Day 234 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks

I’m still working my way through William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. The more I read, the more I’m convinced that every U.S. citizen needs to read this book. I took several history courses in college and half of this information was never covered… If you can vote, if you consider yourself a good citizen, you need to read this book. It will make you look at our system of government, the power of the media, and even our justice system in a new light. It will make you think and question. If it doesn’t, then you’ve probably been bought and sold on revisionist, liberalized history.

It is good to remember that Hitler didn’t become the Chancellor of Germany by force, but by vote. When things are bad and someone comes along and tells you what you want to hear, watch out.

In Chapter Seven: The Nazification of Germany: 1933-34, Shirer gives us an in-depth look at how little by little Hitler was able to turn the republic of Germany into a single party dictatorship. He gives information on the Reichstag fire, showing how it was all planned by the Nazi party to start their “revolution.”

From there we he takes us to the “coordination of the Reich” which he says, “had the advantage of cloaking the seizure of absolute power in legality.” Again, a reminder that we all need to pay attention to the laws being passed and who they actually benefit.

Then we turn to Hitler’s foreign policy and the fact that Hitler was uncanny in sizing up his adversaries, which Shirer goes into more detail when discussing Munich later on. As Hitler’s influence and power grew, those within his party began causing problems. Roehm wanted his S.A. storm troopers to replace the army. Hitler knew he needed the army to keep his position intact. As more radicals rose up, Hitler finally knew he had to do something and had them murdered.

Shirer sums up chapter seven with this reminder that we all need to heed: “… he (Hitler) had already made clear in the pages of Mein Kampf and in a hundred speeches which had gone unnoticed or unheeded or been ridiculed by so many – by almost everyone – within and especially without the Third Reich.

He begins chapter eight with this startling news: “The overwhelming majority of Germans did not seem to mind that their personal freedom had been taken away, that so much of their culture had been destroyed and replaced with a mindless barbarism, or that their life and work had become regimented to a degree never before experienced…”

Shirer then goes on to show how certain businesses thrived (mostly do to secret rearmament), racial laws (against the Jews) were put into place – and yet people flocked to Germany. Tourism thrived. Nothing was hidden from the world yet the world looked the other way.

On page 241, Shirer states, that the Reich Chamber of culture had been set up (under the propaganda expert, Goebbels), to “determine the lines of progress, mental and spiritual, but also lead and organize the professions.” This included fine arts, music, literature, theater, the press, radio and films. It makes me shudder to think how much of those areas are controlled by the liberals in the U.S. today.

He goes on to talk about how propaganda can influence the population at large. If only one side is presented over and over, as in today’s mass media, that becomes the norm. Think about how abortion or homosexualism was denounced even just fifty years ago – and how today they are considered “politically correct.” Scary.

Again, following what Hitler had already laid out in Mein Kampf, he began to take over the schools. Textbooks were rewritten (think of how creationism can no longer be taught in our schools and how evolution is taught even though it has never been proven to be accurate), the curricula was controlled by the state, and instructors had to fall in line with Nazi “doctrine” and teach it to the kids. Even Einstein was fired because he didn’t follow Hitler. Oddly enough, due to Einstein’s beliefs, he wouldn’t be able to teach in our schools today.

Book Three: The Road to War takes us step by step through the years leading up to WWII. According to Shirer, Hitler’s plan, for the first two years (1934-36) were to talk of peace while secretly rearming his military so that he would avoid any military action by the Versailles powers. As this is going on, Hitler is already breaching the Versailles Treaty.

And while Great Britain and France took his “peace” talks seriously, Hitler invaded the Rhineland… without opposition.

Shirer goes on to explain the intricate relationship that Hitler built with Mussolini and how other events in Europe helped him to push his way forward without resistance.

In chapter ten we learn how the fall of some of Hitler’s “faithful” occurred, and how, once again, no one took heed of what this meant to Germany and to the world at large.

Chapter eleven: Anschluss: The Rape of Austria, we have Shirer, changing jobs from newspaper to radio reporting being transferred from Berlin to Vienna, putting him in a great vantage point to see all of this happen. Chapter twelve: The Road to Munich is the last chapter I’ve read thus far. Both of these are interesting and revealing chapters.

Page after page we see how appeasement and sanctions and signed treaties are worthless when dealing with a dictator such as Hitler. Again and again we see how Hitler ignored them and continued on course – all the while making the diplomats feel as though they were making progress. Shirer repeatedly shows how British Prime Minister Chamberlain was taken in by Hitler’s lies, as was the French Premier and the now defunct League of Nations. Hitler knew exactly how they’d respond and that they’d do/promise anything to prevent war.

The ironic thing is, according to Hitler’s generals that survived the war, there is no way Germany could have won if Britain and France had intervened with their military, even as late as the Munich invasion. Britain had even been made aware, at least four different times, of a plot to oust Hitler if Britain and France would intervene with their military.

At the expense of Austria, and an even worse betrayal to Czechoslovakia, Britain and France tried time and again to use appeasement – even offering up Czechoslovakia (which they didn’t control) to Hitler to avoid war. Czechoslovakia was told to submit to Germany.

The only person who seemed to know what Hitler was doing was Winston Churchill, who at this time wasn’t in the government and his observations went unheeded.

Again this parallels a lot of what is going on in the world today. United Nations sanctions mean nothing. There’s always a country willing to do business with a “banned” nation. Treaties signed by Bill Clinton and North Korea have gone unheeded. All that is going on in the Middle East under Clinton and Obama has been appeasement. Clinton ignored the threat of Bin Laden, even let him go when they had him in their sights. Obama has no clue how to handle Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who continues to defy sanctions and restrictions and “warnings.” And President George W. Bush, who took a stand to help bring down a dictator who murdered 800,000 of his own people, is ridiculed. There is no appeasing ruthless men.

Those who refuse to learn from the past will end up repeating it. With this I repeat what I stated at the beginning – people need to read this book. And people need to wake up.