The Third Reich Can Happen Again

"Spiegel-Online" ^ | March 13, 2005 | "Spiegel-Online"

[longjack]

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13. März 2005	Print Version

INTERVIEW WITH BRIGITTE HAMANN

"The Third Reich Can Happen Again"

We must engage ourselves precisely with Hitler and the Third Reich", claims the Viennese historian Brigitte Hamann. Otherwise history could repeat itself , she warns in an interview with SPIEGEL editor-in-chief Stefan Aust and "FAZ" editor Frank Schirrmacher. SPIEGEL ONLINE is publishing an excerpt of the conversation, which is part of the joint DVD documentary "One Hundred Years Germany"

Interview with Brigitte Hamann: "I believe it could happen again"

Uta Rademacher

Historian Brigitte Hamann in conversation with Stefan Aust und Frank Schirrmacher: "The good are here, the bad are there, the world is wonderfully simple"

This Hitler in Vienna was not particularly charismatic. However, it is the same man of whom people later said, even if you only looked at him you would change. Can a person crumble into two parts in such a way?

Brigitte Hamann: He was unemployed again in 1919, he had nothing again, no hopes and no future. So he joined this small party and started giving speeches. Then he noticed that he was getting audiences. This is the salient point. Here comes a man who doesn't have great self-confidence, who is simple-minded and unemployed, Austrian to boot, and gives speeches in Munich. At first only five people come, then fifty, then 350 come, then one thousand come and finally in 1921 he filled the entire circus Krone, and people even had to pay admission for his speeches.

So his charisma comes with the success? Or because he found his topic?

The "FAZ" and SPIEGEL TV are publishing a twelve-part DVD documentary for the history of Germany with historical film and exclusive interviews in the 20th century. The DVD "Hitlers Weg zur Macht" you can order here WEITER

Hamann: I think he found his topic. Without his audiences, however, and without the effects he achieved with his sloganeering, he wouldn't have come to anything. He became great as a speaker, not as a parliamentarian or on his merits. Only as a speaker, and, more precisely, as a speaker who articulated his love for the German people very convincingly.

And that coupled with hate.

Hamann: And that coupled with hate against an enemy. The enemy, those are the Jews. The good are here, the bad are there, the world is wonderfully simple.

Now, when did it become noticeable that Hitler was prepared to walk over millions of corpses?

Hamann: I think it was already laid out in the ideology. He had said that to protect the German people certain things have to be done.

But he suspected, though, that it wasn't so good that he could boast of it publicly. There aren't any declarations of mass exterminations.

Uta Rademacher "I think that it can happen again, and I also think that we must engage ourselves precisely with Hitler and the Third Reich in order to realize under which circumstances such terrible developments are possible.."

Hamann: He had said that the German people don't understand this yet, but I am doing this now for the good of the German people. He himself had neither looked at the destroyed cities nor was he ever in a concentration camp. If he had been a sadist, then he would have happily watched how the Jews were really murdered.

Do you regard it as credible that those persons surrounding Adolf Hitler knew nothing about what was happening in the camps and that the Jews were being exterminated?

Hamann: No, I don't regard it as possible that they didn't know anything. Albert Speer, let's say, he can still say as often as he wants that he didn't know - of course he knew, this we know in the meantime, of course.

Looking as history as a whole, can it happen again?

Hamann: I think that it can happen again, and I also think that we must engage ourselves precisely with Hitler and the Third Reich in order to realize under which circumstances such terrible developments are possible. No one had believed this of Germany. It has been said, in the Czar Empire, there were the pogroms then, of course the Jews were murdered en masse, then. But in Germany, this cultured nation? We can only try to so affect the circumstances of history that this type of emergency situation doesn't show up in a populace.

Hitler's path to power - Click here to watch a preview

---

"Hundert Jahre Deutschland": Ein historischer Anlass, ein außergewöhnliches Projekt: Anlässlich des bevorstehenden 60. Jahrestages des Kriegsendes veröffentlichen die "FAZ" und SPIEGEL TV eine DVD-Dokumentationsreihe zu "Hundert Jahre Deutschland". Weitere Informationen zu der DVD-Serie finden Sie hier

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2005
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Vervielfältigung nur mit Genehmigung der SPIEGELnet GmbH

"Spiegel-Online"...."Das Dritte Reich kann wieder passieren"

Translated by longjack

Zweiter Weltkrieg
bei SPIEGEL ONLINE

FOTOS

Flash: Die Zerstörung Dresdens aus der Luft Fotostrecke: Das zerstörte Dresden aus der Luft II. Weltkrieg: Als die Kamera zur Waffe wurde II. Weltkrieg: Hitler in Farbe Auschwitz: Symbol des Terrors und der Vernichtung D-Day: "Okay, let's go!" Biografien und Urteile: Die Angeklagten von Nürnberg

[longjack]

I left the photo link sidebar on this page for an easy link to the photo galleries.

