NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm not sure how many of you know Günter Grass. I'm sure some of you will have read or at least heard of the "Tin Drum" (if only because the Bible belt outlawed it). He's an author who's won the Nobel Prize in literature.

An important theme in his work (and life) is Nazi Germany. He was born in 1927, and thus his childhood was heavily influenced by the rise and fall of the Nazis.

His traditional story over the years was that he was drafted from the Hitler Youth near the end of the war to help with air defence.

Now, with his autobiography coming out, he dropped a bomb shell: that might not have been the whole story. When he was fifteen he actually volunteered for the U-Boats. But since they wouldn't take anyone anymore by then, he instead ended up with the Weapons SS. He reckoned he just had to come out with the truth.

Articles
Little English bit: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,431353,00.html
German FAZ Article: http://www.faz.net/s/Rub28FC768942F34C5B8297CC6E16FFC8B4/Doc~E4E61DA913E954EAEA41518E564AD5375~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
Full Interview (also in German): http://www.faz.net/s/Rub117C535CDF414415BB243B181B8B60AE/Doc~ED1E99E51572441E696FB0443CA308A56~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html

Apart from it just being a good story (I often read Grass' commentary and interviews in the Zeit newspaper), this offers another intriguing insight into the world back then. Particularly this bit intrigues me:
Q: Sie haben sich als einer der ersten Ihrer Generation über die eigene Verführbarkeit geäußert und waren immer sehr offen im Umgang mit der deutschen Geschichte. Dafür sind Sie oft gescholten worden.

A: Ja, wir haben bis heute so viele Widerstandskämpfer, daß man sich wundert, wie Hitler an die Macht hat kommen können. Aber ich will noch einmal zurückkehren in die fünfziger Jahre, um Ihnen meinen Ansatz beim Schreiben der „Blechtrommel“ zu erklären. Was zuvor, 1945, geschehen war, galt als Zusammenbruch, war nicht die bedingungslose Kapitulation. Verharmlosend hieß es: Es wurde dunkel in Deutschland. Es wurde so getan, als wäre das arme deutsche Volk von einer Horde schwarzer Gesellen verführt worden. Und das stimmte nicht. Ich habe als Kind miterlebt, wie alles am hellen Tag passierte. Und zwar mit Begeisterung und mit Zuspruch. Natürlich auch durch Verführung, auch das, ganz gewiß. Was die Jugend betrifft: Viele, viele waren begeistert dabei. Und dieser Begeisterung und ihren Ursachen wollte ich nachgehen, schon beim Schreiben der „Blechtrommel“ und auch jetzt wieder, ein halbes Jahrhundert später, bei meinem neuen Buch...
Q: As one of the first of your generation you spoke openly about how easily you were seduced, and you've always been very open in how you handled German history. For that you were often criticised.

A: Yes, we still have so many resistance fighters today that one wonders how Hitler could even come to power. But I want to return once more to the Fifties to tell you my motivation for writing "The Tin Drum". What happened before 1945 was seen as a collapse. Belittlingly we called it: It became dark in Germany. People pretended the Germans were seduced by a horde of dark creatures. But that just wasn't true. I saw as a child how everything happened in the clear light of day. With lots of agreement and enthusiasm. Of course there was an element of seduction, no question. As far as the youth was concerned: Many, many were enthusiastingly taking part. And I wanted to follow this enthusiasm and its causes, when I wrote "The Tin Drum" and again today, half a century on, with my new book...

Considering the way the world is shaping up these days, with xenophobia and all that on one hand, and globalisation etc on the other, I think this has lost none of its relevance.

So, what do you think? Why was the Nazi vision so appealing to so many, particularly young, people? Are there parallels to today's regrowing anti-foreigner, anti-immigration movements? And are you sure you wouldn't fall to these ideologies?

