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

[Brenda Holtkamp]

Thank you Catherine. Greatly appreciate this. We must learn from history
and not repeat.

On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 11:44 AM Catherine Walther via Sundaycommunity <
sundaycommunity at lists.integralshift.ca> wrote:

> 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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