Eighty seven years ago, the guns of both the Entente and Central Powers alliances fell silent. An armistice agreement came into effect in 1918 on November eleventh at eleven in the morning, though a peace treaty (Versailles) wasn't signed until 1919. A war that had begun for no clear reason, and had been fought in the most bloody and horrific of conditions, was over. The cost, in human lives, misery and disease had no previous parralel. In the space of five catastrophic years, the entire face of Europe was changed. A previous system of imperial rulers, most related to one another by blood, was displaced by parliaments, democries and in Russia, a powerful socialist autarch. Never again could reckless imperial hubris lead directly to the deaths and suffering of millions. This would be the war to end all wars.
Not so. The "Peace" Treaty of Versailles, is perhaps best described as a recipe for future wars. France, distraught and vengeful for having lost so many of its sons to the war, sought to extract absurd reparations from a nation which had almost succesfully taken on the combined strengths of the three opposing armies (Russia, France and Britain). The campaign to place all responsibility for the war on Germany alone remained popular perception for decades following the war, but has generally been discredited today. Germany's early invasion of Belgium was a result primarily of a "strike first" military tactic to be initiated once war was certain - a prospect assured by not just Germany, but all the involved European nations.
Despite France and Britain's more or less equal culpability in the 1914 outbreak, the Treaty of Versailles stripped Germany of any disputed territories with France (Alsace Lorraine), imposed limits on its army, and demanded impossible industrial and economic reparations: 20 billion gold marks by 1921, with 40 billion gold marks at interest following the initial repayment as just one small component of the demands
The generation that had fought World War I for Germany often bought into the official view of the period, that Germany had been "stabbed in the back," that it's defeat was not a function of its military, but rather from domestic sabotage. The sudden abdication of the Kaiser Wilhelm and the close association between the provisional and Weimar governments (the post WWI German democratic goverment) with the "shameful" Treaty of Versailles led to popular resentment of the Weimar government. The provisional and Weimar governments were seen as complicit in the whole scheme of the Versailles treaty - even if as an obligatory signatory. Undercurrents of anti-Semitism, and accusations against left-wing politicians were revived to explain the Kaiser's abdication and the collapse of support and resolve on the home front. A whole generation of youth were born to WWI veterans who spoke of both military valour, personal sacrifice and the shameful reparations and unfair demands of Germany's foreign opponents.
Yet despite despite the grinding poverty, the hyperinflation of the early 1920s, and heavy-handed foreign supervision, most Germans remained sensible people. Hitler's rise to power was not an inevitable destiny, fixed by such factors as the unfair legacy of Versailles, popular Anti-Semitism and rising nationalism. His path to power was uneven, and almost stopped outright when he was wounded and jailed during the Beerhall Putsch of 1923. Many Germans saw in Hitler just another political extremist wandering the streets with a gang of thugs in tow. If it wasn't far-left Bolsheviks campaigning for Germany's entrance into an alliance with Leninist Russia, it was far-right agitators such as Hitler stirring up angst and unrest. Most Germans remained moderate, more concerned about daily needs and the security and well being of their families than in rabid explanations of how Jews were sabotaging Germany's fate.
Nonetheless, Hitler was persistent. The perfect combination of weak governance structures, combined with a global economic depression made many Germans desperate. Hitler was careful to appeal to segments of society that were often uneducated and could be more easily convinced of his racist and extremist schemes. Hitler targeted a working class that could just as easily be swayed by socialist and Marxist rhetoric about "class struggle" and common interest among workers. Hitler's National Socialists described themselves as "revolutionaries against the revolutionaries," and correspondingly, much of Hitler's activities in the 1920s were involved in sometimes violent suppressions of socialists and Marxists.
A second plank in Hitler's platform was his credibility as a politician who could deliver economic results. By the late 1920 and early 1930s, Hitler had gained the confidence of both wealthy industrialists, uneducated workers and important elements of the middle class.
But, how could Hitler appeal to wealthy industrialists? Wasn't he "for" the working class? Hitler was a master politician and public speaker. He appealed to wealthy industrialists and US firms (with German investments or operations) fear of a Bolshevik takeover, which from their point of view could threaten the security of their property and owner-control over the conduct of commerce. Hitler used his party's platform as an enemy of the communists to appeal to industrialist support, counting on their willingness to support a politician with sympathy to their economic interests. Hitler for his part, knew that he would need industrial and commercial support if he was to have ambitious military production contracts carried out within limited timetables.
