#55 The Rise of Hitler: Understanding Nazism and Hitler as a Millenarian Movement
Adolf Hitler in Bad Godesberg, Germany, 1938. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H12704 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, retrieved from Wikipedia Commons.
Overview
Over the next several blogs, I will cover the rise of Nazi Germany, Hitler, the Jewish Holocaust, and racism. European and American readers will be used to these subjects. They are frequently covered in film, radio, TV and even referenced general conversation. This begs the question, is there anything new to say? Outside Europe and the USA, these subjects will be less covered. However, because one outcome of this period was the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Arab world, and to a less extent the Islamic peoples around the world, has been deeply affected by events in which they had no hand. The rise of Hitler and the Jewish Holocaust has therefore been of significance almost worldwide.
I think there is something new to say. We must come to terms with the rise of Nazism through understanding the forces at play. It is time that all Europeans understood how their leaders at the time were in part responsible for these events. The narrative presented of this period is often understood in black and white terms. However, to say that things are less clear cut is not to lessen the horrors that occurred. Instead, it is to shed light on how the major European and USA leaders supported Hitler in the 1930s. Coming to terms with past events is of key importance if we are to live at peace with each other.
The Rise of Hitler
The rise of Hitler is regularly referred to in media in the English-speaking world as the horror of the past. Individuals are regularly compared to Hitler as if he was the epitome of evil. Before we move into an analysis of the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party, a word of warning. Academics who attempt a new analysis of Hitler regularly lose their jobs or are severely side-lined; politicians who remark on a connection between Hitler and Zionism are hunted out of politics; authors who write out of line can't find publishers. Beware, those who hope to have something new to say on this subject.
Millions of words have been expended on the German Holocaust as if it was a solely Jewish affair. Communists, Slavs, disabled people and people with mental illnesses were treated as harshly as the Jewish community. It is not surprising that this particular event of the 1939/45 war has been highlighted for its sheer horror. Although it is surprising that other events of the war, equally horrifying, have not received equal treatment. For instance, the dropping of the nuclear 1945 bombs on Japan, or the famine in Bengal in 1942, or the end of British rule in India, 1946: all events where millions died or were slaughtered.
The rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, alongside the Russian Revolution in 1917, has aroused deep passions from all sides of historical writings. Many people still care deeply about both these events. Communist Party members alongside all other branches of Marxists have a tale to tell to their younger brethren. Zionists have to justify their colonisation of Palestine in 1948. Members of the ruling cadres of British or French historians, centred in the major universities in Britain and the USA, have to justify their country’s handling of the events which led to such a disastrous war as 1939-45. In brief, the Russian Revolution, Hitler, and the Nazi party remain minefields for the unwary.
The Russian Revolution has lost much of its earlier passion due to the fall of the Soviets in 1989, but the issue of Hitler is as if he was in power yesterday. Passions remain deep and pervasive. In the light of the above, I shall use an ancient biblical analogy to explain Germany's position over this entire period. The analogy will, in line with the perspective of this blog, attempt to understand the issues from the standpoint of the recipient, Germany.
I will treat the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party as I have treated other events in these blogs. I shall not provide new evidence; I aim to examine them instead in their context so they may make sense in the 21st century. Obsessively demonising Hitler as a person and treating him as an individual evil ignores his historical significance. What is important are the forces that shaped his rise to power, and why so many German people welcomed the Nazi party and actively involved themselves in its activities.
Nazism and Hitler as a Millenarian Movement.
In the 21st century, it remains difficult to understand the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1930s. This was certainly the case until recently. During the past decade, movements that are termed ‘extreme’ keep reoccurring. Sometimes these are in the form of Islamic movements, or as in the USA those people who wish to return to the past, provide two examples. It is becoming clear that in times of crisis, people turn to ideologies that come from their own perceived past.
Explaining the fervour of Nazi ideology, together with how well-educated men perpetrated mass murder, requires new forms of explanation. A useful tool to make sense of this period of world history is through the story of Exodus in the Christian bible combined with anthropological Millenarian theology. These both can usefully be adapted to explain the rise of the Nazi Party. These themes, though little used in the historical literature have been taken up creatively in the writings of Christian Ingrao in Believe and Destroy: The Intellectuals in the SS War Machine and Hitler. I have used his work widely below to inform my analysis.
Millenarianism can be defined as the belief - religious or secular - in the coming of a fundamental transformation of society after a major cataclysm that throws out corrupt rulers. Often there is a battle to ‘purify’ and liberate members. These themes can be found in the Old Testament in the Christian Bible in the story of Exodus, which has all the features of contemporary millenarian movements.
Anthropologists have usefully attempted to explain a vast array of movements and behaviour which contemporaries have found strange within the ideas of millennialism. There has been a long line of these movements, which includes the Ghost Dances of indigenous Americans, the Cargo Cults of the Pacific Islanders, the Plymouth Brethren, the Rastafarian movements, the 17th century English Protestant Puritans, and many others. All arose out of social conditions of depression where the peoples considered themselves enslaved or deeply oppressed.
A more contemporary example of a millenarian movement might be represented by many religious black leaders of the civil rights movement in the USA. Similar, but less well known, are Latin American liberation theologians who were calling on divine authority and radical hope in the 1960s and 70s.
Anthropologists invented language to explain social movements which superficially seemed irrational. Messianism, Chiliasm and Millenarianism are all terms describing movements that have been created under diverse but comparable apocalyptic conditions of oppression. These movements throw up new leaders who would bring the people to salvation. A common theme is a depth of suffering, expressed usually in religious terms, often with prophetic revelation, like the coming of a new messiah or saviour who will lead them out of the wilderness, into a world of milk and honey. Each movement always had its special components, sometimes including the destruction of the world to create its resurrection.
The Jewish calendar annually celebrates the time when the Jewish people were redeemed in the story of the Exodus. Michael Walzer's book Exodus and Revolution, Basic Books 1985, with Edward Said’s: long review in the Quad Street Journal (vol 5 No 2 1986 pp86-106) updates the story and connects it to the suffering of the Palestinian people.
The biblical story of Exodus provided sustenance for many Millenarian movements. And, although not normally understood in the light of Millenarianism, Nazi Germany can be understood as an early example of this type of situation. Here we see extreme oppression of the people, new leaders, ideas about salvation etc. The Nazi movement, Hitler and the attempt by Britain and France to subdue Germany in 1919 at Versailles, followed by the Great Depression in 1929/31 provide parallel conditions that make sense of understanding these moments in German history as Millenarian.
Further Reading
Christian Ingrao’s work, translated into English, identifies the Nazi movement within the Millenarian tradition.
Ethnic Germans use the Nazi salute to greet German soldiers as they enter Saaz (in the Czech Republic) 1938. Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1970-005-28 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, retrieved from Wikipedia Commons.
Hitler proclaims the Anschluss on the Heldenplatz, Vienna, 15 March 1938. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1987-0922-500 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, retrieved from Wikipedia Commons.
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Ideology alone was of course not enough for Hitler to rise to power. The question remains: how was Hitler able to revive the German economy sufficiently to fight a global war in a mere six years? Hitler had taken political power in Germany in 1933. Once this question has been asked, the direction of the answer is obvious: the German economy would have to be supported by the great powers, France, Britain or America; there was no other way.