Speaker 1: Mmm, Hello friends, and welcome back to Behind the Bastards.
Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans, and this is the podcast where we
Speaker 1: tell you everything you don't know about the very worst
Speaker 1: people in all of history. Now on this podcast, I
Speaker 1: read a story about someone or someones who are awful
Speaker 1: or enabled an awful person to a guest who is
Speaker 1: coming in cold and has not been informed about what
Speaker 1: you know we're talking about ahead of time. This week,
Speaker 1: my guest is Naomi ex Paragon, co host of Couples Therapy,
Speaker 1: writer on Broad City, and Naomi, I'm gonna guess probably
Speaker 1: black whoa whoa whoa you? Well, I was gonna say
Speaker 1: fly Fisher who Well. I wasn't going to bring race
Speaker 1: into this. But let's talk about some Nazis. Actually, this
Speaker 1: week we're not talking about Nazis. We're talking about the
Speaker 1: people who enabled the Nazis to rise to power. Uh,
Speaker 1: People who were not Nazis, people who, as a general rule,
Speaker 1: everyone on this podcast hated the Nazis and thought Hitler
Speaker 1: was terrible. But also these are the people who made
Speaker 1: it possible for him to rise to power. We are
Speaker 1: talking about the non Nazi bastards behind Hitler today. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is a dark and terrible story about how the
Speaker 1: Third Right came to power uh and the people who
Speaker 1: enabled it. Uh. None of these people wanted Germany to
Speaker 1: be taken over by fascist dictatorship, and most of them
Speaker 1: would live long enough to be horrified by the extent
Speaker 1: of Nazi crimes. Some of them died in concentration camps.
Speaker 1: So whoopsie, Yeah, this is Whoopsie Doozel would be the
Speaker 1: other title for this episode, The Big Nazi Whoopsie Doozel.
Speaker 1: So the story of Hitler's rise to power starts before
Speaker 1: World War One, in the mid eighteen hundreds, with the
Speaker 1: births of two men, Paul von Hendenburg and Eric Ludendorff,
Speaker 1: both of which have fun names to say. I recommend
Speaker 1: just saying Ludendorf to yourself when you're feeling down. It
Speaker 1: sounds like a cough drop maybe, but not at all soothing,
Speaker 1: because then I think about him. Yeah yeah, and he
Speaker 1: was not a soothing fellow. Hindenburg himself was born on
Speaker 1: August eighty seven. He came from a military family that
Speaker 1: could trace its lineage in arms back to the Dred
Speaker 1: So gross. Yeah. Well, I'm not into people claiming some
Speaker 1: ship from the past. I don't care what your ancestors did.
Speaker 1: That's a huge white people thing because big old lists
Speaker 1: of what your dead relatives did. Yeah, and and Paul
Speaker 1: von Hindenberg is like the epitome of the guy who
Speaker 1: cares what his dead relatives did and cares about what
Speaker 1: his ancestor his descendants in the future will think about
Speaker 1: him when he's their dead relative. That was his whole
Speaker 1: animating philosophy in life. Can you imagine, It's like be present, bit,
Speaker 1: just just do your own thing. Yeah, well, uh, Hindenburg
Speaker 1: started cadet training for the Prussian Army at age eleven
Speaker 1: because that was the way ship worked back then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his family were soldiers, So you start as being a
Speaker 1: soldier as a child, Like, there's nothing better than arming
Speaker 1: a child, you know, because who's more even key old,
Speaker 1: more able to manage their emotions and you use their
Speaker 1: words and judge situations for what they really are. And
Speaker 1: then eleven year old eleven year olds are perfectly competent
Speaker 1: to evaluate the world and understand when the use of
Speaker 1: deadly force is appropriate. We all, we've all agreed that. However,
Speaker 1: for years, I mean, when Hindenburgh was a young child,
Speaker 1: his nurse would shout silence in the ranks when he complains.
Speaker 1: So that's like even before he was eleven, Like he's
Speaker 1: he's being brought up. Like here's a picture of him
Speaker 1: at age eleven when he started cadet school and then
Speaker 1: the cutest little child soldier. We'll have this picture on
Speaker 1: our website, Behind the Bastards dot com. How would you
Speaker 1: describe that picture? He is serving an aryan look, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's almost like in drag in a way, as a
Speaker 1: child just playing this role. I'm all about the crossed
Speaker 1: feet in front. Dead eyes. You know that's also a
Speaker 1: product of the photographs of the era. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean that you can't deal But I actually do
Speaker 1: believe his eyes are dead. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: You will continue to believe that throughout the story, I
Speaker 1: suspect uh. And again that picture will be on behind
Speaker 1: the Bastards dot com, as will any pictures associated with
Speaker 1: this episode. Um So. In eighteen sixty six, Hindenberg fought
Speaker 1: in the Austro Prussian War, which is a war none
Speaker 1: of us have heard about because it's just too old.
Speaker 1: The matter. A bullet pierced his helmet increased his head,
Speaker 1: knocking him unconscious. But he woke up, wrapped his head
Speaker 1: in a towel and continued to lead his soldiers into battle.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. He also fought in the Franco Prussian
Speaker 1: War of eighteen seventy one. Yeah, because that's a that's
Speaker 1: a very important one. That's we got Germany out of
Speaker 1: that one, yea, which mixed bag, mixed bag. Uh. And
Speaker 1: actually he was present the day the German Empire was
Speaker 1: declared in I think of Versailles, so like when they
Speaker 1: concluded that war between Prussia and France. Man he became
Speaker 1: a thing and he was there to watch it become
Speaker 1: a thing. Now, Eric Ludendorff, the other guy that we're
Speaker 1: starting with was you may remember him as the bad
Speaker 1: guy from the New Wonder Woman movie. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: He was a real person. He was. He did not,
Speaker 1: he did was not an advocate of using poisonous gas
Speaker 1: on women and children in World War One. But he
Speaker 1: was a piece of ship that's dope. Yeah. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: he was born on April ninth, eighteen sixty five, so
Speaker 1: he's a bit younger than Hindenburg. He went into cadet
Speaker 1: school also as a kid in nine age nine, probably
Speaker 1: like eleven or twelve, something like that. I like the
Speaker 1: idea that they were just starting well kind of because
Speaker 1: he went into cadet school the same time as Hindenburg,
Speaker 1: but he was so good at it that he was
Speaker 1: advanced two grades ahead of his classmates. Because taking a
Speaker 1: child soldier in advancing them even further beyond where a
Speaker 1: child should be is always a good idea. Also, what
Speaker 1: makes you a better child soldier? At eleven? I feel
Speaker 1: the same thing that makes you good, the same signs
Speaker 1: for being a serial killer. This kid was the Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan of being a child soldier. But it also means
Speaker 1: he was probably like ripping the heads off of rats.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know what I mean, like a lot of
Speaker 1: starting fires, a lot of bed wedding, a lot of
Speaker 1: You will not come to feel that less as this
Speaker 1: story progresses. So Ludendorff grew up never knowing anything but
Speaker 1: the military. He didn't see combat as a young man,
Speaker 1: but he rose through the ranks and wound up working
Speaker 1: in the German General staff with a guy named Alfred
Speaker 1: von Schlifen. Uh trust him? Yeah? Well, World War One
Speaker 1: nerds will know who this guy is. He created what
Speaker 1: was called the Schleifen Plan, which was Germany's plan for
Speaker 1: how to win a war with Russia and France simultaneously.
Speaker 1: And this is the plan that they started World War
Speaker 1: One with the gist of it was they had to
Speaker 1: put of their army into an invasion of France that
Speaker 1: would sweep around and almost touched the English Channel and
Speaker 1: then sort of sweep the French armies from behind. Like
Speaker 1: that was the gist of this. And it was this
Speaker 1: incredibly intricate plan that involved millions and millions of men,
Speaker 1: and the Germans, being good at planning, had it down
Speaker 1: to like here's how many belt buckles we need, and
Speaker 1: here's like all the feet that will pass over this road,
Speaker 1: and the very very intricate plan. His job was helping
Speaker 1: to make sure that Germany was ready to execute this
Speaker 1: plan if the war happened. Um. And he was the
Speaker 1: kind of guy who was so into being an army
Speaker 1: dude that when he would get vacation time, rather than
Speaker 1: using it as a human being, he would take trips
Speaker 1: to Belgium because the Schleeping plan involved an invasion of Belgium,
Speaker 1: and he would just scout out forts like rather than chilling,
Speaker 1: he'd be like he would go scout out Belgian forts
Speaker 1: and pretend to be on vacation so that he could
Speaker 1: do a better job of Nevadia and Belgium, And hey,
Speaker 1: when will you be back from your forts? Scout? And
Speaker 1: Junior is really asking about you. He's forgotten your name.
Speaker 1: He's tinned, so he's about to go into the army
Speaker 1: and he'd like to see you'd like to see you
Speaker 1: one last time before he likely dies before he's used
Speaker 1: as cannon father. So when World War One broke out,
Speaker 1: Ludendorff did great and captured a bunch of Belgium forts.
Speaker 1: To thank God, Lord give it all that time and energy.
Speaker 1: You better not if you came out on the bottom,
Speaker 1: you would have had to rethink all your life. So
Speaker 1: he's at least good at the thing that he gave
Speaker 1: up his vacations to be good at um. And he
Speaker 1: distinguished himself in the fighting against Belgium. Uh and yeah,
Speaker 1: his recognition for his brilliance in the field, he was
Speaker 1: sent to the undermanned Eastern Front because again the Germans
Speaker 1: had put their whole army to invade France. Uh and
Speaker 1: he was basically tasked with saving Germany from a Russian invasion.
Speaker 1: Now he was paired up in this with an older
Speaker 1: retired general who had been sort of out of the
Speaker 1: general game for three or four years prior to the
Speaker 1: ut Brick of war. Okay, so you're telling me he
Speaker 1: was a Riggs and they found his myrtal and his
Speaker 1: myrta was Paul van Hendenburg. Alright, alright, alright, I'm seeing it.
Speaker 1: So together they won Germany's most decisive victory of World
Speaker 1: War One, Tannenburg, which basically meant that Russia was not
Speaker 1: going to successfully invade Germany because this victory had so
Speaker 1: they become big heroes of this and together Hindenburg and
Speaker 1: Ludendorff were, like you said, the Riggs and Murtough. I
Speaker 1: compared them to Chris Farley and David Spade of the
Speaker 1: German General staff. But both comparisons are at much better
Speaker 1: nick yep yep uh. And like the Farley Spade partnership,
Speaker 1: this one was destined to end in tragedy. Hindenberg was
Speaker 1: the senior of the two men. He wound up getting
Speaker 1: most of the credit for the victory at Tannenberg, even
Speaker 1: though Ludendorff had done most of the work. This would
Speaker 1: prove to be a trope of Hindenberg's career he liked
Speaker 1: taking credit for other people's work and not doing much himself.
Speaker 1: Uh And if he took credit from other people's work,
Speaker 1: he could also shift blame to them, because again, he's
Speaker 1: a legacy guy. He's got this deep family history and
Speaker 1: he also wants to be a good part of that
Speaker 1: family legacy. So he's all about the name. He's a
Speaker 1: kind of guy. He like pops up in the photo.
Speaker 1: He'll photo Obama moment like, yeah, Hindenberg is the I
Speaker 1: was here guy of German history. Yeah, yeah, uh so
Speaker 1: is World War One War On Hindenberg and Lundorff rose
Speaker 1: to become the military dictators of Germany. They sidelined the
Speaker 1: Kaiser and held almost complete control of the state in
Speaker 1: what was called a silent dictatorship. The position of secret
Speaker 1: military dictator was perfect for Hindenburg because he got to
Speaker 1: be in charge, and also Ludendorff would do the hard
Speaker 1: work and best of all, any funk ups from either
Speaker 1: of them would be blamed on the Kaiser. So it was.
Speaker 1: It was a sweet gig while it lasted at least,
Speaker 1: But then twenty million people died in Germany lost the war.
Speaker 1: We've all been there, um so the worst thing about
Speaker 1: Germany's defeat from their point of view, is that the
Speaker 1: Kaiser abdicated. This set the expectation that Hindenberg and Ludendorff,
Speaker 1: since they were the guys who had been running the war,
Speaker 1: would be the ones who'd have to deliver germany surrender.
Speaker 1: And they were not about to let that happen. So
Speaker 1: they found a fall guy, Matthias Erzberger. Erzberger, Baby, Erzberger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the only not shitty guy in the story, and
Speaker 1: he's about to get fucked over, maybe harder than anyone's
Speaker 1: ever been fucked in the history of politics. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that would be fair to say. I think um Ersberger
Speaker 1: was a politician with a German center party because the
Speaker 1: Germans did have like quasi democracy prior to World War One,
Speaker 1: like the Kaiser held most of the power, but there
Speaker 1: was a Reichstag which was like do you remember this
Speaker 1: all right? I know? So they had and he was
Speaker 1: one of these elected leaders, and he had supported suing
Speaker 1: for peace with the Allies in nineteen seventeen, back when
Speaker 1: Germany could have worked out a piece with the Allies
Speaker 1: that would have ended well, like they wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: to sign a treaty that sucked them over. You know.
Speaker 1: But Hendenberg and Ludendorff hadn't been willing to make peace
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventeen. They wouldn't to try one more time
Speaker 1: to win the war, and that had not worked out.
Speaker 1: Uh So, when their plan failed, they told Erzberger that
Speaker 1: he had no choice but to go and deliver Germany's
Speaker 1: unconditional surrender to the Allies. This instantly made Erzberger, how
Speaker 1: do you deliver a surrender? He's got to go to
Speaker 1: Germany and be like parish. But but I'm saying, like
Speaker 1: he's got a what like he's gotta get them to agree. Okay,
Speaker 1: So here's the situation at the end of World War One.
Speaker 1: There are no no soldiers in German territory, no Allied soldiers.
Speaker 1: They're in fact, German soldiers are still in France, they're
Speaker 1: still in Belgium. They've taken Ukraine and a huge chunk
Speaker 1: of Western Russia from the Russians. Um So to the
Speaker 1: German people who don't have a free press, they think
Speaker 1: they're winning, but they're almost out of bullets, they're almost
Speaker 1: out of shells, they're almost out of men. So they
Speaker 1: decided to surrender. Because if the Allies attack once more,
Speaker 1: the whole army is going to shut exactly. But it
Speaker 1: looks to the civilians like things are going well. Um. So,
Speaker 1: rather than Ludendorf and Hendenburg getting up in front of
Speaker 1: Germany and being like, we can't fight anymore. They outfought us,
Speaker 1: We've lost the war, Erzberger's gotta Dosberger has gotta go
Speaker 1: do it. No, so he's got to get up in
Speaker 1: front of all his friends, people who don't know him,
Speaker 1: and be like, we're losers. Yeah, I'm a loser. I'm
Speaker 1: the guy telling you all we're losers. Exactly after four
Speaker 1: years of we're winning and it's your sons died, but
Speaker 1: we're winning. Yeah. So Erzberger inly becomes the chief villain
Speaker 1: of the German nation. Of course. Yeah. Yeah, he can't
Speaker 1: go anywhere. He can't. He hasn't know a moment's peace. No,
Speaker 1: he does not know a moment's peace. Um. And it
Speaker 1: gets worse because, rather than you know, throw their support
Speaker 1: behind Erzberger and the new Weimar Republic that replaced the
Speaker 1: Kaiser's government, Ludendorf and Hendenberg concocted a scheme. Okay, these
Speaker 1: two are like literally they're literally real housewives. They're messy
Speaker 1: bitches who live for drama, concocting schemes. I'm imagining white
Speaker 1: wine throwing up people's faces. Can you imagine? They're literally evil? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're monsters and and yeah, probably reasoning is a white
Speaker 1: run one. That's a German white That's exactly it. You're right,
Speaker 1: reasoning be like, you know what we've had to do
Speaker 1: because I'm not here to make friends, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what they're giving. And that's a good
Speaker 1: T shirt. Ludendorf and Hendenburg basic bitches of the German
Speaker 1: general staff. So these guys decide to lie and say
Speaker 1: that Germany had lost the war because it had been
Speaker 1: betrayed from within by democratic by which they meant Jewish politicians. Uh.