So, what do you think? Why was the Nazi vision so appealing to so many, particularly young, people? Are there parallels to today's regrowing anti-foreigner, anti-immigration movements? And are you sure you wouldn't fall to these ideologies?

well today’s world is affected by the same things as back then: the will to blame others, ignorance, the world shrinking (causing fear and worry) and just a sprinkle of ethnic rivalry

I wouldn't say were going to face the Nazis in the future (though Poland seems to be the most likly place for the next Nazi Germany) the strange fact is globalisation isn’t as strong as it once was (yes we were far more Globalised during the early 1900's!) and has slowed down allowing people and nations to change and accept there differences before they end up living next door (all of which caused WWI but bah there both different parts to one bigger war really)

And yes I would easily fall under the Nazi spell I doubt there is anyone who wouldn’t but still I would much rather support a new Stalin

I think it's because totalitarian ideologies transform the state from an impersonal entity to a parental figure; much of the propaganda from any totalitarian regime has the leaders and their ministers portrayed as the "fathers" of the nation who care for and protect their people, and they justify their oppression as a form of protection, much like how a parent has to discipline their children in order to protect them from harm and to teach them proper behavior.

SNIP

and then the Kids have little nations of there own and thus empire is born!

makes sense though people seem to identify the state with elders rebellion, the expectation of protection and the expectation that the government will always know what to do

makes sense though people seem to identify the state with elders rebellion, the expectation of protection and the expectation that the government will always know what to do
But what of the kids who fought the Weimar Republic? They fought against the government for a whole bunch of radical movements.

But what of the kids who fought the Weimar Republic? They fought against the government for a whole bunch of radical movements.

maybe kids will rebel against whatever there parents think so we end up with a cycle of liberalisation followed by periods of authoritarianism.

And there is absolutely no way of breaking this cycle that I can see other than having complete anarchy or complete totalitarianism both of which don’t sound too appealing so should we as parents doom are children to unhappiness to keep them happy? *police arrive and search me for drugs*

So, what do you think? Why was the Nazi vision so appealing to so many, particularly young, people? Are there parallels to today's regrowing anti-foreigner, anti-immigration movements? And are you sure you wouldn't fall to these ideologies?
Why does any vision appeal to the young and impressionable? People tend to embrace with enthusiasm ideas which give them simple, satisfying answers to their concerns. This is true of any ideology, political or religious. A lot of people even today embrace ideas which have a malvolent guiding intelligence behind the seemingly proper exterior. That's life.

and then the Kids have little nations of there own and thus empire is born!

In a lot of ways, yeah. Just look at the dictators of the post-WWII era; almost all of them took their inspiration from men like Hitler or Stalin and structured their governments to match. In some ways, these dictators were the children of the Nazi regime; in some cases, the Nazis had a role in directly shaping these regimes.

makes sense though people seem to identify the state with elders rebellion, the expectation of protection and the expectation that the government will always know what to do

It removes the need to think...it's so much easier for people to not think and to put it in to the hands of their "betters" or the elite, with the obviously disasterous consequences that stem from giving away control over their thoughts.

There's an interesting theory being developed that kind of speaks to this. John Dean's new book, "Conservatives without Conscience," examines the extreme swing to the right currently happening in the conservative movement and, in the process, he talks in detail about the work of Dr. Robert Altemeyer.

Altemeyer is a professer of social psychology (I think) at the University of Manitoba, and he has done some apparently groundbreaking work on authoritarian personalities. This is the latest generation of work in a series of studies that have been going on continuously since WW2, interviewing and observing literally thousands of people.

Altemeyer's papers are, it seems, pretty technical and heavy on statistics, but the gist of the work seems to be that there are two main kinds of authoritarian personalities -- Right Wing Authoritarian (RWA) followers and Social Dominator type leaders. This is based on test results and interviews. Not surprisingly, there are more leaders than followers. However, Altemeyer determined that there is a very small number of a third type, nicknamed "Double Highs," who score high on both follower and leader tests. These personalities tend to be the kind of people who make the real authoritarian abuses happen -- they play Geobbels, Goering, and Himmler to the leader's role as Hitler.

Another finding is that, apparently, a steady 23 - 25% percent of the human population will exhibit authoritarian personality types. I have not done any comparisons, but from my memory it seems that 23 - 25% is a typical frequency of psychological profiles or behavorial models that are not considered abnormal.

