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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion,net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: The Shame of the President
Message-ID: <1544@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-May-85 16:16:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.1544
Posted: Tue May 14 16:16:56 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 14-May-85 17:16:42 EDT
References: <410@ihlpg.UUCP> <227@ihlpm.UUCP> <146@ttrdc.UUCP> <782@ccice5.UUCP> <fisher.601>
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 32
Summary: 


>One ought to reflect upon Nazi strength in the last Reichstag before
>one erroneously assumes that a majority of adult Germans did not
>apporove of the Nazis' anti-Semitic program.
>
>                                        David Rubin

I think "erroneously" should be removed from that.  The Nazis never
had a majority in the Reichstag, and their numbers in the last Reichstag
were substantially decreased from those at the previous election.  It
was the Conservatives (under a variety of names) who asked Hindenberg
to appoint Hitler as Chancellor after von Papen failed.  They thought
they could control him rather than he them.  As for WHY people voted
Nazi, it is hard to say, public opinion polls not being as well developed
then as now; but it is highly likely that Hitler was heard as a voice
of economic hope rather than as a genocidal maniac.  Sure, anti-semitism
was deep in the Nazi program, but probably France, Poland, and England
were more anti-semitic than Germany in (say) 1925.  Germany had a Jewish
population that was large and well-integrated (as compared to the rest
of Western Europe).  But Germany was in a terrible economic (and political)
state, and when people under those conditions hear the voice of certainty,
they tend to believe at least part of what it says.

My guess is that a very small proportion of the German voters approved
of the anti-Semitic programs of the Nazis, at least until they were
swayed (as we all are) by the unremitting propaganda of the Nazi government.
Of course, I can't prove it.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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