Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)

Adolf Hitler was born on April 20th, 1889 in Austria. As boy he got in trouble at
school for being a bully. His favorite subject was art. The problem was that he could
not draw people. Nevertheless he wanted to be an artist. At the age of fifteen he
moved to Vienna to further his interest in art, but unfortunately he was rejected
from an art school run primarily by Jews, making him very resentful of them. A few
years later when his mother developed cancer, she was treated by a Jewish doctor
and then she passed away, confirming his anti-Semitic views.
When World War One broke out, Hitler joined the German army. He nearly got
killed and survived several gas attacks. Corporal Hitler was awarded an iron cross for
his bravery. Hitler believed that he had a special destiny; that he could liberate
Germany and make it great. He modeled himself as Christ like figure, but later he
stated that Christ was too weak.
In 1919, Hitler became a German citizen when he settled in Munich. He visited
taverns, and it was here that he found small street gangs of national socialist with
ideas that seemed to tilt towards communism. When Hitler joined he added a
greater structure and form to these gangs, by actually making them into better
managed organization in some sense. He was focused on strengthening the
organization and watched Mussolinis techniques as he came into power in Italy in
1922. Just like Mussolinis Black shirts, Hitler created a paramilitary organization
of the Brown shirts or the SA (Storm Abteilung) in 1920. Hitler created a circle of
local party leaders that reported directly to him and saw his leadership and charisma
in action. In 1923, the national socialist movement was active only in Munich and
Hitler made a failed attempt to take control of this Bavarian city through the Munich
Putsch. After this is was sentenced to 5 years in prison, but only served 9 months due
to sympathy. During this time Hitler dictated Mein Kampf to Rudolph Hess. It
seems ironic that when an individual blatantly tried to take power in the manner of a
dictator he receives sympathy. But when Aang Sang Suki was put under house arrest
for wanting to bring democracy to Myanmar, the world just stood by for 20 years.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler emphasized the importance of race, purity and subsequently
anti-Semitic views. He wrote about Lebensraum or living space and autarky or self
sufficiency. Finally, he stated that if one wants to take power then they need to have
an illusion of legitimacy. He also expressed the importance of propaganda. All of
these had important consequences when Hitler came to power.

Nazi Party

In December 1924, Hitler was released from prison. The Nazis sent out a great deal
of propaganda but did not get the response they wanted as Germany was now
recovering in its Stresemann years or Golden period. Thus, even in 1928 when the
Nazis were legitimate party that ran for seats in the Reichstag, they only got 810,000
votes.
However, the Nazis got lucky when the Great Depression hit. When people have
difficult times, they turn to extreme views in order to solve their problem, Hitler was
just that solution. This was well represented by the fact that in 1930 the Nazis
received 6.4 million votes, the same number as the Social Democrats. The Nazi
strategy was very clever at this time. They would walk out when votes needed to be
taken and tried to paralyze the Riechstag (Parliament) in any sort of way they could
during the depression. In essence, through this program of catastrophe the Nazis
were causing the internal disintegration of the Weimar Republic.
In 1932, the Nazi party received 37.5% of the votes. At that time World War One
General Von Hindenburg was President. He had the power to select a new
Chancellor. He disliked Hitler. But, unfortunately Hitler struck a deal with the two
other major parties the Social Democrats and the Center party where they agreed
that each of the three parties would keep one-third of the seats in the Reichstag and
Hitler would be the Chancellor. The Social Democrats and the Center Party were
afraid of Hitlers SA, and so in January 1933, Hindenburg was pressured into making
Hitler the Chancellor. In February 1933, Hitler orchestrated the Reichstag Fire and
then blamed it on a young Dutch Communist, Van Der Lubb, essentially ousting the
communists as a significant opponent.
Then in July 1934, Hindenburg passed away and Hitler combined the offices of
President and Chancellor to make himself Fuhrer or leader. He wanted to integrate
the SA into the German army and got rid of anyone who stood in the way as shown
by the Night of the Long Knives on June 30th, 1934, when multiple Nazi leaders
including Ernst Rohm, leader of the SA, were murdered. Thus, Hitler redefined the
German army, who then swore allegiance to Hitler, not Germany, on August 2nd,
1934. Hitler believed that the true will of the people could be expressed through the
Fuhrer not votes. Thus, Hitler dissolved the Weimar constitution and set up a
dictatorship.

