Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2022.
Hitler was a Communist?
Thank you to Charles Burris’ “Hitler Was a Communist in Early 1919.”
Hitler’s Socialism
Charles Burris has done it again. Burris is one of the most resourceful and prolific history teachers I’ve come across. To find his resources, check out the two sites: one at Lew Rockwell and the second is his teaching page.
See this compelling documentary, Hitler: Root of Evil, (1977), that compares Hitler with Stalin, and how similar their backgrounds were that gave rise to authoritarian and nihilistic personalities. Burris provides a list of documentaries and books to study the personality of Hitler. Hitler’s rise really was an attempt to restore the greatness of Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany with an attempt to crush the influence of Weimar Berlin that he loathed. All this to say, that there is a history to Hitler’s rise. He wasn’t just born out of racial hatred.
Excellent, must-see documentary: Hitler: The Whole Story, 1977, (Part 1/3)
The archival footage of late 19th-century Berlin alone makes this is an excellent documentary. For stringing together in chronological fashion the events of Hitler’s young life that gave rise to his power is another reason why this is a must-see documentary. About two-thirds of the SA that Hitler organized for his Nazi Party was under 30 years old, who opposed the stayed middle-class of their parents.
This three-part profile of the German dictator examines his rise to power, leadership of the Nazi party, and eventual World War II defeat. Included: a look at his childhood and schooling; a study of his military conquests in Eastern Europe; and clips from his early speeches.
Here are Parts 2 and 3:
Hitler: The Whole Story (Part 2/3)
Hitler: The Whole Story (Part 3/3)
For a fictional account of the Weimar Republic’s (1919-1933, almost the same years as the American prohibition; perhaps a nice parallel to Dashiel Hammett’s The Thin Man) birth of the 1920s cosmopolitan Berlin, watch the terrific German-produced mini-series Babylon Berlin. The series takes its name from the first of 5 books of the Gereon Rath Mysteries by German author, Volker Kutscher.
Wikipedia states that “Politically, Berlin was seen as a left-wing stronghold, with the Nazis calling it ‘the reddest city [in Europe] after Moscow.'”
The documentary covers Hitler’s rise to his political influence to his 5-year prison term (paroled after one year). Hitler abhorred the inter-war years of degradation of his Germany as so many cultural influences were competing, not unlike those playing out today from racial and identity politics to new trends in fashion and movies. It was in cosmopolitan Berlin, enjoying its finest hour, that Hitler saw the embodiment of everything he loathed.
One Amazon reviewer, AET, wrote,
The documentary shows how Germany had deteriorated into riots and gangs and 30 political parties vying for power after WWI. The multitudes were tired and desperate. They were willing to follow anyone who could give them 3 things: law and order, a sense of purpose, and belief in themselves. Hitler offered all that to them: law and order under his strict-handed tyranny, a sense of purpose in serving the country and himself, and a belief that they were the super race who could and would defeat and conquer all others.
For some cultural and economic features of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), check out the following:
Money money, Dr. Gary North writes
Hyperinflation is when money dies. The official currency buys little of value. Output falls. People are reduced to selling off heirlooms and luxury goods for alternative currencies: gold coins, silver coins, and that most widely accepted currency, cigarettes.
The classic modern case of hyperinflation is Germany, 1921—23. A readable book on this social disaster is Adam Ferguson’s book When Money Dies (1975). It is subtitled, “The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse.” You can read it here.
He makes an important point when analysts and critics warn of hyperinflation and use Germany as a precedent,
An older, more academic, and widely respected book is Constantino Brresciani-Turroni’s The Economics of Inflation: A Study of Currency Depreciation in Post-War Germany (1931). It is available free here.
A fine novel on this era is Erich Remarque’s The Black Obelisk (1956). He is more famous for All Quiet on the Western Front.
Whenever a contemporary economic analyst predicts hyperinflation in the United States, he is likely to offer German inflation as his example of how bad things can get. The problem with this approach is that it ignores the last nine decades of American urbanization. We do not live in post-World War I Germany. We do not live in the relatively low division of labor society of post-War Germany.
In 1921, Germany was a militarily defeated nation. It had gone through years of price controls and rationing. The war had destroyed urban capital. The population was still mainly rural or small town: around 70%. There were about 60 million people. The largest city was Berlin, with about two million people. No other city was over a million, and most of the dozen large ones were in the 600,000 range.
OTHER DOCUMENTARIES
Unsolved Mysteries of World War II: Drugs and the Fuhrer
Of this documentary, Burris writes,
An examination of the paranoia, cold-bloodedness, and sadism of two of the 20th century’s most brutal dictators and mass murderers: Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Discusses the pharmacological effects of the 77 prescribed drugs by his doctor on the health and behavior of Adolf Hitler.
BOOKS
Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, Alan Bullock, 1993.
Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, Alan Bullock, 1991.
Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography, John Toland, 1992. Charles Burris writes,
The classic biography of Hitler that remains, years after its publication, one of the most authoritative and readable accounts of his life.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Toland’s classic, definitive biography of Adolf Hitler remains the most thorough, readable, accessible, and, as much as possible, objective account of the life of a man whose evil effect on the world in the twentieth century will always be felt.
Toland’s research provided one of the final opportunities for a historian to conduct personal interviews with over two hundred individuals intimately associated with Hitler. At a certain distance yet still with access to many of the people who enabled and who opposed the führer and his Third Reich, Toland strove to treat this life as if Hitler lived and died a hundred years before instead of within his own memory. From childhood and obscurity to his desperate end, Adolf Hitler emerges as, in Toland’s words, “far more complex and contradictory . . . obsessed by his dream of cleansing Europe Jews . . . a hybrid of Prometheus and Lucifer.”
Der Fuehrer: Hitler’s Rise to Power, Konrad Heiden & Ralph Manheim, 1944.
Of Der Fuehrer, Charles Burris writes
Konrad Heiden’s penetrating, firsthand portrayal of Hitler’s developing career and the Nazi’s consolidation of power remains as incisive and compelling as it was when first published at the height of the Second World War. As a German citizen, Heiden watched Hitler grow from a small-time demagogue and failed revolutionary to a dangerously influential politician and finally dictator in total control of his party and eventually Germany. Starting with Hitler’s unpromising youth and first political missteps, Heiden concludes with a gripping account of the “blood purge” of June 1934, in which Hitler executed his potential rivals in the Nazi Party and confirmed his monstrous vision for Germany.
A Psychological Analysis of Adolf Hitler, Walter C. Langer, Offices of Strategic Services, 1943. Charles Burris summarizes,
A secret wartime 281-page report, authored by Walter C. Langer in 1943. Office of Strategic Services director General William J. Donovan suggested to psychologist Walter C. Langer that a psychological profile of Adolf Hitler needed to be developed. It was hoped that an accurate study would be helpful in gaining a deeper insight into Adolf Hitler and the German people and that the study might serve as a guide for Allied propaganda activities as well as for future dealings with Hitler and the Germans. Langer produced the report, “A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler: His Life and Legend,” with the help of Professor Henry A. Murray, of the Harvard Psychological Clinic, Dr. Ernst Kris, of the New School for Social Research, and Dr. Bertram D. Lewin, of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.
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