Proudhon is an antisemitic idiot and we should all drop him anyway.
"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?
- Thread starter The Red
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Proudhon is an antisemitic idiot and we should all drop him anyway.
He is not an idiot. His works on economics and statism are valuable for understanding the problems of capitalism.
Proudhon is one of many influences on German Ideology but as with your previous predictions about the left in general you're being too absolutist. Proudhon was a racist and a misogynist but some anarchists look past that IOTL, observations about how the DAR has certain mutualist features isn't likely to stop them ITTL.
Yet again Hitler was inspired by Nietzsche so I guess so.
He honestly believed he was rational and logical about his antisemitism. I don't know how you get more idiotic than that.
Maybe he has valuable contributions, but it doesn't change anything.
So I was wondering about Hitler's conservationist and vegetarian tendencies. Is the German Ideology more environmentalist than Soviet Marxism? Would this taint environmentalism with Hitlerist associations that didn't stick OTL?
It is, albeit somewhat by default as it quietly rejects Lysenkoism. The worker is still the backbone of German Ideology and rural Germany is to be given to those who work it, not some lazy Junker who likes to look at an undisturbed estate.
Chapter LIII
"The appalling thing about fascism is that you've got to use fascist methods to get rid of it."
~ Dr Richard Fletcher, It Happened Here
~ Dr Richard Fletcher, It Happened Here
Lindenstrasse had once been part of Berlin’s newspaper quarter and whilst it now housed the vast ten story complex that made it the beating heart of the Social Democracy, one could still see the large Mousse publishing factory as well as editorial offices if one where to walk down from the street that made up the SPD's headquarters, publisher, newspaper office, and official party school.
Ernst wondered if the party’s days in the street would be remembered when they were gone. It seemed possible now that such an event was going to come sooner rather than later. The banners outside continued to encourage workers to join, but the place was already beginning to feel like a fortress.
He had been through this before but never had he felt as if the party was being accosted by so many enemies, it was not just the reactionary extremists of the Freikorps or the utopian anarchists of the Spartacists any longer, these enemies had morphed into forms that had become well organised, resourceful, and worryingly palatable for some members of this own party. The word that Paul Levi had been seen at a rally with the leader of the Communist Party of Germany required action, in case such instances became commonplace and the SPD found itself being eclipsed as the workers party by a group of people who only had Moscow’s interests at heart.
Ernst felt that it might have been best to just eject Levi from the SPD, but the rules of the party allowed the former communist the chance to have an internal hearing, which Ernst was now waiting on the results from as he tried to get through correspondence from his constituents. He had been a deputy in the Reichstag for over six years now, he hoped it would be enough to earn him some loyalty from Social Democratic voters who might be looking the other way. Unfortunately there had been a lot of those since the Depression, and the party’s exit from power hadn’t seemed to help. If there was a purity in opposition, they didn't embody it.
The Weimar Republic was still an ideal worth fighting for but he was aware that this time it might be dealt a fatal blow by the will of the people rather than by reactionary coups or leftist uprisings. The SPD, for better or for worse, was the largest party defending the republic even if people like Levi seemed to be reverting to their extremist roots.
Ernst had been halfway answering a constituents complaint about his neighbour's dog by the time the tribunal came out, along with most of those who had stopped working at their desks to see the sheepish looking Paul Levi standing amongst his adjudicators.
“Comrades, fellow colleagues, we have addressed the case of Comrade Levi and we believe that we have agreed upon a resolution. We have found that whilst association with an opposition is a cause for the termination of membership, in case we believe that the circumstances pertaining to the action have made it clear that Comrade Levi was not intending to harm the party even though he has acknowledged his mistake in this belief, for which he would now like to apologise.”
With his prompting, Levi hesitantly stepped forward. Like Ernst he was clearly not happy with this situation, albeit the two likely would have differed on their preferred outcomes.
“Comrades, I know that I have alarmed and confused many of you with my actions, for which I do truly apologise. However,” Ernst noticed the members of the tribunal raise their eyes,
“At this moment Hitler is also fighting a battle against those who would have the KPD become the parody of a Moscow puppet that many presume it already is. We must consider, in this outright rejection of the KPD, whether we are not also helping those in Moscow and in this very city who would rather have the left divided for their own purposes. Perhaps I did not have the right answer to that question in my actions, and I am very sorry for that, but that does not mean that the question should now be left without an answer.”
