as Reich Chancellor was no ordinary change of government. A torchlit parade of brownshirts Steel Helmets and SS men through Berlin. It began at 7pm and continued well past midnight.

Lady Rumbold watched the procession from the safety of a balcony at British Embassy.

The column of light started like a glittering serpent through the streets. Six abreast they marched in their brown shirts, each man carrying a flaming torch and there was no break in the procession for five hours!

An American tourist in the city remembered the spectacle to a friend.

I followed it to the Chancellery. There was Hitler and Hindenburg standing together on a balcony. The Nazis marched, beat drums, sang songs and chanted slogans. It was so cold. Sparks from the torches crackled in the air I had to stamp my feet in vain to stay warm.

After satisfying her curiosity she hurried back to the safety of the hotel.

Yet another wave of replacements in the civil service quickly Nazified the bureaucracy.

At once, police were ordered to intervene in any brawl on behalf of the Nazis AND were permitted to shoot at the opposing side without any warning (Haffner 108)

Millions of other Germans saw the same ocean between what they read in the newspapers and what they experienced in the street.

Another trend began which took the public by storm. He called it a readiness to hate. It infected even the most private political discussions. It forced you to think about politics constantly.

Citizens now lived in a sort of legal and mental limbo. They read these decrees in the papers and talked about them in cafes and beer halls. But unbroken routines and sights in the streets didn’t quite vibe with the reports.

Many Germans struggled to understand what had happened. Our young legal friend, Herr Haffner recorded his own thoughts on the day:

The republic was liquidated. The constitution suspended. The Reichstag dissolved, reelected, dissolved again, and again reelected. Newspapers were banned and the Prussian regional government was illegally dismissed and…civil servants were replaced…in the almost cheerful atmosphere of a final fling.

In the highest court in Prussia, where I worked, the process of the law was not changed at all by the fact that the interior minister enacted ridiculous edicts. The newspapers might report the constitution was in ruins. Here, every paragraph of the civil code was still valid and was mulled over and analyzed as carefully as ever. Which was the true reality?

Defying Hitler. 92.

There wasn’t a whole lot of time to debate the point. A month after this thought in his diary, the Reichstag burned down.

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“Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Times”

(c) Jay Daniels. All rights reserved.