The Failure of Conservative Modernization and the Restructuring of the Political Order -----The Fascist Approach

  1. Fascism as a generic phenomenon. Read this article for a discussion of fascism and the relevance of the concept to Iraq and elsewhere in the twenty-first century.
    1. Origins of the terms "Right" and "Left."
    2. The new "Left" in the nineteenth century
  2. Fascism as a "third way" to modernization: "Borrowings from "Left and Right." See F-R, 122-123
    1. Susceptibility: See common characteristics and susceptibility in Readings 38
    2. See F-R., 123-124.
      1. Social-economic motives.
      2. Fascist ideas.
  3. Italy: the prototype. Read the discussion of corporatism in F-R, 127 for an explanation of how fascism promised a "third way" between the ruthlessness of capitalism and the "classless, aethistic society" that was the goal of communism.
  4. German Nazism:
    1. The Failure of Weimar parliamentary democracy
      1. The Legacy of failed Conservative Modernization: In the words of Richard von Weizäcker (President of The Federal Republic of Germany at the time of reunification in 1990), it wasn't "... because there were too many Nazis, it was because there were too few democrats."
      2. Still-born Democracy: Video: "Tiger at the Gate." Click here for the text.
        1. 9. November (the revolution that wasn't: see F-R. 130, left) and the myths of Dolchstoss ("stab-in-the-back" and the "November Criminals. See F-R, 128.
        2. The Allied Blocade
        3. The Communist Putsch Attempt: "Bloody Week" 5.-12. January 1919
        4. "Diktat" (Reparations and War Guilt)
        5. Weimar Republic (1919), a model of democracy, which failed to mobilize the masses. See F-R, 130. "A candle burning at both ends." (F-R, p. 130.)
          • 1920:
            • March ---- monarchist Kapp Putsch attempt in Berlin
            • Sparticist rising in the Ruhr.
          • 1923 --- French-Belgian occupation of the industrial heartland of the Ruhr in response to a non-payment of Reparations.
            • German government practiced "passive resistance."
            • Inflation. which had begun as a consequence of the war-time economy and had increased over the period until 1923 now exploaded.
            • Zivilisationskritik: The lower-middle classes, the "losers in the process of modernization" (see F-R, p. 123, right-column) lost everything. Nothing left to conserve, the became susceptible to the "revolution on behalf of traditional values.".
            • Communist threats in Saxony, Thuringia, Hamburg
            • Nazi Putsch of 9. November (FYI: For detail on the Beerhall Putsch of 9. November 1923 click on the photo below for a link to The History Place.)

        1. "Dawes prosperity" and "roaring" Weimar 1924-1929
        2. Cabaret and the image of the Nazis as the saviors of traditional values
          • The characters: Der Ansager, Brian, Elke, Sally Bowles, Max
          • The scenes: 1) The Kit Kat Club, 2) Brian-Sally-Max, 3) Brian-Sally, 4) The Gasthaus.
        3. The Depression and the "evacuation of the 'quaisi-democratic' political center.

         