Levi smiled for a moment, only for his face to suddenly become full of foreboding.
“For I fear that the time is running out for us to find one.”
An awkward silence hung in the air. Levi appeared to be waiting for a reaction, approval or disapproval, but nothing came other than bewilderment and whispering. With this realisation, he slumped through the office and out of the door, the fearful look having never left his face. His adjudicators returned to the meeting room.
Ernst considered whether or not to continue with his own concerns about Levi’s communist sympathies or those of his constituent’s about dog excrement, before deciding on the former. He marched into his meeting room with the irate letter still in his hand, to the surprise of those discussing what had just happened.
“Is that it? The man embraces the General Secretary of the Communist Party and all that is required for him to do is make an insincere apology?!” Ernst’s voice was higher than normal, subconsciously conveying his exasperation.
Hermann Gott, the party’s secretary for internal discipline gave his characteristic sigh. It was a job where regardless of the verdict you made there would always be someone put out by it. Ernst supposed it must especially difficult when it was a verdict that the man appeared to be questioning himself.
“Levi has been a loyal friend of the party for many years, we know he has had a history with incorrect forms of Marxism in the past and his dalliance in the form of this Communist rally he attended must be understood in those terms. If he had been discovered to be conspiring with Hitler it would have been one thing but this little display is something we can move on from.
“After all, we are not as fond of purges as those in Moscow.” Gott reassured Ernst, causing a few of the committee to chuckle.
“I feel like you are being too complacent with this matter.” Ernst replied coolly, bringing the laughter to an end. “The crisis out there on the streets, it’s going on all over the industrial world. There’s no quick cure to this disaster, and there’s no American dollars coming to the rescue like there were in 1924. If Levi and other former communists were to organise against the party, this would be the time for them to do it,
“The matter is settled comrade,” Gott’s tone had become impatient. “As you say, there is a crisis out there and we must work to help solve it for the sake of the German people. Now is not the time for sectional interests, we are a party of the working class not one for the self-indulgent,”
Ernst began to feel as if he was living in a different world to these men, those who had gone to unimaginable lengths to contain the communist threat were now dismissing such claims as obsessive and paranoid. He felt he needed perspective, and found himself walking out of the offices of his party much like Levi had done, and into the streets of the troubled city.
It had been less than a year since the American stock exchange had fallen apart and yet the Berlin of Weimar’s Golden Age had already slipped away. Walking down the Lindenstrasse towards the train station he decided to walk through Berlin’s state park. The hustle and bustle of a thriving Germany had been replaced with a guttural, uncomfortable, silence that was only broken by the angry shouts in the distance, where a rally was under way. From this distance it was hard to tell what extremists were barking out their proposed solutions for the crisis and who they would have to kill to do so. Ernst was only interested in getting past the rabble, until he was close enough to see that they were something different entirely.
For a moment, it was unclear to Ernst whether he was in Berlin or in Rome. Hundreds of blackshirts were assembled in the park’s expanse, looking as if they might be ready to march into the Reichstag at a moment’s notice. Ernst had no doubt many amongst them wished they could. These impromptu rallies had become increasingly common, a show of force that seemed to hint at more serious action in the near future.
The Volkisch Bund, previously little more than a group of Bavarian drunks who liked to fight more than campaign, had recently been drilled into order in anticipation of what they could now achieve. There were many desperate people who could not stomach communism, and had turned to the far-right for salvation instead. Many of those appeared to be swelling the ranks of the blackshirts, as men thrown out of employment found a new purpose in their lives. The entire scene was a morbid theatre act as the blackshirts were reviewed by their commanders before all raising their right arms in unison, aping the style of Mussolini.
The figure who the blackshirts were saluting also seemed to be fashioning himself on the Italian dictator. Hermann Goering, the gaunt, severe looking war hero wore the same black shirt as the organised thugs with only his Blue Max to distinguish him. The decoration had been the highest honour in Imperial Germany, and it seemed that the reactionary wanted to remind everyone of his service. Ernst felt the mix of the old Imperial symbols with those of Italian fascism to be rather perverse, but many in the crowd applauded the war hero instead.
