-Caveat Lector- The thing about Hitler http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,2763,884274,00.html Mussolini, Mao, Stalin - the 20th century spawned its fair share of monstrous dictators. But none lives on in our minds like Hitler. On the eve of the 70th anniversary of his gaining power, acclaimed biographer Ian Kershaw unpicks our continuing fascination with the Führer
>>>Kershaw has written a very good two volume biography of Der Fooey or the LAFF (Leetle Austrian Fascist Fellow), the titles of which are given at the end of the article. <<< Ian Kershaw Wednesday January 29, 2003 The Guardian Nazi rule, it has been said, is "a past that will not pass away". Tomorrow it will be 70 years since Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. Only a tiny proportion of people alive today, and those by now very old, can remember that fateful day. Even those who experienced the end of Hitler's rule, 12 years later, are now elderly. And yet it seems as if scarcely a day goes by without Hitler and the Nazis in one way or another - in newspapers, films, books, on radio and television - entering into our public consciousness. This is so not just in Germany itself, where Hitler might be expected to have cast a long shadow, but in this country, in other parts of Europe, in the US, and elsewhere. In fact, it appears at times as if we are becoming more prepossessed with Nazi Germany the further in time we move away from it. This has happened with no other 20th-century dictator - not with Mussolini, Franco, Mao, Pol Pot, even Stalin. However nasty their regimes, however vicious their repression, however horrific their inhumanity, they leave little mark on our present-day consciousness. Why is it so different with Hitler? The explanation is not altogether straightforward. Part of it, of course, lies in the very magnitude of Hitler's historical legacy. Very few observers of his moment of triumph in 1933, when he was finally handed power over the German state (and after the Nazi party had suffered serious losses at the previous general election), had any inkling of the scale of the human calamity that would follow. The left, inside and outside Germany, thought of him as the frontman for big business, presuming that he would not last long and would usher in the terminal crisis of capitalism. He was frequently taken for a political charlatan - a big mouth without substance. The biggest-selling newspaper on the left in this country, the Daily Herald, described him as a "clown". On the conservative right, too, he was grossly underestimated. He was generally thought at first to be "not up to the job". Many assumed he would soon make way for the traditional wielders of power in Germany. Even after he had had the leaders of his own stormtroopers massacred in June 1934, the British foreign office feared "Prussianism" - the power of those who had taken Germany into war against Britain in 1914 - more than Hitler. Such misjudgments, based on established prejudices and helping to condition contemporary responses to Hitler, sound bizarre today. For we know what contemporaries only gradually grasped - that Hitler meant war and genocide. So if we ask why nazism continues to feed the imagination more than the horrors of Stalinism, or of other dictatorships, the first point is that no other dictatorship has spawned both a world war (which produced the greatest explosion of bloodletting and violence the world has yet known) and the worst genocide in history to date. The second world war shaped the rest of the 20th century across the globe, while the Holocaust has come to be seen in many ways as the defining episode of that grim century. For both, Hitler was the inspiration. But this historical legacy, monumental though the scale of the evil was and clearly as Hitler's central responsibility can be established, does not entirely account for our continuing concern with the Third Reich, and the sense that this seems to be increasing, not decreasing with the passage of time. Somehow nazism feeds the imagination more than the Stalinist or other forms of dictatorship. Mussolini, Franco, even Stalin appear to be more understandable products of their own societies and state systems, whereas the riddle of how such a devastating doctrine of inhumanity and regime of breathtaking brutality and destruction could arise in a modern, economically advanced, and culturally sophisticated country such as Germany (with its many similarities to our own society) prompts unceasing interest and inquiry. Beyond that is the perennial anxiety: could it happen again? While there is no fear of Stalinism ever regaining any popular appeal, there are many reminders in today's world that some, at least, of the idiocies and illusions that went into inter-war fascism are by no means dead. Even here, the implicit worry is less of a recurrence of the brand of fascism associated with Mussolini's Italy, but of a revitalisation of the racism, antisemitism, and imperialist aggression associated with Nazi Germany. In reality, there will be no reversion to the politics of the 1930s. Racist intolerance and atavistic nationalist chauvinism are of course by no means eradicated, and are even worse in eastern than western Europe. But short of unforeseeable - even now with a new, dangerous war looming - apocalyptic disaster, there is little or no chance of racist nationalism moving back from the lunatic fringe to the centre stage of politics in Europe. More likely, as security threats and social tensions grow, is that western states themselves will become less tolerant and less liberal, as we see happening at present. However unwelcome and unpleasant, this will still not make them fascist. If the worry that nazism is still embedded in our society plays a part in keeping Hitler and his regime in the foreground of our attention, a further unattractive speculation comes to mind. While all dictatorships are sordid, brutal, inhumane regimes (and none more so than that of Stalin), nazism seems even now to have a sort of "negative appeal" to many individuals which other regimes do not have. It represents a form of aesthetics of absolute power in which the grandiosity of the evil vision retains a compelling, macabre fascination. The orchestrated might of the black- uniformed SS in the lengthy march-past scenes of Triumph of the Will licits fear, but the image of the would-be master race intrigues at the same time. Fascination and repulsion are not far apart. Memory and memorialisation are, without doubt, a further important strand of the answer to our conundrum. The second world war and the Holocaust created a lasting presence in many countries of the world in the countless victims of Hitler's regime and their descendants. Mussolini, Franco, even Stalin, left nothing like the same international legacy of their ill-deeds. Many still alive who suffered under Hitler, now into old age, still inwardly scarred by the events that seared their lives, want to recount their own experiences before it is too late. Beyond personal memory, a series of 50th anniversaries during the 1990s of major events of the second world war, most notably the commemoration of the German capitulation in 1995, reasserted the centrality of the titanic struggle against Nazi Germany in public consciousness - most obviously, perhaps, in this country and in the US, the two countries which had a "good war", fighting a heroic cause, and - in international perspective - with a relatively small death-rate. How important the memorialised (and at times mythologised) war against Hitler's Germany remains, subliminally at least, to public consciousness in this country can be seen whenever Germany and England play each other at football. Encouraged by an irresponsible tabloid press, victory in war over the Germans (unthinkingly equated with Nazis) provides, through yobbish football chants, a form of compensation for lack of success (until recently, at any rate) against "the enemy" on the football pitch. Moronic as such trivialisation is, it is an indication of how deeply embedded the second world war is in the psyche of this country, in generations far too young to have experienced it. In Germany, by contrast, present-day consciousness of nazism and the second world war has nothing of the trivial about it. How impossible it has been to "get out of Hitler's shadow" - despite the exhortations of conservative politicians over many years - has been shown in recent years in heated public debates conducted in the German mass media over the complicity in crimes against humanity of ordinary soldiers of the Wehrmacht, not SS men, or the question of compensation for slave labourers forced to work for the German war economy. For today's young Germans, leaving aside the small neo-Nazi minority, the second world war is not about cheap sloganising or "guts and glory" glamorisation of the mass slaughter. Those potentially involved in the atrocities are their grandfathers. The history of Nazi Germany still matters intensely to today's Germans, therefore, and the often acrid public debates about the Nazi past that have continued almost unabated since the 1960s have played a real part in the shaping of present-day political and moral consciousness. The assumption, still often heard today, that the Germans have not confronted their Nazi past could not be more wrong. The present-day democratic Germany has benefited more than most countries from learning the lessons of the past. In keeping Hitler and nazism in the public eye, nothing has played a greater part than an increasing awareness of the Holocaust. Somewhat surprisingly, the persecution and extermination of the Jews of Nazi- occupied Europe took a long time to establish itself in public consciousness. Even for many surviving Jewish victims, the memories were too recent and too painful to revive and dwell upon until long after the end of the war. The Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, then the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt stirred new interest in the early 1960s. But this remained largely confined to scholarly circles and survivors. Both trials prompted important research in Germany, especially at the renowned Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich. German universities at this time, by contrast, hardly offered lectures or seminars on the Holocaust. This gross deficiency began to be remedied in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Historical scholarship since then has made massive strides