Nazification
Hitler created a leadership cult of himself to make him seem like an extremely
special individual. He employed various tactics to achieve this image. For
instance, he used his public speaking skills to mesmerize and hypnotize
crowds. He would even wait 5 minutes for cheering crowds to quiet down and
then shout in the midst of silence. He would repeat messages over and over
again and manipulate his tone to further emphasize points.
Hitler was extensively involved with powerful Industrialist. It was powerful
industrialist like Krupps, Steines and Thyseen that financed Hitlers election
campaign. These industrialists helped form the military industrial complex
that supported the government.
Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels ruthlessly controlled propaganda and
utilized it extensively to further Nazi goals. He made sure that Jews were
presented as parasites, therefore making their banishment from society
legitimate in the eyes of the people. Such strong control of propaganda and
censorship resulted in a loss of liberty.

Reflections

In some ways Hitlers views of the peoples will being expressed through him adheres
to Hobbes philosophy as expressed in his novel Leviathan (1651). Hobbes had a very
morose view of life, with everyone being born into a chaotic state of war. As a result,
men would give up all their rights in return for stability and security. One could infer
that in response to this Hitler would say, that everyone German was in a state of war
because of the Treaty of Versailles and perhaps attribute to the chaos in society to
the parasitical Jews. With regards to his view that the peoples will is expressed
through the fuhrer, he would probably say the people had a will for stability and
security which he was providing through a strong army and subsequently a strong
Germany. Hitler would probably have problems with a great deal of other
enlightenment thought such as Voltaires view of the role of women changing. Hitler
was a staunch believer of the womens place being at home, to have babies and serve
the family. Moreover, he enforced the belief that women should be dressed simply.
But at the same time he might have agreed with Voltaire that a womans weakness
predisposed her to virtue and therefore she could not be violent. As a result, German
women did not fight in World War Two, a serious mistake made by Hitler as
American, British and Russian women all contributed to the war effort through
military service. Moreover, another point of agreement between Hitler and Voltaire
would be that democracy is not a good idea, for Hitler this would be a matter of
making the nation strong whereas for Voltaire it was just that he believed people
were fools. Hitler might have also agreed with Voltaires sworn enemy, Rousseau
who believed that the government should go by the general will which was not
expressed through voting.
The propaganda and censorship of the Nazi state is a clear infringement on peoples
freedom and rights. One would expect that in todays pro-democratic world this sort
of censorship would be non-existent. However, this is not the case with the Chinese
Communist Party keeping a strong hold on society. The government crushes anyone
who demands change. When Human Rights activist Lui Xiaobo called for change in
the political system in the document Charter 08 supported by 300 academics he was
arrested and sentenced to eleven years in prison. He was treated as if he was a
criminal, when in actual fact his campaign was completely legitimate as he received
is the winner of a Nobel Peace Prize for his 20 years of activism. Xiaobo was present
at Tianaman Square protests of 1989 encouraging students to leave before they were
arrested and has supported the Tibetan cause for freedom and self-determination.
He understood the plight of the Tibetan people having been oppressed by China to
the extent that they cannot even keep a picture of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a key
spiritual Tibetan leaders photograph in their house. The human rights situation is
terrible in Tibet, and it was for causes like these that Xiaobo stood up. Initially when
Xiaobo was arrested his wife wasnt even told that he had been taken into custody
and the police only acknowledged this after a month. This sounds like something the
ruthless Gestapo (the Nazi secret police) would do. Moreover, it was leaders of the
Gestapo, in particular those that ran the death camps, that were put trial after World
War Two in the Nuremburg Trials for being war criminals. So how can we tolerate
any Gestapo like behavior?

One day, even if hes not regarded as a hero, hell be thought of as a very good
citizen. Liu Xia, wife of Liu Xiaobo. (Bristow, Liu Xiaobo: 20 years of activism,
BBC News)
Although, the powerful nations may not have taken enough action against China,
they have not appeased China the way they appeased Hitler. For example, when
China warned Norway not to give Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize, Norway simply
ignored China. Many nations were present at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. But
that does not change the fact that several nations boycotted the event due to Chinas
pressure and bullying tactics. Also, the USA has issued a statement to requesting
China to release Xiaobo. But, note that is all the USA has done, simply request. This
isnt enough especially considering the fact that the USA does support other
dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia.
Both of the Videos below convey a lack of civil freedom and human rights.