Understanding Germany

A documentary that aired on PBS on May 4, 2000 was about kids who were hauled off to concentration camps. The narrator wondered how it was that an advanced nation like Germany, a land of great composers, musicians and writers, a modern and civilized nation, could do this. Others have commented about Magda Goebbels, the wife of Joseph Goebbels and have asked how an intelligent woman could have supported Hitler.

To understand Germany between 1919 and World War II we need to view it within the context of those times and not expect people to have the perspective that people have gained since. Germany had lost the Great War of 1914-1919. Imagine how the loss of a great war would have impacted the United States. Many Germans believed that a leftist conspiracy and treason at home had caused the defeat. Germans resented punishments imposed upon Germany by the peace treaty of 1919. They resented being blamed for the war and the occupation by the French and Belgians after the war. And beginning in the late twenties the Great Depression hit the Germans earlier and harder than it did the Americans. Also near Germany was the Soviet Union with Stalin in power, while within Germany was a strong communist movement. All this helped elevate Hitler's party, the N.S.D.A.P. - the National Socialists, or Nazis. They were led by war veterans - Hitler, Hess, Göring (Goering) and others. They disliked those they believed had stabbed Germany in the back: communists and Jews. It was delusion, but a lot of public opinion is delusion. Before the failures of World War II and the mass murder of Jews, now visible to people looking back on Hitler's regime, many Germans viewed Hitler as a patriot, as a war hero, struggling for what was best for his country.

Because Germany had great composers, musicians and writers and was a highly literate nation had nothing to do with its potential for barbarity. Neither did Germany being predominately Christian. Every society has a lot of people with a potential for barbarity. Germany's musicians, scientists and writers were only a thin social veneer. When conflict breaks out - as it did in Kosovo in the late 1990s - the sadists are there, finding opportunity to vent their sadism. And there were sadists among the Germans.

Germany in the1930s was a nation with an authoritarian tradition, and Germans thought they were rescued by n a strong leader. The German people did not foresee the future, just as people today do not foresee their future. Flawed leaders are not uncommon - some more flawed than others. The fault lay not in Hitler. People like Hitler with faulty appraisals of reality abound. The fault is in the great number of people without whose support the flawed leaders would not be be able to exercise power. A flawed leader can do nothing without others to do what he wants.

That so many made the Hitler regime possible underscores the difference between Germany then and Germany now. In my opinion, understanding such changes is what reading history should be about.

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