Speaker 1: In November nineteen nineteen, Hendenburg and Ludendorff testified together at
Speaker 1: a national hearing to determine why Germany had lost the war.
Speaker 1: They showed up in civilian clothes rather than their military uniforms, because,
Speaker 1: they explained, the mostly social Democrat leaders they were testifying
Speaker 1: before didn't deserve to see them in uniform. Okay, it's
Speaker 1: not you mean doing nobody no favors so Hendenberg refused
Speaker 1: to answer questions that were asked of him and instead
Speaker 1: read a statement that he had written. In this statement,
Speaker 1: he claimed that Germany could have won up until the
Speaker 1: last minute, but quote divergent party interests caused a quote
Speaker 1: disintegration of our will to conquer. In other words, left
Speaker 1: wing politicians and communists had lost the war for Germany.
Speaker 1: Hendenburgh ended his statement by claiming the German army was
Speaker 1: stabbed in the back. My god. Now, if you've studied
Speaker 1: the Nazis, you know that a major part of Hitler's
Speaker 1: rise to power was is use of the stabbed in
Speaker 1: the back myth that Germany had been stabbed in the
Speaker 1: back by leftists and Jews, and that that's why they've
Speaker 1: lost the war. This is one of the things that
Speaker 1: helped propel Hitler in the Nazis into power. But that's
Speaker 1: skipping ahead to the future. So Mattia Sersberger goes in
Speaker 1: signs the armistice with literally with tears in his eyes
Speaker 1: because he's a patriotic German, and then gets you know,
Speaker 1: rolled over on by Hennenberg and Ludendorff, and he gets
Speaker 1: assassinated in shot for being a traitor to the German nation.
Speaker 1: My god, this literally I can't you know what. I
Speaker 1: wish I had something, you know, pithy and brilliant to say,
Speaker 1: but it's that I can't because especially when you read
Speaker 1: the receipts, you know what I'm saying, it's all one
Speaker 1: long receipt It's like, didn't nobody with power have in power,
Speaker 1: Like nobody in that position, Like nobody could be like,
Speaker 1: this is not real, this is a lie Mattiaze, why
Speaker 1: don't you go move somewhere, babe, maybe just for a
Speaker 1: little while, let's stuff cool off. But they were like, nope,
Speaker 1: got to kill him. Yeah, And it was just some
Speaker 1: it was somebody who hated him because he betrayed the
Speaker 1: country by doing what was asked by do by saving
Speaker 1: the German army from being completely Anni. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No,
Speaker 1: he's like legitimately like heroic person who just like I said,
Speaker 1: he might be the most fucked over anyone's been in
Speaker 1: the street of politics. He's certainly a candidate. Um. So
Speaker 1: after the war, Ludendorf and Hindenberg split up. You know,
Speaker 1: the band breaks up a little bit. Um Honestly, it's
Speaker 1: gotten it's gotten too ugly, too dirty, you know, what
Speaker 1: I mean. They can't look at each other without seeing themselves. Now,
Speaker 1: which one of them do you think is the Lenin?
Speaker 1: And which one of them do you think is the McCartney,
Speaker 1: the Lennen Ludendorff right, No, I think you are right. Actually, um,
Speaker 1: Hindenberg did go into politics afterwards. We'll hear more about
Speaker 1: him later. Ludendorff became an author and wrote a series
Speaker 1: of books about how Germany could win the next war.
Speaker 1: He concluded that the only way for them to beat
Speaker 1: the world the next time they fought the world was
Speaker 1: to embrace what he called totalitarian war, which involved total
Speaker 1: state control that could stop discent from the left or
Speaker 1: from quote alien Jews inside Germany. Those who were too
Speaker 1: weak to contribute to German victory, like the physically handicapped,
Speaker 1: might need to be eliminated. See where this is going?
Speaker 1: Are you picking up on some trails into this trailer?
Speaker 1: So one of Ludendorf, the author's first fans, was a
Speaker 1: young man named Adolf Hitler. Yeah, Ludendorff actually marched with
Speaker 1: Hitler during his failed nineteen twenty three Munich beer hall Pusch.
Speaker 1: This was actually Ludendorf's second coup in three years. He
Speaker 1: also participated in the cap Putch, which was another right
Speaker 1: wing attempt to take over the government in nineteen There
Speaker 1: were a lot of coups in the Weimar Germany. They
Speaker 1: just they just be cooing. That's just what they do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they be couping and doing what Yeah. Uh So. Hitler
Speaker 1: and Ludendorff also had a falling on after the Pusch,
Speaker 1: and when the Fewer finally rose to power, Ludendorff said, quote,
Speaker 1: I solemnly prophesied that this accursed man will cast our
Speaker 1: Reich into the Abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery.
Speaker 1: Future generations will damn you in your grave for what
Speaker 1: you have done, which is not wrong, not wrong at all.
Speaker 1: But also it is a scorned man speaking. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. He's only saying it because it's
Speaker 1: like he don't like me no more, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, because he's not going to be the one
Speaker 1: in power exactly, exactly. Yeah. And and also it's it's
Speaker 1: worth noting that Ludendorff became too crazy for the Nazis.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he became an Odonist and urged the destruction
Speaker 1: of both Christianity and Judaism. Okay, now, how old is
Speaker 1: Ludendorff around now, he's like in the sixties. I think
Speaker 1: maybe sixties is like in that time. That's like literally
Speaker 1: a hundred. Yeah, he's an old he's adult, he's extra.
Speaker 1: He's coming in hot on a daily basis. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: always coming in hot, like I'm imagining, like he's I'm
Speaker 1: seeing him in an arm chair, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: like with a Bruski kind of really having He's all
Speaker 1: in the family moments and this this is the past.
Speaker 1: So we have to assume that everyone here is drunk,
Speaker 1: Like they're not drunk by twenties standards, but they're alcoholics
Speaker 1: by modern standards. Because that was just the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for survival, you needed your beer and your yeah right,
Speaker 1: um so yeah, I mean this is the putch happened
Speaker 1: in a beer hall. Everybody was drunk during most of
Speaker 1: the except for Hitler of the enough. Oh yeah, he
Speaker 1: was fucking razor sharp. Yeah he was well, he was
Speaker 1: a teetotaller. I didn't like to drink. I did not
Speaker 1: know every now and then you run into a history
Speaker 1: of him having a couple of SIPs of champagne or something.
Speaker 1: But he was famous when he would do these meetings
Speaker 1: at beer holes. He would sip one beer the whole night,
Speaker 1: like he wasn't he didn't like alcohol. I bet it
Speaker 1: is because if he got drunk he started to cry.
Speaker 1: I feel like he would drink and then he would
Speaker 1: get all blubberry. He was like, see me, now, when
Speaker 1: he's alone, he'll listen. He'll put on his area of
Speaker 1: Grand records. And it was either that or Morrissey. Oh
Speaker 1: so now it is probably a good time to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the Weimar government, Like what have
Speaker 1: you heard about Weimar Germany? Remember that's that's fine. I
Speaker 1: can't remember it. I won't pretend to know. It's okay.
Speaker 1: Are this should be like the story that I'm relating here,
Speaker 1: I legitimately think might be the most important story in
Speaker 1: human history, like how Hitler came to power. It's an
Speaker 1: important story, right. We don't hear anything about it in
Speaker 1: school because our schools are terrible. Um, but it's a
Speaker 1: really important story. And so I'm gonna start by sort
Speaker 1: of giving an overview of what the government of Weimar
Speaker 1: Germany was like. This is the government that the Nazis destroyed.
Speaker 1: The Weimar Constitution was written nine nineteen and It was
Speaker 1: one of the most modern and enlightened governing documents ever
Speaker 1: put into place. It included a perfectly proportional electoral system,
Speaker 1: which ensured that their parliament exactly represented the will of
Speaker 1: the people. So like like in our population, right like,
Speaker 1: if we held an election and America voted for Democrat,
Speaker 1: and of America voted for Republican and six percent voted
Speaker 1: for an independent, for you would get that's what Congress
Speaker 1: would be. That would divide the seats perfectly equally among
Speaker 1: exactly how the popular vote broke down. That's how the
Speaker 1: Weimar government is. That that's how the Reichstag is essentially organized. Um.
Speaker 1: The Weimar Constitution also guaranteed every man and woman in
Speaker 1: the country equal protection under the law and the right
Speaker 1: to vote. Yeah. Women, women got the vote under the
Speaker 1: Vomar constitution. Women were people. Yeah yeah. The most enlightened
Speaker 1: government country in the world in the nineteen twenties was
Speaker 1: Weimar Germany. They had the highest literacy, the highest amount
Speaker 1: of education, the best schools, the best medical science. Social
Speaker 1: justice movement surged in the Weimar years. The feminist movement
Speaker 1: started advocating for abortion rights. This is the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 1: Germany became home to the first prominent gay rights movement.
Speaker 1: What are you telling me? Yeah, this is our Germany.
Speaker 1: Magnus Hirschfeld, who was a scientist in Berlin, started publishing
Speaker 1: the first research on healthcare for transgender men and women.
Speaker 1: During this period of time. The pictures that you see
Speaker 1: of Nazi book burnings, our Nazis burning Hirschfeld's library of
Speaker 1: transgender research. What you're telling me, that's where they were
Speaker 1: coming from. That's where this is what she went so
Speaker 1: far south? How Well, we're about to get into how
Speaker 1: but first we're gonna get into some ads. And before
Speaker 1: we drop into the ads, I would like to do
Speaker 1: an unofficial official ad for our unofficial official sponsor, Derrito's. Um.
Speaker 1: What I can say for certain is that in the
Speaker 1: years since the Derrito's product has entered the world supply chain,
Speaker 1: there has never been another Hitler in charge of a country.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna leave it there. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: say Rito's prevent Hitler, but we've never had a country
Speaker 1: elected Hitler and have Dorritos on sale at the same time.
Speaker 1: So let's get to the other ads that actually paid us.
Speaker 1: All Right, we are back Now we have just talked
Speaker 1: about given some background on Hindenberg and Ludendorff too, real
Speaker 1: pieces of ship uh, And we have talked about how
Speaker 1: from oar Germany was like pretty dope, pretty dope, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what, Yeah, that's not what I thought. It
Speaker 1: was all I originally what I always assumed or partially
Speaker 1: was taught. But it was like because they had lost
Speaker 1: the war, you know, I mean, everyone's downtrodden and feeling shitty,
Speaker 1: which is why then someone could come to power and
Speaker 1: be like, I got two answers and don't get rid
Speaker 1: of a whole bunch of people. And that's usually how
Speaker 1: it's portrayed. That is an aspect of the story, but
Speaker 1: that is not the whole story of that. Like the
Speaker 1: city like Berlin, if you were if you were a
Speaker 1: gay person in nineteen twenty, maybe the best place in
Speaker 1: the world to live would be Berlin. Now, rural Germany
Speaker 1: very different, and they didn't. We'll get into some of
Speaker 1: that a little bit later. But the parts of Germany
Speaker 1: that were big urban cities were incredibly progressive and it
Speaker 1: is now yeah, and it is now still It's it's
Speaker 1: come back around to them. The Nazis really messed that
Speaker 1: up for a while. And in fact, Hitler always hated
Speaker 1: the city of Berlin because it was a hotbed of
Speaker 1: social justice and progressives and all that stuff, which is
Speaker 1: part of why he was fine with it being destroyed
Speaker 1: at the end of World War Two. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: never a big fan of the city. So back into
Speaker 1: the tale. Friedrich Ebert was elected the first president of
Speaker 1: Imar Germany on January nineteenth, nineteen nineteen, which is that's
Speaker 1: a lot of nineteens. I guess it's just three but
Speaker 1: it seems like a lot. But it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I need your theories, Alien Jesus Krishna, that's my theory.
Speaker 1: This is a secret sign from them. You're not good
Speaker 1: at concy theory. I'm not. I'm not. The Only one
Speaker 1: I really believe in is that Ringo secretly wrote all
Speaker 1: of the Beatles music. He's just a humble guy. Honestly,
Speaker 1: he wants everyone to think he's useless. Let's give Ringo
Speaker 1: that ball, but let live for him. So Friedrich ebert
Speaker 1: Social Democratic Party held of the vote in nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: which was great, uh, considering was a proportional system. In total,
Speaker 1: three quarters of Germans voted for progressive candidates after World
Speaker 1: War One, So the vast majority of Germans are on
Speaker 1: the left or the far left at the time that
Speaker 1: the First World War ends, which makes sense. The right
Speaker 1: had not exactly led Germany to victory in that war. Now,
Speaker 1: there was a downside to all of this, to the
Speaker 1: system that they had created. The Weimar Constitution allowed for
Speaker 1: a president who acted as head of state and had
Speaker 1: to appoint a chancellor who actually did more of the
Speaker 1: work that we would associate with like our kind of
Speaker 1: a president. Essentially, like the president, chancellor split the duties
Speaker 1: that we just put in a president. Right, So the
Speaker 1: chancellor could only govern with the consent of the parliament.
Speaker 1: So the chancellor was appointed by the president, but Parliament
Speaker 1: had to want him to stay there, and if most
Speaker 1: of Parliament said they didn't like him, they had he
Speaker 1: had to go, oh yeah, so that's the way this works.