Hitler was also keen to utilize the successful methods, symbols and propaganda tools of his political opponents, though his party members soon pioneered many radically new propaganda forms as well. Hitler admired how the communists used the colour red to stand out in political demonstrations. He designed the 'counter-revolutionary' National Socialist flag to be evocative of his opponents colours, while signaling a radically different belief system.
Hitlers brutal politicking finally paid off during a period of parliamentary crisis, when Chancellor Hindenberg resigned and appointed him Chancellor in his stead. Hitler then passed an 'Enabling Act' which granted him powers to reform Germany under his centralized, dictatorial control. Contrary to some commentators on his rise to power, Hitler was never voted into office by a majority of Germany's people.
During the euphoric period between 1934 and 1939, many in the western world and especially in Germany, admired Hitler openly, being perhaps unaware of his Anti-Semitic and warlike policies, and not knowing what was to come. More cynically, others tolerated Hitler because his interests aligned with theirs, and not being on his target list of "undesirables," they personally, had nothing to lose.
In the United States, Hitler was often seen as a welcome opponent to Bolshevism. The US government often remained ambivalent in its relation to fascist governments, preferring a more isolationist and neutral (perhaps, self-serving) stance. Although the League of Nations was hamstrung by French and British efforts to gain Italy's hand in negotiations with Berlin, its weak demand that economic sanctions occur against Italy to protest its illegal invasion of Abyssynia (present day Ethiopia) went unheeded by Washington, which doubled oil exports during Mussolini's Abyssynian campaign. Although the League was proposed to the world as an international peace-keeping instrument by US president Woodrow Wilson, the US refused to become a member, and so, wasn't technically bound by any of its demands.
That said, many everyday Americans, and especially Jewish Americans viewed Hitler with suspicion and later campaigned for early American entrance into the European war - a campaign rejected by isolationist congressional conservatives, fascist sympathizers and popular American hero, Charles Lindberg.
In Europe also, Hitler had his (often naive) admirers. One of these people, a documentary filmmaker named Leni Reifenstahl, created a celebratory homage to Hitler and the Nazi party by documenting the 1934 Nuremburg Rallies. The film is called 'Triumph Des Willens,' in German, or 'Triumph of the Will' in English. The documentary film if you ever see it, which I suggest you do, gives a valuable insight into how Hitler wanted himself seen, and how in fact, many people did see him at that time. It is replete with quasi-religious homage: linking Hitler to Germany's legendary Norse Gods. In the opening scenes, Hitler descends in a plane from the clouds, evoking a descendence of the Norse gods from Valhalla, the heavens. The film also reflects Hitler's attempt to establish a trinity between hitler, the nazi party and germany. The state is Hitler and Hitler is the state. Indeed, when the war was at its close, Nazi propaganda terrified the citizenry with claims that they would be systematically killed, indicating that the allies were interested in destroying not just the Nazi government and war machine, but also the entire german people.
The film tends to have an almost physical affect on the viewer. The seemingly endless parades of helmets and soldiers from many different angles followed by legions of rapturous cheering and adulation is a shocking and impressive method of convincing the individual to suspend rationality and to somehow become a part of this compelling combination of rabid enthusiasm and precise military discipline.
And this is a view from the present, when the machinations of 1930s propaganda generally seem quaint and simplistic. Our eyes are used to the more sophisticated forms of propaganda which we call "commercials." Nevertheless, one can imagine its persuasiveness for young impressionable men living in Germany at that time, and only needing to step outside the cinema door to find a way to "join up."
A series of annexations, and finally outright war followed in 1939, as a belligerent Hitler sought to claim Europe, and then Russia as the dominion of his thousand year Third Reich.
Through the terrible sacrifice of millions of mostly Russian civilians and soldiers, followed by hundreds of thousands of Allied Troops, including Americans, British, Canadians, French and Australians, the tide of the battle was turned. The Thousand Year Reich was shortened to just twelve years as a result of their brave sacrifices, which we duly commemorate on this November 11th, the 60th anniversary of WWII's end.
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