[Sundaycommunity] Fwd: Fw: Pre-Nazi Germany tells us the fight to save American democracy is just beginning. History does repeat itself .

[Catherine Walther]

Very interesting.  And this can happen in Canada too.  Catherine

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/opinion/article/Pre-Nazi-Germany-tells-us-the-fight-to-save-15857908.php
<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stamfordadvocate.com%2Fopinion%2Farticle%2FPre-Nazi-Germany-tells-us-the-fight-to-save-15857908.php&data=04%7C01%7C%7Cc8ddf6e4a954495df40408d8b57f1982%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637458904784507719%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=S%2FcR0qpvVXPHTacUpohazDfvRe1oLXEk5796ncVMol8%3D&reserved=0>


Pre-Nazi Germany tells us the fight to save American democracy is just
beginning Michael Brenner ,  The Washington Post Jan. 9, 2021 Updated: Jan.
9, 2021 9:39 a.m. Comments

A mob of several thousand outraged people rampaged through the streets of
the city after a long rambling speech by their leader inciting them to do
so. Some used violence. Windows were broken, shots were heard, there was
bloodshed. The leader of the pack demanded that the political swamp be
drained. After a tumultuous few hours, order was restored, and elected
officials emerged from their hiding places.

No, this is not Washington D.C., Jan. 6, 2021. This was Munich, Nov. 8,
1923. The instigators did not come to Munich to support a president who was
voted out of office. They did not gather in front of the nation's seat of
power but rather started their rally in a beer cellar where a young Adolf
Hitler seized control after silencing the politicians and the crowd
assembled there with a pistol shot to the ceiling. Obviously, the
circumstances surrounding the storming of the U.S. Capitol are very
different from those of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. But Germany during the
1920s offers crucial lessons for us today about how democracies become
imperiled.

Germany's democracy was young but the majority of the population stood
behind it in the early 1920s. Yet, humiliated by defeat in World War I and
plagued by an unprecedented economic crisis, a growing minority resorted to
lies and conspiracy theories, such as the stab-in-the-back myth, which
blamed scapegoats like Jews and socialists rather than the military for
losing the war.

It was these lies that resonated with Hitler and his followers. They hoped
to establish authoritarian rule first in Munich and then in Berlin to
restore Germany's military strength. But first came the fight against the
enemies within. During the night of unrest, the resurrectionists took
numerous Social Democrats as hostages, destroyed the offices of the Social
Democratic newspaper and broke into many houses of Munich's Jews. This
night represented the first confrontation with the life-threatening horror
of Nazi terror - to the day 15 years before the November pogrom known as
Kristallnacht.

In the end, the Beer Hall Coup failed. The governor of Bavaria and his
closest aides, threatened by the guns of the insurrectionists, initially
gave assurances that they'd be hands off. But when morning broke they
retracted those statements and after some hesitation got to work
suppressing the putsch. Even as 2,000 Hitler supporters began to march to
one of the city's main squares, authorities forcibly stopped them in the
center of the city. Fifteen of Hitler's supporters, one civilian bystander
and four policemen lost their lives.

Hitler himself was injured and fled to outside of Munich, where he was
arrested two days later. He and some of his associates were put on trial
and sentenced to five years of confinement for treason. But Hitler's claims
that he was a strongman who would clean up the political mess and march to
Berlin to make Germany great again won him many sympathies among the
deprived masses, conservative politicians, business elites and even within
the judicial system. He received a mild sentence, was freed after a few
months and relaunched his political career. Ten years later he was
Germany's strongman.

What at first blush looked like a failed coup proved successful in the long
run because of a justice system that was blind in its right eye and
conservative political leaders who fueled the myths that Hitler had tapped
into, planted the seeds of political polarization and discredited the
legitimacy of elected officials. These leaders were also convinced that
they could use Hitler and his mass movement as a vehicle to stay in power,
even though they despised him and looked down on him as an upstart. His
vice-chancellor, Franz von Papen of the Catholic Center Party, famously
claimed that he and his moderate cabinet members would keep Hitler and his
Nazi troops in check. Von Papen lost this game, and so did all the other
enablers who made Hitler's rise possible. But they didn't decisively move
to squelch his movement during the 1920s when they had the opportunity.

This history highlights how the real risk to American democracy came hours
after order had been restored in the U.S. Capitol when seven U.S. senators
and 138 members of the House of Representatives voted to sustain an
objection to Pennsylvania's electoral votes, giving credence to the lies
that nourished the mob's anger. Further, to date, Vice President Mike Pence
and members of the cabinet have stood by without invoking the 25th
Amendment to remove Trump from power. By doing so, they enable the
president - who initially doubled down on lies about the election in
subsequent videos and tweets - to cause additional harm to the nation,
including his ability to pardon more of his supporters and spread more
lies. Even many of those Republican elected officials who during the last
days of this presidency have distanced themselves or expressed disgust with
the President's deeds, only a few weeks ago fought to keep him in office
for another four years.

The historical example of Germany is often, perhaps too often, invoked. But
rarely has it been so close to our reality as it is today. Germany was at a
political crossroads in the 1920s. It could have remained a vibrant
democracy, but for many reasons it became a dictatorship. The United
States, with its long democratic tradition stands on much firmer ground,
but since Jan. 6, we can no longer ignore the abyss that has opened up
before us. And as in Germany, here too, responsibility for the situation
lies with those who either passively stood by or those who actively enabled
the rise of a political monster.

The lessons of history are clear: those who precipitated and carried out
the attempted insurrection - including President Trump - must face swift
and severe consequences for their actions. Further, those willing to ally
with Trump, thinking they could contain him, need to see the errors of
their way. Enabling the spread of lies and conspiracy theories, as well as
the rise of unfit individuals poses an existential risk to a democracy. On
Wednesday, Americans avoided the worst potential consequences. As the
German example warns us, however, knocking down an insurrection does not
yet mean winning the fight for democracy. This fight will go on until our
politicians learn the crucial lessons from the past.

- - -

Brenner is professor of History at American University in Washington, DC,
and at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany. His forthcoming
book, "In Hitler's Munich: Jews, Antisemites, and the Rise of Nazism" will
be published by Princeton University Press.

*May you walk in joy as love calls us on.*
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