both in research on Nazi extermination policy and on the Jewish communities that were destroyed. The breakthrough to wider consciousness about the Jewish catastrophe was not, however, primarily the work of scholars, but of new forms of mass-media portrayal. A television docu-drama of 1979 called simply Holocaust, and portraying in soap-opera form the fate of German and Jewish neighbours, was suitably awful, but produced - amid much criticism - new public awareness of the murder of the Jews. An outpouring of works of all kinds on the Jews under Nazi rule followed. More recently, Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List played an even more important role in spreading awareness to vast audiences which would never struggle through an academic tract on the subject. Alongside such mass-media dramatisation, other changes were taking place. As awareness of the monumentality of the horror deepened, and sensitivity to racism in western society more generally increased, the victims began to be seen as more than just the objects of persecution and extermination. Their voices were now heard and listened to. The memory and experience of the Holocaust became institutionalised through museums such as the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the permanent exhibition in the Imperial War Museum in London, and the Jewish Museum in Berlin. As the core racial thrust to Nazi ideology and policy became ever more apparent, historians started to look at new and differing aspects of the Holocaust, and broadened their investigation to previously neglected victims of nazism, such as Gypsies and homosexuals. Schools and universities increasingly focused upon nazism and the Holocaust. Whereas such courses were relatively rare down to the 1970s, they are now to be found, filled to capacity, in practically all universities. In this country, too, Hitler's Germany is a central component of the A-level syllabus. Further valuable educational work is carried out by the admirable Beth Shalom Centre in Nottinghamshire. And, beginning a couple of years ago, the institutionalisation of the Holocaust in this country was cemented by the creation of Holocaust Memorial Day each January 27. In myriad ways, therefore, the Holocaust is brought ever more to public attention. And because there is such widespread - and apparently ceaseless - interest in Hitler, nazism and the Holocaust, publishers are keen to bring out books on these topics since they know they will sell. Journalists are keen to write articles, since they know magazines will want to publish them. And television producers are keen to make documentaries and feature films, since they know there is an audience for them. The most arcane aspects of militaria or sordid speculation on Hitler's (fairly non- existent) sex life are dredged up for public consumption.The Nazis are "business". Stick a swastika on a magazine or book cover and it will sell. All this means that the Third Reich is kept in the public eye. So the spiral continues. The mass media exploit the often lurid interest they have helped to create in the first place. Does it do any harm? First we must acknowledge the immense good that has come out of the extraordinary outpouring of research. Since 1990, the opening up of archives in the former Soviet bloc has enabled real breakthroughs in research on the Holocaust and on Nazi rule in eastern Europe, achieved mainly through the work of younger German historians. Compared with even a quarter of a century ago, we are enormously enriched in knowledge and understanding. Without the slightest complacency and with full recognition of the pernicious race-hatred and antisemitism that still mar our society, this has contributed to the changed ways in which we now look at race, gender, nationalism, and international aggression. But there is a negative side, too, to the continued preoccupation with Hitler and Nazi Germany. This has nothing to do with historical scholarship, but a lot to do with the trivialisation of nazism in the mass media. Incessant TV films on the Third Reich contribute to this. Certainly, there are some excellent and important documentaries. But we would lose nothing if many films were never made. Often they contribute little or nothing to deepened understanding, and probably go some way to reinforcing existing stereotypes and helping to foster continued anti-German prejudice. And, serious though the educational work of dedicated teachers is in the British A-level syllabus, the over-emphasis upon Nazi Germany - as the German ambassador recently reminded us - encourages a limited and distorted view of modern Germany history. So there are many reasons why the Nazi past is still with us. One day it will pass into history. However great its historical significance, it will at some future point be possible to view it with detachment, much as we now look back at the French revolution. But this day is still far off. Probably in 10 years' time, on the 80th anniversary of Hitler's takeover of power, we shall still be asking: is there no end to Hitler? · Ian Kershaw is professor of modern history at Sheffield University and the author of Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. 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