Читать книгу A THREE PART BOOK: Anti-Semitism:The Longest Hatred / World War II / WWII Partisan Fiction Tale - Sheldon Cohen - Страница 17

The New York stock market crash of October 24, 1929 plunged the United States into the Great Depression resulting in multiple business failures and sky-rocketing unemployment. As the United States banks began to fail, they called in their German loans sparking a world-wide depression. Germany suffered the most, and within two years the country went from virtually full employment to a third of the workforce unemployed.

Prior to this time, the Nazi Party was one of the many in the Weimar Republic good times of the mid to late twenties. The citizens barely noticed the Nazis who never garnered more than 3 percent of the vote. With the depression’s impact and the Nazi organization built up by Hitler and his new propaganda minister, Josef Goebbels through the twenties, the desperate citizens now turned to the Nazis in droves, and by 1932 they garnered just under one third of the vote making them the largest party in the parliament; the Communists were second. The time was right for Hitler to achieve power legitimately.

In May of 1928, an election gave the Nazi Party less than 3% of the vote equating to 12 seats in the Reichstag. Two of the minority parties were the Nazis and the Communists. In early 1930, they became involved in street violence which killed many.

Horst Wessel, a Nazi party member, wrote a song that became famous as a Nazi emblem. He apparently had an altercation with his landlady, a Communist Party member. She notified a friend who shot Wessel. He lingered for a while and died of his wounds. Goebbels turned this into a propaganda coup for the Nazi party and they became the second largest party in the Bavarian Reichstag with 107 seats and 18.3 percent of the vote. The Nazis tasted blood and intensified their propaganda, going so far as to give the world a preview of what to expect if they gained power. In October, 1930, they smashed windows of Jewish owned stores at Potsdamer Platz, an important public square in Berlin. In the meantime, against the background of the Great Depression, the Communists and the Nazis together controlled more than fifty percent of the Reichstag.

Hitler’s excitement knew no bounds. The Nazi ascendency and that of the Communists, made governing with a stable parliament virtually impossible, forcing the use of emergency powers levied by the president. Much internal fighting and bargaining took place in these last few years of Weimar, but Hitler would eventually prevail and organize a dictatorship fulfilling his dream.

Albert completed his graduate course in finance at Oxford in 1928 and took a job at an established Polish bank in Warsaw. He was responsible for coordinating relationships between Poland, Germany, and Great Britain. He and his wife had a daughter. Albert, now a resident of Poland, was happy in his adopted, stable country, although his job, of necessity, took him back and forth between Poland, Germany and Great Britain.

Sam completed his surgical training in 1928, and he and his wife also had a daughter. The two young army veterans were hoping for a stable future, but unstable times persisted…

Conditions, based on increasing anti-Semitism engendered by roving Nazi bands, caused concern for what the future might hold should the Nazis ever gain full power.

Some Jews in Germany at the time, especially Jewish World War I veterans, were unhappy about their fellow Jews who had emigrated from the country because they feared the Nazi agenda. They felt protected by current law, but such thoughts proved to be extremely naive, probably a gross underestimation of Adolph Hitler’s mind-set. Those unhappy Jews failed to grasp the intensity of Hitler’s anti-Jewish hatred and his devotion to one man rule, implemented by whatever means necessary. The Jews took comfort in the moderate views of Vice-Chancellor von Papen and other non-Nazi political figures given to similar moderate political ideas. They also found some assurance from the in-fighting within the Nazi party itself, not realizing until too late Hitler’s extreme methods for dealing with dissent.

And those methods were demonstrated most convincingly with respect to Ernst Rohm who was head of the Sturm Abteilung (S.A.) a para-military element of the Nazi Party formed in 1923.

Like Adolph Hitler, Rohm was awarded an Iron Cross, was wounded in World War I, ended the war as a Captain, and was counted among the 100,000 man German army allowed under the treaty of Versailles. After his war service, he fought the communists as a leader in the Bavarian Freicorps.

Rohm joined the German Worker’s Party the same year as Adolph Hitler, 1919, while he was still an officer in the military. Hitler took note of this man who also was in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, and assigned him to develop the S.A., the Sturmabteilung, or Storm detachment, the original paramilitary wing of the fledgling Nazi Party which played a significant role in protecting Nazi rallies, disrupting meetings of opposing parties such as the Communists, and intimidating and harassing Gypsys and Jews. Unsatisfied by Rohm’s efforts, Hitler fired Rohm, prompting him to quit the Nazi Party and take a position as advisor to the Bolivian army. But when Hitler’s election results improved, he rehired Rohm as Chief of Staff of the S.A. in January 1931. Owing to the Great Depression, German citizens supported the Nazi Party in droves, and by 1933, Rohm was at the head of a three million man S.A., which put him in opposition to the German military who was very nervous over the S.A.’s rapid growth. But Hitler needed the German army for his future plans, so he had to silence Rohm. Not a problem for anyone potentially standing in Hitler’s way; he had Rohm assassinated.

Germany’s 525,000 Jews viewed this all with great concern, but had no unity to protest, or at least make their voices heard. Many saw the handwriting on the wall and emigrated. Others, led by Rabbi Leo Baeck attempted to form a unified Jewish organization, The Representative Council for Jews in Germany, to speak for them. Not being able to overcome Hitler’s hatred and power, as history would prove, they failed.

German Jews, as opposed to Eastern European Jews, are considered as having birthed modern Judaism, a significant change from the strict orthodoxy of Eastern European Jews who mostly clustered in ghetto areas and adhered to the strict super-religious orthodoxy of old. There were no ghetto walls in Germany as the German Jews assimilated completely and became loyal German citizens. But when Hitler’s name and philosophy became known, they were unprepared for what would be a fight for their very survival. Most German Jews considered the anti-Semitism smoldering under the surface as a part of ancient history, and in the early 1930’s the German Jews were confused and unprepared for what would occur. In fact, many German Jews were reluctant to protest the Nazis for fear of calling attention to the Nazi’s poisonous philosophy. When Great Britain began to boycott German goods, the Berlin Jewish community called Great Britain’s Chief Rabbi urging them to stop the boycott to prevent bad publicity about Germany. Not to be outdone, Jewish war veterans attacked those Jews who fled Germany insisting that German laws would protect Jewish citizens. The opinions varied as to what the Nazis could do to their Jewish citizens, since they did not hold a majority in the parliament. Many Jews pinned hopes on non-Nazi members of the Weimar Republic, pointing out that the Nazi designation of Jews as “enemies of the State” was totally false, and the assertions made about all Nazis were false. Such illusions would soon be demolished as the Nazis gained unexpected strength.