Speaker 1: Uh So he's got to many people like him. All
Speaker 1: the time, he's gonna yeah, he's like on you know,
Speaker 1: he's constantly campaigning it. And if the chancellor is kicked out,
Speaker 1: essentially the president can dissolve the government, which means they
Speaker 1: have to hold which means they have to hold an
Speaker 1: election immediately to there's no reason in my mind. He
Speaker 1: was just like, fine, we're done here, like a giant
Speaker 1: tantrum where he was like, no more government, okay, we're
Speaker 1: saying a rebuild, yeah, which which sounds okay, but it
Speaker 1: means there were times where they would have two or
Speaker 1: three elections in a year, or like two elections in
Speaker 1: a year where the whole government has to run for
Speaker 1: election again on the drop of a hat, which isn't
Speaker 1: great for stabilities. Um. So you can see how this
Speaker 1: constitution both gave everyone a voice, which is good, but
Speaker 1: also caused a huge amount of fragmentation and chaos. And
Speaker 1: it meant that in order to get anything done, multiple
Speaker 1: parties had to work together and form a coalition so
Speaker 1: a chancellor could keep his job and stuff could happen. Right,
Speaker 1: But that's good, a nice little coalition. Next, it can
Speaker 1: be good. It can be good, And that had been
Speaker 1: The guy who wrote the Constitute was a Jewish dude
Speaker 1: actually named Hugo Prous and he had planned initially on
Speaker 1: sort of copying the US Constitution, but then he got
Speaker 1: a look at the US Congress and how deadlock it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he told interviewers later quote, it was plain that your
Speaker 1: system had faults which we should try to avoid. So
Speaker 1: he built this trying to avoid America style gridlock, and
Speaker 1: he wound up creating another system that caused even more gridlock.
Speaker 1: That wasn't his intention. He's not a bastard in this.
Speaker 1: He was really trying. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard
Speaker 1: to make a government. Yeah. So this is why I
Speaker 1: think this is the most important story in history, because
Speaker 1: in the space of about a decade or so, the
Speaker 1: Weimar government went from the most progressive government in human
Speaker 1: history to Nazis, and understanding how that happened is really critical. Um.
Speaker 1: A lot of the blame for this goes to the
Speaker 1: Social Democratic Party. They were the largest party in post
Speaker 1: war Germany, as I had already stated, but they've been
Speaker 1: even larger before World War One had broke out. So
Speaker 1: in nineteen twelve, the Social Democrats had been the largest
Speaker 1: socialist party anywhere on the and it they had more
Speaker 1: than a million members when World War One came around, though,
Speaker 1: rather than condemning the war, as socialists to do, they
Speaker 1: supported their troops and the country, and they voted yes
Speaker 1: on the war and yes on massively increased military budgets.
Speaker 1: This cost them Yeah what yeah, yeah, this cost them
Speaker 1: a lot of support. By nineteen nineteen, they were down
Speaker 1: to a quarter of a million voters. Most of the
Speaker 1: people who left the Social Democrats either swung swung very
Speaker 1: far to the left and either joined the Communist Party
Speaker 1: or an independent left wing party that was further left
Speaker 1: than the Social Democrats. So even with all that they
Speaker 1: had lost it to the war, the Social Democrats were
Speaker 1: still in a strong position in nineteen nineteen. The nails
Speaker 1: weren't really hammered into their coffin until the end of
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen and early nineteen twenty, when the terms of
Speaker 1: the Treaty of Versailles became public. This was the same
Speaker 1: time Ludendorff and Hennenburgh started spreading that stabbed in the
Speaker 1: back myth. So if the Social Democrats have been ballsy
Speaker 1: enough to refuse to support the war in August of
Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen, they would have had a leg to stand on.
Speaker 1: And it's not true that all of Germany supported World
Speaker 1: War One. The largest protests in German history up to
Speaker 1: that point occurred in the run up to the war.
Speaker 1: There were people gathering in the street to support it.
Speaker 1: But there was a hundred thousand people marched in Berlin
Speaker 1: against starting World War One, so there was It was
Speaker 1: not it was not necessarily a dreamed proposition. It is
Speaker 1: a myth that everyone was in favor of their being
Speaker 1: a war. Well I'm not really and I'm really getting
Speaker 1: whoever is in favor of a war. I don't even
Speaker 1: understand how it's the best idea. Well, you gotta, I
Speaker 1: mean back then, um, number one, there was this this
Speaker 1: long European history of war being glorious and a thing
Speaker 1: that makes men and the men. But I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: we don't have any medicine. They're putting back on a
Speaker 1: damn wound. I mean, anybody who lives to tell the
Speaker 1: war tale is terrifying to look at. You gotta think, though,
Speaker 1: these guys, all of modern European military experience was fighting people.
Speaker 1: They were colonizing with machine guns, so they would have yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So that's what their view of war was, and everyone
Speaker 1: thought it was gonna be war is easy. They keep
Speaker 1: trying to give us. Well, but not everybody thought that way.
Speaker 1: Enough people had like looked at the American Civil War
Speaker 1: to know they're like, oh god, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: bad if we all start fighting. Let's not do this.
Speaker 1: But nobody listened to them, and the Social Democrats didn't
Speaker 1: have the guts to stand up and say this is
Speaker 1: a dumb idea. So rather than being known as the
Speaker 1: party who had tried to stop Germany from getting into
Speaker 1: a losing war, at the end of the war, they
Speaker 1: were just one of the other groups who had supported
Speaker 1: the worst disaster in German history. UH. And then they
Speaker 1: wound up escapegoats. UH sacrificed on the altar of Paul
Speaker 1: von Hendenburgh's legacy. So over the next year, the Social
Speaker 1: Democratic you know, nineteen nineteen, nineteen twenty or so y one,
Speaker 1: the Social Democratic share of the vote dropped from like
Speaker 1: to around um. Now this time the members who left them,
Speaker 1: a lot of those people split right and joined the
Speaker 1: German People's Party or the German National Party. Now, both
Speaker 1: of these were fairly and very conservative parties, respectively. And
Speaker 1: this brings us to the next group of bastards who
Speaker 1: guaranteed Hitler's rise to power, Germany's conservatives. So a lot
Speaker 1: of different people had to funk up, like the Social
Speaker 1: Democrats and like Heinnenberg and Ludendorff to make Nazi domination possible.
Speaker 1: But the simple fact is that none of the other
Speaker 1: funk ups would have mattered as much if a sizeable
Speaker 1: percentage of the German center right hadn't decided that the
Speaker 1: Nazis seemed okay. Now, these people were overwhelmingly not folks
Speaker 1: who considered themselves Nazis. William Schier, who was the author
Speaker 1: of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and
Speaker 1: was an American journalist who lived in Germany during the
Speaker 1: rise of the Nazi Party. He interviewed Hitler a bunch
Speaker 1: of times. He interviewed like every figure that we're talking
Speaker 1: about today, he talked to them, so he's an authoritative source.
Speaker 1: And what the hell was going on in Germany in
Speaker 1: this period of time, he wrote, quote in the Former
Speaker 1: Austrian Vagabond. The conservative classes thought they had found a
Speaker 1: man who, while remaining their prisoner, would help them attain
Speaker 1: their goals. These goals were multifaceted. The wealthy businessmen and
Speaker 1: industrialists wanted the Nazis to destroy the unions and roll back,
Speaker 1: essentially the minimum wage. Social conservatives, like Germany's many Protestant voters,
Speaker 1: wanted the Nazi help in winning a culture war with
Speaker 1: the left. Here's how another wonderful book called The Death
Speaker 1: of Democracy describes it. In part, this war was over
Speaker 1: newer forms of art in literature, socially critical theater, novels
Speaker 1: that dealt frankly with sex expressionist painting. In part it
Speaker 1: was about anxiety over new forms of media, such as
Speaker 1: films and mass circulation newspapers, their pages filled with sports, crime,
Speaker 1: and scandal rather than politics and diplomacy. Sometimes it was
Speaker 1: about social changes. The growing feminist in gay movements were
Speaker 1: challenging straight male identities. Well I'm going to let the
Speaker 1: quote speak to the listener, however they choose to hear it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll talk a little more openly once we've gotten
Speaker 1: through all this. Uh yeah. So many conservative voters were
Speaker 1: rural again. They felt separated and excluded from life in cities,
Speaker 1: Like they all just like beat at a house party.
Speaker 1: They're all jelly in Berlin where the ship was popping,
Speaker 1: going down, I was going down, you know, you like
Speaker 1: I want to go to a party, you know what I
Speaker 1: I mean. It just had some rural house parties, get
Speaker 1: them jams going. They would have been like it's all love. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the right amount of house parties in the right places,
Speaker 1: the right amount of house parties. I'm getting into politics.
Speaker 1: If only they'd had burning Man back then, it could
Speaker 1: have really helped out a burning black forest or wherever something.
Speaker 1: That's the only rural German place I know. But yeah,
Speaker 1: conservative rural voters felt excluded from life in the cities
Speaker 1: and felt like their concerns were being ignored by mainstream politicians,
Speaker 1: which they were. One conservative landowner who didn't like the
Speaker 1: Nazis justified his Nazi vote by saying he was quote
Speaker 1: hopeful of relief measures by a Hitler cabinet for the
Speaker 1: depressed agriculture of the East. It was hard for farmers.
Speaker 1: He didn't agree with everything Hitler had to say, but
Speaker 1: he thought quote the army and the forces of conservatism
Speaker 1: would suffice to prevent a one party Nazi dictatorship. Okay,
Speaker 1: we also but also a but also he was worried
Speaker 1: about his the agriculture. Yeah, he's a farmer. I give
Speaker 1: that part. My question being were they talking about helping farmers? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a big like that was one of they
Speaker 1: were saying. They were saying, they were like, okay, we
Speaker 1: got you Yeah, the Nazis were very much back to
Speaker 1: the land movement. Okay, they were. That was part of
Speaker 1: their ruts. And in fact, one of the things the
Speaker 1: Nazis did was they were part of this like Hitler
Speaker 1: youth thing where they were mobilizing the kids, as they
Speaker 1: would have young men from the city's This was during
Speaker 1: when the Nazis were in charge. They would have them
Speaker 1: go out to farms and basically act as free labor
Speaker 1: for the farmers. It was seen as toughening up the
Speaker 1: young boys to get them ready for the army, and
Speaker 1: it was also helped out the farmers. So the Nazis
Speaker 1: were very big on helping rural farmers. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a big part of their political stance. Yeah. So other
Speaker 1: non Nazi conservatives gave their support to Hitler and we're
Speaker 1: tangible ways. One such man was Victor von Kerber, a
Speaker 1: Northern German aristocrat, war hero and right wing political pundit. Now,
Speaker 1: Kerber did not like Hitler, but Hitler liked the cachet
Speaker 1: that Kerber had with the right wing. So the Future
Speaker 1: Fewer made Victor an offer he couldn't refuse. Hitler wanted
Speaker 1: to use Kerber's name and pretended that Kerber was the
Speaker 1: author of a biography on Hitler that Hitler himself had
Speaker 1: written by basically mashing a bunch of his speeches together.
Speaker 1: The thrust of the book was how Hitler's experiences as
Speaker 1: a young man and a soldier had revealed to him
Speaker 1: the path by which he could make Germany great again. Now,
Speaker 1: to Hitler, this was a chance to reverse a mistake
Speaker 1: he'd made hard, as it is put to believe now,
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen twenties, Hitler's face was not well
Speaker 1: known outside of Bavaria. He had actually refused to be
Speaker 1: photographed a lot of the time and tried to use
Speaker 1: only his voice to win power. By the mid twenty
Speaker 1: because he was like I'm busted. He like knew he
Speaker 1: was busted. Yeah, he knew he was a weird look
Speaker 1: and do Yeah. By the mid twenties, he'd realized that
Speaker 1: this was a bad strategy and he needed to brand himself.
Speaker 1: His strategy to do that started with by releasing this
Speaker 1: secretly an autobiography biography under Kerber's name. Obviously, if he
Speaker 1: published it under his own name, it would have seemed
Speaker 1: like narcissism. H Kerber's name was a shield and a
Speaker 1: trojan horse to convince other conservatives that Hitler was not
Speaker 1: too radical for them to support. Now, this one coming
Speaker 1: out after the Beer Hall push, when stuff was banned
Speaker 1: in Germany. So the book was banned not super long
Speaker 1: after its release. It's hard to say how much support
Speaker 1: it won him, but it was part of a successful
Speaker 1: strategy that made Hitler acceptable to the right right because
Speaker 1: it was basically like, oh my god, did you read
Speaker 1: that new Kerber joint? Yeah, it was just one of
Speaker 1: the and its kind. You know, it's starts a whisper campaign.
Speaker 1: People are buzzing everything here. Victor von Kerber wrote a
Speaker 1: book about this guy. He's a pretty reasonable dude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how you get That's how you get him. So
Speaker 1: Victor von Kerber lived to regret helping out Hitler. He
Speaker 1: eventually became an ardent ant anti Nazi and even helped
Speaker 1: smuggle a German Jew out of Germany. He spied on
Speaker 1: behalf of the British and was until he was caught
Speaker 1: and thrown in a concentration am. He nearly died there.
Speaker 1: So he did his best to make it right, but
Speaker 1: were still in power. Yeah, uh, Conservatives didn't need to
Speaker 1: help the Nazis directly to still help the Nazis. Take
Speaker 1: the example of Edgar Julius Young. Now, he was a
Speaker 1: right wing pundit as well and a provocateur who became
Speaker 1: a champion of the Young Conservatives movement. Young is in
Speaker 1: young an age, not as in his last name. I
Speaker 1: know that's confusing uh movement in Germany, and it's confusing
Speaker 1: also in German because the German word for like young
Speaker 1: is like young man. Anyway, they didn't make it easy,
Speaker 1: but didn't make it easy. It's it's messy. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: Young wrote an entire book called The Rule of Inferiors
Speaker 1: about white democracy was a bad idea. He considered the
Speaker 1: Weimar Republic a quote belated breakthrough by the Enlightenment into
Speaker 1: the middle of Europe. Germans needed to battle this, he said,
Speaker 1: with tradition, blood and historical spirit. Now Young never liked
Speaker 1: historical spirit. It's it's this the same thing as the
Speaker 1: Hindenburg thing. My family for six warriors and YadA YadA,
Speaker 1: YadA ya. Back when we were fighting people, we were
Speaker 1: in college and I used to be weapons us. The
Speaker 1: Germans didn't have that much of a history of that.
Speaker 1: They didn't they didn't get into college and that they
Speaker 1: did some, but they didn't get into colonial in that deep.
Speaker 1: But I mean, but I don't know if you're thinking
Speaker 1: about what you were saying though about you know, this
Speaker 1: history of war back when war was glorious. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but part of the glory, right, So you're saying that
Speaker 1: more people lived and come back and tell tell the
Speaker 1: tale of it. Yeah, they did, and it was not
Speaker 1: It wasn't like a war would be a few big
Speaker 1: battles and then whatever happens happens. It's not like we
Speaker 1: came to knowing World War two where it's like we're
Speaker 1: going to destroy the whole country to win this thing.
Speaker 1: Like that's what war turned into. But historically it had
Speaker 1: been more like we're gonna the army is gonna march
Speaker 1: out and it will fight their army, and it will
Speaker 1: be this big, heroic couple of days and then whatever
Speaker 1: you know, there there will be a treaty and the
Speaker 1: people who come home will have stories, which is legitimately
Speaker 1: less terrifying than gonna have to stay in a trench
Speaker 1: for four years and all your friends are gonna die, right,
Speaker 1: good luck if you come back with legs. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: not you're If you get wounded, that's pretty much it
Speaker 1: for you. For you because there's poop everywhere, There will
Speaker 1: be poop in your wounds. We don't have medicine yet.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about poop wound? Yeah? Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: good with it? Great, sign your right up. Uh So.
