Living Beneath a Pale Sun.


"It has become clear in recent months that a critical mass of the
American people have seen through the lies of the Bush administration;
with the president's polls at an historic low, growing resistance to
the war Iraq, and the Democrats likely to take back the Congress in
mid-term elections, the Bush administration is on the ropes. And so it
is particularly worrying that President Bush has seen fit, at this
juncture to, in effect, declare himself dictator."
-- Frank Morales

"If you write a letter to the editor attacking Bush, you could be
deemed as purposefully and materially supporting hostilities against
the United States. If you organize or join a public demonstration
against Iraq, or against the administration, the same designation could
befall
you. One dark-comedy aspect of the legislation is that senators or
House members who publicly disagree with Bush, criticize him, or
organize investigations into his dealings could be placed under the
same designation. In effect, Congress just gave Bush the power to lock
them
up."
-- William Rivers Pitt

How Hitler Became a Dictator
by Jacob G. Hornberger
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0403a.asp

Whenever U.S. officials wish to demonize someone, they inevitably
compare him to Adolf Hitler. The message immediately resonates with
people because everyone knows that Hitler was a brutal dictator.

But how many people know how Hitler actually became a dictator? My bet
is, very few. I’d also bet that more than a few people would be
surprised at how he pulled it off, especially given that after World
War I Germany had become a democratic republic.

The story of how Hitler became a dictator is set forth in The Rise and
Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer, on which this article is
based.

In the presidential election held on March 13, 1932, there were four
candidates: the incumbent, Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler,
and two minor candidates, Ernst Thaelmann and Theodore Duesterberg. The
results were:

Hindenburg 49.6 percent
Hitler 30.1 percent
Thaelmann 13.2 percent
Duesterberg 6.8 percent

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, almost 70 percent of the German
people voted against Hitler, causing his supporter Joseph Goebbels, who
would later become Hitler’s minister of propaganda, to lament in his
journal, “We’re beaten; terrible outlook. Party circles badly
depressed and dejected.”

Since Hindenberg had not received a majority of the vote, however, a
runoff election had to be held among the top three vote-getters. On
April 19, 1932, the runoff results were:

Hindenburg 53.0 percent
Hitler 36.8 percent
Thaelmann 10.2 percent

Thus, even though Hitler’s vote total had risen, he still had been
decisively rejected by the German people.

On June 1, 1932, Hindenberg appointed Franz von Papen as chancellor of
Germany, whom Shirer described as an “unexpected and ludicrous
figure.” Papen immediately dissolved the Reichstag (the national
congress) and called for new elections, the third legislative election
in five months.

Hitler and his fellow members of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party,
who were determined to bring down the republic and establish
dictatorial rule in Germany, did everything they could to create chaos
in the streets, including initiating political violence and murder. The
situation got so bad that martial law was proclaimed in Berlin.

Even though Hitler had badly lost the presidential election, he was
drawing ever-larger crowds during the congressional election. As Shirer
points out,

"In one day, July 27, he spoke to 60,000 persons in Brandenburg, to
nearly as many in Potsdam, and that evening to 120,000 massed in the
giant Grunewald Stadium in Berlin while outside an additional 100,000
heard his voice by loudspeaker."

Hitler’s rise to power

The July 31, 1932, election produced a major victory for Hitler’s
National Socialist Party. The party won 230 seats in the Reichstag,
making it Germany’s largest political party, but it still fell short
of a majority in the 608-member body.

On the basis of that victory, Hitler demanded that President Hindenburg
appoint him chancellor and place him in complete control of the state.
Otto von Meissner, who worked for Hindenburg, later testified at
Nuremberg,

"Hindenburg replied that because of the tense situation he could
not in good conscience risk transferring the power of government to a
new party such as the National Socialists, which did not command a
majority and which was intolerant, noisy and undisciplined."

Political deadlocks in the Reichstag soon brought a new election, this
one in November 6, 1932. In that election, the Nazis lost two million
votes and 34 seats. Thus, even though the National Socialist Party was
still the largest political party, it had clearly lost ground among the
voters.

Attempting to remedy the chaos and the deadlocks, Hindenburg fired
Papen and appointed an army general named Kurt von Schleicher as the
new German chancellor. Unable to secure a majority coalition in the
Reichstag, however, Schleicher finally tendered his resignation to
Hindenburg, 57 days after he had been appointed.

On January 30, 1933, President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler
chancellor of Germany. Although the National Socialists never captured
more than 37 percent of the national vote, and even though they still
held a minority of cabinet posts and fewer than 50 percent of the seats
in the Reichstag, Hitler and the Nazis set out to to consolidate their
power. With Hitler as chancellor, that proved to be a fairly easy task.

The Reichstag fire

On February 27, Hitler was enjoying supper at the Goebbels home when
the telephone rang with an emergency message: “The Reichstag is on
fire!” Hitler and Goebbels rushed to the fire, where they encountered
Hermann Goering, who would later become Hitler’s air minister.
Goering was shouting at the top of his lungs,

"This is the beginning of the Communist revolution! We must not
wait a minute. We will show no mercy. Every Communist official must be
shot, where he is found. Every Communist deputy must this very day be
strung up."

The day after the fire, the Prussian government announced that it had
found communist publications stating,

"Government buildings, museums, mansions and essential plants were
to be burned down... . Women and children were to be sent in front of
terrorist groups.... The burning of the Reichstag was to be the signal
for a bloody insurrection and civil war.... It has been ascertained
that today was to have seen throughout Germany terrorist acts against
individual persons, against private property, and against the life and
limb of the peaceful population, and also the beginning of general
civil war."