So I wonder if 25% of people are likely to be authoritarians, 25% are likely to be more anarchistic/liberal, 25% are likely to be markedly socially retiring, 25% are likely to markedly outgoing, etc. And, of course, 25% are likely to be politically active.

As for the remaining 75% outside of each of those groups, Altemeyer's and others' work shows that non-committed people are likely to be caught up in the energy of an enthusiastic message promoted properly by the 25% who are committed to it, if they feel their society is under grave pressure and if the radical message is somehow reassuring, but they are not really true believers. At the core, it is a charade with them. These are the people who wake up in the rubble in 1945 and say, "My god, what have we done?" The committed 25% never say that, never change their minds, and never give up their agenda.

There is no doubt that Germany was under extreme pressure between WW1 and WW2. There is also no doubt that the Nazi message was a feel-good message of personal superiority for a people who felt like something on the bottom of the world's shoe. And there is also no doubt, when we look at the family histories of many US, UK, and European politicians, that we are dealing with pretty much the same characters now as then. John Dean is of the personal, though informed, opinion that the US is not yet on a fascist track but that the situation is so similar to what was happening in politics in the 1930s that we are dangerously close to heading that way.

So I guess the answer to the question is, there are always some people to whom such a message will appeal, and there are more people who will buy into it if they are scared enough.

Links:

Dean's book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670037745/103-3144675-3947860?v=glance&n=283155

Brief overview with links to some of Altemeyer's articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_Wing_Authoritarianism

Good on him to finally tell the truth about his youth in the war.

That he was put into the Waffen-SS after volunteering doesn't really surprise me all that much - it was pure luck in which unit you ended up during the closing months of WWII.

Some might say that he should've told his story earlier. But honestly, is there ever a "good" time to drop that kind of bomb? I doubt it.

I've seen Günter Grass a couple of times walking the streets downtown, and he's a very person. (Apart from being a great writer and such.)

So I congratulate him on his (maybe late, but not too late) honesty concerning his early years. Thinking that such a turned-out-to-be-bright person was mislead in his childhood only shows how "successful" the Nazis' indoctrination worked.

Final thought: I wonder how much history had to be revised on a global scale if only more people remembered what they did themselves instead of pointing fingers and blaming others? -

-snip-
Fascinating!

They should make like an internet test on what sort of person you are. A proper one, not like these usual little pop-quizzes on that okcupid website.

So, what do you think? Why was the Nazi vision so appealing to so many, particularly young, people? Are there parallels to today's regrowing anti-foreigner, anti-immigration movements? And are you sure you wouldn't fall to these ideologies?

The same reason that radical Islam appeals to so many- particularly young, young people. It was a promise of restored hope and pride being whispered to a group that had just faced complete humiliation, rampant poverty and contempt from the rest of the world (all of the above in the forms of the staggeringly unfair conditions of the Armistice.)

Fascinating!

They should make like an internet test on what sort of person you are. A proper one, not like these usual little pop-quizzes on that okcupid website.
I think some of the tests the various researchers use (Altemeyer is just one of many) do make their way into the public, but according to Dean, Altemeyer is reluctant to publish self-scoring tests because he doesn't want people who maybe are just leaning a little bit in a certain way on a personality spectrum to freak out, thinking that they are closet Nazis and never knew it.

At the back of his book, Dean publishes the RWA survey and another research team's Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) survey, but the researchers made him omit the scoring system. I won't copy them here because they're long and copyrighted, some questions are (answers are strongly agree/agree/disagree/strongly disagree):

RWA survey examples:

- Women should have to promise to obey their husbands when they get married.
- Our country needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.
- Gays and lesbians are just as healthy and moral as anybody else.
- The "old-fashioned ways" and "old-fashioned values" still show the best way to live.
- A lot of a our rules regarding modesty and sexual behavior are just customs that are not necessarily any better or holier than those that other people follow.
- the situation in our country is getting so serious, the strongest methods would be justified if they eliminated the troublemakers and got us back on our true path.

As you can see, it's a mix of rightwing/conservative social views and leftwing/liberal social views. The mix of your answers determines how high or low you score as an RWA personality. The real survey is much longer than this.

