80 years ago today Hitler became Reichskanzler in Germany

[Tender Branson]

Germany remembers Hitler rise to power

By Yannick Pasquet (AFP)

BERLIN — Germany on Wednesday remembers Adolf Hitler's rise to power 80 years ago, with exhibitions exploring what Chancellor Angela Merkel has called the country's "everlasting responsibility" for crimes committed by the Nazis.

In a black-and-white photo, visitors can make out the Fuehrer saluting the crowd from the chancellery window on the evening of January 30, 1933, after earlier having been made chancellor and been charged by president Paul von Hindenburg with forming a new government.

The picture is on display at "Berlin 1933. On the Path to Dictatorship", due to be opened by Merkel in the German capital on Wednesday, on a site charged with history as the former headquarters of the Gestapo, the secret police of the Nazi regime.

It now houses The Topography of Terror, an open-air documentation centre whose exhibition will trace Hitler's first months in power through photos, newspapers and posters.

"The hour has come! We are at Wilhelmstrasse (the site of the chancellery at the time). Hitler is chancellor of the Reich. Like in a fairytale," wrote Joseph Goebbels, who was to become Nazi propaganda chief, in his diary on January 31, 1933.

Posters go on to show images of the Reichstag going up in flames the following month and then the first measures taken against the Jews on April 1, with the start of a boycott of Jewish shops, doctors and lawyers.

"Germans, defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews," a poster states.

Andreas Nachama, director of The Topography of Terror, said the arrival of the failed painter from Austria at the helm of power in Germany was an "incision" in history, although nobody at the time thought he would last.

However the parliamentary system of the Weimar Republic failed to find a stable majority and Hitler, on the back of over-simplified themes, rallied millions of unemployed and people who had lost everything in the economic crisis.

According to Nachama, the exhibition shows the "daily erosion of democratic institutions" as the Nazi regime began to build up steam, eventually leading to World War II and the deaths of 40 to 60 million people, including six million Jews.

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[Simfan34]

"Everlasting responsibility"? Geez, they ought to give themselves a break.

[Tender Branson]

"Everlasting responsibility"? Geez, they ought to give themselves a break.

Nope. We have to stay vigilant.

[Franzl]

We should indeed stay vigilant. And I say this not only from a German perspective, but this should should still be a global issue, working to further eliminate racism, anti-semitism and all other forms of hate throughout the world.

The fact that openly national socialist parties, say, in Greece or Hungary are making a return to parliament, is certainly a great cause for concern.

[afleitch]

We should indeed stay vigilant. And I say this not only from a German perspective, but this should should still be a global issue, working to further eliminate racism, anti-semitism and all other forms of hate throughout the world.

The fact that openly national socialist parties, say, in Greece or Hungary are making a return to parliament, is certainly a great cause for concern.

I was talking about this with some work colleagues yesterday. Hitler is in danger of becoming less of a man and more of a ‘myth’ as those who were in power alongside or opposing him are long gone and those who fought him are dying. Hitler was without hesitation the epitome of evil in power (and I get annoyed at ideological points scoring with ‘what about Stalin?’ usually coming from the right of the political spectrum as if it’s about getting one over on fascism) but he’s been sanitised. He’s ‘bad’ but people don’t really want to invest the energy to discuss exactly why he was and why he rose to power. It’s not necessarily a new thing either; the worst of Hitler we only found out after the war and at that point people were tired of the war and wanting to move on. Yet the attitudes he embodies inhabits every society; the anti-Semitism expressed by some Arab governments, right wing fringe parties and Trots is taken almost verbatim from the 20’s and 30’s. Every time some loon talks about the ‘homosexual agenda’ as if there’s a cabal of people who influence the government it’s exactly the same.

For me, as history is still my field, I feel that Fascism as a political force is only discussed or taught as the preface to war. Which of course it was, but it suggests that it ended as an ideology in 1945 (which it didn’t) or was only relevant to Germany or Italy. So in schools, Fascism becomes embodied by Germany and essentially becomes a history lesson rather than a political one.