1918 Germany Warning: Trump 'Stop The Steal' Like 'Dolchstosslegende' Stab-In-The-Back Myth: NYT
'1918 Germany Has a Warning for America.' Donald Trumps Stop the Steal campaign recalls one of the most disastrous political lies of the 20th century. By Jochen Bittner, 'Die Zeit' Contributor Opinion, New York Times, Nov. 30, 2020. - Excerpts:
HAMBURG, Germany It may well be that Germans have a special inclination to panic at specters from the past, and I admit that this alarmism annoys me at times. Yet watching President Trumps Stop the Steal campaign since Election Day, I cant help but see a parallel to one of the most dreadful episodes from Germanys history. One hundred years ago, amid the implosions of Imperial Germany, powerful conservatives who led the country into war refused to accept that they had lost. Their denial gave birth to arguably the most potent and disastrous political lie of the 20th century the Dolchstosslegende, or stab-in-the-back myth.
- 1919 Austrian postcard illustration showing a caricatured Jew stabbing the German Army in the back with a dagger. The capitulation was blamed upon the unpatriotic populace, the Socialists, Bolsheviks, the Weimar Republic, and especially the Jews. 'Stab-In-The-Back Myth,' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth
Its core claim was that Imperial Germany never lost World War I. Defeat, its proponents said, was declared but not warranted. It was a conspiracy, a con, a capitulation a grave betrayal that forever stained the nation. That the claim was palpably false didnt matter. Among a sizable number of Germans, it stirred resentment, humiliation and anger. And the one figure who knew best how to exploit their frustration was Adolf Hitler. Dont get me wrong: This is not about comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler, which would be absurd. But the Dolchstosslegende provides a warning.
Its tempting to dismiss Mr. Trumps irrational claim that the election was rigged as a laughable last convulsion of his reign or a cynical bid to heighten the market value for the TV personality he might once again intend to become, especially as he appears to be giving up on his effort to overturn the election result.
But that would be a grave error. Instead, the campaign should be seen as what it is: an attempt to elevate They stole it to the level of legend, perhaps seeding for the future social polarization and division on a scale America has never seen. In 1918, Germany was staring at defeat. The entry of the United States into the war the year before, and a sequence of successful counterattacks by British and French forces, left German forces demoralized. Navy sailors went on strike. They had no appetite to be butchered in the hopeless yet supposedly holy mission of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the loyal aristocrats who made up the Supreme Army Command. A starving population joined the strikes and demands for a republic grew. On Nov. 9, 1918, Wilhelm abdicated, and two days later the army leaders signed the armistice.
It was too much to bear for many: Military officers, monarchists and right-wingers spread the myth that if it had not been for political sabotage by Social Democrats and Jews back home, the army would never have had to give in. The deceit found willing supporters. Im Felde unbesiegt undefeated on the battlefield was the slogan with which returning soldiers were greeted. Newspapers and postcards depicted German soldiers being stabbed in the back by either evil figures carrying the red flag of socialism or grossly caricatured Jews. By the time of the Treaty of Versailles the following year, the myth was already well established. The harsh conditions imposed by the Allies, including painful reparation payments, burnished the sense of betrayal. It was especially incomprehensible that Germany, in just a couple of years, had gone from one of the worlds most respected nations to its biggest loser.
The key to Hitlers success was that, by 1933, a considerable part of the German electorate had put the ideas embodied in the myth honor, greatness, national pride above democracy.
The Germans were so worn down by the lost war, unemployment and international humiliation that they fell prey to the promises of a Führer who cracked down hard on anyone perceived as traitors, leftists and Jews above all. The stab-in-the-back myth was central to it all.
Germanys first democracy fell. Without a basic consensus built on a shared reality, society split into groups of ardent, uncompromising partisans. And in an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia, the notion that dissenters were threats to the nation steadily took hold.
Alarmingly, that seems to be exactly what is happening in the United States today. According to the Pew Research Center, 89 % of Trump supporters believe that a Joe Biden presidency would do lasting harm to the U.S., while 90 % of Biden supporters think the reverse...
Read More, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/opinion/trump-conspiracy-germany-1918.html
Moostache
(9,895 posts)Trump is already 74 years old - but unlike Biden at 78 and apparently far more healthy, Trump is already living on borrowed time.
In North America, a man can expect to live to between 75 and 78 years of age, with obvious outliers and factors such as location, financial wherewithal, access to care, etc.
However, studies have shown that extreme obesity cuts short life expectancy an average of 6 1/2 years for those at the low end of extremely obese, and almost 14 years for those at the high end. Those factors would put Trump's life expectancy down to somewhere between 61 and 68, which he has eclipsed to date.
Based on the demise / dementia of his father and the less favorable outcomes for his male siblings, I would say that Trump is going to very soon be receiving assistance dressing himself and likely will end up in a corner of a sad home drooling on himself and grunting alot...a fitting end indeed.
HOWEVER....the people who have been enabling this have darker motivations. There are not more than 15 or 20 people left in the president's orbit that really believe he can still 'win' now...but there are a lot more carefully taking notes of just how easy it is to break elements of our system and they are realizing that Trump is good at breaking things, and exposing fault lines, but a real threat is not going to bound into the room screaming and yelling their intent the way Trump has...the knowledge gained about just how to break our system is going to fall into the wrong hands and likely before 2024.
Trump is old news and should be discarded to his moistened salvia-drenched final act now...but keep a very close eye on the rest of them.
DBoon
(22,366 posts)They were called the Freikorps:
Shot in front of their children. Attacked with acid. Murdered while walking away. Germanys Weimar Republic was a dangerous place for politicians and government officialsand for hundreds of them, it was deadly.
Between 1918 and the mid 1920s, Germany was rocked by murder after murder. The victims all had a connection: they were killed for political reasons. And their deaths were made possible by right-wing extremist groups that played on racism, nationalism, and economic anxiety to stoke fear and hatred. By 1922, at least 354 government members and politicians had been murdered, setting the stage for the Nazi Party, World War II and the Holocaust.
Article at https://www.history.com/news/political-assassinations-germany-weimar-republic , photo from Wikipedia
appalachiablue
(41,131 posts)dangerous period, so many murdered and terrible open violence. Thanks for posting about the Freikorps.