Speaker 1: Young never liked the Nazis, but he viewed them as
Speaker 1: no worse than the Communists or the treacherous social Democrats.
Speaker 1: They were all equally bad. But Young's writing played right
Speaker 1: in the Nazi hands because he was like, we need
Speaker 1: to destroy the current government. It's terrible. And the Nazi
Speaker 1: code name for the Weimar Republic was the system. They
Speaker 1: wanted the system destroyed, so did Young. He helped build
Speaker 1: support for that idea among the moderate German right. Of course,
Speaker 1: Young didn't want the system replaced by a fascist dictatorship,
Speaker 1: and in fact, as he aged, he grew wiser and
Speaker 1: came to support the establishment of a European Union, linking
Speaker 1: all of Europe together to facilitate trade and travel and
Speaker 1: make another World war impossible. He was horrified when the
Speaker 1: Nazis took power. He reportedly told a journalist, now, I'd
Speaker 1: like to throw my arms around every social democrat Young
Speaker 1: became part of the anti Nazi resistance. He helped communists
Speaker 1: and social democrats alike escaped Germany, and he wrote a
Speaker 1: fiery anti Nazi speech that was delivered by a conservative
Speaker 1: politician named Franz von Poppin at the University of Marburg.
Speaker 1: For this, he was shot dead by the Nazis during
Speaker 1: the Night of Long Knives. Yeah, yeah, so you know
Speaker 1: there's consequences, consequencess like you bet to get you gotta
Speaker 1: get hit quick. Nobody got time for you to figure
Speaker 1: this out. Five seen years in. Yeah, trying to make
Speaker 1: a chance, way too late by the time realized, of
Speaker 1: course correction was necessary. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.
Speaker 1: Let's pull back a bit and talk about the Munich
Speaker 1: beerhole punch. What do you know about that? I don't
Speaker 1: know about no punch. Okay, well, Hitler tried to. So
Speaker 1: I feel like, literally, whatever comments are gonna get all
Speaker 1: this is like why did you have a dumb person? No? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: you're not a dumb person. It's like fine, Like this
Speaker 1: year alone, I've probably read eleven or twelve books on
Speaker 1: this period of time, Like this is the thing. I'm
Speaker 1: a nerd about right, So I I obsess over this,
Speaker 1: but most people don't because everybody's got other ship to do,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of other things that are important
Speaker 1: to know, Like I don't know much about capital gains taxes, right,
Speaker 1: I think, well, and I guess if that you know.
Speaker 1: Putting it that way, it's very sweet of you to say,
Speaker 1: what do you know about the Munich beer beer hall pitch?
Speaker 1: Because it implies that I could possibly And that's really
Speaker 1: nice of you, you know, to come in here and say,
Speaker 1: you know what, Maybe you know about this putch and
Speaker 1: I just say I don't, but I appreciate you given
Speaker 1: me that respect. Well, And if you don't know much
Speaker 1: about it, most people probably don't, and it's it's important
Speaker 1: for people to know about this. So in in nineteen three,
Speaker 1: Hitler tried to take to seize control of the Weimar government.
Speaker 1: It started with a speech in a beer hall in
Speaker 1: Munich and the kidnapping of a bunch of local politicians.
Speaker 1: Uh Eric Ludendorff was around and he helped convince Hitler
Speaker 1: convince these politicians to support him, and then Hitler and
Speaker 1: Ludendorff in about two thousand Nazis marched downtown to seize
Speaker 1: control of the city. I was there maybe, yeah, he
Speaker 1: was there, uh, and he hoped that this would Hitler
Speaker 1: hope that seizing control of Munich would spark a domino
Speaker 1: effect that would topple the Weimar government lead to an
Speaker 1: establishment of a government that he was more you know,
Speaker 1: down with. But the government officials that Hitler had kidnapped
Speaker 1: basically turned on him the instant. He marched away and
Speaker 1: called the police. The police set up a barricade, they
Speaker 1: opened fire on the Nazis. Four cops and sixteen Nazis
Speaker 1: were killed in the resulting skirmish. Hitler fled the scene
Speaker 1: and hit out in the attic of his friend Putsy's house. No,
Speaker 1: that bit didn't go on at it. No, Hitler did
Speaker 1: not go a minute at it. Oh, it gets even
Speaker 1: more embarrassing for Hitler. So Putsy, the friends whose attic
Speaker 1: he was hanging in he also would have a friend
Speaker 1: named put He totally were like, atic, can I chill
Speaker 1: at your place? From trying to overthrow the government? Things
Speaker 1: came in. It came in a little too hot. Um,
Speaker 1: what a loser. So Putsy's real name was Ernest hump
Speaker 1: Hunt Stengel, which I think I'm getting right. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have no fucking idea. I assume if I knew
Speaker 1: more German than I do, that it would make more sense.
Speaker 1: But it does not, And I've never seen an explanation.
Speaker 1: But that was his nickname. Ernest and his wife Helena
Speaker 1: were two of Hitler's early supporters. Now, Helena isn't a bastard,
Speaker 1: but she's definitely one of the people responsible for Hitler's
Speaker 1: rise to power. He viewed her as a source of
Speaker 1: emotional comfort during the difficult early years of the Nazi movement.
Speaker 1: Here's a quote from the book n The Year that
Speaker 1: made Hitler hunt. Stengel once walked into the living room
Speaker 1: to find Hitler laying his head in Helena's lap and saying,
Speaker 1: if only I had someone like you to take care
Speaker 1: of me. Helena gently rebuked Hitler and removed his head.
Speaker 1: She swore to her husband later that Hitler was no
Speaker 1: man for any woman. Believe me, he is an absolute neuter. Oh,
Speaker 1: Helena's spitting some fire, but also it all lines up,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, God? Yeah? Uh So. The
Speaker 1: failed putsch was yet another time when Helena helped Hitler
Speaker 1: keep going. She hit him under blankets and tried to
Speaker 1: have him smuggled out of town by her friends. When
Speaker 1: this failed, When the police showed up at her door,
Speaker 1: Helena claims, Hitler quote pulled out his revolver with his
Speaker 1: good hand he'd injured his hand in the in the
Speaker 1: putch his arm actually, and shouted, this is the end.
Speaker 1: I will never let those swine take me. I will
Speaker 1: shoot myself. First, Hitler tried to commit suicide. Helena wrestled
Speaker 1: the gun out of Hitler's hands and threw it into
Speaker 1: the flower bind She saved his life and in doing
Speaker 1: so kind of doomed seventy five million people to death. Wait,
Speaker 1: so that really happened, right? Saying happened to kind of say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the only reason why he's in my house.
Speaker 1: She's saying that actually went down. No, that went dad,
Speaker 1: damn it, Helena, let it do it, let him let
Speaker 1: him do it. You're saying he's a neuter, you obviously
Speaker 1: don't like him talking about him, or or maybe you
Speaker 1: dig it down with him. You don't want your husband
Speaker 1: to know either way, Helena YouTube faced you. She an
Speaker 1: he did. It's it's one of those things, like I
Speaker 1: think it's always the right thing. If you see some
Speaker 1: trying to kill themselves, try to stop it. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say wrong for that, but it led to Hitler.
Speaker 1: I guess so he wasn't hit He wasn't the Hitler
Speaker 1: window Hitler. Yeah, yeah, he must have brought that stuff up.
Speaker 1: You're hanging out with your boy Poosey in his damn
Speaker 1: addict and you'd be like, you know what I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know what I really want to do one day?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like, that's not an idea
Speaker 1: that just popped. He was talking about that. This is
Speaker 1: one of those things that gets into like a really
Speaker 1: deep historical debate that I'm gonna take. One of the
Speaker 1: major debates about the Nazi time and power is whether
Speaker 1: or not the Holocaust was pre planned from the beginning
Speaker 1: or was just sort of something that they decided to
Speaker 1: do it later in the war when things turned against them.
Speaker 1: There's a debate both sides. You can find very convincing
Speaker 1: arguments for We're not going to weigh in either way.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think she's a bad person for
Speaker 1: trying to stop her friend from killing himself. It is
Speaker 1: why we have Hitler. At the same time, Hitler came
Speaker 1: out of it, so it's not it's good to stop
Speaker 1: people like true can't argue with that. And yet in
Speaker 1: this one kind, I'm like the guy, there's nothing to
Speaker 1: learn from her story here because it's like she did
Speaker 1: the right thing and we got Hitler. It's there's not
Speaker 1: You can't always take a lesson out of history. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it just sucks. And speaking of things that just suck,
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't suck what Derrito's and the other
Speaker 1: wonderful products and services that support this podcast, which we're
Speaker 1: about to hear some ads from in UH in a moment,
Speaker 1: because that's what allows the show to be on the air.
Speaker 1: And we're back. We just had a little break. I
Speaker 1: had a handful of Derritos, and I just gotta let
Speaker 1: you know, I was feeling a little bit of a
Speaker 1: rising urge to overthrow democracy and institute a one party dictatorship,
Speaker 1: and it just went away as soon as I tasted
Speaker 1: that cool ranch on my lips. Cool ranch keeps you cool,
Speaker 1: keeps you from instituting the fascist dictatorship again. Dorito's are
Speaker 1: our unofficial UH sponsor until they send a legal request
Speaker 1: asking me to stop saying that or give us money
Speaker 1: and then become our official sponsor either way to Rito's. Anyway,
Speaker 1: let's get back into the Hitler tale. So Helena hot
Speaker 1: st Angel, the wife of Hitler's best buddy, had just
Speaker 1: stopped him from killing himself after his failed beer hole punch.
Speaker 1: Um tell me she also late in life, regretted that
Speaker 1: like so many other people. You know, I know that
Speaker 1: there was a falling out between the hot Strangles and them.
Speaker 1: You hear more about Ernest because he moved to America,
Speaker 1: but they split up, and I really don't know much
Speaker 1: about Helena after this period. I would have researched that,
Speaker 1: but I'm a hacking a fraud. Um. So anyway, the
Speaker 1: failed putch should have, by all rights been the end
Speaker 1: of Hitler's Hitler ring career. Uh, but it wasn't, obviously,
Speaker 1: and the bastards responsible for that are the judges and
Speaker 1: the police of my our Germany. First off, the cop
Speaker 1: who arrested this is just to give you a little
Speaker 1: bit of color for how the police treated the Nazis.
Speaker 1: The cop who arrested Hitler apologized before taking him away.
Speaker 1: While Hitler waited for his trial, he stayed in the
Speaker 1: v I P equivalent of a cell and was allowed
Speaker 1: to receive gifts, which were mainly sweets and cakes from
Speaker 1: his followers. Oh my god. Here's a quote from that
Speaker 1: wonderful book nineteen twenty four, which I really recommend reading
Speaker 1: if you're a Hitler ner the year that made Hitler.
Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody wants to call themselves a
Speaker 1: Hitler nerd. Whatever. Hey, you know, some people like star Wars,
Speaker 1: some people like to study the Rise and follow the
Speaker 1: Third Reich. It's not that different. Actually, here's a quote
Speaker 1: from that book that sums up how Hitler was treated
Speaker 1: during the trial and how the Nazis in general were
Speaker 1: treated by the courts and the police. Quote. The relaxed
Speaker 1: treatment of the Nazis and their allies was in stark
Speaker 1: contrast to the much rougher handling meeted out to trial
Speaker 1: defendants from communist or socialist groups who are prosecuted in
Speaker 1: the people's courts around Bavaria. The social list muntion Er
Speaker 1: post which I hope I pronounced right, bitterly noted that
Speaker 1: in Hitler's trial, the accused carried on animated conversations with
Speaker 1: one another until they were asked with great tact if
Speaker 1: they wouldn't mind taking their seats, no sign of guards.
Speaker 1: Only two months earlier, wrote the newspaper, sixteen socialists had
Speaker 1: been brought into a people's court where quote they arrived
Speaker 1: manacled and departed manacled. Each had a guard on either side.
Speaker 1: They were not allowed to speak with one another. Even
Speaker 1: those who sentences were already covered by time served were
Speaker 1: led away afterwards in chains. That's the kind of tact
Speaker 1: to the court shows to socialists. So can you imagine
Speaker 1: going to trial and then just chatting with your buds
Speaker 1: like you're at a conference and scramp. It's just very
Speaker 1: like them showing up and just like kicking for a while.
Speaker 1: And I mean, like, could you guys like quiet downward
Speaker 1: trying to ste could you cut it with just a
Speaker 1: little bit with saying the government needs to be overthrown,
Speaker 1: we gotta do this trial. Sy, I'm sorry the cooker,
Speaker 1: you're quiet, the quicker world. And yeah. So Hitler's trial
Speaker 1: became the trial of the century, or it would have
Speaker 1: been the trial of the century if not for the
Speaker 1: Nuremberg trials to prosecute the Nazis. But that was that was,
Speaker 1: that was in the future. Up to this point. It
Speaker 1: was the Trial of the Century. Um. It was very
Speaker 1: heavily publicized, and Hitler was able to use it as
Speaker 1: basically a platform to recruit more supporters thanks to his
Speaker 1: shitty chief judge George Nightheart. Um, it's George night Court, Nightheart.
Speaker 1: Oh you could get almost basically, and I was like
Speaker 1: night Court and it's actually I think it might be George,
Speaker 1: George Jorg. There's no e. It's George without an e.
Speaker 1: It's you know, Germans. Sorry, I love you Germans, but
Speaker 1: you spell George wrong. Um. So old George was a
Speaker 1: right wing nationalist with a history of throwing the book
Speaker 1: at leftists and not really caring so much about right
Speaker 1: wing terrorists. He had commuted the sentence of a right
Speaker 1: wing terrorist named Count Arco Valley, which is a legitimately
Speaker 1: cool name. Arco. That's a that's a Star Wars villain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's definitely yeah. The Count had been sentenced to death
Speaker 1: for shooting Kurt Eisner, a socialist revolutionary and journalist, in
Speaker 1: the back of the head. Judge knight Art reduced that
Speaker 1: to fortress arrest, which sounds harsh, but it basically means
Speaker 1: you get to live in a castle. What. Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1: Road through um. The judge justified this by saying that
Speaker 1: Count Arco Valley had quote a glowing love of his
Speaker 1: people in fatherland, and also because a lot of people
Speaker 1: didn't like the guy that he'd shot, So it was fine,
Speaker 1: Judge Knight the rules. Let's get a lot of people
Speaker 1: thought that I was a dick, so I guess it's
Speaker 1: cool that you murdered him. Here's a castle German law law.
Speaker 1: H Judge and Ihart believe the political murder wasn't a
Speaker 1: serious crime of the victim was unpopular, which, in his
Speaker 1: casement left wing Nighthart also had granted Hitler's early parole.
Speaker 1: A year earlier, when Hitler had received a sentence for
Speaker 1: breaching the peace, he'd been sentenced to three months of parole.
