How on earth did Nazism spread so rapidly? (Roman, military, Germany)

[Phil75230]

My best speculation: Naziism's (or at least fascism's) rise is explainable by a combination of economic collapse, weak democratic institutions, a likewise weak "culture of democracy" so to speak (basket of assumptions and cultural values that enable democracy to function as a stable system of government). One thing I think is consistently overlooked is certain tendencies in human nature that, under the right circumstances, allow fascism (or something similar to it) to arise.

*Placing survival over ethics seems the ultimate root of it all (or at least 'most'). That means to focus solely on immediately obvious survival ability to the exclusion of everything else. If survival is of prime importance, then anything and everything that helps one to survive, no matter how heinous the act, is right, end of story. Thus being weak, of low intelligence, cowardly, etc makes one undeserving of life at best, outright immoral at worst - simply because the undeserving and/or immoral person is unable to survive confrontation against a stronger person. It's irrelevant whether or not that person committed a harm or indignity against another with malicious intent or willful indifference. Merely being too "weak" or "stupid" or "cowardly" to survive is enough for that person to be unworthy of life (or at least freedom and/or dignity).** This leads to the next points.

*Uncritical glorification of strength, resilience, and intelligence; plus contempt for weakness, "victimhood", and low intelligence (of whatever sort) - regardless of whatever positive qualities they may have. This reduces any other highly valued non-survival trait to a mere consolation prize at best, or allowing weakness, feeble-mindedness, and lack of a will to live to take root at worst. This is what rationalized Nazi sterilizations and executions of the genetically deformed, feeble-minded, and others who were a "drag" on the state (and even society in general).

*If ethics and morality do exist, it's based exclusively in the sense of "might makes right", and what makes an action right is if it helps the strong to survive and thrive - end of story.

*Desire to be "on the winning team", "part of a greater whole". These two go together to a great extent. If you are a winner, you could in principle take a loser's life and take what was his resources and put them to "better" use. That is precisely what the Nazi's tried to do in Eastern Europe, especially in Poland and what they planned to do to the USSR. Who wouldn't want to be on the winning side if you can feel more secure in your life by being part of that team?

There's lots more I can say, but I'll close with another line of thought below.

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**If "survival above all else" in this dog-eat-dog context is true to form, then focusing only on immediate survival needs actually works against survival itself, especially in the long run. Lots of people without dog-eat-dog survival traits still can have many other traits that add to other people's quality of life, and even make survival itself easier to achieve (even if their aptitudes and other trait's practical benefits are not obvious in the short run). However, this thread is about how Nazis rose to power, not about the ultimate impracticality and shortsightedness of fascist approaches to life. For now, it's enough to say that fascism (including Naziism) focuses on immediate survival ability at the expense of missing the broader-picture - namely "What makes life worth living?", among many other things.

[Razza94]

Extremism always rises rapidly when the traditional political establishment fails to provide solutions to the problems that are concerning most ordinary people. When people feel that mainstream politicians can't help them, or are simply ignoring them, they will turn to people who offer them genuine hope, even if these people hold a number of extreme views, so long as they promise to deal with major issues that the traditional establishment has ignored, then they will inevitably build support.

It's been quite funny to see the left in complete meltdown recently. Just look at the Democrats desperately trying to find excuses for their loss to Trump. All kinds of theories have been put forward, "Fake News", Russian Hackers, Vote Machine tampering, James Comey, etc. Rather than just accepting the failures of the Democratic Party. The fact is that they were overconfident, got their message wrong, and put forward and extremely flawed candidate. The analogy I'm trying to make is that the extreme incompetence of the Democrats is what has allowed an outsider such as Donald Trump to win the election. The Democrats, and the establishment, would have won easily had they picked a solid candidate, and addressed things that are genuinely concerning millions of American voters, rather than wasting their time obsessing over trivial issues and identity politics.

[Matadora]

Originally Posted by rishi85

Currently in my god forsaken country there is a massive wave of nationalism.

You have been asked by SEVERAL posters which country you reside in.

It's clear you are not speaking of the US.

Originally Posted by rishi85

A week ago the supreme court forced a new rule that everyone must stand for the national anthem in movie theaters and anyone not standing will be given a week in prison.

What country is this?

Originally Posted by rishi85

Since then there have been a wave of incidents. Today 9 people were shot dead(!!!) for not standing in the theater. They got into an argument by the uber nationalist crowd and after getting out of the theater they were murdered in broad daylight.

What country did this occur in?

[Matadora]

Got it!

India cinemas ordered to play national anthem

Terribly sad that this is occurring in the 21st Century in any country.

Humans are the worst species on Earth.

[Troyfan]

It started in Germany and stayed there. There were Nazi and Nazi-type parties in other countries but they never came to power.

In the US there was a Nazi-type movement in the '30's mostly of German immigrants. They called themselves Brownshirts. Until some Jews broke up one of the NYC rallies, after which they were known as Brown Shorts.

[ABQConvict]

Originally Posted by Troyfan

It started in Germany and stayed there. There were Nazi and Nazi-type parties in other countries but they never came to power.