So how was Goering so certain that the fire had been set by communist
terrorists? Arrested on the spot was a Dutch communist named Marinus
van der Lubbe. Most historians now believe that van der Lubbe was
actually duped by the Nazis into setting the fire and probably was even
assisted by them, without his realizing it.

Why would Hitler and his associates turn a blind eye to an impending
terrorist attack on their national congressional building or actually
assist with such a horrific deed? Because they knew what government
officials have known throughout history — that during extreme
national emergencies, people are most scared and thus much more willing
to surrender their liberties in return for “security.” And that’s
exactly what happened during the Reichstag terrorist crisis.

Suspending civil liberties

The day after the fire, Hitler persuaded President Hindenburg to issue
a decree entitled, “For the Protection of the People and the
State.” Justified as a “defensive measure against Communist acts of
violence endangering the state,” the decree suspended the
constitutional guarantees pertaining to civil liberties:

"Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression
of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly
and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic
and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searches, orders
for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also
permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed."

Two weeks after the Reichstag fire, Hitler requested the Reichstag to
temporarily delegate its powers to him so that he could adequately deal
with the crisis. Denouncing opponents to his request, Hitler shouted,
“Germany will be free, but not through you!” When the vote was
taken, the result was 441 for and 84 against, giving Hitler the
two-thirds majority he needed to suspend the German constitution. On
March 23, 1933, what has gone down in German history as the “Enabling
Act” made Hitler dictator of Germany, freed of all legislative and
constitutional constraints.

The judiciary under Hitler

One of the most dramatic consequences was in the judicial arena. Shirer
points out,

Under the Weimar Constitution judges were independent, subject only
to the law, protected from arbitrary removal and bound at least in
theory by Article 109 to safeguard equality before the law."

In fact, in the Reichstag terrorist case, while the court convicted van
der Lubbe of the crime (who was executed), three other defendants, all
communists, were acquitted, which infuriated Hitler and Goering. Within
a month, the Nazis had transferred jurisdiction over treason cases from
the Supreme Court to a new People’s Court, which, as Shirer points
out,

"soon became the most dreaded tribunal in the land. It consisted of
two professional judges and five others chosen from among party
officials, the S.S. and the armed forces, thus giving the latter a
majority vote. There was no appeal from its decisions or sentences and
usually its sessions were held in camera. Occasionally, however, for
propaganda purposes when relatively light sentences were to be given,
the foreign correspondents were invited to attend."

One of the Reichstag terrorist defendants, who had angered Goering
during the trial with a severe cross-examination of Goering, did not
benefit from his acquittal. Shirer explains:

"The German communist leader was immediately taken into
“protective custody,” where he remained until his death during the
second war."

In addition to the People’s Court, which handled treason cases, the
Nazis also set up the Special Court, which handled cases of political
crimes or “insidious attacks against the government.” These courts

"consisted of three judges, who invariably had to be trusted party
members, without a jury. A Nazi prosecutor had the choice of bringing
action in such cases before either an ordinary court or the Special
Court, and invariably he chose the latter, for obvious reasons. Defense
lawyers before this court, as before the Volksgerichtshof, had to be
approved by Nazi officials. Sometimes even if they were approved they
fared badly. Thus the lawyers who attempted to represent the widow of
Dr. Klausener, the Catholic Action leader murdered in the Blood Purge,
in her suit for damages against the State were whisked off to
Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where they were kept until they
formally withdrew the action."

Even lenient treatment by the Special Court was no guarantee for the
defendant, however, as Pastor Martin Niemoeller discovered when he was
acquitted of major political charges and sentenced to time served for
minor charges. Leaving the courtroom, Niemoeller was taken into custody
by the Gestapo and taken to a concentration camp.

The Nazis also implemented a legal concept called Schutzhaft or
“protective custody” which enabled them to arrest and incarcerate
people without charging them with a crime. As Shirer put it,

"Protective custody did not protect a man from possible harm, as it
did in more civilized countries. It punished him by putting him behind
barbed wire."

On August 2, 1934, Hindenburg died, and the title of president was
abolished. Hitler’s title became Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor. Not
surprisingly, he used the initial four-year “temporary” grant of
emergency powers that had been given to him by the Enabling Act to
consolidate his omnipotent control over the entire country.

Accepting the new order

Oddly enough, even though his dictatorship very quickly became
complete, Hitler returned to the Reichstag every four years to renew
the “temporary” delegation of emergency powers that it had given
him to deal with the Reichstag-arson crisis. Needless to say, the
Reichstag rubber-stamped each of his requests.

For their part, the German people quickly accepted the new order of
things. Keep in mind that the average non-Jewish German was pretty much
unaffected by the new laws and decrees. As long as a German citizen
kept his head down, worked hard, took care of his family, sent his
children to the public schools and the Hitler Youth organization, and,
most important, didn’t involve himself in political dissent against
the government, a visit by the Gestapo was very unlikely.

Keep in mind also that, while the Nazis established concentration camps
in the 1930s, the number of inmates ranged in the thousands. It
wouldn’t be until the 1940s that the death camps and the gas chambers
that killed millions would be implemented. Describing how the average
German adapted to the new order, Shirer writes,

"The overwhelming majority of Germans did not seem to mind that
their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of culture had
been destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their
life and work had become regimented to a degree never before
experienced even by a people accustomed for generations to a great deal
of regimentation.... The Nazi terror in the early years affected the
lives of relatively few Germans and a newly arrived observer was
somewhat surprised to see that the people of this country did not seem
to feel that they were being cowed.... On the contrary, they supported
it with genuine enthusiasm. Somehow it imbued them with a new hope and
a new confidence and an astonishing faith in the future of their
country."

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom
Foundation. Send him email.

This article originally appeared in the March 2004 edition of Freedom
Daily.

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namaste;
bodhi
http://psychedelictourist.blogspot.com

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