Speaker 1: Night had reduced it to one. Hitler had received this
Speaker 1: sentence for the severe legending of a political rival. Uh
Speaker 1: so this is the kind of guy who's Hitler's judge
Speaker 1: when he goes to court for trying to overthrow the government,
Speaker 1: which again you'd think would be a serious crime. Him
Speaker 1: homies Yeah. Night. Heart's first big ruling was on whether
Speaker 1: or not the case against Hitler would be an open
Speaker 1: or closed session which means whether or not everything that
Speaker 1: happens will be available to the public and journalists, or
Speaker 1: whether or not it will be hidden. Now, the prosecution
Speaker 1: wanted a closed session, which was both to hide Hitler
Speaker 1: from public demand and to keep his politics obscure, and
Speaker 1: to hide the fact that members of the German army
Speaker 1: had kind of, sort of absolutely supported an egged on
Speaker 1: the coup. Hitler's defense wanted the case to be open
Speaker 1: so Hitler could court the sympathy if the German people
Speaker 1: by doing what he did best, giving long speeches. Judge
Speaker 1: Nightheart ruled that part of the case could stay open
Speaker 1: and part of it would be closed, which is so
Speaker 1: let me guesses were open. Yeah, that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: Hitler got to hide anything that he thought was bad
Speaker 1: for his case because night Heart basically said, the defense
Speaker 1: will know which part should be open and closed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what kind of law. Yeah, it's he's a shitty judge. Um.
Speaker 1: He justified this by saying that the Weimar government had
Speaker 1: banned Hitler's publications after he tried to overthrow the government,
Speaker 1: so it was only fair that Hitler be allowed to
Speaker 1: speak to the people. You know, this is not worn
Speaker 1: when you in trouble. You don't need to make no calls.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Yeah, uh so, whit be good. This
Speaker 1: is like the whitest guy sentence of all time. Because
Speaker 1: for trying to overthrow the government and institute a dictatorship,
Speaker 1: Hitler gets a year in a fortress prison where he
Speaker 1: gets to live in a fancy whole apartment to himself.
Speaker 1: His friends were there too, because they got arrested. He
Speaker 1: was there, like a bunch of them, he and his friends.
Speaker 1: I'll get to live in a fortress first, basically like
Speaker 1: in fraternity party. The party, they had access to alcohol.
Speaker 1: He used the time to finish writing editing comcause is
Speaker 1: where he wrote mind exactly honestly, Like I would love
Speaker 1: a fortress prison. Okay, I need some time to rebuild, reconnect.
Speaker 1: I would definitely get into yoga, start clean eating a
Speaker 1: fortress prison. Might actually do a fortress prison with all
Speaker 1: of your best friends. Yeah, that's not a punishment. That's
Speaker 1: not how you stopped someone from being Hitler. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: they snuck in ladies party of the fortress. I mean,
Speaker 1: what do you think. I don't think it was cool.
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of them did. I don't think Hitler
Speaker 1: was that cool. No, But I mean like if he
Speaker 1: had his boys around somebody, they smuggled somebody, because you know,
Speaker 1: a fortress prisons got tunnels, you know what does. But
Speaker 1: the trial in Hitler's time and Fortress prison were key
Speaker 1: moments in his rise to power. Now, the trial also
Speaker 1: provided reams of evidence the German Army and the Bavarian
Speaker 1: State police had been helping the Nazis out since their inception.
Speaker 1: At one point during the trial, will Helm would run
Speaker 1: the Munich police Department from nineteen nineteen to nineteen twenty two,
Speaker 1: was questioned. He admitted, quote, we could have easily suppressed it,
Speaker 1: it being the Nazis in nineteen nineteen and nineteen twenty,
Speaker 1: but we realized that this little national socialist movement should
Speaker 1: not be crushed. Frick and his fellow officers saw the
Speaker 1: Nazis as quote, the germ of a rebirth of Germany.
Speaker 1: We held a protective hand over the national socialist German
Speaker 1: Workers Party and Herr Hitler. Uh well, well, well, now
Speaker 1: we'll talk later about the history of coordination between the
Speaker 1: police and far right Nazi extremists. But there was actually
Speaker 1: another time during Hitler's rise to power where he was
Speaker 1: saved in court by a sympathetic judge. On May eighth,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one, Hitler was subpoenaed when four of his
Speaker 1: stormtroopers tried to murder a guy. The subpoena was the
Speaker 1: ploy of a radical socialist lawyer and fucking hero named
Speaker 1: Hans Litton. Now, Hans wanted to get Hitler on the
Speaker 1: stand so that he could cross examine him and basically
Speaker 1: prove that the violence by Hitler's men had been directly
Speaker 1: encouraged by Hitler in the Nazi Party. Here's how The
Speaker 1: Death of Democracy describes it. The climax comes in exchange
Speaker 1: over a pamphlet written by the Nazi Party's propaganda director,
Speaker 1: Joseph Gebbels. The pamphlet is a quick guide to Nazi
Speaker 1: ideology for new party recruits. It includes the promise that
Speaker 1: if the Nazis cannot come to power through elections, then
Speaker 1: we will make revolution. Then we will chase the parliament
Speaker 1: to the devil and found the state on the basis
Speaker 1: of German fists and German brains. If Hitler's party is legal,
Speaker 1: Litton wants to know how could such a thing be
Speaker 1: written by the party's designated propagandist and published by the
Speaker 1: party's official publisher. In the morning session, Hitler evades this
Speaker 1: question by denying that the party ever approved the pamphlet. Then,
Speaker 1: over lunch break, Litton learns that the pamphlet is still
Speaker 1: being sold at Girbel's meetings and at all party bookstores.
Speaker 1: Can Hitler explain this? Hitler could not explain this and
Speaker 1: actually screamed in rage while on the stand because he
Speaker 1: just he had no answer to it, so he just screamed, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he got so angry because he he'd been caught. Well, right,
Speaker 1: but my do like think about how pathetic that is.
Speaker 1: It should have been the end. End it should have been.
Speaker 1: It should have been the end. But the judge, Kurt
Speaker 1: owned Sworge, decided to protect Hitler. Now Kurt wasn't a
Speaker 1: Nazi either, but he preferred them to the scary socialists
Speaker 1: and evil communists. Judge owned Sorge disallowed further questioning. Linton's
Speaker 1: case could have potentially led to criminal charges for Hitler
Speaker 1: and other Nazis. Instead, it led to basically nothing. A
Speaker 1: little more than a year later, Hitler was the new
Speaker 1: Chancellor of Germany. Linton was sent to a concentration camp
Speaker 1: where he spent more than five agonizing years before committing
Speaker 1: suicide and Dachau. The whole incident amounted to little more
Speaker 1: than bad press for Hitler, and by that point he
Speaker 1: could handle it. Oh so fuck you, Kurt owned Sorge. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: someone in Germany, go find his grave and pay on it.
Speaker 1: We will send you a shirt, unless that is illegal
Speaker 1: for me to say, in which case, like hit there,
Speaker 1: I never urged anyone to do anything illegal. Never start
Speaker 1: any sentence about yourself with like, that's a fair point.
Speaker 1: That's a fair point. Thank you for trying to protect me. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and yeah, I won't make a Dorito's plug there,
Speaker 1: probably will not get us a sponsorship. Um. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about the press now. The German and American press
Speaker 1: are collectively our next bastard on this tour to bastards. Uh.
Speaker 1: There were, of course, a number of great journalists like
Speaker 1: William Schier right and left wing, who reported worriedly on
Speaker 1: the rise of the Nazis and tried to highlight their
Speaker 1: crimes before Hitler came to power. Unfortunately, those people were
Speaker 1: not the majority of the mainstream media. Hitler's big speech
Speaker 1: at the trial for the Munich Putsch was only able
Speaker 1: to reach German citizens and convert new Nazis because the
Speaker 1: trial was breathlessly covered by major German newspapers. Hitler said wacky,
Speaker 1: insane things. It was easy to get headlines out of
Speaker 1: his nuttiness, and people wanted to read about this bizarre character.
Speaker 1: Here's how that wonderful book Death of Democracy to scribed
Speaker 1: the coverage. He knows how to use all modulations of
Speaker 1: his sometimes raw voice, noted the respected Frankfurter Zeitung Zeitung
Speaker 1: means newspaper in German. Uh. While no friend of the
Speaker 1: Nazi leader, the sophisticated newspaper was committed to a liberal
Speaker 1: democratic order in the New Germany and had endorsed the
Speaker 1: Treaty of Versailles. The Jewish own Daily nonetheless let its
Speaker 1: reporter give Hitler his due as a performer and explained
Speaker 1: to an unknowing audience some of the magic of Hitler's method.
Speaker 1: He softens his voice, then gradually raises it to a
Speaker 1: dramatic shout, even a hoarse screech. His voice then cracks
Speaker 1: and sorrow over his fallen comrades. He scornfully mocks the
Speaker 1: trembling timidity of his enemies, shaping his words with a
Speaker 1: lively play of his hands. Hitler rounds off his periods
Speaker 1: with both hands, emphasizes an ironic or offensive comment by
Speaker 1: shooting his left index finger towards the state attorney, and
Speaker 1: uses his head and even his body to undergird his speech.
Speaker 1: The rhetorical impact is strong. Much of what Hitler says
Speaker 1: about the lead up to the coup sounds at least
Speaker 1: subjectively convincing, wrote the Frankfurter Zeitung. One sees clearly how
Speaker 1: hit There's plan grew out of the behavior of the
Speaker 1: men then ruling in Bavaria. The only thing dividing them
Speaker 1: were some personel questions and the courage to act. Oh
Speaker 1: this is the left wing car like envy, you don't
Speaker 1: like him. These are the guys you don't like him. Well,
Speaker 1: that's very nice. So the vast majority of Germany's newspapers
Speaker 1: were very anti Nazi and anti Hitler. Uh. This did
Speaker 1: not concern the Nazis one bit. They loved the breathless
Speaker 1: coverage of the crazy things hit There would say. Joseph
Speaker 1: Gebel's repeatedly wrote in his diary, the main thing is
Speaker 1: they're talking about us. Wow, wow. Now the American press
Speaker 1: also played a big role in Hitler's growing acceptance both
Speaker 1: to Germany in the world as a legitimate politician. In
Speaker 1: the late nineteen twenties, American papers took to calling him
Speaker 1: the German Mussolini. Now cool, that sounds bad to us,
Speaker 1: because we know Mussolini was murdered in the street by
Speaker 1: his own people and strung up because so they could
Speaker 1: got at his corpse. But back in those days, Mussolini
Speaker 1: was an important world leader, and not yet christ Um.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to quote now from a very good
Speaker 1: Smithsonian article called how Journalists covered the Rise of Mussolini
Speaker 1: and Hitler, And this is gonna be a long quote.
Speaker 1: The main way that the press defanged Hitler was by
Speaker 1: portraying him as something of a joke. He was a
Speaker 1: nonsensical screecher of wild words whose appearance, according to Newsweek,
Speaker 1: suggests Charlie Chaplin. His countenance is a caricature. He was
Speaker 1: as voluable as he was insecure, stated Cosmopolitan. Sure he
Speaker 1: had a following, but his followers were impressionable voters duped
Speaker 1: by radical doctrines and quack remedies, claim The Washington Post
Speaker 1: Now that Hitler actually had to operate within a government.
Speaker 1: After he was elected, the sober politicians would submerge this movement.
Speaker 1: According to The New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor,
Speaker 1: a quote keen sense of dramatic instinct was not enough
Speaker 1: when it came time to govern, His lack of gravity
Speaker 1: and profundity of thought would be exposed. In fact, The
Speaker 1: New York Times wrote after Hitler's appointment to the chancellorship
Speaker 1: that success would only let him exposed to the German
Speaker 1: public his own futility. Journalists wondered whether Hitler now regretted
Speaker 1: leaving the rally for the cabinet meeting, where he would
Speaker 1: have to assume some responsibility. Would he thuh, eventually, I
Speaker 1: mean shot himself when the Russians were at the gates. Weally,
Speaker 1: But it's like, there's no better way to make someone
Speaker 1: seem like not a threat. And therefore even if you
Speaker 1: don't respect him, right, you still are like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is no big deal. Charlie Chaplin, everyone's favorite, good time,
Speaker 1: god time, Oh my god. So all this, I hope,
Speaker 1: has explained how the soil of fascism was fertilized in Germany.
Speaker 1: All of these people and many more that I didn't
Speaker 1: have the time to get into detail about helped prepare
Speaker 1: a political climate that could allow for the rise of
Speaker 1: Adolf Hitler in the most progressive, educated and enlightened society
Speaker 1: in the world at the time. The only thing left
Speaker 1: to explain is how Hitler actually achieved absolute power and
Speaker 1: toppled the Weimar Democracy. So we're gonna get into some
Speaker 1: turn of the century German parliamentary politics here, trying to
Speaker 1: make it interesting. I think it will be because it's
Speaker 1: interesting to me and my taste is flawless. So here
Speaker 1: we go. In the same year that Hitler tried his putch,
Speaker 1: a guy named Gustav Stresseman was elected Chancellor of Germany.
Speaker 1: Now Stressman was a Liberal and his main achievement in
Speaker 1: office was starting the healing process with France. He became
Speaker 1: friends with their leader, a guy named Briand, and both
Speaker 1: of them desperately wanted to avoid their two nations ever
Speaker 1: again coming to blows. These are actually the first people
Speaker 1: who proposed a European union using the words European union.
Speaker 1: That was the dream. Then there's like, okay, if we
Speaker 1: have like a common border between us and we we
Speaker 1: start trading and our kids can travel and see each other,
Speaker 1: maybe there will never be another terrible World war. That
Speaker 1: was the dream for stress Human and brand. Unfortunately, stress
Speaker 1: Human's terms started right when the German economy took a
Speaker 1: swan dive into the asphalt. The Social Democrats pulled their
Speaker 1: support from him and his government collapsed, which meant new
Speaker 1: elections and a new chancellor. So the week al bet
Speaker 1: a year. Okay, the collapsed economy did not he was
Speaker 1: now he was foreign minister. He was like their head
Speaker 1: of foreign policy for like eight years after that, so
Speaker 1: he was a force in politics. But yeah, he was
Speaker 1: no longer in charge. So the collapsed economy didn't sweep
Speaker 1: the Nazis into power, as it's often claimed, but it
Speaker 1: did lead to a surge at this point in time
Speaker 1: in the early twenties in the votes for both the
Speaker 1: Nazis and the right wing in general. Now, in nineteen five,
Speaker 1: Paul von Handenberg gets elected President of the Reich. There
Speaker 1: is there's our mannden Bird. No, yeah, so he is
Speaker 1: the president of the right now. Over the next few years,
Speaker 1: the economy improved, but Germany's political polarization continued unabated. Stressman
Speaker 1: stayed on as the foreign Minister until he died in
Speaker 1: nineteen nine, and while he was in office he pushed
Speaker 1: for Germany to join with France into that European Union thing.