Except when they were installed as the ruling governments in Nazi-occupied countries.

That said, before the Nazi era in Germany, there were always hyper-nationalist or ethnocentric polities throughout the world. In fact, in pre-industrial societies it was probably the norm since tribal and small state level societies relied strongly on group identity and cohesion for mere survival.

That doesn't make such societies 'Nazi-like' so much as the Nazis attempted an ethnocentric tribalism on a modern, national scale creating a rare, if not unprecedented, phenomenon of ethnicide and genocide. Look no further than the bible for similar pogroms occuring by the grace of god between nations in the bronze age Near East.

[Ziggy100]

Originally Posted by nickerman

what made National-Socialism start to spread was great success in getting Germany out of the depression. In just a few years of National-Socialism German was out of the depression with 100% employment while other nations(U.S. included) were still deep in the depression. What scared world economic leaders was the truth of the German economic miracle would get out to the workers of the world and they too would demand the same rights as the German worker. That was basically the reason for the fanatasim behind destroying Hitler and Germany. The bottom line reasons were economic.

No, what scared economic leaders was the fact that Hitler was taking over their countries. Nobody tried to destroy Hitler until most of Europe was under Nazi occupation. It was Germany that declared war on the US, not the other way around. People tend to get defensive when you're rolling troops through their capitals.

[CPPU12345]

IMO. The people loved a world that would be pure and simple. And in those days, the best way to achieve this goal was to make wars. The Nazism was a crying for the life. But they forgot the people did have the differences.

[NJGOAT]

Originally Posted by nickerman

what made National-Socialism start to spread was great success in getting Germany out of the depression. In just a few years of National-Socialism German was out of the depression with 100% employment while other nations(U.S. included) were still deep in the depression. What scared world economic leaders was the truth of the German economic miracle would get out to the workers of the world and they too would demand the same rights as the German worker. That was basically the reason for the fanatasim behind destroying Hitler and Germany. The bottom line reasons were economic.

Well, the Nazi "economic miracle" was anything but. To the casual observer it certainly seemed as if Germany had shaken off the shackles of the Depression, but to anyone who has ever studied the reality, it was nothing more than a house of cards. They achieved "full employment" by removing women from the workforce and disenfranchising certain "undesirable" groups. They engaged in large secret armaments projects and public works projects built on a series of carefully constructed financial instruments.

The truth was that the entire situation was nothing more than a veil, an illusion of prosperity. The facade was continually propped up through Hitler's growing boldness with re-militarizing the Rhineland, executing Anschluss, annexing the Sudetenland, etc. However, by 1939 it had essentially become war or bust. Germany was even extremely reliant on Soviet raw materials that they were purchasing with technology and machinery exchanges.

Even the rhetoric of the "unfairness of Versailles" could not be further from reality. The Versailles Treaty had been largely abrogated by the time Hitler came to power. The "barrels of marks for a loaf of bread" was something that plagued the Weimar government in the 20's, long before Hitler came to power.

Ultimately, the reason for Nazi success was a direct appeal to the base. Germany was great, it was only being held back by undesirables who had betrayed her. Hitler told Germans what they wanted to hear and cultivated a fervently loyal base. Even then, his hold on power was tenuous until he had gained the 'victories' of re-militarizing the Rhineland and the Munich Agreement. These successes made Hitler seem like he could actually deliver on his promises of a greater Germany. Hitler sold the German people a bill of goods and delivered on it well enough (at least on the surface) that they followed him into hell and turned their heads away from the atrocities.

[Mariskat]

The time of Hitler was the time of empire and Germany did not have one, while their neighbours, the British, had manage to turn entire continents into playgrounds for the English speaking people. This desire for expansion and the annexation of eastern European territory required a strong political system that could quickly fix some of Germany's immediate problems and prepare the nation physically and mentally for a massive all-or-nothing war against many enemies, including the British empire, as individuals such as Churchil hated Germany and would do everything in his power to keep them a small and uninfluential country. The Jews were considered a seditious element because of their loyalty to their own international community, which would most certainly have sabotaged Germany's war effort. We can assume now that Germans understandably desired the same greatness that the English culture has created for itself through centuries of warfare and conquest. As for the killings of the Jews- the mass killings of Jews did not start Until the war was already in full swing. It did not happen upon Hitler taking power, nor did he declare such plans and the German public could not have forseen it. At that point in time, during 1942-1943, it wasnt as simple as just disobeying orders and overthrowing Hitler to stop the war and the Holocaust anymore. Germany was embroiled in a cataclysmic war of annihilation with the Soviets and a German defeat could have resulted in the complete and total destruction of the German nation and total absorption into Soviet Russia. Germans were from 1942 onwards fighting a war of survival and rising up against the nazi government to save the Jews could have caused the collapse of their armies and total capitulation to the Soviets, the loss of the German language, genocide and Germany basically becoming a Russian state, like Kaliningrad today. That is a really complex history that is horrendously oversimplified in our modern day media.