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Eery quotes before WWI and WWII.
- Thread starter LightSpectra
- Start date
I don't know much about anti-Semitism immediately after the war, but I'm guessing that he was actually right until 1933. Weimar Germany was very socially liberal system, so there probably wouldn't have been much (or any more than people) discrimination against Jewish people until Hitler started changing things.
Dragonlord
Fantasy Warlord
Quite right. Note that, even as late as 1938, when Nazi thugs throughout Germany destroyed Jewish shops and synagogues in the so-called 'Reichkristallnacht', many German citizens were appalled and the rest were apathetic, with very few spontaneously participating. Nazi leaders were disappointed at the lack of anti-semitic support.
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
Hmmm. No, that's not exactly true. Hitler didn't just show up in '33 and change (or capitalize on a change in) German society. These things had been developing for quite some time. Pretty much since the end of WW1; the stab-in-the-back legend had always blamed "the Jews" (primarily because some of the more notable Spartacists and other revolutionary groups happened to be Jewish, for instance, Rosa Luxembourg) and anti-semitism was quite widespread in the Freikorps movement.
Germany was a divided society prior to Hitler's rise; the liberals certainly had the upper hand throughout the 20s, dominating the public sphere and most social discourse, but that's not to say that these sentiments weren't held by a signifigant minority through the same period. Hitler was, at best, a catalyst that transformed these elements and brought them to power. He didn't create them, nor were they new.
Germany was a divided society prior to Hitler's rise; the liberals certainly had the upper hand throughout the 20s, dominating the public sphere and most social discourse, but that's not to say that these sentiments weren't held by a signifigant minority through the same period. Hitler was, at best, a catalyst that transformed these elements and brought them to power. He didn't create them, nor were they new.
But was that any worse that before the end of the war? There was always anti-semitism in Germany, and my point was that I don't think it would've been any greater in the initial years of the Weimar Republic. At the very least, the anti-semitism was not institutionalised or encouraged by the state, and was in fact prevented by the state in theory. Germany would still have had inherent feelings of anti-semitism, but they were probably diminished immediately after the war.
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
No. Not right away, at least. Eventually it was. The Dolchstoßlegende was the foundation upon which the anti-semitism of Nazi Germany evolved. It didn't come from the sort of garden-variety anti-semitism born of general regressive forces, that you might find in Britain or the US or anywhere else at that time. German anti-semitism took on a special character after the war, because it was the Jews who were blamed by the right for the defeat of Germany.
This cartoon, printed in 1919, pretty much sums up how the right was seeing Jews after the war, and throughout the Weimar period:
The right was largely discredited after the war, but as we all know, the pendulum eventually swung back. Unfortunately, the Weimar centrists were unable to contain the radical elements of the right as well as they were able to contain the Spartacists and other radicals of the left. But it wasn't like they could incite the Freikorps to assassinate Hitler, as they did with Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknicht. They had a falling out over the Kapp Putsch, plus, most of the Freikorps had joined the SA.
Dragonlord
Fantasy Warlord
Oh, I don't disagree at all - but, just as you say (bolded above), the anti-Semites were a minority. There are anti-Semites around today, too, in Germany just as in other countries - though in Germany they have to be careful voicing their prejudices aloud, as we have laws against that.
My point is that the overwhelming majority of Germans were at least against open violence against Jews, though I'm sure many more were sympathetic to the non-violent discrimination that had gone before.
And that discrimination didn't start until Hitler took power. Before that Jews had equal rights in Germany. I also believe the anti-Semitism during the Weimar Republic was not significantly worse than in other countries.
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
True, but the anti-semitism in Germany had a very different character because of the Dolchstoßlegende. It wasn't garden-variety anti-semitism of the sort common to all the Western societies of the time. It may have been temporarily dormant due to the triumph of centrist moderates after the war, but it had much more explosive potential than in places like Britain or the US.
Not just the Jews, though. It was also the communists (who were, admittedly, associated with the Jews by many), the socialists, the democrats and the generally unpatriotic. Or, anyone not in a military uniform.
This cartoon, printed in 1919, pretty much sums up how the right was seeing Jews after the war, and throughout the Weimar period:
Again, yes they were blamed and discriminated against, but not nearly to the degree that they had been. I mean, Rathenau was foreign minister, and Erich Koch-Weser became Vice-Chancellor. Yeah, the extreme right was always going to persecute the Jews with their fanciful escapism from the truth, but that had not particularly changed from during the war, when Jews were similarly persecuted. It was only that in the Weimar Republic, these anti-semites didn't have any power, as opposed to previously.