Speaker 1: This actually might have happened if it hadn't have been
Speaker 1: for a guy named alf for Hugenberg. Now, Hugenberg was
Speaker 1: a very wealthy conservative who had bought up a ton
Speaker 1: of newspapers and owned a lot of wealthy conservatives that
Speaker 1: owns a bunch of newspapers, who he wound up at
Speaker 1: the head of the German National Party, which was a
Speaker 1: center right wing party. They surged in nineteen twenty four
Speaker 1: when the economy fell, but by nine the economy had
Speaker 1: started to get better, and that meant that they lost
Speaker 1: a huge number of votes to the Liberals. One of
Speaker 1: Hugenberg's first moves as head of the party was to
Speaker 1: ally it with the Nazi movement. He didn't like the Nazis,
Speaker 1: but he saw them as the only way for Conservatives
Speaker 1: to win at the ballot box. So Hugenberg hated the
Speaker 1: Treaty of Versailles and the reparations payments Germany was forced
Speaker 1: to make. Continuing those payments, albeit in a reduced form,
Speaker 1: was a key part of the plan that Stresseman and
Speaker 1: Brian had put together to bring Germany and France into
Speaker 1: an early EU sort of thing. The Nazi Conservative Alliance
Speaker 1: was successful at stopping any chance this head of becoming
Speaker 1: a reality and purse pushing Germany away from reconciliation with France. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of Germans actually supported reconciliation and greater integration
Speaker 1: into Europe. We don't exactly have opinion polls from that time,
Speaker 1: but most Germans in the late twenties were voting for
Speaker 1: liberal or leftist parties, or at least centrist parties. The
Speaker 1: problem is that the German Communist Party, the kp D,
Speaker 1: was not willing to work with the Social Democrats in
Speaker 1: the same way the Nazis and the Conservatives were willing
Speaker 1: to work together. Now, the why the y as in
Speaker 1: why the Communists weren't willing to work with the Social
Speaker 1: Democrats leads us to this episode's secret hidden Bastard Joseph Stalin.
Speaker 1: So back in the nineteen twenties, the Communists of the
Speaker 1: world were a very centralized group. The German Communist Party,
Speaker 1: which saw substantial increases and voters right up until the
Speaker 1: Nazis came to power, was run by the Communist International,
Speaker 1: which was run by the Soviet Union, which was under
Speaker 1: the control of our old homeboy J. Stall Now. In
Speaker 1: nineteen the Common Turn had declared that world capitalism was
Speaker 1: entering its third period, a time of crisis in which
Speaker 1: capitalists ally with fascists for help in fighting back against
Speaker 1: organizing labor. This part was true, as we will get
Speaker 1: into later, but the Common Tern a k. A. Stalin
Speaker 1: also said that business would seek the help of the
Speaker 1: Social Democrats, who, because of their support for capitalism, were
Speaker 1: quote social fascists and thus just as bad as the
Speaker 1: Nazi Party. The reality is that Stalin simply didn't want
Speaker 1: the French and German relations to improve, because the more
Speaker 1: united Europe would represent a threat to his dominance and
Speaker 1: maybe to the Soviet unions continued survival. So he told
Speaker 1: the German Communist Party that they had to fight the
Speaker 1: Social Democrats rather than work with them to defeat the
Speaker 1: Nazis and stopped the rise of Hitler. So Stalin's in
Speaker 1: the mix. Stalin's in the mix. Where my goodness, he's
Speaker 1: got his fingers in this ship by two. So uh Now,
Speaker 1: since I've thrown the Communists under the bus, it's only
Speaker 1: fair that I say that capitalists also had a huge
Speaker 1: role in allowing the Nazis to seize power. Walter Funk
Speaker 1: was a German economist and future Reich Minister for Economic
Speaker 1: Affairs under the Nazis. He testified at Nuremberg that by
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one, my industrial which means my business owning
Speaker 1: friends and I were convinced that the Nazi Party would
Speaker 1: come to power in the not too distant future in
Speaker 1: the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. William Sharer,
Speaker 1: who interviewed both Funk and Hitler a number of times,
Speaker 1: describes how German big business came to stop worrying and
Speaker 1: love the Nazis in the summer of that year. Funk,
Speaker 1: a greasy, shifty eyed, paunchy little man whose face always
Speaker 1: reminded this writer of a frog. That sounds right, I
Speaker 1: like Shire. He's a good journalist. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: that description sounds about, right, Yeah. Gave up a lucrative
Speaker 1: job as editor of a leading German financial newspaper, the
Speaker 1: Berlinard Berze Tongue, and joined the Nazi Party and became
Speaker 1: a contact man between the party and a number of
Speaker 1: important business leaders. He explained Nuremberg that several of his
Speaker 1: industrialist friends, especially those prominent in the big Rhineland mining concerns,
Speaker 1: had urged him to join the Nazi movement quote in
Speaker 1: order to persuade the party to follow the course of
Speaker 1: private enterprise. Now this is a quote from Funk. At
Speaker 1: that time, the leadership of the party held completely contradictory
Speaker 1: in confused views on economic policy. I tried to accomplish
Speaker 1: my mission by personally impressing on the Fewer and the
Speaker 1: Party that private initiative, self reliance of the businessman, the
Speaker 1: creative powers of free enterprise, et cetera be recognized as
Speaker 1: the basic economic policy of the party. The Fewer personally
Speaker 1: stressed time and again during talks with me and industrial
Speaker 1: leaders to whom I had introduced him, that he was
Speaker 1: an enemy of state economy and of the so called
Speaker 1: planned economy, and that he considered free enterprise and competition
Speaker 1: as absolutely necessary in order to gain the highest possible production.
Speaker 1: So German bankers and businessmen began to pour money into
Speaker 1: the Nazi Party millions of reichsmark's worth. Their goal was
Speaker 1: the suppression of labor unions and an end to the
Speaker 1: Weimar government's equivalent of a minimum wage. The death of
Speaker 1: Democracy explains, the industrialist called for cuts and public spending
Speaker 1: in wages and a rollback of government regulation. As business
Speaker 1: leaders well knew, this was a program that could be
Speaker 1: achieved only through the exclusion of the political left, a
Speaker 1: especially the Social Democrats. So everybody's on board. We're all it.
Speaker 1: You get a few get you get to go to
Speaker 1: a concentration camp, like half of you go to camps
Speaker 1: if you get a camps. Now, the final bastard I'm
Speaker 1: going to introduce today in this exceptionally bastardful episode is
Speaker 1: a general named Kurt von Schleicher. He was the army's
Speaker 1: chief political lobbyist because the army had one of those,
Speaker 1: and so he represented the German Army or Reichswear in politics.
Speaker 1: The army had been severely limited by the Treaty of Versailles.
Speaker 1: They wanted an into that, and they also wanted more
Speaker 1: money to buy army things like expensive new battle cruisers.
Speaker 1: The Social Democrats preferred to spend that money on bullshit
Speaker 1: like bridges and foods, and in fact, one of their
Speaker 1: election slogans was food instead of a battleship, basically like yeah, um,
Speaker 1: so Schleicher in the military like the German industrialist, wanted
Speaker 1: to push the left entirely out of power. Schleiker did
Speaker 1: not like Adolf Hitler. There's a story that at one
Speaker 1: point he was talking to a Hitler supporter who kept
Speaker 1: gushing over how talented the Fewer was. Schliker responded, yes,
Speaker 1: it's just a pity that he's crazy. By the way,
Speaker 1: Schliker would be shot to death on the Night of
Speaker 1: Long Knives. But at this point in time, Schliker, who
Speaker 1: didn't like the Nazis, was still sure that once they
Speaker 1: got into power, they'd calmed themselves down and moderate themselves.
Speaker 1: He said, quote, we will make the Nazis believers in
Speaker 1: the state only when we let them at the trough,
Speaker 1: when has given somee power made them more moderate, not
Speaker 1: once at all of history. Well, okay, I'll put you
Speaker 1: in the same thing. Turn eleven year olds into soldiers. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a bad idea. It's a bad idea. The reason
Speaker 1: that's usually justified for why he thought this is that
Speaker 1: the Social Democrats had at one point been a pretty
Speaker 1: radical left wing political party, and then they'd had to
Speaker 1: govern and it had turned them more moderate. So that
Speaker 1: does that happens with reasonable people who weren't from the
Speaker 1: get go claiming they want to do install a dictatorship. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like how Obama starts off with all this left
Speaker 1: wing talk and then he's more of a centrist in season.
Speaker 1: Power that happens with sane people, you know. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen with the crazy people. Um, they don't
Speaker 1: get moderated by being given power and they don't compromise.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen thirty, a guy named Heinrich Brunning was
Speaker 1: elected Chancellor of Germany. Now Brenning was probably the last
Speaker 1: competent elected leader the Weimar Republic had. Brenning was famous
Speaker 1: for being a policy walk who mainly wanted to get
Speaker 1: the economy back on track again. He also wanted the
Speaker 1: government to ban the essay the Nazi Stormtroopers because he
Speaker 1: thought it was unreasonable that a fascist political party would
Speaker 1: be allowed to have a paramilitary army. Uh's coming here,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be reasonable. This is not the story
Speaker 1: for a reasonable men to do well, um schlicker the
Speaker 1: German general like lobbyist guy. I thought the stormtroopers were
Speaker 1: useful because they were sort of a backup army, the
Speaker 1: German army was limited to a hundred thousand men. They
Speaker 1: were like a million something stormtroopers at this point. So
Speaker 1: we thought they were useful as like a force that
Speaker 1: he could call on if the country was invaded. Um
Speaker 1: So he talked to his buddy, President Paul van Hendenberg,
Speaker 1: who would be up for reelection soon. Uh and he
Speaker 1: told him that, you know, if he banned the stormtroopers,
Speaker 1: it's gonna not end well for you. Uh So Schliker
Speaker 1: tried to sabotage the band. He put together a file
Speaker 1: mostly filled with right wing news press clippings about violence
Speaker 1: perpetuated by the Social Democrats paramilitary organization because oh yeah, yeah, everybody,
Speaker 1: and during this whole period, it's important to understand there
Speaker 1: is a growing amount of fighting in the streets between
Speaker 1: the Nazis and the Social Democrats and the communists, and
Speaker 1: everybody has a little paramilitary army. It's not official. The
Speaker 1: parties usually don't officially endorse them as an army. Like
Speaker 1: the Nazis would claim that their stormtroopers were basically like
Speaker 1: a sports club, but they were stockpiling guns and and
Speaker 1: it is true that basically the file that Schliker sends
Speaker 1: to Hendenberg, he makes the case that many sides are
Speaker 1: to blame for the political violence in Germany, so you
Speaker 1: shouldn't blan banned the stormtroopers, and it's true that many
Speaker 1: sides had paramilitary armies, but the Nazis had by far
Speaker 1: the largest and the most violent, and we're killing the
Speaker 1: most people and also wanted to overthrow the state. So yeah,
Speaker 1: So Chancellor Brunning and the Reichstag passed the band anyway,
Speaker 1: even though Hindenberg and Schleicher did not want it. So
Speaker 1: Schliker engineered a vote of no confidence against Chancellor running
Speaker 1: the Nazis and the Communists backed him on this because
Speaker 1: the Communists don't like the government anyway, and they think
Speaker 1: that anything that's bad for the current government, which again
Speaker 1: they're not social democrats, their social fascists, so anything that's
Speaker 1: bad for them is good for communism. Why everybody dumb?
Speaker 1: Everybody's always dumb. That's democracy. Every that is the tagline
Speaker 1: of democracy is everybody gets not just a king's gonna
Speaker 1: be dumb. We're all gonna be dumb until we get
Speaker 1: a king again because we're all too dumb. That's how
Speaker 1: it works. So there's a vote of no confidence. But
Speaker 1: Brunning actually manages to defend himself well enough that he
Speaker 1: wins the vote. Schliker isn't willing to take this lying down,
Speaker 1: so he goes to Hennenburg and he convinces Hendenburg to
Speaker 1: demand Brenning's resignation anyway, on the grands that Brenning must
Speaker 1: be unpopular because people would have asked for a vote
Speaker 1: of no confidence. Uh. In reality, Schliker just wanted Brenning
Speaker 1: out of power because Brenning was a centrist who got
Speaker 1: in the way of Schliker's dreams of assembling a right
Speaker 1: wing coalition. So on the day Brenning resigned, Joseph Gebbels
Speaker 1: wrote in his diary with that the system has fallen.
Speaker 1: So I do want to say, if you want more
Speaker 1: detail on this whole thing, The Death of Democracy is
Speaker 1: a wonderful book that will will tell you much better
Speaker 1: than I did, everything that happened. So the gist of
Speaker 1: this is that increased polarization in the late twenties and
Speaker 1: early thirties led to the executive branch President Hendienburgh using
Speaker 1: more executive orders to get things done. Hennenberg didn't like
Speaker 1: using executive orders because he had the sign them, so
Speaker 1: if his policies were bad and things got fucked up.
Speaker 1: He couldn't avoid the blame. And if you remember talking
Speaker 1: about Hendenburg, his whole bow the blame, making sure his
Speaker 1: legacy is good exact. So, like Schliker, Hendenburg wanted to
Speaker 1: govern at the behest of a right wing coalition and
Speaker 1: completely ignored the Social Democrats and the left, who he
Speaker 1: hated and did not consider real Germans. Schliker promised Hendenberg
Speaker 1: that he could make this happen. So the next guy
Speaker 1: he put up for chancellor was a dude named Franz
Speaker 1: von Pappen now Poppin, was a conservative politician who was
Speaker 1: famous for being very dumb in mediocre. They basically wanted
Speaker 1: to use him as a puppet. Before World War One,
Speaker 1: Poppin had worked in New York City as a spy
Speaker 1: for the government, trying to sabotage the Allies. He got
Speaker 1: caught doing this and sent home. And when he was
Speaker 1: sent home, he sent ahead of him a bunch of
Speaker 1: private government documents uh and assumed that no one would
Speaker 1: search his luggage. They did search his luggage and the
Speaker 1: British game lists of all of the names of Germany spies.
Speaker 1: So this is the guy they're like, this guy is
Speaker 1: a great dude to have as a pawn because he's
Speaker 1: just dumb as fucked. He'll do what you said, So
Speaker 1: dumb motherfucker friends. Von Poppen is the chancellor now. Schliker
Speaker 1: got the Nazis to support this thoroughly mediocre candidate by
Speaker 1: promising that Poppin would repeal the ban on their stormtroopers.
Speaker 1: Poppin was elected, and he did just that. He also
Speaker 1: established special courts to deal with political violence by stripping
Speaker 1: perpetrators of their constitutional rights. He did this through executive orders. Now,
Speaker 1: the Brunning administration, who he had replaced, had also relied
Speaker 1: heavily on executive orders, but Brunning had had a parliamentary
Speaker 1: majority behind him, most of the country supported what he
Speaker 1: was doing. With popping in power, executive orders were used
Speaker 1: to ignore parliament entirely and govern without the Social Democrats.
