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#WeimarRepublic

1 post1 participant0 posts today
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DoomsdaysCW

So, a co-worker told me about this article today... Wow! What day are we on now?

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days

He used the constitution to shatter the constitution.
By Timothy W. Ryback

"Ninety-two years ago this month, on Monday morning, January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the 15th chancellor of the #WeimarRepublic. In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy, Hitler set about destroying a constitutional republic through constitutional means. What follows is a step-by-step account of how Hitler systematically disabled and then dismantled his country’s democratic structures and processes in less than two months’ time—specifically, one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes. The minutes, as we will see, mattered.

"Hans Frank served as Hitler’s private attorney and chief legal strategist in the early years of the Nazi movement. While later awaiting execution at Nuremberg for his complicity in Nazi atrocities, Frank commented on his client’s uncanny capacity for sensing 'the potential weakness inherent in every formal form of law' and then ruthlessly exploiting that weakness. Following his failed Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, Hitler had renounced trying to overthrow the Weimar Republic by violent means but not his commitment to destroying the country’s #democratic system, a determination he reiterated in a Legalitätseid—'legality oath'—before the Constitutional Court in September 1930. Invoking Article 1 of the Weimar constitution, which stated that the government was an expression of the will of the people, Hitler informed the court that once he had achieved power through legal means, he intended to mold the government as he saw fit. It was an astonishingly brazen statement.

"'So, through constitutional means?' the presiding judge asked.

"'Jawohl!' Hitler replied."

Read more:
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/

Archived version:
archive.ph/ylnZR
#Fascism #ResistFascism #Authoritarianism #USPol #History #HistoryRepeats #Twitler

The Atlantic · How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 DaysBy Timothy W. Ryback
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Public
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴

@MnemosyneSinger

PS:
#NationalFascism was *not at all* limited to Germany / the #WeimarRepublic in the 1930s, but was rather a "sign of the times:"

"...
- Partito Nazionale Fascista...#Italy,
- Vaterländische Front...& Heimwehr...#Austria,
- União Nacional...#Portugal,
- Elefterofronoi...#Greece,
- Ustaša...#Croatia,
- Nasjonal Samling...#Norway,
- military dictatorship of Admiral Tojo Hideki...#Japan..."

...and the
"Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei"

britannica.com/topic/fascism

Encyclopedia BritannicaFascism | Definition, Meaning, Characteristics, Examples, & History | BritannicaFascism, political ideology and mass movement that dominated central, southern, and eastern Europe between 1919 and 1945 and was characterized by extreme militant nationalism, hatred of communism and socialism, contempt for democracy, and belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites.
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Ramesh #NotGoingBack

⬆️ @charvaka
>> #WeirdDonOLD wants to undermine our institutions and turn the US into a banana republic, he argues for limits on Fed independence

#Trump has taken #bankruptcy SIX times in ~30 years.

He will make millions of Americans go bankrupt by influencing and controlling #monetaryPolicy.

He will drive up #hyperinflation of the kind that killed the #WeimarRepublic after #WWI that bankrupted millions of #German citizens and led straight to rise of #Hitler & #WWII.

britannica.com/event/hyperinfl

The rising cost of goods combined with a dramatic increase in the money supply created perfect conditions for inflation. Before World War I, the exchange rate was just over four marks to the U.S. dollar. By 1920 the value of the mark was 16 times less… The Weimar government was still in a position to get a grip on the economy; instead, it chose to print yet more money… By July 1922 prices had risen by some 700 percent, and hyperinflation… had arrived. The government had to print million-mark notes, then billion-mark notes. By November 1923 one U.S. dollar was equivalent to 1,000 billion (a trillion) marks. … A wheelbarrow full of money could not buy a newspaper, while one German student recalled ordering a cup of coffee for 5,000 marks and then a second whose cost had risen to 7,000 marks in the brief time it took him to finish the first. Shopkeepers could not replenish their stock fast enough to keep up with prices, farmers refused to sell their produce for worthless money, food riots broke out, pensioners starved, and townspeople marched into the countryside to loot the farms. Law and order broke down. The German attempt at democracy had been completely undermined. Conspiracy theories sprouted, and extremist political views became acceptable as Weimar’s currency became valueless to the point of meaninglessness. Ultimately, hyperinflation enabled Adolf Hitler to gain power, rising along with the leaders of a coalition of extreme right-wing parties
Public
Ricardo Harvin

"What would you do?"

You're literally doing it now.

I just watched two #YouTube #video #essays on the #musical #Cabaret, its origin, and various incarnations, focused on the 1972 #film version #DirectedBy #BobFosse, starring #LizaMinnelli.

Like the final moments of the #WeimarRepublic in #Germany, purported #democracies around the world are facing our end of days and the rise of #fascism and #authoritarianism.

So, what are you doing?

#link: youtu.be/cPpwXUZNbNs?si=eal-Dz

youtu.be/8xrGp3tzKgs?si=8Cs2D_

Public
Jürgen Hubert

1/ Okay, while the Trump verdict has been very riveting, I'd like to talk about failure states in democracies for a bit.

Any stable democracy needs peaceful transfers of power. If a ruling government loses in an election and thus loses power, they are free to moan about it - but in the end, they should leave office without violence because (unless they screwed up _bigly_) they realize that they will likely return to power one day. They are invested in the system, and do not want to overthrow the basic democratic order of their country - because it works for them.

Thus, a country needs _multiple_ parties with an investment in democracy, who are willing to form a government - but who are also willing to leave peacefully. If this is not the case, then the democracy in question is in a failure state.

An good (or rather, very very bad) example of a "proportional representation" democracy in a failure state was the late Weimar Republic. Starting in 1932, the NSDAP (Nazis) and the KDP (Communists) received a majority of the vote and thus representatives. Both wanted to overthrow the Republic and its democracy in its own way, and thus it became impossible to form a democratic government - let alone switch between different ones. But the Weimar Republic had problems in this regard even earlier, since there were numerous miniscule parties with only a very small number of candidates. They only cared about a small number of issues, had no motivation to compromise, and thus were not willing to join a working government.

The Marienplatz plaza in Munich during the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 where Hitler first tried to get into power. A bunch of Nazis with uniforms are clearly seen to the right and are just asking for a good clobbering. Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_119-1486,_Hitler-Putsch,_M%C3%BCnchen,_Marienplatz.jpg
#Politics#Democracy#Elections
Public
U.S. Politics in Real Time

#UweWittstock's book "February 1933: The Winter of Literature" and #RobertMusil's "Literature and Politics" illustrate how many #WeimarRepublic writers compromised or fled to survive the rise of #fascism. Few actively resisted #Nazism, with most opting for silence or collaboration to avoid persecution. #BertoltBrecht and #JosephRoth are exceptions who recognized and opposed the threat early, while figures like #ErichKästner remained to document the era.

jacobin.com/2024/05/weimar-wri

jacobin.comHow Writers Survived FascismThe last years of the Weimar Republic are often thought to have witnessed an outpouring of politically engaged literature. But the history is more complicated. Writers more often avoided antagonizing a resurgent right to protect their lives and careers.
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