A brief history
The collapse of the German war effort saw the creation of a republic in 1919: an
uprising of the left had been smashed by a socialist government that cooperated
with the army and the employers. As Griffin has shown in detail, there were German
fascists whose version of nationalism – idealisation of war, anti-liberalism and anti-
Semitism – was at variance with the Nazi view (1995: 104–15). Hitler had made
contact with the German Workers’ Party (DAP or Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), a
fanatical nationalist grouping. Since the clauses of the Versailles Treaty limited the
Reichswehr (the German army) to 100,000, Hitler was demobilised in 1920. He
became leader of the DAP which was then renamed the National Socialist German
Workers’ Party (NSDAP). A putsch was attempted in 1923, and Hitler was given
a short prison sentence by a sympathetic court. Nazis were regarded as isolated
fanatics until 1930: yet in 1933 the movement had seized power. In 1928 the NSDAP
won only 2.6 per cent of the popular vote. The Versailles Treaty which ended the
First World War had punitive effects on Germany: all colonies were lost while it is
calculated that the reparations bill equalled 1.5 times the total GNP of Germany
in 1929. Although the economy had improved in the 1920s, the depression had
catastrophic effects. Investment and industry collapsed, and unemployment was
officially estimated at some 30 per cent: the real figure was nearer half.
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) had headed a coalition
government until 1930: when this fell apart, the president ruled by decree for three
years, real wages were halved, and Hitler had meanwhile stressed the need for a
party capable of winning elections and conducting effective mass propaganda. In
the elections in 1930, the Nazis came second to the SPD, and two years later, they
received 37 per cent of the vote. Large employers began to support the Nazis and
although many thought Hitler ‘tactless’ and his economic policies ‘utopian’, his
militant anti-Bolshevism appealed to them, and they backed him for chancellor. He
was appointed to the position in 1933, and the Nazis received three posts in an 11-
strong cabinet. Goebbels vowed that 1933 would strike the French revolutionary
year of 1789 out of history.
By July 1934 Germany had become a one-party state, and the Nazis embarked
on their task of building a Third Reich and New European Order. War broke out
in 1939 and the defeat of the Nazis was secured in 1945.
Anti-capitalism
Although virulently anti-Marxist, the Nazi movement was in the 1920s strongly
anti-capitalist as well. The first programme of the party spoke of the need to share
profits, nationalise the trusts, increase pensions and provide free education. Hitler
referred to the need to make the working people national, while Strasser
(1892–1934), killed in the purges of 1934, attacked capitalism and argued for the
emancipation of the worker through ‘participation in profits, property and
management’. Gründel saw the creation of a new type of human being as
constituting the end of the property-owning bourgeoisie (Griffin, 1995: 117, 123,
128), while Goebbels had said in 1928 that ‘no honest thinking person today would
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