Some even joined the bizarre saluting display, such was their desperation to applaud a movement that had been a violent fringe group a few months beforehand. There were those who were desperate to see the radical ideals the Volkisch Bund proclaimed, a return to a powerful monarchy, the removal of all foreign “vampires” from German soil, the re-acquisition of all German lands and colonies lost at Versailles, all to be achieved under the banner of “Prussian-dom and Socialism”. A German model for the proclaimed success of Mussolini’s brutal regime.
Looking at the scale and sophistication of the rally, Ernst couldn’t help but wonder if there was funding coming from behind the Alps, or if more desperation was to blame. He couldn’t help but notice that many of the cheering supporters were rather too bourgeois to be regular beer hall enthusiasts. Ernst considered Levi’s veiled comment about the upper classes of German society allying themselves with the Volkisch Bund in the same way they had done in Italy out of fear of communism. He couldn’t help but admit this scene appeared to lend truth to that, although he resented the fact that only he seemed able to see that the Communists were just as worthy of suspicion, as if they hadn’t been in Berlin when the Spartacists had taken control of the city only for the Freikorps to attempt the same feat a year later. It only proved that Germany could not drive out the devil with beelzebub.
Goering was still rambling about the virtues of patriotism and sacrifice until he decided that both concepts were the same thing and expected his audience to applaud this presumption. A woman with a camera around her neck involuntarily yawned emitting a slightly embarrassed laugh as the yawn cascaded throughout the crowd. Ernst felt like saying to her at least the communists had some dynamic speakers and wondered if that was the sort of humour she might enjoy. Even if she was a Volkisch Bund sympathiser, she surely couldn’t be as bad as that nagging communist woman who continued to insist he was the father of her child regardless of the fact they had only ever spent one night together.
It was a line of inquiry that was far more interesting to Ernst than whatever was coming out of the Goering’s mouth, but before he could pursue he noticed that the blackshirted veteran had stopped speaking. A look of surprise on his face as he looked towards the park exits and a snarl as he realised who was blocking them. Ernst turned round with the other onlookers, the blackshirts, their supporters, those like himself who had been caught amidst the rally out of curiosity, and a female photographer. All ensnared by what was the largest group of Red Front militiamen he had seen ever since they had marched out of the Ruhr.
For a moment Ernst wondered if Paul Levi had somehow known he would be here, before trying to look for a way to get out before the fireworks began.
“There they are,” Goering snarled. Ernst turned back and realised that the blackshirt had regained his composure for the moment.
“The Marxist scum, the drunken and mentally ill parasites who dangle from the Jews' wires in order to please their masters in Moscow. We are not intimidated by your theatrics, come over here and face us!”
The Red Front advanced, seemingly at Goering’s beckoning, many of them grinning with bloodlust, others defiant, some seemingly rather uneasy, all chanting the Marsch der Antifaschisten together as the Blackshirts closed ranks and the onlookers fled, Ernst among them.
“This isn’t somewhere you want to be,” he shouted to the girl over Goering’s rants and the anti-fascist chorus but as he attempted to grab her hand she flung him off with a glare and raised the camera to her eye. Apparently she did want to be here after all.
The Red Front began to charge, Ernst realised that choice had been made for him as well.
---
The photomontage is The Face of Fascism by George Grosz.
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For a moment, I thought it was Hannibal Lector in that weird facemask."The appalling thing about fascism is that you've got to use fascist methods to get rid of it."
~ Dr Richard Fletcher, It Happened Here
The photomontage is The Face of Fascism by George Grosz.
Anthony Hopkins portrayed Hitler in The Bunker, maybe he should have played Mussolini instead?
And so the Battle of the Tiergarten begins. I wonder which side will be able to convince the public that the other side started it.
The character expands on it in the film by making a medical analogy, "when you fight a disease you often use its own germ for inoculation."
Shame the movie wasn’t so well received. If they’re going to make an epic remake let’s just hope they use those quotes.
Deleted member 92121
Nazis marching on the streets, a nation divided, nope, don't see how that's relevant to today at all.
What an absolutely typical phrase.
Gaunt: this version of Goering tests the imagination. How good a public speaker was he?
I think a bit has fallen off here.