The Stab in the Back

There are some frightening similarities between the Weimar Republic -- which gave birth to Adolf Hitler's Nazi Third Reich -- and the American government under George W. Bush, the most recent being the Bush "stab in the back" strategy.

After the incompetence of German military leaders cost the lives of 3 million Germans in World War I, the disgruntled losers, unwilling to accept the blame, came up with a propaganda ploy accusing Jews in the German army, war profiteers (excluding of course Krupp and Thyssen) and socialists as those who undermined the German military and caused it to lose the war. Of course, it was a lie. But a popular one.

Now, the Bush administration is attempting a similar ploy, blaming US political leaders -- Hillary Clinton specifically and "leftist" citizens generally -- with causing the American military to lose the war in Iraq because of their criticism that the war has hurt America's standing in the world and only strengthened the terrorists who hate us. And, while this is a frightening similarity to Weimar realities, it's not the only one.

Francine Prose, in a recent review of the book, Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s, coined such similarities "a Weimar moment." ("Berlin Stories," Harper's, April, 2007). One such moment occurred to her as she watched TV news the day after Thanksgiving: "One minute, an Iraqi woman was scrabbling in the dirt and throwing sand in her own face in an agony of grief. A minute later, a woman was nearly trampled by people struggling with boxes of flat-screen TVs. It was what, I suppose, might be called a Weimar moment . . . the wounded passing right alongside the gluttonous patrons of the pork store."

Here are a few more similarities:

• Hatred of immigrants.
• Inflation (ours is just getting started).
• Reckless speculation in financial markets.
• Sexual license.
• Private armies (the Freikorps then, Blackwater USA today).

Most troubling of all is the rise of religion coupled with nationalism. Islam-Iran vs. Christian-US is the nightmare world our intellectually bankrupt leadership has led us to. In Germany, decades of preaching by 'social critics' who linked a 'pure' Christianity with the German Volk led them to the Nazi dictatorship. The last of these critics just happened to pen a book titled The Third Reich. Are our neo-con incompetents with their theory of pre-emptive war and their dependence on the religious right for political power any different? Both then and now, the damage done to the Republic is dreadful. (Although there is one difference. The 'social critics' in Germany were all anti-semites. The leading neo-cons happen to be Jewish. On the other hand, their philosophical idol, Leo Strauss, fled Weimar Germany for the U.S. Just another connection.)

Anyone who is concerned about the direction the United States is taking should study Germany's Weimar Republic. We are headed toward dictatorship, financed by corporations linked to government, just as the industrialists of Germany financed Hitler's rise to power. That dictator isn't George Bush. Bush is only laying the groundwork for a future politician, who will no doubt be wildly popular at first, and who will become our Absolute Ruler.

From Post-modern Barbarism to the Pulpit & the Throne

"When men and women are reduced to nothing but their lowest appetites, we live in a state of barbarism. Weimar Period artists painted people in this state, for this, in their view, was what society had become. Their honesty would cost them. When the Nazis made barbarism official, these artists were among the first to go -- into exile, concentration camps, or inner emigration.
"The war had destroyed the old order, but there was a new one. The tragedy of the Weimar Period was that too few people were prepared to defend it. The new order was in any event, too fragile to withstand its brutal enemies."
- Glitter and Doom, German Portraits from the 1920s, by Sabine Rewald, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, page 17.

Are men and women in a society dedicated to consumption and "personal experience" reduced to a "post-modern" level of barbarism today? Isn't this how today's Christian Right views America? Will the reaction push us forward to a new "official barbarism" or pull us back to the old order of "Pulpit and Throne," the order destroyed by World War I and being reborn today through a corporate aristocracy, which has taken control of the federal government.

The Weimar Period lasted just 15 years but it was a crucial turning point for European civilization. Did a similar period -- a crucial turning point -- begin for us in 2001? The events in Germany during those years will certainly not repeat themselves here and now, but their causes and consequences hold a great deal for us to ponder.