The power of the extreme right as opposed to the extreme left after the war in the years immediately after the war doesn't really have any bearing on the treatment of Jews in those immediate years. The point is that those with anti-semitic views were no longer in power. Sure, out of necessity at maintaing peace within the nation they were favoured over the Spartacists, USPD and KPD, but they certainly not endorsed by the government. The Kapp Putsch shows the lack of support by the government of the extreme right and vise versa. So, there was no state sanctioned anti-semitism until 1933, as compared to the state sanctioned anti-semitism before the end of the war. So, yes there was anti-semitism in German society, but not to the institutionalised degree it had been before the end of the war.
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
No, it had changed quite a bit from before the war. Anti-semites in other countries didn't have the stab-in-back-legend, which fundamentally changes the character of the anti-semitism and creates the possibility of it becoming a popular sentiment in that society ... which eventually happened.
The right that had been in power before the war didn't set up death camps or institutionalize extraordinarily extreme persecution of the Jews. They taunted them, treated them as second class, threw some Kafkaesque red tape their way - that's about it. Even before the Weimars, Germany was a better place for a Jew than many other places in Europe (France comes to mind). The right that got into power 20 years after the war was a little different than the one that had been around before the war.
The Kapp Putsch shows that the Weimars couldn't keep their attack dogs on a short leash anymore; the Freikorps had begun to get unmanageable, a portent of things to come.
Yeah. Sure. But the actual anti-semitism that was actually experienced by the Jews between 1918 and 1933 was less so than before or after that period, regardless of the potential of the anti-semitism to morph into other more deadly forms.
No, they didn't set up death camps, and I'm not saying that the anti-semitism before 1918 was the same as the anti-semitism after 1933. I saying that on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being hardly any anti-semitism and 10 being a lot, before and during the war, Germany was probably at about a 7, changing to a 5 in the period 1918-1933, before accelerating to ~1000 after 1933.
The Kapp Putsch came about because the government attempted to reduce the size of the Freikorps. The Weimar Government didn't want the Freikorps for more than the repression of the far left. If they had supported the Freikorps, they wouldn't have tried to partially disband them. And if the Freikorps supported the government, they wouldn't have marched on Berlin. More so, if the right-wing army had supported the government, then the Kapp Putsch would have been suppressed by them, instead of by the general populace. So it wasn't really a matter of the attack dog being unmanageable, because the Freikorps had passed their apparent use. The Spartacist Uprising had been put down. The real threat to the government at the time was the Freikorps themselves, as evidently seen.
My point is that the Weimar government didn't control the Freikorps, and therefore didn't control or promote any anti-semitism within its ranks.
frekk
Scourge of St. Lawrence
Well, I'm not saying that the Weimar government was composed of Nazis-in-waiting. Just that the characteristics of the Nazi movement are apparent in certain elements of German society well before the Thirties - namely the Freikorps movement of the post-WW1 period.
Despite the Jews having good treatment and a largely sympathetic zeitgeist during the Weimar years, there was an undercurrent of explosive anti-semitism, created by WW1 and the Spartacist uprisings, under the surface of German society throughout the Weimar period.
In a sense, the Weimar republicans were the authors of their own misfortune. They expanded and nurtured the Freikorps in the aftermath of WW1, as attack dogs to use against the extreme left. The Kaiser is responsible for the foundation of the Freikorps and their ideology, certainly, but the Weimars nurtured them after the war, expanded their ranks and allowed them to act with the blessing of the republic. Men who had been steeped in anti-semitic ideology in order to gun down mobs containing women and children, because the regular army balked at the task. They quickly discovered that they had grown their inheirited monster beyond the point of control, evident when they attempted to begin retiring the Freikorps. The Kapp Putsch showed that they lacked the ability to do this, and so the Freikorps remained long after they were of use to the Weimars - eventually evolving into the SA and the Nazi movement.
Despite the Jews having good treatment and a largely sympathetic zeitgeist during the Weimar years, there was an undercurrent of explosive anti-semitism, created by WW1 and the Spartacist uprisings, under the surface of German society throughout the Weimar period.
In a sense, the Weimar republicans were the authors of their own misfortune. They expanded and nurtured the Freikorps in the aftermath of WW1, as attack dogs to use against the extreme left. The Kaiser is responsible for the foundation of the Freikorps and their ideology, certainly, but the Weimars nurtured them after the war, expanded their ranks and allowed them to act with the blessing of the republic. Men who had been steeped in anti-semitic ideology in order to gun down mobs containing women and children, because the regular army balked at the task. They quickly discovered that they had grown their inheirited monster beyond the point of control, evident when they attempted to begin retiring the Freikorps. The Kapp Putsch showed that they lacked the ability to do this, and so the Freikorps remained long after they were of use to the Weimars - eventually evolving into the SA and the Nazi movement.
Winner
Diverse in Unity
"Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war."
- Winston Churchill on the Munich Agreement
- Winston Churchill on the Munich Agreement
