I just read Karl Dietrich Bracher’s “The Technique of the National Socialists Seizure of Power” in The Road to Dictatorship: Germany 1918-1933; a Symposium by German Historians. (London: Oswald Wolff, 1970),11-125.
The following points come from Bracher’s chapter in this book and, as harsh a critique of the former president as this might be, the following correlations are striking. Although Trump is not as murderous as Hitler, of course, he is certainly vengeful and vindictive and was capable of not wanting to surrender power after President Biden was duly elected, thus violating the first non-peaceful transition of power of all U.S. Presidents, from George Washington to the present.
Sixteen Points and More About Trump’s Play-Book
from the Nazi Seizure of Power
This article certainly provides an echo-chamber for the everyday news of today: the deception, (Biden the wannabe dictator, not Trump); the undermining of elections, (e.g., claiming fair and free elections are rigged, while they try to rig them; elections are stolen, while trying to steal them); the undermining of the rule of law by an independent judiciary, (the judiciary committee under Jim Jordan is working on that right now.); control via confusion, modern skillful communication via tweets and the social media. Introducing divisiveness means that control can go to the top (divide and conquer). Republicans fear the fate of their party as in California, where they have lost their standing.
Thus no. 1.
- An aggressive minority is trying to seize power that democracy prevents them from maintaining.
2. Dictatorship led to a plunge into barbarism. (Scapegoating immigrants, taking children from their parents at the border, threatening prosecutors and judges. Trump wanted far more barbaric solutions, from which he was constrained.)
3. Hitler realized that a direct putsch or coup d’état did not work. (January 6th also failed, but it came much closer to succeeding than the Beer Hall Putsch.)
4. Thus a way had to be found to undermine the substance of the constitution by constitutional means. Hitler: “Once we possess the constitutional rights we shall then, admittedly, pour the state into the mold which we consider the right one.” P. 116.
5. Goebbels: “We are entering the Reichstag in order to arm ourselves with the arsenal of democracy with its own weapons … If democracy is stupid enough to give us free food and tickets to perform this service, that is its own affair … We come as enemies. We come as the wolf [that] breaks into the fold….” (Ibid.)
6. Emergency powers become necessary, then a permanent state of emergency follows. (Had January 6th succeeded, that emergency would have set in.)
7. The Nazi aim from the first was to gain authoritarian control of democracy.
8. A great deal of deception was always necessary.
9. The counter forces and safeguards in the political, social and intellectual sphere needed to be steam-rolled out of the way.
10. Nazi’s needed to spread confusion, in order to achieve control.
11. The would-be “hemmers” … were themselves hemmed in, p. 218, (i.e., those who try to constrain Trump, themselves become constrained by him.)
12. Opponents need to be kept fighting amongst themselves.
13. Nazi’s used pseudo-legality and a pseudo-democratic framework to cover up their seizure of power.
14. Naked terror and the liquidation of opponents then became possible.
15. The Nazi’s employed the modern means of communication skillfully. (Like Trump governed with Tweets.)
16. People were led to believe they were helpless in face of the technological forces of modern mass society. p. 124.
“We shall remain vulnerable so long as the political insight of the citizen is not combined with a critical and vigilant attitude to all attempts to interfere with the democratic form of government and the basic rights and freedoms, under whatever catch words they appear: discussion about law for a state of emergency belongs in this category.” P. 125.
Bashing our democratic norms and breaking through one guard-rail after another has been Trumps play-book right along. It’s loyalty to him that he requires to undermine our loyalty to the constitution and our democracy. Just another important point that Bracher’s article makes:
Contrary to popular opinion, totalitarian rule in no way implies a compact, monolithic, ‘one-track’ system of organization. Nor is it true that it functions more rationally, with higher efficiency, and thanks to the leadership-principle, is superior to the complicated pluralism of democracy. P. 121.
We fought World War II against this “strongman” deception, which brought untold death and destruction to our world and the dictators also came to a very bad end. (peter ds krey – June 16,2023)
