Anna von der Goltz
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199570324
- eISBN:
- 9780191722240
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570324.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter discusses the role of the Hindenburg myth during the early years of the ‘Third Reich’. Analyzing, amongst others, the celebrations of the ‘Day of Potsdam’ and the President's funeral in ...
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This chapter discusses the role of the Hindenburg myth during the early years of the ‘Third Reich’. Analyzing, amongst others, the celebrations of the ‘Day of Potsdam’ and the President's funeral in 1934, it is argued that the regime continued to accept Hindenburg as a parallel symbolic authority. His myth was crucial to consolidating Nazi rule after the ‘seizure of power’. It is shown that Hindenburg willingly participated in such propagandistic displays, and that the political will he left provided the regime with invaluable symbolic ammunition. A sense of trust in Hindenburg's personal integrity, and his power to alter people's fortunes, nevertheless survived among many of those pursued by the regime. That Hindenburg remained a rallying point for Nazi opponents highlights the perpetual polyvalence of his myth.Less
This chapter discusses the role of the Hindenburg myth during the early years of the ‘Third Reich’. Analyzing, amongst others, the celebrations of the ‘Day of Potsdam’ and the President's funeral in 1934, it is argued that the regime continued to accept Hindenburg as a parallel symbolic authority. His myth was crucial to consolidating Nazi rule after the ‘seizure of power’. It is shown that Hindenburg willingly participated in such propagandistic displays, and that the political will he left provided the regime with invaluable symbolic ammunition. A sense of trust in Hindenburg's personal integrity, and his power to alter people's fortunes, nevertheless survived among many of those pursued by the regime. That Hindenburg remained a rallying point for Nazi opponents highlights the perpetual polyvalence of his myth.
Mary McAuley
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198219828
- eISBN:
- 9780191678387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198219828.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
A marked feature of the revolution was the coming into being of local institutions, a phenomenon which the Bolshevik seizure of power encouraged still further, but the subsequent process of ...
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A marked feature of the revolution was the coming into being of local institutions, a phenomenon which the Bolshevik seizure of power encouraged still further, but the subsequent process of state-building was strongly characterized by the gaining of power by the centre at their expense. The accretion of power, whether by the city government at the expense of the districts or by the Economic Council at the expense of the factories or, from a different perspective, by the central government at the expense of Petrograd, was not foreseen, and it caused considerable dissension and conflict, but out of the confusion it emerged as the dominant tendency. Here is a very clear example of new state structures developing a momentum of their own.Less
A marked feature of the revolution was the coming into being of local institutions, a phenomenon which the Bolshevik seizure of power encouraged still further, but the subsequent process of state-building was strongly characterized by the gaining of power by the centre at their expense. The accretion of power, whether by the city government at the expense of the districts or by the Economic Council at the expense of the factories or, from a different perspective, by the central government at the expense of Petrograd, was not foreseen, and it caused considerable dissension and conflict, but out of the confusion it emerged as the dominant tendency. Here is a very clear example of new state structures developing a momentum of their own.
Jason Crouthamel
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780859898423
- eISBN:
- 9781781385128
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780859898423.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Once the National Socialists seized power in 1933, they denounced war neurotics as deviant ‘enemies of the nation’ who subverted the Nazis’ official memory of the war as a healthy experience that ...
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Once the National Socialists seized power in 1933, they denounced war neurotics as deviant ‘enemies of the nation’ who subverted the Nazis’ official memory of the war as a healthy experience that ennobled men. In 1934, the Nazis enacted a new pension law that cut the remaining ‘war hysterics’ from the pension rolls. As these men fell into destitution, they bombarded the regime with claims that they were patriotic, masculine, and normal veterans who deserved compensation alongside physically disabled men as ‘first citizens of the Reich’. Nazi leaders, including those in organizations like the Steel Helmet, gave support to mentally traumatized ‘victims’ of revolution and street fighting against the ‘November Criminals’, but they did not recognize men who claimed to be traumatized in the sacred experience of the Great War. Men who suffered mental illness were treated as ‘asocials’ and faced increased persecution.Less
Once the National Socialists seized power in 1933, they denounced war neurotics as deviant ‘enemies of the nation’ who subverted the Nazis’ official memory of the war as a healthy experience that ennobled men. In 1934, the Nazis enacted a new pension law that cut the remaining ‘war hysterics’ from the pension rolls. As these men fell into destitution, they bombarded the regime with claims that they were patriotic, masculine, and normal veterans who deserved compensation alongside physically disabled men as ‘first citizens of the Reich’. Nazi leaders, including those in organizations like the Steel Helmet, gave support to mentally traumatized ‘victims’ of revolution and street fighting against the ‘November Criminals’, but they did not recognize men who claimed to be traumatized in the sacred experience of the Great War. Men who suffered mental illness were treated as ‘asocials’ and faced increased persecution.
Karl Kraus
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780300236002
- eISBN:
- 9780300252804
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300236002.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
This chapter reflects on the rise of Adolf Hitler to power and the implications thereof. It directs this sense of surprise at a polemicist who is popularly—but mistakenly—expected to take a stand; ...
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This chapter reflects on the rise of Adolf Hitler to power and the implications thereof. It directs this sense of surprise at a polemicist who is popularly—but mistakenly—expected to take a stand; and who, when confronted by any evil that appeals to his temperament, has indeed been prepared to “stick his neck out.” But there are evils which not only make the neck cease to be a metaphor but may also prevent the associated activity of the brain from formulating a single idea. The chapter thus illustrates the author's shock, as well as the compulsion to give an account of this failure. It attempts to explain the dilemma into which such a complete upheaval in the German-speaking world has plunged him, and the paralysis caused by the awakening of a nation and the establishment of a dictatorship that now controls everything apart from language.Less
This chapter reflects on the rise of Adolf Hitler to power and the implications thereof. It directs this sense of surprise at a polemicist who is popularly—but mistakenly—expected to take a stand; and who, when confronted by any evil that appeals to his temperament, has indeed been prepared to “stick his neck out.” But there are evils which not only make the neck cease to be a metaphor but may also prevent the associated activity of the brain from formulating a single idea. The chapter thus illustrates the author's shock, as well as the compulsion to give an account of this failure. It attempts to explain the dilemma into which such a complete upheaval in the German-speaking world has plunged him, and the paralysis caused by the awakening of a nation and the establishment of a dictatorship that now controls everything apart from language.