Speaker 1: This wound up being a disaster by alienating the center
Speaker 1: left entirely. Schlicker and Hendenburgh made themselves totally dependent on
Speaker 1: the Nazis. Because the Nazis were now the biggest right
Speaker 1: wing party in politics, and rather than being content that
Speaker 1: they'd won some power, the Nazis started pushing for all
Speaker 1: of the power, because that's what Nazis do. Um. This
Speaker 1: is because the Nazis knew that they and their ideas
Speaker 1: could not survive long in power. Gebel's actually complained that
Speaker 1: they were winning themselves to death and elections because now
Speaker 1: that they had some guys in power, when ship would
Speaker 1: go wrong, the blame would on them. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: Nazi Party achieved its best showing at a fair an
Speaker 1: open election on July thirty one, nineteen thirty one, with
Speaker 1: thirty seven point one percent of the vote. They never
Speaker 1: got more than that in an election. Wow. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the highest that in free and open election. That's the
Speaker 1: most popularity at seven. They celebrated this victory in true
Speaker 1: Nazi fashion with a shipload of violence. Several of them
Speaker 1: beat and then shot dead a left wing activist. These
Speaker 1: stormtroopers were arrested and because of Poppins new special courts,
Speaker 1: they were sentenced to death. The Nazis used this as
Speaker 1: an excuse to start attacking Poppin's administration. Now, the Nazis
Speaker 1: adventual goal was to get Hendenburgh to declare Hitler the Chancellor.
Speaker 1: They did this by threatening the thing he valued most,
Speaker 1: his legacy. There weren't enough Nazis in the Reichstag to
Speaker 1: impeach the president, but they did have enough deputies to
Speaker 1: propose to prosecute him for his illegal actions in office,
Speaker 1: like the executive orders he'd been using to ignore the
Speaker 1: Social Democrats. They threatened to do this, and again, the
Speaker 1: one thing Hendenburgh doesn't want is his legacy being tarnished
Speaker 1: by a court case. Maybe so Poppin, Schleicher and Hendenburg
Speaker 1: were left with very few options without Nazi support. Poppin
Speaker 1: couldn't remain chancellor since the Conservative Party did not have
Speaker 1: that many people anymore. Uh Their options were either to
Speaker 1: have Hendenburg dissolved the Reichstag, declare a state of emergency
Speaker 1: and governed as a dictator, or bring the Nazis into
Speaker 1: the government with Poppin the whole to clear a dictatorship,
Speaker 1: thing they thought would spark a civil war, so they
Speaker 1: decided once again to work with the Nazis. They offered
Speaker 1: the Nazis seats in Poppin's cabinet, but Hitler was no
Speaker 1: longer willing to compromise. The only thing he would accept
Speaker 1: now was the chancellorship, so Handenburgh dissolved the government yet again,
Speaker 1: in the hopes that the Nazis would lose some votes
Speaker 1: and yet another election and finally be forced to cooperate.
Speaker 1: But before Popin could dissolve the government, the Communists called
Speaker 1: for a vote of no confidence in him. The Nazis
Speaker 1: agreed with the Communists and the vote Hendenberg's original plan. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a wacky tail, right. So, Hindenberg's original plan had
Speaker 1: been to delay the next election, which was kind of
Speaker 1: sort of illegal, but he wanted to wait because the
Speaker 1: economy was getting better in an improved a on him,
Speaker 1: he would mean fewer votes for the Nazis, but the
Speaker 1: no confidence vote in Poppin spooked him. He still dissolved
Speaker 1: the Reichstag, but he didn't delay the election. This election
Speaker 1: did not go as well for the Nazis, since they
Speaker 1: was like the second election that year and they were
Speaker 1: running out of money. Now, yeah, the reichstad keep fucking dissolving.
Speaker 1: The Communists did, however, gain ground um, which scared Schliker
Speaker 1: because he thought that if the Nazi support evaporated, he
Speaker 1: would not be able to make his broad right wing
Speaker 1: coalition work. This was still his fucking goal, so Schliker
Speaker 1: betrays Poppin to Hendenberg and tells Hendenburg to fire Popping
Speaker 1: and allow Schliker to be chancellor. Because if he was chancellor,
Speaker 1: he thought he could assemble enough right wing support to
Speaker 1: run the government free of the pesky Social Democrats. His
Speaker 1: goal was to get some of the Nazis to break
Speaker 1: away from Hitler and agree to work with him. Yeah
Speaker 1: it didn't work. Yeah, that's not not Nazi. They stick together,
Speaker 1: that's why they won. Yeah. Um so Schliker fails miserably
Speaker 1: and then Popping backstabs him. Uh so. Poppin had liked
Speaker 1: being in power, and when Schleiker took his job, Poppin
Speaker 1: started talking with Hitler. They eventually came to an agreement.
Speaker 1: Poppin was friends with Hindenburg and he basically convinced him
Speaker 1: that it would work. The chancellor Schleiker was a bad idea,
Speaker 1: and instead Poppin should appoint Hitler chancellor and Poppin would
Speaker 1: be the vice chancellor. So now we're adding an advice chancellor.
Speaker 1: Now there's always been a vice chancellors. But then, can
Speaker 1: we see above RePOP and being dumb as fuck? How
Speaker 1: is he now in this position where he can convince
Speaker 1: anybody to do anything. Just Hendenberg Hendenburger buddies. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: So Hindenberg up until this point had expressed nothing but
Speaker 1: discussed for Hitler. But now he agreed to make him chancellor.
Speaker 1: It was the only way that he could box the
Speaker 1: Liberals out of government. Poppin assured him that all the
Speaker 1: good conservatives in the cabinet would successfully moderate Hitler's behavior.
Speaker 1: Poppin said, in a few months, we will pushed him
Speaker 1: so far into the corner that he will squeak. As
Speaker 1: it happened. Within a few months, the Nazis passed the
Speaker 1: Enabling Act with centralized all of Parliament's lawmaking powers within
Speaker 1: the administration. The Reichstag Fire and the Reichstag Fire Decree
Speaker 1: came not long after, and established the legal foundation of
Speaker 1: a Nazi dictatorship in Germany. None of this was necessary.
Speaker 1: It all came out of the desire by leaders on
Speaker 1: the right to completely box the left out of power.
Speaker 1: As The Death of Democracy explains, Herman Mueller's government in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty had a stable majority. Heinrich Brunning had won
Speaker 1: a confidence vote in the Reichstag just days before Hendenburg
Speaker 1: sacked him. There was no need to call an election
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty two. The crisis and the deadlock of
Speaker 1: thirty two and early nineteen thirty three, to which Hitler
Speaker 1: appeared as the only solution, was manufactured by a political
Speaker 1: right wing that wanted to exclude more than half of
Speaker 1: the population from political representation and refuse even the mildest compromise.
Speaker 1: To this end, a succession of conservative politicians Hugenberg, Brunning, Schleicher,
Speaker 1: Poppin and Hendenburg courted the Nazis is the only way
Speaker 1: to retain power on terms congenial to them. Hitler's regime
Speaker 1: was the result. If the Holocaust has a tagline, uh,
Speaker 1: it's never forget. You know, we've all heard that about it. Uh.
Speaker 1: Those are probably the two best words you can attach
Speaker 1: to a tragedy of that magnitude. But I think they
Speaker 1: are often interpreted too narrowly as saying we need to
Speaker 1: remember the victims of the Holocaust and the dangers of
Speaker 1: anti Semitism. We do need to remember those things, but
Speaker 1: we also need to remember how the Nazi Party came
Speaker 1: to power. That story is not told often enough, and
Speaker 1: when it is, it's usually boiled down to just Hitler
Speaker 1: was good at talking um. You know, The reality is
Speaker 1: that all of his charisma would have been worthless without
Speaker 1: a massive gang of people who are willing to cooperate, compromise,
Speaker 1: and work with him to try and achieve their own goals.
Speaker 1: They were not Nazis. They were journalists who knew Hitler's
Speaker 1: any speeches made good stories. They were communists who wanted
Speaker 1: to see the Right collapse in on itself and didn't
Speaker 1: want to compromise with the liberals. And more than anything,
Speaker 1: they were conservative politicians, intellectuals, and businessmen who thought that
Speaker 1: they could use the energy and passion of the Nazi
Speaker 1: movement without enabling its violence and extremism. All these people
Speaker 1: were wrong. Hitler was the result. Dorothy Thompson was a
Speaker 1: trailblazing female journalist in the early nineteen twenties. She was
Speaker 1: one of the first women on the radio, and she
Speaker 1: was a general badass. In nineteen twenties, she moved to
Speaker 1: Europe to further her career and wound up running the
Speaker 1: New York Posts bureau in Berlin. She was in Germany
Speaker 1: for the whole rise of Hitler in the Nazi Party,
Speaker 1: and for a very long time she was certain nothing
Speaker 1: would come of Nazism in nineteen twenty eight, she called
Speaker 1: Hitler a man of quote, startling and significance. The Nazis
Speaker 1: forced her out of the country in nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: as Hitler solidified his hold on power and instituted a
Speaker 1: purge of all journalists, foreign and domestic who threatened his regime.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty five, trying to understand why she hadn't
Speaker 1: seen Hitler coming, Dorothy Parker said this, no people ever
Speaker 1: recognized their dictator in advance. He never stands for election
Speaker 1: on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as
Speaker 1: the instrument of incorporated national will. Seeing Hitler rise to
Speaker 1: power in and destroy armar democracy made Dorothy wonder if
Speaker 1: the same thing was possible in the United States. When
Speaker 1: our dictator turns up, you can depend on it that
Speaker 1: he will be one of the boys, and he will
Speaker 1: stand for everything traditionally American who now okay North They
Speaker 1: listeners may notice that we have with I think impressive
Speaker 1: will Power not mentioned anything about contemporary politics in this podcast.
Speaker 1: This is because number one, I want this to be
Speaker 1: as shareable as possible with your friends and relatives who
Speaker 1: may be on the more conservative end of the spectrum
Speaker 1: who may have voted for our current president in office. Um.
Speaker 1: This is, however, the point at which we're going to
Speaker 1: loosen those ourselves and talk about how everything in this
Speaker 1: fucking podcast sounds really got down god Like, it's so crazy,
Speaker 1: it's so crazy. But it's also you know, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't you can't let too many white men come
Speaker 1: together and start talking. They get together, they start talking,
Speaker 1: and things go heay wire, Okay, things go wrong. It
Speaker 1: was under you know, especially in partular to me, the
Speaker 1: you know, the industrial industrial men, the the wealthy conservative,
Speaker 1: the woods who want to keep their money. Uh, and
Speaker 1: we'll go to any lengths to keep it. And it's, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not a rich person. I've never been rich,
Speaker 1: so I don't know what it is to be so
Speaker 1: rich that that becomes the only thing that matters is
Speaker 1: to just amass the wealth. And then I'm assuming, you know,
Speaker 1: against how we get into generational wealth, Like you just
Speaker 1: want your kids to be rich and then their kids
Speaker 1: to be rich. But I can't imagine h having so
Speaker 1: much money a lot of times being born into it
Speaker 1: and still being so terrified it's gonna go away to
Speaker 1: the point where you're like, all right, if a Nazi
Speaker 1: is what it takes, the Nazis what it takes well,
Speaker 1: and they don't. None of them thought a Nazi meant
Speaker 1: the Nazis will be the sole power. They thought they're
Speaker 1: just one more political party, and if we work with
Speaker 1: them and use their energy, it will help us stop
Speaker 1: those people who want to pay our workers more wages.
Speaker 1: And that's not gonna happen from But but like certain
Speaker 1: people in power from the beginning, they said things that
Speaker 1: were Craig but Night, and they said things that let
Speaker 1: you know who they thought were people and who they
Speaker 1: thought weren't. One of my favorite quotes, do you remember
Speaker 1: that guy Hans Litton who put Hitler on trial and
Speaker 1: wound up dying for it. One of the things he
Speaker 1: said in that court case when he was cross examining
Speaker 1: Hitler is don't listen to him. He's telling the truth,
Speaker 1: which is what none of these conservatives would do. Is
Speaker 1: like Hitler was said this, I want to be the
Speaker 1: sole power in Germany. It's always clear what he wanted, right, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's who I I don't the mental gymnastics,
Speaker 1: you know, to believe that once someone is in power,
Speaker 1: the structures in place will somehow rain them in when
Speaker 1: the very act of that person getting into power shows
Speaker 1: you that the structures don't actually work, or rather, the
Speaker 1: structures aren't firm, aren't strong. I mean literally, she said, like,
Speaker 1: there are elections, like two, three times, so many fucking elections.
Speaker 1: How is that system gonna be the one to keep
Speaker 1: a want to be dictator from dictating? Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: was a big People just got so tired of politics
Speaker 1: that they were like, maybe it won't be so bad. Well, also,
Speaker 1: it numbs you, right if you're people are constantly running,
Speaker 1: which means they have to constantly say make bigger and
Speaker 1: bigger promises. They started to mean nothing after a while.
Speaker 1: So then you're kind of like, Okay, he says he
Speaker 1: wants to run the world, Let him do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like slash, is he gonna do it? Slash, We'll
Speaker 1: deal with him in three months ago. Yeah, he's probably
Speaker 1: not that serious. There'll be another election soon. It'll be fine, exactly,
Speaker 1: it will be next election will be out in six months.
Speaker 1: One of the things I did want to talk about
Speaker 1: that I initially had earlier in the in the episode,
Speaker 1: um is the you know, when we talked about sort
Speaker 1: of the coordination of the police and the Nazis, now
Speaker 1: the police at a very gentle hand, there is a
Speaker 1: long history of that that continues to the present day.
Speaker 1: In two thousands sixteen and activists with the Traditional Workers Party,
Speaker 1: which is as a Nazi organization. Yeah, that fucking Traditional
Speaker 1: Workers Party, you know what that is. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: rested on a domestic violence charge. The police in fucking California,
Speaker 1: rather than dealing with this domestic violence charge, sat him
Speaker 1: down and gave him pictures of anti fascist activists and
Speaker 1: asked him for help identifying them. We're pretty much going
Speaker 1: after them, they told him, we're looking at you as
Speaker 1: a victim. Now. You can read about all this in
Speaker 1: a wonderful Guardian article called California police worked with neo
Speaker 1: Nazis to pursue anti racist activists, documents show, because that's
Speaker 1: not the only case, and there was even in the
Speaker 1: fighting in Portland between anti fascists and fucking right wing
Speaker 1: Nazi basically guys. Well, also white supremacists were brought into
Speaker 1: police forces around the country, certainly currently and currently but
Speaker 1: still but you know, we're talking back in the you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? The forties, fifties, sixties, seventies. You know,
Speaker 1: those are the people they said, you know, come join
Speaker 1: the police force and help us check these brown people
Speaker 1: who are starting to act like people who are starting
Speaker 1: to get too big for their bridges, who are starting
Speaker 1: to assert their power and their humanity in essence. And
Speaker 1: you know, then if those are people bought the police force,
Speaker 1: and they have children, and those children went to the
Speaker 1: police force, and they have communities, and they urged the
Speaker 1: communities to get involved in uh policing and security and
Speaker 1: government other government offices. When Martin Luther King was marching
Speaker 1: in the streets and police were shooting black people with
Speaker 1: fire hoses and stuff, those guys weren't all going like, boy,
Speaker 1: it's terrible that we're ordered to do this. And they
Speaker 1: were like, oh good, I get to shoot black people
Speaker 1: with the water hose. They actually, um, I have a suggestion.