        1. "The End of Democracy" 1930-1932. Brüning Government able to govern only through the use of Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution and President Hindenburg's willingness to sign emergency legislation..
    2. Die Machtergreifung - Hitler in Power, January 30, 1933 --- Democratically!
      1. The Reichstag Fire (27.-28. February ).
      2. Reichstag Election, 5. March
      3. The Enabeling Act, 24. March.
      4. Gleichschaltung (Read F-R, 132-133) under the Führerprinzip (Readings, 13-15 discusses the the Prussian roots.) What is there in the process of Nazi totalitarian modernization that borrowed from the techniques of conservative modernization. What is different and new about totalitarian modernization?
        1. Labor Unions banned and workers absorbed into DAF (German Labor Front), political parties absorbed into NSDAP. Spring of 1933
        2. Communist and Socialist Parties banned, freedom of speech restricted, many members put into Dachau, one first of the concentration camps spring of 1933.
        3. Nazi revolutionaries, particularly in the S.A., purged in the "Night of the Long Knives," 30. June 1934 --- probably somewhat over a hundred murdered --- also included conservatives who resisted Hitler's totalitarian dreams. .
        4. Anti-Semetic Nuernberg Laws: See summary along with chart. FYI Text Nuernberg Laws, September 15, 1935. See:: Anti-semitic placard.
        5. The Churches made their peace with the Nazi regime.
          • Concordat with the Papacy, 10. September 1933
          • Protestant Churches folded into one "Evangelical Church" and pastors oath of loyalty to Führer in 1937.
          • FYI: The Nuremberg Project, a collection of documents, summaries, notes and memos collected for the Nuremberg Trials on Nazi Germany's plan to destroy Christianity.
    3. Forging a "Totalitarian Democracy": Through the following measures, the National Socialist regime at least started the process of a "social revolution" and made itself genuinely popular with a majority of Germans before the start of the war.
      1. The mobilization of a mass society through work.
        1. Business and Industry were harnessed to the needs of the state through the Four Year Plans.
          • Autarky, government contracts and subsidies oriented towards re-armament.
          • Profits for capital and full-employment for labor in stark contrast to neigbors like Austria and France, as well as U.S.
          • Unemployment dropped to 1 million in 1936 and there were more jobs than workers by 1938.
          • Mix of private and state industry --- legacy of conservative modernization. See the discussion of "organized capitalism in Germany before World War I in Readings, p. 16.
        1. DAF and RAD
      1. Entertainment and education - The goal: A new racially pure National Socialist man and woman
        1. KdF (Kraft durch Freude -- Strength through Joy) including the Volkswagen project to build a peoples' car. For detail from the German Historical Museum click on the image below.
        2. FYI: Art
        3. FYI: Film, e.g Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will.
        4. Traditional family values combined with new racial values. Read: Click here .
        5. Photo showing racial education.
        6. Photo showing mobilization of young people through the HJ.
        7. Nazi democracy, re.Milton Mayer, They thought they were free. Read here.
        8. Fest: "If Hitler had died in 1939, he would have gone down in German history as one of the greatest Germans."
      2. Racist Terror: Reichskristallnacht (Crystal Night or the "Night of Broken Glass") 9. November 1938: a sign of the future. FYI: For a description from the Holocaust Museum in Washington click here.
  5. Japan: Did Japan have a fascist experience?
    1. Compare common characteristics of fascism: Readings, p. 38-39 with the points raised in lecture and F-R, 214.
      1. Radicalism of the lower middle-classes
      2. Explicit rejection of parliamentary liberalism.
        1. Read F-R, p. 214
        2. Mass mobliization in army
        3. No "revolution from above."
      3. Stratified society.
      4. Fuehrer?
      5. Corporatism?
      6. Extreme nationalism caused by ...?
      7. Revisionism
      8. Appeal to youth.
    2. The Right-Left Paradox
    3. The Rise of Militarism, 1931-1937. Click here for a map.
    4. For an interesting article on Japan's justification for and conduct of war click here.
  6. Fascist aggression and the Coming of World War II: When did World War II begin? (F-R, p. 220)
    1. The Axis: Rome-Berlin Axis pact of 25. October 1936 and extended to include Japan on 25. November 1936. Common motives for seperate imperialistic drives: revisionism, expansionism and anti-Communism.
      1. German Motives
        1. Revisionism
        2. National Unification. Click here for ethno-linguistic map.
        3. Lebensraum within which the Volksgemeinschaft could achieve its natural destiny.
        4. voelkisch Empire as the basis for a "neue Welt Ordnung" (New World Order)
      1. Italian Motives
        1. Revisionism
        2. National Unification
        3. Empire
      2. Japanese Motives
        1. Revisionism
        2. Racist Empire
    2. The Road to War
      1. The Saar, 13. January, 1935
      2. Italian seizure of Ethiopia, October, 1935
      3. Remilitarization of the Rhineland, 7. March 1936
      4. 1936-1938: Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy support quaisi-fascist take-over of Spain by Franco.
      5. Japan attacked China, 7. July 1937
      6. Anschluss of Austria, March, 1938
      7. Czechoslovakia under assault.
        • The Munich Conference, September, 1938: The Pact. You can access an audio clip along with a description of the threats that Hitler used to force this conference as well as Chamberlain's speech in England upon returning from the Conference from the sound archives of the History Channel. Click here to go to the History Channel site and then click on Speech Archive. Scroll down to Chamberlain Munich Pact Speech.
        • The End of Czechoslovakia.
      1. Hitler-Stalin Pact, 23. August 1939
    1. Europe on the eve of World War II. See Centennia and Hammond A Historical Atlas of the World, H-48.

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