SDO examples:

- Some groups of people are simply not the equal of others.
- This country would be better off if we cared less about how equal all people were.
- Equality.
- If other people were treated more equally we would have fewer problems in this country.
- It is important that we treat other countries as equals.

And so on. The SDO survey tests for the person's belief or non-belief in equality as a principle. SDO leader types apparently do not believe in equality.

Here's another article on the topic

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/08/11/germany.grass.ap/index.html

So, what do you think? Why was the Nazi vision so appealing to so many, particularly young, people? Are there parallels to today's regrowing anti-foreigner, anti-immigration movements? And are you sure you wouldn't fall to these ideologies?

I don't think there is any one answer for that. The Nazi's seemed very good at appealing to many different interests. I suppose it depends where you sat as to why you followed them. Could be bitterness over the war, the humiliation of versailles, unemployment, fear of communism, racism, whatever.

I do remember reading that the middle class and lower middle class (clerks, teachers, bookeepers, artisans, small businessmen and such) was increasingly marginalized under the weimar, lacking either capital or a tradition of unionization to protect it. This provided a breeding ground of fear and discontentment which resulted in xenophobic (for want of a better word) attitudes that Nazism could capitalize on. Probably that is the most scary comparison to the modern US, where the middle class is increasingly suffering the simliar conditions: stagnant wages, uncertain employment, increasing indebtedness. (Though by no means to the same extent). If there is a similarity, probably I see it there.

Possibly also in the tumult of the thirties the Nazis also had the appeal that they seemed to be the only group that really knew what it was doing and was going out and getting it done. I can see how that is attractive for the young. Especially a clear message of action, instead of debate and indecisiveness which weimar democracy offered. Young people (and some old) often don't realize that this to will pass, you know. It somewhat explains FDRs popularity too.

I think it is important to remember though, that just as much as the popular appeal for Nazism, Hitler's rise relied upon his ability to seduce powerful groups. (Like the millitary, business leaders and key political figures). The whole thing would of fizzled, I think, without that. It is a disservice to describe the whole thing as just a nation being seduced by the glamour or whatever of Nazi ideology. Initially, hitler required the collusion of some powerful cynical interests to do what he did. It was more than just a people gone mad sort of thing.

This story makes me laugh...

A national socialist is now a left wing junky.
You see, left people suck!
Do you know the German magazine "Stern"?
The last owner was a left radical and
in the second world war he was in the SS.
But he can't remember it...

Socialist is Socialist. No matter if
there's a "national" in front or not...

Socialist is Socialist. No matter if
there's a "national" in front or not...

You are extremely wrong.

Very much so. Much of National Socialist ideology was a reaction against socialist thought and reform. And National Socialism specifically is in opposition to the fundamental tenet of socialism, of ownership of the means of production by the state (which, in fact, is one reason they lost WWII. Germany, unlike the 'weak liberal democracies' found itself less able to move to a full wartime economy - some aspects of it's economy had failed to move to centralised control when the war ended, after almost six years of warfare. The much larger US economy managed the same trick in approximately eight months).

The similarities of the extremes of both left and right are remarkable. But do not allow that to blind you to their differences.

Good on him to finally tell the truth about his youth in the war.

That he was put into the Waffen-SS after volunteering doesn't really surprise me all that much - it was pure luck in which unit you ended up during the closing months of WWII.

Some might say that he should've told his story earlier. But honestly, is there ever a "good" time to drop that kind of bomb? I doubt it.

I've seen Günter Grass a couple of times walking the streets downtown, and he's a very person. (Apart from being a great writer and such.)

So I congratulate him on his (maybe late, but not too late) honesty concerning his early years. Thinking that such a turned-out-to-be-bright person was mislead in his childhood only shows how "successful" the Nazis' indoctrination worked.

Final thought: I wonder how much history had to be revised on a global scale if only more people remembered what they did themselves instead of pointing fingers and blaming others? -


Very good post, from top to bottom.

One will read "Katz und Maus" differently now. Joachim Mahlke = Günter Grass? If it were that easy.