Speaker 1: What if we got water hoses? Umna ben them with those?
Speaker 1: It could be fun, almost like a video game. And
Speaker 1: they weren't. They didn't because the civil rights movement one.
Speaker 1: They didn't just go like, I guess I was wrong.
Speaker 1: Time to treat everyone equal. Well that's the thing, right, No,
Speaker 1: no one went away. Yeah, they just batted down the hutches,
Speaker 1: and they just spoke in lower tones. They just kept
Speaker 1: to themselves. A couple of years before World War Two
Speaker 1: broke out, twenty thousand American Nazis members of the German
Speaker 1: American Bund, which was essentially a Nazi organization in the
Speaker 1: United States prior to World War Two. Twenty thousand of
Speaker 1: them gathered in Madison Square Garden to have a celebration
Speaker 1: of Hitler in the Nazis. It's scary to think about,
Speaker 1: but statistically, a significant number of the men who landed
Speaker 1: on the beaches at Normandy would have been perfectly happy
Speaker 1: if we'd wound up on the side of the Nazis
Speaker 1: in that war, because there was anti Semitism was incredibly
Speaker 1: rampant the United States at that time, which is why
Speaker 1: we refused to take tens of thousands of Jewish refugees
Speaker 1: before the Holocaust, many of whom drowned in the ocean
Speaker 1: because the boats we sent them back to Germany on
Speaker 1: sink Um. There was a huge amount of of fascist support. Lindenberg,
Speaker 1: Charles Lindenberg, who was the first guy to fly across
Speaker 1: the Atlantic, was a fascist and was a serious candidate
Speaker 1: for president at one point um and had a huge
Speaker 1: amount of support. There was a very prominent fascist movement
Speaker 1: in the United States until World War Two happened and
Speaker 1: things went underground. But never died, right, never died. When
Speaker 1: underground owns, you know, you have to as as it
Speaker 1: would underground from six take. Yeah, you know, that's where
Speaker 1: we get some of our greatest Reddit threads. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of websites and groups. They just went into
Speaker 1: the Internet. They got together, they talked across states and
Speaker 1: made plans for when their time would come again. And
Speaker 1: when people would call them out on saying, like all
Speaker 1: these jew jokes you're making, and all these comments about
Speaker 1: brown people that you're making. You know, they say, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is where it's just irony. We're joking. We're joking again,
Speaker 1: think Hans Litton. Don't believe them. They're telling the truth exactly. Also,
Speaker 1: he ain't Charlie Chaplin, Yeah, he's not. He being our
Speaker 1: current president, is not a funny guy. He is not
Speaker 1: a man to be laughed at. Don't call him drump
Speaker 1: it's fucking dumb. He is a dangerous person. And you know,
Speaker 1: the inability and unwillingness, the the inabilities because of an
Speaker 1: unwillingness to work together. It is. It's so interesting to
Speaker 1: see a president that's literally not even pretending to be
Speaker 1: a president for everyone, and they're literally like, no, I'm
Speaker 1: only president to these folks, and I'm only here for
Speaker 1: the greater good of these folks, uh, and not in
Speaker 1: on one hand, they say like, I'm here for you
Speaker 1: working class American who was struggling, knowing that they're implementing
Speaker 1: policies that are the exact opposite of that, but truly
Speaker 1: that I'm actually only the president for a retroduced anding
Speaker 1: behind me, you know. And it's un you know, and
Speaker 1: that I think is what is so amazing. But also
Speaker 1: you know, I can the unfortunate thing. I mean, and
Speaker 1: I guess again what you're saying, which is so surprising,
Speaker 1: you know, to think that Germany was flourishing, especially in
Speaker 1: terms of education and people on the planet. How but
Speaker 1: that's how they almost conquered the world because they were
Speaker 1: the best educated technologically. What happened here is that they
Speaker 1: were just being They soon became so inundated with information
Speaker 1: because of these two things. I'm wondering, I'm kind of inferring, right,
Speaker 1: either get so inundated with information because you are having
Speaker 1: these elections every like three six, seven months. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: stopped paying attention to the details. And then also that
Speaker 1: you then have all these these people in power who
Speaker 1: are just intent on ruining everything? Is that what it is? Like?
Speaker 1: What happens to the left? Where do they take where
Speaker 1: do they take themselves? You know? I mean where do
Speaker 1: they do to kind of regroup? Well, within like a
Speaker 1: year or so with Hitler taking power, the left is illegal,
Speaker 1: The Social Democrats are banned, them minister banned, most of
Speaker 1: their leaders are in camps or flee the country. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's just like the thing is, most people are
Speaker 1: willing to vote and maybe protest. Most people are not
Speaker 1: willing to face down a gun for their beliefs, and
Speaker 1: the Nazis made that be the choice, and so people
Speaker 1: backed off, even though most of them never supported the Nazis.
Speaker 1: Most of them didn't like the Nazis, most of them
Speaker 1: thought Hitler was a silly man. By the time he
Speaker 1: was in power, it was too late. And I don't
Speaker 1: think that's the situation we're in right now. We have
Speaker 1: an older democracy and a stronger slightly older But then
Speaker 1: what I do think you know, as people talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, civility and things, it is amazing what you
Speaker 1: still see. What happens is you know, uh, when something
Speaker 1: doesn't immediately and directly affect you, it doesn't stay on
Speaker 1: the radar. There can be even initial outrage, but that
Speaker 1: outrage does not stay. Um, is not sustained when you
Speaker 1: can still go about your life and your business, you know, um.
Speaker 1: And so what happens especially you know again, the populations
Speaker 1: are so significantly smaller than than they are now and
Speaker 1: nowhere near as spread out as they are now. So
Speaker 1: where is the collective action of any kind when we're
Speaker 1: all over the place. I mean, think about this, the
Speaker 1: way the communists came after the left then the less switch,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like they're all fighting and
Speaker 1: get when a nazis just to avoid the other person
Speaker 1: being in power. Now, now let's fracture it even further,
Speaker 1: which we are now in terms of our alignments in
Speaker 1: our policy. And you've got people on the fire left
Speaker 1: saying that you know, Hillary would have been just as bad,
Speaker 1: that the Liberals can't be trusted, and it's like we
Speaker 1: need to sane people on the right, sane people on
Speaker 1: the left. Liberals left wingers, conservatives who aren't racist. Everybody
Speaker 1: needs to begin right. We can get back to arguing
Speaker 1: about taxes when this is taxes like you know, you
Speaker 1: know the right pronoun and triggering language. Once we've dealt
Speaker 1: with the deal with this, we've got to all kind
Speaker 1: of be like, Okay, you said the wrong thing or
Speaker 1: you said it in the wrong way, but you still
Speaker 1: feel me that he's the worst. You still feel me
Speaker 1: that we don't want to dictator. Focus on that right now,
Speaker 1: and let's put a pin in that other issue, you know,
Speaker 1: or hashtag put a pin in it? Or can we
Speaker 1: or can we fight both issues with or not that fight?
Speaker 1: I mean also like you know, discuss you know, the
Speaker 1: social issues and things that are important. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't want to tear down something and then be left
Speaker 1: with nothing. You know, would be still left with fracturing
Speaker 1: and in fighting. But how do you have the band
Speaker 1: with for lack of a better term, to engage on
Speaker 1: both fronts. And it's it's hard. It requires The best
Speaker 1: thing we have is that there's a lot of us.
Speaker 1: Everyone doesn't need to be out in the street every day,
Speaker 1: but people need to always be out in the street.
Speaker 1: The fact that there are so many protests is a
Speaker 1: good thing as long as it doesn't lead to numbness. Um.
Speaker 1: Direct action is important. Disrupting the system that exists is important,
Speaker 1: and the most important thing to do is to vote
Speaker 1: and stop these people from being in So many people
Speaker 1: have got to be voted, fucking registered to vote, vote
Speaker 1: and actually go, yeah, go show up, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's employers let people go. Make it easy to go,
Speaker 1: set up a shuttle, say we're not starting work until noon.
Speaker 1: Do you have to do that? People can go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If something like that's one of the things that these
Speaker 1: these guys, like fucking Elon Musk want want to be
Speaker 1: good guys, want to be the heroes. Paid a bus
Speaker 1: people to go vote. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a
Speaker 1: lot of things you could do to help make it
Speaker 1: easier for folks to vote. Yeah, they don't want you
Speaker 1: to vote. Volunteer for a campaign, do a registration drive,
Speaker 1: get out in the street, just do do something. Because
Speaker 1: the fact it took, as this I Hope podcast has shown,
Speaker 1: it took a lot of people collaborating with the Nazis,
Speaker 1: but it also took a lot of people not doing anything.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of artists and musicians and people
Speaker 1: who wonderful people in Weimar Germany who just didn't pay
Speaker 1: that much attention to politics because it was a bummer
Speaker 1: and went on living their lives and then they wound
Speaker 1: up in fucking camps. Uh. And it's I do want
Speaker 1: to make it clear. I don't think Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: a Nazi because Nazism is a very specific political ideology,
Speaker 1: and I don't think he has a very political idea
Speaker 1: specific political ideology. But I do think that he has
Speaker 1: fascist instincts. And Benito Mussolini was not a Nazi, but
Speaker 1: he was a fascist. Francisco Franco was not a Nazi,
Speaker 1: but he was a fascist. The I alone can fix,
Speaker 1: which he said in a one of his speeches running
Speaker 1: up to the election, that's a that's a fascist statement.
Speaker 1: Declaring press the enemy of the people, which is again
Speaker 1: a direct quote, that's a fascist statement. These are things
Speaker 1: fascists do, is declare enemies of the people. In fact,
Speaker 1: anytime someone uses the phrase of the people concerned, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty close to Volkska mine shaft, which was one
Speaker 1: of Hitler's big taglines. Yeah, so pay for the weekend.
Speaker 1: I got for a weekend. I'm like every time I
Speaker 1: hear some way this, I'm like, Okay, I gotta bulk up.
Speaker 1: I gotta get ripped, I gotta get I gotta get shredded,
Speaker 1: getting get ready to run, gotta get ready to start
Speaker 1: out underground railroads shouldn't need a ride. Maybe it's time
Speaker 1: for people on the left to start. Well, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna suggest stockpiling arms on my podcast, but well I do,
Speaker 1: but I but I do. But I have thought about
Speaker 1: the idea. Like all the people who are good at guns,
Speaker 1: I want to kill me. Like all the people who
Speaker 1: are good at guns are the scary ones. I think
Speaker 1: it's important. I'm a I'm a gun owner. I've been
Speaker 1: a gun owner my entire adult life. I also support
Speaker 1: a lot more gun control than we have right now.
Speaker 1: And I think are the there's always a dog in
Speaker 1: the office, which is part of why this podcast has
Speaker 1: such a strong moral compass, because dogs are better than people.
Speaker 1: I just thought that should be noted. Um. The dog's
Speaker 1: name is Anderson, and it's he's wonderful. Um. So I
Speaker 1: think that you can you can both uh support way
Speaker 1: better gun control than we have and also understand that
Speaker 1: all of the nazis having all the guns in the
Speaker 1: country is not a good thing the far right, and
Speaker 1: because I guarantee you every single person who identifies as
Speaker 1: a Nazi has a lot of guns, and there are
Speaker 1: they've been marched, they marched in Charlottesville. All those people
Speaker 1: have arsenals, their stockpiling bullets. You can if you go
Speaker 1: to their forums, you can hear them right about how
Speaker 1: many bullets their stockpiling. Yep, yes, it taking a weekend.
Speaker 1: I want to do some things to make myself ready.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you happen to live on the
Speaker 1: East coast in the DC area, on the I think
Speaker 1: eleventh and twelfth, there is the sequel to that Unite
Speaker 1: the Right rally in d C. So there will be
Speaker 1: more fascists marching in d C, like as marched in
Speaker 1: Charlottesville last year. I will be there, uh so you
Speaker 1: know you might see me reading out a special neo
Speaker 1: Nazi focused episode of this podcast. If you happen to
Speaker 1: show up and protest. The actual fucking will call themselves Nazis.
Speaker 1: Nazis in d C in a couple of weeks, so
Speaker 1: be careful. They probably won't be that many of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but be careful, alright, I think that's I think we're
Speaker 1: we're pretty good. We're gonna run this as a one partter,
Speaker 1: even though normally an episode this long will be a
Speaker 1: two partter because I don't want to break it up.
Speaker 1: But please do share this with people who you think
Speaker 1: can be convinced that there is a problem right now.
Speaker 1: We have specifically kept the historical portion of this podcast
Speaker 1: free of political editorializing and comments about just in the
Speaker 1: hopes that it will be more accessible to more people.
Speaker 1: You can tell them to shut it off when Naomi
Speaker 1: and I start our conversation. Maybe they'll be on board
Speaker 1: by that point. But please, like, do share this. I
Speaker 1: think this information is important. And also give a read
Speaker 1: to the Death of Democracy. It is a deeply important
Speaker 1: book that came out this year for good reason, so
Speaker 1: it goes into even more to tail about why the
Speaker 1: Weimar government led to the Nazis. Please read it, all right, Naomi,
Speaker 1: you want to plug your plug doubles? Uh, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's so very different. But if you do want to
Speaker 1: break from some of the real talk and you want
Speaker 1: a little joke, why don't you subscribe? Give a listen
Speaker 1: to Couples Therapy podcast. On that podcast, co hosted by
Speaker 1: me and my fiance Andy Beckerman. We bring the best
Speaker 1: sets from our live show Couples Therapy, where two comics
Speaker 1: two sets together about their relationship, and we sprinkle my
Speaker 1: name with some in studio guests, some in studio combo
Speaker 1: between Andy and I. It is a fun time. It
Speaker 1: is a light time. But also Andy might take a
Speaker 1: couple of moments to talk about our national nightmare right
Speaker 1: down then, and I was telling him, no national nightmare.
Speaker 1: People need a break, and we do. And I recommend
Speaker 1: your podcast thoroughly because everyone who just finished listening to
Speaker 1: this could probably use a break, need a little boost. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I need a little boost, and and hopefully not just
Speaker 1: more drinking your sadness away, which is what I'll be
Speaker 1: doing tonight. You can find me on Twitter at I
Speaker 1: write Okay, just two letters. I also have a book
Speaker 1: on Amazon, A Brief History of Ice. It's about drugs.
Speaker 1: Our podcast is on social media too. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at at Bastards Pod. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Instagram the same way you can find us
Speaker 1: on the internet at behind the Bastards dot com. Every
Speaker 1: source for this podcast, including the three books I used,
Speaker 1: the Rise and Follow the third Reich year that made
Speaker 1: Hitler and the death of democracy. All of those sources
Speaker 1: and all the articles that I used for this will
Speaker 1: all be on the website, so I absolutely encourage you
Speaker 1: to read up. Everybody, have a good weekend, stay safe,
Speaker 1: and get out in the streets when you can. H