Monday, March 2, 2009
A Dicatator's Hour
On April 14,1941 and article on Adolf Hitler's intents on proclaiming war called A Dictator's Rule was in Time Magazine. The article talks about how the spring of 1941 was the biggest moment in Adolf Hitler's carrier, because it had potential to lead to his total dominance of the world if he went about it correctly. The reason spring was so important was because that was when Hitler announced that Germany was at war with the Belgrade Government. That spring as put in the article was Hitler's building season. Hitler no longer utilized the pleasures of life such as his car, and nights to the movies, he only devoted himself to war. Hitler put all of his year of work, and his accomplishments of expanded Germany, as well as the army, making the navy strong, and lastly his 3,000,000 followers. All of this was put on the line during the war. Sure it may be easy to look at his statistics, as well as all of his accomplishments and be fooled that he was a good man with good intention. However, this is far from the truth, and I feel that this is what helped him gain followers. The people were so focused on how well he spoke, and how everyone was following him, that they forgot to pay actual attention to what he was saying, and his intentions to make an Aryan state. In addition I think that the people were so relieved after the great depression that they wanted to believe that someone could take them out of the slump they were in and make a quick turn around. Furthermore Hitler used tactics to basically brainwash the people into thinking that he was actually doing good, when he really was doing the exact opposite.
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"In addition I think that the people were so relieved after the great depression that they wanted to believe that someone could take them out of the slump they were in and make a quick turn around."
ReplyDeleteI dont want to be a dick, but after reading this, I felt this was a weak point in a rather strong argument. They were far from relieved after the great depression, considering Germany was in complete chaos, and had one of the worst economies in Europe. The unemployment rate skyrocketed, and leadership was about as unstable as Russia during the 1910's (information about Russia's failing leadership can be found in the chapter on WWI in the textbook.) Furthermore, there was little hope for Germany after WWI, with few surrounding allies, and poor national relations. Adolf Hitler reversed all of this, and what you say the German population wanted to believe, actually became reality. The unemployment rate decreased from 6 million in 1932, to 2.6 million in 1934, to 500,000 in 1937. It is hard to speculate and claim Hitler had little to do with these changes. I disagree with the comment that Hitler brainwashed his people. It is easy for us in the present, to say an entire nation was brainwashed, just by looking at the holocaust. This is not the case, as most Germans knew that Jews were going to be oppressed. Nevertheless, they saw hope in Hitler's regime, especially after the decrease in unemployment, and in the end ignored the fact that Jews would have to suffer -- this a true horror within the holocaust.