Some of the photos are flash movies, and some photo galleries are part of another article. When you link to another article, look for a box or title that says Fotostrecke in it.

The Hitler in Farbe (Hitler in Color) slideshow is good.

For readers of German, there are tons of WW II links on the "Spiegel-Online" page I linked.

longjack

[longjack]

German ping.

longjack

[NZerFromHK]

I remember someone once said that, were Fascism to resurface, it would be under the guise of anti-fascism.

[sauropod]

read later

[MEG33]

Good article..I will go look at the links later.

[TheForceOfOne]

I am curious and to how the Neo-Nazi's will fair in Germany as the Muslim immigration threatens their historical culture. There will definitely be turmoil but who knows how it will unfold. most countries in Europe face the same situation as their natural populations continue to decline. It wouldn't be unprecedented, it has happened many times throughout history.

[Jim Noble]

Of course it can happen again.

It is not mere propriety that causes NSDAP meetings, symbols, and writings to be banned, sixty years after their Gotterdammerung.

Europe, or, more precisely, Rummy's Old Europe, gave their hearts to national socialism in the 1930s-and not a lot has changed.

Except there are a lot fewer Jews.

[Gorzaloon]

It tried to get started Here.

[AntiGuv]

FWIW, there is a fundamental difference between the Nazi ideology then and a potentially comparable government now. The Nazis alleged that there was a vast Jewish conspiracy which exercised insidious control over the establishment and exploited the common people. Modern anti-immigrant sentiments don't feature anything of the kind; they oppose Muslim immigrants for undermining the economy and "disrupting" the culture.

The difference is that if one subscribed to the former ideology then the only real solution was extermination. If one subscribes to the latter view, an immigration moratorium and widescale deportation is the obvious and sufficient remedy.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

I think that Germany will be the premier land power in Europe in 30 years. I think one factor driving their revival will be the struggle to control the Earth's natural resources.

[Puppage]

The Third Reich Can Happen Again

Yeah, it's called THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

[niteowl77]

I believe Huey Long was the man who said that.

[TheForceOfOne]

The radical part of the equation may not happen but they could easily find a scape goat for their frustrations to rally around. It is only a matter of enough hate to emerge to allow one group to harness that anger and use it to gain power. National pride is a powerful tool. Know one wants to see another Hitler but you cannot rule out the possibility it could happen.

[Fruitbat]

Variations of the Third Reich have happened all throughout history. The scales may have been larger or smaller, and the "methods" may have appeared to be different, but in the end they were all cut from the same cloth.

[JOE43270]

Some like Chappaquidic Fatz, Hiterly, Biden, Kerry, Schumer and more are trying to make it happen in America. Keep your s eyes on them.

[ARCADIA]

If one subscribes to the latter view, an immigration moratorium and widescale deportation is the obvious and sufficient remedy.

That is only true if you assume that widescale deportation is feasible. If it is not, if other countries are unwilling to let them in, then you are back to repression and perhaps extermination.

[longjack]

I am curious and to how the Neo-Nazi's will fair in Germany as the Muslim immigration threatens their historical culture.

AntiGuv's response was right on the mark, IMHO.

It seems the Neo-Nazi's have 'polished up' and 'refined' their act and have sought to represent themselves as the guardians of the cultural and economic interests of Germany.

Furthermore, they have preyed on the paralysis the PC-mentality has instilled in the German populace regarding setting ethical limits, and in the inability of the current government to respond to their inroads due to the fear in the Members of Parliament themselves that they could possibly offend someone.

I translated this article by Henryk M. Broder a few weeks back. Herr Broder analyzes the present Neo-Nazi tactics very succinctly in this article. If you are interested, it may be worth the short read.

longjack

[AntiGuv]

Well, unless I'm mistaken, most German immigrants - about 7.5 million or so - are "guest workers" with citizenship in their home countries, so it would only be a matter of ordering them to leave.

[AntiGuv]

Hmm.. Make that "immigrants to Germany" not "German immigrants"...

[deepFR]

The Third Reich Can Happen Again

So can the Ottaman Empire.