The "Hitler Myth"

The article by Kershaw was the most interesting thing to me this week. Especially interesting was Hitler's ability to create a broad base of support in Germany. The tenants of the Nazi Party appeared to have something for everyone, which was a far cry from the government during the Weimar Republic end even before. However, it should not be too surprising that Hitler was able to achieve this, although on a much larger scale than ever before, given the long history in Germany of the population to rally around or to deify one man, especially those acheived some kind of national honor usually surrounding some success. How quick the population can change once the successes stop coming though. Hitler was no different.

As Kershaw identifies, Hitler was able to provide a "positive pole in the Third Reich," while at the same time being able to separate from the less popluar aspects of Nazism that had more effect on the daily lives of the population. As we learned in class, it seems Hitler was able to do this through the Gleichshaltung. It appeared as if the asscociations below him were squabbling for the scraps and creating all the discontent and Hitler appeared as a man above it all. However, this is exactly how he wanted these groups to function. Very creative! However, while he was able to create the image of himself as the man of strength and stability perhaps....the most important thing was that Hitler continue to be successful particularly within the realm of foreign politics first. This he was able to accomplish and without blood shed as he gained back territories and ensured that if and when war came that Germany would not have to fight a two-front war. The manner in which he accomplished these successes led to a political disarmament of sorts within Germany. He was able to quiet political opponents given him and Goebbels time to amp up the propaganda machine and really penetrate deep into the heart of the population.

However, once a ways into the war and the losses began to mount he started to lose some popularity. The German population ceratinly is a fickled one. It is almost as if they will support any string leader who brings success and ignore other things they see going on. When the strength of the leader seems to wane even a bit, they jump off the bandwagon.

Hitler's propaganda certainly was interesting in its success to create a broad base of support, but ultimately longterm support from the German people seems to really some from success, success, and continued success.

Who needs the Gov't?

I thought the first chapter that Fritzsche wrote laid out a very interesting subject. What I got most from the chapter was that the author was trying to mostly show that the people began to rely less on the government and began to rely on each other. Fritzsche does a good job in demonstrating this crucial point. He really pushes the importance of the Burgfrieden to first show that Germans began to see each other as citzizens instead of partisans. This is key because the division of class has been so relevant for such a long period in Germany. It had long determined the way in which people lived and got along in Germany. The author does a good job of of showing how the state is absent from the rise of national unity, which seems to be a key theme of his thesis showing how Germans became Nazis. It had to be a nationalism from the bottom, rather than from the top down. People stopped looking to the government to help them out and look to each other. This cohesiveness became further strengthened during the Turnip Winter. The famine was terrible during the war and the government was doing nothing to help out the people. The people were starving and in the past were able to look to the government for help. However, at this time they were only concerned with the outcome of the war. The people began to openly criticize the governmetn, which was a huge change from the past. The hardships people endured further created a sense of national unity because it was not just the lower classes who were suffering and speaking out. People began to realize they could accomplish things themselves by creating charities and etc. The government missed out on a huge opportunity to channel the rise of nationalism and would eventually lead to a people who no longer relied on the government to get things accomplished.

Prostitutes

I never thought I would be headlining anything school-related with such a title as Prostitutes, but here it is. I just happened to think it was a very interesting article. The author makes some fascinating points. He demonstrated first that in times of economic hardship it was almost commonplace for women to undertake prostitution as a means surviving. He further shows that times of economic hardships are a common occurrence during the first phases of industrialization. As a result, women were the first ones to lose their jobs, but were still expected to contribute their part to the family income. However, as the author identifies the spread of prostitution in relation to the growth of urbanization as a result of the initial thrusts of industrialization, these women were not committed to the act of prostitution. These women only used prostitution as a temporary means of survival. However, the amount of prostitution seemed like a problem of epidemic proportions to contemporaries. The government became involved in trying to stymie prostitution with laws such as Clause361/6 and Clause 180. However, these laws were contradictory and really ineffective for the most part. Although, I realize that the values of the time and the complaints made it necessary for the greater government to get involved, but I say let 'em go. The local police were doing there best to govern the conditions and were providing checkups to ensure against the spread of diseases. While they could not govern the entire whole of those engaged in prostitution, these options they were undertaking, while not doing more to lessen the occurrences, may have been creating safer sex. Give 'em checkups and let 'em go.